Chapter 473: Chapter 220: Rout

Of course, they were only surprised and showed little other emotion.

For a group of warriors who had already resolved to die, their only desire was to fight to their hearts’ content!

The Gray Rock Bear Race slowly withdrew from the battlefield, but the surrounding Gnolls and earth goblins were anything but slow.

Gnolls and earth goblins were both hot-headed fighters—a common failing among low-level races. Once a battle began, all notions of formation and command vanished.

Of course, after the recent bloody battle at Centaur King City, the Jackal Wolfman Warriors were in a weakened state. Combined with the effects of Robson’s charge panel, their current frenzy wasn’t just due to being hot-headed—it was fueled more by the temptation of battlefield glory.

A whole band of Extraordinary Tiger Clan... The Jackal Wolfman Warriors couldn’t even begin to imagine the riches that represented...

"Get over here, you scum!"

Chief Kandar watched the Jackal Wolfman Warriors swarm toward him without a trace of fear, brandishing his scimitar and cutting them down with wild abandon.

.....

Though the Tiger Race Blood Warriors were formidable, they had only numbered in the hundreds upon their arrival. After a bloody battle, their ordinary soldiers had long been swallowed by a sea of Gnolls.

All that remained were a few dozen Extraordinary Tiger Race Warriors.

Chief Kandar had lost track of how long he’d been fighting. He could feel that he couldn’t squeeze another wisp of aura from his body, and he finally understood how these Gnolls had managed to push back the Tiger Race army...

Looking around, Chief Kandar could only see four or five of his Tiger Race Warriors left. They were all covered in wounds; clearly, they too had reached the end of their lives.

When the Chieftain tried to raise his scimitar again, he found his old comrade-in-arms felt impossibly heavy.

"Die!"

All the Chieftain saw was a flash of silver...

....

Chief Moer claimed Chief Kandar’s head. The remaining four or five Tiger Race Blood Warriors did not last much longer, soon collapsing into pools of their own blood.

At this point, to say the Tiger Race was in a "steady retreat" would be a gross understatement.

The worldview of every Tiger Race Warrior had just been shattered.

As much as they wanted to deny it, the truth was laid bare before them.

They had been defeated by a pack of low-level races.

This wasn’t just a defeat; they were at risk of complete annihilation!

Because of their pride, the Tiger Tribe Chiefs had already missed the optimal moment to order a retreat.

Twenty thousand Jackal Wolfman Warriors! That was no laughing matter.

The endless tide of Gnolls was gradually tightening its encirclement. No one was directing them; they acted of their own accord. Once the battlefield dissolved into chaos, such an outcome was inevitable.

More and more Tiger Race Warriors were being cut down.

"This... this must be the work of an Evil God! Quick! Retreat and find His Highness Prince!"

"The Gnolls have submitted to an Evil God! Retreat! Quick, retreat!"

Not all of them were Tiger Race Blood Warriors. In fact, a third of the Tiger Race Warriors had already been eliminated, and nearly every survivor had multiple wounds of varying severity.

The fact that they were only just beginning to retreat under such conditions was a testament to their elite training!

Moreover, the retreat wasn’t initiated by the rank-and-file warriors. It was the Tiger Tribe Chiefs overseeing the battle who broke first.

There was no other way. On the Beastman Grassland, strength was paramount, and their losses were simply too devastating...

The Tiger Race Warriors were unwilling and unable to admit they had lost to a group of low-level races.

Only when the Chieftains began crying out about an Evil God did the warriors feel some relief, allowing them to retreat with a clear conscience.

After all, an Evil God was still a god!

The Gnolls now had the help of an Evil God. They were mere mortals; how could mortals possibly compare to a god?

"Retreat!"

Once this rationalization was complete, the Tiger Race’s retreat began.

But this was easier said than done. When the Chieftains actually tried to organize it, they discovered that with a third of their forces lost, an orderly retreat was nearly impossible.

With a third of their forces decimated, the very structure of the Tiger Race army was broken.

Countless officers, major and minor, had been lost. There were not enough mid-level commanders left to organize a proper withdrawal.

"Make way!"

"They’re charging again! Out of my way, I’m from the Royal Family! Let me through!"

Watching the chaos unfold, the Tiger Tribe Chiefs couldn’t understand how a simple retreat had devolved into this.

’Has our Tiger Race truly fallen so far?’

In truth, of course, that wasn’t the case.

The main reason was the Tiger Race’s status as the Beastman Royal Family. Their Royal Court was situated a moderate distance from the main front lines, so they were rarely embroiled in conflicts that caused such large-scale, organizational casualties.

It wasn’t that the Tiger Race Warriors weren’t elite. Rather, they had never faced such a disastrous situation, nor had they ever encountered such a formidable foe!

The Tiger Tribe Chiefs wanted to restore order to their army.

Unfortunately, a retreat isn’t something you can just halt on command.

Before, they had fought with their lives on the line because they had no good reason to retreat.

Facing the Gnolls, a deep-seated pride had sustained them, compelling every warrior to continue fighting for their lives on the battlefield.

Unfortunately, that pride had now been shattered by the Tiger Tribe Chiefs themselves.

They claimed the reason the Gnolls were winning was because they were possessed by an Evil God...

In short, due to the massive losses among the mid-level command, an organized retreat was impossible. It quickly devolved into an all-out flight.

The Beastman Warriors shoved and trampled one another, each scrambling to be the first to escape.

"Hold your ground! Hold! Reform the lines! Orderly retreat! Hold!"

Many Chieftains still tried to restore order, but it was already an impossible task.

"Chieftain! Run for it! It’ll be too late if we don’t go now!"

Some of the Chieftains’ close aides began urging their masters to flee for their lives.

Finally, some of the higher-ranking leaders broke and joined the fleeing masses. Soon, the entire army of Tiger Race People followed suit.

It was like opening Pandora’s box. More and more warriors joined the stampede...

.....

"They’re running! Warriors, glory and riches are within your grasp!"

"For the Lord Envoy! For the Almighty One! Destroy these bastards!"

The retreat of the Tiger Race Warriors ultimately devolved into a complete and utter rout.

The Tiger Race Warriors scattered in all directions, only to find to their despair that there were Gnolls everywhere—an endless sea of them!

By the time the last sizable group of Tiger Race Warriors broke free of the Gnoll encirclement, only a few hundred remained of their original five thousand.

The rest had either fallen in battle or had been scattered to the winds.

.....

"For Affleck!" "For Fengman!"

Meanwhile, Prince Trilman, leading several thousand of his elite troops, had already clashed with the human cavalry on multiple occasions.

At this moment, Prince Trilman’s forehead was covered in cold sweat, and even his hands were trembling uncontrollably.

The reason was simple: the strength of the human cavalry before him far exceeded his expectations.

If it were only the Fengman Knight Order, things might have been manageable.

The crucial factor was that, in addition to the Fengman Knight Order, there was also a Heavy Cavalry Corps!

Prince Trilman had scouted them carefully. The Heavy Cavalry Corps numbered over five hundred, but only a hundred or so possessed an aura, and even they weren’t particularly strong.

But the pressure this unit exerted on Prince Trilman was far greater than that of the elite Fengman Knight Order!

This Heavy Cavalry Corps was simply too mobile, too adept at finding the perfect angle of attack. Though they were a corps of individual cavalry, they moved as a single entity. When they charged, they shattered the Tiger Race Warriors’ formation.

What was most uncanny was that whenever Prince Trilman tried to find an angle to pin them down, they always managed to disengage and escape.

This Heavy Cavalry Corps never initiated an attack on the Tiger Race Blood Warriors surrounding Prince Trilman. Instead, they relentlessly charged the ordinary soldiers.

"Die!"

Just as Prince Trilman was contemplating how to break the stalemate, an arrow suddenly flew at his face. He instinctively threw up a hand to block it, preventing the shaft from piercing his eye.

’Damn it! Damned humans!’

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