One hundred and eighty-nine chapters
As the head of the front, "Fan Xiu", as the only ground-level cultivator on the combat surface, his own strength is still much stronger than the strength of any single soldier of the "Iron Childish Army" even under the suppression of military spirit.
But no one is a fool.
There are not just a limited number of enemies on the staggered engagement plane. With the blessing of the battle formation and the organization and command of the grassroots generals of the "Tiezhi Army", "Fan Xiu" was facing more than ten weapons almost all the time.
Although at the moment of engagement, the "Iron Childish Army" was indeed shocked by the terrifying power of "Fan Xiu's" "Splitting the Ground", and was also a little afraid of "Fan Xiu's" simple and brutal killing methods in the next few times. But this also made those organizers at the bottom of the "Iron Childcare Army" discover the "hard idea" of "Fan Xiu".
When the two sides organized and deployed the soldiers who had been replenished to engage "Fan Xiu", the speed of "Fan Xiu's" breakthrough was quickly contained.
The battle on the battlefield is not heads-up, nor is it a simple gangster fight, who is more ruthless than whom. Although it cannot be denied the deterrent power of brutal methods and the impact on the morale of both sides, the most important thing on the battlefield is the overall strength.
If individual supernatural strength is the hallmark of a cultivator, then military formations and military qi are the best annotations of the overall strength of mortals.
As mentioned earlier, the existence of the city-state military system is one of the cornerstones of the city-state civilization, a secular civilization in which practitioners and mortals coexist and mingle. The main reason for this is the improvement of the overall strength of mortals and the suppression of the individual strength of cultivators.
Cultivators, especially those who have stepped into the earth and completed the initial leap between mortals and transcendent species, are indeed extremely powerful in their individual strength. However, under the cover of military qi, the ability of the most powerful attribute vitality of the earth-level cultivator to release external attacks will be completely "sealed", and his own strength will also be suppressed by a realm in an instant.
In other words, although the earth-level cultivators were still stronger than mortals under the suppression of the enemy's military formation, they were no longer invincible.
Of course, the effect of raising and suppressing the military qi and military array is always two-way and mutual. Both the enemy and the enemy, whether cultivators or mortals, can be blessed by the military qi of their own military array, and they will also be suppressed by the military qi of the enemy's military array. When the military qi of the two sides covers each other and intertwines, "you have me, I have you", it will exert a certain forbidden effect. And the object of prohibition is the circulation of heaven and earth vitality.
Mortals do not have or only have a small amount of internal qi, so the effect of prohibition is not obvious, and even to a certain extent, the so-called suppression can be said to be directly none.
Cultivators are different. A cultivator's strength largely depends on his own "internal qi", either "true yuan" or "source qi". No matter what the differences and connections between the three are, they are essentially "Heaven and Earth Vitality". And the operation of these inner "Heaven and Earth Vitality" requires constant communication with the Heaven and Earth Yuan Qi of the outside world, and once the Heaven and Earth Yuan Qi of the outside world is forbidden, it can be said that the cultivator is just a "mortal" with a stronger physical body.
"Fan Xiu" has many methods as a cultivator, but why is it that the "three-plate axe" move of "beheading", "heart" and "waist" is used the most on the battlefield? It's not because I don't want to use the means unique to cultivators, but it's difficult to use in an environment where the Heaven and Earth Yuan Qi is forbidden.
The military qi that covered each other not only "sealed" the cultivator's extraordinary strength, but also "sealed" ninety-nine percent of the specific innate abilities.
The reason is simple. Ninety-nine percent of these specific talents need to communicate with the Heaven and Earth Yuan Qi to activate. For example, the specific talent of "Flame", this talent is actually equivalent to the Warlock's fire method, which is activated by communicating vitality. In fact, this kind of specific talent can also be seen as another possibility of supernatural power for mortals. It's just that the awakening of talent is too much chance and uncertainty. Aside from physical talents that can be activated through training and the like, this way of gaining strength is not very reliable.
However, even so, with a physical body that has been refined by the Heaven and Earth Yuan Qi, the strength of the cultivator on the battlefield is still self-evident.
Moreover, not all cultivators can only become powerful mortals on the battlefield. When the military qi of the two sides does not cover each other, the strength of the cultivators will not be suppressed, on the contrary, with the blessing of their own military qi and military array, it will be greatly improved, so that all cultivators above the ground level who control the ability to release attribute vitality and those who have long-range attack ability can use the powerful ability of the cultivators to severely damage each other before the military qi of the two sides is entangled. After the military qi in the front is entangled, the warlock cultivator in the rear can also launch a long-range spell attack with the help of the military qi that is not affected by the side. It's just that such an attack will be greatly weakened after entering the position of military entanglement.
However, just like Fan Xiu's "Ground Splitting Slash", even if it can still cause more than 20 casualties after being suppressed and weakened after entering the range of the enemy's military qi, the attack of the Warlock cultivator can also cause huge threats and damage to the enemy after being weakened.
This is one of the reasons why Warlock units exist on the battlefield.
If Fan Xiu hadn't been possessed by Ning Yuan, this counterattack on the enemy's formation to break through would have basically failed the moment it was contained.
Because the entangled "Xiuyuan Remnant Army" will soon be divided and surrounded by the "Iron Childish Army" several times its own, and then annihilated.
Although Fan Xiu is strong, he will also be tired, make mistakes, be injured, and be exhausted in the face of siege. After all, the battlefield is not a place where you can do whatever you want by relying on individual strength.
However, the current "Fan Xiu" is not the real Fan Xiu. All the physical bodies and strength are the real Fan Xiu, but the consciousness is Ning Yuan's consciousness.
And Ning Yuan's two most fundamental abilities happen to be the thinking and spiritual abilities that can be activated without the need for vitality and physical body. "Sunset" and "Yanyan".
After the pace of the killing breakthrough was slightly curbed, "Fan Xiu" did not be reckless, but quickly found the gap of the "Iron Childish Army" with the help of "Xizhao" and "Yanyan", and turned the direction of the big knife, and "Fan Xiu" attacked the weak point of the sight without any entanglement.
The soldiers who charged on the battlefield were basically blindly obedient, and after "Fan Xiu" changed the attack route, the entire triangular charging array naturally followed.
The purpose of "Fan Xiu" now is to keep moving, no matter whether he can kill or break through the "Iron Childish Army" and break through, he can't stop, once the momentum of the charge is blocked, everyone who is following behind him now will definitely die.
Now, the reason why the team led by "Fan Xiu" can attack and defend each other several times and seem to be quite evenly fought is due to the increase in combat power brought about by the rise in morale. Once "Fan Xiu" is blocked, this is because the morale brought by "Fan Xiu" seemingly unstoppable will soon be eliminated, and once the morale is low, the military spirit will become scattered and will be completely dispersed by the opponent's military spirit. At that time, the Xiuyuan Army will completely become a local chicken and tile dog under the butcher's knife of the Iron Childish Army.
As mentioned earlier, military morale is largely due to morale. Although in addition to "morale", the composition of military qi also includes a large number of messy things such as "evil spirit", "blood spirit", "war spirit", "resentment spirit", and "dead spirit". But the most fundamental is the "morale" of the army itself.
And "morale" is a thing that is to put it bluntly, it is the emotions and spiritual will of the soldiers, and other things that seem to be ethereal but really exist.
Why is there such a description as "one drum, then exhausted, three and then declining", and "the mourning army will win"? It is because "morale" will affect the actual combat effectiveness of an army to a large extent. And "morale" is completely determined by the will and mood of the soldiers.
When the "morale" is full, the soldiers can exert their own combat power by 100% or even 12% or even higher.
When the "morale" is ordinary, the soldiers can exert their normal level of combat power, but the normal level of combat power is often not equal to their own real combat power.
When "morale" is low, the non-commissioned soldiers can only exert half or even less of their normal combat power.
And when the "morale" collapses, it is difficult for the soldiers to give full play to their own combat strength.
And "morale" is as contagious as will and emotion. This is also the reason why those brave generals in the war exist and will be admired.
To put it bluntly, the brave general is to infect the will and emotion of the soldiers through their own bravery, and then improve the overall morale of the army, so that the soldiers can exert 100% or even 200% of their combat power.
What "Fan Xiu" is now playing is the existence of such a brave general.
However, due to the defeat of Zhongfu, the overall morale of the Xiuyuan army has dropped to a very low level. Although "Fan Xiu" raised the morale of his guards by means of "explaining cause and effect" and "stimulating the will to die", it only returned to a normal level. Even if the morale is further boosted now with the power of "splitting the ground and slashing" and simple and brutal killing methods, it is still quite different from the original full morale.
If the morale was 100, then the morale of the Xiuyuan army was 80 when they first set out, and the morale after the defeat of Zhongfu was 20, which was restored to 40 by collecting the rout and resting in the abandoned barracks, and then dropped to 30 under the siege of the Tiezhi army, which was close to the brink of collapse. Then "Fan Xiu" raised the morale of the pro-military camp to 50 through the order to cut off the back road and that sensational inference, and now with the addition of veterans and his own bravery, the morale has been raised to more than 60 and close to 70.
The Xiuyuan army with 70 morale, and the people who fought with "Fan Xiu" were all elite soldiers and veterans in the Xiuyuan army, so it was not surprising that they could attack and defend with the main soldiers of Tiezhi City.
However, it can be said that the current morale is completely supported by the unstoppable bravery of "Fan Xiu", and once the offensive of "Fan Xiu" is contained, even if it is delayed for a long time, the "morale" that has finally been uprooted will decline like an "avalanche."
Although with the continuous advance of "Fan Xiu", more and more veterans took the initiative to gather over, and even those recruits who were almost waiting for death unconsciously followed the veterans to join in, so that the morale began to slowly improve steadily.
However, it is not enough.
Now on the battlefield, except for "Fan Xiu", Vice General Zhao, and a limited number of basic non-commissioned officers who are cultivators themselves, they can steadily suppress and defeat their opponents, even the "Fan Xiu" headquarters pro-army and those veterans who are the elite soldiers of Xiuyuan City can only achieve mutual casualties with the main soldiers of the Tiezhi Army.
"Fan Xiu" needs to find a way to further boost morale, so that all the soldiers under his command can at least be able to win one-on-one battles, and one-on-two can remain undefeated, only in this way can the possibility of a breakthrough success be increased.
"So what should be done?" "Fan Xiu" dodged the stabbing blow of the three spears, the big knife blocked another spear on the left side from the back, handed it to the right hand, the muscles were stretched, and he used his height advantage to slash down obliquely, cutting off the blades of the three enemy soldiers, and then the big knife swept the beheading of the three people whose weapons were broken, while constantly thinking and deducing in his mind.
Just when Ning Yuan killed another soldier, when "Xizhao" reproduced the scene that his eyes swept just now, a detail caught the attention of "Fan Xiu".
It was a nine-foot man who was constantly advancing towards him, surrounded by several well-armored guards.
"The enemy's vanguard?" The thought of "Fan Xiu" flashed, turned around and ignored it, and attacked another weak point in the enemy army that was estimated to be flawed due to the flow of soldiers.
After killing several enemy soldiers and then rushing into the depths of the enemy army, "Fan Xiu" once again found the vanguard officer with bright armor and holding two handles, which at first glance was a five-foot hammer that smashed people like crushing melons.
A cold light flashed in Fan Xiu's indifferent eyes, and then he once again ignored the other party's "sunset" to peep through the killing.
"It's not the time yet."
In this way, as "Fan Xiu" continued to change the direction of his advance, he intentionally or unintentionally re-killed the basic non-commissioned officers of the Tiezhi Army, and took advantage of the poor enemy attack caused by the death of the most basic organizational units such as the captain and the chief of the army, and overlapped personnel to block the enemy vanguard officers who had been trying to stop "Fan Xiu", slowly but surely improving the morale of their own side and weakening the morale of the enemy soldiers on the contact surface.
After killing another enemy chief, Ning Yuan finally felt a slight increase in strength. The overall morale of the command has finally increased to about 80.
"Almost."
"Fan Xiu" thought flashed, and after brushing aside a few spears, he turned his body slightly again, made a forced turn, and slowly moved closer to the side of the vanguard officer whose face was obviously anxious.
The pioneer officer, who had been being teased by "Fan Xiu" and "walking", saw that "Fan Xiu" was finally forced to his position by the soldiers, his big eyes lit up, his big mouth opened to reveal a silent hideous laugh, and he couldn't wait to knock away the soldiers around him and approach "Fan Xiu".
When the two sides approached Zhangxu, the enemy's vanguard officer suddenly swelled up, rising to a height of one zhang and seven feet wide like a little giant, holding two five-foot hammers the size of watermelons and knocking each other, making a loud noise, shouting: "The enemy will die!" ”
Slammed into the soldier who was blocking the way in front of him, and smashed the head of "Fan Xiu" who had just blocked the side spear and slightly changed his breath.
Just when the vanguard officer laughed loudly, and Vice General Zhao and the guards who were fighting a few steps behind "Fan Xiu" were shocked, the corners of the mouth of "Fan Xiu", who "changed his breath", curved slightly, and pulled out a cold arc as cold as a knife.
Immediately, the figure also swelled and widened in an instant, the big knife in his hand turned on the back of his neck, his arms swelled a full two circles, his hands clenched the big knife from the bottom to the top, and the arc blade wrapped in glowing sword qi did not allow a hair, and the bright armor and shoulder guards that slashed diagonally from the left waist of the enemy vanguard officer to the other party's chest were swept upward.
"Uh." The enemy vanguard officer charged forward without stopping, but the grim expression on his face froze in an instant, his bronze eyes opened widely, and after a muffled sound, a blood line appeared on the bright armor on his chest, and then blood spurted out from the blood line, half of his body broke away from the sprinting legs, and his hideous face opened his mouth, and a mouthful of blood spurted out with a "wow".
In the process of the body of the little giant-like big man separating and falling, "Fan Xiu" had already dodged the heavy hammer attack that had lost his stamina, and without any hesitation, Gao Sheng shouted violently: "The enemy general is dead!" Kill all the soldiers! ”
Vice General Zhao and the others saw the corpse of the enemy vanguard officer slowly returning to its normal body shape in the process of falling, and subconsciously shouted: "Kill!" ”
I didn't know the specific situation in the distance, but after clearly hearing the general's announcement that "the enemy general is dead", he shouted violently: "Kill!" ”
The recruit, who was completely blindly obedient, subconsciously shouted as if he was infected: "Kill! ”
Almost within a few breaths of "Fan Xiu's loud announcement, the entire battlefield seemed to be echoing the hoarse but sonorous word "kill", and the overall morale of the "Fan Xiu" department suddenly rose a lot, and immediately broke through the original 80 to 95, and after a few breaths, the peak of breaking through the 100 mark was still climbing.
In a word, the morale of the "Fan Xiu" team, which launched a counter-charge against the enemy, has been completely bursting.
And in that hoarse "killing", the morale of the Xiuyuan army on the entire battlefield, which was originally scattered to the point of collapse, was no longer declining, as if it was infected, but began to rise slowly, and the military spirit, which was already thin and almost disappeared, also stopped, and the dissipation trend became rich again.
Feeling the more and more obvious blessing of combat power from the arrival of the morale boost, a smile appeared on the cold face of "Fan Xiu".
"Sure enough, killing the enemy is the most effective way to raise morale." Ning Yuan muttered to himself in his consciousness.
Looking at the standard and brightness of the opponent's armor, as well as the two heavy hammers in the opponent's hands that are different from ordinary soldiers, there is no doubt that he is a brave general used by the enemy to charge into battle, although he is only cultivated to the appearance of a captain, but he has two physical talents of "strength" and "fitness", and the deepening is good, and his strength can be said to be definitely not weak.
It's a pity that he was continuously ignored by "Fan Xiu" and dodged so that the opponent's mood fluctuated violently, so he was eager to vent his anger at the moment of attack and there was an obvious flaw such as the empty door in his chest.
However, as long as the speed of the attack is fast and ruthless enough, so that the enemy has no time to counterattack, plus one force to reduce ten times, such an attack is not a flaw. It's a pity that "Fan Xiu" kept an eye on it at the beginning of the battle, and although he exposed the identity of a ground-level cultivator, he did not fully exert the true power of the two talents of "strength" and "fitness" that he possessed. It hides his true shooting speed.
Therefore, in the case of lure, it became a matter of course to be easily killed by "Fan Xiu", who showed full combat power.
But that's exactly what "Fan Xiu" needs.
In a normal battle, in an environment like a battlefield, a ground-level cultivator and a captain-level cultivator can be said to be evenly matched to a certain extent. Although the difference in the actual realm and the resulting experience surprise, in terms of the victory rate, the victory rate of the ground level cultivator will be higher, but it is usually not a matter of a few rounds to tell the winner or loser. Not to mention that "Fan Xiu" killed the other party almost instantly.
It is precisely because of this "instant kill" deliberately designed by "Fan Xiu" that the morale of the Xiuyuan army has been completely revitalized, and the situation on the entire battlefield can change from the original glance to the current appearance of faint variables.
Morale is contagious. This is true of friend and foe.
After Fan Xiu, who was possessed by Ning Yuan, "instantly killed" the enemy general, the morale of the enemy soldiers on the frontal battlefield of "Fan Xiu" suddenly stagnated. Faintly declining.
"Fan Xiu" felt it after killing several enemy soldiers again, and his eyes flashed with cold light narrowed slightly.
Under the rapid operation of his thinking, he raised his breath and shouted again: "The morale of the enemy army has declined, kill!" ”
Vice General Zhao and others, who also felt the faint decline in the combat power of the enemy's soldiers, shouted violently: "Kill!" ”
"Fan Xiu" no longer changed direction this time, but rushed straight to the frontal enemy army, relying on his strong strength and the rapid operation of "Xizhao" and "Yanyan" to continuously kill the grassroots organizers found in the frontal enemy army, that is, those who are the captains, captains, captains, and team leaders, further disintegrating the morale and organizational strength of the other party.
Under the decline of morale and the conscious frequent killings of "Fan Xiu", the personal soldiers under the command of "Fan Xiu" and those veterans and recruits who had attached themselves all found that the enemy's combat strength was faintly declining, and the military situation in the local front was slowly becoming chaotic.
The novices, who were originally timid and just blindly followed the team, began to quickly change from recruits to veterans after killing the enemy for the first time in the chaos.
With the change of mentality, the effect of morale promotion is more and more obvious, the blessing of morale and military spirit is also strengthened, and the continuous enhancement of their own combat power has further improved the morale of the soldiers, so that a spiral cycle of entanglement with each other has been formed, and the more you fight, the more courageous you are.
The feelings of the soldiers of the Tiezhi Army are just the opposite, from the crushing of the original combat power, to the slight resistance of the other party, the attack and defense of each other, the evenly matched, and now faintly suppressed, the soldiers of the Tiezhi Army have experienced a reversal like a roller coaster, and their mentality has begun to fall into confusion and self-doubt.
Originally, under this circumstance, as long as those basic organizers were still there, such a mentality would soon be suppressed, but under the conscious killing of "Fan Xiu" and the subsequent Vice General Zhao and others, there were fewer and fewer organizers of the frontal enemy army, making more and more soldiers of the enemy army fall into this confusion and self-denial.
The confusion of the frontal enemy forces became more and more obvious. There is even a tendency to spread to both sides.
However, without waiting for "Fan Xiu" to be happy, the enemy generals commanding in the rear also quickly took countermeasures.
I saw that the soldiers who were constantly rushing forward in the rear of the frontal battlefield began to consciously separate to both sides, and some tall figures faintly appeared in the sight of "Fan Xiu".
When "Fan Xiu" saw what those figures were, his pupils contracted almost instantly.
Dressed in chain mail, wearing a round helmet, holding a five-foot curved scimitar in each hand, and beneath him was a huge wolf with a supple brown coat and a fierce face, sharp claws and teeth.
This is the group of wolf cavalry that "Fan Xiu" once glimpsed when he was in ambush.