Chapter 164: The Nations on the Sheep's Horns (Part Two)

Before the nation of the Horse Tamers was founded, they were always known as the Bone-Swallowing Tribe. They built no houses, practiced no agriculture, and rode their horses wherever they pleased, plundering as they went. With their swift mounts and stiff bows, they plagued various kingdoms until they were driven to distraction. Consequently, the Roman Dynasty, Majidon, and Polan formed a coalition specifically to counter the Horse Tamers.

"Back then, Sparks was located in the distant black region. Each of the Seven Horned Sheep Kingdoms had its own distinct characteristics. The Horse Tamers produced hordes of bandits and robbers, the Roman Dynasty flourished in commerce, and Gasha was home to countless eccentric geniuses. Sparks, on the other hand, was a martial nation. Sparksian warriors had long enjoyed the reputation of being 'unsurpassed under heaven.' The very warrior once hailed as the greatest hero of the human race, the one who tore apart the Great Demon King Crixin's white dragon—Bailongdu—hailed from Sparks."

"Unlike the Horse Tamers, Sparks placed far greater emphasis on honor. The Horse Tamers pillaged purely for the sake of plundering, something the Sparksians viewed with utter contempt. Therefore, the King of Sparks dispatched fifty elite warriors to assist in the campaign."

"Only fifty?"

Ye Ran found this somewhat absurd.

Qianlong shrugged. "Looking back at the history of Sparksian warfare, victories achieved with inferior numbers against superior forces are dime a dozen. What can you do when their warriors are simply ferocious beasts? At the very least, the King of Sparks at the time didn't take the Bone-Swallowing Tribe seriously at all."

"Now let's look at the balance of forces between the two sides. Back then, the Bone-Swallowing Tribe spent year after year roaming the steppes, burning, killing, and looting, leaving them no time to multiply. Their total population was less than twenty thousand, and a little under half of those were old folks, women, and children. Meanwhile, the three-nation coalition mustered an army of two hundred thousand. The discrepancy in troop strength was tenfold."

"With such a disparity in forces, it seemed there was no hope of victory whatsoever. Yet right at that moment, the young Attila decided to split his forces into two routes, making an already precarious military situation even worse."

"Split his forces into two routes?"

Even though Ye Ran knew nothing of military tactics, he felt this was practically courting self-destruction.

Qianlong laughed. "Attila was driven to desperation. He decided to lead the majority of the Bone-Swallowing Tribe's elite on a detour to raid the three nations and press straight toward their capitals. His plan was either to force them to retreat or to pillage and then flee to another region. Meanwhile, Yi Moxie, who had only recently begun to make a name for himself, was tasked with taking fewer than ten thousand troops to tie down the coalition army."

Ye Ran sneered, "Sacrificing someone is just sacrificing someone, why call it tying them down?"

Qianlong nodded, "Indeed, that was the case. Attila wanted to sacrifice Yi Moxie to preserve some sparks of hope for himself, awaiting a day when he could make a comeback and reshape the world. What he never anticipated, however, was that Yi Moxie's subsequent actions and achievements would catch everyone completely off guard."

Ye Ran's eyebrows twitched as he asked, "How so?"

Qianlong tapped his fingers together and said, "Let me calculate. The day Attila and Yi Moxie split their forces was mid-March, just as winter was ending and early spring had arrived—prime time for pursuit. Yet by late April, the coalition's two hundred thousand troops had already been worn down by over ten thousand casualties due to exhaustion. By May, another twenty thousand had perished from a rare disease. In July, fewer than a hundred and fifty thousand remained of the two hundred thousand. By October, the coalition had already lost more than half its forces."

"Meanwhile, Yi Moxie's ten thousand men had also lost half their number. The only difference was that his men weren't killed by the coalition, but executed on Yi Moxie's direct orders."

Ye Ran was dumbfounded. "Why... why would he do..."

Qianlong shrugged. "You can't fathom why Yi Moxie did that? No one knew how he pulled it off at the time. But once the truth came to light, not a single army was ever willing to fight him again, not even Attila."

"The Horse Tamers' nomadic guerrilla troops possessed high mobility. Yi Moxie initially led the coalition toward small towns and secluded areas, before their arrival, he gathered all the food in the town, consumed everything they could, and burned whatever was left. When the coalition arrived, he would first drive the captured townspeople to the front lines to make the coalition hesitate, and then either seize the opportunity to launch a charge or burn the town and turn back immediately. In short, he left no supplies whatsoever for the coalition."

"At first, they merely burned towns and villages. Later, seeing the coalition forage in the mountains and forests, they took it upon themselves to fill valleys when encountering mountains, burn forests when encountering woods, and poison water sources when encountering rivers. Look at this barren wasteland in the Gray Fifteenth District; Yi Moxie created this."

"This was a mutual destruction tactic. In the later stages, the coalition had no food and no supplies, and neither did they. So they began to resort to cannibalism."

"Cannibalism?"

Ye Ran frowned.

Qianlong nodded. "First they ate the captured prisoners of war, then they ate the slaves they brought along, and eventually they ate their own people. Able-bodied young men capable of fighting were spared for the moment, but they ate the elderly first, then the women, followed by the children, and finally the wounded. Tell me, how could the three-nation coalition possibly win against that kind of warfare?"

Listening to this, Ye Ran felt both nauseated and furious. He snorted, "If I ever run into that bastard, I'll run him through with a spear for sure."

Qianlong shook his head. "Yi Moxie is no Attila; he rarely takes to the field personally. In that single battle, he dragged ten thousand upon ten thousand coalition troops to their deaths through sheer exhaustion. Not only did he relieve the siege on Attila, but he also struck terror into the hearts of the three nations. To this day, Polan and Majidon obediently pay annual tribute to Attila, while the Roman Dynasty relocated its entire nation to the white region. Although Sparks doesn't fear Attila, it is simply too far away, making intervention impossible. That is why the Horse Tamers in the Gray Fourteenth District always act with such impunity."

"Still, it's a good thing there's a split within the Horse Tamers now. A man like Yi Moxie is never going to willingly bow down and serve under someone else. His appetite is even bigger than Attila's."

Ye Ran nodded, "Attila is certainly no match for Yi Moxie. He's merely brutal, whereas Yi Moxie is completely devoid of human nature. If a man like that replaces Attila, Polan and Majidon are going to have a hard time."

Qianlong smiled, "Unless other racial factions or forces of the Slaughter tier intervene, that is indeed how it will play out."

"Slaughter tier forces?"

Ye Ran turned to look at him; this was yet another novel term.

Qianlong shrugged, "Various organizations and factions on the Horned Sheep Continent are classified by tiers. Anything exceeding a certain level of strength is designated as 'Slaughter tier.' As for the exact standards required to reach this rating, I'm not entirely sure. Anyway, someone like me could never join a Slaughter-tier organization."

Ye Ran was secretly astonished, yet felt somewhat clueless at the same time, because Qianlong was truly not a very reliable baseline for measuring strength...

"Below Slaughter tier is White Brick tier, and above it is Annihilation tier. So far, quite a few Slaughter-tier organizations are known to exist, including the Sixth Divine Temple, the Thunder Divine Temple, and the War Divine Temple. Annihilation-tier ones are much rarer; the only ones I know of are the Zeus Divine Temple, the Demon-Subduing Palace, and certain factions under the command of the Demon race. As for Palace tier... well, that only exists in legends."

Ye Ran couldn't help but gape. "Divine temples are included in this grading system too?"

"Of course," Qianlong nodded. "There's a lot of profound knowledge to this. Let me break it down for you properly..."