On the other front, Lo Quen led his main force straight down the Jade Sea coast, pressing toward Yin.
The reconnaissance cavalry he had dispatched sent back precise reports on the route of Pol Qo's advancing army to Lo Quen's headquarters.
The news was clear.
Pol Qo commanded more than a hundred thousand cavalry, advancing in a rolling tide across the fertile plains along the Jade Sea.
Their plan was to crush Lo Quen's army on the coastline before it could push deep into Yi Ti and threaten Yin itself.
In response to Pol Qo's contemptuous strategy, Lo Quen chose a broad expanse of land beside the Jade Sea as the battlefield.
The terrain there was flat, gently sloping toward the sea, with open sightlines that allowed the dragons to perform at their best.
His total force numbered only a little over twenty thousand.
But with the Dragon Soul Guards at his side, he was confident he could defeat Pol Qo even without deploying the dragons.
Several days later, Lo Quen arrived at the chosen battlefield.
The very next day, Pol Qo's army closed in.
When Pol Qo's forward scouts appeared on the horizon, the entire Jade Sea coast seemed to tremble.
A dull, thunderous rumble rolled in from afar.
Then a thin black line emerged at the edge of vision.
That line rapidly widened and thickened, until it became an endless ocean of cavalry.
Countless banners snapped in the wind, and forests of spears bristled beneath them.
The Jogos Nhai rode their zebras, shouting as they advanced.
Pol Qo sat astride his black warhorse, positioned on a slightly raised hill at the center of his army.
As he looked at the distant enemy formation, so vastly outnumbered by his own, a sneering smile spread beneath his thick beard.
Around him clustered nobles from various regions and his own commanders, every one of them wearing an expression of absolute confidence.
Pol Qo pointed at Lo Quen's army and burst into laughter.
"So this is the army of the so-called Dragonlord? A mere two or three tens of thousands of rabble, daring to set foot in Yi Ti?
Looks like the spineless cowards of Asabhad passed their fear along to this western Bastard!
Take a good look!
That's today's prey!
Tear them apart. Hang their skulls from your saddles. Drench this coast in their blood, and let the Jade Sea remember our valor!"
The nobles and commanders around him answered with bloodthirsty howls.
To them, this was not a war at all, but a hunt.
Against the charge of more than a hundred thousand iron cavalry, that thin enemy formation would shatter in an instant.
Pol Qo wasted no more time and issued the order for a full assault.
His cavalry surged forward, first at a measured pace, then accelerating, finally crashing ahead like an unstoppable tide.
Hooves pounded the earth as if they meant to flip the entire coastal plain upside down.
At the forefront were Pol Qo's light cavalry, shrieking wildly as they thrust their spears toward their prey.
At the same time, a particularly conspicuous cavalry unit peeled away from the main formation and hurtled toward the right flank of Lo Quen's army at astonishing speed.
It was the Jogos Nhai zebra cavalry.
They wore short red tunics that looked as though they had been soaked in blood. Their bare arms were painted with mysterious totems, and beneath them thundered powerful zebras marked with bold black-and-white stripes.
These zebras struck with more force than ordinary warhorses, charging like streaks of living lightning.
They were Pol Qo's trump card, masters of tearing open an enemy's flank through sheer speed, sowing chaos and creating the perfect opening for the main force to deliver a killing blow.
But today, they had run headlong into a wall of iron.
Luo Wen stood calmly at the center of the army, directing the entire force through banners and horns.
Even as the enemy surged forward like a flood, his expression did not change.
When the zebra cavalry swept toward the right flank, he issued a short, crisp command.
Holding the right flank were Lo Quen's most elite heavy cavalry, the Dragon Soul Guards.
Clad in Valyrian steel armor and wielding Valyrian steel swords, they stood firm as mountains.
Facing a zebra cavalry charge that would have terrified any other army, they shifted their formation and deliberately allowed the Jogos Nhai riders to plunge into their ranks.
"Boom!"
A crimson tide slammed headlong into the Dragon Soul Guards.
The chaos the Jogos Nhai had expected—men and mounts tumbling, battle lines collapsing—never came.
Instead, it was the zebra cavalry who were thrown into disarray.
The Dragon Soul Guards' formation did not budge an inch. The terrifying impact was fully absorbed by their tightly packed ranks and the sheer strength of the soldiers themselves.
Zebras at the front crashed into the Dragon Soul Guards, the sharp crack of breaking bones and snapping tendons ringing out without pause. Riders were flung screaming from their saddles, only to be skewered immediately by weapons thrust from behind the line.
Shock filled the pointed faces of the Jogos Nhai.
The charge they had always prided themselves on, a force capable of crushing any Yi Ti army, had achieved nothing against this enemy.
Were these soldiers monsters?
Why was their armor so unbreakable?
Why was their strength so overwhelming?
After a brief moment of stalemate, the Dragon Soul Guards counterattacked.
They drove their mounts forward, smashing into enemies who had lost momentum, their swords sweeping out to cut down isolated Jogos Nhai riders.
The famed agility of the zebra cavalry meant nothing before such a dense formation.
With no armor to protect them, they were like paper before sharp blades. Their line was ripped open in moments, casualties mounting at a terrifying rate.
The surviving riders panicked and tried to fall back, only to crash into their own reinforcements charging in from behind, plunging the formation into even greater chaos.
On the hill, the smile on Pol Qo's face froze, then twisted into towering rage.
He saw it clearly. The zebra cavalry he had placed such hopes upon had been shattered in a single exchange.
"Useless! All of you are useless!"
He roared, "Looks like I'll have to do it myself and take my—"
He never finished.
"ROOOAAAR—!!!!"
A roar thundered down from the heavens, powerful enough to tear the sky apart.
It was not one roar, but several layered together, instantly drowning out every shout, hoofbeat, drum, and horn on the battlefield.
Pol Qo and the nobles and commanders around him instinctively looked up.
What they saw was something they would never forget for the rest of their lives.
Shadows of unimaginable size swept across the blazing sun, casting vast, chilling darkness over the ground below.
As the sunlight was swallowed by those enormous silhouettes, fear began to spread through every soldier on the field.
Then came the sight itself.
Three colossal beasts plunged from the sky.
Their sheer size was suffocating, each stretching well over a hundred feet in length.
At their head dove a blood-red dragon, its scales like congealed blood, gleaming with a sinister sheen beneath the sun.
Beside it was a deep violet dragon.
The third was brilliant silver.
Such size lay far beyond anything the people of Yi Ti could comprehend.
Behind these three monsters came three more dragons, slightly smaller, yet no less terrifying.
They were gray-brown, black-red, and sea-blue.
They too spread their massive wings, letting out low, rumbling growls.
Six colossal beasts in total.
Every one of Pol Qo's soldiers, whether in the midst of a charge or holding formation in the rear, came to a halt.
They tightened their reins, staring blankly at the sky, their minds empty, unable to process what they were seeing.
Fear swallowed them whole.
"Th-that… what kind of monsters are those?!"
"Are… are they Basilisks? But… how can Basilisks fly? How can they be that big?!"
"What are we even fighting?!"