Chapter 256: The Battle of Tecks (Part 3)

“Sir, the wolfmen have retreated.”

Roderick nodded. This was expected. Ever since they entered the Tecks Mountains, the wolfmen had only attempted to engage them head-on a few times in the beginning, but after that, they’d been continuously retreating.

Their weapons were too crude, and they lacked proper training. In a direct confrontation, they were no match for the mastiffmen soldiers.

Roderick’s focus remained on the battlefield ahead.

Judging from what had happened earlier, the necromancer had to be nearby—possibly hiding in the forest or perched somewhere with a good view of the battlefield. If they could track him down and eliminate him, even if Nina Lams had fully recovered, the battle would no longer be in question.

No matter how strong she was, there was no way she could slaughter thousands of soldiers and still remain in fighting condition. 

On the battlefield, soldiers often served a singular purpose.

If the difference in power between the two sides was overwhelming, throwing more soldiers at the problem wouldn’t help. But when the gap wasn’t too wide, the sheer number of casualties could decide the outcome of a battle.

The undead on the front lines finally began to retreat. The soldiers, having fought all afternoon, were utterly exhausted and had no desire to pursue them.

Roderick didn’t force his men to keep fighting. Instead, after sending out a large number of scouts, he led the army to a defensible position and set up camp to rest.

Nearly five hundred soldiers had died in the earlier battle, but they had killed at least three thousand undead. If they had prepared in advance by hacking the corpses of their fallen comrades to pieces, the number of casualties would likely be half of what it was now.

“Tomorrow, we will crush them completely.” 

Roderick’s confidence returned.

“Sir, we’re running low on food,” a lieutenant cautiously reminded him.

“As long as we defeat them, food won’t be a problem,” Roderick replied. “Have them cook immediately, then get some rest. The two regiments that led the charge today will take the night watch. They can act as rear guards tomorrow and won’t need to go into battle.”

***

“Are you sure your body can handle this?” Nina asked with concern.

“I’ll be fine,” Wu Qingsong said.

He deliberately showed weakness to strengthen Roderick’s resolve to continue the fight. That was the plan Wu Qingsong had improvised on the battlefield. 

After hearing his reasoning, Nina firmly supported the idea.

The supply routes from Elyar and Noguti had been cut off, and much of the food was seized by them. Now, the only supplies Roderick and his troops had were what they had brought with them.

Letting Roderick and his troops stay in the Tecks Mountains for one more day would only further deplete their food supplies. Once they were defeated, the chances of anyone making it out alive would be even slimmer.

If they could be delayed for a few more days, they might collapse purely from starvation. However, Wu Qingsong doubted the elves’ sense of duty. In such a situation, Roderick definitely wouldn’t suffer alongside his subordinates, which would make it difficult to catch him in the vast forest.

“He’s definitely recovered by now,” Nina said.

During the day’s battle, she had been looking for an opening, but Roderick had stayed hidden within the formation, forcing her to abandon her plan.

“After this afternoon’s fight, he must’ve regained a lot of confidence. Our job is to convince him that you’re too injured to fight,” Wu Qingsong said, as he continued raising the dead from the graves.

Thankfully, beastpeople didn’t have the custom of cremating their dead, and since the Silver Moon Wolf Clan had lived here for centuries, the number of deceased was enough to build a massive skeleton army. 

Without this, his goal would’ve been much harder to achieve.

Losing on purpose had bought them one night, which was enough time for Wu Qingsong and Nina to summon a few thousand more skeletons.

Of course, it was exhausting. But Wu Qingsong had almost developed a habit of relentlessly collecting soul fragments whenever he had a chance. The backlash pain had become so routine that he wondered if he was developing masochistic tendencies.

If not for his ability to maintain both physical and mental resilience, the pain caused by creating so many undead would have likely driven Wu Qingsong mad. And without this trait, the string of sleepless nights with only shallow, broken rest might have already caused his death by exhaustion.

This was probably the main reason Roderick felt confident staying behind. No matter how much he overestimated his opponent, he could never have guessed he was up against someone who defied all normal expectations. An outright monster.

Nina was quiet for a while before asking, “Have you thought about how this is all going to end?”

Wu Qingsong shook his head, then smiled and said, “Sometimes, overthinking things, planning too far ahead, just makes it harder to solve the problem in front of you. Right now, we don’t have many options. We need to focus everything on taking down the enemy in front of us. Only then can we think about what comes next.”

“You’re right,” Nina nodded in agreement.

Wu Qingsong summoned all the dead from the cemetery. Under Raman’s command, they marched toward Roderick’s camp. 

Meanwhile, Wu Qingsong and Nina rode their undead war wolves to the next burial site.

By dawn, Wu Qingsong amassed over ten thousand undead, but he only deployed around two thousand skeletons along the front line.

“Let’s see what Roderick does today,” he said.

***

Roderick’s movements were slightly outside of Wu Qingsong’s expectations. Instead of adopting an offensive stance, he appeared to be preparing to march northeast.

“He’s trying to bait us into attacking,” Nina quickly assessed. “This guy didn’t let yesterday’s victory go to his head.”

Roderick couldn’t afford to split his forces. It was impossible to relentlessly pursue the Silver Moon Wolf Clan with their supplies running low. 

His current stance was a calculated move.

The elves had always held the upper hand in this conflict. They possessed seemingly endless resources compared to the Silver Moon Wolf Clan. If they lost this battle, they could simply send more soldiers next time, with even stronger elites to wipe them out. This gave Roderick the luxury of choosing whether to keep fighting or abandon his troops and escape alone whenever he wanted.

That was what troubled Wu Qingsong and Nina the most.

Roderick understood this all too well. By pretending to leave but never fully committing to retreat, he was positioning himself like a thorn stuck in their side—annoying, but difficult to remove.

Locally, the situation might look unfavorable for him, but in the bigger picture, it was the Silver Moon Wolf Clan that couldn’t afford a prolonged war.

“If he refuses to play along with the script, then let’s finish this today,” Wu Qingsong said. “I’ll draw him out. Let’s see if he’ll come to the front lines.”