Lord: Starting with Summoning the Regular Army of Earth

Chapter 114 The Giant Tribe's Relentless Advance

The team re-entered the wind-eroded highlands following the predetermined route.

This time, they no longer deliberately concealed themselves completely, but advanced at a steady and determined pace.

Because the "eyes" of the sky are always there.

Shortly after we set off, two circling black dots appeared in the distance.

Soon, the two giant eagles descended to a lower altitude and led the way at the front of the formation.

At the same time, dust rose from behind the hills on the flank, and another group of about a hundred elite cavalrymen from Baihe Valley roared in to meet the troops from Jinshi Ridge.

They wore a mix of leather armor, carried hornbows, and had eyes as sharp as eagles. After a brief handover between the leader of the group escorting Matthew back to Emberstone Ridge, the leader tacitly dispersed to the flanks and front of the caravan, taking on the duties of vigilance and scouting.

With the reconnaissance of the "Sky Eye" and the protection of the "Ground Guide," this team, filled with both death and hope, resolutely marched toward Stone Forest Cliff.

On the afternoon of the third day, they successfully arrived at Shilin Cliff, where Sharna personally led the team to welcome them.

After not seeing her for several days, Sharna's face was once again shrouded in an invisible gloom. However, when she saw Matthew and the Elmstone Ridge convoy, a glimmer of light finally appeared in her worried eyes.

"Baron Matthew!" Sharna hurried forward, the joy that had welled up in her eyes and brows being forcibly suppressed, replaced by the composed demeanor of a leader, as if restraining certain emotions within her: "You must have had a long journey. Seeing you return safely is more important than anything else!"

Matthew reined in his horse, dismounted, and firmly grasped Sharna's hand.

He could feel that Sharna's hand was colder and tighter than when they last parted, as if she was drawing strength from it, or as if she was afraid of something.

"Chief Sharna, everything I promised you is here." He turned and pointed to the convoy behind him: "I've brought enough explosives to bury the main force of the Titans!"

Matthew brought eighty steel-armed crossbows and three thousand poisoned crossbow bolts.

Five hundred hand grenades, fifteen sets of explosive projectile launchers that can be operated by two people to launch heavy objects two hundred paces, and three hundred explosive packs of various types.

There are about two hundred specially made air-dropped bombs designed for the eagle flock, as well as countless traps, mines, and fuses.

Matthew brought almost all the ammunition that Ember Ridge could muster, this time aiming for a saturation attack to completely wipe out Balu and his Titan tribe from the Wind-Eroded Highlands.

When the caravan from Emberstone Ridge, escorted by Sharna and the riders from White River Valley, returned to the basin inside Stone Forest Cliff, the entire White River Valley tribe was practically in an uproar.

People poured out of the makeshift tents and crevices in the rock face, standing on tiptoe and craning their necks, bursting into an uncontrollable gasp and cheer.

However, amidst this exhilarating atmosphere, Matthew also keenly sensed a slight discord.

Beneath the cheers, many tribespeople's eyes, besides joy, also concealed a deep-seated grief, indignation, and exhaustion.

In a corner of the camp, there were some more wounded people with blood-soaked burlap sacks wrapped around their necks and blank expressions.

Several women were huddled together, sobbing softly. On the straw mats beside them lay several bodies covered with tattered furs.

"Has Balu launched an attack on you over the past few days?" Matthew asked, directly stating his guess.

Sharna's face darkened, and suppressed anger flashed in her eyes: "Yes, just as you guessed, in the past few days, Balu has sent at least three elite wolf rider squads of over a hundred men each to attack our defensive outposts on the outskirts of Stone Forest Cliff multiple times. We have already lost fifty-seven warriors, and more than twenty are seriously wounded. Those damned demons even cut off the heads of our warriors, stuck them on stakes, and displayed them within sight of our camp to lure us out for revenge. This is their usual trick, a way of showing off, and even more so, a form of mental torture!"

The atmosphere in the crowd suddenly became heavy and somber.

The initial excitement ignited by the arrival of the equipment was quickly reignited by this bloody hatred, transforming into a deeper and more intense fighting spirit. The warriors stopped cheering; they remained silent, but their eyes, like tempered knives, were fixed on the direction of the Titans' camp.

Those who lost their loved ones turned their suppressed weeping into choked sobs.

"But in my opinion, this is also their last hurrah. I will use their blood to pay tribute to every soul in the White River Valley." The sorrow in Sharna's eyes turned into a raging fire, and all the gentleness of a woman was gone, leaving only the resolute determination of a shaman and a chief.

"That's right, their lives are coming to an end!" Ma Zheng said solemnly, then looked at Sun Zhengwu and the others behind him: "Immediately organize manpower, unload the vehicles, inventory the equipment, and distribute and deploy it according to the pre-arranged plan. Wu Ronghui, your men will continue to be responsible for training Chief Yi Sha'na. I need your soldiers who are most familiar with the terrain of Black Stone Pass and the enemy's patrol patterns to cooperate with our engineering operations!"

The orders were clear and unambiguous, carrying a sense of urgency that a major battle was imminent.

The crowd, who had just been immersed in complex emotions, was immediately mobilized.

The soldiers of Baihe Valley suppressed their grief and indignation, demonstrating their discipline and obedience. Under the command of the personnel from Jinshiling, they began to unload the supplies from the vehicles in an orderly manner.

The heavy wooden crate was pried open, revealing a steel crossbow gleaming with a cold metallic light, neatly stacked black grenades, complex projectile components, and carefully bound "eagle-borne ammunition."

Each unboxing elicited a low gasp and excited chatter.

Hope has never felt so real and tangible.

The entire Stone Forest Cliff was like a giant war hive, operating rapidly and efficiently.

On the training ground, shouts, the snapping of crossbow strings, and the sounds of sandbags simulating hand grenades and explosive charges hitting the ground were constant.

Inside the tent, Sharna, Matthew, Sun Zhengwu, and the leaders of both sides gathered again in front of the sand table to fine-tune the battle plan based on the latest intelligence.

In the following days, the entire Baihe Valley tribe entered an even more intense state of preparation for war.

Under the almost rigorous guidance of the officers at Ember Ridge, the warriors of White River Valley mastered the new combat techniques at an astonishing speed.

The operation of the steel crossbow went from unfamiliar to precise, the grenade throwing went from hesitant to decisive, and the explosive charge projectile team quickly adapted from initial stumbling to a smooth and deadly rhythm.

The tactical coordination between the soldiers of Jinshi Ridge and the soldiers of Baihe Valley has become increasingly sophisticated, and the entire tactical process has been simulated countless times.

However, the fervor of war preparations could not mask the daily increase in wounds and sorrow.

The wolf riders of the Giant God Tribe, like maggots clinging to bones, constantly patrolled the perimeter, provoking and hunting.

Time and again, they took the lives of warriors patrolling, hunting, and guarding the borders of White River Valley, and then used those mutilated heads as trophies, planting them in the wilderness within the sight of the defenders, carrying out the most vicious form of mental torture.

In the camp, the newly added graves and the blood seeping from the bandages of the wounded were like boiling oil, repeatedly pouring onto everyone's hearts.

Every howl of the wolf riders, every sacrifice of their comrades, made the bloodshot eyes of the White River Valley warriors grow deeper, and the veins on their arms gripping the new weapons bulge even more.

They completed each training session in silence, swallowing their screams and tears, transforming them into more precise crossbow trajectories, more stable throwing movements, and more ruthless coordination signals.

This forced forbearance, far from diminishing their fighting spirit, instead tempered everyone's will like a steel blade that grows ever sharper with each sharpening, ready to unleash their pent-up destructive energy upon the enemy at the very command given.

Finally, on the evening of the seventh day after Matthew returned to the White River Valley tribe, the all-out attack on the Giant God tribe will officially begin tonight.

The four thousand warriors of Baihe Valley were divided into two groups according to orders.

Three thousand of the most elite warriors, clad in repaired leather armor and carrying horn bows and scimitars, with some of them holding newly issued steel crossbows, stood in neat rows on the open ground in the center of the basin.

Among them were seasoned veterans, their eyes as steady as rocks.

There was a young man who had just lost his brother or nephew, his jaw clenched and his eyes red.

Even more striking were the warriors who had survived the wolf riders' charge, their bodies bearing fresh scars, as they stroked their newly acquired weapons, their knuckles turning white from the force.

Behind them were a thousand veterans still recovering from their injuries, as well as some strong women who had volunteered to stay.

They held simple spears, hunting forks, and even sharpened sticks, their eyes equally determined.

Their mission is to guard this last home, care for women and children, and serve as a last-ditch reserve in case of need.

The entire encampment was shrouded in a somber and silent atmosphere.

But beneath this silence lies the surging energy of a volcano about to erupt.

Sharna walked onto a temporary stone platform erected in the center of the open space.

She held in her hand an ancient bone staff, its top inlaid with a milky-white gemstone, a relic passed down through the tribal shaman priests.

She stood on the stone platform, her pale golden eyes slowly sweeping over every face below.

As soon as they saw it, the soldiers instinctively straightened their backs and gripped their weapons tightly.

There was sadness, determination, the heavy burden of being a leader, and a clarity that pierced through the fog in his eyes.

"Warriors of White River Valley!" Sharna spoke, her voice not loud, yet strangely overpowering the wind, clearly reaching everyone's ears, as if carrying some kind of shamanic rhythm, striking directly at their hearts.

"Look around you!" She raised her staff, pointing to the newly added shrouds covered with coarse cloth at the edge of the camp, then to the wounded soldiers wrapped in blood-soaked burlap but still struggling to stand upright, and finally to the people in the crowd with red and swollen eyes...

Women and children who bravely held back their tears.

"Look at our lost brothers, fathers, sons! Look at our still-bleeding wounds! Look at the lingering fear in our children's eyes!"

A low growl, like that of a wounded beast, rose from the crowd.

Many soldiers had tears in their eyes, and their chests heaved violently.

"In the past six months, we have lost our pastures, our mines, and countless loved ones! Like wounded wolves, we have been forced back to this last crevice in the rocks! That butcher, Balu, has toyed with us like prey, cutting off the heads of our warriors and impaling them on stakes, taking pleasure in the cries of our loved ones! He thought we had surrendered, that we were in despair, and that we were just waiting to be crushed like insects!"

"but!"

Sharna's voice suddenly rose, carrying a metallic clang, and her staff slammed heavily on the stone platform, producing a dull resonance.

"We have not yielded! The spirit of White River Valley has never bent! The spirits of our ancestors still watch over us from this land!"

She opened her arms as if to embrace the entire night sky: "And now, the spirits of our ancestors have answered our call! The eagle has brought us friends from afar, and the light that tears through the darkness!"

Her gaze fell on Matthew and Sun Zhengwu, who were standing to the side of the stone platform, as well as the silent and elite Ember Ridge warriors behind them, and the strange equipment that was neatly arranged and exuded a dangerous aura.

"Our allies at Emberstone Ridge have brought crossbows capable of piercing the thickest leather armor, grenades that can summon thunder, and the 'Eagle's Fury' sword that can unleash flames from the sky! What they bring is not charity, but trust, a vow to fight side by side, and a sword to reclaim everything with our own hands and wash away our shame with the blood of our enemies!"

The eyes of the three thousand elite soldiers below the stage all turned to Matthew and his group, and to the equipment.

The grief and indignation in his eyes were quickly replaced by a burning flame that mixed gratitude, shock, and boundless killing intent.

They knew the power of those demonstrations, they had touched those cold steel pieces with their own hands, and they knew—hope was truly in their own hands!

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