Causing hemorrhaging

Udos suddenly became very curious about the combat effectiveness of the ten thousand Death Empire garrison troops remaining at the dock. He had never witnessed the Death Empire in battle with his own eyes, not even when he led his own army to attack the Flying Dragon Empire. This feeling suddenly welled up inside him: next time, next time he must send this troop into battle, and he would witness the Death Empire warriors' combat style with his own eyes, especially their individual combat capabilities.

The opportunity came quite soon. Not long after Udos reorganized and fully replenished his main army, another local mountain warlord's army—ignorant of the immensity of heaven and earth—was spotted from afar by scouts dispatched by the Death Empire, marching toward the dock.

Udos maintained his usual composure, but this time, he summoned the Berserker general stationed at the post.

In the end, the Bear clan left twenty thousand men to garrison the dock, the Berserkers served as the vanguard, and Udos brought fifty thousand men to hold the reserve. This time, the enemy force numbered one hundred and twenty thousand. According to reports brought back by the scouts, the enemy force was equipped with approximately thirty thousand heavy infantrymen. This was an army that had previously engaged in trade with them.

The Berserker general stationed on this continent was Ade, a personal guard whom Cain had kept by his side from the very beginning when he first established the Berserker army—the very same Ade who had fought so fiercely in the Minotaur village.

Ade knew that although the Bear clan had emerged victorious in their previous battle, they had also suffered casualties numbering close to half their force. Now that Udos was asking him to deploy, he undoubtedly wanted to observe the combat capability of his army. Although Ade appeared rough and burly, as a regional garrison general, he was far from being as crude and reckless as his outward appearance suggested; anyone who misjudged him based on appearance would never know what hit them until the moment they died.

The details of that previous battle involving the Bear clan had not leaked out. Those who suffered defeat simply vanished completely, and the surviving warriors said nothing to the outside world, for this continent revered strength. If they were to spread the news themselves, they would have no way to hold their heads high in the future.

It was uncertain where this newly arrived army had hailed from. One-quarter of their warriors were equipped with black armor produced by the Death Empire. Perhaps it was the excellence of this equipment that had driven this mountain warlord to take such a desperate gamble despite being utterly impoverished.

However, this mountain warlord was quite arrogant; their main army actually advanced all the way to the edge of the forest before stopping. Little did they know that by the time their army arrived, ten thousand Berserkers were already standing in strict formation on a small hill at the edge of the forest.

"A moment from now, open fire first on those with poor defense, and deal with these heavily armored fellows last. Since they are returning our equipment to us, we don't need to be polite with them either. Also, pass my word down: the Bear clan are all watching from the sidelines. Everyone, make a fine showing of yourselves a moment from now, let these fellows have a good look, and let them know who the most elite and ferocious warriors truly are."

Once the order was passed down, all the Berserkers pulled even tighter on the heavy crossbows in their hands. They might be willing to part with their lives, but the prestige of the Empire must never be compromised in their hands. These Berserkers widened their eyes one by one; these ignorant fools courting death by coming to their doorstep had only themselves to blame, so they could hardly be faulted for taking their heads to embellish the glory of the Empire.

What the Berserkers did not expect was that this mountain warlord actually knew how to use stratagems. Right under the eyes of the Berserkers, they hauled out more than fifty large carts normally used for transporting ore. After covering the men underneath with cloth, they piled mineral ore on top of the cloth. Just as these fifty-odd carts were about to move out, the Berserkers launched their attack.

Charging forward, the enemy's left flank was exposed within the range of the Berserkers' heavy crossbows. Following a volley of chaotic arrows, the enemy's left flank threw their center formation into disarray. Right at the front were those enemy warriors wearing heavy armor, but their slow reaction time in the absence of orders made them no different from turtles in the eyes of the Berserkers.

The enemy commanders were probably lingering in the rear guard, causing the enemy rear to surge forward abruptly. Yet how could these enemy warriors, whose defensive protection was utterly negligible, possibly pierce through the dense arrow formation of the Berserkers? At the foot of the mountain, enemy corpses piled up layer upon layer. Driven mad by the slaughter, the enemy launched a desperate counterattack. After several rounds of charges, the enemy lost nearly one-third of their strength before finally summoning the courage to dispatch those warriors clad in heavy armor.

The armor sold by the Death Empire had not been built with skimped materials or cut corners; against these heavy armors, even the heavy crossbows in the hands of the Berserkers had very limited lethality. Ade did not plan to use arrows anymore; the enemy now numbered at most seventy or eighty thousand. As long as they slaughtered these fellows clad in heavy armor, it would be difficult for the rest not to run. Of course, Ade had not expected that his ten thousand men could wipe out all of the remaining seventy or eighty thousand enemy troops, but the final outcome left Udos truly never daring to harbor wishful thinking ever again.

At the word of command, the Berserkers put away their heavy crossbows and gripped their giant battleaxes.

"Brothers, today let our enemies know the consequences of opposing us! You don't need to spare any face for me—kill!"

Roaring wildly, these Berserkers charged while entering a state of berserk frenzy. Having followed Mo Fei, they had long since grown accustomed to this method of battle rage.

This method could induce a deep sense of fear in the enemy. Seeing the increasingly massive figures of the charging enemies always caused a momentary shock, and right at that very instant, the Berserkers crashed into the frontline of the enemy's newly regrouped heavy infantry.

The Berserkers were not foolish enough to hack at the bodies of the heavily armored enemies with their giant axes. Since the items came from their own forge, the quality was quite reliable; although a Berserker's giant axe could still inflict damage when striking an enemy's body, it would only wound them without necessarily stripping them of their combat capability. Therefore, the neck—the vulnerable junction between the helmet and the armor—became the primary target of the Berserkers' attacks. Furthermore, the height of the Berserkers, increased further by their battle rage, matched ordinary warriors' stature quite perfectly. With a single swing of the giant axe, the heads of the enemy soldiers would soar high into the air trailing a streak of blood.

Amidst the shifting formations, countless enemy heads parted from their bodies. Not only did the Bear clan warriors waiting in the rear gasp in unison—each instinctively reaching up to touch his own neck—even the enemy's heavy infantrymen began to cower and hesitate. Although their scimitars would not be cleanly severed by the Berserkers' axes, they could not withstand the immense kinetic impact carried by the giant axes. The moment a scimitar was struck by a battleaxe, its wielder would inevitably be decapitated the very next second, a terrifying sensation that shattered their courage in an instant.

They wanted to retreat, but with people packed tightly behind them, there was no path of escape; to advance was to fail to block the attacks of these terrifying enemies. To the sides? Were there even any sides left?

The Berserkers were attacking in a semi-circular formation. The flanks consisted of those warriors with even poorer defensive capabilities, while the center still held some skirmishing; the head and tail, forming the wings, had long since been chased scattering wildly all over the mountain by these large men wielding giant axes.

Udos watched the Berserkers' assault with a dark face. He knew that there was simply no need for him to intervene at all. Although it was impossible for the Berserkers to completely devour all one hundred and twenty thousand enemy troops, wiping out half of them was entirely feasible. He finally understood why that magician had returned and earnestly urged him never to fall out with the Death Empire, even claiming that their magicians had long since lost the courage to fight the Death Empire. He had previously assumed those magicians had some hidden flaws, but today he had witnessed with his own eyes how merely ten thousand infantrymen of the Death Empire shattered an enemy host of one hundred and twenty thousand. During his own personal expedition last time, the army he led had even less armor than this enemy force, yet his own casualties... Thinking up to this point, Udos no longer had the heart to ponder further.

Udos did not know whether any of the Berserkers had sustained injuries, but at the very least, he had not seen a single Berserker fall. The battlefield below unfolded right beneath his eyes, and it was impossible for him to have missed anything. Now, all he needed to do was lead his army down and accelerate the enemy's collapse; he knew that the fifty thousand troops in his hands could serve no other purpose than this.

Sure enough, once the fifty thousand Bear clan warriors charged down from the mountain, the enemy completely lost the courage to resist. First, the enemy in the rear dropped their weapons and fled, followed one after another by the rest. There were still about thirty thousand heavily armored soldiers squaring off against the Berserkers; at least, the Berserkers felt as though the slaughter had no end in sight. They were determined to trap every single one of these fellows who dared to return after purchasing equipment from them. The Berserkers wanted to let everyone on this continent know that whoever dared to harbor designs on this place would meet this very fate.

...

The Bear clan warriors did not manage to pick up any scraps of victory. Having launched their charge from behind the Berserkers, they merely accelerated the enemy's collapse. By the time they flanked around to both sides in an attempt to encircle the enemy, the battle was already over.

From that day on, the Bear clan never again dared to measure themselves against the Death Empire. Through this battle, Udos saw the shortcomings of his own warriors, and such deficiencies were currently insoluble. Perhaps his eldest brother could achieve it, but would his brother help him?