Real Mount and Blade Game

Their eyes met in the air, exchanging information silently.

That wasn't the sound of the wind, nor the monotonous footsteps of a few wandering skeletons. That was battle!
A battle of considerable scale!
Without any hesitation, the remaining roasted rabbit meat and half a piece of black bread by the campfire were instantly discarded.

The five people moved with unimaginable speed, like startled sand foxes.

He untied the reins, flipped himself onto the horse, and did it all in one smooth motion.

"Mount up! Formation!" Gegen shouted in a low voice. Although he knew that the gray fog was thick in the darkness and that the undead could appear at any moment, they were the eyes and ears of Deherim, the falcons sent out by Lord Shenmu!

Their mission is to scout out enemy positions and detect dangers.

"Let's go!" Batu followed closely behind, lighting the spare torch he had brought.

The others also lit their own fires. Five orange flames suddenly shone in the deep night, like sparks thrown into an inkwell, instantly illuminating the bandits' resolute and vigilant faces and the scimitars and short bows they gripped tightly.

They did not charge blindly; experience told them the general direction of the sound's origin.

The five men spurred their warhorses, maintaining a loose reconnaissance formation, and galloped toward the direction from which the sound came.

The horseshoes made a dull thud on the soft sand, but it was deliberately made softer, like the tiptoe of a predator.

The torch flames flickered fiercely in the strong wind, creating a violently swaying halo around them.

After crossing a low slope, we rushed down a dry ravine full of gravel.

The sounds became clearer and clearer—no longer a blurry cacophony, but a dense, chilling cacophony of impacts, the sharp whistling of arrows tearing through the air, and a strange, grating sound, like metal scraping against glass!
They surged to the top of another low sand dune.

In an instant, the sight before them caused the five battle-hardened bandits of the grasslands to tighten their reins, their warhorses neighing and rearing up!

The low-lying area that suddenly opened up ahead was like a cruel and grotesque painting of hell, unfolding amidst the flickering torchlight and sparse gray mist!

Hundreds of skeletal archers formed a massive, ever-wriggling gray ring of death!

They stood in a bow stance, their empty eye sockets flickering with eerie green flames, their movements so synchronized they were chilling—nocking an arrow, drawing the bow, and firing!
Countless pale white bone arrows, like whistling locusts, tore through the air with sharp whistling sounds, emitting a hissing sound, and rained down on the core of the encirclement!

Surrounded at the core were about twenty knights!

They are the bone-armored cavalry of the Ghost Light Dynasty!

They charged left and right, struggling desperately amidst the pale rain of arrows!

The heavy, dark bone armor covered with twisted patterns made a dense, ear-piercing clanging sound under the impact of the rain of arrows. Arrows would occasionally pierce through the joint gaps or hit the unprotected parts of the bone horse, causing one or two unlucky cavalrymen and their mounts to shatter together!
But they also fought back, wielding sharp bone spears and bone knives, each swift attack cleaving several melee skeleton archers who tried to get close into pieces!
With a vast disparity in numbers, the skeletal archers, relying on their tight formation and relentless rain of arrows, were like a cold millstone, slowly crushing these formidable elites!
At this moment, a sudden change occurred!
Perhaps the light from the bandits' torches was too dazzling, or perhaps the sound of their approaching men alerted the guards on the outer edge of the battlefield.

A small squad of skeletal archers, positioned on the outer edge of the encirclement and preparing to fire their arrows at the center of the battlefield, suddenly turned their pale heads in unison, their leaping, ghostly green soul flames locking onto the five uninvited guests on the sand dune!
"Chuck! Chuck! Chuck!"

Without the slightest hesitation or warning!
At least a dozen white bone arrows instantly changed direction, carrying a chilling intent of death, and shot towards the top of the sand dune where Gegen and his group were!

"Watch out! Enemy attack!" Gegen reacted the fastest, shouting fiercely, while simultaneously pulling hard on the reins, causing his warhorse to roll to the side to avoid the attack.

The arrows clattered and pierced the sand dune where they had just stood, with the closest one even grazing Batu's saddle!
Their sudden appearance and subsequent attack clearly alarmed the center of the battlefield!

At the heart of the encirclement, the remaining dozen or so ghostly bone armor cavalrymen faced significantly less pressure!
As if grasping at this glimmer of hope, the leading bone armor cavalryman, whose soul fire was deepest in his eye sockets, suddenly raised his hideous, enormous bone blade!

A dense, unyielding "ghostly light," like solid, viscous ink, burst forth from it and the surrounding riders!

In the instant the black light flashed, speed and power increased dramatically!
Ignoring the sporadic attacks around them, they charged headlong like a battering ram carrying a heavy aura of darkness and destruction towards a point in the encirclement where the arrows had suddenly stopped and a brief period of chaos had occurred—the very same small group that had just attacked the bandits!
"Snap! Splash! Crash!"

The bone blade transformed into a pale white wheel of blades, easily tearing apart the skeletal archers blocking its path.

The skeletal warhorses, covered in dark bone armor, trampled and rammed like raging beasts.

In a single exchange, that small squad of skeleton archers was completely crushed, and a gap was torn open in the encirclement!
The remaining bone-armored cavalry did not stop. They burst out of the gap like ghosts, carrying with them the dense darkness that seemed to absorb all the light and the rolling gray mist, instantly merging into the deeper night in the distance.

They left behind a pile of shattered bones and a scene of devastation, as well as the remains of at least a dozen bone-armored cavalrymen who had been worn down by a hail of arrows during or before their breakout attempt.

The five bandits from the grasslands stared in shock at the direction in which the "ghostly" cavalry had disappeared.

After a brief silence, the hundreds of surviving skeletons of archers on the Gobi Desert turned their heads almost simultaneously, and hundreds of eerie green soul flames focused on the five tiny but conspicuous torchlights!

A chilling killing intent spread like a tide!
"Retreat! Retreat now!!" Gegen's scalp tingled, and he roared hoarsely.

The five men turned their horses around, spurred them on, and galloped headlong toward New Rivadin without looking back!

The warhorse galloped forward, kicking up clouds of dust.

Only after rushing a considerable distance did the chilling aura of hundreds of eerie green gazes fixed on him seem to lessen slightly. Recovering from his initial shock, Batu couldn't help but gasp for breath, his voice broken and intermittent from the rapid pace:
"Uncle Gegen...did you...notic that?"

"What?"

“Next to…the bone fragments of those Black Arrow Towers!” Batu struggled to organize his thoughts, the eerie scene replaying in his mind: “The gray fog where they were shooting arrows seemed…not so thick anymore. When we shone our torches over there, we could see shadows forty or fifty paces away. But…but those bone-armored cavalrymen who charged out of the encirclement, on their bodies, and in the patch of darkness where they fled…that darkness! That fog! It was so thick we couldn’t see anything at all, like ink! It practically sucked up all the light from our torches!”

Suhe chimed in, "Yes! It's strange! It seems like the archers are... a bit scattered around them? It's not as creepy..."

"To hell with whether it's strong or not!" Gegen roared, interrupting them. "It's a necromancer's trick! Stop thinking nonsense and hurry back to report to the lord! That's what's important!"

He was also haunted by that lingering sense of unease, but the most important thing now was to send the intelligence back.

The five men fell silent, keeping their doubts to themselves, and urged their warhorses onward, galloping towards the flickering firelight beyond the walls of New Rivadin, like five shooting stars hurtling towards a harbor, across the boundless dark desert.

Those experiences on the edge of the battlefield, the strange differences between darkness and gray fog, were also imprinted on their minds.

……

The cold night wind, carrying sand and gravel, relentlessly lashed the thick walls of Xinriwading.

The five bandits from the grasslands moved like startled deer driven by an invisible whip, darting swiftly through the gaps in the horse traps and barricades set up outside the city.

Gegen roared short commands that only the Khergit could understand, leading his companions along the "safety markers" strictly marked by Bestur—marked by inconspicuous, dark red wolf-tooth arrow shafts—as they desperately charged toward the heavy city gate that was slowly opening a crack.

"Whoosh—thud!" A whistling arrow, accompanied by a distinctive sound, landed precisely a few steps in front of them on the sand. Immediately following was Bestur's signature rough, hoarse roar carried on the night wind: "I see you! Get in here! Follow the markings, and don't step on your own spikes! Close the gate!!"

The heavy city gate opened rapidly with a screeching sound, and the five men practically stumbled through the cracks in the gate. The heavy hooves of the horses echoed dully on the stone slabs inside the gate.

The city gate slammed shut behind them with a loud crash, and the massive bolts fell, completely shutting out the darkness and gray fog that filled the city with a sense of impending death.

Ignoring their panting, dust-covered mounts, Gegen, Batu, and the others, led by several Kujit light infantrymen, staggered straight to Bestur's temporary encampment below the city walls.

The Kujit general was wide awake, his eyes bloodshot, like a trapped beast ready to devour its prey. After listening to the incoherent, fearful, and shocked report from Gegen and the others, his cheek twitched violently.

“Those bastards from the Black Arrow Tower… are actually targeting the Bone Armor Cavalry of the Spectre?!” Bestur chewed on this intelligence, his eyes flashing with ferocity. He slammed his hand on the wooden table covered with a map: “Go! Come with me to see the Lord immediately! Tell me everything you’ve seen and heard, without missing a single word, especially the difference between that damned ‘black light’ and ‘gray mist’!”

Inside the lord's hall in the main city tower, the light of the oil torches dispelled the chill of the night, casting leaping shadows on the cold stone walls.

Shen Mu did not rest, but remained standing in front of the unfolded sheepskin map that marked the terrain around New Rivadin.

Hearing the hurried footsteps of Betusir and the soldiers' disordered breathing, he slowly turned around.

Rezarit and Eleanor had also arrived upon hearing the news. The former wore his characteristic composure and prudence, while the latter crossed his arms and had eyes as sharp as an eagle.

“My lord!” Bestur stepped forward, his voice rough with the weariness of battle: “My eagles encountered a major incident on the outskirts of the southeastern outpost! At least four or five hundred skeleton archers from the Seventh Dynasty of Black Arrow Tower surrounded and thoroughly thrashed a group of bone-armored cavalry from the Second Dynasty of Darklight!”

He briefly recounted the observations of Gegen and others.

The sudden encounter, the encirclement of bone arrows raining down, the struggle and counterattack of the twenty-odd elite bone armor cavalry in the rain of arrows, and the thrilling scene of the bandits being attacked and unintentionally causing chaos in the encirclement, allowing the remaining dozen or so bone armor cavalry to seize the opportunity, burst open a gap with "ghost light" and break through the encirclement.

In particular, he emphasized the strange detail that Batu noticed.

Near the siege perimeter, where the archers were located, the pervasive gray fog seemed slightly thinner, while the darkness and gray fog, enveloped by the breaking-out bone armor cavalry, were as thick as ink, swallowing up the light.

"...Those bastards were gnawing on each other's skeletons all over the ground! When we arrived, the 'cavalry' of the Youguang Dynasty were being beaten to a pulp! Tsk tsk, that black light was terrifying when it was activated, bone fragments were flying everywhere! If Uncle Gegen and the others hadn't arrived at the 'right time,' those twenty or so riders would probably have all perished under the rain of arrows from the Black Arrow Tower!"

After saying that, Bestur spat out a mouthful of schadenfreude, his tone carrying both a sense of schadenfreude and a hint of fear of the "ghost light's" abilities.

For a moment, the only sound in the hall was the crackling of burning torches.

Rezarit frowned, while Eleanor stroked the hilt of his sword.

After hearing this, Shen Mu did not show any surprise or astonishment like the others, nor did he even frown. However, a cold understanding flashed in his deep, abyss-like eyes.

“This is not unexpected.” Shen Mu’s voice broke the silence, so calm that it was almost without a ripple, as if he were simply stating a perfectly natural fact.

He walked to the map, his long, slender fingers pointing precisely to the area representing the scorched desert outside the city: "Start from the coordinates that were like a 'gift' from the devil's 'Crimson Claw'..."

His gaze swept over the ominous-looking parchment scroll on the table, and he continued slowly:
"The distinct combat styles and energy characteristics of the different undead legions we encountered earlier are enough to make it clear that even though they both belong to the undead rules nurtured by this desolate desert, the 'Gloomy Dynasty' and the 'Black Arrow Tower Dynasty' are by no means a monolithic entity. Their instincts of greed and expansion are enough to make them covet each other and even fight each other. This unclaimed desert has always only believed in the law of the jungle."

Shen Mu's gaze returned to Gegen and Batu, who were reporting, his eyes sharp and clear: "Batu, you've observed very carefully. The difference in the density of that 'gray mist' is not an illusion, nor is it some kind of illusion. It's a more fundamental difference—it's the manifestation of two different undead power characteristics causing different interference and penetration into this space under the erosion of the rules of the spirit world."

These words made Batu straighten his back instantly, as if a key point had been revealed in his previously vague confusion. (End of Chapter)