Through his binoculars, Fang Zhen saw that Balenzuo’s army had entered the ambush circle.

The right flank, led by Finn, did not act rashly.

The initial phase of the ambush went smoothly. There was no need to deploy the decoy cavalry, so Finn, their commander, held them back.

’Good judgment.’

Fang Zhen felt a faint thrill of excitement. A great battle was about to erupt.

"Matthew, launch the drone," Fang Zhen ordered.

In the rear, Matthew was already in position. He immediately adjusted the drone and launched the precision machine.

The drone soared into the air, ascending rapidly. The control console provided a bird’s-eye view of the entire battlefield.

Fang Zhen glanced at the screen, making his final preparations. The drone would act as a relay for radio signals and allow him to observe the overall situation.

A little over a third of the Balenzuo Legion had entered the pocket formation’s encirclement.

Fang Zhen picked up the walkie-talkie. At what he felt was the perfect moment, he barked out a command.

"Attack!"

With Fang Zhen’s command over the walkie-talkie, the archers and stone-throwers hidden in the woods on both flanks immediately sprang into action.

Instantly, torches flared to life on the high ground in the forests on either side, and a vast number of archers nocked fire arrows.

Volleys of arrows, interspersed with flaming ones, rained down like a plague of locusts. Stones hurled by the throwers also plummeted toward the heads of the Balenzuo soldiers caught in the trap.

Screams of agony immediately rose and fell. Even from his position some distance away, Fang Zhen could clearly hear the cries of the Balenzuo Legion’s soldiers. On the drone’s control screen, he watched them fall one by one, struck by arrows.

The combined volleys from the Augustus Army’s left and right flanks took down at least three to five hundred of Balenzuo’s soldiers.

Caught by the sudden, unexpected attack, Balenzuo’s soldiers were stunned. Many didn’t even have time to react, while others began to panic, instinctively turning to flee back the way they came.

Fang Zhen saw it all clearly through the drone’s feed.

"Left and right flanks, continue volley fire! Encircle the trapped Balenzuo troops, then cut them off from their main force!"

"Remember to leave the central path open! Don’t shoot our own men."

"Mansa, lead the central army forward! Engage the enemy head-on and pressure them!"

Fang Zhen issued the orders rapidly.

Mansa nodded, mounted his horse, and led the main body of the Augustus Army’s central force in a swift advance.

Mansa was the leader of the Mage Corps. In Zambein, the Mage Corps not only served the army but also acted as military commanders and adjutants, so Mansa was no stranger to leading troops in battle.

Old but vigorous, Mansa led the central army charging out. They stormed down from the high ground, pursuing the Balenzuo forces from the front.

Tahar and Finn on the flanks both had walkie-talkies and received their orders quickly. They unleashed another volley at the rear of the surrounded Balenzuo troops, felling several hundred more men.

After two volleys, battle cries erupted from the woods.

The archers and stone-throwers of the Augustus Army were not just ranged units. Most carried sidearms, from shortswords to warhammers, ready to engage in close combat after their barrage.

Balenzuo’s vanguard was in disarray. After the arrow volleys, Finn and Tahar dispatched troops from the left and right flanks, moving to envelop them like a crab’s pincers, ready to clamp down on the trapped forward contingent.

Meanwhile, Mansa charged out with the central army.

Mansa, clad in a gray robe, galloped forth holding a crescent-shaped Magic Staff. This staff, however, looked like it could not only cast Magic but also chop down enemies like an axe.

Watching him, Fang Zhen thought he had a bit of a Gandalf vibe.

After the central army moved out, Fang Zhen did not send in the cavalry. Instead, he launched a second drone.

Piloted from a second control console, the drone took off carrying thirty liters of gasoline and flew over the battlefield.

Fang Zhen steered the drone toward the area where Balenzuo’s vanguard and main army met.

He judged that after the vanguard was ambushed, the main army’s first reaction wouldn’t necessarily be to join the fight, but to stabilize their formation.

Chain reactions were common on the battlefield. If Balenzuo’s main army entered the fray too quickly or fled too hastily, it would cause problems. The former might lead to them feeding more men into the ambush, while the latter could cause the collapsing vanguard to break the main army as well, resulting in an uncontrollable rout.

A wise commander would rally the main army, tighten their formation, carefully observe what was happening, and then make a swift, correct decision.

And that played right into Fang Zhen’s hands.

The drone Fang Zhen was controlling flew to the edge of the ambush site. Sure enough, a commander there was trying to quell the chaos and panic that had erupted in the main army due to the surprise attack.

A large number of troops had gathered there. The forces in the rear, unaware of what was happening, were still pressing forward, while the advance of the troops at the front had been halted. For a moment, the density of soldiers in this area far exceeded anywhere else.

Fang Zhen chuckled. He had the drone gain altitude, switched it to pesticide-spraying mode, and began rapidly spraying 97-octane gasoline downward.

Fang Zhen had previously used a fire attack to burn Montagu’s and Von Klei’s armies, so he was an old hand at this. All he had to do was fly the drone high enough and use the indirect spray mode. The aerosolized gasoline would detonate upon contact with open flames, igniting instantly. It would also suck the oxygen out of the air, creating a hypoxic attack that could even cause soldiers to suffocate.

The DJI drone sprayed the gasoline. Below, where the soldiers and their torches were numerous, the Balenzuo commanders and soldiers had yet to realize what was happening when a cloud of aerosolized gasoline descended upon them.

BOOM!

A massive fireball erupted, rising into a great flaming mushroom cloud. The explosion made the soldiers below cry out in alarm, and many of Balenzuo’s men were instantly set ablaze.

Seizing the momentum, Fang Zhen controlled the drone to spray gasoline continuously, creating what looked like a giant dragon of fire descending from the sky.

The roar of the explosions was the dragon’s bellow. The fiery beast scorched the heavens, dyeing half the sky red. It was as beautiful and as perilous as a blazing sunset.

The fire dragon stretched out, quickly igniting a large number of the Balenzuo soldiers below.

The commander’s intention had been to gather his troops and form a defensive line to deal with the ambush ahead. He never imagined that a dragon of fire would descend from the sky. The gasoline-spraying drone set the densely packed soldiers ablaze, burning and injuring several hundred in just a few moments, with the number of casualties rapidly growing.

Fang Zhen maneuvered the drone, swiftly reaping the lives of his enemies.

In just that short time, the Balenzuo army’s center collapsed.

In an ancient army fighting with cold weapons, morale would become unstable after losing more than ten percent of its men. A third of the Balenzuo Legion was already trapped in the ambush, and of the roughly three thousand men in the center, several hundred had been burned to death. Moreover, they died in a manner they had never witnessed before—by fire falling from the sky. Their morale shattered.

Although some Knights were desperately trying to control their troops, it was too late. With the center wavering, the morale of the rear guard crumbled, even though they hadn’t been touched by the fire dragon. The soldiers at the front began to retreat, and not even the Knights and their Attendants could stop them.

Fang Zhen watched it all unfold on the control console.

He had already accomplished the greater part of his goal.

The second drone’s purpose was to break Balenzuo’s consolidated center. Once the center broke, the rest of Balenzuo’s army would lose the will to fight and face a total collapse.

Once a rout begins, it becomes an unstoppable torrent. No number of men can stop it.

Just then, a brilliant arrow of white light suddenly shot out from the Balenzuo formations, heading straight for the drone in the sky.

The glowing arrow was incredibly fast, its power far exceeding that of a normal arrow. It seemed less like a shot from an ordinary archer and more like an attack from an Extraordinary Item.

The drone was flying quite high, yet the arrow was so fast it crossed a hundred meters in an instant and pierced the drone’s fuselage.

Fang Zhen was a little surprised.

’What incredible archery!’

’Even if he used an Extraordinary Item, hitting a drone in the night sky from over a hundred meters away still requires immense skill. He must be an archer of one-in-a-thousand caliber.’

’There’s an expert like this in the Balenzuo army?’

’Truly surprising.’

’He’s almost half as good as me.’

The drone’s body was pierced, but while the arrow had strong penetrating power, its destructive force was only average.

The drone didn’t explode. Luckily, the control system wasn’t damaged; the arrow had only pierced straight through the gasoline tank.

Seeing he could still control the drone for a little longer, Fang Zhen held nothing back. He cranked the gasoline spray rate to maximum and sent the fire dragon roaring across the enemy lines.

Just before the drone went out of control, the sprayed gasoline ignited another section of the forest, engulfing a hundred more of Balenzuo’s soldiers in a sea of fire.

Finally, the drone seemed to be reaching its limit. The controls were becoming unresponsive, and it could no longer maintain its altitude.

Fang Zhen decided to get one last bit of value out of it. He aimed the flying machine, with its remaining third of a tank of gasoline, at a spot on the ground where several figures who looked like Knights were gathered.

The drone plummeted from the sky at high speed, diving toward the flames below.

On the control console’s screen, Fang Zhen saw the person who had shot the drone.

It was a young Knight with fiery red hair. His face was obscured by a mask, and he held a delicate, silver-white longbow that looked more like a decoration than a weapon of war.

The man was nocking another arrow, preparing a second shot.

Fang Zhen gave him no chance. He aimed the drone directly at the man and sent it crashing down.

BOOM!

The drone smashed into the ground, and the nearby flames ignited the remaining gasoline in its tank, erupting in a massive Fireball.

Fang Zhen lost the drone’s feed, but he wasn’t flustered.

He tossed the control console to the ground, leaped onto his Red Hare Warhorse, and shouted to the troops behind him, "Mage Corps, and Cavalry Corps, charge with me!"

Hearing Fang Zhen’s cry, the cavalrymen in the rear let out a rousing, high-spirited cheer.

Spurring his horse, Fang Zhen charged at the very front, leading the Mage Corps and the Cavalry Camp down from the high ground in the forest.

The terrain was forested, but it wasn’t a dense wood. The gaps between the trees were quite large. While the warhorses couldn’t charge as freely as on an open plain, they could still build up speed.

The route Fang Zhen chose skirted the ambush zone behind the right flank, looping around Finn’s troops and the sea of fire ignited by the drone, to launch a surprise attack on the Balenzuo army’s center and rear-guard supply train.

The Balenzuo vanguard had already been broken. Nearly fifteen hundred men were trapped in a pocket by the Augustus Army’s flanks and center, and the pocket’s exit had been set ablaze by Fang Zhen’s drone.

Balenzuo’s vanguard had descended into chaos, while their center, having been scorched by fire, was on the verge of a complete rout.

At this moment, the Mages and cavalry led by Fang Zhen had already bypassed the fire on the right flank and were bearing down on the Balenzuo army’s rear-guard supply train.

Duke Balenzuo might be here as well.

Fang Zhen rode at the head of the charge.

As he rounded the fire and entered the area of Balenzuo’s crumbling rear guard, he spotted a lavishly decorated carriage.

On the carriage door was the Balenzuo Clan’s signature Siren Badge.

’Duke Balenzuo.’

Fang Zhen narrowed his eyes and charged toward the carriage.