Chapter 142: Intercepted En Route

These individuals were already formidable in their own right, having endured countless fierce battles in the past.

Now, coupled with someone like Liu Xie, who possessed advanced ideologies and extensive experience in training special forces, they underwent systematic and rigorous training. Consequently, the formidable strength of the Shadow Wolf Guard was an inevitable outcome.

Watching the repeated skirmishes unfolding below, Liu Xie wore an expression of profound satisfaction.

Yet, as time drifted on, another matter inevitably lingered in his mind.

No matter how powerful the Shadow Wolf Guard became, they remained his personal vanguard, his elite bodyguards. It was neither practical nor necessary for them to participate in every single engagement.

Therefore, Liu Xie resolved that he would eventually need to establish other military forces—one, or perhaps even several, distinct types of powerful armies suited for various doctrines.

After pondering for a long time, Liu Xie drew a deep breath. He decided to set these grand plans aside until he concluded his current affairs here and returned to Jingzhou.

After watching a while longer, Liu Xie abandoned his hesitation. He knew the outcome of this campaign against Xu Chu was already beyond doubt.

Within the span of a month, as long as the members of the Shadow Wolf Guard could survive, it would serve as the ultimate testament to their supremacy.

In the days that followed, the Shadow Wolf Guard maintained their relentless and uninterrupted assaults on Xu Chu’s forces.

The pattern remained unchangingly ruthless: strike and retreat instantly, affording their enemies zero opportunity to react or counter.

As time dragged on, Xu Chu grew increasingly furious.

"General, these bastards are simply despicable! If they have any spine, they should step out and face us in a fair, one-on-one fight!"

"What kind of honorable men resort to sneak attacks?" Xu Chu's subordinates grumbled in sheer exasperation.

"Enough, shut your traps! A fair fight? Even if it were one-on-one, do you honestly believe you are their match?" Xu Chu snapped, cutting them off with an impatient roar.

Indeed, he was finally beginning to grasp the reality of the situation. The members of the Shadow Wolf Guard were genuinely terrifying; let alone their stealthy ambushes, even if they were to stand out in the open for a conventional duel, his men would stand no chance at all.

Moreover, right now, his troop numbers outnumbered theirs tenfold—it would be a miracle if those elusive fighters ever chose to engage in a conventional clash.

Yet, his inability to even track down the Shadow Wolf Guard's whereabouts was driving him mad with frustration.

Meanwhile, on the side of Lin Fan, a new tactical doctrine had already been transmitted to the Shadow Wolf Guard.

Sniper elimination.

Precisely so—assassination from afar.

Every single member of the Shadow Wolf Guard was equipped with heavy crossbows, though these weapons bore little resemblance to standard issue gear.

The crossbows wielded by the Shadow Wolf Guard were meticulously crafted by Liu Xie using novel materials, granting each bow a lethal effective range of up to a thousand paces.

Crucially, Liu Xie had even mounted primitive telescopes onto the bows.

By combining a high-tension crossbow with a telescope, they had essentially created the Three Kingdoms era's equivalent of a sniper rifle—or rather, a sniper crossbow.

Furthermore, to ensure the Shadow Wolf Guard could master and utilize this new equipment swiftly, he had personally spent a considerable amount of time instructing each operative.

Now, under these exact circumstances, it was time to put their training to the test.

Amidst the unrelenting adversity of recent days, Xu Chu's forces had suffered yet another casualty toll of over a thousand men.

Of the eight thousand troops he had initially brought along, a mere six thousand remained.

And the death toll continued to climb steadily.

Witnessing this trend, anxiety began to gnaw at Xu Chu's composure.

To prevent further attrition, he issued strict orders for his entire army to consolidate and march tightly formation.

That way, should the Shadow Wolf Guard dare to strike again, his forces would be concentrated enough to mount an immediate counter-offensive.

Naturally, the Shadow Wolf Guard perceived this shift as well, recognizing the enemy's intent to withdraw.

However, the Shadow Wolf Guard had no intention of letting them slip away so easily.

They prepared an ambush along the enemy's retreat route.

Before them lay a winding valley, flanked on both the left and right by dense, verdant forests.

At this moment, a detachment of roughly five hundred of Xu Chu's soldiers was slowly making its way through.

Their expressions were heavy with gloom and despondency.

Some of them dragged their feet, walking with a listless, bone-weary exhaustion.

There was no helping it; over these past few days, they had lost well over a thousand comrades.

And the enemy—the Shadow Wolf Guard—had suffered not a single casualty.

This utter disparity left them paralyzed by a profound sense of helplessness.

Yet, what they failed to realize was that even now, the Shadow Wolf Guard had no intention of granting them mercy.

concealed within the dense foliage of the mountain slopes on either side, over a hundred members of the Shadow Wolf Guard lay dispersed in ambush.

Each operative clutched a heavy crossbow, outfitted with a mounted optical lens.

Through these scopes, the scene below was rendered with crystal clarity.

Just as the trailing ranks of Xu Chu's soldiers stepped fully into the valley—

Swish!

A feathered bolt tore swiftly through the air, piercing effortlessly through layers of foliage.

Like a howling gust of wind, it slammed straight into the neck of a trailing Cao soldier.

He was a straggler lagging far behind at the very rear of the formation.

As he was quietly eliminated, the men marching ahead remained entirely oblivious.

This was the core of Liu Xie’s training doctrine—tactics borrowed straight from the twenty-first century.

Under such conditions, striking the center or the vanguard of a column was tantamount to stirring a hornets' nest.

Targeting the stragglers at the rear, however, was a completely different story.

Amidst the complex terrain, such isolated losses were exceedingly difficult to notice promptly.

Above all, what they held in their hands were silent crossbows, not thunderous firearms.

Therefore, even when loosed, the attacks produced no reverberating gunfire to betray their positions.

Swish! Swish! Swish!

More feathered bolts hissed through the air, and within the span of mere moments, dozens of stragglers trailing at the back of the Cao column had been quietly dispatched.

Yet the main body of troops marching at the forefront remained blissfully unaware.

However, as the minutes ticked by, those toward the rear began to sense that something was horribly amiss.

Their numbers were visibly dwindling.

"This is bad! Where did our men go? We've been ambushed!"

Someone roared at the top of their lungs.

"Quickly, form a defense!"

"It's the Shadow Wolf Guard! It must be them! Where are they?"

"Hurry, root them out! Find them at all costs!"

At that moment, the Shadow Wolf Guard was the sole name that flashed through their panicked minds.

For aside from the Shadow Wolf Guard, no other force possessed such ghostly lethality.

Swish! Swish!

Two more arrows zipped fiercely through the air.

This time, the bolts were not aimed at ordinary foot soldiers.

Instead, they struck true into the head of the detachment's commanding officer.

With their leader slain instantly, the remaining troops were plunged into headless chaos.

"Over there! On that ridge!" Guided by the trajectory of the incoming bolts, the survivors quickly zeroed in on the ambushers' locations.

"Charge! Wipe them out!"

Swish, swish, swish!

This time, the Shadow Wolf Guard dispensed with subtlety, unleashing a continuous flurry of arrows.

Even so, they did not recklessly expose all their positions at once.

Initially, only three or four bowmen maintained their barrage.

Soon enough, the locations of those few archers were pinpointed.

"Found them! We've found where they are hiding!"

"Attack! Kill them all!"

"Archers! Where are the archers? Loose your arrows, quickly!"

Driven to the brink of desperation, the Cao soldiers abandoned all caution.

They scrambled to loose a massive volley of arrows in retaliation.

Yet, before they could even execute their orders, a new series of hidden vantage points erupted, as additional Shadow Wolf Guard operatives revealed themselves to rain down death from above.