It doesn't matter what the lord is.

Along with the explosion of sword energy, a rapid horn sounded in the woods.

Without any orders, countless soldiers rushed out of the forest covered with mud and leaves, attacking Li Neng's army from the left and right, like two sharp knives piercing the softest abdomen, completely catching Li Neng off guard. The army in front had already run a hundred meters away, and when they saw the disaster in the rear, they were caught in an awkward dilemma for a while. Even many exhausted soldiers did not have time to react, and did not even think about returning to help, and were still running towards Yuxi City.

Li Neng had never expected to be ambushed here. The sword energy just now made too much noise, which startled the horse he was riding. The frightened white horse was out of control for a while, and knocked away four or five soldiers in succession before it barely stopped. Li Neng had almost no time to make any command, and the soldiers of Yuxi City had already rushed his formation into pieces.

But Li Neng had read some military books after all, and knew that this was the most desperate time, but he could not just give up. Many generals in history turned around and ran away when they encountered an ambush, and that was when they really couldn't escape.

On the contrary, if he could gather his troops as soon as possible, there would still be room for improvement.

"Are you pigs? Are you being chased and killed? Pick up your weapons, have you forgotten what I taught you? Attack, attack! Take the spears and lances in your hands and fight back!!"

Li Neng whipped a hesitant soldier in the face, causing blood to ooze from his mouth and nose.

But they were attacked in a hurry, and they didn't know how many ambushes were in the forest. Lineng's army was already in a state of disarray. Lineng's idea was indeed correct. At this time, the situation must be stabilized to have a chance of turning the tables. However, an ambushed army most needs a person with leadership qualities to tell everyone what to do now. Simply beating and scolding is the job of the supervisory team and will not have any effect.

So when one soldier was beaten, instead of the other soldiers recovering quickly, they showed more signs of fleeing.

The biggest effect of Li Neng's shout was that it made the Yuxi City army realize that the silly general riding a tall horse was the enemy commander. So in an instant, the soldiers of Yuxi City quickly changed the direction of battle and rushed directly to Li Neng.

Li Neng was stunned.

"What are you standing there for? Protect me! Quick, stop these beasts!"

Li Neng, who was at a loss, could only scold and turn his horse to flee to where his soldiers were concentrated. In the process, the brave horse he was riding knocked down many of his own soldiers, creating more chaos.

After it was a little safer, a personal soldier rushed back and said to Li Neng:

"Third Young Master, Yuxi City has already set up an ambush here. I'm afraid it will be difficult to succeed this time. The most urgent task is to return to Lingyun City immediately to meet up with the eldest young master and report the situation here. We will escort the third young master back. Please give the order as soon as possible."

Li Neng recognized that this was one of the elite soldiers assigned to him by Li Yi, but he didn't care about being polite at the moment and directly ordered:

"Go back? If we flee now and Yuxi City launches a pursuit, won't all our people die here?"

As soon as he finished speaking, his expression suddenly changed, and he had already reacted:

"You f*cking want my people to stay behind to cover us?"

The elite soldier said calmly:

"We are the soldiers of the eldest son, not the third son. We will not fight a battle that we are not sure of winning or that will cost us too much. The eldest son has already given us instructions in advance. If we encounter any danger, we only need to take the third son back with us."

Li Neng really wanted to say, if every battle in the world is a sure win, what do we need you for? !

Before he could finish his words, the shouting and screaming were getting closer.

In times of crisis, the army under Li Neng was completely in disarray. Li Neng's military formation training was to make them memorize who was in front, behind, left and right of them, so once they were dispersed at the beginning, they had no idea what to do in the chaos. In contrast, the army of Yuxi City not only had been recuperating for a long time, but also had the dual BUFFs of [Formation Enhancement] and [Territory Protection], which made them completely unstoppable.

Now even Lineng hesitated.

Who wouldn't want to run if they could? Even if the army they had painstakingly organized suffered heavy casualties, at least they could survive. If they stayed here and continued to fight, who knew what the outcome would be.

Li Neng looked at the soldiers from Yuxi City who were charging towards him and swallowed.

At this moment, a voice suddenly rang out on the battlefield:

"There are only 400 ambushes, and our number is three times that of the enemy. Can't three of us kill one person? If we keep running like this, no one will survive! Those who are willing to fight, follow me, Juanbai, and I will personally lead the troops to buy time for everyone to form a battle array, but you must do it as soon as possible! Don't panic. If you find that the people in front of you have unfortunately died when forming a battle array, the people behind you will make up for it! Quickly, quick, move, the people at the front of the army, stand in an open area first, and the others will follow quickly!"

There was no morale-boosting talk in these words, they were as plain as a physical education teacher gathering a group of disorganized students.

But there are actually two crucial pieces of information hidden in this:

First, make sure every soldier knows what he or she is going to do next.

Second, let them know that there is hope if they do this.

So the soldiers who were originally fleeing quickly gathered together, and Juanbai also fulfilled his promise and led his soldiers to attack the army of Yuxi City.

But Juanbai was very smart. He did not engage in a head-on battle with the soldiers of Yuxi City, but instead adopted a roundabout tactic.

He didn't know which officer he had snatched a horse from. At this moment, he didn't care about the hierarchy at all. Everything he did was to survive. With high mobility and his own realm cultivation, he could play a certain role in restraining the soldiers of Yuxi City.

Li Neng immediately saw hope. But he did not notice the difference between what Selaginella said and what he said. He only saw that no one paid attention to him after he yelled a few times, but after Selaginella said a few words, everyone started to move. He felt that he needed to show his presence, so he immediately turned his horse around and ran towards the army. When he saw a soldier who couldn't find his position, he whipped him without saying a word, and scolded him while beating him:

"You useless idiots, why don't you hurry up? How can you be soldiers if you are like this? Look at how different you are from the soldiers in Yuxi City? They don't even need anyone to command them, and look at you! You think of running away first when you encounter something, is this your attitude? Whoever doesn't work hard, I will chop him with my sword first!"

What Li Neng didn't know was that the soldiers he whipped and reprimanded had actually been trying their best to find their positions. However, due to the long march and lack of food, they were already quite weak. In addition, the army formation changed a lot, so it was difficult for them to stand in the right place in a short time. They were already anxious, and they were whipped and scolded. The grievance and anger made them not want to fight seriously anymore, and the desire to escape resurfaced.

What Li Neng didn't know was that he slowed down the pace of the soldiers' gathering and almost killed Selaginella, who was desperately fighting against the army of Yuxi City. During this period, he went in and out of the army of Yuxi City several times and suffered at least five or six serious injuries. The soldiers following him also went through life and death. Everyone held their breath and tried their best to squeeze out a little strength from the depths of their muscles. Every second was a torment of life and death.

If he was distracted for a moment and looked back at this moment, and saw that the situation he had finally eased had turned into this, I wonder what he would think.

But Selaginella never looked back once, not because he was brave or fearless, but because he wanted to survive so badly that he had to give it his all.

24. Unreachable distance

I don't know if it was luck or God helps those who help themselves, but when Selaginella retreated from the front line with a serious wound on his abdomen, thousands of soldiers had already formed a battle formation. Although this formation seemed far from meeting the real standard, it was at least enough.

Li Neng was doing his best to make the final adjustments. When he saw Selaginella coming back, he immediately rode forward and ordered him:

"Shanbai, I have already made a battle plan. I will now divide the army into three teams. One team will be given to you. You will help me contain the ambush troops of Yuxi City. One team will be led by my eldest brother's people to encircle and suppress the guy who just broke through our army formation with a sword. The other team will be led by me personally to take Yuxi City directly!"

Li Neng spoke with great pride, waved his fist fiercely, stared at the wall of Yuxi City, and said:

"I don't believe that those bastards who ambushed us can still sit still when Yuxi City is attacked! When they come back to reinforce, they will definitely reveal their flaws. Then you and I will attack them from both sides and chop them into pieces..."

Selaginella rode past on his horse, letting Li Neng talk nonsense, not bothering to explain a single word to him.

He rode his horse to the soldiers standing in formation, put his sword back into its scabbard, took out his spear from behind, pointed it at the sky, and said loudly:

"Don't worry about what the Third Young Master said to you just now. Forget it all from now on! Next, I will lead you to launch the first and only charge. All you have to do is to follow me closely, trust me, and trust the people around you! As long as our army formation does not collapse, our advantage of three times that of the enemy will still exist."

He swung the tip of his gun downwards, and beads of sweat on his face flew into the air.

The injury in his abdomen continued to worsen, but the large amount of adrenaline secreted made him temporarily forget the pain.

At this moment, he stood in front of thousands of soldiers. His armor and weapons were not as sharp as Li Neng, but for some reason, as the warhorse under him neighed, this rock-hard and cold face was remembered by everyone.

Until they died in battle or retired many years later, they remembered this face.

At this moment, thousands of soldiers chose to obey his orders without any prior agreement.

Li Neng's face turned pale with anger. He drew his sword and shouted at Juanbai:

"You're going to disobey my orders?!"

The soldiers beside Selaginella also drew their swords and faced each other. Their swords were still stained with blood, which made Li Neng shrink back. Selaginella held the spear in one hand and said to Li Neng:

"I have no intention of disobeying the Third Young Master's orders, but I also have a promise to my subordinates. I want to keep them alive and cannot watch them being killed by the Third Young Master's misjudgment. The Third Young Master might as well calm down and think about it. There is no chance of winning if we just push forward, and splitting into three groups is tantamount to self-destruction."

As soon as he finished speaking, Juanbai tightly gripped the spear in his hand, took a deep breath, shouted loudly, and rode his horse towards the Yuxi City army that was ready for battle.

He probably went there with the intention of never returning and living towards death.

So the soldiers also mobilized the last bit of strength in their bodies and followed him.

The soldiers of Yuxi City neither hid nor fled, and the soldiers in the front simply chose to set up shields on the spot.

The heavy iron shield was covered with silver-white spikes, like a small barricade. Selaginella had to turn over and get off the horse. The horse, which had no time to stop, crashed into the iron shield, knocking five or six shield soldiers back, but he was also nailed to the shield. The iron shield that pierced the horse became extremely heavy, and the shield soldiers had to discard their shields and draw their iron swords to prepare to meet the enemy.

Selaginella seized the opportunity at this moment and charged directly into the army of Yuxi City.

Three stabs knocked three soldiers away, and another horizontal swing forced back the soldier in front of him.

The wound on Selaginella's abdomen burst open and blood gushed out.

He had seen the formation in front of him before. He had secretly observed Yunyang's army before and knew that this formation was a very difficult one among the defensive formations. Unless one could penetrate directly into the army formation and then fight four or five ways out to disintegrate this formation directly from the inside, otherwise this formation would be as hard as a hedgehog with its hair blown up.

So Selaginella can only bet on this point now.

Fortunately, after the formation was completed, he began to receive the protection of the army, otherwise he would have been submerged in the crowd in an instant.

After forcing back several soldiers from Yuxi City, Juanbai immediately led his men to attack in the chaos.

He led his army to tear open a gap in the formation of Yuxi City, and also killed and injured dozens of Yuxi City soldiers. But the more they fought, the more frightened Juanbai was secretly. He soon discovered that the soldiers of Yuxi City did not retreat, nor did they fall into chaos. No matter how many of their companions fell, they bravely moved forward as if they were tireless.

After realizing that there was a big difference in their spear skills, the soldiers of Yuxi Castle engaged Selaginella in close combat with swords.

The battle line shrank, and it became difficult for Selaginella to display his spear skills.

A sword slashed across, and Selaginella held the spear upright to block it. The spear body immediately let out a mournful cry. After a few strikes, the entire spear actually broke in two!

Selaginella was stunned for a moment, dropped his gun, drew the sword from his waist, and slashed at the soldier's armor. This time he used the sword art that he was not proficient in but had learned a little bit, and the sword broke through the soldier's armor and knocked him to the ground.

Without giving him time to breathe, the soldiers from Yuxi City surrounded him again.

From the corner of his eye, Juanbai saw many soldiers who followed him were directly pierced by the neat and orderly spear array, like eggs smashed on hard rocks. The three-fold advantage did not play a crushing effect, and the damage caused to the Yuxicheng army was very limited.

Selaginella knew that the people on his side had reached their limit.

They still wanted to fight bravely, and even desperately rushed forward to fight with the soldiers of Yuxi City, but the long-term devilish training and the painful torture of hunger made their hands holding the weapons tremble, and their attacks were weak and powerless. You know, when the soldiers of Yuxi City were still resting in the forest and waiting for the opportunity, their people were marching in the hot sun, sweating profusely.

Selaginella clenched his teeth.

He clenched the sword in his hand and once again attacked a soldier from Yuxi City who was rushing towards him.

——No matter how desperate and unwilling you are, there are only two outcomes on the battlefield: life or death.

At the moment of the sword-to-sword confrontation, it was clear that Selaginella's strength was superior. But he felt the strength in his hands go away, and his body began to lean forward unnaturally. Selaginella looked at the sword in his hand fiercely, and the sword that only Yunyang school officers were qualified to use was directly cut into two pieces by the weapon in the hands of the unknown person.

This shows that the broken spear was not accidental at all, and the opponent's armaments are obviously one level higher than ours.

Selaginella couldn't stop its forward momentum, so it just went straight forward.

At that moment, he saw the light in the soldier's eyes, a light that should not appear in the eyes of an ordinary soldier.

Those eyes were filled with hope for life, filled with a fearless ferocity, and even contained a hint of desire and enthusiasm for war. They formed a sharp contrast with the soldiers on his side who had long been dull and numb.

He's not afraid at all!

Selaginella's broken sword pierced the man's chest, but unfortunately it didn't hit his heart, but it should have at least severely damaged his lungs. What shocked him was that the soldier held his legs tightly even when he fell, and refused to let go no matter what. Selaginella wanted to finish off the man, but the surrounding soldiers had already rushed forward. He only felt something heavy hitting his temple, and then his eyes went black and he fainted.

25. Lack of wisdom

Although he managed to clean up the mess on Lineng's side by himself, Juanbai knew before launching the charge that this hastily assembled army could only offer a glimmer of hope in a desperate situation. In fact, the outcome of the war had been basically decided long ago.

Li Neng was not a complete fool, he was smarter than his elder brother Li Yi. It was just that he had too many preconceived ideas, and subjectively believed that the current Yuxi City had no power to resist him, so he had no sense of vigilance at all.

Of course, this cannot be entirely blamed on Li Neng. Now the whole world thinks that the elite troops of Yuxi City were wiped out in the war against the demons, and this inherent impression is difficult to reverse.

So when he captured two cities in a row and gained a huge advantage, Li Neng did not consider the danger behind it at all. In addition, he had indeed paid a large sum of money to hire an assassin to kill Fang Shisan before, so the news of Fang Shisan's assassination seemed completely logical to him. So he immediately rushed over without stopping and ran into an ambush and died.

And what about Selaginella?

As a small school officer, he had no access to information. He only realized something was wrong when he saw the majestic walls of Yuxi City, but it was too late. Moreover, the army he had finally assembled had been exhausted by Li Neng, which was equivalent to being depleted before the team battle even started. It can be said that at this point, Yuxi City's victory was already doomed.

As soon as Selaginella fell, Li Neng's army collapsed. No matter how Li Neng tried to gather the troops, they no longer obeyed his command. No one knew who dropped their weapons first, but everyone took off their weapons and equipment, threw them away, knelt down, and chose to surrender.

The soldiers of Yuxi City did not kill all the soldiers who had lost their will to resist. Some of them were assigned to supervise them, while the other part continued to line up to hunt down Li Neng. At this moment, except for a small number of new soldiers who were still willing to follow Li Neng, there were only the 300 or so people that Li Yi lent him. Fortunately, the masters that Li Neng had spent a lot of money to recruit also survived, including the bearded man who threatened to kill Alaiya alone.

These people originally followed the soldiers in the charge, but when they saw the situation was not good halfway through, they immediately turned around and ran.

Li Neng knew that if he continued to delay, he would be powerless to save the situation. This time, he withdrew decisively. Thinking back to this inexplicable failure along the way, Li Neng always felt indignant.

Thinking that his men could not defend the newly captured Tianqi City and Lieyang City, Li Neng reined in his horse and ordered:

"Change the route! Go to Tianqi City and Lieyang City first and take away all the valuables. If you can't take them away, burn them!"

Although Xianqi City and Lieyang City were taken back by Li Neng, they were not destroyed. Because in Li Neng's eyes, these things were originally his. If he allowed his subordinates to burn, kill and loot, wouldn't that be a crime against himself? But now it's different. Since he lost this time, he doesn't plan to keep those things for Lao Si.

The elite troops borrowed from Li Yi looked at each other and agreed with Li Neng's opinion.

After all, this means that these elite soldiers who fought in the battles can make another fortune, so there is no reason to refuse.

So the group set off for Lieyang City in a mighty manner.

Unfortunately, after walking just a few miles, Li Neng had to rein in his horse again. It was not because he had any sudden ideas, but because the road was blocked. The soldiers of Yuxi City had already been waiting on this road, and the leader was Fang Shisan, who was sitting in a wheelchair with his eyes closed and a smile on his face.

She seemed to be in a good mood:

"When I was discussing with Lid not long ago, I told him that our army was too small and it would not be easy to keep guests from afar. Lid told me, then you can guess what they will do after they are defeated? So I am waiting for you here... Now it seems that my guess was right."

Fang Shisan raised her head. Although she couldn't see where Li Neng was, she still smiled beautifully and said:

"It seems that the Third Young Master Yunyang and our City Lord haven't seen each other for a long time. Why don't you stay and meet and talk before leaving."

Li Neng rode on his horse, staring at Fang Shisan, who was wearing a long skirt and silver armor, his eyes full of hatred.

He looked around silently. There were only about 200 soldiers lined up behind Fang Shisan. If anything, they might not be able to stop him. Standing behind Li Neng were the elite troops assigned to him by Li Yi, as well as many experts. In comparison, Fang Shisan was a little too arrogant. The only person standing behind him was Alayya, a kendo rookie who looked quite talented.

With this thought in mind, Li Neng snorted coldly:

"What can I say to him? Don't be too happy too soon. If those idiots hadn't collected enough intelligence and hadn't ambushed me, I would have razed Yuxi City to the ground! When I return to Lingyun City, I will be cautious in my next attack. Let's see who will have the last laugh!"

Fang Shisan was not angry, but said calmly: