Chapter 46 Total Victory

Attack? No, no, no.
I was merely conducting a firepower reconnaissance.
Facing the post-battle flattery from his subordinates who were NPCs, Su Yao just quietly scratched the back of his head, feeling somewhat bewildered by the situation. How could a thousand-man battle that looked like a final boss fight turn out to be this simple?
It did not even compare to a ten-thousandth of the difficulty of attacking Yellow Reed Fortress.
He swore that he genuinely only intended to scout the enemy situation. After wiping out those scouts and learning that the enemy forces happened to be stationed at Stone Gorge, how could he not go and have a little fun?
Yet who could have expected that this bunch of people would collapse at the very first touch? Following a brief pursuit, he had completely routed them.
Truthfully, his personal kill count was only 187. However, once his berserk state automatically wore off, gazing upon the scene of a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, he almost uttered those three classic philosophical questions:
Is this really all there is to the new level design of the official release server?
If I had known it was going to be this easy, what was the point of seizing Yellow Reed Fortress?
Indeed, this was the difference between reality and video games. Games needed to adhere to the principle that each battle is harder than the last, achieved through continuous accumulation and effort to defeat tougher bosses, but reality did not work that way.
Compared to meticulously designed game worlds, reality often appeared more like a trash game by comparison. Effort there did not necessarily guarantee a reward, and success was sometimes merely a matter of coincidence.
For instance, the Son of Heaven occupying the supreme throne could be either an ignorant child or a pure fool; meanwhile, a prime minister of renowned repute and from a lineage of high officials spanning four generations might just be a scheming clown and a loser paving the way for reckless brutes.
Or take a grand, high-stakes coup that decided the fate of an empire, only for its final curtain to fall—who could have imagined it would end with a major faction leader naively surrendering himself?
The performances of these individuals all attested to the stark reality that the real world was nothing more than a poorly run amateur show.
And at this moment, ever since entering the "game," Su Yao planted a seed of doubt in his heart for the very first time.
Yet it was merely a seed. After all, games with high degrees of freedom always allowed players all sorts of room to stir up trouble, and as for cursing the game developers, he was far too experienced at that.
Silently reciting once more that the developers should kowtow to the artists and programmers, Su Yao turned his attention to the final task.
As the grand finale of this massive battle, he still had the most crucial loot to harvest.
What was the point of killing people if you didn't loot their corpses?
"There's still a supply and slave-transport convoy of at least 600 people. Let's finish them off and call it a day!"
Munching on some unidentifiable mush his subordinates had dug up from somewhere, Su Yao was now desperately craving a proper modern feast.
......
The next afternoon, when the first tardy supply caravan of Huyan Jun arrived at the entrance of Sunny Ridge with 300 riders and leading thousands of slaves, they were dumbfounded by the sight before them.
"What... what happened here?"
It was a mound constructed from the severed heads of hundreds of their fellow countrymen, known as a Jingguan.
The three centurions gathered together, swallowing hard. With just a single glance, they spotted the heads of Huyan Jun and Boye, which Su Yao had helpfully marked with a stuck pole:
"Th-thousand-man commander! That is Thousand-man Commander Huyan Jun!"
"Good heavens, and Thousand-man Commander Boye as well! How can this be?!"
"It's over, it's over! I knew something was wrong when the scout team failed to report back. What should we do now!"
With none of their advanced scouting parties returning, they had already sensed impending doom, but they never imagined the outcome would be this horrifying. At that instant, a profound chill slowly crept up from their spinal cords to the tops of their heads.
Their main force had been completely annihilated!
Does that mean they...
"Dang—danger... Quick, run!" the centurion shouted with trembling teeth.
Although he had no idea where to flee, danger was clearly lurking everywhere here.
Sure enough, before he could even raise his head, a loud shout echoed from the distance:
"Where do you think you're going, small fry?!"
Swish, swish—
Another double kill with arrows.
The last surviving centurion raised his head with trembling lips. On the hill, Su Yao led the vanguard of 20 horsemen charging straight down.
"Enemy attack—"
Just as the words fell, his forehead was pierced by a sharp arrow. These conspicuous centurions were instantly picked off and wiped out one by one by Su Yao.
"Run, run for your lives!"
"I surrender, I surrender!"
With the Jingguan ahead and their leaders dead behind, the morale of these mounted archers instantly shattered.
Although there were only 20 horsemen in front of them, their plain intuition told them: without an army of thousands, how could one possibly annihilate a main force of over a thousand troops?
Was that something a mere handful of men like them could resist?
Driven by instinct, some knelt to surrender while others whipped their horses to flee. To this, Su Yao's choice was:
"Kill them! Not a single one must escape!"
Su Yao, who had already laid down a tight net, naturally would not let them go.
Amidst the melodious sound of battle horns, another 20 horsemen charged out from the other side, led by Cheng Lian and Jin Fangyan.
Shooting as they charged, they formed a pincer movement with the 20 horsemen on Su Yao's side, cutting off the retreat of the barbarian cavalry and driving them into the narrow Sunny Ridge amidst a hail of arrows.
And there, blocked by pre-arranged barricades, all the fleeing barbarian cavalrymen were successfully rounded up in one fell swoop.
"Quickly, follow the previous arrangement. Clear the scene swiftly, we still have another show to catch!" Su Yao glanced at the information on the map, waving his blade and giving the order.
The victorious soldiers busied themselves rescuing the captives while directing the captured civilians to help clean up the battlefield. Over half an hour later, Boye's supply convoy was likewise wiped out by Su Yao using the same tactics. With this, the three thousand-man units stranded in Taiyuan Commandery had finally been completely annihilated.
The interception mission was a resounding success!
After the battle, listening to Wang Ling's trembling report, Su Yao grinned from ear to ear.
Forty men sortied, not a single one lost, over two hundred killed, and more than three hundred captured.
The most crucial part was that all the spoils from these three waves of thousand-man units had been successfully intercepted by him. Leaving aside the wagonloads of grain and valuables, the warhorses dropped by the mob units alone numbered over sixteen hundred, not to mention the countless soft leather armors, curved sabers, and arrows.
Leaving aside manpower issues, outfitting an army of nearly a thousand men for him would be completely effortless!
What does it mean to hit the jackpot all at once? This was it.
In contrast to Su Yao, who was merely grinning from ear to ear, Wang Ling, Cheng Lian, and the others wore expressions as if they were walking in a dream:
"We did it. Good heavens, we actually did it..."
"With just over 80 men, we captured the stronghold and completely wiped out all the barbarian thieves..."
"We didn't even have to wait for Major Zhang to make a move; we accomplished it entirely on our own..."
"This impossible mission... has actually been realized..."
Jin Fangyan patted the shoulders of the two men. Having already experienced one wave of shock inside Stone Gorge, he clearly possessed a much higher resistance than the others:
"Let me remind you, as far as Jin is concerned, nine-nintey-ninths of this impossible mission was accomplished by that outrageous superior of yours. Please restrain your emotions and try not to get too puffed up."
Whether out of fear or awe, Jin Fangyan had now completely adjusted his mindset.
Hearing his words, the others could not help but blush with embarrassment.
"There is no need for that."
Noticing the scene, Su Yao walked over, took Cheng Lian and Wang Ling by the hands, raised them high, and grandly proclaimed:
"We are an army, a single entity, brothers who make no distinction between you and me!
Your glory is my glory, and my glory shall forever be shared with all of you!
Cheer for victory!
Victory belongs to us!"
"Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh!"
"All hail the squad leader!"
"All hail the squad leader!"
"Are you still calling him squad leader? In Zhang's view, you should all be calling him general right away!"
Appearing out of nowhere, Zhang Yang was flanked by Song Xian and Hou Cheng, smiling broadly as he applauded.