Three days later, the second expedition finally began to assemble. This time to suppress the ghost bandits, Zuoqiu City sent a large number of troops, more than predicted before!

The city guards sent a total of four teams, including the third team led by Liu Han, with a total of eighty members. The number of mercenaries was smaller than expected, and only eighty-five were recruited. It seems that there are still many people who do not want to participate in this kind of action rashly, for fear of being dragged to be cannon fodder in a daze.

In this way, the number of city guards as the main force was equal to the number of mercenaries as a supplement. At the same time, in order to deal with the iron hand, the city guard also dispatched two deputy captains with the fourth rank cultivation to personally lead the team, with a total strength of 167 troops. In addition, there were dozens of camel-laden cattle and mounts accompanying them, and after they were fully equipped, they left the city and headed for Death.

After five days of marching, the expeditionary force successfully reached the entrance to Deathze. I saw that there were three other teams of city guards already guarding there, which were the first batch of expeditionary forces where Cao Zhe was. Because of the lack of troops, they could only drive and follow the ghost bandits, but they were unable to go in and chase them here, so they kept guarding the entrance to prevent the ghost bandits from escaping.

Taking the opportunity of setting up camp, I secretly went to find Cao Zhe and asked him about the situation of the ghost bandits.

Cao Zhe said: "There is nothing to hide from you." Our spies have been in there a few times, and have found out that the lair where the bandits are hiding is probably in the cave between Caves 30 and 35. But it's like a labyrinth, and it's useless to go in with fewer troops! ”

"What is the number of ghost bandits?" I asked him.

"The information we have so far is between seventy and ninety. Most of them are gray ghosts, are about twenty, and ink ghosts should not exceed five. ”

"Where's the Iron Hand?"

"It's actually not scary, didn't you meet him last time?" Cao Zhe asked me rhetorically, "It is also the existence of a top-level ink ghost, and our deputy captain can deal with it alone." Even if the other squad leaders can't beat him, they can contain him. Don't worry, there are a lot of you! ”

"We?" I was a little surprised, "Aren't you going in?" ”

Cao Zhe smiled and said, "Our first expeditionary force has been out for more than a month, and we are already exhausted, so it would be good to continue to stay here as a reserve army for you!" Next, our task is to continue to stay behind and prevent any fish from escaping! ”

I gave him a blank look and scolded with a smile: "It's not interesting enough! I'm actually going to watch the excitement here! ”

However, Cao Zhe's news has always been very accurate, and the second batch of expeditionary forces began to prepare to enter the dead after a day's rest. Due to the wide cave in the dead river, in order to expand the search range, the two deputy captains of the team decided to divide the troops into two routes, each with half of the men and horses, and divided into two armies, the left and right routes, which were about 100 meters apart from each other.

In addition to the city guards to be divided into two routes, the mercenaries should also be separated, try to balance the forces of the two roads. As a result, all the mercenaries were temporarily divided into four teams, and then they were grouped into four city guard teams under the direct command of the city guard team leader. Our expedition was not broken up because of the largest number of people, and the six members of the expedition remained together.

After the formation was over, the four city guard squad leaders came out to pick people. I stood in the front row and saw Liu Han at a glance. When her eyes turned to me, I couldn't help but raise my hand to secretly say hello to her and smile.

I didn't think much of it at the time, after all, it was a friendship that was born and died together in the hungry ghost pit, and it was normal to say hello! Unexpectedly, as soon as Liu Han saw me greeting her, he directly pointed at our team of mercenaries and said, "I'll choose this team!" ”

I was stunned, did she choose this team because I greeted her?

The other team members standing next to me also saw my gesture and felt very strange, and asked me, "What do you mean?" Do you know her? ”

I smiled wryly, "Sort of! ”

"Well, that's right!" Birdmeat interjected and laughed, "She beat me up in Crystal City!" Ha ha! ”

"That's why she chose our team?" Long Xiaoyan said that he absolutely did not believe this kind of nonsense.

"I don't know!" I spread my hands helplessly, "It doesn't have to be my reason!" Maybe she's just a finger? ”

Bird Meat still refused to let me go, and teased: "Maybe she really likes you, right?" ”

"!"

"Don't make a fuss, be serious!" Long Xiaoyan also scolded, "I only care about her ability?" ”

I'm quite vocal about that, "Well, she's really good!" And the team leader is also very careful, and it is not necessarily a bad thing for us to follow her! ”

"That's good!" Others were relieved to hear me say this.

After dividing the ranks, the left and right armies marched together and entered the dead river together. The team we followed Liu Han led was all the way to the right, almost sticking to the cave wall.

In order not to break up the original formation of the city guards, Liu Han arranged for us mercenaries to line up on our own and advance side by side with them. This is much more polite than other squads directly letting mercenaries take the lead, at least it doesn't make it clear that they want us to be cannon fodder.

However, such a large team entering the Death Ze together was enough to drive away any ill-intentioned guys. Especially in the outer areas, all kinds of monsters dodge themselves along the way, and they are simply too much to avoid. Our march was also unprecedentedly smooth, and it took only two days to reach Cave 20.

Of course, the level of monsters in the twenty outer caves in front is not high, and from here, it is the real test that begins. Over the next two days, our march slowed down markedly, as we were harassed by all sorts of unscrupulous monsters, including those as difficult as the Red-Eyed Yak.

While such monsters are not enough to stop our march, casualties are already beginning to appear, and most of them are mercenaries.

Long Xiaoyan has a lot of complaints about this. He said: "Even if there are many people, they shouldn't be so startled, and the ghost bandits haven't found it yet, so they broke more than a dozen people's hands first." The loss of troops is still a trivial matter, and if it hurts morale, it will be annoying! ”

The rest of us echoed his views as well. But now the command is not in our hands, and we can only complain in private, and it is useless to talk too much.

Liu Han also seems to be worried about this. She wore a mask all the way, never spoke to us, didn't even look me in the eye. It made me wonder if she had forgotten about me.

Sure enough, when they reached Cave 28, the expeditionary force was ambushed again. It's just that it was the ghost bandits who ambushed us this time!

The ambush was fought in a dense forest. The area is full of vegetation, and the trees on the ground and the vines hanging from the roof of the cave have become entangled, and the cliff trees that grow horizontally from the cave wall form a three-dimensional forest. The ghost bandits took advantage of this terrain and landed directly on the top of the vanguard from the sky, and at the same time shot arrows at us from the cave walls on both sides.

No one would have imagined that before they reached the thirtieth cave mentioned in the intelligence, these weak ghost bandits would dare to take the initiative to launch an ambush. Caught off guard, the vanguard of the expeditionary force suffered great losses, and twenty or thirty members of the expeditionary force died in a short period of time!

But after all, there are still many people on the expeditionary force's side, and the overall cultivation and level are higher than those of the ghost bandits, and soon the follow-up troops immediately rushed to support. For a while, all kinds of long-range weapons were in unison, and arrows and ghost fireballs flew around.

Fighting on the march and fighting in peacetime are completely different concepts, and it is more important to pay attention to tactics and discipline. After surviving the first round of sneak attacks, the city guards quickly stabilized their position and began to launch a counterattack. Instead of rushing forward to engage the bandits, they fired several volleys to suppress each other with long-range attacks.

Although the ambush of the ghost bandits worked, they were still a rabble after all. After their sneak attack was successful, they screamed and wanted to rush up and engage the expeditionary force in close combat, but the expeditionary force did not give them this opportunity at all, and always maintained a good formation, relying on the superiority in numbers to shoot. Many of the ghost bandits who were blindly charging were shot by arrows before they could rush in front of us.

"Attack!"

Finally, after five rounds in a row, the commander of the Right Army raised his arms and shouted.

"Kill!"

Those of us with melee weapons in our hands couldn't hold it back for a long time, and at this time, our hearts couldn't help but be aroused by the cruel scenes of this kind of war, and we rushed forward. Where could the ghost bandits on the opposite side withstand our all-out charge, and as soon as they engaged, they were killed and retreated.

The battle in array is also different from the usual single fight, and does not pay attention to any moves and skills, and almost every shot is a real move, hard chopping and chopping, hard blocking and hard carrying, and the comparison is the number of people and morale. And we have the advantage in both.

So the battle was quickly decided. The ghost bandits were completely inferior in terms of numbers and strength, and they only resisted a wave of charges, and they were killed or wounded by more than half of them, and finally lost their armor and scattered in a hurry, and they all fled for their lives.

The expeditionary force must not give up such an opportunity to pursue, and everyone is brave enough to take the lead, and they all want to compete for more merit in killing the enemy. Although Long Xiaoyan and I rushed to the front, there were many monks and few porridges, and everyone basically killed one or two gray ghosts, and they didn't even catch a ghost bandit above a.

Covering all the way through, the expeditionary force chased the remnants of the ghost bandits to the thirtieth cave. From here, it can be regarded as the base camp of the ghost bandits, and the location of the real lair is not yet clear. The most troublesome thing is that from Cave 30 to Cave 35 are a labyrinth of several caves connected, and the terrain is complex and varied, no wonder they use this place as a base.

When the commanders of the left and right route armies arrived here and saw that the situation was unclear, they hurriedly called out to stop their troops and regrouped their entire teams. In fact, there are not many ghost bandits left, probably only twenty or thirty, but the bandit leader has not yet appeared. If you don't kill him, this expedition won't be considered a success!