Vulture's behavior exceeded Li Tianhao's expectations.

In fact, at the moment when the sneak attack on Epsommiton City failed, Vultures had already begun to plan a retreat. Originally, he thought that after the transfer of Gurnas's army, the empty city of Epsommiton could easily be taken as long as he attacked quickly, and might even surrender without a fight.

But when he came to the city to launch an attack and found that the number of enemy troops at the head of the city was still quite large, and the will to fight was quite high, Vulture understood that the most important part of his plan had failed, and all the previous layouts were to storm the city of Epsommiton, so as to give the enemy a major psychological impact, if this step could not be achieved, then it was necessary to ensure the results obtained so far, and save the existing forces to retreat.

However, Vultures made a final effort to send his special forces, a group of clerics who would use spells, to use their chanting to control the civilians of the city to open the gates for the priest army. It would be best if he could take the city of Epsommiton because of this, and if it didn't work, he could at least seize the food in the city for military use, because his troops were no longer able to supply the food needed to retreat.

Li Tianhao's counterattack caused a large number of casualties to the priest army, which even exceeded the total losses of the previous two days of siege, and the priest army was forced to give up the upcoming victory and withdraw from the city, which strengthened the determination of Vultures to retreat - since it has reached the limit, then it is necessary to make a decision, otherwise it will put itself in a desperate situation. In addition, a sense of foreboding rose in Vulture's heart, and driven by these two, Vulture ordered the distribution of the captured food that night, and then led the army to flee overnight.

Vulture's sixth sense proved to work. In fact, by the afternoon of the next day, Wei Song's army of 37,000 had already arrived two days away from Epsommiton. After the first wave of the Naura River, Hector's 5,000 cavalry also arrived two days later to join him. If the Vultures walked a little slower. The tide of the battle could turn entirely in the hands of the Dils.

Even so, Vultures was met with the expected resistance. Gernas did not rush back after learning the news, he knew that even if he rushed back with his own forces, it would be too late to rescue the city of Epsmilton, so he calmly cut off the retreat of the Vultures, and at the same time sent a large number of scouts to reconnoiter the military situation, and sent messengers to inform the northern Zaran and Tatar to ask them to continue to defend their flanks.

As Vulture's army hurried back to the retreat, the ambushes of Gurnas began to attack. Due to the disparity in his forces, and the fact that Gurnus had learned of the frustration of Vulture's attack on Epsommiton, he adopted a soft approach to his troops. Instead of fighting hard with the priest army, he slows down the opponent's movement as much as possible while inflicting damage. Gurnas was sure that Li Tianhao would not sit idly by and watch Vulture slip away, and would definitely cover up from behind.

Gurnas's strategy worked, and no matter how much Vulture and Bius attacked, they were unable to tear through Gurnas's defenses, and they didn't even find Gurnas's flank position. After pestering for a long time, Li Tianhao arrived.

Li Tianhao, who was seized by his opponent, was indeed a little annoyed even if he was not angry. Vultures, the opponent, not only put himself along, but also calculated the right time to retreat. Escaped before he did. Li Tianhao was even more sure that this opponent was an extraordinary figure, and he was even more jealous of this person in his heart, so he had to eliminate this person as much as possible, so Li Tianhao didn't have time to wait for the upcoming friendly army. The commander of 3,000 cavalry pursued and killed.

However, in order to prevent Vultures from flicking a shot, Li Tianhao's pursuit speed was not the fastest, if Vultures ambushed a force near Epsmilton City. Then his own departure gave the other party a time difference, and captured the almost undefended empty city before Wei Song's troops arrived. The scouts sent out reported that they had found no trace of the enemy. Li Tianhao let go of his speed and caught up.

In fact, Li Tianhao's move was completely unnecessary, and later generations of war historians had a lot of complaints about Li Tianhao's performance in this battle. In this battle, Li Tianhao fell into the trap of Vulture from the beginning. After finally grasping the initiative on the battlefield, he was too cautious at the last moment and missed the opportunity to annihilate the priestly army.

On a certain level, Li Tianhao's final judgment does show that Vulture, a completely uncontrollable opponent, put too much pressure on him, making him make continuous judgment mistakes; On another level, Li Tianhao really cared about Tia who stayed in Epsommiton, and made this overly cautious choice in order to ensure her safety.

When Li Tianhao's cavalry launched a full-scale assault towards the rear of the priest army, Vulture also happened to discover the location of Gernus himself. Vultures did not hesitate, and immediately sent Bius to lead a decisive charge against Gernus - if he could not break through the defense of Gurnas, the priest army was in danger of being routed.

Bius made the most of his skills as a veteran and launched an onslaught at Gurnas, a former colleague who was only a year younger than him. Bius knew that if two people faced each other with the same force, no one would be able to guarantee victory. However, the current Gernas has a fatal weakness, that is, in order to hold back the superior priest army, the battle line is too long, and the local forces have become relatively thin. Although the Priest Army had not been able to break through his line of defense, Bius made the right deployment for this assault, and he rushed forward with the left and right flanks, stabbing diagonally into the left and right sides, which made the middle part of Gurnas's soft defense line even thinner, and just before Gurnus deployed his army to fill this gap, Bius's central assault began. The timing was just right.

The Dilcs army in the center was quickly torn open, and Bius immediately pressed his forces towards this opening, and the defense line was finally torn open. At this time, the left and right flanks also began to stop their original attacks, and instead began to attack centripetally, encircling the separated Dilcs army in a zigzag shape in three armies.

Gurnas couldn't help but sigh secretly when he saw that his front had failed. He knew very well that the other party's actions were obviously coming towards him, and he had no troops at hand to stop the enemy's movements, and if he persisted, he would die here in a useless battle. Therefore, he immediately chose to transfer, which also gave the priestly army a way to live, and poured in from this rift. Since Vultures took fleeing as their first priority, Gernus escaped without encountering any danger, and it was precisely because Vultures had no intention of expanding this victory that the main force of the priest army was able to escape Li Tianhao's pursuit. Li Tianhao's cavalry was brave and swift, but unfortunately there were too few of them, no matter how much they wanted to obtain the head of the priest army, it was impossible for the horses to gallop on the battlefield all the time. In the end, the priest army successfully escaped Li Tianhao's pursuit after paying the price of 4,000 killed.

Unable to stop the Priest army from escaping northward, the Eagles and Bius broke through their line in two directions, joining up with the Priest Army on the northern front and retreating.

At this point, the war west of the Nara River was over, and the priest army paid 13,000 casualties, the vast majority of whom were killed in battle, while the number of dead in the Dils army reached more than 9,000, and the wounded were as high as 7,000, not counting the more than 3,900 killed by the cathars, most of whom were killed in battle. As far as the Dils army, which was mainly in a favorable position on the defensive, it can be said that the losses were heavy.

However, more significant losses await Li Tianhao. (To be continued......)