Chapter 1601: Captured Alive! Returning to the Capital! (1/2)

Translated by: Hypersheep325

Edited by: Michyrr

Thwishthwishthwish!

At this moment, piercing whistles came from above, and Ashide looked up, only to see countless arrow tips gleaming in the fire as they engulfed the entire camp.

Plushplushplush! In less than the blink of an eye, dense rains of arrows descended on various parts of the Turkic camp.

The arrow tips burned with flames, and they set aflame any tent they struck. The camp was soon a sea of fire punctuated by screams.

Thud! One of the arrows flew through the sky and hit the ground only a few steps from Ashide, its shaft trembling from the force of the impact.

Ashide's pupils constricted as he stared at the arrow, his face paling.

Divine Meteor Arrows!

Ashide had seen this kind of arrow before. The Western Turkic Khaganate had once scoured the steppe for the meteors that had fallen from the heavens, mixing this Meteoric Metal with refined iron and making arrows.

These arrows were called Divine Meteor Arrows, and they possessed frightening toughness and sharpness.

Such arrows were limited in number, and Ashide had only seen them once before. But this force of four hundred Tang soldiers was clearly equipped with these Divine Meteor Arrows.

Even more shocking to Ashide was that at least a thousand Divine Meteor Arrows had been used in that volley. In other words, this force of four hundred had to be almost entirely made up of master archers.

This kind of force could no longer be judged purely on its numbers.

”Retreat! Retreat now!”

The camp was on fire and he had no idea where the Tang were hiding. Ashide panicked and finally gave the order to retreat.

This was the first time a force of twelve thousand Turks had ever been forced to call for a retreat against a force of four hundred Tang, but this order was only the first in a string of defeats.

There was less than an hour between the start of the battle and daybreak, but those minutes seemed to pass like centuries for the Turks.

The four hundred Tang continued to doggedly pursue, driving through the Turkic formation again and again.

This period was like a terrible nightmare. They have never before encountered such a terrifying army. This force of four hundred somehow was even stronger than an army of thousands.

Each time they tried to stand firm and reform their defensive line, the Tang army would promptly catch up and break their ranks.

Although the Turks were more numerous, if they couldn't take up formation, they were nothing but a plate of loose sand.

The soldiers began to cast aside their armor and weapons as they fled, leaving behind a trail of corpses. The stench of blood drifted as far as one hundred li.

When the sun finally rose, the camp had been burned to ash and was littered with the bodies of warhorses and Turkic soldiers.

The trail of corpses extended all the way to the north, and several thousand li from the camp, a small group of Turkic cavalry was hastily escaping.

Surprisingly, those Western Turkic soldiers that Wang Chong had sent his force of four hundred after had already run this far.

”Milord, those Tang soldiers shouldn't still be chasing us, right?!” a pale-faced Turkic horseman asked.

Even though there was nothing behind him, that man looked as if he was being closely pursued by a ghost.

”Relax! Don't panic. We've run so far and the steppe is so big that they couldn't possibly have noticed us,” Hulugan called out from the front.

His expression was composed, but he himself knew that he was more frantic than anyone else. The night that had just passed had felt like a terrible nightmare that even now didn't feel real.

But those corpses scattered across the steppe couldn't lie.

Hulugan had never imagined that the force of four hundred soldiers sent by the King of Foreign Lands would be so frightening. In that one night, at least half of the army had been slaughtered.

The remaining six-thousand-some men were in complete disarray and fleeing like a bunch of headless flies.

Fear, panic, and intense remorse… these were the emotions that Hulugan was feeling.

But fear stood far above the rest.

Hulugan thought back to what had happened not too long ago.

After the army had fallen back sixty-some li in disarray, Ashide had finally managed to reorganize the army and was preparing to wipe out the Tang.

”Foreign dogs, where are you running?!”

At this moment, a roar resounded over the steps. The Tang commander, who wore a helmet with a white tassel attached to the top, charged forward at the head of his force of four hundred.

Ashide was no easy opponent, but as the darkness had prevented him from locating his foe, he had been forced to call a retreat.

But everything was different now that it was daytime and his enemies had shown themselves.

In the face of this formidable force of Tang, Ashide led the charge, several thousand men at his back.