The adjutant scrambled to his feet and watched the army march off into the distance. Frustration gnawed at him, and he stamped his foot before hastily sending word to the Southern and Northern armies. Then he hurried after the main force.
As it turned out, Ding Yao's judgment had been correct. The Southern Army's Liang Yulong and the Northern Army's Shentu Mo both received the message, and upon learning that Ding Yao had ordered a full-scale advance to pursue the enemy, they made the same decision without hesitation. In an instant, tens of thousands of troops poured out of Biluo Pass from all directions, leaving behind only the necessary garrison personnel and the wounded.
On the Eastern front, Ding Yao led the charge, spearheading several thousand soldiers as they pressed hard on the retreating Ink Clan forces. He had harbored some concern that the Ink Clan might be employing some manner of deception, but after a period of pursuit, it seemed that the Ink Clan was genuinely withdrawing. No traps lay along the route.
This put his mind fully at ease. And facing an enemy that had turned its back and flanks to the human forces, there was no reason to show restraint. The Eastern Army surged forward and unleashed a devastating barrage.
In battles of this scale, the moments that truly inflicted massive casualties were not when two armies faced each other head-on. Wars fought with both sides arrayed in formation and exchanging blows would certainly produce casualties, but so long as the disparity in strength between the two sides wasn't too extreme, the losses on either side tended to remain moderate.
The real killing came during pursuit. At that point, the fleeing side had essentially lost the will to fight, while the pursuers could strike without holding back, making it easy to achieve devastating results.
This was precisely the situation the Eastern Army now faced.
When the Ink Clan army discovered the forces bearing down on them from behind, they actually split off a portion of their troops to mount a rearguard action against the Eastern Army. The outcome went without saying—those Ink Clan soldiers left behind were swiftly wiped clean off the map.
The Eastern Army had committed its full strength, and with experts filling its ranks, it had more than enough power to devour the enemy.
The same scene played out along the Southern and Northern fronts as well. During the pursuit, the number of Ink Clan casualties was almost impossible to tally.
At first, Ding Yao and the others hadn't been entirely clear on why the Ink Clan was retreating. But after chasing them for a while, a sudden realization struck—the Ink Clan forces from all three fronts were heading in the same direction.
The Western front!
The Ink Clan armies from the Eastern, Southern, and Northern fronts were all rushing to reinforce the Western front.
Upon discovering this, Ding Yao and the others immediately sent word to Zhong Liang to apprise him of the situation. When Zhong Liang received the message, he was equally stunned. It had never occurred to him that the Ink Clan would act in such a manner.
It made no sense! True enough, the Western front had held a significant advantage ever since he had borrowed troops from the other armies, and the Ink Clan had been driven back step by step. But the Ink Clan forces on the Eastern, Southern, and Northern fronts had no reason to take such a risk to come to the rescue. They could have simply continued their assault on Biluo Pass, and whatever ground they lost on the Western front could have been reclaimed through the Eastern, Southern, and Northern lines. He refused to believe that the Ink Clan army was so loving and selfless.
Unlike humanity, the Ink Clan was rife with internal strife and infighting. When would they ever go to such lengths for one another?
There had to be something wrong here, but he couldn't for the life of him figure out what the issue was.
Still, the battle had presented him with an enormous opportunity. Originally, when he had borrowed troops from the three armies, he had taken on considerable risk. While the move had given the Western front the upper hand, the Eastern, Southern, and Northern fronts had to bear a corresponding increase in pressure.
His original plan had been to wait until the fighting on the Western front reached a conclusion before turning to reinforce the other three lines.
But the Ink Clan's impatience had effectively handed him a great victory on a silver platter. Having held the position of Corps Commander for several thousand years, Zhong Liang possessed an extremely sharp instinct for battle.
He issued his orders without delay, and the deployments began.
On the Western front, the human battle line quickly split of its own accord. One portion continued to press the retreating Ink Clan forces, while the other wheeled around to meet the incoming enemy.
At the same time, Zhong Liang himself flashed forward and streaked toward the battlefield. Ding Yao and the others had already taken the field personally, and the Eastern, Southern, and Northern armies had committed their full strength. If this battle went well, the Ink Clan would be routed. There was no further need to hold anything back—he would give it everything he had.
Before long, Zhong Liang arrived at the front lines. The human forces that had peeled off had already assembled and were primed and ready. Upon seeing him arrive, every soldier's expression steadied. They had their leader.
The Division Commanders came forward to ask for the situation, and Zhong Liang held nothing back, informing them of the changes on the Eastern, Southern, and Northern fronts. The gathered Division Commanders lit up with delight upon hearing the news.
What Zhong Liang could see in terms of battlefield opportunity, they could see as well.
All of them recognized that the Ink Clan had likely just made a catastrophic blunder.
"They're coming!" After a moment, one of the Division Commanders called out in a low voice.
Everyone turned to gaze in the direction of Biluo Pass. Three enormous masses of dark ink-colored energy could be seen surging toward them like a tide—the Ink Clan armies that had raced back from the Eastern, Southern, and Northern fronts.
And pressing close behind those three armies were the human forces in relentless pursuit—none other than the three corps led by Ding Yao and his commanders.
As the Ink Clan army fled, casualties mounted steadily in their rearguard, one life force after another withering into nothing.
Soon, the three withdrawing Ink Clan armies merged into one. Correspondingly, the human armies from the Eastern, Southern, and Northern fronts converged like ten thousand streams flowing into the sea.