Deep in the Great Prairie, the wind whips up swathes of yellow sand.
Great Chieftain Abar stood atop a high slope, his bronze upper body bare, a wolf-mane battle robe draped over his shoulders.
Before him stood three thousand elite cavalrymen, each with a bow in hand and arrows nocked, their warhorses restless. This was the new batch of cavalry he had personally forged, another sharp blade for the future of the grasslands.
"Look there!" Abar suddenly raised his arm, pointing to a lone rock in the distance. "Shoot!"
Buzz—
Arrows flew like locusts, and the lone stone rang out with a clanging sound.
"That dead tree to the left front!"
Another volley of arrows was fired, and the trunk of the withered tree was immediately covered with arrows.
"Southeast direction...!"
The cavalry charged forward, their arrows striking precisely the target pointed out by the Great Chieftain as they galloped.
Abar's lips curled into a slight smile. This was the army he wanted—responding like lightning and executing instinctively.
He slowly turned around, his gaze falling on his black horse with its jet-black mane. The horse was as black as ink, except for a white star on its forehead. It had accompanied him in battle for ten years and participated in thirty-seven battles. It was a prized horse that everyone on the grasslands envied.
He raised his hand, ensuring his voice carried clearly throughout the room:
"Shoot it."
The cavalrymen were taken aback.
"Shoot my horse."
A brief silence.
Some looked down at their bows, some glanced at their companions, and many more stood frozen in place, their fingers trembling slightly.
"I said—shoot!" Great Chieftain Abar roared.
In an instant, another barrage of arrows was unleashed.
The tall, black horse reared up and neighed amidst the rain of arrows, only to be pierced by dozens of arrows in an instant, collapsing to the ground with a thud, its blood quickly seeping into the yellow sand.
But Abar's eyes were like knives as he swept across the queue: "Bring out all those who hesitate!"
His personal guards immediately rushed into the fray and dragged out the seven soldiers who had failed to fire their arrows in time.
Their faces were ashen, some still trying to justify themselves: " Great Chieftain...that's your beloved horse...I thought..."
"No way!" Abar drew his scimitar and beheaded the nearest man with a single stroke. The head rolled on the ground, its eyes still wide open.
The other six were forced to kneel on the sand, their necks and backs exposed.
Execute them all!
At the Great Chieftain's command, his guards swung their swords in unison, and six heads fell to the ground, their blood spurting like pillars from the six corpses.
Abar stepped over a corpse, held a blood-dripping knife, pointed it at the seven heads lined up on the sand, and shouted to the cavalry in a thunderous voice:
"My commands are not for you to think! Not for you to judge! Not for you to believe!"
"Your eyes can only look in the direction I point, and your hands are only for drawing bows and shooting arrows!"
"Your lives belong to me, until you die on the battlefield!"
The howling wind whipped up blood-stained sand, sweeping across every terrified face.
Abar mounted another horse brought by his guards, surveyed the three thousand cavalrymen, and warned them in a low, cold voice:
"Next time I point to someone, I hope no one will disappoint me again!"
Just as the Great Chieftain was giving a stern speech to the cavalry, suddenly a cloud of dust billowed in the distance, and someone rode a horse at breakneck speed.
The horse was foaming at the mouth, and the rider on its back was disheveled; it was Eugene. Abar frowned. This usually most composed and steady subordinate was now covered in dust, his eyes bloodshot.
He charged straight at Abar's horse, tumbled and fell off its back, his knees sinking into the bloody sand, barely able to breathe.
" Great Chieftain... Something terrible has happened!"
Abar frowned even more and said coldly, "Stand up and talk. What could have made you lose your composure like this?"
Eugene looked up, his voice hoarse, his voice trembling: " The Stonemason Clan...they...they've detained the human emissaries...enraging Lakeheart Town! Aldor has sent a large army into the Rocky Mountains, and war has broken out on all fronts!"
Abar sneered and kicked the still-warm body of his beloved horse on the ground: "Then let them fight. The tunnels in the Rocky Mountains are like a spider web. The dwarves hide inside, and the humans can't even touch their shadows. They'll retreat when they run out of supplies."
"No!" Eugene looked up sharply, his eyes filled with genuine worry. "You don't know… humans… they have a new power! Not firearms or cannons, but a kind of magic that can blow up entire mountains!"
His voice trembled as he said, " The main tunnel of the Rocky Mountains was blown up section by section by them with that thing! The fortress and tunnels that the dwarves were so proud of were destroyed one after another! The solid rock walls collapsed like mud under that explosion! The dwarves inside were trapped underground, like rats trapped in their nests!"
Abar's sneer froze, and he frowned, saying, "Blow up the entire mountain? Impossible... There's no such power in the world."
Eugene panicked. "It's true! Our scouts who came back reported that they saw it with their own eyes! The power of humanity's new magic is like the collapse of the heavens and the earth."
The wind suddenly stopped.
Abar stood on the high slope, gazing towards the distant Rocky Mountains.
He recalled that when he was defeated in the Northwest, the Ausser Army only used firearms. Cannon and his phalanx defeated the most elite cavalry of the steppe.
He had thought that was the limit of human capability.
But now Eugene is saying... what kind of weird things have humans come up with?
He slowly lowered his head, looking at the horse he had just ordered shot, a symbol of his power and glory.
Abar suddenly felt a pang of regret. Was his power and glory destined to vanish like this horse, just as it had in the past?
If the Stonemason Clan loses its territory, the human army can advance directly from the heart of Aldor to the plains, just as the orcs once advanced directly from the Great Prairie to the heart of Aldor.
He looked up abruptly, fear appearing in his eyes for the first time.
"Pass on my order: summon the army!" Great Chieftain commanded in a deep voice, with an unprecedented urgency.
More than half a month later, 30,000 cavalrymen gathered from their various units and galloped toward the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
Abar personally led the army, his heart churning with shock and rage—if humans truly occupied the passages within the Rocky Mountains, the grasslands would have no more barriers.
He must reclaim the passage before Aldor gains complete control of the mountain road.
Seven days later, the army arrived at the pass on the northern slope of the Rocky Mountains, which was originally a handover outpost between the orcs and the Stonemason Clan, and should have been garrisoned by an army.
However, when the vanguard cavalry charged into the pass camp, they found only a scene of devastation.
The camp was burned down, weapons were scattered all over the ground, and bloodstains from the fight remained everywhere. Several orc corpses were hastily buried under the rock wall in the distance, but their heads were nailed to wooden stakes, their faces contorted in grotesque expressions.
Just then, a group of orc soldiers, their armor tattered and their hands unarmed, emerged trembling from behind the rocks. Their faces were covered in filth, some had severed fingers, and others had their wrists chafed by chains.
Abar demanded sharply, "Where is your Centurion? Why was your base destroyed?"
An elderly soldier knelt on the ground, his voice choked with sobs, and said, " Great Chieftain …we have been betrayed! That old dog Imar …he set a trap to lure Centurion, and our entire army was attacked! All the brothers who resisted were killed, and those of us who survived…were taken prisoner! He…he surrendered to humanity!"
"Surrender?" Abar's eyes turned cold. "He actually dared to surrender to humans?!"
The soldier raised his head, his eyes filled with humiliation. "He cut off the heads of Centurion and several officers, salted them, and sent them to the Mountain Throat Fortress, saying they were gifts to mankind!"
The grassland army was in an uproar.