As one detachment after another from the Officers' Headquarters kept charging up to delay Brack's great army, the sharp impact of Brack's assault grew slower and slower, until in the end it was actually choked off. And as Brack's advance slowed, the Han Army's offensive only grew fiercer.

At this moment, Leiblalei and Hirilah both had a bitter taste at the corners of their mouths. That enemy commander standing about a hundred paces ahead simply stood there, ten paces in front of the Command Banner, and had not moved a single step since Brack's charge began—yet that unmoving stance brought only boundless despair.

Fourteen thousand Kushan Army, and they had rushed forward barely three hundred paces before the enemy halted their offensive. Among these fourteen thousand Kushan Army, nearly ten thousand were true Kushan Elite, and among them were three Inner Qi Manifestation experts and one top-tier powerhouse with a Legion Talent.

Yet in this contest of legion offense and defense, the Kushan were utterly defeated. After the four Inner Qi Manifestation leaders had their advance blocked by the ever-surging Han Army, all they could see before them was a dense forest of Heavy Crossbows—fully one thousand of them.

"So… we won just like that?" Zhang Song, Zhang Su and the others stared in disbelief at Yan Yan's not-so-broad back ahead of them.

"…" Zhang Ren, Meng Huo and the others likewise stared at Yan Yan in disbelief. The feeling was like a horror story where the villain uses a lollipop to lure away a little girl, only for the little girl to straight-up eat the villain instead.

Brack was half-kneeling beside his warhorse, the Cross Spearhead thrust into the ground right before him. With both hands braced on the ground, he felt an indescribable chill in his heart at that moment.

Brack simply could not understand why he had lost. Clearly the Han Army's Rear Army had not shown that great a Combat Power before; earlier he had been able to lead just his own Headquarters troops to weave in and out at will, even managing to rescue all three routes of Vanguard.

If it hadn't been because his own Headquarters could weave in and out through the Han Army's Rear Army at will, Brack would never have chosen to stake everything on one throw and attempt to slay the Han Army's Commander-in-chief, Yan Yan.

After all, with just one route of troops he'd already managed that much; then with more than eight thousand Kushan Elite massed together, and adding in the Headquarters of the other Military Officers, there were over fourteen thousand men. At that time, in his view, fighting his way to the enemy's front was not a problem at all.

The result was a harsh slap in the face from reality. It felt as if, earlier, the enemy had merely been toying with him, giving him some face, and later, when they got annoyed, they took out their real skills.

"So this is the Han Empire?" After dismounting, Leiblalei sent a Voice Transmission to Hirilah.

"More or less. The Soldiers are still the same Soldiers, but the generals are too strong. This isn't Brack's fault." Hirilah replied helplessly by Voice Transmission. With eyes that were not blind, how could he not see the immense gap between the Han Army's command before and its command afterward?

"It's completely like a different person took over. If the previous level was still something we could catch up to, then the level that defeated us just now is about enough to make us give up as soon as we clash." Sulapri said solemnly.

The level of war command Yan Yan displayed at the last moment was enough to plunge most fine generals into despair. Though it hadn't reached the point of moving the army as easily as his own arm, just that one line of "defeated yet Unbreakable, scattered yet not in chaos" was something over ninety-nine percent of the Generals in the world could not achieve.

As for Sharuk and Monnari, though the two had gone ahead to link up with Brack, by then Yan Yan was already commanding thirty thousand troops who could exert their peak Combat Power in a Defensive battle. He no longer cared about another four or five thousand Kushan Army at all.

After all, the Kushan's Cloud Qi had basically collapsed, and their Inner Qi Manifestation experts could no longer display their due battlefield dominance. Though they still had a Break Formation capability stronger than Qi Refining to Gang, they no longer possessed the power to decide the war.

The army under Yan Yan's command, once he activated his Legion Talent, was easy to scatter but hard to rout; and if it cannot be routed, then on any battlefield, so long as you cannot rout the enemy, it is extremely difficult to win. What's more, that detachment Yan Yan split off was mostly just to pin down those two, since Zhang Ren, Meng Huo and the others would arrive soon after.

Thus, when Brack's entire army fell into Yan Yan's encirclement, Sharuk and Monnari were likewise surrounded by a large group of Generals led by Zhang Ren.

As the Kushan lowered their Command Banner, a continuous clanging of Bronze Bells sounded from the Han Army's rear. Then the Han Army's Rear Army opened up a path, and Yan Yan, riding his Xiliang Large Horse, advanced unhurriedly toward Brack and the others.

Zhang Su, Zhang Song and the others also jumped down cheerfully from their carriage frames, mounted their own warhorses, and followed along at a trot.

"Honored Commander-in-chief of the Han Empire, Hirilah, a Wuxi Marquis of the Great Yuezhi and descendant of the Kushan, pays you his respects." Seeing Yan Yan approach, Hirilah saluted with utmost solemnity.

"You understand the Han Dynasty's rites? And you speak Han as well?" Yan Yan was a bit taken aback; he hadn't expected to encounter a Kushan People who spoke fluent Han.

"Not exactly. Our country has an object which, though not as capable as one's own Visualization-derived ability to commune with all things in nature, can still allow us to communicate with people speaking other tongues." Hirilah said humbly.

"General, could you tell me why you became so strong afterward?" Just as Yan Yan was about to marvel at such an item and express his desire to obtain it, Brack—who had been half-kneeling on the ground in a daze—suddenly stood up, eyes blazing, and spoke.

Clearly, in that short span of time, the other party had already adjusted from the setback of defeat and begun to yearn to learn deeper truths.

Yan Yan looked Brack up and down, and Brack likewise sized up this middle-aged man. In his view, judging from the command ability Yan Yan had displayed when he used his Headquarters to choke off his charge, if Yan Yan had taken out that level from the very beginning, then just as Hirilah and the others had thought, once the situation turned unfavorable, he very likely would have lowered his head and admitted defeat.

"Why so strong afterward?" The calm on Yan Yan's face twitched twice. Could he say that during the Defense his scattered troops could regroup more easily and rapidly under the protection of others, and that earlier, during the attack, it wasn't that he was holding back, but that he simply couldn't do it?

"Mm, because if I didn't go all out later on, someone might well have taken my old life." Yan Yan suddenly smiled, and a chill crept into Brack's heart.

Yan Yan swung down from his horse and patted Brack on the shoulder. "We've won this battle. Do you have any complaints?"

When he heard that last sentence, Brack finally understood that his loss was not unjust. Thinking of how Yan Yan had suddenly exerted himself right when he himself had resolved to take the other man's life, his heart sank.

"May I ask, Commander-in-chief, how you intend to deal with us?" Brack asked bluntly.

"There's not much to deal with. You are not weak. We'll simply draw lines and each govern our own." Yan Yan said as he looked at Brack. It wasn't that Yan Yan had no desire to seize Kushan territory, but for men like him, consolidating the Indochina Peninsula first was more meaningful than seizing the South Asian Subcontinent.

Hearing this, Leiblalei felt a weight lift from his heart. It was truly fortunate that the other side was not intent on detaining all of them. After all, by this point their Kushan Army was basically meat on the chopping block; how they were dealt with depended entirely on Yan Yan's mood.

Sulapri and Hirilah exchanged a glance and saw understanding in each other's eyes.

[It seems that, though our strength is not equal to the Han Dynasty's, the Han Dynasty probably also feels that taking us down would not be too easy, and so they're giving up on the profit already in their grasp.]

Hirilah's heart lightened. For a noble like him, who revered the Han Dynasty, to receive recognition from the Han Empire was already a very good outcome.

As for defeating the Han Empire—sorry, Hirilah had never even considered it. His mindset was like that of most Chinese people in the early days of Reform and Opening-Up, who bore a kind of unshakable awe toward The United States, which had, in their impression, already been powerful for decades.

As for the Han Empire, which had already been powerful for three hundred years by that time, this was even more so for Hirilah. In the eyes of such people, the Han Empire defeating them was only natural, and the highest honor they could aspire to was to gain recognition from the strongest.