Ian Song caught the distrust on Liam Liang and the others' faces, and saw the hint of fear in the soldiers' eyes. Only Yoon Zhengyang, Eric Zhou, Ian Tian, and the rest of the seven looked eager and ready to go.
Ian didn’t bother explaining. He just gave the order straight up: "Fall back a hundred paces! Get ready for three-stage volley fire!"
Those ten days of training weren’t for nothing.
At Ian’s command, everyone quickly retreated, pulled out their bows and arrows, and lined up in three rows.
Landing a shot at a hundred paces? That’s sharpshooter material.
But that’s just what counts as a sharpshooter in the ordinary world.
Here, even a Body-Refining martial artist can nail targets at that range without trying.
The three-stage volley is a tactic Ian borrowed from early muskets, which could only fire one shot before reloading. He just swapped muskets for bows.
All the soldiers formed three rows, thirty-three in each row.
Soon, more than a dozen Strongarm Bull Devils leapt out of the river.
"First row, fire!" Ian barked.
Thirty-three arrows hissed through the air, slicing toward their targets.
Thirty-three arrows launched in a blur of black, streaking straight for the Bull Devils.
The arrows punched into flesh with sickening, wet thuds.
The armor-piercing arrowheads buried deep into the bodies of over a dozen Bull Devils.
The first row fired, then dropped into a crouch, clearing the way for the second row, bows drawn and ready.
"Fire!"
Ian gave the order again, and thirty-three more arrows shot out, meeting another batch of Bull Devils scrambling up the bank.
Just like the first row, after firing, the second row crouched down and quickly nocked fresh arrows to their bows.
"Third row!"
Arrows whistled through the air, cutting a path toward the charging devils.
The results were even better than expected—after just three rounds, over thirty Strongarm Bull Devils were shot dead.
But that immediately put the rest of the Bull Devils on high alert.
Next moment, more than a hundred Bull Devils burst out of the river all at once. This time, every single one kept a few meters apart, making it impossible for the archers to concentrate their fire.
"First row!"
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
"Second row!"
Another volley of arrows tore through the air, deadly and precise.
"Third row!"
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
The whistling of arrows mixed with the Bull Devils’ screams. Another ten or so Bull Devils were shot dead, but the rest used the chaos to scramble up onto the bank.
"Fall back three hundred paces! Form the Big Dipper Battle Array and the Unity Battle Array!"
At Ian’s command, ninety-nine men retreated at top speed.
They immediately began moving into position to form up the arrays.
"Human warriors! Kill them all!"
A Bull Devil hundred-man commander swung his three-meter-long blade and roared.
"Kill!"
The towering Bull Devils brandished their heavy weapons and charged at the human warriors before their arrays could form.
They were fast—almost a hundred meters per second.
"If they’re delivering heads, we’ll take them!"
Right then, Ian suddenly leapt off his horse, his long sword ringing out with a crisp, clear sound.
A flurry of sword-qi sliced through the air, each ray shrieking toward its mark.
Over a hundred sword-qi rays shot out from his purple longsword.
Skulls cracked and bodies dropped with grisly, echoing crunches.
Each sword-qi pierced a Bull Devil’s skull. In an instant, all hundred-plus Bull Devils who’d just charged forward dropped dead.
The soldiers forming up their arrays caught sight of this by accident, and every one of them was left speechless.
"Captain’s insane—he just killed over a hundred Devils with one sword!"
"Damn humans!"
Three hundred-man commanders locked onto Ian, black light flashed, and they turned into three shadowy blurs, slamming toward him in midair.
"Good timing!"
Ian’s eyes narrowed, killing intent surging.
His Purple Thunder sword split into three afterimages.
Three dull, wet cracks echoed as skulls split open.
With three soft impacts, each Bull Devil commander had a thumb-sized bloody hole in his forehead, fresh blood streaming out.
Instant kill!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Their bodies dropped straight from midair and slammed into the ground.
The Bull Devils still charging ahead all froze, terror flashing in their huge eyes.
These three commanders were all a notch stronger than early-stage human Grandmasters, but they’d just been wiped out by a single sword move. Even if Bull Devils were the toughest warriors among the Devils, now they were scared.
"Retreat! Retreat now! That human Grandmaster’s hiding his true strength!"
A ten-man commander shouted, his voice booming but tinged with fear.
When an army breaks, it’s like a landslide. With all three hundred-man commanders dead—and with the ten-man commander’s retreat call giving everyone an excuse—every Bull Devil turned tail and ran. As long as they could jump into the Blood River, they’d basically escape alive.
"Come and go as you please? Not a chance!"
Ian flashed to the riverbank with a cold laugh, blocking the Bull Devils’ escape route.
But they reacted quickly, scattering and trying to escape in all directions.
"You think that’s enough to stop me?"
Ian sneered.
"Phantom Body Technique!"
In an instant, five phantom bodies split off from Ian and charged out, swords in hand.
Thud, thud, thud, thud!
Like chopping vegetables, the five phantoms plus Ian himself wiped out the remaining two hundred-plus Bull Devils in less than three breaths.
"Whoa, our captain’s a beast! Is he really just an early-stage Grandmaster? He feels more like a Great Grandmaster!"
"How long has it been? He’s already killed more than three hundred Bull Devils!"
Seeing his stunned subordinates, Ian sheathed his Purple Thunder and told them, "Don’t just stand there—get over here and chop off all these Devils’ heads!"
"Yes, Captain!"
The soldiers, who’d just been worried about total annihilation, were now overjoyed and rushed forward to decapitate the Bull Devils.
Soon, all 333 Bull Devil heads were chopped off.
"Build a skull cairn!" Ian ordered.
"Captain, what’s a skull cairn?" Liang Yunkun asked, totally convinced by Ian now. He realized that Ian had held back a lot during their match ten days ago—and even then, he’d still beaten him in one move. The gap between them was obvious.
"It’s when you pile all these heads into a little mountain," Ian explained.
"Got it!"
With everyone pitching in, a bloody skull cairn quickly took shape.
Looking at the cairn, a chill crept into everyone’s hearts. A single head wasn’t scary, but hundreds of Bull Devil skulls piled up together? That was enough to make anyone shudder.
As for the Bull Devil corpses, Ian took out a storage ring and swept them all inside—they’d serve as proof for earning points.
"Oh, and you guys can split up all these weapons!"
Ian pointed at the hundreds of weapons scattered on the ground.
"Thanks, Captain!"
The soldiers were delighted. Bull Devil weapons were heavy and made from more material, so just one was worth as much as two or three human weapons.
They weren’t suited for human use, but could be sold to a smithy. With hundreds of weapons, they’d fetch at least ten thousand silver taels—split evenly, each person would get a hundred taels, enough for half a month’s wages.