Could using such an extreme weapon mean... they’d completely abandoned low-speed melee, making high-speed charges their decisive tactic?

Impossible!

The thought had barely crossed Old Third’s mind before he dismissed it himself.

If he were leading a rabble of common soldiers, the enemy could get away with that kind of extreme tactic;

In that case, all they’d need to do was inflict heavy losses on the front-line spearmen in the opening clash. The center would waver, then collapse.

But Old Third didn’t think the enemy would underestimate him that badly. Never mind anything else—their trick of driving the horses into his formation was proof enough that they took him seriously!

His thoughts raced. Then he noticed the iron cavalry were spaced farther apart than a normal formation. In an instant, he reached a conclusion and issued an order without hesitation:

“Hold steady! The lances are a feint. The cavalry still intend to close in and fight!”

When cavalry charge at high speed with longer lances, the closer together they ride, the better;

The denser the lances, the more damage they inflict over a given area—and the more they crush the infantry’s morale;

But the Dark King Army’s cavalry were charging with wide gaps between them, completely at odds with that principle.

The commander’s shouts no longer mattered to the soldiers;

They had no time to listen—and even if they heard him, they had no time to think;

By all common sense, a cavalry thrust would be followed by a violent collision. That would be their last chance to show their mettle.

But the spearmen directly in the cavalry’s path stared in shock. The expected collision never came. The riders who had just struck down their opponents were actually slowing down!

Whether they were truly slowing down was hard to tell in so brief a moment;

The spearmen only got that impression because they had something to compare them against

—the instant the first rider finished his thrust, the cavalryman behind him surged forward, overtook him, and launched a second attack!

The whole thing happened in a flash. No one could put their shock into words. They could only shout as they watched helplessly while another absurdly long lance came stabbing toward them...

The second wave of thrusts wasn’t the end. A third followed right on its heels.

Thud!

The lance pierced a body with a thunderous impact.

These ridiculously long lances, reaching a full eight meters, couldn’t absorb impact or build momentum the way a ma-shuo could. But backed by the speed of the warhorses, they still inflicted enormous damage.

Some of the infantry spearmen were pierced right through. Their bodies writhed and wailed on the front of the lance shafts, like candied hawthorn skewers;

The riders who wielded the lances wore blank expressions. They simply used all their strength to keep the shafts level and low, until the tips struck the next target and their hands could no longer control the shaft.

The front ranks crumpled like an avalanche. Their soldiers weren’t afraid to collide with cavalry, but they simply couldn’t adapt to the Dark King Army’s rhythm.

If the enemy cavalry had charged as one, the rear ranks of spearmen would have had a chance to strike back, as long as the front line fought to the death;

But the Dark King Army came at them in wave after wave, like surging tides. The spearmen couldn’t find a single opening to counterattack.

There had been precedents for this kind of wave attack in battles between infantry;

After all, infantry moved slowly, leaving time to adjust and give orders;

But cavalry charges were so fast—how could there be time to take orders?

As soon as they finished their charge, the riders threw away the lances that were difficult to pull free, grabbed their ma-shuo or ring-pommel sabers, and began cutting their way through the ranks.

By now, anyone who could see the battle as a whole had a much clearer view of the iron cavalry’s attack pattern;

Even once the fighting turned into a melee, that unbelievable rhythm continued.

To describe it precisely, the iron cavalry operated in groups of three: three riders formed a small group, and three groups made a squad;

Each group was like a tiny wedge. By using their speed and the gaps between them, they constantly adjusted their positions, ensuring that fresh riders were always the ones facing the enemy;

At the same time, they made it impossible for the enemy to judge when or where to strike.

Attack the enemy in the middle, and they would suddenly move aside;

At the same time, the cavalry on either side would surge forward and deal a deadly blow, while the riders in the middle turned their lances toward their own comrades.

This wasn’t a problem you could solve by simply locking onto a target.

Because the cavalry were so fast, they held the initiative throughout the fight. Though they were fewer in number overall, once the battle began, they were the ones fighting several enemies at once.

The spearmen couldn’t adapt to this tactic. The iron cavalry’s fierce attacks drove them back again and again, leaving heavy casualties.

The spear formation hadn’t broken apart or collapsed, but to Old Third, that no longer mattered;

The enemy cavalry kept pressing forward as a whole, maintaining that bizarre rhythm;

As long as they kept up that momentum, the halberd formation behind the spears couldn’t be brought into play;

In this battle... forget winning. They might not even be able to wear the enemy down!

What had brought them to this point wasn’t the little trick of driving horses into the formation, nor those absurdly long lances—not even the iron cavalry’s heavy armor.

Old Third knew very well that his opponent had adopted all those measures to reduce casualties;

What truly decided the outcome was the strange tactic the enemy cavalry had revealed;

As long as they could execute that tactic perfectly, they would win this battle even without any of those other advantages!

Because it wasn’t an ordinary tactic. It was a battle formation.

Until today, Old Third had believed this formation was long lost, existing only in legend.

The Cavalry Wheel Formation!

Battle formations were a profound field of study. Formations and troop types were closely linked, rising or falling with the arrival and disappearance of different kinds of troops.

For example, the Fish-Scale Formation, popular several centuries ago, had been designed specifically for infantry and chariots to work together;

Its defining feature was that it made the best possible use of infantry during chariot warfare;

The chariots charged first, while the infantry spread out around them to fill the gaps between the vehicles and effectively slaughter the enemy.

As chariots disappeared from the battlefield, this formation gradually faded into obscurity;

In their place, cavalry rose to prominence.

Most cavalry formations passed down to later generations were combined formations—infantry and cavalry working together, with the infantry fighting head-on while the cavalry waited for a chance to strike from the side.

The only formations used by cavalry fighting on its own were charge formations, such as the wedge and the fish-scale.

Compared with the rigid, crude advance of a wall formation, the devastating wheel formation was incomparably superior. Calling it unrivaled in the world wouldn’t be an exaggeration.

The core idea of the cavalry wheel formation was to spread out the troops as much as possible and bring their full strength to bear;

In practice, they rotated endlessly like a wheel, always keeping the most combat-ready riders at the front. After fighting with all their strength, those riders fell back to recover.

To put it in more familiar terms, this formation was like the micro-management in competitive games.

Pull units with low health off the front line, let them recover some health, then send them back in;

A skilled player could defeat someone with a larger army but worse micro, even with fewer troops. The principle was simple: they made better use of their fighting strength.

Real-world warfare had similar tactics.

Any commander worth their salt would try to commit elite troops wherever they were needed most;

The wheel formation was a way of standardizing that kind of precise command.

The bizarre formation filled Old Third and his subordinates with utter despair.

Every soldier facing the enemy cavalry felt utterly alone;

It was as if their comrades had vanished, leaving them alone to face a surging tide of cavalry that would sweep them away the very next moment.

Reason told them it was an illusion, that it wasn’t real;

The enemy had only half as many troops as they did, and cavalry charging in formation couldn’t spread out too far across the front without losing depth.

But constantly adjusting their speed and rotating their ranks while charging at full speed was just as impossible by any normal measure;

Seeing it with their own eyes, they couldn’t suppress the sense of absurdity rising within them. Their fighting spirit ebbed, and panic spread rapidly.

Old Third knew all this, but he had no answer.

Change formation?

Useless!

For one thing, they hadn’t prepared for it. And with everything Old Third had learned in his life, he still couldn’t find a single piece of information about how to counter this peerless formation.

Normally, this kind of formation existed only in legend, and the legends described it in just eight characters:

“Crushing all before it; none can stand in its way!”

Even if those words had been useful, Old Third wouldn’t have had time to adjust.

How fast could cavalry charge into a formation?

Even now, all Old Third could do was order a retreat or tell his troops to hold their ground.

Retreat? In the face of cavalry charging with unstoppable momentum?

Hold their ground?

Wasn’t the whole reason they needed to change tactics that they couldn’t hold their ground?

Old Third was at a loss.

By now, the Dark King Army’s cavalry were like a giant saw whose teeth turned by themselves, while the Third Clan’s army was like a tree covered in barbs;

The latter might be dangerous in its own right, but against an iron saw, all it could do was shed branches and leaves and be smashed to pieces.

The iron cavalry’s formation wasn’t the usual spindle shape. Instead, they spread out in a long line;

It was like an eagle plunging from the sky with its wings spread wide, sweeping the entire Third Clan army into its range of attack and tearing it to shreds with beak and talons.

Put simply, it was a thoroughly one-sided rout;

Whether the way ahead held mountains, rivers, or an endless expanse of barren desert, once the wheel began to turn, it would roll forward without stopping...

The reserve troops surged forward one after another, trying to turn the tide for their commander. But as they paid for it with their lives, they demonstrated exactly what the words “pointless effort” meant.

Once the soldiers who charged from the rear to the front—and their commander along with them—had all fallen, the balance of victory had tilted completely.

After a bloody battle, only a few dozen bodyguards remained beside Old Third.

Even as the rout of the army became inevitable, they stayed clustered around their commander like a hard reef, stubbornly holding back the iron cavalry’s raging tide.