With the rise of my family, I can summon the Daoist Soldiers' Nest.

As time went on, the situation on the battlefield gradually tilted in favor of the Northern Han.

Under Luo Jian's command, the Northern Han cavalry fought with increasing ferocity, and their pincer attack from both flanks relentlessly suppressed the last two 10,000-strong cavalry units of the Northern Xiongnu.

The previously tense and chaotic middle lane also changed. The Northern Xiongnu Protector with a chest injury was brutally killed on the front line under the repeated attacks of five top-class Northern Han warriors and several officers.

If Li Zhengfang were present at this moment, he would definitely recognize that this person was the protector whom he had severely injured before his death.

His old wounds had not yet healed, and he was besieged again. In the end, he could not escape death. His protective true energy collapsed at the last moment, and his body was pierced by several long swords and spears at the same time.

Meanwhile, the shamanic warriors of the Northern Xiongnu were gradually divided and surrounded by the Northern Han army, and were forced to retreat under the continuous siege.

Although Morigen fought bravely, Ning Wuji kept him occupied, preventing him from attacking the Northern Han soldiers. This resulted in Morigen's cavalry being entangled and running out of manpower.

Shaman warriors were already fewer in number than those of the Northern Han, and could only struggle to resist the Han army's relentless advance.

General Zhenwei Ma Yang keenly seized this opportunity and decisively gave the order.

The gates of Shuofang City were suddenly flung open, and 50,000 garrison troops began to line up and march out.

Squads of soldiers marched in orderly formation and quickly arrayed themselves in front of the city gate, surging outwards like a black tide.

The Left Grand Commandant of the Northern Xiongnu stood on a high point in the central army and saw the advancing formation outside the city in the distance. His heart sank.

He quickly looked around and found that his own forces had been exhausted, with no reinforcements, his cavalry were being held back by the Han army, and his shaman warriors were isolated and helpless, with no chance of turning the tide.

Left with no other choice, he gritted his teeth and gave the order to retreat.

The bugle call was low and drawn-out, carrying a sense of resentment and weariness, and it echoed throughout the camps of the Northern Xiongnu.

The centurions and chiliarchs of the Northern Xiongnu suppressed their shock and anger, wielding their swords to drive away their subordinates who were trying to stabilize their formation, while slowly retreating.

Although the Northern Han soldiers were exhausted, seeing that the enemy showed signs of retreat, the supervising officers and soldiers did not order a pursuit. Instead, they calmly gathered their lines and slowly retreated.

The cavalry squares on both sides halted their charge first, followed closely by the infantry, their swords and spears pointing diagonally at the ground.

Like the ebb and flow of the tide, the two enormous forces slowly separated in the center of the battlefield, and the originally interlocking and mutually penetrating formations were gradually separated by an invisible boundary.

The separation was not intense; there were no shouts or charges, only heavy footsteps and the sound of armor rubbing against each other.

The Northern Xiongnu army kept looking back as they retreated, wary of a surprise attack by the Han army.

The Northern Han army proceeded cautiously, maintaining a defensive posture, until the two sides were only a hundred paces apart. Only then did their shouts and killing intent completely cease, leaving only the sound of the wind and the groans of the wounded echoing across the wilderness.

When the two armies were completely separated, the entire battlefield at the north gate of Shuofang City was like a scroll soaked in blood and iron, quietly unfolding in the twilight.

In the central area, the corpses of Northern Xiongnu cavalrymen lay intertwined with the remains of Northern Han infantrymen. Many warhorses had stiff hooves and ruptured bellies, their internal organs and blood clots congealing into dark red patches on the hard, dry ground.

Broken lances, scimitars, halberds, and shattered shields were scattered among them, some deeply embedded in the soil, others trampled and deformed.

Some of the Northern Xiongnu cavalrymen fell after being pierced by spears, their bodies and horses still pinned together in a contorted position, clearly struggling in agony as they died.

The remains of the Northern Han soldiers were mostly concentrated at the front of their own lines. Some of them fell behind the shield wall, their hands still tightly gripping their halberds.

Some knelt on the ground, with enemy arrows or knife wounds stuck in their chests, their faces frozen with a final, resolute expression.

Others died while trying to break through the chaos of battle or being caught in the shockwaves of the Taoist soldiers. Their limbs were mutilated, and bloodstains ran from their wounds down to their bodies, mixing with the dust to form dark brown marks.

The fallen warriors were even more conspicuous.

The Northern Xiongnu's newly appointed protector lay face up in a pool of blood, the old wound on his chest still showing torn fabric and charred burn marks, surrounded by a large number of Northern Han soldiers.

Soldiers and cavalrymen were also scattered in a radial pattern around the other dead warriors.

Countless others were injured.

The wounded soldiers of the Northern Xiongnu retreated with difficulty, some clutching their bleeding abdomens and staggering along, others crawling on their stomachs due to broken legs. Their cries of pain and calls for their comrades sounded particularly jarring on the empty battlefield.

On the Northern Han side, many soldiers sat on the ground, leaning against their comrades or weapons, their faces pale and their breathing rapid. Some tried to press their hands against deep wounds that exposed bone, while others closed their eyes and endured the excruciating pain, waiting for the arrival of the medical officers and stretchers from the rear.

Looking around, the battlefield was filled with fallen banners and silent war drums; only the silent corpses and mottled bloodstains told the story of the carnage that had just taken place.

As the defeated side, the Northern Xiongnu had no resources left to recover the bodies of their fallen soldiers and the seriously wounded cavalry. They could only hastily retreat, abandoning the wounded and leaving their comrades' corpses exposed in the wilderness.

Although the Northern Han army won, it also paid a heavy price.

Ultimately, this great battle beneath the walls of Shuofang ended in a Pyrrhic victory for the Northern Han army.

The Northern Han army totaled 230,000, of which 50,000 remained to garrison Shuofang City and 180,000 were deployed to the battlefield. After several bloody battles and repeated assaults, more than 60,000 were killed or wounded.

The Northern Xiongnu army deployed 100,000 troops, suffering over 30,000 casualties. By the time of the retreat, only over 60,000 were able to leave with the troops.

On the shamanic side, of the more than thirty warriors who went into battle with the army, only a dozen or so were able to return to the camp intact, a loss of half their number.

One of the acquired Dharma protectors died, and Zuo Da Shaman's two acquired Dao soldiers, the Silver Moon Wolf Guards, were also annihilated in the fierce battle.

As night deepened, Liu Yun returned with the army to the Chen family's camp, her steps heavy, her armor covered in dried blood and dust.

He weaved through the wounded and exhausted crowd and finally found Lin Hu at a temporary shelter for the wounded.

Lin Hu was struck in the left arm by an arrow, the arrowhead penetrating deep into the bone. Due to the excruciating pain and blood loss, his face was as pale as paper.

During the battle, he fell from the Cracked Claw Wolf King beneath him. If it weren't for several Lin family warriors who risked their lives to rush into the gaps between the enemy cavalry and rescue him, he would probably have been trampled into mincemeat by the hooves of the Northern Xiongnu cavalry by now.

The Lin family sent ten third-rate martial artists to participate in this battle, but only eight returned. Two of them were left forever in the wilderness outside Shuofang City. The two Dao soldiers they had contracted also perished.

Of the eight survivors, all were wounded. Some had deep cuts in their arms that exposed bone, some had broken arrows stuck in their ribs, and others had damaged leg bones and needed assistance to walk.

The heaviest of them was struck head-on by the maces of the Northern Xiongnu cavalry, his body a bloody mess, barely recognizable as human. He was only saved by the Cracked Claw Wolf King risking his life to rush into the formation and forcibly carry him back.

At this moment, the person was lying on a makeshift stretcher, breathing weakly, his consciousness blurred, clinging to life only by sheer willpower.

The Chen family had 1,500 men who went on the expedition, but after the battle, only a little over 1,000 were able to return to the camp standing up, a loss of nearly 500.