I gathered Death Qi and used it on the corpse, turning it into my puppet. Using both hands to control it, I forced the puppet to reach up and get back on the horse.
Its leg was sticking wrong, and the corpse puppet was as great of a rider as a sack of potatoes. Before the horse could throw it off, I ran up to the animal and grabbed the reins, forcing it to run alongside me.
Now I had a corpse puppet that may have lost its spear, but still had a sword and armor!
Our army formation was spreading wider again, turning into a crescent-like shape. The part I was at drew closer and closer to enemy defense lines.
I could see the faces of our enemies now—nervous, but determined. There were cultivators among them, too.
Fen Kuang threw me a glance of surprise and mild approval, as if saying, "Huh, you are still alive? Not bad," then shouted.
"Prepare your attacks, everyone! Ranged techniques at will! Break their barricades! Kill as many soldiers as you can!"
I freed my right hand from the Corpse Puppet so I could throw an Ice Cutter with my right. Aiming precisely at this situation was near impossible, but I sent my Ice Cutter at the wooden spikes that were built against horses.
It flew more or less true, cutting off sharp edges and wounding a pair of soldiers who stood behind the barricade.
Next to me, Fen Kuang and several other cultivators followed with their own Ice Cutters, clearing the path for horses.
Immediately after, the enemy cultivators began throwing balls of fire at us. I barely ducked under one—there was a horse's scream behind me—and abandoned Stone Body to create a Clear Sphere around me instead.
Having a really hard body didn't protect me from being burned alive, after all.
And then, at the center of the charge, the part that was the closest to the enemy, Lin Chu flew up and his thunderous voice flew over the battlefield.
"FALL BACK! THERE'S A TRAP!"
I stopped, dodged a hoof of a horse, the soldier behind me stopped, Fen Kuang stopped—
And the ground in front of us exploded with bursts of dirt.
Spears formed from red crystals grew from the ground in a two-meters wide line. The horsemen that were too slow to stop, became impaled on them in an instant, but thanks to the warning, most of the soldiers near me were unharmed.
The center of the charge was a completely different story. Cries of agony from people and horses rose in a terrible cacophony. Next to me, some soldiers began wavering, unable to proceed forward, and blocked from retreating by their own comrades behind.
As soon as the horses stopped and the cavalry charge turned into a cavalry stand, the crystals shattered into gravel.
"This is it! It's time to burn the demon worshipers and purify this land!" the Tao general shouted, rising above the fight on her sword. "ATTACK, CRYSTAL PHOENIX!"
Lin Deng flew up to meet her, his Qi shining equally brightly.
"No running! I will kill any cowards myself! FOR THE DIVINE DRAGON, ATTACK!"
Both were surrounded by a cohort of other Qi Condensation cultivators, who also joined the fight in the sky.
Below, the enemy soldiers, together with weaker cultivators, charged at us over the red gravel.
"FOR THE PHOENIX!"
I let go of the horse I was leading and made my puppet take the reins. With some effort, it forced the horse to charge, where the animal was almost immediately killed by a spear to the neck.
I jerked the corpse puppet off the dying horse. The puppet's movements were clumsy, but its sword was sharp enough to cut down the attacking soldier. Another one immediately stuck its spear in the puppet's side—and stared in horror when the puppet kept moving.
The soldier must've not noticed the arrow in its throat.
I made the puppet cut this soldier down, too. Around me, the combat lines were slowly falling apart. I lost sight of Fen Kuang amid all the fire thrown at our army by the Crystal Phoenix cultivators.
Things clearly weren't working our way—and our way was doomed to fail, anyway. It was time to cut our losses and get the hell out. Soon enough, someone will call a general retreat, I was sure.
By that point, I wanted to be already halfway to the gate, surrounded by a lot of soldiers that would protect my back from enemy projectiles.
With half my attention on the puppet that stood between me and any attackers, and the other half on my Clear Sphere shield, I looked around for the nearest army officer.
The plumage on his helmet made him easy to distinguish. I slipped past the horses until I reached the officer and could shout,
"Sergeant, toot your horn and order a retreat while we still can do it! We must regroup behind the walls at once!"
He looked down at me, wide-eyed.
"What?! This is cowardice! The Great General—"
"Is up there and not down here! I, Ru Yujin, personal disciple of Master Lin Chu, order you to call a retreat! General is sending you to a pointless death—you won't be breaking any lines anymore. Only you can save your people now! Pretend that it's Master Lin Chu himself telling you this right now!"
The sergeant hesitated for another second, but then nodded.
"I will gladly lay my life for the Lin clan, but I'd rather my death meant something."
He pulled the horn from his belt and blew it three times. Once the signal was given, it quickly spread when other sergeants repeated it without care about where it came from.
Someone who knew the Lin clan's horn signals could create a lot of chaos on a battlefield if he wanted to. But now this flawed communication system worked out for me.
Together with the retreating horsemen, I turned toward the gate—but not ten meters in, I heard a dreadful voice.
"Ru Yujin! What the hell do you think you are doing?!"
Ah. There was Fen Kuang.