There is nothing worth describing in detail about the battle process of the gnolls and their children in the small snow valley. Although the gnolls claim to be soldiers, the women and children who stayed in the snow valley can drive away wild beasts and resist general attacks. It is still too difficult for them to fight against the sixty full-time soldiers in Redwood Town.
They are hungry and weak, and their weapons and equipment are far inferior to the main force of the gnolls who go out. Even if they are ferocious by nature, what can they do?
The vanguard of the Redwood Town militia is the shield and spear formation, followed by the second-level soldiers, the Shar Hunters, who are constantly shooting. After returning to Redwood Town from Silver Frost City, Rhodes consciously cultivated the Shar Hunters. In terms of individual combat capabilities, although the second-level soldiers, the Shar Spearmen, are stronger, if the archer troops are used well, they can achieve more undamaged results.
Of course, this is also a test of the commander’s command ability.
Now among the Redwood Town militia, eight are charr hunters, nearly half of the “veterans”. In the previous battle, they advanced and shot from a high position. Under the leadership of the archer leader Raymond, they handed in a pretty good killing answer sheet.
However, at the last moment of the battle, the Redwood Town militia looked at each other in bewilderment. Even Raymond was a little undecided for a while, so he could only return quickly to Rhodes.
“Sir, the situation is a bit special now. If you can, please come and take a look.”
“Okay, I know.”
In fact, even if Raymond didn’t come to report, Rhodes, who had been paying attention to his army, was also planning to go out at this moment.
[This is a perfect victory, the morale of the troops +5. You got 24 dinars and a small amount of spoils. ]
[Currently the morale of the leader is 62, and some soldiers can be upgraded. ]
At this moment, in the depths of the snow valley, in the center surrounded by many soldiers, there were corpses and blood stains of jackals everywhere. Except for two militiamen who were slightly injured, there was no war damage on the human side.
But in the center of all the people, there was an old female gnoll kneeling on the ground, constantly kneeling and begging, and behind it was a snow cave, in which there were a group of furry green-eyed gnoll cubs. Although this kind of creature is ferocious and cruel when it grows up, it is also furry and chubby when it is young, and looks very cute.
“Master.”
“Lord.”
Seeing Rhodes coming, all the soldiers around quickly made way for him like waves, and the old female gnoll saw the human leader coming, and it made a whining sound from its mouth, and at the same time, it lay down flatteringly and turned its body over, making a move with its belly facing up, which was somewhat similar to a dog.
Rhodes had raised cats and dogs in his previous life, and he guessed that this was the body language of the lower-ranking animal group to show obedience to the upper-ranking one, because the abdomen is the most defenseless part of these creatures, and exposing their belly to you means complete obedience and no defense.
However, clang.
The next moment, a sharp ancient cross sword was inserted in front of it.
“Stand up, I know you can understand.”
“… Woo.”
Whinging, the old female gnoll turned over and stood up, but she was still very scared in front of Rhodes.
“If you can keep standing, I promise you not to kill the group of cubs behind you.” Rhodes came to the side of the female gnoll and whispered. During this process, his hand was tightly holding the sword. If the opponent dared to attack, he would be killed by the sword in an instant.
Then, Rhodes turned and went straight out, and ordered: “Kill!”
If it was a warrior who had fought a hundred times, there would be no such problem.
But most of the Redwood Town militiamen under Rhodes were honest young farmers. Their fathers might have some cunning and fierceness cultivated by years of suffering, but they only had simplicity. This was the result of years of domestication by the country, but the good citizens of the country could not become excellent soldiers immediately. They needed some changes.
In the battle just now, many recruits were too nervous to fight on the battlefield for the first time. They even felt sick and vomited after killing the jackals. The two injured recruits injured themselves because of this. Fortunately, the first opponent they fought was weak enough, otherwise, these recruits that Rhode had trained hard would inevitably suffer a large number of casualties.
“Ouch…”
Accompanied by a shrill whine, the female jackal was surrounded and assassinated by the soldiers who looked at each other at first, and then gradually became determined.
“Sir, that jackal died but did not fall down. It has died, but it did not fall down! In addition, the snow cave is full of the youngest jackals. Do we have to kill them all?” The whisper between Rhode and the female jackal just now was very low, so at this moment Raymond was just asking for instructions, and he did not know the agreement between Rhode and the other party.
“… Tie them all up and bring back as many as you can alive. The growth cycle of young gnolls is very short, and they will be distributed free of charge to families in the town who are willing to adopt them. Wolves can be domesticated into dogs, and so can gnolls.”
The Styak Empire already has many farmers and mine owners who use slave-hunting teams to enslave kobolds and gnolls as slaves. Although there are slave riots and backlashes every few years, compared with the economic benefits, these are not worth mentioning. Therefore, the sales of foreign slaves have always been good. In an era of low productivity, human life is not valuable.
Rhode originally intended to exterminate the entire tribe of gnolls to inspire the blood of his militia, but the female gnoll who died but did not fall made Rhode change his mind. He respected heroes, even if they were heroes of the enemy.
“Cut off the head of that gnoll.”
“Ah, what are you going to use it for?”
“… I’m going to use its skull as a bowl.” Rhode glared at Raymond fiercely, and felt that his subordinate was loyal enough now, but his brain seemed to be getting less and less smart.
In the gnoll’s lair where there were almost no old and weak people, an old female gnoll appeared. Doesn’t this show that she is special? Of course, its head has other values and uses.
“After all, he is just an elite soldier, and he has not received a good education since childhood. He is okay as a militia captain with less than 20 people. When the army is a little larger, Raymond seems to have no opinion and needs me to make decisions on everything. If he does not grow enough in the future, he can only be my chief guard in the future.”
At this time, the wandering knight Fatis rode back, and he brought back an extremely important military intelligence:
“The main force of the jackals has been seen from afar, and they are rushing back quickly. I am afraid it will not take long for them to return.”
Seeing the sweaty and white steam coming out of the warhorse under Fatis, Rhodes knew that the distance he had scouted was quite far. Then, he turned his eyes to the terrain near the snow valley and slowly said:
“There is enough time. Next, we will completely wipe out this jackal tribe here.”
“This may not be easy. The jackals are fierce and cunning, and the wolf riders move very fast. It is easy to defeat them, but it is difficult to wipe out their entire tribe.” Fatis made such a judgment based on his own military experience and said it truthfully.
This was also the important reason why he had advised Rhode not to provoke this gnoll tribe. Once injured but not dead, a new type of territory would be hated by the gnoll tribe from then on, which would be a very troublesome thing.
However, Fatis did not know that he was not facing a young man at this moment, but an old thief who was actually over 90 years old and inherited a long history of war for thousands of years.
“Haha, fighting in the ice and snow has two major advantages. One is that it is not conducive to the spread of epidemics, and the other is that it is conducive to the construction of fortifications.”
After saying this in front of Fatis, Raymond, and Cress, Rhode ordered the Redwood Town militia to turn the logistics carriage that followed horizontally, completely ignoring the various foods wrapped in oilcloth on it, and directly covered it with ice and snow and watered it.
In the biting cold wind and Fatis’s stunned eyes, Rhode estimated that it took no more than half an hour for a simple small fortification that took advantage of the terrain and mountains to be built. Then Rhode only let the veterans who had experienced the Silver Frost City Battle and several newly promoted second-level soldiers climb the fortifications, and the others were all ambushed on both sides and hidden.
“Lord, if you arrange it like this, we have too few troops to face the enemy head-on. Once the defense line is broken, the battle situation may be irreversible.” Fatis understood the intention of Rhode’s military arrangement at this time, but he still felt that this tactic was too dangerous.
“If you want to catch big fish, you have to lay heavy bait. If you want to wipe out this group of gnolls here, you have to give them enough expectations.”
While Rhodes and Fatis were talking, the gnoll army finally arrived. The wolf riders of the gnoll army were obviously different from the human cavalry. The human cavalry had one rider or even multiple riders, while the gnoll army was the opposite. A wolf might be shared by two or three gnolls, and they could alternately jump on it to rest while running. These captive giant wolves have very strong endurance and load-bearing capacity, but even so, running back at full speed like this, both the gnolls and the wolves were out of breath and their physical energy was greatly consumed.
At this time, Rhodes, who had built an ice wall fortification with a horizontal carriage, threw the head of the old female gnoll directly, and it fell on the snow.
Under the snowstorm, the Gnoll tribe did not leave the old and weak. Under such circumstances, there was still an old female Gnoll alive. Rhode judged that the status of this female Gnoll was special. From the results, Rhode’s guess was undoubtedly correct, because after seeing the head rolling to his feet, the Gnoll with the largest body in iron armor immediately began to have bloodshot eyes and let out a terrifying long howl towards the sky.
Before Rhode turned around to kill a few more Gnoll cubs and threw them down, the Gnoll leader was already howling, leading his subordinates to charge like a tide, leading the way, and a ferocious momentum that was almost crazy burst out from his body.
“Leader, calm down, calm down!” The Gnoll military advisor wanted to calm down the Gnoll leader whose blood relatives were killed at this time, but the Gnoll leader swung his claws back and knocked down the wolf directly, and he was almost killed directly.
“This will be their most fierce attack. Stop these beasts. Gentlemen, victory!”
“Victory!”
At this moment, most of the soldiers standing on the fortifications were veterans who had followed Rhodes in the Silver Frost City Battle. Therefore, when Rhodes drew out the Ancient Cross Sword and roared, all the soldiers followed suit and roared. Even Fatis, who was standing aside, felt infected and his blood was boiling.
[The Ancient Cross Sword was unsheathed. ]
[Power of Domination, activate: Morale +10 in range, every time the sword master kills an enemy with the sword, morale +1, up to the upper limit of the range morale +20. ]
Rod knew very well: “Brothers, follow me” and “Brothers, come at me”, these are two completely different morale increases brought by the two commands.
So he was the first to meet him with a shield in his left hand and a sword in his right hand. As an old game geek, Rhode had experienced fighting strong enemies with a shield and sword more than once or twice, but no matter how gorgeous and realistic the game was, the experiencer could not experience the intense pleasure of really risking his life.
This feeling is a bit similar to extreme sports such as bungee jumping, but more exciting and more crazy, because at this moment, the people who chose to bet everything to accompany Rhode in gambling were also the Redwood Town militia behind him.
“You can’t block it head-on!”
When he saw Lord Rodhart, a noble lord, rushing forward with a sword in one hand and a shield in the other, Fatis was shocked. He had never seen such a thing. There were brave nobles, but most of them were rough and reckless. He had never seen anyone like Rodhart, who was usually gentle and scheming, rushing forward first on the battlefield.
Fatis, who had traveled in the wilderness for a long time, especially noticed that the nearly three-meter-tall strong wolf in front of him was wearing full body armor. The special armor had blood-red patterns on it. This strong and somewhat frightening wolf also held a very special weapon in his hand, which was a blood-stained three-headed flail (meteor hammer). Three iron chains were tied to three heavy iron blocks, which were covered with blood, broken bones and flesh, and shield fragments.
“This is a witch’s creation in the wilderness, with a power far beyond that of ordinary weapons!” Fatis didn’t have time to say this, because the strong and terrifying jackal had already collided head-on with Rhode.
“Bang”.
The iron-clad shield that was praised as a superior weapon by the owner of the Silver Frost City Weapon Shop was smashed to pieces in an instant, and the remaining part covered Rhode’s upper body with almost no loss of force.
“Is it exaggerated? One hit to explode the shield… Even if I haven’t learned the shield defense skill, this is too…” This thought flashed through his mind like lightning, but the long sword in his hand had already pounced out like a poisonous dragon.
Rhode has never slackened in his training of his martial arts, and at this moment, this self-discipline and persistence made his hands, eyes, heart and courage merge into one, and when facing the crisis of life and death, he made the most correct response without any confusion.
Clang!
The long sword gathered almost all the strength of Rhode’s body, slashed out, and hit the flail whose attack power was partially reduced by the shield.
A spreading force and a condensing force collided with each other, and the jackal leader could not gain an overwhelming advantage for a while, so that its huge body, which was nearly three meters high, was actually stopped on the slope of the ice slope.
“Block? Blocked!”
“You can’t tell from the appearance that this Lord Rhodes is really born with the power of a violent bear!”
Although such thoughts flashed through Fatis’s mind one after another, he had time to buffer, and the gun in his hand still hummed and vibrated, and suddenly stabbed out like lightning the next moment. Almost at the same time as Fatis’s spear, Raymond’s arrows and Kress’s flying knives arrived.
Seeing his master in danger, Kress was even more nervous than he was in danger, and he went into a violent state directly.
Although they are also called hero characteristics, they are actually divided into innate characteristics and acquired specialties. The former is closer to a talent. No matter how you cultivate it, it will not work. The latter seems to be much easier to cultivate, but it is actually very rare to be able to develop it to the point of specialties.
The frontal charge was blocked by Rhodes holding a sword. The gnoll leader could no longer maintain his stability on the ice slope after three rounds of attacks and had to fall backwards. However, on his left and right, the gnolls and the giant wolves had already rushed forward with a howl, but what greeted them was the uniform shield and spear formation of the elite militia of Redwood Town.
Eight charr hunters stood behind the protection of the shield and spear formation, constantly controlling the bow and shooting arrows. Although their archery skills were not too outstanding and their weapons were not sophisticated, they were still adept at shooting the gnolls who lacked iron armor at such a diving angle.
“My lord, you can’t go up again.”
“Get out of here!”
Seeing that Rhodes was in danger, Fatis tried to pull him back, but at this moment Rhodes was already in a hysterical state, his eyes were red, and there was no way to stop him.
Because Rhodes knew in his heart that the key to this battle was to make a strong effort in the first time, and then to make a weak effort in the second time, and then to make a strong effort in the third time.
The gnoll tribe in front of him had just looted the town of Hake. They had just eaten their fill in an extremely hungry state, and then they heard the news that their lair was attacked through wolf howls, and immediately ran back a hundred miles.
Such a troop’s blood and morale were actually strong on the outside but weak on the inside. With that special gnoll head, he inspired the last blood and courage of this troop. As long as they survived the first two or three most fierce waves of attacks by this gnoll troop, Rhode was sure that most of the troop’s combat power would be lost:
1. The army should not eat their fill before the battle, because a large amount of blood would accumulate in the stomach, making people relax and slack off, making it difficult to exert combat power.
2. Besiege a point and attack the reinforcements, wait for the enemy to tire, use the defensive garrison to fight against the long-distance raiding army. Even if there is a gap in combat power, you can rely on fortifications to counterattack, and the outcome is still unknown.
3. Make a strong effort at the first blow, then decline, and finally exhaust the momentum. When the momentum is exhausted, the army will be defeated.
4. Burn your boats and fight with your back to the water, which can stimulate the full combat power of your own troops.
All of these contents are military knowledge engraved in the depths of Rhodes’ soul through the five thousand years of war history, the traditional skills and ancestral craftsmanship of the Chinese time travelers. After completing these conditions, Rhodes dared to make a firm assertion: “How can a flying dragon lose?”
Therefore, in the eyes of Fatis, Raymond, Cress and others, it is obviously a fierce battle, but in Rhodes’s view, the overall situation is determined.
