Chapter 1216: Blood-Stained Jade Sea

The results shook the entire Jade Sea. The chiefs and shamans of every tribe gathered in one place to discuss the encroaching threat from the great corridor. Be it their gunsh.i.p.s, firepower, or their formations, all of them were new things that they had never seen before. Even the most knowledgeable werewolves had only heard of them.

Naturally, no conclusion was reached under such circ.u.mstances, with most meetings ending with several hours of cursing and shouting. It usually took such a congregation of chiefs and shamans half a month to produce an outcome. That was the habit and rhythm of tribal werewolves.

The tribal villages usually split the year into two parts—of sowing and reaping, or rest and hunt. Whatever it was called, the difference between the two was in whether there was food or not. The werewolves living there were also used to doing two things each year, alternating by season.

Before the chiefs and shamans could convert their shock into anger, Eiseka—the traitorous virtuous count—was already proving that he was decisive enough to go against tradition. He led the army to capture the border villages at great speed, adding several villages to the list each day.

The count-rank chiefs of two tribal villages were killed by Eiseka and Xu Jingxuan while trying to challenge the invaders. Eiseka’s combat strength was outstanding, to begin with, and he was a rare talent among werewolves in long-range sniping. The gear Qianye had granted him made up for his weaker close combat capabilities, increasing his fighting power sharply. Ordinary counts couldn’t escape death in his hands.

Under this threat, the chiefs and shamans had no choice but to ignore tradition. They reached a unanimous decision almost immediately and formed an army of two hundred thousand to suppress the great corridor.

Not daring to be careless, Eiseka rounded up the vanguard forces that had charged too far ahead and turned back to rendezvous with the main army of fifty thousand. This increased his army to almost a hundred thousand soldiers, which he duly entrenched in defensive fortifications.

The combination of human firepower and the werewolves’ bravery resulted in a formidable power. The werewolves of the Jade Sea left tens of thousands of corpses with each charge, yet they couldn’t move the great corridor’s defensive line at all. There was even an instance where they were routed before they had even reached the enemy formation.

More reinforcements arrived as the two armies were locked in combat. Soon, the forces on the Jade Sea’s side had exceeded three hundred thousand, while Eiseka’s side was close to two hundred thousand.

Their army had just arrived at the scene when the Jade Sea chiefs lost control of their natural instincts, leading to an immediate battle.

Finally, their great advantage in numbers managed to offset the great corridor’s firepower. The Jade Sea forces arrived at the enemy defensive line and familiar melee range. However, the tenacity of this human-werewolf formation had far exceeded their expectations. With no way to retreat—and seeing their werewolf comrades fighting for their lives—the human warriors who would usually fall apart at this stage felt a rush of bravery and began fighting back with no regard for their lives.

The b.l.o.o.d.y battle lasted from noon to dusk. In the field and the skies, the experts from each side were also fighting with all their might. Due to the partic.i.p.ation of Xu Jingxuan and the mercenary generals, the great corridor actually gained an advantage in this field. Eiseka fought valiantly and, in an almost suicidal fas.h.i.+on, killed two count-rank chiefs on his own.

As night fell, both exhausted factions finally sounded the bugle call to retreat. The Jade Sea werewolves pulled back to their camps, while the great corridor werewolves remained on the defensive line.

The land between the two camps was already filled with corpses. There were human remains among them, but most were werewolves. Close to a hundred thousand of these lycanthropes had turned into corpses on the battlefield, with tens of thousands more in an injured state. With the Jade Sea tribes’ current situation, the lack of medicines and the ability to send what they have to the front lines in time meant that the badly injured men could only wait in pain for death to arrive.

The results looked like the battle ended in a draw, but the Jade Sea faction had suffered far greater casualties comparatively. The loss of a hundred thousand men meant that the two factions were now two hundred thousand versus a hundred and fifty thousand. The number discrepancy wasn’t as great as before, and the great corridor held the advantage in terms of fortifications.

The chiefs and shamans began quarreling about whether to attack or wait for reinforcements.

It was at this time that the werewolves of the great corridor made a shocking move. They sent out squad after squad to clean up the battlefield and transport the injured back to camp, regardless of faction.

These injured soldiers could be saved? While still in shock, the chiefs and shamans realized that their morale was dropping sharply. There was no lack of intelligent men among these leaders, who came to a decision that they would attack that very night under the cover of darkness. Night time was the werewolves’ realm, where the humans backing the great-corridor forces would be weakened.

A fierce battle broke out again that night and lasted until dawn.

Be it for the Jade Sea or the great corridor, the scale and cruelty of this battle far surpa.s.sed whatever they could remember. There was no record of such a war even in the stories of the pioneering era.

From noon on the first day until dawn the next day, over three hundred thousand werewolves had fallen on this land. Only half remained of the twenty thousand accompanying human soldiers. There were only a hundred thousand survivors on the Jade Sea side, while eighty thousand remained standing in the great corridor army. Both sides were utterly exhausted, and even the experts were tottering on the verge of collapse.

As dawn arrived and the first rays of sunlight illuminated the great land, the ground began to tremble faintly. This clear and rhythmic tremor was coming from the direction of the Jade Sea.

The werewolves of the great corridor stood up and glanced silently into the distance. Unable to wait until his wounds had been dressed, Eiseka pushed the human medic away and clambered to his feet. He pushed through the crowd and arrived at the front of the defensive line, frowning. The expression on his face could hardly hide his fear.

A cloud of rolling dust kicked up from the direction of the Jade Sea. A ma.s.sive creature charged out of the cloud, almost like a war colossus that had lost its way and arrived on the continent.

That war elephant was dozens of meters tall, clad in a white-bone armor studded with countless fangs and horns. This made the war elephant look like a terrifying mobile fortress.

Following the giant creature was a majestic army that stretched beyond eyesight, with countless werewolf warriors running forward. Their footsteps caused the earth to tremble, but even that couldn’t drown out the sound of the war elephant’s march, a sound akin to the beating of an ancient war drum.

The werewolves of the Jade Sea unleashed an earth-shattering howl, many of them transforming into their combat forms as they did so. The ancient war elephant had existed for hundreds of years as a part of the werewolves’ history on Fort Continent. This was the first time it had appeared in the recent three decades.

This creature was the Whitebone Duke’s mount and symbol. In the eyes of the Jade Sea werewolves, it was a representation of terror and death that they could neither defy nor resist. This memory had lasted for at least three hundred years.

Eiseka’s hair stood on end. The terror in his eyes vanished as he unleashed a long howl, frothing from the mouth as he laughed. “Who would’ve thought that small characters like us could force the Whitebone Duke out? Even if I die here, it’s worth it!”

Xu Jingxuan walked over to his side with a wry smile. “I don’t want to die yet. My son is only one year old, I still want to see him again.”

Eiseka said, “The young will head to the battlefield sooner or later, no?”

“Yeah, perhaps he too will die in the Whitebone Duke’s hands one day.” Xu Jingxuan straightened his back as the previous fear faded away.

He glanced at Eiseka, saying, “I never thought I’d be fighting side-by-side with a werewolf one day.”

“I never expected to have an old enemy for a comrade, either.”

Xu Jingxuan was just about to say something when his body jolted and his complexion went pale. The wounds on his body burst open as his muscles tensed up, staining his armor with a mist of blood.

Eiseka’s reaction was even more intense. His bones creaked and groaned as though he were shouldering a heavy mountain. It was difficult to even straighten his back. Unresigned, he did his utmost to look up. He refused to face that mountain before him in a prostrated state, even if it cost him his life.

The sky turned dark, almost as though it was night again, as an indefensible might covered the entire scene. The werewolves of the Jade Sea fell to their knees and sang praises to the Whitebone Duke’s name. Most of the werewolves from the great corridor also fell to their knees. Terror gripped their hearts, and even they had no idea if their delirious mutterings were curses or prayers for forgiveness.

His centuries-old prestige and indefensible domain suppressed the entire battlefield in the blink of an eye. The accomplishments of Eiseka and the werewolves of the great corridor were immediately reduced to nothing.

This was the king who had dominated the Jade Sea for several centuries, the Whitebone Duke. His existence made all the fighting insignificant. The werewolf tribes banished into the great corridor would rather charge toward Zheng and smash themselves to pieces on its fortifications than attack the Jade Sea.

However, a sliver of dawn’s light cut through the darkness as a ma.s.sive wars.h.i.+p leaped out and glided toward the battlefield. In the eyes of the werewolves and humans, this giant wars.h.i.+p seemed to be engulfed in radiant flames as it cut through the Whitebone Duke’s domain with inconceivable elegance.

This was the arrival of a true monarch. Compared to the airs.h.i.+p that was hundreds of meters long, the war elephant almost looked like a toy. Those sharp fangs and bone spikes could do nothing against the wars.h.i.+p in the air, and its sinister-looking bone armor might not be able to stand a blow from the airs.h.i.+p’s main cannon.

The true experts from both sides had made an appearance. The light and flames around the wars.h.i.+p were just an illusion caused by the intense friction between the two domains. There was no way such a clash wouldn’t be intense, but here, it simply looked like the wars.h.i.+p was tearing through the Whitebone Duke’s domain.

Regardless of how difficult this was to achieve, the Whitebone Duke had lost in a compet.i.tion of domains.

Seeing that faintly discernible but familiar figure at the bow of the wars.h.i.+p, the werewolves of the great corridor erupted in explosive cheers, chanting, “Our King.”

Qianye looked down at the battlefield from the airs.h.i.+p. From his angle, he could see the three-storeyed palace hall on the elephant’s back. It was beautiful and magnificent, but the color was simply too pale, reeking of decay from the inside out.

The doors on the top floor of the palace were flung open, and the Whitebone Duke walked out onto the balcony, gazing at the wars.h.i.+p in the sky. Although there was a mask covering half his face, one could still see the hatred, anger, and shock in his eyes.

The Whitebone Duke’s raspy voice echoed through the battlefield like the tides. “Where did this ignorant junior come from? How dare you provoke the Jade Sea with your meager ability? The totem on my sacrificial altar happens to be lacking a decoration. Let’s use your head for it!”