Salin would rather stay with Lei Long every day than deal with these things. But the matter at hand had a lot to do with the contract he had signed with Myers. The Church had to be destroyed, so Salin had to bite the bullet and do it well.
A large amount of battle equipment was distributed. Salin had another matter on his mind. He summoned Banchagana and Diabinus. The two Undead Lords were living quite comfortably in Metatlin City, and only needed to summon large numbers of undead from time to time for Daniel to control.
Daniel was already a level-six necromancer, and he had a dozen low-level necromancers under him. The three Lords no longer needed to control the undead.
What the three Lords did now was to frequently search for information in Salin's library. Was the master from back then dead or in hiding? They would not have freedom if they could not find their master.
If their master was not dead, with his power, he could easily break the trap of the contract between Salin and that damned necromancer. Following their original master was better than following Salin.
After summoning the two Sovereigns, Salin carefully instructed them on what to do this time. Salin set up a small town every hundred miles on the road to Phoenix, so that the merchants on the road could have a place to rest. These small towns were now of a certain scale. Each town had about two to three hundred households, and the permanent population was about a thousand.
This many people ensured the stability of this trade route. If these people were all slaughtered by the Church's army, Salin could only rely on shipping to maintain the city. But his city was closed to ships for five months out of the year.
It was not enough to just protect Metatlin City. Salin could not deploy the army to face the Church's expedition army. If they fought head-on, he believed that even if they won, the result would be terrible. If there were too many casualties, then Metatlin City would be finished.
The best way was to evacuate the people in the small towns.
Salin still had four battalions of soldiers. The Caucasians could not be organized, so he could only let Sicar lead the defense. There were only forty thousand people in the four battalions. Including the barbarians that could be mobilized, there were only fifty thousand people. Salin now knew that it was impossible to stop the Church's expedition army in a field battle with these fifty thousand people.
The Fourth and Fifth Battalions were sent out by Salin, each with a large number of vehicles and Magicians. The mission of these two battalions of 20,000 people was to rush to these towns as soon as possible and bring everyone back to Metatlin City.
At the border of Phoenix, two flag regiments of the Metatlin City's Sixth Battalion lay in ambush beside the mountain road, waiting for the Church's army to pass by. The road was only about four meters wide, and on the other side of the road was a huge slope. These two flag regiments had originally planned to retreat to Metatlin City because they had already lost more than 20% of their members. There were only 1600 people left out of 2000, and more than 600 people were injured. In reality, there were still 1000 people who could fight.
However, the army of the Church did not take the main road. Instead, they had to take a shortcut to advance. The scouts discovered this information, and the commanders of the two Flag Corps exchanged their opinions before deciding to carry out an ambush here.
The casualties were severe, but the soldiers did not abandon their weapons. Most of the skeleton warhorses were concentrated in these two flag regiments. They were supposed to be the last to retreat. With these Skeleton Warhorses, the soldiers basically carried their weapons with them, as well as the equipment that the previous Banner Regiments had abandoned.
Among the 1000 people, there were a total of 200 large crossbows.
Large crossbows were not heavy crossbows, mainly lacking in long-range attacks. However, they had good penetration at close range and were cheap.
200 large crossbows, and each soldier had a small crossbow. These 1000 soldiers lay in ambush by the roadside, waiting for the Church's army to pass by and shoot all the crossbows before retreating.
The two flag commanders were both high-level Swordsmen of Seriga Island. They charged valiantly, and miraculously were not injured until now. Both of them had small Alchemy Crossbows on them. The Alchemy Crossbows had good penetration and were accurate enough. There was even a chance that they could kill the enemy's Divine Masters.
Those Divine Masters were too annoying. As long as the soldiers did not die, they could save most of them. No matter how heavily injured these soldiers were, they would be able to fight again in two or three days.
With this kind of treatment, when the soldiers returned, a 20 year old would not live past 40. If they were treated with Divine Spells many times, they would not live past 30.
The problem was that this kind of skill was just that effective. The Sixth Battalion mainly fought with crossbows. If the enemy did not have a large number of Divine Masters, the death price of the 1000 people in the Sixth Battalion would have killed more than 10,000 of the enemy. Unfortunately, those Tanggulas people who were shot by the crossbows would usually return to the battlefield alive and kicking after a day or two.
After two battles, the Sixth Battalion began to stop the enemy's Divine Masters. But there were too few Alchemy Crossbows, and they could not be concealed well enough. In the battle, the soldiers of the Church would use their bodies to block the crossbow bolts and protect the Divine Masters.
"Flag Commander, they're here!" A scout riding a skeleton warhorse rushed over and dived into the forest by the roadside.
"Get ready!" The Ninth Flag Commander gave the order. Everyone stopped what they were doing. They put on their armor, carried their quiver, tightened their boots, put on the crossbowmen's gloves and nocked their crossbows.
Even though the two flag regiments had lost more than half of their men, the soldiers were still very mentally strong. After all, with the skeleton warhorses, they had a higher chance of escaping the battlefield. They only shot arrows this time. The soldiers who were familiar with battle knew that this battle was only to slow down the enemy's advance.
They were not fighting with their lives on the line, so everyone's movements were slow and steady.
The sound of hooves could be heard in the distance. The Church's army used metal horseshoes, unlike Salin's army, which used Magical Beast materials. The sound of metal horseshoes could be heard from afar. Thousands of horses galloped at the same time, as if there was thunder on the ground.
This was the vanguard of the Church. Usually, there would be three thousand cavalrymen. Among the three thousand cavalrymen, there were a hundred heavy cavalrymen wearing Holy Armor. The so-called heavy cavalrymen referred to their defensive capabilities. Holy Armor was like Magical Armor, extremely light and suitable for long periods of time.
The rest of the cavalrymen were mostly light-armored cavalrymen. They also fought with bows and crossbows, and their main weapon was the Tanggulas scimitar. The heavy cavalrymen needed the cooperation of support soldiers. Their equipment was carried by large carriages and usually followed the main army. It was the same for the infantry. There were many horses in Tanggulas, and the infantry could also get inferior horses to ride.
There were too many soldiers on this expedition, and the Pope's orders were very firm. Almost everyone in the expeditionary army was given a horse. Apart from the infantry, every cavalryman was given two warhorses.
Before entering Phoenix, the Church's army had suffered a shocking loss of warhorses. Because of the high speed, many warhorses had died of exhaustion. Only a place like the Church would issue such an order that the soldiers hated so much.
The expeditionary army had continued after Galoulan had replenished their warhorses. Many more warhorses had been lost in the clash with Rex's army. No matter how powerful the Mages were, they couldn't treat both the horse and the person at the same time. Many of the warhorses died because of inadequate treatment.
Even so, this huge army was still advancing at more than a hundred miles a day. If it were just cavalry, this would be a tortoise's pace. But this was a mixed expeditionary army, with more than two-thirds of the infantry.
These people had only one goal: Metatlin. The Pope's orders were also simple: go there and destroy the city.
It was actually very dangerous for a thousand people to ambush three thousand cavalrymen on the side of the road. But only a hundred of the cavalrymen had Holy Armor, and the rest had light armor. There weren't many Mages either, so they were perfect targets for the crossbowmen.
The vanguard of the Tanggulas cavalry charged up the mountain path, maintaining a speed of about ten miles a day. This speed could still preserve the warhorses' stamina. If it was increased to sixty miles, only skeleton warhorses could gallop for a long time. Even if it was a skeleton warhorse, it would be useless if it traveled at a speed of sixty kilometers for a long time.
The two hundred cavalrymen at the front saw that they had entered the ambush range, but the commander of the ninth squad didn't give the order to attack. Instead, he let the two hundred cavalrymen pass. The troops at the back quickly poured into the narrow passage. At this moment, the commander's bodyguard sounded the bugle.
"Fire!"
Two hundred crossbow bolts flew through the air. The soldiers of the sixth battalion had trained for several months, and their main training didn't include combat. Instead, they focused on crossbow shooting.
Three seconds later, the second round of crossbow bolts was fired. Another three seconds later, the third round of crossbow bolts.
The two hundred people at the front used big crossbows, and more than a hundred were killed. The people at the back used hand crossbows, and the effect was much worse. Those hundred people must have died. Those hit by the hand crossbows, even without the treatment of the Mages, wouldn't be much better off if they were lucky.
The greatest casualties were from falling off their warhorses and being trampled by the horses behind them.
"Enemy attack! Enemy attack! "
"In the forest!"
The cavalrymen of the Holy See began to panic, but an officer shouted. The cavalrymen at the back immediately took off their round shields and rushed into the forest. The forest wasn't dense enough, but it wasn't enough for the warhorses to gallop. These cavalrymen immediately dismounted after entering the forest, drew their machetes and shields, and surrounded the Tanguin soldiers lying in ambush in the forest.
What awaited them was crossbow bolts. Although the range of the hand crossbows was short, the forest was the perfect battlefield for crossbows. In the field, the hand crossbows weren't continuous fire, so their lethality was much greater than that of a continuous crossbow.
The Tanggulas cavalrymen held their round shields, but they couldn't protect all parts of their bodies. The soldiers of the sixth battalion shot at their lower bodies. The distance of the battle was only a few dozen meters, but this distance caused heavy casualties among the Tanggulas soldiers.
The first wave of crossbow bolts killed more than a hundred cavalrymen, and the following crossbow bolts injured more than five hundred cavalrymen.
"Retreat, retreat!" The commander of the ninth banner shouted. His bodyguards immediately blew the war horn with a different rhythm.
The Tanggulas madly rushed into the forest. They still had the advantage in numbers, and the vanguard and the army behind them were at most two hours away. It could be an hour. As long as they were entangled, Salin's one thousand soldiers would be completely annihilated.
These Tanggulas soldiers approached the crossbowmen without any regard for their casualties, causing the two banner commanders to immediately think of escaping. Before setting off, Salin had instructed the ten banner commanders to reduce casualties, familiarize the soldiers with the battlefield, and bring them back to Metatlin City.
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