Baron took the quarter of his forces that were stationed at this location and led them all through the thick of the night to fight. The majority of both forces were exhausted at this point as well as running on pure adrenaline. If Baron was swift and efficient in his sweep of the immediate vicinity, then he could deal a catastrophic blow to the Chanyu forces. However sure he was that he could be successful, Baron decided to take it slow at first. No point in committing everything right now if it seemed like the enemy had a backup plan.

This fresh army of Baron’s consisted of around 5,000 soldiers, and as they were some of the best in his arsenal, he felt confident in his chances. First, he led them downhill to meet the forces of Chanyu that were coming uphill. The sparse clashes that sounded throughout the next hour or so were short and decisive. With wounded, exhausted, and split up forces fighting against a well-rested army, there was no chance.

Curiously, no matter how many enemy forces were killed during the night, they were never given the order to retreat, regroup, or anything else for that matter. Which got Baron wondering why that was. On that note, Roxi and Jaxon were nowhere to be heard from either. Could it be that they were captured? Baron did not get an answer to that question quickly.

The night quickly ended with a decisive victory for Baron. By his estimates, he had wiped out 10,000 enemy troops, a grisly figure. Thankfully, when the light of the day did come, the enemy did retreat to their base camp. This allowed Baron to do the same to his soldiers as well. It had been a rough night for everyone involved. During this time, he gathered all of his forces into the temporary fortifications to get an idea of how his army was faring. Even after sending out the signal, Roxi and Jaxon did not show up at all.

As his army came flooding in from all directions, Baron knew that this way of doing things meant that there was almost a near certainty that there would be spies in his presence. Perhaps even a few assassins had gotten into the mix. He would need to be extremely cautious with who he was around now. The headcount revealed that of his original 25,000 man army, he now had approximately 15,000 men with a lot more who were injured. Compared to the Chanyus, he did come out on top, but just by a little bit.

He ordered the majority of his men to get some rest while the others would be stationed to fight and be the lookout. Baron was unsure of what move the Chanyus would make next. So far, the only thing they had done was send out all of their forces en masse. Would they do it again? No sane strategist would, given the outcome of the previous day, but these were no ordinary strategists. An hour before sunset, he got his answer.

A massive army was marching uphill, trying their best to stay together to not repeat the tragedy of the night before. This time, Baron was not so sure he could fend them off. There were no extra forces that he could count on that he knew of, there were no other fortifications that they could fall back to, and they certainly were still reeling in from the previous night’s fighting. Baron wondered how the Chanyu forces were able to come to fight again during the same day they retreated.

However, there was no turning back now. He summoned all of the forces that he had under him to weather this night attack. With the natural light dimming, the risk for all sides involved in battle would at least double. There was one trick Baron had up his sleeve. To build this fortification, his team had to clear cut quite a few trees in the surrounding area, they ended up cutting a few too many trees. Now, they were just sitting by without any purpose. Baron had hidden men gather up these trees, many of which were a couple of meters tall and half a meter thick, to be thrown at the invaders.

Of course, these tree trunks had to be cut to make for the optimal shape to roll first, so they would need some time to be ready to deploy, but Baron did not have anything else to use. The fighting began with as much ferocity as the day before, but this time, Baron noticed that the enemy troops seemed to have a newfound animosity amongst in their fighting style. Both sides had troops that were Roman legionaries, so they should have been near equal in terms of power. Whatever the Chanyus had used to make them like this, was likely to have been horrific.

Fighting continued long into the night, and as soon as the trunks were ready, they were thrown all willy-nilly. Visibility was low so there wasn’t any fantastic place to throw them. Besides, with invaders swarming them, any direction they threw would have dealt some damage to the enemy. Honestly, Baron did not have to do much in this battle as his men already knew what to do.

Once again, they managed to hold on until dawn. And once again, the enemy forces began to make their retreat. However, behind them was a large plume of smoke covering a huge portion of the sky. This was not at all visible during nighttime, but now that their visibility had returned, the men under the Chanyu strategists could tell that something was wrong. This smoke came from the direction where their camp was supposed to be hidden. For now, this did not matter to them, they had to retreat. Fighting had taken a toll on them.

That did not happen. For behind them came charging a small force of over 2,000 men. Led, from behind, by none other than Roxi and Jaxon. Though this force was small in comparison, they had blocked off the retreat of a large portion of the army. Once Baron saw what the situation was, he quickly responded by reinforcing this new army that he had no idea about. The sudden arrival of a new army, Baron’s quick response, coupled with the exhaustion from fighting all night, there was no chance for the Chanyu army to get away.

After another few hours of fighting, the simulation ended with the victory squarely in the hands of Baron, Roxi, and Jaxon. A monumental success, albeit, their enemies could have very well won. After all, everyone participating in this tournament was the best of the best in their respective communities. No fight would be easy. The three of them came out of the simulation with visible satisfaction, but Baron was still confused as to how they managed to do what they did.

“How did you two manage to hide that army?” He asked.

“Well,” Jaxon said, “the truth is that the army was not ours to begin with. While talking to a few of the regional governors, I had managed to convince two of them to send us a few legions as reinforcements. Of course, I had no idea if they would do such a thing so I did not tell you about it.”

“Is that so? I thought the two of you were either dead, or captured by the Chanyus.” Baron admitted.

“I certainly would have if Jaxon’s reinforcements hadn’t come to save me,” Roxi revealed. “Thankfully, they came right when I was in a pinch and rescued my team, and I right on time.”

“Thanks to you for distracting them, Baron, we managed to track down their base camp, where all three of the enemy strategists were. We planned our attack, and once they sent all of their forces to rush you, we went in after dark. It wasn’t much of a challenge since there were only a couple hundred or so defending the camp, but we made short work of them, captured the Chanyus, marched back to your location, and ended the fight.” Jaxon summed it up for Baron.

“Impressive work, you two. I am not sure I would have lasted a few more days with the way that the enemy was sending in their troops in full force. This was certainly not a conventional war, they rushed us so hard that I had to forego so many other tricks that I had set up in our first line of defense,” Baron sighed.

“Not to worry, Baron, we won in the end. That’s all that matters,” Roxi reminded Baron.

“I suppose that’s true.”

The trio conversed amongst themselves about many other matters but eventually decided to take a little break until the next simulation that would start in a few days. Their second fight would be against a team that had also won their first match, which is to say, they would match up against a tougher opponent than the ones they had just faced.

In other news, Queen Boudica of the British community matched up against a strictly Roman team. She had tortured the three poor souls enough that the Sun Tournament committee ruled that she was no longer able to fight against any Roman teams.

Madam Zheng and his team were matched with a fellow by the name of John Paul Jones. Their ranking in the Emu simulation was quite close to each other, but Madam Zheng was below the 50th percentile while John Paul Jones was slightly above. Everyone who watched the match could tell it was wild. Both were admirals and excelled in naval battles, but John Paul Jones’ style of warfare was so unpredictable and never before seen in the Chinese community that Madam Zheng was not able to come out on top, no matter which strategy he used.

As the days passed, the results of the first round of matches were revealed via the ID given to all the participants. Of them, the United States, Russian, and German communities scored the most points. The Chinese community placed in the middle of the pack. However, these rankings would not be indicative of who would come out on top just yet. That would have to wait until the third or fourth round of matches.

A few interesting matches were the ones between Madam Zheng’s Chinese team and John Paul Jones’ American team. Baron’s Chinese team against Frederick the Great’s German team. Georgy Zhukov’s Russian team against Ashoka the Great’s Indian team. Bayezid’s Ottoman team against Ptolemy’s Egyptian team. Of course, there were much more interesting matches, but the truly extraordinary simulations would only be fought amongst the winners of those who will win four matches in a row.

As of now, half of the teams suffered a defeat while the other half secured a victory. After the second match ends, the number of undefeated teams would be cut in half. Then half again after the third match, and so on. In the end, only 12 teams would make a clean sweep through and get 5 wins in a row. Each team would only fight against a team that had a similar score to themselves to even the playing field as much as possible.

There were a few teams favored to make a clean sweep, however, just about every match that would be played out in the simulation for this tournament was bet on by the various gambling houses around the Chinese community, as well as every other community. It was hard to say that anyone had a guaranteed spot in the final 12, but there were favorites among everyone involved in this business.

The team that was going against Baron, Roxi, and Jaxon during the next match were no strangers to warfare. This meant that the trio would likely see a lot more strategic moves rather than the simulation that they had just been in with the Chanyus. Unfortunately, Baron’s intelligence network proved very ineffective in gathering any information on his upcoming enemies.

Although they were not going to go into the next match clueless, the unknowns about their next matchup far outweighed the known information. This made Baron cautious. After all, he didn’t want a repeat of the previous simulation where he felt completely unprepared. As much as Baron’s allies’ intel networks went, even they weren’t able to sniff out much. Such a mysterious opponent made Baron uneasy. Who knew what kind of tricks and tactics they would employ?