The sun was merciless, the autumn wind harsh and deadly. In the silence of heaven and earth lay the king’s battlefield.
Xiulote stood on the hillside, watching King Tizoc in the distance.
The king wore a skull helmet and donned plain white war armor, still presenting the terrifying visage of an Evil Spirit Warrior. The helmet obscured his face, concealing the king’s expression. He simply faced toward Aweit, staring intently at the opposing royal banner.
Marching through the woods was always difficult, and Tizoc’s palanquin had long been lost somewhere. Now, he bore the king’s banner, its large canopy making him particularly conspicuous. From time to time, Tizoc’s warriors glanced at his royal banner, as if it were the only source of their remaining morale.
At Tizoc’s side stood the tall and burly Supreme Commander Totec, his expression stern and unwavering. Like a rock, the Supreme Commander was the real pillar of the army, now carefully observing the formation of Aweit’s warriors. His gaze swept over the other royal banner, yet he remained utterly unmoved.
Totec was clad in double-layered leather armor, with a tonsured pattern on his face. He held a great shield over one meter high in his left hand and grasped an equally lengthy war club in his right, with a nearly two-meter-long, massive two-handed bronze axe slung on his back. His exceptionally sturdy body bore the weight of dozens of kilograms of equipment without compromising his agility.
As Xiulote recalled the moment when Totec wielded the Macuahuitl with both hands and shattered the stone platform, he couldn’t help but admire inwardly, "This is a man who truly surpasses the Jaguar, a peerless fierce general without equal in the world!"
By the side of the tonsured Supreme Commander stood five hundred Tonsured Guard Warriors, sporting similar patterns on their faces. These loyal protectors of the king possessed the strongest individual combat capabilities, many clad in double armor, wielding armor-piercing bronze axes.
They wore indifferent expressions, silent and calm, having undergone brutal training for years and maintaining rigorous discipline. The Tonsured Guard often deliberately recruited from among common warriors, even including many from other ethnic groups. As long as the royal banner did not fall, their loyalty would never waver.
Behind the Imperial Guard Warriors were a thousand Nobility Battle Groups of eagle warriors, skilled in forming shielded infantry formations. Most of these first-level nobility warriors came from lesser noble families, and upon seeing the opposing royal banner, they were visibly restless. A stern glance from Totec was enough to make them all bow their heads in respect and fall silent.
Further out were seven thousand warriors directly under the Royal Legion. Warriors of various ranks wore differently colored leather armor. Their faces bore the marks of hardship, their bodies showed the gauntness of hunger, and they wore the exhaustion of marching through the woods. Unlike the eagle warrior Battle Group, they dared not make noise, their expressions complex as they looked at the opposing royal banner and army corps.
Quite a few warriors bowed their heads, their morale obviously low. They had been besieging Otapan City for years, suffering through the rainy season. After a failed retreat, they were pursued and harassed by the Otomi people, enduring the hardships of rain and dew in the woods and a lack of food. With homecoming in sight, they now found themselves facing an army corps of their own people... Many couldn’t help but think of recent rumors.
To the right flank of the direct warriors were four thousand City-State Warriors. Most of them came from the army corps of the Holy City of Teotihuacan. These City-State Warriors looked pale and dusty, ostracized on the outskirts of the direct warriors, evidently distrusted. They were positioned on the southern side of the formation, inadvertently blocking the southern passage.
Xiulote stood on tiptoe to get a better view, his gaze passing over many familiar figures, until he finally saw his father. Xiuxoke, donning a Beast Helmet and bearing the battle flag, appeared lean and tall. He was gathering with two hundred Jaguar Warrior Brigade members, conveniently forming a strike squadron. At that moment, his father was also silently gazing at Aweit’s royal banner, the place where his son was.
Further back were ten thousand Militia who had been conscripted. The Militia were positioned far away, carrying various supplies and baggage. Armed only with rudimentary stone weapons, they gathered in groups under the management of village bailiffs, noisy and disorderly.
If this were a siege, the Militia could be used for laborious tasks such as fort construction and trench filling, but in the current large-scale battle formations of the warriors, the commanders had collectively forgotten about the Militia. After all, these troops, armed only with Stone Spears, posed no threat to the warriors and would only take up valuable space in battle.
Looking at the undermanned and undersupplied army corps of Tizoc, the young man couldn’t help but remember his first meeting with the king back in Teotihuacan.
At that time, the Mexica great army comprised no less than twenty corps, with more than seventy thousand warriors. They were as vast as the Long River, as imposing as mountains, their presence majestic between heaven and earth, their might overshadowing the wilderness.
But now, everything seemed to vanish like rain swept by the wind.
"A man should be ," the youth thought, feeling his lips grow dry as the decisive moment approached, always wanting to say something, "Ptuh, ptuh, no good. It should be, ’He who can be conquered should be succeeded.’"
"No, that’s not right either. It’s better to say, ’He who is favored by the heavens receives more aid, while he who has lost their way receives less...’"
"Yes, that’s it! The sentiment of King Wu’s campaign against Shang is better! ’He who inherits martial spirit subdues Yin and curbs Liu, thus securing his achievement...’"
As the youth’s thoughts wandered, he suddenly felt a weight on his shoulder. Looking up, he saw the solemn and dignified Aweit, also dressed in a blood-red battle robe, bearing the royal banner, clad in armor, holding a sharp weapon, and carrying the Ruby Scepter.
"Xiulote, don’t be nervous." Aweit could even afford a slight smile, "At the crucial moment, all you need is to be brave, as you once told me."
"Look at the distance to the opposing royal banner. Can the Longbow reach that far?"
Xiulote stretched out his hand to measure the distance. He closed his left eye, opened his right, then extended his right arm straight, raising his right thumb. He then aligned the left side of his thumb with the target royal banner, alternating between opening and closing each eye.