Chapter 153: Wave Tactics

At noon the next day, on the withered yellow grasslands along the northern bank of the Somme River, pounding hooves continuously kicked clouds of dust into the air. The late autumn sun hung overhead without warmth, adding only dryness to the land.

Vivi led her scout squad—eighteen riders in total—across the wasteland at full gallop. Her furry tiger ears twitched subtly in the wind, catching even the faintest sound drifting through the air.

“Stop.” She suddenly raised a hand, and the entire squad instantly pulled their reins tight. The warhorses let out uneasy whinnies before quickly settling under their riders’ control.

Peter and the others followed Vivi’s gaze. Several miles ahead, on a distant rise, a few vague figures could be seen.

“Are they ours, Captain?” Peter asked quietly.

Vivi drew one of Leus’ specially made signal arrows from the quiver beside her saddle, loaded it into her crossbow, and fired it into the sky.

A shrill whistle tore through the air.

Moments later, a similar signal echoed back from the distant high ground.

“It’s the Fourth Squad.” Vivi lowered her crossbow and lightly pressed her heels against her horse’s sides. “Move.”

As they drew closer, Vivi’s nose twitched faintly. The smell of blood in the air had grown stronger. The squad atop the hill turned toward them, and the man leading them rode forward to meet them.

Behind him fluttered a black banner emblazoned with a crimson sword.

Black symbolized the deep, solemn land of the kingdom beneath their feet, while the striking red blade represented “unyielding resistance” in the culture of the Elfin Kingdom.

Vivi loved that flag. She didn’t understand the complicated language of heraldry, nor did she care about its official symbolism. She simply thought the combination of black and red resembled Lord Nolan himself—deep and burning at the same time. It looked incredibly good.

“Captain!” The rider who approached them was Conrad, formerly of the Firefox Mercenary Corps. His face still carried traces of killing intent, but the moment he saw Vivi, he immediately snapped into a standard military salute.

“How’s the situation?” Vivi asked.

Conrad grinned, baring white teeth as he pointed toward several corpses lying uncollected behind them. “Pretty much exactly what the lord predicted. Those bastards seem to send another batch to die every four or five hours. We just clashed with them and dropped six. The rest were scared witless and ran for their lives.” He slapped his arm, where a shallow cut still seeped blood. “We’ve got two wounded on our side. Just scratches. Nothing serious.”

“Well done.” Vivi nodded. “Your mission is complete. First Squad is taking over this sector now. Fall back five miles and maintain perimeter watch. In one hour, return to Coldsteel City for rest and rotation.”

“Understood, Captain!” Conrad answered crisply, saluted once more, then wheeled his horse around and led his squad back toward the Somme River.

The entire handover was smooth and effortless, without a single unnecessary word.

Watching them depart, Peter could not help sighing in admiration. “Brother Conrad’s team is seriously fierce. Aside from us, they’re probably the squad with the highest battle record.”

Vivi merely smiled without replying. For the past two days, scenes like this had played out every few hours across the vast plains along the riverbank.

Nolan had named this tactic “Wave.”

The Scout Division’s one hundred and eighty men had been divided into ten squads, rotating in cycles of two to three hours. Each “wave” remained on the battlefield only briefly, ensuring every scout could fight at peak physical condition and maximum concentration at all times. The strategy maintained relentless twenty-four-hour pressure against enemy scouts without exhausting their own forces.

The true brilliance, however, lay in the overlapping duty period before and after each rotation.

For roughly an hour, incoming and outgoing squads operated simultaneously, providing immediate fire support and extraction for units completing high-intensity operations. Afterward, the previous squad would retreat outward to recover while maintaining perimeter vigilance. If anything unexpected occurred, the reserve squad could reinforce immediately and create a numerical advantage, minimizing casualties and ensuring safe withdrawal.

To Pascal’s allied army, which still relied on traditional reconnaissance methods, the endless offensive was a complete nightmare.

Vivi had truly proven herself worthy of being an elite Nightingale, displaying astonishing talent as a scout commander. Under her coordination and leadership, the black tide formed by the Black Armored Legion scouts had compressed the reconnaissance range of Pascal’s army to within twenty miles north of the Somme River.

“Alright, boys, enough chatting.” Vivi withdrew her gaze. “Time to work. Stay sharp. Maybe the next big catch will be ours.”

Meanwhile, on Sir Pascal’s side, they continued rigidly following the kingdom infantry manual’s standard tactics. Every four hours, they dispatched a light cavalry squad of around ten men to conduct wide fan-shaped reconnaissance sweeps.

And every time, they slammed headfirst into the Black Armored Legion scouts’ carefully woven killing net.

Thwip!

A crossbow bolt shot out from the grass with deadly precision, knocking a Demont scout from his saddle just as he cautiously poked his head forward.

“Ambush!!” a shrill scream ripped across the plains.

But what greeted them was an even denser rain of arrows pouring in from all directions.

“Help! There are too many of them!”

Scenes like this became the defining image of the allied scouts’ encounters. Pascal’s reconnaissance forces had been completely beaten senseless.

Inside Sir Pascal’s command tent, the atmosphere was as oppressive as a religious tribunal.

“Another… another squad lost?” one officer demanded in disbelief, staring at the messenger who had just rushed in.

The messenger knelt on one knee, drenched in sweat.

“R-reporting to the lords… the Seventh Scout Squad lost all contact one hour after deployment. The rescue party only found several corpses along the designated route…”

“Useless! A bunch of complete idiots!” a hot-tempered noble officer roared, slamming the table hard enough to make the parchment map jump. “That’s the third scout squad lost today alone! Just how many men does the enemy have? Do they have infinite arrows? Do they never need rest?”

No one could answer.

The officers inside the tent exchanged bewildered glances, every face filled with suspicion and confusion.

Once could be called bad luck—an accidental collision with the enemy’s main force. But over the course of an entire day, every scout squad they had dispatched without exception had been violently repelled.

The soldiers who managed to escape returned stripped of equipment and half out of their minds, repeating the same broken phrases over and over.

“Too fast… their arrows are too fast…”

“They’re everywhere! The second we showed ourselves, arrows came from every direction!”

“It’s like they never get tired! We ran for over ten miles and they were still chasing us!”

These chaotic and contradictory reports left Pascal’s strategists with splitting headaches.

They simply could not piece together the true scale or tactics of the enemy scout forces.

In their understanding, scout warfare was supposed to consist of small-scale, highly mobile harassment and counter-reconnaissance. But these rebel forces fought with methods that completely defied conventional logic.

It was as though they possessed endless manpower and inexhaustible stamina, like wolves that had caught the scent of blood, relentlessly crashing against the allied army’s fragile reconnaissance network without pause.

Sir Pascal stood silently before the massive sand table, his face dark. In truth, ever since the army had assembled, his mood had never improved. As a seasoned veteran, he understood perfectly well what this meant.

His army had become blind.