The retreat was done magnificently and there was not even a single weapon nor worker under Baron that was to be found in the area that was not under the protection of the forces of the Under 1 Banner group. The main difference between a group and a faction is that a faction is officially recognized by the community while a group was not. However, the two terms could be used interchangeably as almost everyone within the Chinese community does. Leaders of the Combined Dragon Alliance, mainly Qi Ji Guang, Zhang Da Zhi, Ding Lai Hang, and a handful of others but their roles were rather limited and they were used more than anything.

They were more than happy to take the extra amount of land that Baron and his group abandoned, and once again started to get closer to where Baron had stationed his first line of defense. The alliance numbered over 70,000 men compared to the 25,000 under Baron. However, the quality of weapons heavily leaned towards Baron so as to make the fight a little bit more on an even field. Now, the alliance was more than happy to just encircle Baron for the time being until they could properly scope out the defenses and formations that Baron had set up. It turns out that their advanced scouts could not figure out this out due to the extreme complexity of it.

Zhang Da Zhi took one look at the formations in front of him and scoff. To him, it seemed as if the formation of the enemy soldiers was randomly assigned and the only thing complex about it was the bizarreness. As the most important figure in the alliance, he was given near-total control of all of the forces under him to do as he pleased. However, he was no fool, he could tell that even without the Meng Duo present, this group would not be an easy one to win against, unlike all of those who were in their path on their way here.

Just as an extra precaution though, he wanted to make no mistakes in properly eradicating Baron’s group for good measure. This obsession with them was not due to the discourtesy they had been shown just before the fighting began, but rather that they had failed to gain an alliance as well as the fact that the Under 1 Banner group and his own were regarded as this tournament’s hidden treasures. There might be one for this land tournament, but he really doubted anyone could make the top three with such fierce competition. Therefore, if he was able to wipe this group off the map, his own group would be considered the more talented of the two hidden gems.

He seldom made mistakes, and he knew the costs of failure this time around. So, he did something that no one suspected he would do, he abandoned many of the bases under the alliance and moved all of the workers to an area around Baron’s territory. Of course, most of this had been accomplished already by Baron and they were merely moving in unimpeded. However, he deemed that this little area would not be enough and they went about conquering a few more bases around the region to expand even more. Baron’s soldiers were more than content to not do anything while all of this was happening and this made Zhang Da Zhi feel as if his enemy was too arrogant in allowing him to set the stage however he wanted.

Within a few weeks, everything was done according to his plan and he was ready to work on setting up the battlefield along with his two right-hand men as well as 50 other strategists that had some skill, but nowhere near enough to take on another strategist on Baron’s team alone. Therefore, he based his plans on 4 strike teams all having their own strengths. He would lead 10 strategists, Ding Lai Hang would lead another 10, Qi Ji Guang would lead 10 more, and the remaining 20 strategists would be working together to form the last army. Mr. Ding and Mr. Qi would lead an army of 15k soldiers each along with their ten strategists, Zhang Da Zhi would lead 20k soldiers, and the rest would be under the care of the group of 20 strategists.

This formation of soldiers was used as it had a few main benefits. The group of 20 would have a bunch of combat strategists among them and they would be a mostly offensive army. Zhang Da Zhi’s army would be much the same, although less powerful, but much better lead. The two other armies would serve as more defensive armies to block any enemies from escaping or trying anything funny. The two defensive armies would approach the enemy from the west and east sides and would either push or stall the enemies until either offensive armies showed up to eradicate the enemy. These two armies would be coming up on the north and south sides of Baron’s base of operations.

The plan was put into full effect and the two sides started clashing immediately. Unfortunately for Zhang Da Zhi, he planned on having at least one of the enemy generals slain before they reached the main base, but that would not be the case as no one came to stall either of the 4 armies. A bit of a disappointment, but he could not change what was not in his control so he just focused on crushing the enemies in front of him.

He prided himself on coming up with great strategies to push the enemy into a corner, and within a full two days of fighting, he encountered something suspicious. Though he had no doubts that his 4 armies had inflicted grievous wounds on the soldiers that were sent to intercept the strike teams, they retreated a bit too easily. He could not just go home at this point though, so he proceeded with caution into what he thought was likely a trap.