Yet the battle mages of the Black Mountain Army remained entirely motionless, their faces curling into disdainful smiles.
Simultaneously, several soldiers rolled heavy crossbow wagons out from the subterranean shelter. The enemy had actually assembled siege machinery directly inside the trenches!
Explosive crossbow bolts were locked onto the carriages and fired with a deep, roaring resonance.
A shimmering green energy shield immediately materialized across the forest territory to intercept the incoming bombardment.
Both sides clashed intensely in an instant, neither faction gaining a clear upper hand.
Outside the fog, the elite elements of the Montenegrin Army ambushing the flank erupted with terrifying, malicious intent as they charged toward the Xuanwu Guards.
Led by several lords of the Black Mountain Army, who belonged to the Power Faction, they surged forward at the vanguard, gathering a crushing momentum.
One of these lords was clad in massive plate armor and wielded a colossal warhammer.
Flanked by a squad of heavily armored infantrymen similarly armed with giant hammers, they accelerated toward the Xuanwu Guards at terrifying speeds.
At that exact moment, however, the elven archers positioned behind the Xuanwu Guards launched their counter-offensive.
Before the remaining Montenegrin troops could scramble out of the trenches, a dense, roaring sheet of arrows rained down!
Those trapped inside the trenches lost any chance of escape, forced to remain pinned down permanently with wide, unseeing eyes.
Yet the charging Montenegrin lords did not even blink.
The vanguard lord was renowned among the Black Mountain ranks as a premier specialist in smashing through hardened defenses.
In his view, once he closed the distance, even a solid mountain would be pulverized under his assault!
Every Montenegrin soldier stared toward the elven ranged units behind the Xuanwu line, bloodthirsty grins stretching across their faces.
They merely needed to wait for the defensive line to crack, and the wholesale slaughter would commence!
The heavy warhammer in the armored lord’s grasp weighed an estimated half-ton, and as he swung it, the rushing wind roared like a muffled clap of thunder.
Chen Wei’s expression remained as dark as still water as he slid his stance to block the enemy’s trajectory.
He swept a massive steel shield before him.
Defensive Link: Black Turtle Bastion!
Buzz!
A turtle-shell-shaped energy barricade projected outward, sealing the front.
"Bring it on!"
Chen Wei let out a thunderous roar directly at the charging Black Mountain lord.
A violent grimace twisted the Black Mountain lord’s features as he bellowed back:
"A bunch of ignorant wretches who do not know death! Break for me!!!"
Boom!!!
Boom boom boom boom!!!
The terrifying warhammer slammed squarely into the energy shield, generating a deafening concussion akin to a sudden clap of thunder that set everyone’s eardrums stinging.
Instantly afterward, the squad of heavy infantry slammed their own giant hammers against the defensive barrier in unison.
A rapid series of concussive shockwaves severely warped and distorted the surrounding atmosphere.
"Splendid! Cut them all down..."
The Montenegrin lords watching from the rear shouted in triumph, but their cheers caught instantly in their throats.
Following the initial impact, the giant hammers wielded by the heavy infantry shattered one after another; the skin between their thumbs and forefingers split violently, sending arterial blood surging outward.
Yet the Xuanwu Guards remained entirely motionless, and the protective shield held firm.
Unadulterated disbelief, swiftly followed by utter bewilderment, flashed across the armored lord’s face.
Taking advantage of that fleeting moment of distraction, a crescent arc of pale blade-light erupted from behind the Xuanwu formation!
The hair on the armored lord’s neck stood on end as he attempted an instinctive retreat, but the arc light still cleaved straight into his armor.
The thick, reinforced plate failed to withstand the edge, parting instantly to carve a deep trench across his torso!
His health bar plunged precipitously downward!
"This is impossible!"
The armored lord roared in furious disbelief!
It was bad enough that his proudest, most devastating strike had failed to leave a dent, but why could his heavy plate armor not even block a single counter-slash!?
Before he could recover his balance, a sharp, piercing pain erupted between his eyebrows.
An arrow pierced cleanly through the front of his skull and exited the back, showering red and white matter across the turf.
Only then did the sonic boom of the projectile’s flight arrive from the distance.
The arrow had traveled faster than sound itself...
In the span of mere heartbeats, a primary lord of the Black Mountain Army had been slain!
All the supporting Montenegrin lords stationed in the rear froze, expressions of sheer horror locked on their faces.
The heavy shield shifted slightly aside, revealing Chen Wei’s hardened features.
He cast a look of utter contempt toward the distant Montenegrin ranks, a cold smile touching his lips.
"Heaven Drive, Jiuzhou Territory—the Xuanwu Guards have arrived."
With every syllable Chen Wei uttered, the blood in the veins of the Montenegrin soldiers ran progressively colder.
Heaven Drive! Jiuzhou!
It was Toji Hisami!
How could Toji Hisami’s core troops possibly be stationed here?!
Terror paralyzed the Montenegrin ranks.
Was this the true combat caliber of the Jiuzhou Territory?
That question hammered relentlessly against the mind of every surviving enemy soldier.
The lord who had just perished was widely recognized as their finest vanguard brawler, possessing monstrous physical strength.
Yet he could neither break their defenses nor withstand their counter-attacks!
He was a trial lord, not some ordinary civilian conscript! A recognized Power Faction lord!
Gazing upon the towering Xuanwu Guards standing immovable before them, despair took root in the hearts of the Black Mountain Army for the very first time.
They realized they had committed a catastrophic miscalculation.
While their attention remained momentarily fixed, the elven domain’s troops showed no such hesitation.
Witnessing the terrifying, seamless synergy between the Xuanwu Guards and the elite warriors, the morale of Elara’s forces skyrocketed as they poured out a relentless volley of arrows.
Under such oppressive fire, the Montenegrin soldiers continued dropping in droves.
The remaining Montenegrin lords watched the carnage with bloodshot eyes.
The commander of the Montenegrin forces felt a chill envelop his entire frame. He desperately scanned the perimeter, searching for Elara or the legendary Lord of Jiuzhou.
Yet neither of them had even deigned to step onto the front lines!
Their opponents had not even required their master to personally intervene to dismantle the Black Mountain forces!
In that moment, the commander finally comprehended the insurmountable chasm separating them from the Jiuzhou leader...
If not for those monstrously defended heavy infantrymen, if not for those absurd, blade-wielding swordsmen—
A standard charge from his elite units could easily have trampled the elven defenders. Why had the engagement degenerated into such a one-sided slaughter?
"Fall back!"
"Everyone, retreat immediately!"
"Trigger every backup trap! Set fire to the woods! Buy us time to disengage!"
The commander of the Montenegrin Army roared at the top of his lungs.
The next second, he dropped and rolled frantically across the dirt, narrowly evading a high-velocity projectile streaking toward his position.
Behind the Xuanwu line, Lin Yifei clicked his tongue in genuine disappointment, lamenting his missed opportunity to bag the high-value commander.
He had successfully sniped the armored lord with a single shot, securing his first major tally of the day.
Adding the enemy commander to his list would have marked the ultimate battlefield achievement!
No matter; Lin Yifei shifted his focus toward another sector. Under the overwhelming firepower of the elven marksmen, the remaining Black Mountain soldiers were being systematically decimated.
The Montenegrin Army was about to pay an astronomical price in resources and time simply to absorb such catastrophic casualties.
Of course, they might not even survive long enough to rebuild.
Because the objective of the current engagement was absolute, total annihilation!
Any faction daring to treat the Jiuzhou leader as an enemy deserved precisely this fate.
The Xuanwu Guards resumed their steady, crushing advance, pushing the frontline forward step by step. Any surviving Montenegrin stragglers caught along the way were cleanly dispatched by the elite swordsmen.
This methodical, emotionless extermination proved far more terrifying than the fierce, explosive ranged attacks of the elven troops.
It resembled an immovable mountain range sliding forward across the earth, leaving no path for resistance or escape.
Retreating in desperation, the commander of the Montenegrin Army tumbled back into the central trench, only to discover fewer than a hundred soldiers had managed to rally behind him.
Nearly a thousand men had initiated this ambush!
Close to a thousand verified elites! Not ordinary cannon fodder!
Among them were the heavy-hammer shock troopers led by the fallen armored lord, alongside five specialized assault squads trained exclusively for lethal breakthroughs.
Yet every single one of them had been wiped out.
The deadlier and more elite a unit was, the faster it had been eradicated...
"Jiuzhou..."
The commander’s face turned ashen, his expression suspended somewhere between sheer terror and blinding rage.
He had once nurtured the arrogant belief that once the Black Mountain Army took the field, the Jiuzhou Territory would crumble without resistance.
He had dismissed the global gold list rankings, assuming Toji Hisami only held the crown because the Black Mountain forces had yet to enter the fray...
Yet reality proved ruthlessly, brutally cruel.
Just how many soldiers comprised that Xuanwu Guard vanguard?
He had meticulously counted their formation earlier: a defensive perimeter formed by a mere forty Xuanwu Guards had completely halted a breakthrough charge of hundreds of veteran fighters.
At that instant, a strange, energetic fluctuation rippled across the sky above.
The commander of the Black Mountain Army felt his blood run cold as realization struck him.
"Fall back instantly! The enemy is deploying large-scale spell artillery!"