Chapter Nine: The Sweep

Three days later, the troops that had pursued the fleeing enemies and destroyed the lair of the Wild Wolf tribe gradually returned to camp, and Sun Li’s wounds had been mostly healed at the town center.

After the brutal melee three days ago, Sun Li had grown much more mature inside, and he longed for greater strength. Without hesitation, he spent 1,000 points to enhance himself, elevating his combat ability to the level of a Knight Apprentice—the physical prowess of an ordinary spearman.

While reviewing his gains after the battle, Sun Li realized that not every slain enemy granted a point; it seemed that the stronger the enemy, the more points they yielded upon death. For example, Battle Wolf himself contributed 5 points, his guards averaged 3, and adult male gnolls gave 2 points each. Thus, he had amassed nearly 3,000 points from this engagement—a tremendous harvest.

Yet Sun Li could not find joy in this windfall. He knew all too well how these rewards were earned: those soldiers were not mere data-driven NPCs, but living, breathing people! If he could, Sun Li would wish for none of his soldiers to perish.

After discovering the orc tribes’ severe lack of ranged units, Sun Li recruited all the available population quota as foot archers. In future battles, he planned to use tiered volleys from the archers to break the enemy’s ranks, then send in the spearmen for the charge. Sun Li believed that, with his now elite spearmen led by Ryan, attacking a nearly collapsed—or already broken—foe would pose no difficulty and minimize casualties.

When Sun Li was redeeming units with his points, he stumbled upon a more efficient method. Not wanting to send too many subordinates to their deaths, he resolved to pursue a path of elite troops. Gritting his teeth, he spent all his remaining points after enhancing his body.

After all, the next level of physical enhancement required a whopping 5,000 points to reach the physical qualities of a low-tier knight! This classification of personal power, imported from the Europa continent, was something Sun Li learned from a captured gnoll.

From the prisoner, he learned that the continent he inhabited was called the New Continent by humans, and its dominant race was the orcs. Humans had traveled from Europa in massive warships, using their advanced firearms to deal a harsh blow to the orcs. This was why the orcs remained defiant towards humans—they believed that, without firearms, their warriors could easily overpower human fighters.

It wasn’t until a certain battle, when a powerful human single-handedly slew the chieftain of a large orc tribe—over ten thousand strong—that everything changed. To rule such a tribe, the orc leader must have been a formidable warrior at the pinnacle of orc society. This event shattered the orcs’ perception of humans as weak, and the story spread far and wide, along with the human’s power level, which the orcs, lacking a rigorous system, adopted: that human was at the Grand Knight level.

Europa’s history had known a glorious Age of Knights, dividing human martial prowess into Knight Apprentice, Low Knight, High Knight, Grand Knight, and even the legendary Holy Knight. This was a rough classification; true power still depended on the size of one’s army. The gap between each rank was enormous, such that a higher-ranked individual could defeat ten at the lower rank, and the disparity only grew at the top. At Grand Knight level, one could externalize their inner energy as battle aura, fighting with it. Unless faced with a thousand elite soldiers, a Grand Knight could go unchallenged.

Sadly, with the rise of the Dwarf Empire and the advent of upgraded firearms, the knightly era collapsed, and Grand Knights became exceedingly rare.

Upon learning that some humans could wield battle aura, Sun Li was utterly stunned.

“Battle aura exists—so this is what people mean by ‘weak magic’? It looks like the days ahead will be tough. After destroying the Orc Empire, I’ll have to visit the human world; after all, we’re the same race, and peace is preferable to conflict,” Sun Li thought to himself.

Setting aside worries for the future, Sun Li sent out the hundred scouts he had summoned with points, two to a group. Their task was to search within a hundred kilometers for orc tribes and mineral resources, as well as gather intelligence about the strength of the orc tribes.

After arranging the scouts, Sun Li turned to look at the Mamluk Royal Guards, upright on their tall black horses. These two hundred elite cavalrymen from Egypt were summoned with his remaining points; strong in both archery and melee, they were versatile enough to serve as his personal guard when he led the army himself.

Sun Li also exchanged points for an Arabian purebred warhorse, intending to practice horsemanship in the days while the scouts gathered information.

Yet after just one day, Sun Li was bruised and frustrated, cursing the purebred horse in the corner for its infuriating temperament.

As Sun Li was venting his exasperation, Xiao Bai delivered a remark that nearly sent him into a spiritual meltdown.

“Actually, you can learn riding skills for just a few points—it’s not necessary to suffer like this,” Xiao Bai said with undisguised glee (or so Sun Li felt).

Thus, Sun Li solved his biggest obstacle to fighting on horseback, but the side effect was that he resented Xiao Bai even more deeply.

“He did it on purpose!”

The next morning, Sun Li turned his frustration into motivation. Guided by locations provided by the scouts, he led his army in sweeping raids against the orc tribes.

With the strongest Wild Wolf tribe in the region eliminated, and now bolstered by two hundred formidable Mamluk cavalry, Sun Li easily wiped out seven small orc tribes, each with fewer than a thousand members.

Sun Li planned to save his points for further bodily upgrades, spending not a single one as he rushed back to camp to prepare for advancing to the Feudal Era.

During these raids, Sun Li learned that a large orc tribe lay to the north, capable of mobilizing over ten thousand warriors. In times of war, it could summon neighboring subordinate tribes to join the fight, collectively attacking the enemy. For the war-loving orcs, answering the call to battle was a cause for celebration, and they would flock to the fight—so the army could easily exceed twenty thousand.

To destroy the Orc Empire, the first target must be this Tiger tribe. The empire’s direct territories and vassals lay north of the Tiger tribe, which marked the empire's southern frontier. Orc tribes further south were not under the empire’s domain; after all, the entire New Continent was populated by orcs, and the Hammer tribe could not unify all, only occupying the richest lands.

Sun Li’s first objective was set: the Tiger tribe!