Henwell charges alone into the enemy formation and tears open a gap. The three warbands, with the Iron Guard Warband as their core, drive through the Twentieth Legion's line like a wedge.
The enemy troops on both flanks have no time to rescue the front before it collapses.
It is the simplest three-stage impact tactic, but the timing leaves the enemy no opening.
Rows of royal soldiers fall like cut weeds beneath the rolling charge.
The Peace Haven soldiers coldly execute every wounded enemy they pass.
Within half an hour, an entire Twentieth Legion warband of nearly five thousand men is wiped out.
The shock is enormous.
The Twentieth Legion collapses, and its rout affects the Fearless Sword Legion behind it, allowing Peace Haven's troops to continue their formation attack.
Two hours later, the Fearless Sword Legion is also forced to withdraw because of its losses.
If the royal Third Legion and First Guard Legion had not accelerated toward Peace Haven's rear, forcing the two Formation Breaker troops warbands to turn back, the newly arrived Second Legion in front would also have had to retreat.
Henwell does not join the fight.
He stands in the center of the battlefield.
Around him, the three Peace Haven warbands form a triangular defense and resist the repeated charges of three royal elite legions.
No one comes within a hundred meters of Henwell.
There are wounded soldiers around him, and there are also two wells nearby.
Henwell is using these two wells to support a prolonged battle.
By noon, there are still no attackers coming for him.
The enemy is more patient than he expected.
They have clearly seen that Henwell wants to end the battle quickly and lure them out.
Henwell's greatest worry is that the enemy will drag this out until his three warbands are annihilated.
He sets a limit of three days for himself.
If no one acts after three days, he will withdraw into Cellarwine City.
Once that happens, both he and Arius will fall into passivity.
The battle lasts until dusk.
The three royal legions still fail to break the Peace Haven formation.
The royal army is afraid of fighting at night and even more afraid of a Peace Haven counterattack, so it gives the Peace Haven troops time to rest.
The Peace Haven soldiers draw water from the wells beside the official road.
They eat dried fruit and jerky to restore their strength, then boil water for everyone to drink.
Night rest is difficult.
It is already late autumn and early winter. Frost forms at night, and the ground is cold and damp.
The soldiers can only unfold their tactical packs as blankets, wrap themselves in half-cloaks, and huddle together for warmth.
Only the wounded can lie on the dry official road beside the campfires.
The battle has continued without pause for a full day.
Every thousand-man combat battalion has already rotated through the front.
There are nearly two thousand wounded soldiers, not counting minor injuries.
Most military doctors are still in the camp.
Fortunately, the Iron Guards have received field medical training and can perform simple surgery.
The battalion commanders soon report the casualties.
Across the three warbands, nearly one thousand soldiers have died, and many severely wounded soldiers will not survive.
The army of eighteen thousand has already lost three thousand combatants.
The Formation Breaker troops are still in acceptable condition, but the Iron Guard Warband has also taken casualties.
Those Iron Guards are all future officer candidates from Henwell's practical faction.
The royal army's losses are even worse.
In a single day, they have thrown away ten thousand lives.
Every royal legion has been shaken by the killing.
The next day, the battle grows even more intense.
With reinforcements arriving, the royal army puts even greater pressure on Peace Haven's troops.
Yet still, no one attacks Henwell.
When night falls and the number of wounded has doubled again, Henwell changes strategy.
At dawn the next day, the royal army discovers that a simple wooden platform about ten meters high has appeared at the core of Peace Haven's triangular formation.
Henwell stands on the platform, holding a spyglass with the commanders of the three warbands.
On the lower, wider level of the platform, officers hold flags of different colors.
After observing for half an hour, Henwell gives his first command.
"Iron Guard Third Battalion, Fifth Team, move fifty meters left. Assist Seventh Team in piercing the enemy defense. Coordinate with Sixth Team and eat those three hundred-man teams."
"Fourteenth Warband, First Battalion, open a gap and let the enemy thousand-man team enter. Second Battalion, cut off their retreat. Third Battalion, surround them. Fourth Battalion, prepare crossbow bolts and heavy lobbed arrowheads. At the 4:15 direction, lob three volleys."
One tactical order after another is completed by Peace Haven's troops with hundred-man teams or even dozens of soldiers as the operating units.
From afar, nearly ten thousand soldiers seem to have become a complex machine that constantly adjusts its own structure.
At first, the royal army does not take it seriously.
Only after one royal unit after another is swallowed and the formation is stirred into chaos does everyone remember one thing.
Henwell is also a tactical master.
Under Henwell's precise battlefield command, the royal army fails to break through the line for the entire day, and its casualties far exceed those of the previous two days.
That night, Jonathan looks at the terrible battle report and orders everyone else to leave the tent.
Then he says to the two people before him, "We cannot wait any longer. Tomorrow, the Steel Lion Legion and the Seventeenth Legion must go in. They are the last two full-strength elite legions. If we lose any more troops, we will have no elites left. Garrison legions cannot stop Peace Haven's elite soldiers."
The Dramatist Jeremy appears in the shadows.
"We must wait. Even if all these armies die, we must wait."
Jonathan looks at him coldly.
Jeremy says, "If Henwell were easy to kill, he would not have lived until now. Because he is troublesome, we joined hands to set up this death trap. The royal army has suffered heavy losses, but Peace Haven's losses are also severe. Henwell cannot hold on much longer. When he fights alone, his death knell will ring."
Chapter 698: Formation Breaker Resolve
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