Chapter 223: Breakout (Part One)
Ji Ma spread her wings and soared gracefully in the blue sky, surveying the ground like an eagle. Below her, a small human army was advancing slowly.
The sun shone on her wings, and it was a clear day, perfect for reconnaissance.
At her waist hung a bronze incense burner, and the blue smoke wafted back into the air, protecting her from curses.
Today was indeed going smoothly.
Ji Ma thought to herself as she made a turn in the air and spotted a military force approaching several kilometers to the east. She picked up her monocular telescope and examined the composition of the opposing army, making an assessment.
After putting the telescope back into her belt, she took out a “signal stick,” opened her personal system, and looked at the notes on “signal transmission.”
After setting up the signal stick, its end began to flash every second with the colors “red, red, white, blue, green…”
This meant to bypass the southeast direction and break out toward the southwest.
A beam of bright light shot from below the army, the sequence also being “red, red, white, blue, green…” confirming the signal.
Ji Ma waved both of her yellow “signal sticks” to indicate confirmation.
The flag changed, and the entire army moved slowly toward the southwest like an old bull breaking through.
Ji Ma flew toward the southwest and confirmed with her own eyes that the blocking beastmen were not worth mentioning. She intended to make the signal stick emit a green light, but it didn’t work. So, she threw it forcefully and used her barely effective “simulation” ability to mimic George’s control over light. The color of the light changed, and it emitted a green glow.
George sent out the green light for confirmation.
Ji Ma waved her glowing hands in response.
“Prepare to attack!” George drew his sword. “Assault team, come with me!”
As Ji Ma’s dropped signal stick smashed down on the head of an unfortunate beastman, a ten-person assault team broke away from the group and charged at the beastmen to the southeast.
A few pegasus knights provided air cover, while Eve Frostleaf rode her steed, galloping about forty meters away from George.
The panting beastmen army was still unprepared, still cursing Ji Ma, who was carelessly throwing garbage from the sky, when the assault team suddenly rushed in.
First, several arrows attacked the beastman army’s leader, exploding one after another on the head of a large beastman. Before the beastmen could check on their fallen leader, George charged straight into the halted beastman army and dismounted to engage in battle.
The beastman army was taken by surprise; their officers roared to let the inferior beastmen line up for battle.
But Eve Frostleaf floated in mid-air, accurately targeting all the officers who tried to give orders. Groups of inferior beastmen drew their bows and shot arrows wildly, some of which were lucky enough to head toward Eve Frostleaf, but they couldn’t even penetrate her protective gust.
The remaining knights of the assault team, relying on their mounts and being extraordinary beings, targeted the unthreatening inferior beastmen and crashed into their ranks, wreaking havoc and creating chaos.
The beastman army fell into disarray; oblivious to what to do, they were not defeated outright under the attack of ten people. However, they had undergone strict training and, hearing the sounds of battle from afar while looking at their messy companions, many beastmen looked at each other in confusion, not knowing what to do.
A strange scene unfolded; the ten extraordinary beings caused minimal casualties, almost negligible compared to this army of two thousand beastmen.
Yet, it was as if they were a mass of brown meatworms, cut off from their nerves, unable to concentrate their strength to stop the extraordinary beings from dashing in and out, killing wantonly.
Chaos spread, and Ji Ma accelerated this process. She manipulated the “cloud of negative desire” above the beastman army, easily controlling their bloodthirsty impulses, driving them towards George and the powerful knights.
As the distance grew, yellow dust spread. The beastmen in the back could not see George and followed the crowd, but George rode his celestial warhorse, charging through with ease and breaking out of the encirclement.
Then, absurd things began to happen.
Ji Ma watched clearly from the air as she saw a group of beastmen shouting, “Kill that leading knight!”
“Chop off the one riding the white horse!”
Yet they were merely circling on the ground, like a snake with its head and tail connected, slowly turning on the earth.
The beastman chieftain stood up, covered in blood, holding aloft a war flag that displayed a string of knight heads, shouting, “You fools, what are you doing—”
Ji Ma dove down and struck him with her axe blade on the head, the iron helmet fell off, and a large volume of blood gushed from his wound, exaggerated like a burst water pipe:
“Mind your own head.”
After Ji Ma said this, she flapped her wings and soared into the high sky. Below, the beastman army was in complete chaos, devolving from war to an all-out street brawl.
Though they were numerous, without organization, they were also wise creatures that would flee; defeat was inevitable.
Ji Ma judged, striving to pull her gaze away from the chaotic mass of beastmen below. She restrained herself from engaging in the conflict over the heads, feeling disappointment and anger from her “branch axe spear.”
“Step aside; I’m here to scout.”
She simply transformed the axe spear back into a branch, storing it away, and flew off to scout from a distance.
Below her, the human army had arrived.
The farmer archers laid down their stretchers and formed a loose formation to draw their bows and shoot. After that, knights charged out from either side, forming a wedge to attack the chaotic beastmen from the side.
As the infantry marched in formation with their spears, one side of the large beastman army rapidly disintegrated under the knights’ attacks, the collapse spreading like a crumbling sand tower.
The beastman army, nearly four times the number of the human army, thus turned into a pile of loose sand. Some beastmen gathered together, trying to resist, but in an instant, they were buried under the iron hooves of the knights.
Twenty minutes later, under George’s strict orders.
The army abandoned looting and formed up; they stepped over the bodies of the beastmen, poking the corpses with their spears to guard against possible feigned deaths, marching toward the gray walls of Quinas City.
Twenty-three minutes later, several centaur beasts confirmed that Eve Frostleaf was not nearby, taking the risk to approach, seeing a ground littered with bodies and the beastmen fleeing into the distance.
Half an hour later, a large army of beastmen arrived, informed by scouts, to find the scattered bodies of their kin spread across the yellow earth.
As the vanguard, red-haired Balsa rode her black steed, dismounted, and kicked a beastman corpse with her purple-black high heels, snorting disdainfully:
“Not much blood; most were trampled to death by hooves, a bunch of cowardly fools.”
“Roar!” From not far away, the most robust bullman Balsa had ever seen roared.
Its fur was brownish-yellow; it bore a scar on its face, sent by the Mother of All Beasts to assist Balsa.
“Chicken! Weakling coward! Afraid to compete with me!” It stomped the ground forcefully, shouting towards the distant human army shrouded in yellow dust, “My strength is greater! Hurry and compete with me!”
“Why does it sound like a green-skinned creature?” Balsa turned her head and asked the assassin Cain beside her, “It wouldn’t be a green-skinned creature stuffed into the Mother of All Beasts’ rotund belly, would it?”
“He has always wanted to compete with George,” said Cain, standing shoulder to shoulder with Balsa. “He claims to be the strongest son of the Mother of All Beasts.”
Balsa’s black sword suddenly rested on Cain’s neck, the cold blade making him swallow hard.
“Do you know what you did wrong?”
“Lord… I don’t know.”
“You’re missing the honorifics.” Balsa kicked Cain’s back knee with force, and he knelt down in front of her, saying, “I’m sorry.”
“Good. Don’t think that just because you received my special favor, you’re now close to me. You think you deserve that? You men always think like that.” Balsa turned around, “Your last performance was poor; you were too eager for achievements. If succubi were so easy to kill, this task wouldn’t fall to us.”
At this moment, Cain finally raised his head and glanced at Balsa’s exposed lower leg, standing up straight and following her slightly behind instead of standing beside her as before.
“But they are close to Quinas Fortress,” Cain said. “Those beastmen are really amateurish. I wish I could pour poison into the mouth of their commander; it’s complete chaos, with no command system whatsoever.”
Even the Mother of All Beasts does not command the beastman army with ease. Although she holds great authority in their eyes, the mobilization and division of troops require experienced officers to restrain small forces with extraordinary advantages.
“As long as we are strong enough, along with some help from the beastmen,” Balsa squinted at the distant flag of the Duchy of Casson, barely visible through the yellow dust, and the smaller flag on the city wall further away, “we can stop them.”
“Lord, is it? I will cherish this opportunity,” Cain said, lowering his head and tightening his grip on his rune crossbow.
“Very well.” Balsa said, walking toward her black steed. Her steed was bowing its head, gnawing on the beastman corpses. Balsa slapped the horse’s mouth from behind.
The black steed neighed, but upon Balsa glaring at it, it quieted down.
Balsa said, “The flesh of these wasteful beastmen isn’t worth eating.”
The passing beastmen glared angrily.
The black steed opened its mouth and regurgitated a pile of bloody flesh that was covered in hair. This dark elf’s warhorse, trained with dark magic, could eat raw meat, making it convenient—not requiring special horse feed, just needing the corpses of enemies.
Balsa turned her head and ordered her small army:
“Bring that knight slave over; my horse is hungry. Prepare for tomorrow’s battle… He doesn’t want to? Cut off his head and point it at Quinas City, that crummy den built by those humans.”
As night fell.
In the dream world shrouded in gray mist, grotesque branches hung with oil lamps emitting red light. Under the red glow, the branches, resembling the hands of corpses, froze and stopped moving.
The red light dispersed the surrounding gray mist, revealing a clear view in the distance.
The strange oil lamp also had “Ji Ma Patent” written crookedly on it.
It was under the guidance of the red light that Jenna found her way to the dream palace and met Ji Ma.
“Did you have a good vacation?”
Jenna nodded, handing Ji Ma three talismans: “I made these myself.”
“Just when I need them.” Ji Ma smiled as she accepted the talismans, casually brushing Jenna’s hand, “Make sure to get a full night’s sleep when you go back.”
“Is everything still going smoothly?”
“Very smoothly, even more than expected.” Ji Ma replied, “We overestimated the beastman army; their organizational skills are very low, and they cannot coordinate a large army to stop us.”
“Do you have confidence in reaching Quinas City?”
Ji Ma intended to comfort the worried Jenna, but her palm itched, feeling that something was off, so she said, “Maybe.”
“Ji Ma, please make sure to give it your all.”
“What are you talking about? He’s my fiancé; of course I’ll give it my all. But… it’s impossible to go all out.”
Jenna looked at Ji Ma in shock.
Ji Ma gave a mischievous grin and touched Jenna’s face, “Just kidding. We haven’t slept together in a long time. Promise me, I will definitely give it my all.”
“Ji Ma, don’t joke around like that.”
Ji Ma corrected herself, “We mean three.” Or possibly four.
Jenna blushed instantly.
“Haha, by the way, why are you so worried about George?” Ji Ma asked. “He’s a diamond-tier expert, after all.”
“Ji Ma, something big has happened with Adolf.” Jenna said, “Celestial mages at the Imperial Stargazing Platform have seen ominous constellations; magic is gathering in the east, and they predict that an endless war will break out in the coming years.”
“An apocalypse?”
Jenna nodded anxiously: “It’s only a matter of time.”
It seemed the Everlasting Chosen had already made arrangements to unify the chaotic demon realm and bring an end to the world.
“Are you very worried?”
“I never thought I would witness the end of the world in my lifetime.”
