Baya's Retreat

"Slaughter these runts! Avenge our kin!" Seeing the hobgoblins reload their munitions, Baya finally snapped back to reality. Brandishing his dragonbone pick, he surged forward to charge the line infantry's formation. Seeing their leader so ferocious, the frost giants quickly followed close behind, brandishing their weapons and charging forward aggressively. Yet the front rank of hobgoblins stepped back into the rear while the rear rank stepped up to the front, unleashing yet another volley. This was the volley-fire drill Gangtie Kuangchao had designed for these hobgoblin line regiments. With the muskets' increased rate of fire, three ranks of soldiers could maintain their formation and provide an unbroken stream of offensive firepower. At the same time, several chimeras swept across the sky, spewing lines of flame along the frost giants' charge path to cover the line regiment. Unable to close the distance, the frost giants were reduced to passive targets. "Ready! Fire!" *Bang!* With another sky-shaking crack of gunfire, several more frost giants collapsed. Protected by his dragonscale armor, Baya remained largely unharmed, though a few stray bullets lodged in his arms. The frost giant looked around. Most of the fiercest warriors who had charged alongside him had already fallen, and the survivors had grown cautious, no longer daring to charge the formation. "Dammit..." Baya's eyes burned with furious bloodlust, veins bulging across his scorched forehead. "You dare oppose the mighty frost giant warriors! I will smear your blood across my flesh!" He was truly worthy of being a frost giant warrior who had taken part in hunting true dragons. With a harsh bellow, relying on his full suit of dragonscale armor, holding a hide shield in one hand and his dragonbone pick in the other, Baya braved the hail of gunfire and charged headlong, forcibly tearing through the hobgoblin regiment's battle line. He swung the dragonbone pick, effortlessly impaling hobgoblins in the front rank, staining its pale bone dripping with blood. This matchless frost giant rampaged through their ranks. In the span of only a few breaths of close combat, the hobgoblin line regiment lost dozens of soldiers. "Foolish giant! How dare you provoke the Kingdom of Cinders!" Dror shouted at the top of his lungs, riding his landwyrm in a head-on collision. Caught off guard in his bloodlust, the frost giant was knocked sprawling to the ground. Yet Baya was a seasoned frost giant warrior. Using the momentum to roll across the ground, he spotted an opening, slid beneath the landwyrm, and used his sharp dragonbone pick to disembowel the beast. *Riiip!* The landwyrm's thick hide tore open, spilling thick layers of fat and a tangle of entrails uncontrollably onto the earth. *Howl—* The landwyrm let out a heavy wail and slowly toppled onto its side, shaking the ground as Dror was thrown from its back. "Lord Chimera, save me!" Seeing the frost giant about to pounce, Dror hurriedly called for aid. The chimera was among the oldest veterans in Dragon Valley—and indeed, in the entire kingdom. Though the vassals often referred to it as a "beast," even Hobgoblin Commander Duoluo treated it with great respect, to say nothing of Dror. Recognizing the caller as Dror, who often flattered it, the chimera swooped down from the sky, pouncing straight onto the frost giant's back. Its claws gripped his torso as the dragon head opened its maw and unleashed a torrent of flame. *Boom!* Flames washed furiously over the frost giant's back, charring his already severely burned flesh even blacker. At that moment, Baya looked less like a frost giant and more like an obsidian subrace of stone giant. However, the chimera had not expected its brash attack to provoke such a reaction. "Aaargh!" Baya roared in agony, yet his keen combat instincts remained razor-sharp. Seizing one of the chimera's forelimbs with a single hand, he ripped the creature off his back. *Crash!* The earth trembled once more. The chimera's massive body was hurled to the ground. Rolling several times, it barely managed to scramble back to its feet. "Come on!" "Chimera, your pelt will make a fine new cloak for me!" Yet the frost giant gave it no room to breathe. He leapt straight forward, tackling the chimera and wrapping a thick, powerful arm around the neck of its lion head. *Roar—* Yet the chimera had more than one head. Its dragon head snapped and bit viciously at the giant's arm, spewing searing flames from its jaws, but the frost giant refused to loosen his grip. Dust flew as the ground shook constantly. The giant and the three-headed chimera—two behemoths of comparable size—grappled and thrashed together in the dirt. The other two female chimeras wanted to step in and help, but having never received the blessing of dragon blood, neither their size nor their strength allowed them to intervene in such a struggle. As for the frost giant Baya, whether in brute force or martial prowess, he held an absolute advantage, steadily driving the chimera into a corner; the chimera's only effective countermeasure was its fire. Taking advantage of the chimera's exhaustion, Baya seized its dragon head from behind, locking his arms tightly around it. He meant to choke the breath out of it and snap its neck, just like his brother, the "Bonebreaker." "Haha, I've got you!" The chimera resisted the frost giant's chokehold desperately, raking its sharp claws, ramming with its goat head, and gnashing with its lion head, yet none of it availed. "Steady your breath..." Fortunately, their struggle had ground into a deadlock, allowing Dror to acquire his mark. Holding his breath, he raised his musket, aimed at the frost giant's body, and pulled the trigger— *Bang!* The bullet bored into the frost giant's flesh, wringing a pained roar from him. His grip loosened, and the chimera broke free from the deadly choke. *Roar!* Gasping heavily for air, the chimera beat its wings desperately and shot into the sky. It had no desire to brawl any further with this mad frost giant. Climbing up from the ground unsatisfied, the frost giant glared provocatively at the fleeing chimera, slamming his fist against his chest with a ferocious war cry. "Coward! Keep fighting me!" He walked back from the front line toward the frost giant ranks, and along the way, no one dared provoke the maddened frost giant warrior. Just then, a horn sounded in the distance. *Wuuu—* The sound was like the howl of a freezing wind, yet far heavier. Baya instantly recognized the familiar call. It was the war horn of the Everfrost Tribe; Chieftain Kasa Everfrost was recalling all divisions. Gazing at the bedrock fortress and scanning the corpses of the valiantly fallen frost giants littering the ground, his face darkened terribly. "Curse it all... losing so many warriors here for nothing." Tema stepped forward to urge caution. "Captain, Chieftain Kasa said to assemble immediately upon hearing the horn. Besides..." He paused. "Our people have already spilled far too much blood outside this wretched, worthless valley." Baya's expression shifted sharply. He squinted at Tema for a moment, but in the end, he let out a sigh and said, "Fall back. We're heading back to Kasa."