“Sometimes, loyalty can be the most irrational thing when seen from other points of view.” - Saying attributed to the Silver Maiden.

Zhong Jiangjun Liu Zhong-Feng’s entire military career could be said to have been tied to that of Long Jiangjun Leung Hua-Jeong’s, given how he first started as a lowly soldier when the present Dragon General himself was still a mere team leader in charge of twenty-five men. The two of them had somehow stuck together as they rose through the military ranks, especially during the succession wars, where the aging Leung Hua-Jeong’s peerless archery skills were unveiled and displayed to the Empire at large.

When the then aged man was rewarded with a massive promotion in rank and told to pick his own assistants, Hua-Jeong had chosen the unit leaders who he had worked with for most of his life, Zhong-Feng amongst them.

Not every one of them managed to adjust to the higher ranks. One had to be demoted and discharged as they simply failed to perform in a position of high command, while another passed away during the fighting in the succession wars. Yet another had retired just three years ago as the man was even older than the Dragon General, leaving only Zhong-Feng to accompany the old general when the invasion was launched.

He had worked under Leung Hua-Jeong his entire military career, to the point that the older man often did not need to elaborate what he needed Zhong-Feng to do. The two already had a tacit understanding very few could match up to, born from the decades they spent working together with each other, and like always, Zhong-Feng had no plan to fail his superior.

As he was well aware that Hua-Jeong would not be able to actively command the battle while he was hunting for the enemy leadership, it was Zhong-Feng’s duty to make sure that the enemy would not get to bother him. For that reason, he arrayed his soldiers in multiple layers of defensive positions, aimed to prevent any enemy from disturbing his general.

Of course, that was not all he amounted to. He had also planned together with his fellow general Xingl Liat for her to prepare a warm welcome to any enemy coming their way while his troops kept the enemies occupied. The past couple of days, his troops might be outmatched by the enemy and had taken casualties, but it was not in vain.

They had learned of their foes through the battles they went through, which prepared them for today’s task at hand.

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That said, Liu Zhong-Feng had not lined the frontmostlines with his own prepared elites. Instead, he borrowed troops from other units to shore up those lines. That way his opponents would face less resistance early on, only to run into a steel wall when they met with his prepared elites deeper in, which should bog down the enemies at least briefly.

When they were thus delayed, Xingl Liat and her brutes – he always found the crude tribal woman a bit of an eyesore, but could not complain about her effectiveness as a warrior – would take them from the flanks, ideally cutting off the enemy advance and inflicting heavy casualties into the enemy troops, for a change. The past few days had been bad for the troops’ general morale, though elite troops like his were still capable of maintaining theirs. Either way, they needed to change how things were going to stand a chance to win this battle, which was proving harder than they expected.

As the battle started, the first half of the plan seemed to work flawlessly, even if there was a change on the opposing side that caught him somewhat by surprise. In the center of the squat, short warriors his elites had been facing the past couple of days were the enemy’s more normal looking soldier, at least for the most part. They actually did worse than Zhong-Feng had planned for, at least compared to the short ones.

On the other hand, from the center of those normal soldiers, a small force – it couldn’t be more than a couple thousand by his best guess – suddenly rose up and rushed forward, led by what looked like a moving wall of massive shields, their metallic shine gleaming under the sunlight. Caught by surprise, the soldiers he set at the frontmost line gave way without much resistance, either shoved aside or trampled by the enemy charge.

That charge only started to slow down when they ran into his elite troops in layered formation, but even then, Liu Zhong-Feng had to watch with mounting horror and surprise as the enemy troops pushed their way a good third into the depth of the formation before they were finally bogged down.

Then the shield wall opened to the side, revealing the massive, beastlike beings behind it and more that followed directly behind them that charged out and carved a bloody path deeper into the formation. His elites crumpled before the massive beasts that walked like men, in heavy armor and wielding equally massive weapons.

Even as his elite soldiers did their best to resist, the enemy at the center of their formation kept moving forward, seemingly unstoppable, and it was only when Zhong-Feng notices Xingl Liat’s troop moving from the flanks to strike the overextended enemy unit from its sides and cut off their lifeline did he finally breathe a sigh in relief.

Some of his troops had to make way to allow for Liat’s soldiers to pass through their formation as the enemy had pushed deeper in than either of them had expected, but it was still an acceptable result. Zhong-Feng knew that he was Long Jiangjun Leung Hua-Jeong’s shield today, a rule he had played more than once and never failed at. He had no plans of failing today, only to succeed or die in the attempt.

As Liat’s troops made contact with the sides of the enemy formation – a bit further behind where the large, beastlike ones were – Zhong Jiangjun Liu Zhong-Feng kept his eye on the enemy troops.

Surely they would crumble before such an assault, no?