Wulu had brought over six thousand men on this expedition. Pursuing and harrying the Bailong along the way had left him with plenty of leeway—enough even to rotate his forces in waves—yet right now, he suddenly felt stretched thin.
If those thousand-plus soldiers hadn't fallen into the water, he would have over three thousand men at his disposal right now. Dealing with a sneak attack by a new enemy would have been child's play.
But there were no "ifs" on the battlefield.
Those thousand-odd men were flailing in the water, yet he had been forced to redirect the four hundred men sent to rescue them to hold the beach with their bows instead! Those were crack troops he had painstakingly trained; Wulu's heart bled for them.
Earlier, he had sent his last remaining reserves to Luting Beach, resolved to crush the Bailong tribe in one fell swoop. Instead, a new enemy had materialized from the sea and was bearing down directly on Storm Bay!
Several li separated Storm Bay and Luting Beach.
Watching his personal guards fire command arrows into the sky to mobilize the troops, Wulu still felt an icy chill down his spine, cold sweat beading on the tip of his nose.
He had not found himself in such a perilous predicament since the end of the War of National Defense.
"Move! Rejoin the main army as quickly as possible!" Flanked and shielded by two hundred personal guards, Wulu rushed toward his forces. With the enemy mounting an amphibious assault, their next move would inevitably be to capture him.
Rejoining the army one step sooner meant one step closer to safety.
***
Storm Bay was a natural deepwater harbor, accessible even to large vessels carrying four to five hundred people, though their passage was sluggish.
The small and medium vessels were the first to make landfall; beyond the soldiers rowing aboard, yin hui were pulling the ships through the water, propelling them at astonishing speed.
He Lingchuan knew full well that in this surprise raid and relief operation, speed was everything.
The Bailong had far too many civilians. Ferrying away forty thousand people swiftly required conducting the bulk of the evacuation at Storm Bay; Luting Beach could accommodate at most ten vessels at once, and even then, only small to medium-sized ones.
Setting aside the logistical difficulty of moving civilians to Storm Bay, so many ships approaching Storm Bay would normally have drawn the immediate attention of the Ya army. Yet he had to get his troops onto the island before Wulu could react; otherwise, his chances of victory would be slashed in half at least.
Hence, a few tricks had been indispensable.
Sure enough, from their approach to making landfall at Storm Bay, the Yangshan Guard met no particularly fierce resistance—
The Ya army was still en route to Storm Bay and had yet to arrive.
The Yangshan Guard had beaten them by a step.
The moment He Lingchuan set foot on the island, his personal guards fired two command arrows into the sky from dozens of paces away, bursting into a pair of fireworks—one red, one yellow—against the night sky.
This was the signal to Lu Qingbang and the Bailong:
The reinforcements had successfully landed at Storm Bay!
Amphibious landings were always the most perilous operations, fraught with heavy casualties. Yet the Yangshan Guard had exploited a flawless window of opportunity, suffering negligible losses. Qiu Hu personally led a thousand men to pounce upon the four hundred Ya soldiers guarding the harbor.
Though the Ya soldiers were protected by origin power, looking out at the vast sea of enemy troops making landfall—especially the imposing spectacle of dense fleets of large ships, and snake-men slithering everywhere across the beach—contrasted with their own scattered handful, they instinctively quailed.
With overwhelming numerical superiority and the ferocity of a tiger descending from the mountain, Qiu Hu scattered the four hundred defenders with little effort, eventually driving them to hide in the woods.
The Yangshan Guard expedited their landing, seizing the golden window before the main body of enemy forces arrived to bring all their troops ashore without a hitch.
As for He Lingchuan?
He was not satisfied in the slightest!
Even though the Yangshan Guard's landing had gone off without a hitch, it was merely the prologue; the true battle had not even begun.
The night owls from the Yangshan Archipelago had made several sweeps, discovering that two thousand Ya troops were marching toward Storm Bay.
In other words—
"We were exposed too early!" He Lingchuan's expression turned frosty. "Wulu might have spotted us before we even landed."
Dong Rui started. "How could that be?"
Zhu Daniang remarked offhandedly, "Either he has mastered the Heavenly Eye, or he possesses some magic artifact capable of piercing through illusions and mist."
Moqi Feng had already brought down one golden eagle, but Wulu might well have other aerial scouts adept at nocturnal vision, or some magical artifact that could see through the dense fog over the sea, alerting him to the Yangshan army's approach.
Dong Rui asked at once, "What do we do now?"
Now that the enemy was on guard and had adjusted their tactics, the Yangshan Guard would find it nearly impossible to catch them off-balance.
In numbers, their side held no advantage.
In military caliber, if the Yangshan Guard, trained for barely over half a year, could beat Wulu's crack veterans in a head-on clash, that would defy all reason.
In origin power... there was simply no contest.
"If we lose the element of initiative, Wulu will do everything he can to drag us into a war of attrition."
They could not afford to drag this out; that was the Yangshan Guard's greatest predicament.
The longer it dragged on, the heavier their casualties would be.
It had taken He Lingchuan more than half a year of painstaking effort to raise this army; he could not afford to see it crippled before his plans for Bailie were even set into motion.
What could he do?
Thoughts flashed through He Lingchuan's mind. After only a few breaths of deliberation, he said resolutely, "We change tactics!"
He had to minimize the time both armies spent clashing head-on.
"Huh?" Dong Rui and the soul-snatching mirror exclaimed simultaneously.
"We need to take a risk. The night owls have already located Wulu himself. For a man so cautious to separate himself from the main army is a godsend!" He Lingchuan said to Dong Rui. "Let's head over right away—just the three of us!"
"All right." Dong Rui, Zhu Daniang, and the mirror understood: He Lingchuan intended to capture the ringleader to capture the bandits.
If they could not crush the Ya army, seizing an opening to take down Wulu himself was just as good an option—
Assuming He Lingchuan could pull it off.
The three of them had been among the first ashore. Upon landing, they had not lingered to fight; slipping past the oncoming enemies, they sprinted straight into the woods along the shore.
Wulu had originally chosen an advantageous spot to encamp, right between Storm Bay and Luting Beach, allowing him to oversee both fronts. But with enemy troops descending out of nowhere at Storm Bay, he was now dangerously close to them.
A cold sneer played at the corner of He Lingchuan's mouth.
Did Wulu think his responses were flawless and his foresight divine?
Did Lu Qingbang think He Lingchuan was merely here to cover their retreat and help them flee?
No. A precious blade, once drawn, had to taste blood.
The Yangshan Guard had mobilized nearly in full force; the fruits they reaped had to be worthy of pride. How could they settle for a frantic, scrambly rescue mission?
He Lingchuan's objective had shifted. He would not only evacuate the Bailong tribe, but also defeat General Wulu of the Ya Kingdom!
Simply teaching the Qinglong tribe a lesson was not enough to make the Ya Kingdom smart.
Between them and Wulu lay two low hills and a long slope. The undulating terrain posed quite an impediment to surface-bound creatures like them.
Without a word of complaint, Dong Rui led He Lingchuan and Zhu Daniang deeper into the forest and promptly summoned his snail-toad.
It wasn't that He Lingchuan hadn't wanted to bring more men along, but Dong Rui's demon puppet had a limited carrying capacity; squeezing Zhu Daniang inside left little room to spare.
Besides, carrying less weight meant moving faster.
It seemed Storm Bay had seen no rain lately; both ground and subsoil were parched. The snail-toad could only move quickly through damp earth, and this dry environment would drastically hamper its range and speed.
Chapter 1068