Infinite Professions from a Pearl Collector

"Ambush! Take cover!"

Bai Xuan’s furious roar rang out almost simultaneously with the whistle of arrows cutting through the air.

However, for these civilian laborers, who had never seen a battlefield, the warning came too late.

"THUD! THUD! THUD!"

Amid the sickening thuds of arrows striking flesh, the laborers fell in droves, like wheat before a scythe.

Chen Ye, however, reacted even faster than Squad Leader Bai Xuan.

He first shouted, "Get behind the grain carts!"

Then he darted behind a large boulder at the side of the road.

His shout snapped the panicked laborers out of their daze. As if waking from a dream, they scrambled behind the grain carts.

These grain carts were specially made and extremely sturdy, more than enough to withstand a volley of arrows.

The first volley of arrows came and went in an instant.

Yet in that brief moment, twenty to thirty men had already been lost.

The lucky survivors collapsed to the ground, gasping for air, their eyes filled with terror.

No one dared peek out, terrified that an arrow would pierce their skull the next moment.

Bai Xuan leaned against a grain cart, his face grim.

He had known the war on the front lines was going poorly, but he never imagined the situation had collapsed so completely that enemy troops were now appearing in the rear.

Fortunately, he glanced to his side and saw that the dozen or so old veterans who had followed him for years were all unharmed, which allowed him to breathe a small sigh of relief.

These men had followed him for years; they were brothers who had been through life and death together. Although they were older now and bore lasting injuries, the instinct for battle was carved into their very bones. A scene like this was not enough to frighten them.

"Set up a barricade!" Bai Xuan ordered in a low voice.

The men moved swiftly, linking several grain carts end to end to form a makeshift defensive line. They then found their firing positions, nocked their arrows, and aimed toward the mouth of the valley.

Watching from behind the boulder, Chen Ye took all of this in, his estimation of Bai Xuan rising yet again.

’Calm in a crisis and steady in command. This man is no ordinary Squad Leader.’

Meanwhile, Bai Xuan narrowed his eyes, staring fixedly at one end of the valley as he said in a low voice, "Arrows are precious. There’s loss even when they’re recovered, so they won’t want to waste too many on laborers like us. They’ll definitely charge down for close combat."

Sure enough, a moment after he finished speaking, the sound of chaotic footsteps echoed from one end of the valley.

Immediately after, nearly a hundred Soldiers wielding Swords and Sabers came screaming from the valley mouth, surging toward them like a muddy torrent.

Strangely, these Soldiers attacked from only one end. The other mouth of the valley remained empty, as if they were deliberately being left a path to escape.

Seeing this, a glimmer of hope lit up in the eyes of some laborers, who subconsciously prepared to flee in that empty direction.

"Anyone who moves without orders will be executed."

Bai Xuan’s thunderous shout rang out just in time, scaring the few restless laborers into stillness. They didn’t dare make another move.

Bai Xuan knew exactly what this was. It was a classic tactic: besiege three sides and leave one open.

It was a battlefield tactic for herding "sheep."

The side with no apparent ambush looked like an escape route, but in reality, if they fled in that direction, they would surely fall into a second ambush. Once their formation broke, they would be lambs to the slaughter.

Bai Xuan’s gaze was cold as iron as he raised his longbow and took aim at the approaching Soldiers.

The moment the Soldiers charged within a hundred paces, he released the bowstring.

TWANG—!

The bowstring hummed, and a feathered arrow shot forth like a Meteor!

A burly man at the head of the charge still wore a savage grin, but in the next instant, an arrow accurately pierced his eye socket and exited through the back of his skull. The immense force sent his body flying backward to crash heavily onto the ground. He twitched twice, then fell silent.

One shot, one kill!

Seeing this, a chill went down the spines of the other Soldiers, and even their charge faltered for a moment.

This was the very opportunity Bai Xuan had been waiting for. He tossed aside his longbow, drew the saber from his waist, and let out a deafening roar.

"Brothers, our only path to survival is straight ahead! Charge with me!"

He chose neither to defend nor to flee. Instead, he led his dozen or so veterans in a brazen counter-charge against the nearly one hundred Soldiers.

Find life in the face of death!

This move completely caught the Soldiers by surprise.

In that moment of confusion, the two groups of men crashed violently into each other.

Shouts to kill, the clash of blades, and the sound of tearing flesh rang out as one.

Although the dozen or so veterans were at an absolute numerical disadvantage, the simple military formation they formed was like an unyielding reef; no matter how the Soldiers charged, they could not be shaken in the slightest.

At the same time, Bai Xuan roared to those behind him, "Everyone, drive the carts and charge forward!"

The supplies could not be abandoned. In this critical moment, the sturdy grain carts were the best mobile ramparts!

Meanwhile, on a hillside not far from the valley, a young General clad in black armor quietly watched it all unfold.

When he saw Bai Xuan fell an enemy with a single arrow and then decisively lead a counter-charge, a trace of approval showed in his eyes.

"This is no ordinary man. He must be a veteran of a hundred battles."

"General, what do we do now?" his adjutant asked from the side.

"What else is there to do?" Xiang Qing’s tone was flat. "Since we’ve encountered them, we can’t let them go."

His unit was under orders to harass the enemy’s rear and gather intelligence.

He had carefully chosen this valley as an ambush point, originally intending to easily annihilate this supply convoy and seize their provisions.

He just hadn’t expected their Squad Leader to be such a tough nut to crack.

"Since we can’t seize the supplies, we’ll just burn them all."

As he said this, Xiang Qing’s expression didn’t flicker in the slightest, as if he were discussing some trivial matter.

A general must be decisive when the time comes. He cannot be greedy for glory, nor can he afford sentimental mercy.

This was the ancestral teaching from his Xiang Family’s book of war, a lesson he had always taken to heart.

"Relay the order! Fire, rolling stones! Make sure this entire unit is annihilated in the valley!"

"Yes, sir!"

Following Xiang Qing’s order, the ambushers on both sides of the cliffs immediately sprang into action.

Torches were lit one by one and thrown into the valley, along with bundles of oil-soaked straw.

The dry valley instantly erupted in a raging inferno. Fanned by the wind, the fire spread rapidly as billowing black smoke shot into the sky, obscuring all vision.

At the same time, soldiers worked together to push massive boulders off the cliffs.

RUMBLE!

The boulders came tumbling down with a deafening roar, smashing into the ground and sending stone fragments flying. The power was terrifying.

Bai Xuan and his men, who had just broken through the enemy line, were instantly forced back.

Flames shot to the sky, thick smoke billowed, and boulders blocked their path.

A powerful enemy before them, a dead end behind them.

Gazing at the scene before him, which was like something out of Purgatory, even a battle-hardened veteran like Bai Xuan couldn’t help the flicker of despair that appeared in his eyes.

’Is this truly where I’m going to die today?’

Chen Ye, still hiding behind the large boulder, also frowned deeply.

He hadn’t expected the enemy to be so ruthless, intending to leave no one alive.

The fire was growing, and the surrounding air became scorching hot. The thick smoke was so choking it was nearly impossible to breathe.

The ground beneath their feet trembled continuously as the great boulders fell.

’If I keep hiding here, I’ll either be burned alive or crushed to death.’

’I have to think of something.’

Just then, with his vision obscured by the thick smoke, Xiang Qing subconsciously took a few steps forward on the hillside to get a better look at the battle’s outcome, bringing him to the very edge of the valley.

In doing so, his figure was silhouetted against the firelight, clearly exposed in Chen Ye’s line of sight.