The battlefield was soon cleared, Richard turned his horse and set off with a sleep-deprived team, the wolves were already in pursuit, and what followed was a long and difficult tug-of-war of encirclement and disengagement. Bayi Chinese Network!.

Richard's march was always erratic, this time the team headed northeast, a few kilometers and then north.

Tall barbarians could not ride horses, but fortunately they galloped much faster than ordinary people, and their endurance was surprisingly long, but after all, they could not compare to the bantam horses produced in the bloodstained regions. This horse is suitable for the sandfolk to ride, and there is no merit in short sprints, but its endurance and adaptability far exceed that of the high war horses of the human realm.

The team kept moving at a moderate pace, while the Wind Teeth stood guard within a few hundred meters of each other. With their sense of smell and sensing, which are more sensitive than humans, Richard can vaguely grasp the large-scale movement within a radius of about one kilometer, which is also an important basis for him to lead the team to fine-tune the direction of movement.

Richard's goal was to eventually go north, into the territory of the Iron Triangle Empire. It's likely to be found there to be the forward base of the Town Bear Knights, with the all-important Beacon of Time. And it's mountainous, with dense forests and plenty of ferocious beasts. In the complex terrain of mountains and forests, the pursuers of the Red Cossacks could not take advantage of their numbers, and the strengths of Richard's team would be maximized. Powerful mages and clerics, as well as contract professionals, were always a trump card in Richard's hands.

Until now, Richard did not know how the Red Cossacks behind him had embellished themselves with unmistakable accuracy every time, and how they had quietly amassed such a large force.

At first, the encounter with the small force of the Red Cossacks did not alert him enough, but the attacks became incessant, and several familiar faces continued to appear after the healing cycle. Richard, aware of the scattered enemy, had begun to organize in some way that he did not know. He only knew that the enemy could pounce on him at any time, at any time, from all directions.

The lack of backup was Richard's greatest disadvantage, and he could only mechanically repel the attacks that crushed the enemy again and again, and with his keen grasp of the regional situation, he led his troops to move constantly, jumping out of the encirclement that was about to be closed again and again. Then crush the enemy's pursuit interception, and then jump out of the encirclement.

At the outset, Richard was determined to move northward, whenever possible, but his intentions were clearly perceived by the enemy, who had significantly more troops in the north than in other directions. At this time, Richard decisively changed the course of his march and several times suddenly made a surprise attack to the east, crushing the frontal enemy and leaving behind the main forces of the Red Cossacks.

So at the northern end of the Bloodstained Lands, wolves and prey launched repeated pursuits and counterattacks. Both sides seemed to have achieved their goal, and Richard was forced to deviate from his northern destination, but he repeatedly escaped from the Red Cossacks and inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy.

You don't have to think about it to know that the pursuit is getting bigger and bigger. In addition to trying to drive Richard away from the Iron Triangle Empire, the Red Cossacks also wanted to divert him from the main trade routes.

As far as they knew, Richard was not without some roots in the Bloodstained Lands, and this little network was not enough for him to get substantial reinforcements, but it was not difficult to pass on the news. The Red Cossacks didn't have the intelligence network to block the entire Bloodstained Lands, and they wanted to kill this arrogant boy who dared to challenge the prestige of the Red Cossacks before the forces behind Richard got the news, and it would not be in their interest to turn the safari into war.

Upon discovering the Red Cossacks' attempts, Richard immediately followed the principle that the last thing the enemy wanted you to do should be carried out, and as soon as he had the opportunity, he would get closer to the trade routes, not touching the main line, but also passing near the branch lines. Of course, he didn't have any information to pass on, but to contain the enemy's troop deployment, and occasionally get additional personnel and material supplies.

Richard once encountered two small caravans, and after a brief persuasion, he was able to get supplies and escorts from the caravan. Behind Richard were the pursuers of the Red Cossacks, and if these two small caravans were to be seen by the Red Cossacks, they would inevitably be wiped out. This was a common occurrence in the Bloodstained Lands, where large slave traders usually worked part-time as horse bandits.

So after continuous combat attrition, Richard still led a force of nearly five hundred men. War is the best furnace, and man is the ore. After the ore is put into the furnace, it is partially condensed into fine iron and partly into waste residue. And in the Bloodstained Lands, the scum will basically turn into corpses.

As he rode his horse north, Richard was silently calculating the strength of his hands. Eight hundred and twenty-one people had joined his ranks, and now only four hundred and sixty warriors remained, and the difference in between, all of them had become corpses. Those who survive in the end become calm and murderous warriors.

For Richard himself, under the continuous high-intensity command, the only gain is a breakthrough in intellectual talent and entering the second stage.

The new stage seems to be fundamentally different from the first stage, but the speed of thinking is much faster, and it has basically reached the level of unforgettable, and the ability to process the field of digital vision has also been greatly enhanced. Intuitively, the originally chaotic and complex battlefield is now simpler and clearer, and Richard is able to clarify the shape in a shorter time, so as to give more orders. In a unit of time, the number of orders he can give is doubled, which means that his ability to control the battlefield is doubled.

A team of several hundred people is just right for Richard at the moment to fully exploit his abilities. But it's one thing to know clearly and think about the reaction, it's another thing to be able to come to an accurate conclusion. Whether the decision is correct or not has little to do with the ability to process numbers, and the improvement of intellectual talent only allows Richard to reduce the chance of making mistakes due to haste and poor thinking.

But even so, the powerful effect of wisdom has been manifested in the battle. More than 400 soldiers have fully adapted to Richard's command, and have merged into a whole, even if they were attacked by a strong enemy in the battle that just happened, they can break the confusion in the shortest possible time, adjust the formation, and reorganize into an indestructible battle formation.

In Richard's hands, this small force, originally a patchwork of warriors of various races and origins, has become like the most sophisticated alchemy machine, harvesting the lives of its enemies with incredible efficiency.

More than 100 kilometers away from Richard, a convoy was driving through the desolate Gobi.

It was a convoy, but instead of ordinary caravans, it was a few horse-drawn carriages with scarlet paint. In the center, a carriage is understated and luxuriously decorated, driven by a tall war horse, and the four wheels of the carriage are equipped with magical machinery that can absorb shocks, and under the influence of magic, it can even float for a short time on the roughest roads.

Even if the cost of craftsmanship is ignored, the material value of the carriage itself is 100,000 gold coins, and the purpose is certainly not just to provide comfort on long journeys. In fact, it is a magic chariot, and its function is to provide a quiet and stable environment during long marches, so that magicians can meditate and regain their magical powers. Moreover, the interior of the carriage is also equipped with a special magic circle, which is driven by magic crystals, which can speed up the process of meditation of the magician.

In Norland, high-level mages don't need this kind of chariot at all, and the great mage level is only low-level, they can't afford to use it, and there is no need to use it. This kind of equipment only appears in the Faro plane, where the status of a mage is extraordinary. If Richard saw that, with his professional eye from the deep blue, he would naturally see the meaning of this so-called chariot, which was more of a tool for magicians to show off their status and wealth.

: Plus 2. Reputation, well, reputation.