Because of this power struggle, Baishui left the palace and ventured outside for the first time in decades.

She personally took command of the reserve force, supporting White Bear this way. Her ultimate goal was to lead their side to victory.

The earlier change in formation had looked simple, but it had taken an enormous amount of effort.

There was no helping it. Even if Isabella were here, she couldn't turn a rabble into a disciplined army just like that, let alone make it unbeatable.

Since they couldn't count on the army's quality, they had no choice but to rely on their formation.

Fortunately, Baishui had commanded large-scale battles more than once when she was young.

So many years had passed, and her command skills had weakened somewhat. But dealing with the Fourth, who rarely took the field himself, still wasn't all that difficult.

“Pass on my orders. The troops on both wings are not to rush into cutting off the enemy's front and rear forces. Keep the pace steady.

“Order General Leopard to break deep into the enemy ranks. Find and kill the vampire vanguard commander as quickly as possible, and cripple the enemy vanguard's command structure.

“Order General Lion to rally the scattered troops as quickly as possible and extend the formation eastward. Establish a new defensive line and prepare to repel the enemy cavalry charge.”

After issuing her orders to the generals in one breath, Baishui paused to catch her breath, then added:

“Pass this on to the entire army: We will not lose this battle. As long as you follow my orders, we will claim the final victory...”

“Damn it! Damn it!”

The Fourth was furious.

He understood now. The enemy had outmaneuvered him from beginning to end.

The troops the enemy had placed on the front line were all green recruits. Their purpose was to wear down his own vanguard's elite soldiers.

His forces had attacked fiercely, but their formation had scattered on the way in, so they hadn't been able to suppress the enemy across the whole front.

As a result, the beastkin troops could retreat calmly toward both wings, then regroup under their officers' command.

Under normal circumstances, this would be a difficult maneuver to pull off.

But if the beastkin soldiers had been preparing for it from the start, it wasn't so hard to execute.

He was furious, but he couldn't just sit there and do nothing.

The next moment, he lowered his head and ground out through clenched teeth:

“Beastkin commander, I'll kill you! I'll tear you to pieces!”

With that, he swept his hand out decisively, pointed toward the beastkin army's right wing, and shouted:

“Pass on my orders! Cavalry, move out! Strike like thunder!”

Drums and horns sounded all at once, banners whipped through the air, and warhorses neighed. The Fourth had played his final trump card.

The thunder of hooves invigorated the vampire vanguard, locked in a hard-fought battle on the front lines, while also putting enormous pressure on the beastkin warriors.

Through the boundless clouds of dust, monstrous silhouettes flickered in and out of sight. It was impossible to tell how many troops were coming.

The earth-shaking thunder of hooves rolled toward them, making everyone who heard it tremble with fear.

This wasn't an enemy they could defeat with a mere change of formation!

“Don't worry. Those aren't Dibiles' elite knights. They're just infantry on horseback. Their fighting ability is only half that of our allies!”

In Baishui's eyes, the warriors of Dibiles had become a new unit of measurement for military strength...

But that aside, what Baishui said now was important.

What she was doing was seizing the moment and speaking in the most rousing voice she could manage:

“We may not have bows and arrows, but they don't have heavy armor that protects both horse and rider. They can't shoot from horseback, either, and they can't even control their mounts properly.

“They're just charging at us on horseback. It looks loud and frightening, but they're nothing special. We can deal with them easily!”

By then, courage had begun to well up in the hearts of Baishui's guards, too.

One of them raised a hand and pointed toward the distant clan army, shouting:

“Decades ago, Her Majesty led our country's warriors to one glorious victory after another.

“Her skill as a commander is the greatest in the kingdom. Who in the Western Continent doesn't fear her name? If we follow her orders, we'll surely defeat the enemy!”

She clenched her fist and shouted with all her might. At last, the soldiers' fighting spirit was roused.

Then Baishui stepped forward at just the right moment and cried out:

“Form ranks! Three deep! Set the cheval de frise!”

“Ooooooh!”

The reserve soldiers, their fighting spirit restored, sprang into action at once.

They hauled out rows of cheval de frise and set them up in a staggered pattern. Then they formed ranks behind them, three men across and six deep, all armed with spears.

The spearmen in the front rank rested their weapons on the cheval de frise, while those in the next rank rested theirs on the shoulders of their comrades in front.

In the blink of an eye, a cheval de frise formation hundreds of paces wide and three ranks deep was ready.

Now the reserve soldiers stood at the ready, every pair of eyes fixed on the enemy cavalry, already within a hundred paces.

A cheval de frise is a movable defensive structure.

It's made of wood in an A-frame shape, with spearheads set on crossbars and pointed outward. Since it's mainly used to defend against cavalry charges, it got that name.

With these obstacles in their way, the cavalry couldn't charge straight ahead. They had to go around.

And going around meant slowing down, which made the cheval de frise one of the best ways to defend against cavalry.

Generally speaking, these defenses were difficult to make, so supplies were always limited. Few people used them in open-field battles.

In sieges, though, these simple but useful defenses could be found everywhere.

By all rights, the beastkin army shouldn't have been able to use these things to fend off enemy cavalry in the field.

They didn't even have enough weapons to go around. How could they possibly spend so much wood and iron making large numbers of something with such a specialized use?

Even if Baishui and the others were willing to, they couldn't have made enough cheval de frise to cover the formation of an army twenty thousand strong.

Of course, the beastkin army did have a few hundred of them in storage.

If someone could predict where the vampire cavalry would charge, then they might be able to use a cheval de frise formation to stop them.

The biggest problem with this tactic was that they couldn't reveal the cheval de frise too early. They had to wait until the vampire cavalry was charging and couldn't slow down easily before setting up the defenses.

Otherwise, if the enemy spotted them from a distance and simply rode around them, the whole plan would be useless.

This tactic placed very high demands on the people carrying it out.

They had to be fast and keep their cool in a crisis. It was far more difficult than simply forming up with spears and waiting for the enemy to charge.

There was another problem, too: they had only a limited number of cheval de frise.

The enemy had a lot of cavalry. If they all charged at once, the cheval de frise could stop at most half of them. They still wouldn't be able to protect the right wing.

Before the battle, White Bear had voiced his concerns about this. But Baishui told him not to worry.

She was certain the enemy wouldn't send all their cavalry in at once.

And once again, she was right. The Fourth had sent only three thousand cavalry into this charge.

“Her Majesty really is a master strategist. How did you predict it so accurately?”

Her guards couldn't figure it out.

“It was easy to work out,”

Baishui replied.

“Given the current situation, the Third Clan's army and the Fourth Clan's army are allies, more or less.

“But even so, the commander of the latter can't truly trust his allies.”

“So he'll hold some troops back in case his allies turn into enemies at any moment.”

“I see!”

The moment her guards understood, their admiration for their queen grew even stronger.

As soon as one question was answered, another soon took its place.

Even if they dealt with the three thousand cavalry charging at them, how were they supposed to handle the four thousand vampire cavalry still left?

But the guards didn't have time to ask.

Just as they were about to speak again, the vampire cavalry crashed into the cheval de frise formation.

The cavalry had of course seen the formation and knew how dangerous it was. But seeing it didn't mean they could avoid it.

The riders in front could see it. Those behind them might not.

The moment the front rank reined in, before their speed had even dropped, the cavalry behind them slammed into them.

Some officers tried to issue orders, but there wasn't enough time.

For cavalry, a few dozen paces could be crossed in the blink of an eye.

Even Dibiles' elite cavalry couldn't avoid a collision if they spotted the Flame-Strike Knights standing ready at close range, thirty or forty paces into a charge. They could only grit their teeth and crash into them.

If even elite cavalry couldn't avoid it, what chance did the Fourth's men have?

The cheval de frise Baishui had devised might not have the Flame-Strike Knights' magic spears' offensive power, but its defensive strength was far greater. Any cavalry that entered the formation was doomed.

Watching the chaos of men and horses tumbling over one another on the front lines, the Fourth's heart bled.

He'd built this cavalry one horse at a time through deals with merchants, spending four whole years on it. To lose so many all at once—how could he possibly bear it?

“Sound the horns! The whole army attacks! I'll fight them to the death!”

In the end, the Fourth decided to stake everything on one final gamble.

The beastkin army had outsmarted them twice in a row already.

If the Fourth Clan's army kept getting chipped away like this, the balance of power between the two sides would soon be reversed.

He stopped worrying about the threat his allies might pose, and stopped caring about his own units trapped in the encirclement.

When two foes meet on a narrow road, the braver one wins!

Only a full-scale assault could bring his army's numerical and cavalry advantages to bear, and decide the victor between them and the beastkin army.

Only then could he stop the enemy commander from throwing one trick after another at him.

The Fourth had already thrown his whole army into the attack once, but that wasn't quite the same as a true all-out offensive.

Before, the plan had relied mainly on the vanguard's elite troops to break through, with the rear ranks following up to press the advantage.

Once the situation became favorable enough and their advantage had built into a clear path to victory, they could launch an attack along the entire front.

That was the standard way to wage war.

Launching a full-scale attack before the situation was clear wasn't a battle plan. It was a gamble.

Once the army launched an all-out offensive, it would be difficult to receive orders from the central command, and the entire battlefield would descend into chaos.