novelDesolate Man Stepping onto the Grassland (I)
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Chapter 183: Desolate Man Stepping onto the Grassland (I)
Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
A shriek pierced the air before the sharp axes fell, cutting deep into the head of the battle horse and chopping off the arms of the cavalry on the grassland. Accompanied with painful screaming and groaning noise, the grassland warriors fell off the back of the horse as numerous war horses thumped loudly onto the ground.
However, death and blood did not stop the cavalry on the grassland. Instead, it had strongly motivated the highly-trained cavalry from the Left King's Palace. They swung the scimitars in their hands and cheered on, as they continued to dash forward towards their enemy despite of those axes.
As opposed to the grassland cavalries who were near insanity, the Desolate Man warriors kept silent since the beginning of the battle. Regardless of whether they were running, dodging arrows, injured and fallen, or using their might to launch their flying axes, their lips remained tight. In this war of life and death, warriors should be burning with passion and fighting with their might on the battle ground, yet such silence made the scene even scarier.
Should there be bystanders at the side of the battle ground, they would see that the widespread of noisy, crazy and driven grassland cavalries had already won those voiceless Desolate Man warriors in terms of vigour.
The grassland cavalries formed black tides as they finally got closer to the silent but advancing Desolate Man warriors, where they had their first collision. What was unexpected was that the Desolate warriors who looked weak because of silence were not dispersed due to the collision. They were as strong as a skerry in the midst of the black ocean and were not affected by the tides!
A young Desolate warrior lowered his body and pulled out the long knife from his waist as fast as lightning. The grassland cavalry who was dashing towards him turned pale immediately as he was suddenly lowered. A painful shriek from the horse was heard. The horse's forelimbs were neatly chopped off.
Another young and strong-built Desolate Man warrior took advantage of the situation and positioned himself in front of the grassland cavalry near him. He took a step forward with his right foot, lowered his bended body and used his shoulder to slam hard onto his enemy. No matter how one looked at it, it was impossible for a human to injure a horse by slamming his body against it, yet the shoulder of this young and strong Desolate Man seemed to be hard like a rock. Slamming his body against the horse in a right angle, the Desolate Man not only dodged the scimitar attack that was launched at him, but hit the bull's eye, which was the horse's weakest part in its forelimb.
Upon hearing the dull scream from either the man or the horse, the horse flipped over. At this moment, the grassland cavalry on the horse quickly exhibited his great horse-riding technique as he turned over and got off from the saddle, escaping from the terrible crash and fall from the hefty horse. However, when the second his feet touched the ground, that young and strong Desolate warrior lifted his long knife and slit off his head with a swoosh!
Swish!
As the black tides formed by the grassland cavalry approached, the Desolate warriors with the long knives were swallowed by the tides in an instance. Yet moments later, ripples of blood were created within the black tides as the young and old Desolate warriors floated out of the black ocean once more, covering themselves with blood and were ready for another wave of attack.
The tide swarmed over the skerry and gradually retreated. But the skerry stood in the midst of the ocean silently. It was as though even a hundred million years had passed, it would never be broken apart!
Nonetheless, these Desolate Man warriors were not as senseless as skerry. Faced with the widespread and continuous waves of attack from the grassland cavalries, they did not choose to remain silent and slowly counter those attacks forever. Instead, they sped up and went against the second wave of attack.
With the skin of beasts wrapped around their freezing and slightly immobile legs, the Desolate warriors dashed across the grassland, along with grass roots and stones, and sneaked in between the grassland cavalry like numerous shadows.
They dodged all the arrows and attacks from the sharp scimitars as well as avoiding any collision with the horses. With five warriors in a team, they coordinated well with great tacit and understanding, as they split the grassland cavalries apart from the center and surrounded them.
At that time, the scene was impressive. Though the grassland cavalries had already covered the whole battle ground, they still failed to use the shortest time to defeat those Desolate Man warriors. On the other hand, those Desolate Man warriors neither cared about those knives and arrows nor the number of grassland cavalries each team had surrounded. They silently pulled out their long knives and started to dash towards their preys. The long blades were sharp and their feet were swift. Blood splattered everywhere. Every now and then, there would be some grassland cavalries fallen from their horse saddle, and the next moment, they would be cut by several knives into gruesome meat pieces.
The grassland cavalries at the outer-ring were not in time to aid those that were already within the battle ground. They tried their best to shoot their arrows at their enemies, yet the number of Desolate warriors they could kill was also limited.
In view of that high defensive and unimaginable speed the grassland cavalries had, it should had been their battle on this wide and broad grassland. Yet the winning side was leaning unexpectedkly to another.
In fact, ever since the Desolate Man tribe moved south and began to battle with the grassland cavalries from Left-Tent King tribe, the common logic and idea one had about grassland cavalries was totally reversed.
Being defeated was not the scariest thing in battle. The scariest thing in battles was when one realised that whatever ideas or strategies one had from past battles experience were suddenly ineffective and useless. That kind of impact on one's mental health made one lost all his confidence in battles. In the previous battles, the reason that the grassland cavalries lost was due to the extreme and unknown fear they had within themselves. Every time they sent their strongest assault team to battle, believing that they would win, they would end up becoming the Desolate Man's target board. No matter how strong their army was, or how discipline their soldiers were, they were still unable to block off the attacks.
According to the past battle process, the grassland cavalries should have a mental breakdown by now, followed by a panic retreat out of the battle ground. They would gathered again to rest and recover their energy and stamina before they sent men to assult the enemy again, and then failed again. But today, the situation seemed different.
The cavalries did not suffer from a mental breakdown when they were broken apart and surrounded. They were all prepared to face death. Hence, they appeared courageous as they swung the scimitars in their hands and exhibited their greatest combat skills. Though in the end, all of them would still die under the blades of the Desolate warriors. However, now, in order to get rid of one grassland cavalry, the Desolate warriors would need to put in extra efforts than usual.
Surrounding the battle ground that was filled with blood, the grassland cavalries who were supposed to provide assistance to their mates in the battle ground stopped upon hearing the low cornet sound, signalling them to return to the camp. They ignored their mates, who were falling one by one in the battle ground as they swiftly formed two teams, heading towards the east and west separately.
The waves that attacked the skerry split into two, leaving the remaining few cavalries fighting with the Desolate warriors in the center at the foreground. At the back, a magnificent-looking horse carriage came forward gradually.
...
...
The horse carriage, decorated with gold and silver, was extremely gorgeous. At the center of the carriage was a disk made up of stainless-steel. The lines on the disk were messy yet connected, and they seemed to be more complicated than hundred of millions of stars in the night sky.
At the sides of the disk stood two expressionless strong-built men from the grassland. Besides being armored with heavy metal, they each had a scimitar in their hand. As the Central Plains had strict regulations on the export of metal, it was a rare sight to see heavy metal armor appearing in the grassland. Hence, men who wore heavy metal armors would certainly be the most courageous and strongest warriors in the palace.
Today, the two strongest warriors from the palace of Left-Tent in the grassland were missioned not to kill or battle, but to protect the metal disk on the horse carriage, as well as the person sitting on the disk.
On top of the disk was a skinny old man, who was wearing a golden royal costume. He wore a agate ring on his left finger and a talisman inscription was written between his brows using wolf blood, which clear stated his identity. He was one of the seven most respectable Necromancers at the Left King's Palace.
The old and frail Necromancer gazed into the distance without any expression where the warriors were still killing one another. His dried, cracking lips moved quickly as his skinny dry fingers continuously knocked onto the metal disk, like the war drum accompanied with continuous incantation, creating a mystical effect.
Suddenly, a white cloud drifted across the clear blue and coincidentally stopped in front of the sun, casting the shadow onto the bloody battle ground in the grassland.
A few moments ago, several older Desolate warriors had already noticed the unusual performance of the grassland cavalry. When they realized that the grassland cavalries behind him suddenly headed towards the outer ring instead of attacking them, leaving thousands of their team mates to death. Followed by a few shouting, the Desolate warriors quickened their process of killing the enemies, while the other two hundred warriors hurriedly chased after the split-up cavalry teams towards the outer ring.
Just when the cloud covered the sunlight and cast a shadow onto the grassland, the Desolate warriors suddenly discovered that they could no longer chase after the cavalries, who were heading towards the outer ring and walking along the ring to set up bows and arrows, for their speed was instantly slowed down by a lot.
And the reason for the slowdown was because the solid grassland below their feets had suddenly turned soft!
The grass that were uprooted had slowly sank into the soft muddy ground, followed by the remains of the broken and abandoned weapon. The warriors' legs started to sink and they sunk even deeper into the grassland as they struggled to run. The former battle ground had turned into large swamp!
The Desolate warriors, who remained silent throughout, finally had a twist of fate. They strongly believed that they would obtain victory, yet today they fell into the grassland cavalry's trap, not knowing what would happen to them next. The grassland turned into a soft swampy ground, yet not a quicksand that could swallow them in. However, they still had difficulties in maintaining their balances on this soft surface, and worst of all, they would not be able to make use of their strength, which was their swift running speed.
After thousand of years of chasing snow wolves and snow deers on the boundless border of the Hot Sea, every Desolate warrior was trained to have a pair of strong and fast legs, which was their best weapon. Yet now, their best weapon turned out to be useless. Not only were they unable to use it to chase the grassland cavalries, what was worst was that they could not dodge the arrows like before, not even to prevent the enemies from hitting their weak points with the arrows.
Whoosh!
The cavalries walking outside the grassland used the fastest speed to re-group themselves and arranged themselves into two large troops. With bows and arrows, they sped towards the Desolate Man warriors on their horses and surrounded them as they shot them down one by one.
With a thud, a sharp arrow pierced into a young Desolate Man's chest. He frowned in pain as he pulled out the arrow from his chest. However, before he could lift the long knife in his hand again, a second arrow came, followed by the third. Numerous arrows started to shower onto his body. And finally, the young man widened his eyes. He painfully and gradually kneeled down onto the ground, with his eyes filled with regret. His knees sunk into the soft ground and then he fell forward.
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