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"Your Majesty, should we ease up on a few of the lethal formations?" A young Wolf Riders officer standing beside Chen Xuanfeng couldn't help but ask upon hearing the new Beastman King's musings.

Chen Xuanfeng waved his hand dismissively. "No need. Don't think that just because we took out over a thousand of their warriors earlier, we've secured victory. The true strength of the Lion Clan is only beginning to show. The slightest relaxation on our part could cost us this war. And don't underestimate their survival instincts—didn't you notice that while those fifteen hundred warriors were all down, fewer than two hundred actually perished? Most of them took over a dozen hits yet protected their vital points. That's the mark of true battle-hardened veterans."

As Chen Xuanfeng spoke, the Lion Clan's square formations had already clashed with the Eight Trigrams Formation.

The Lion Clan's strategy was clearly to avoid entering the formation directly, instead engaging in close combat at its edges to dismantle the defensive position piece by piece. Unfortunately, they didn't realize the Eight Trigrams Formation was never purely defensive.

The moment the two forces made contact, the front line of red-skinned orc warriors raised their tower shields and retreated, allowing the towering Minos Bull Tribe warriors to face the Lion Clan. Though the Minos warriors on this side were outnumbered, their fortified position and nearby totem poles allowed them to hold their ground temporarily. Meanwhile, the orc warriors behind them began hurling javelins, forcing the Lion Clan's square formations to advance continuously, engaging the enemy within the Eight Trigrams Formation to suppress their ranged attacks.

But this was exactly what the Maplefrost (Fontainebleau) army wanted.

Just as the two square formations had dispersed significantly, the flanks of the battlefield suddenly saw banners fluttered as four units of three thousand Wolf Riders each charged out like lightning, swiftly encircling the Lion Clan warriors. Simultaneously, the previously stalemated Minos Bull Tribe warriors rapidly withdrew, even uprooting their totem poles. The shifting formation caused the front-line Lion Clan warriors to be pushed forward uncontrollably by their comrades behind, surging deeper into the formation. Once the Wolf Riders completed their encirclement, over a thousand Minos warriors followed them out, infiltrating the Lion Clan's half-transformed square formations and driving their totem poles into the ground, sealing off the enemy's retreat.

"Not good! Everyone, charge through!" A Lion Clan officer, sensing the danger, shouted.

This time, they couldn't afford to watch their comrades vanish inexplicably. Tens of thousands of powerful warriors launched an assault from all directions. It had to be understood that the entire Lion Clan's combat-ready forces numbered fewer than a hundred thousand. The three legions gathered here represented the full elite of the Splitfang Clan, totaling just over thirty thousand Lion Clan warriors. The numbers of the Leopard Clan and Tiger Clan were even smaller. Of the 150,000-strong army, at least half were vassal races—though still elite soldiers, they couldn't compare to the true warrior races. Chen Xuanfeng's earlier charge hadn't cost the Splitfang Clan more than a thousand losses, yet these two inexplicable encounters had nearly wiped out five to six thousand Lion Clan warriors. This was absolutely intolerable to any Lion Clan member.

At the same time, the Maplefrost army's formation underwent a dramatic transformation. Across the one square kilometer of the octagonal battlefield, all the yak, Wolf Clan, and orc warriors began moving—not outward, inward, or in rotation, but in a dizzyingly intricate pattern. The entire formation resembled countless interlocking gears and chains, operating with precise and complex coordination, each "gear" constantly changing in size and shape, making it impossible for observers to discern any logic in the movements.

The effect of this transformation was stark. The four thousand Lion Clan warriors in the two encircled square formations were swallowed up like drowning men caught in a whirlpool, utterly helpless. By the time other Lion, Tiger, and Leopard Clan warriors rushed to their aid, no trace of them remained.

And this bizarre absorption showed no signs of stopping. Once the Splitfang Clan's forces closed in from all sides, any contact would immediately drag them in. Even attempts to retreat were met with the Eight Trigrams Formation's expanding "gears," enveloping the enemy. Once caught in the formation's momentum, warriors found themselves moving uncontrollably. The trenches, fortifications, and thousands of totem poles on the ground were clearly meticulously designed—Maplefrost's warriors moved unimpeded, while enemies dragged into the formation collided with obstacles at every turn. Their formations rapidly disintegrated, and after a few shifts, entire units vanished without a trace.

Such a bizarre battle formation had no precedent in the ten-thousand-year history of warfare. A bone-chilling dread seeped into the hearts of every onlooker.

Yet the beastmen were renowned for their iron-blooded ferocity. As the mightiest warriors, they would never rout. Almost instinctively, the battle-hardened officers began seeking ways to break the formation. Soon, someone shouted, "The enemy's formation has limited space! Charge in together and jam it to a standstill!"

The Lion Clan's proposed method was crude but held some logic. By the military principles of Chen Xuanfeng's past life, "With tenfold strength, surround them; with fivefold, attack; with double, engage." In other words, without special conditions, ten times the enemy's numbers were needed to encircle them. Maplefrost's current situation—facing a 150,000-strong enemy with eighty thousand weaker troops—was precarious. Even accounting for inflated enemy numbers and their own ragtag forces, the Eight Trigrams Formation's magical versatility, the enemy's complete ignorance of its secrets, and their disjointed command structure were the only reasons for such effectiveness.

But even the Eight Trigrams Formation had limits. One square kilometer of terrain might seem vast, but cramming over two hundred thousand troops into it would render any formation useless. The formation wasn't some celestial artifact—it couldn't trap an enemy several times its size. Moreover, the Lion Clan's individual combat prowess was unmatched, the Leopard Clan was lightning-fast, and the Tiger Clan was ferocious. Even trapped in the formation, it would take ten warriors to subdue one of them over time. While the formation could silently consume enemies in batches of thousands, a hundred thousand charging in at once would pose serious problems. Even with illusionary arrays and spatial traps, it wouldn't be enough.