Castle of Black Iron

Since they rushed into Eschyle City, the 5000 cavalries of Thor’s Hammer had been rushing and killing in the six main thoroughfares of the city until 12:00 am. When the three troops of Thor’s Hammer converged at the fixed time and retreated out of the north gate of Eschyle City to take a rest, 5000 cavalries and 5000 xiphodons were all covered with blood and aggressive killing intent.

Seeing them coming out of the city, all the alive people who had escaped out of the north gate of Eschyle City watched this cavalry with awed and appreciative eyes. Many people’s eyes were filled with tears as they gave a way to the cavalries silently. Everyone knew that they might not be able to escape out of the city at all without this powerful cavalry.

Because of the impact of Thor’s Hammer, the other 5 city gates of Eschyle City were also opened consecutively. All the demonized puppets nearby the 5 city gates were eliminated by Zhang Tie’s moving tactics. When Thor’s Hammer were attracting and killing those demonized puppets in the six main thoroughfares of the city, a great number of residents escaped out of the city gate through the safe roads which had been cleaned by Thor’s Hammer, including some established detachment of city guards.

Based on the population and power of Thor’s Hammer, Zhang Tie knew that he could not consider each street and each residential area. However, he indeed had already played the role of Thor’s Hammer to the utmost extent and tried his best to create conditions for those alive people who wanted to escape out of the city.

All the Thor’s Hammer cavalries and xiphodons had only rested half an hour before daybreak since rapid march last night; plus 5 hours of consecutive high-intensity fight, the whole Thor’s Hammer was very fatigued, by noon, including cavalries and xiphodons.

The temporary camp of Thor’s Hammer was over 200 m outside the north gate, being close to the north gate tower and a section of the city wall. As an important material storage warehouse of the city guards of Eschyle City, this place was very spacious.

There were over 300 guards here previously. Since last night, the great changes in the city made the guards flurried. As they didn’t receive any order, they could only stay here to defend this place. After Zhang Tie rushed towards them with Thor’s Hammer and declared that this place had been expropriated, the military officers opened the gate of the warehouse only after a few seconds.

After the cavalries jumped off the xiphodons, their military exploits were soon reported.

——In the entire morning, 278 cavalries of Thor’s Hammer were slightly wounded, 24 were worse yet could still fight while 3 were heavily wounded, who could not join the battle anymore. They were receiving the medical treatment and were no longer in danger. However, they killed 80,000 to 100,000 demonized puppets in total, 30,000 of them were the original regular army of Eschyle City.

This was a very brilliant victory which was out of one’s imagination--Killed 100,000 enemies, yet lost no one itself.

Roslav’s voice trembled when he reported this military exploit to Zhang Tie. Although such a brilliant military exploit was caused by the sharp difference between demonized puppets and xiphodons in fighting strength, it was benefited more from Zhang Tie’s command and fighting tactics. Although being boring and mechanical, the moving tactic played a great role in the battle. Otherwise, it was not even possible for the 5000 xiphodons cavalries to kill 100,000 mad dogs, not to mention 100,000 demonized puppets.

After receiving the report, Zhang Tie was also shocked. Honestly, Zhang Tie had not accepted any systematic military and command training since he was born. The reason that he insisted on this fighting tactic lay in his experience in fighting demonized puppets. He just felt it was practicable. And he could not think about better fighting tactics for Thor’s Hammer in Eschyle City.

Given the military exploits, this fighting tactic was not especially effective.

After thinking for a short while, Zhang Tie found that he had already reached a supreme level in military command mentioned by chief of staff Guderian, which was desired by most of the commanders and generals——to complete the battle in the most advantageous way with more powerful forces on the predetermined battle field.

Although Zhang Tie also felt very fatigued, after hearing this report, he still stood up and told Roslav, "Let’s take a look out there..."

For Zhang Tie, as long as he put down his Thor’s Hammer, it would be the best rest. In order to maintain the morale of the cavalries, Zhang Tie kept waving his Thor’s Hammer until now. After putting it down, Zhang Tie felt that his arms were in so much pain that they almost became numb.

Even though he had eaten a lot of seven-strength fruits, he still could not bear it after the high-intensity march and battle from last night to now with that Thor’s Hammer.

At this moment, Zhang Tie felt coming back to Iron Blood Camp.

When he walked out of the door of the tent, Zhang Tie silently "transported" some all-purpose medicament into his mouth before forcefully swallowing them like swallowing his saliva. After that, he gradually recovered.

Feeling the cold north wind, Zhang Tie raised his head and found that it was already snowing in the cloudy day.

"Is it snowing?"

Zhang Tie reached out his hand, having the glittering snow flakes fall on his hand.

"It’s good. At least, now we don’t have to worry about the corpses in the city being rotten. If those corpses could not have timely dealt, it would probably have arose plague in the neighborhood and killed more people." Zhang Tie sighed inside.

"Perhaps, even the God would not like to see this city become worse."

When it snowed, Zhang Tie took a look at those warriors.

As a result, all the fatigued warriors silently climbed up from the ground and watched Zhang Tie’s back when they saw Zhang Tie passing by them. Some of them even punched their chest to pay their tribute to him.

The brilliant military exploits also spread across the Thor’s Hammer at this moment.

Looking at those awed eyes, Zhang Tie knew that his status as the regimental commander of Thor’s Hammer was fully accepted and sincerely advocated by all the warriors of Thor’s Hammer until now. Before this, the warriors of Thor’s Hammer accepted Elzida’s prophecy more than him.

Whatever the prophecy was, Zhang Tie knew that only the commanders and generals who could win a battle and survive their subordinates would win the adoration and support of the warriors. If his performance was too bad, like how a wastrel squandered his 1 million gold coins of deposit in bank, sooner or later, he would lose everything, including all the resources left by Elzida to him like that marvelous halos and the warriors’ belief in him.

Zhang Tie took a round among the warriors of Thor’s Hammer to check those who were moderately or heavily wounded. After confirming that those wounded warriors had been properly managed and had been no longer in danger, Zhang Tie walked out of the wards.

"Open the warehouse. There are some things available inside. Deliver them to the warriors first!" Zhang Tie walked as he sent an order to the one beside him, "Pick up the thick clothes, tents and food first to ensure the supply of Thor’s Hammer and the vanguards; after that, dispatch some people to other places outside the city, if there are other material warehouses near us, expropriate them; after counting the materials inside, prepare to deliver them to the refugees!"

Zhang Tie didn’t know how many people had he saved. Therefore, he could only try his best at this moment.

"Yes, sir!"

"Bring me that garrison officers. Something in Eschyle City has to be managed by them. As we have no surplus people to consider about other things in this couple of days, it’s nothing different than killing them if we sent them into the city; however, they could play their role in other places!"

After the Thor’s Hammer took over this material warehouse, they had already put the 300-odd guards under house arrest.

Receiving Zhang Tie’s order, someone soon brought the garrison officers here.

He was a 50-year old middle aged man with the rank of captain. He looked very experienced and honest. Being promoted to a captain and was dispatched here to defend the warehouse in his 50s , this person must be a rather honest guy.

That person also knew about Zhang Tie’s current status; however, he had not imagined that Zhang Tie wanted to meet him. Therefore, he looked very tense while his forehead was oozing. He did not dare to look straight into Zhang Tie’s eyes.

"Don’t bully honest ones.", this was the code of conduct to be a man taught by his mom. Therefore, at the sight of such an honest man, Zhang Tie looked kinder at once.

"Take a seat, captain. What’s you name?"

"My...my name is Cruyff!"

"Are your family members still in Eschyle City?"

"My family members are outside of the city; however...my brother’s family is still in the city!" Cruyff said after a second.

"Captain Cruyff. You must have known what happened in Eschyle City. To put it straightforward, you might not determine the future of this city; but are you willing to do one thing if it could help a lot of residents in Eschyle City, even save a lot of them without having to risk your life?"

After a short hesitation, Cruyff raised his head and looked at Zhang Tie’s sincere eyes before nodding, "I am!"

...

Several minutes later, Cruyff left together with his 300-odd subordinates...

Without taking a rest, after making an arrangement to Thor’s Hammer, Zhang Tie rushed into Eschyle City again with Roslav, Waajid and the other 7 bodyguards whose comprehensive fighting strength was above LV 7...