A circle of dead covered by arrows lay around the thousand eight hundred of the Snowdrifts. Many of the cavalry that retreated and quite a few that stood too close had fallen. During the short period of engagement, every archer had fired at least two shots while plenty loosed three or four arrows.
The northern cavalry of five thousand strong had lost nearly five hundred by the sudden attack, in addition to the two groups that tried unsuccessfully to charge through the Snowdrifts, nearly nine hundred were killed in a single turn.
The barbarians were distraught – though that may be an understatement of their actual feelings.
Their leader was a Chief that was half-way becoming a War Chief. Once he recruits ten thousand units, he will automatically have his promotion.
It may sound a distance away, but considering the requirement to reach Chief-level is only having a hundred subordinates, he is pretty strong for recruiting five thousand.
Barbarians challenge their brethren regularly to climb up the ranks from childhood, and also as a measure of strength.
There is only one simple rule: The defeated must follow the victor.
To be considered grownups and receive their warrior title, they must first complete their adulthood trial: to brave the monster-filled savage lands and hunt down B ranked practitioners.
Afterwards, to raise in ranks, they need to defeat a number of kinsmen concurrently.
The ones they challenge must also be at least the same rank as themselves or above.
For example, to become Chief one needs to defeat a hundred barbarians that have completed the warrior’s rites.
To turn into a War Chief, one needs to have ten thousand followers – and that means challenging a hundred Chiefs and defeating them all in one go.
The underlings of those defeated Chiefs will automatically join under the War Chief’s banner.
Afterwards, War Chiefs can promote into Lords by defeating ten War Chiefs, and in the future they can become Warlords by defeating five Lords.
They will become a king, or Khan as called in their language after defeating five Warlords.
But to be the Great Khan it will require them to trounce all the Khans in the land.
Right now, the barbarian cavalry that surrounds the Snowdrifts numbered five thousand – including the newly dead. That means, their leader must’ve defeated around fifty Chiefs in a single battle.
Yet such a guy was offed right after the initial engagement against the Snowdrifts.
The Northern culture of leadership may not produce the brightest people-in-charge, but it certainly breeds those that could fight, and the barbarians knew fully the implications of their leader being killed so easily.
Those muscular men flew into hysterical panic and many of them scrambled backwards and away from the Snowdrifts. The few that had some semblance of rationality desperately searched for the killer who took down their Chief, all the while running away at top speed.
“It’s him!” a wail suddenly from a sharp-eyed individual, attracting everyone’s attention.
The person pointed repeatedly towards the Snowdrifts, particularly a person in the crowd.
“That archer! That blonde one!”
He was incoherent. His stretched out index finger was jabbing so quickly it looked as though he was trembling, and the direction he gave was a general one.
Yet, almost everyone identified the person he was referring to.
A blonde teen holding multiple arrows in his bow hand, and some more arrows on his draw hand.
A master archer could fire quickly with arrows held in his draw hand, then reload with those held by his bow hand.
The rate of fire can reach above five shots per second, not including the time needed to retrieve another handful of arrows. This is done by resting the arrows above each finger, including the thumb, and then strumming the bowstring. The grip strength needed to do this is beyond non-practitioners, but even many high rankers could not penetrate Ki Barriers at a distance using this technique.
The northerners may be barbarians, but they are not the savages that citizens from Saint Empire liked to label them as. They identified who was the most skilled in an instant when the other archers were either drawing from their quiver or from their bow hand.
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Despite holding ten at once and having a semi-circle of arrows planted in the ground around his feet, the blonde archer appeared to be in complete control of his stance, and if anything, graceful.
However, being skilful doesn’t mean that he was the one that took out their leader. What made them strongly believed it was him was the piercing glare he had.
The archer had deep set eyes with an eagle’s gaze. No, perhaps, it was more akin to a dragon’s; powerful and majestic.
His figure was lithe but filled with lean muscles, his long legs were made for striding across the field like a hunter. He carried powerful shoulders, while his chest was robust in a perfect mixture of speed and strength.
The barbarians had now retreated so far that it is difficult for them to make out his delicate facial features. Still, they could feel his emerald eyes shining fiercely at them like a predator that had found its prey.
They looked at their fallen Chief, a Peak SS Ranker, and shuddered. The burly man now lie dead in a pool of his own blood that is still pouring out from a gaping hole in his chest.
They were afraid to move, afraid to breathe, and only the bravest among them dared sneaking glances at the archer.
“RETREAT!”
No one knew who shouted that word but fear was like a poison that seep into the others, and soon the cavalry fled from the Snowdrifts.
The Snowdrifts did not follow, instead, they kept their bows and returned to the ready-position of their array.
Although still surrounded, right now it felt as if they were the ones pinning down their foes.
There was no movements until a good quarter of an hour later when an officer of the Frosthral Feudal State arrived.
A tall burly man on top of an Inferno Lion stopped before the cowering cavalries.
His face was beet red with anger as he shouted, “I am Yfirmaour, Barbarian Lord! Aide to, Daichin the Warlord of the frontlines! Who was the one that called for a retreat?”
The barbarians gritted their teeth while red with shame. The word retreat is a stain on their honour and bravery and they quickly discussed among their ranks which direction did they heard the cry.
The one who shouted realised that it wouldn’t be long before she was found and the woman stepped out from her team and said, “It was I, Brynhild. With our Chief fallen, I believed it to be wise to await a new commander’s arrival first.”
The woman was lovely to behold, her features were characteristic of the Aesir tribe, narrow accurate nose, light hair and skin, blue eyes while being tall and slender.
Yfirmaour was taken by her at once, but the morale of his men cannot be rallied by letting her off.
He shouted, “I should cut you down where you stand, but if you become my woman, I will bear your crimes this time. Do you accept?”
*Pui*
A fat globe of spit flew across the field and landed by the mount of the Barbarian Lord.
“I did no crime. Cut me down if you will, I’d rather die than sleeping with an ugly bastard like you.”
“Then, don’t blame me. Missies like you should never step on the battlefield in the first place.”
The bulky man jumped off his mount with a thud, then removed a battle axe from his Time-space bag.
A fast swipe later, a head was rolling on the ground.
The Barbarian Lord had a glimmer of remorse flitting across his eyes, then he muttered, “A waste of a good woman.”
He turned back towards the Snowdrifts then walked over with his grandiose looking lion following behind him.
“You are brave men to be so deep in hostile lands. You have earned my respect, tell me the name of your faction.”
“No,” Kairos said.
“Hmph, what a mysterious bunch. No matter. You cannot hope to survive against us. I advise you to throw down your arms and surrender!”
“No,” Kairos said again.
“Then, die! Everyone charge, they are few in number, do not falter!”
“No,” Kairos said a third time.
A glowing arrow shot towards the Barbarian Lord at blinding speed.
Five colours spiral around a blue arrowhead, its shaft was covered in lightning, and great gusts of wind trailed after the missile as it flew.
Yfirmaour hurriedly threw up his defences.
His battle axe was the first to go. The arrow pierced through the weapon like it was insubstantial.
Following that, the round shield that the Lord was holding shattered.
“Titan’s body!” Yfirmaour activated his Ki Barrier martial art and his body shone with a metallic silver gleam.
It was an External Martial Art technique that was created by fusing Ki with his flesh, and it turned his body impervious to swords and arrows. Well, impervious most of the time.
The arrow broke through his technique like a fork piercing through a waffle, and seconds later, a dead Yfirmaour lies there on the ground.
Till the end, he couldn’t believe that the one to die isn’t Kairos but himself.
“Looks like you’re not suited on the battlefield yourself,” Kairos said.
“Uhhh, we don’t have to remember their names?” Looking at Edward and Kairos besides him, Alan asked.
“Nah, it’s too difficult, and that’s why I shot him,” Edward explained.
Kairos added, “And don’t worry, you don’t have to remember their commander Daichin’s name either, because he’s next.”
“Then what about this army charging at us? Every barbarian in the vicinity, mounted or not, is attacking.”
This time, the barbarian army didn’t dare to call for a retreat.
“Ah, right, we haven’t tried that formation yet.”
“That formation? Which?”
“Brave souls of the Snowdrifts, assume your positions: Grand Bagua Formation!”
The thousand eight hundred in the offensive Hydra Formation quickly shifted into the defensive array.
The original version has sixty people to form up the array, while this Grand Bagua variation is made up by sixty sets of thirty; the increase in potency cannot be compared.
At the exterior eight Cardinal and Intercardinal Directions stood Long, John, Silvers, Sasha, Lee Hei, Lucas Flare, Gigas Sermont and Watts Yournae.
In the inner eight formation hearts are Small Kitty, Smaller Kitty, Snow Qiuhua (秋花), Leaf Qiuhua (秋花), George Kitty, Luciette Baixue (白雪), Kairos Astroire, and Von Cixton.
Protecting them are Lux Cixton, Alan Walker, Jim Hope, Tommy Styrkur, Edward Alfonso, and Alucard Angelheart.
Facing the horde of Frosthral Barbarians, twenty-one leaders and one supreme commander of the Snowdrifts stood resolutely.
Their fighting spirit raised by the seconds and it is hard to tell from their dominating auras who is the actual attackers.
Four thousand barbarians stormed their position, and many more are following behind.
Knowing that the hard part starts now, the supreme commander of the Snowdrifts, Kairos, whispered with a smile, “Come!”