“As expected, the people of the Chinubi Tribe have no good intentions.
Merging into their tribe?
How could that be possible?” Alei said, shaking his head.
“We rejected Agl, so he will definitely target our tribe next.
We must be prepared for defense once we return.”
On the way back to the camp, the group rode through the forest, all discussing how to deal with the Chinubi Tribe in the future.
One tribesman said indignantly: “Those people from the Chinubi Tribe are simply too arrogant.
We should just go to war with them directly.
We can unite with other tribes; there’s no way we couldn’t beat them then.”
“Sigh, I’m just afraid some tribes will try to fish in troubled waters.
The Chinubi Tribe talked about peace talks, but today they were clearly set on annexation.”
Hearing this, Esdeath raised an eyebrow.
Thinking about it, today’s peace talks were a bit strange.
Did the people of the Chinubi Tribe call them over just to make threats and intimidate them?
For all these years, Agl must have known that their Barutas Tribe had always been resilient; the possibility of them agreeing to merge was almost zero.
However, if they wanted to lure them out to deal with them, they didn’t launch an attack, didn’t even bring many people, and Agl had already left with his men?
Wait, could it be that they wanted to lure out the tribe’s elite combat forces to attack their camp?
But Father had considered this point, which is why he only brought two squads out, while the other four squads remained to guard the camp.
An ominous feeling lingered in Esdeath’s heart, as if something bad was about to happen, but when she thought about it carefully, she couldn’t find any clues.
Esdeath opened her positioning map.
In the dense forest, within a hundred-meter radius, there were no other living creatures besides her tribesmen.
This place was an easy spot for an ambush, but there was no one within a hundred meters.
Was she overthinking it?
In any case, just to be safe, Esdeath kept the positioning map open at all times.
The group slowly left the dense forest, and the path ahead consisted of stretches of low, flat hills.
This place was not suitable for an ambush; the probability of enemies appearing was extremely low.
Just as Esdeath had thought, after traveling through this stretch of road, nothing happened.
Next was a wide canyon with a diameter of fifty meters.
If there was to be an ambush, this would be the most likely place.
However, the cliffs on both sides were about five hundred meters high.
If one were to ambush from the cliffs, an ordinary archer’s arrows couldn’t aim at this distance, and even using a gun would be difficult.
“Do you think there might be an ambush here?”
A tribesman waved his hand and said: “Esdeath, you’re too suspicious.
Where would there be an ambush…”
A sharp whistling sound pierced the air.
Before anyone could react, the head of the tribesman who had been waving his hand was pierced by a crossbow bolt, and he tumbled from his horse.
The screams and roars of the tribesmen rose one after another.
“Ambush!”
Esdeath strained her eyes to look, only then making out the ant-like figures appearing on the cliffs.
The first crossbow bolt was just the beginning.
While the group was in a panic due to the sudden attack, the real assault came like a tidal wave.
A rain of arrows filled the sky, shooting densely from both sides.
Their speed and power were completely incomparable to ordinary arrows.
Two-meter-long crossbow bolts instantly pinned a tribesman’s horse to the ground.
“It’s a ballista!”
How could this be?
This kind of military killing machine was completely impossible for tribal people to obtain.
Is it the national army?
No, that’s impossible.
No matter how you look at it, today’s events were the work of the Chinubi Tribe.
The Imperial Army would never collude with them.
Alei shouted: “Retreat!
Go back the way we came.”
Esdeath had no time to think.
With the rain of arrows filling the sky and being in the canyon, no matter how good she was at dodging, there was nowhere to hide and no place to take cover.
Crossbow bolt after crossbow bolt pierced through hard armor, running the tribesmen through.
Esdeath was in the middle of the group, so she dodged the first wave of attacks, but the five or six tribesmen in the front were instantly shot dead by the crossbow bolts.
With no time to catch her breath or think, Esdeath used “Bullet Time” to swing her blade and knock down the incoming crossbow bolts.
On the cliff, a tall, bearded man wearing bright silver armor turned the binoculars in his hands, commenting as he watched the battle: “That blue-haired girl has quite good strength.
Her reactions are very quick.
For a tribal person, being able to strike down crossbow bolts—such combat prowess is already quite good.”
“My Lord’s eye is truly sharp.
This is Alei’s daughter, Esdeath.
She has recently risen to fame in our tribe.”
The fawning voice of the man standing behind the bearded man was incredibly familiar; if any other members of the Barutesu Tribe were present, they would immediately recognize him as the Head Elder, Bali.
Long before entering the canyon, the Head Elder had quietly fallen to the back of the group.
As soon as the first wave of the offensive arrived, he immediately fled from the rear and climbed up the cliff from the side.
“Tsk tsk, Bali, this time we owe it all to you.” A cunning laugh rang out as Agl, who had arrived late, dismounted and walked to the edge of the cliff to admire the scene inside the canyon.
“Killing Alei and these warriors loyal to him will allow my Chinubi Tribe to annex the Barutas Tribe and ultimately unify the Northern Plains,” Agl said loudly.
“Of course, my Chinubi Tribe will naturally serve you, My Lord; everything done is to better provide supplies for you.”
How insignificant a person is in front of an army.
Even though Alei was the strongest person in the tribe and could hunt a Level 1 Danger Beast alone, he had no way to deal with the volley of crossbow bolts.
Perhaps Alei could kill a massive Level 1 Danger Beast, and these soldiers’ single volley could only break the skin of a Level 1 Danger Beast, but combat is never a simple game of stacking boxes.
When facing the rain of arrows fired in unison, Alei’s body was instantly riddled with holes.
Several two-meter-long heavy spears pierced through his body.
Alei collapsed to the ground and, in his final moments, looked at Esdeath through the dense crowd of men and horses.
Esdeath seemed to sense something.
She looked at her father lying on the ground, her face slightly stunned.
She managed to discern the last sentence Alei said to her from the movement of his lips: “Become stronger.
Survive.”
Her father’s death did not make Esdeath sad or angry at this moment.
She seemed to have lost all emotion, her heart extremely calm.
Just as her father often said, it is unavoidable for the weak to be killed by the strong.
No matter how much one complains or blames fate, this is an unchangeable fact.
She had to survive.
The instinct for survival did not allow her to think of anything else; the first thing to do was to escape this long-premeditated ambush and slaughter.
Esdeath and the remaining tribesmen rushed out from the rear, entering the plains, where they expectedly encountered the cavalry that had been ambushing from both sides and were now launching a surprise attack.
The Blood-Drinking Mad Blade in Esdeath’s hand cut down one enemy after another; not a single person was a match for her in a single exchange.
The enemy also noticed this tough nut to crack, and a dozen cavalrymen holding spears surrounded her together.
At the same time, other enemies operating crossbows were shooting cold arrows at them.
The blood-stained Blood-Drinking Mad Blade was fast to the extreme.
One, two, five, ten—in just a few minutes, Esdeath had killed dozens of people.
But the tribesmen who followed her were also falling one by one under the cold spears and blades of the enemy.
On the cold snowy ground, covered in corpses, only she and the last seven stalwart tribesmen remained.
And the fully armed enemy troops in armor surrounding them layer by layer.
Between life and death, everyone burst out with the ability to take on ten, and for a time, dozens of enemy troops had difficulty killing them.
The cavalry surged forward in wave after wave; no matter how many they killed, they could not finish them off, slowly draining her strength.
She would die.
If it continued like this, she would die sooner or later.
The bearded man stood on the cliff, watching the battle on the open ground from afar, and frowned: “This person called Esdeath is actually so valiant.”
Agl, worried that the other party was feeling pained by the loss of troops, immediately said: “My Lord, I will take men to capture her right now.”
A playful smile hung on the bearded man’s face: “No need.
It has been a long time since I have seen such an interesting person.
Let’s see how long she can hold out.”
As a high-and-mighty general, watching the enemy be killed while surrounded by his own soldiers was, much like the beast fights often watched by nobles, a rare pleasure.
It might not seem tempting right now but who knows what the future holds?
“And If you’re enjoying it, drop a Power Stone for me!”