Chapter 181: Harassment

  Midnight, a rare fine rain fell over the Barbarian Highlands, bringing a touch of gentleness to this originally desolate and solemn place. The raindrops sprinkled on the blazing grease torches, emitting a faint crackling sound.

  Dozens of sentinels watched the surrounding dark, rainy night with extreme vigilance. In this wilderness, completely devoid of any light, even the brightest torchlight could not illuminate far. They also understood that a dozen or so werewolves and lizardmen were lurking in the nearby, invisible darkness. But no matter how they tried to stay alert, the fatigue and anxiety on their faces could not be concealed. They had not rested for nearly two days.

  This was a supply convoy, transporting a large amount of grain and fodder from within Erathia's territory to the allied army at the front. But they never expected to encounter an attack by a small group of beastmen in a place like this.

  Ever since the command of the allied army was handed back by Celeste to the generals of the various nations, the army's advance speed had more than doubled. The soldiers' morale was high. The recent defeat of the Temple Knights had not affected them in the slightest. In their view, as long as the army advanced with such momentum, once the one hundred thousand strong army arrived outside Oufu City, any conspiracy or trickery would be ground to dust under the iron hooves of such an absolute advantage in numbers.

  But no matter how high the morale, an army still needs to eat. The provisions for a one hundred thousand strong army was an incredibly vast number. As the allied army deepened into the highlands, it required an even larger transport fleet to continuously deliver countless supplies from the various nations. This was just one of those convoys.

  The escorting party for this convoy numbered five hundred men, which should have been more than enough to deal with some wild beasts. They were nearly a thousand li from Oufu, and the one hundred thousand strong allied army was in between. By all rights, it was impossible for any beastmen forces to appear here. But they had indeed encountered them.

  Ever since this supply convoy encountered this small beastmen unit of a dozen or so men two days ago, it had been under constant harassment. The beastmen were not in a hurry to launch a frontal assault on a force ten times their size. Instead, they continuously roamed and appeared in the vicinity, with the occasional lizardman firing a few arrows to wound or kill several soldiers. The range of the archers in the convoy was completely incomparable to that of the lizardmen, and the beastmen also held the upper hand in mobility. It was impossible for the soldiers to give chase.

  It wasn't until night fell that the soldiers discovered the true nightmare had arrived. The beastmen's almost incessant harassment and attacks left them with no chance to rest at all.

  Not all the beastmen were attacking, but the soldiers were completely unable to distinguish whether the figures emerging from the darkness were just two or three harassing individuals or the entire force preparing for a full-scale sneak attack. It was the same as the harassment method during the day. The beastmen would strike once and then retreat, never engaging in a direct confrontation. But the effect was obvious. The entire convoy had received almost no time to rest. As a result, the next day, this exhausted convoy only advanced a very short distance before having to stop to rest.

  But tonight, this harassing-style sneak attack had not stopped. The soldiers divided into groups of fifty to take turns on watch, and they were even becoming a bit numb to this kind of harassment. Their spirit and morale had slowly changed from the initial tension to fatigue and numbness. But overall, their morale was still maintained at a rather high level. Although they were now trapped and under attack here, this location was actually between the main army and Erathia. Strictly speaking, it was within the allied army's sphere of control, so they were not too worried.

  "These fellows must be deserters who slipped out of Oufu, lurking around here to find some food. Everyone, rest assured. The carrier pigeons have been released. Whether it's the main army ahead or the support troops from behind, they will arrive in less than two days and wipe out this group of beastmen."

  This was what the captain said to his soldiers. Almost all the soldiers indeed believed this. The huge advantage held by the allied army made it impossible for anyone to feel a sense of crisis.

  However, one soldier in the convoy had a very strange reaction. He not only seemed very panicked and scared, but also reported to the captain with extreme terror, suggesting that all troops should abandon the supplies and flee with all their might back into Erathia's territory or to the allied army's main force. According to this soldier, he used to be a hunter and was very familiar with the methods these beastmen were using.

  "That kind of tracking and harassment is a method used only by wolf packs when hunting prey. This kind of harassment and consumption is meant to fatigue the prey on one hand, while one or two wolves go to notify more companions. If we don't take this opportunity to flee with all our strength, it's a path to death."

  This suggestion, naturally, did not gain the agreement of the others. The captain almost killed the soldier for speaking nonsense and disturbing the army's morale. Everyone believed that this situation would end soon.

  "Swoosh," an arrow shot out from the darkness without any warning, striking a sentry right in the throat. The sentry let out a strange, muffled grunt and immediately fell.

  Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

  "Everyone, be careful. Shields to the vitals," the sentry captain ordered. He didn't even sound the alarm whistle. In the past two nights, the whistle had been sounded more than fifty times, and not once did it have any practical meaning, only pointlessly preventing the people inside from resting.

  As expected, there was only that one arrow. Then the night fell completely silent again, with only the strange, dying moans and the twitching of limbs coming from the throat of the struck sentry. A few sentries scrambled to help their companion, but this arrow had pierced through most of the passages in his throat, including the carotid artery. There were no priests in such a small unit. In the end, another soldier had to draw his sword to end his companion's misery completely.

  "Fuck, you bastard beasts, do you dare to come and fight us head-on, in an open battle? I'll chop off your tails and heads and shove them up your asses," an angry soldier stood up and roared into the darkness. The roar seemed lonely and distant in the empty wilderness.

  "Stop shouting. The brothers inside still need to sleep," the sentry captain said wearily. Having been on the battlefield for so many years, he was used to life and death, and this almost incessant sneak attack had already pushed his spirit to the brink of exhaustion.

  But it was unknown whether it was the soldier's shout or a hallucination from fatigue, the captain seemed to see several figures appear at the edge of the firelight.

  "Hmm?" The captain squinted, trying to get a clearer look. But before his eyes, a fast-spinning object flashed, and he fell straight backward. A small hatchet was completely embedded in his face, leaving only the handle exposed.

  The figures of werewolves and lizardmen finally appeared in the firelight, but before the soldiers could fully react, this budding vigilance turned into terror. The beastmen appearing in the firelight were not the dozen or so they had always thought, nor were they several dozen, but dozens, even hundreds, charging towards them in rows.

  "They're here. It's really..." the soldier who used to be a hunter and had given the suggestion to the captain screamed in extreme panic. But his scream had only just begun when it was immediately cut short in his throat by a small hatchet.

  Werewolves and lizardmen continuously charged from the pitch-black darkness into the brightness of the firelight. They had not made a single sound before, and now, as they began their charge and surprise attack, they were almost completely silent. Their soft footsteps and limbs seemed to blend with the ground, and there were no beastly snarls or howls. Like nightmare phantoms conjured in the dark night, they silently brought terror before everyone's eyes. The fifty sentries, let alone resist, were turned into corpses before they could even let out much of a cry or a scream.

  The soldiers resting in the camp were still startled, all grabbing their weapons to counterattack, but hastily fatigued human warriors could never be a match for beastmen. Amidst the one-sided screams, over a hundred beastmen completed this one-sided slaughter with astonishing efficiency. Their efficiency and skill were so practiced, like butchers of many years. Not a single superfluous movement, and not even a single word of exchange between them, as if a group of killing machines had silently completed their task.

  The horses pulling the grain carts had already been spooked from smelling the scent of dozens of werewolves. After the werewolves and lizardmen completed the slaughter of the soldiers, they turned their attention to these animals. They also took only a very short time to finish slaughtering them. Without spending too much time, this camp became a place filled with dead silence in the hands of the werewolves.

  Only then did the leading werewolf begin to command the other beastmen. They gathered all the grain and fodder together, but did not burn it. In this dark wilderness, if such a large pile of supplies were to be burned, the firelight would be visible for two or three hundred li. After the beastmen took what they needed, they dismembered all the corpses on the ground and then stuffed them evenly into the pile of grain. They also poured the internal organs and fresh blood onto these supplies.

  The fine rain also sprinkled onto these supplies left exposed to the open air. According to the daytime climate in the Barbarian Highlands, by tomorrow evening, apart from flies and maggots, no other animal would be willing to eat these provisions.

  After finishing all this, the beastmen hurriedly walked back into the dark night. For this was only the second attack. According to the intelligence sent by their companions, at least three other supply convoys were waiting for them.

  Ten days later, the allied army's main force finally had to halt its advance due to supply issues.

  For the besieged side to be able to cross a thousand li to harass the enemy's supply lines in the rear, bypassing the blockade of a one hundred thousand strong army on a supply-less plain, was indeed a nearly impossible feat by conventional standards. But for the beastmen, who were adept at night operations, while it would be difficult for hundreds or thousands to cross the main army ahead, a small squad of a dozen or so could do it easily. They would then gather in the rear and adopt that unique wolf pack tactic.

  The generals of the allied army were not fools. Since receiving the news that the supplies had been raided, they each dispatched troops to hunt down and destroy this harassing unit. But they soon discovered that ordinary pursuit was almost completely ineffective. These beastmen, who had survived in the wilderness for a long time, were superior in both speed and endurance to any human unit. The key was that they needed almost no supplies in the wilderness. Small animals in the trees, snakes, lizards, and even insects could be their food. And their greatest source of food could be obtained from the corpses of their enemies. Such a unit was completely free from restraints and shackles, freely roaming, lurking, and harassing in the wilderness.

  At this time, the allied army had advanced a considerable distance into the center of the wasteland, leaving a large enough space for these sneak attackers to operate behind them. And the beastmen's activity was concentrated in the dead of night, making it difficult even for griffin knights high in the sky to discover their tracks. The extermination units dispatched by the allied army had almost no chance to engage in a direct battle with these beastmen. Even the only one accidental encounter ended in defeat for the allied army. These dispatched beastmen were undoubtedly elites. In fact, to be able to execute such precise tactics, they had to be beastmen of considerably high intelligence. Innate combat strength, superior survival and night-attack capabilities, and most importantly, tactics that could best utilize their strengths, made this group of over a hundred beastmen the most effective and terrifying guerrillas.

  Three thousand, five thousand, ten thousand, and finally, until the extermination force was increased to an unbelievable twenty thousand, and several top-tier water-based reconnaissance scrolls were used, only then were they able to hunt down that small group of beastmen in the vast wilderness.

  But in the end, they did not completely annihilate the group. A dozen or so of the beastmen, who should have been the leaders, actually used a teleportation scroll to escape under the cover of their companions at the critical moment. At this point, the fact that Oufu possessed a teleportation magic array was undeniable.

  Just a hundred beastmen forced the allied army's main force to halt and even retreat a considerable distance. The cost of the lost supplies during this period was calculated in an astronomical amount of gold coins. Not counting what was destroyed by the beastmen, the daily consumption of the one hundred thousand strong army alone was enough to give any quartermaster a headache for a good while.

  This kind of sneak attack finally forced the generals of the allied army to admit that the steady, step-by-step strategy originally set by the Temple Knights was indeed somewhat necessary. After all, although that method of advance seemed less than exhilarating, at least the mutual support between the allied forces and the constant protection of the supply lines would make such sneak attacks difficult to succeed.

  But it had come to this, and it was impossible to turn back and pick up the Temple Knight tactics. To deal with the harassment tactics of the beastmen, ordinary infantry were absolutely unable to keep up in terms of mobility. Therefore, after a meeting, the generals of the allied forces formulated a common tactic: to have thirty thousand cavalry dispersed to protect the supply transports between the various sections of the route.

  Now, the closest allied army unit was less than ten days' journey from Oufu. As long as they could ensure their supplies, victory seemed to be within their grasp.