Sitting next to the fire pit in the forest, Valentin remained dazed for a long time after hearing the update. He had intended to take out the decoy force by sending out a battalion of his troops, but they got killed instead. They must be kidding!
Besides, how was that a decoy force? It was clear they were the main forces of the Pyro Company! How else could they possibly take out an entire battalion of their expeditionary army?!
Valentin stood up next to the fire pit and looked at a barbarian at his side. “Go, I want to hear the news of their deaths before daybreak.”
That barbarian threw away the meat bone he was holding and rubbed his oily hands across the front of his attire before leading his troops westwards.
In the span of a second, a pack of barbarians rushed off to the west with the intention to encircle the “decoy force.”
At this moment, Ren Xiaosu was still leading the troops forward. The soldiers of the recon company were no longer saying anything. They had tacitly acknowledged a fact: There was no need for them to put in much effort for the mission in the forest this time, and all they had to do was to tag along with Ren Xiaosu.
Suddenly, Ren Xiaosu stopped in his tracks. T40219, who was behind, wondered, “Sir, what’s the matter?”
Ren Xiaosu stood still and did not say anything. Ten seconds later, everyone saw him turn around and run away!
Shortly after taking off, Ren Xiaosu looked back at the recon company and shouted, “Run! Hurry up and start running!”
T40219 said in confusion, “Sir, where are we running off to?”
“We’ve poked the hornet’s nest by slaying too many of the barbarians, so all of them are coming after us now! Hurry up and run!” After saying that, Ren Xiaosu ran as fast as he could in the direction of the Great Wall. He was planning to get back there before the barbarians’ main forces could find them!
T40219 hurriedly sought permission from the command center. “We’ve encountered the main forces of the enemy. Can we retreat?”
Everyone in the command center was stunned. Honestly, they did not even notice any barbarians in the images that were transmitted back in real time. If it were any other person lying about a battle situation to ask for a retreat, P5092 would definitely treat them as deserters and punish them accordingly.
But since it was Ren Xiaosu who initiated it, P5092 believed it. “Retreat.”
With that, the recon company started fleeing for their lives with Ren Xiaosu.
No one saw where the barbarians were. In any case, they just had to flee with Ren Xiaosu.
The 100 or so troops were retreating with all their might. At the beginning, there was still a platoon providing cover at the rear of the recon company. However, Ren Xiaosu roared, “Why are y’all covering the rear at a time like this? Everyone, keep running. Hurry up and run! I’ll smash in anyone’s head that’s still covering the rear!”
In Ren Xiaosu’s opinion, how could one or two platoons possibly stop a pack of barbarians in the forest? Providing cover at such a time was as good as suicide, so they might all as well flee for their lives.
As the recon company had started retreating early, and their average physical fitness was rated around T3, they fled very efficiently. The main forces of the barbarians were unable to catch up to them after a long time.
All of a sudden, several hundred barbarians rushed forward from the main group. They were no longer pursuing with the rest of the troops but started tracking at their full speed in the direction the recon company had headed.
They were the elites of the main forces, with the lowest ranked being centurions while the higher-ranking ones even included the primus pilus.
In the expeditionary army’s ORBAT, five soldiers made up a squad that was led by a squad leader known as a decanus. A decurion commanded 20 soldiers, a centurion commanded a 100 soldiers, a Pilus Prior commanded 500 soldiers, a Primus Pilus commanded a 1,000 soldiers, a Praefectus commanded 5,000 soldiers, while the legate, also known as the general, commanded 10,000 soldiers.
Above that was the king.
The division of power within the expeditionary army was also very simple, with the strong being favored over others. Only a few skilled military commanders could surpass this hierarchy of strength, but they would still be looked down upon by other barbarians’ officers.
In fact, the recon company was already about to leave the forest’s perimeter. But when T40219 turned around and had a look, he saw that those several hundred elite barbarians had appeared in the distance behind them. Moreover, they were moving even faster than them. The barbarians were closing the distance between themselves and the recon company!
T40219 explained the situation over the radio, “The enemies are catching up to us. Requesting reinforcements!”
The deputy commander in the command center said firmly, “Sir, we can’t save them. If we send the other main forces out of the city at this time, it’s tantamount to giving up the defensive advantage of the Great Wall. When they encounter the main forces of the barbarians, they’ll definitely suffer heavy casualties.”
P5092 looked quietly at the screen and finally said to T40219, “There will be no reinforcements. But when you all get within three kilometers north of the Great Wall, we’ll provide cover fire from the walls with artillery and heavy machine guns.”
P5092 was absolutely rational. As the highest-ranking commander of the 3rd Division, he must make sure that every decision he made would be absolutely correct and not let his personal feelings get involved.
He made this decision even though Ren Xiaosu, someone he wanted to defect to their side, was still with the recon company.
If he had to use thousands of lives in exchange for Ren Xiaosu, P5092 did not feel it was worth it either.
It was not that he did not want to save him but that he could not do so.
Honestly, P5092 suddenly felt a little sad for some reason when he made the decision. It seemed that every time he gave up something important to him, he would feel a little upset like this.
As a member of the Pyro Company, his “usefulness” to the organization was his leadership ability which was where his value lay.
Meanwhile, this sadness he felt in him was what he should be experiencing as a person.
It was just like how he would spend the night alone in his tent after every big battle.
People often said that as a person, one should prioritize being a good person before talking about other matters.
But Pyro Company members were different. They were seen as precision parts to a grand ideal first before they were seen as a person.
Yang Xiaojin, who had been observing from the sidelines in the command center, suddenly got up and left. Before leaving, she even took with her a standard-issue anti-materiel sniper rifle of the Pyro Company.
By this moment, the recon company had scurried out of the forest. There was also a soldier atop the walls responsible for observing the situation with his binoculars relaying back the news, “The barbarians are pursuing the recon company at an extremely fast speed. I estimate that a battle will break out between the two sides in three minutes.”
But then the soldier who was observing on the Great Wall was stunned, because he saw a girl tying a rope around a merlon of the wall before sliding down to the bottom. She also had a standard-issue Pyro Company anti-materiel sniper rifle slung over her shoulder.
Then the girl made a mad dash onto the battlefield.
As the two sides got closer and closer, the girl suddenly crouched on one knee and started shooting. The huge recoil of the gun caused her body to jerk backwards slightly. Right afterwards, she adjusted her shot angle before pulling the trigger again.
A bloody mist erupted from a barbarian’s chest, and another barbarian had his head blown clean off. Meanwhile, the exhaust from the gun chamber swept up a large cloud of dust and smoke around Yang Xiaojin.
To Yang Xiaojin, anyone could choose not to save Ren Xiaosu but her.
To have a more direct view of the battle, P5092 got right up on the walls and took the binoculars.
He saw more and more of the elite barbarians exploding with bloody mist after being hit by the sniper while Ren Xiaosu headed straight towards the sniper with the recon company.
The elite barbarian who were pursuing the recon company finally hesitated in the face of a sniper. They began to slow down and waited until their rear troops joined up with them.
But Ren Xiaosu couldn’t care less about that. Since the enemy had slowed down, this was a good chance for them to make their escape.
Ren Xiaosu ran to where Yang Xiaojin was lying in ambush, picked her up, and ran off again. When P5092 saw this, he fell silent.
