Heavenly Jewel Change
chapter-266-1

Seeing the brilliant holy light in the skies, although it was currently night, the morale of the Heavenly Bow Empire soldiers were at the max. This was especially so for those original soldiers of the old Heavenly Bow Empire. To them, they had waited for this day for too long, way too long.

Three thousand figures rose up silently into the night sky. Under cover of the darkness, they flew towards the Kalise and Bai Da army encampments surrounding the Heavenly Bow City.

Amongst the ten thousand Peerless Army elites, the Peerless Archers numbered five thousand. Zhou Weiqing had already brought away two thousand of them, and the remaining three thousand had now been gathered together by Ming Yu.

Ever since they returned to the Heavenly Bow Empire, the Peerless Archers’ flying capabilities had never been displayed in the battlefield. The main reason was exactly because it was being saved to be the critical factor to defeat their enemies in this final battle.

Three thousand figures, hidden in the night skies, soon rose to around a thousand metres height. At this point, let alone it being night time, even if it was in the day, as long as they were not looking specifically for it, it would be extremely difficult to detect them.

Ming Yu’s second order soon passed down. “First, Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth Power Archer Battalions, prepare! Peerless Heavy Cavalry, Snow Deer Cavalry, move out. First, Second Heavy Cavalry Regiments, advance.”

Ming Yu had gained quite some inspiration from Zhou Weiqing, and towards the Heavenly Bow Empire armies, he had mainly focused on true quality over quantity. Although in such a short period of time he could not possibly develop their forces to the same level as the Peerless Regiment, with the support of Zhou Weiqing’s massive wealth and the resource support from the Fei Li Empire and ZhongTian Empire, it could be said that the current Heavenly Bow Empire armies were armed to the teeth.

The so-called Power Archer Battalions were not just simply equipped with normal longbows, but powerful, well-crafted Purple Dawn Bows.

Furthermore, each one of these archers were also prepared with a hand crossbow. As soon as they entered any fight, their hand crossbows would be prepared with a bolt. No matter if it was for self protection or offense, it would greatly improve these archers’ overall combat prowess.

These archers were also armoured with leather; in a battlefield such defenses might not seem to amount to much, but if they were supported with Heavy Infantry soldiers and Cavalry soldiers, that was a different matter altogether.

In the Heavenly Bow Empire, the military branch that lacked the least was definitely archers… after all, it was the Heavenly Bow Empire! As such, out of the entire over dozen Regiments in the army, Ming Yu had specially chosen the finest five thousand to form the five Power Archer Battalions. Besides them, there were still five entire Regiments of Archers, numbering about a third of the entire army. Of course, the other formations of troops were also well trained elite warriors.

In the current Heavenly Bow Empire, there wasn’t a true ‘light-armoured’ infantry, and they only had one type of infantry soldiers - Heavy Infantry. In fact, these Heavy Infantry soldiers were also outfitted with their own horses, to ensure their movement speed in the battlefield. Of course, their training was still different from the Heavy Cavalry soldiers, and their horses were not armoured.

As for light cavalry and heavy cavalry, that was Ming Yu’s speciality after all. With the Peerless Regiment leading the others, the actual formation and training was not difficult at all. Of course, having steady and abundant supplies was of utmost importance, otherwise Ming Yu could not have possibly formed such a powerful army in such a short period of time.

The entire Heavenly Bow Empire armies had already made their move according to Ming Yu’s arrangements, advancing along in neat formations. Although they were all currently excited and in high morales, none of them dared to charge forward foolishly and break ranks. This was the effect of military disciple.

In the air, the three thousand figures had already slowly reached their goal. Ming Yu had his head lifted as he constantly watched them.

The Kalise and Bai Da Empire armies had already long since been alerted by the commotion deep in the city. Their commander was no fool, and he knew that since the Heavenly Bow Empire Royal Palace seemed to have met with some problems, it was likely that the Heavenly Bow Empire armies would act soon. He had quickly roused all of his soldiers from their rest and organized them in their own formations.

Alas, in the end one side had been fully prepared, while the other was rushing to prepare. The difference was indeed clear. Furthermore, who else could have expected that the Heavenly Bow Empire armies would actually attack so swiftly. Their threat had been given for quite some time, and the Heavenly Bow Empire armies had remained quiet for so long. All of this had happened without any warning at all.

Abruptly, large patches of black, foul smelling objects fell from the skies. Soon after, the Kalise and Bai Da army encampment began to sound out with cries of agony.

The jarring sound of things shattering broke the silence of the army camp.

“What is this thing! It smashed right into my tent!” Along with the shattering sounds came the accompanying exclamations.

“This smell… so pungent! Wait… why does it smell like oil? … No good… Run!” This one was an intelligent fellow, at least he was able to distinguish what it was in moments.

Alas, even as the black, sticky substance was falling from the skies, a large patch of fire light lit up the skies.

Naturally, the Kalise and Bai Da forces had their own scouts, and if the Heavenly Bow Empire armies advanced too close, they would be quickly discovered. Alas, this sneak attack came from far above, and no matter how outstanding or well trained their scouts were, they could not possibly be keeping watch at the skies!

Three thousand fire arrows descended from the heavens. There was no need to aim at all, just shooting in the general direction of the oil containers they had thrown down.

Three thousand Peerless Regiment Archers, each of them had carried four oil containers into the skies, throwing them in a scattered way, specially looking for those tents or other objects that could possibly be flammable.

Such oil was already extremely flammable, and when those fire arrows shot down from above, within a few breaths the entire Kalise and Bai Da encampment was blazing in towering flames.

This was a camp of more than hundred thousands of troops! In the first place, the Stars Forest was not large, and these forces were all arranged to protect the Heavenly Bow City. As such, their camp was very tightly packed, with each tent squeezing several soldiers within.

The major blaze had arisen so explosively in such a short period of time, and the entire camp seemed to have caught fire at once. In such a moment, most of the soldiers had only just woken up and received their orders, preparing to gather in their defensive formations. Alas, it was all too late.

It was inherent human nature to be afraid of death, and such a sudden huge blaze caused these soldiers who were still drowsy from sleep to go into panic. They weren’t specially elite soldiers; the Bai Da Empire soldiers were still relatively better, but on the Kalise Empire side, they had fallen into absolute terror and panic. In a short time, the entire camp was filled with shouts and screams as trampling, burning… the entire camp had turned into disorderly chaos.

“Kill!” On the other side, Ming Yu’s cold voice rang out. Soon after, the same order was passed down throughout the entire army.

These soldiers had been waiting for this day for just too long. For this day, Ming Yu had made so many preparations, coming up with at least three concrete, full plans. In order to accomplish this, he had sent the Peerless Air Force to scout the enemies from the air so many times.

As the saying goes, water and fire are merciless. This sudden fire attack had truly caught the Kalise and Bai Da forces by surprise. In the midst of the conflagration, how could they still have the morale and heart to fight? In such a circumstance, how could they possibly withstand the ferocious attacks of the highly spirited Heavenly Bow Empire armies?

The vanguard of the Heavenly Bow Empire armies had already reached the enemy scout positions. However, the scouts were currently dumbfounded. The camps behind them were all aflame, was there even a point sending news back now?

Some of the scouts went back, but even more actually chose to flee now. At least, they were still able to find routes of escape from their position.

The first to reach the front lines were naturally the Peerless Heavy Cavalry.

Besides the one thousand Peerless Heavy Cavalry that Zhou Weiqing had brought along, there were still three thousand more Berserker Tribe and Gold Crow Tribe warriors that formed the Peerless Heavy Cavalry, as well as the five hundred Snow Deer Heavy Cavalry.

By now, the Snow Deer Tribe’s equipment was no different from any of the other Heavy Cavalry troops, with only their mounts and weapons differing. The Snow Deer Tribe Heavy Cavalry mounts were naturally their powerful Snow Deer Heavenly Beasts, even stronger and larger than Ghost Demon Horses. As for their weapons, it was a sort of large and heavy deer antlers.