Loser System and Berserker Me-Chapter 168: In the Beholder

“Hold on! We absolutely have to hold on!”

The sudden arrival of an endless army of terracotta soldiers nearly caused Great Patola’s garrison troops to suffer a mental breakdown.

Where did these monsters come from?

I know that there are Tang bandits wreaking havoc, but aren’t they supposed to be in the Western Region? Why did they suddenly come all the way here to attack us?!

What was even more maddening to them was that there was a Little Patola up north that should have served as a buffer for them.

I mean, even if you are no match for the Tang bandits, the least you can do is to send a messenger over to give up a heads up, right? Or are you so weak that you collapsed before you even had time to send a messenger?

As infuriated as Great Patola’s garrison troops were, there was nothing else they could do. They could only march onto the city walls and attempt to fend against the enemies.

At least we’re closer to the Tibetan Empire. We’ll have reinforcements as long as we can hold for a couple of days.

That hope was bound to be in vain.

Wrathful Gale might have worn off, but the terracotta soldiers were still a terrifying force by themselves. Not to mention that Great Patola was not that much stronger than Little Patola.

It didn’t take the terracotta soldiers long to breach their city walls.

A powerful surge of lightning cleared the garrison troops stationed on the city walls, and the terracotta soldiers began spilling into the city.

In the blink of an eye, Great Patola was transformed into a living hell.

Initially, the Tibetans and the Great Patolans tried to put up a resistance, but when they saw seven skull-faced terracotta soldiers rising from the corpse of a fallen ally, their morale plunged to the bottom right away.

You’re telling me that the enemy will gain seven new soldiers each time one of us falls?

What the fuck! How are we supposed to fight a battle like this?!

“RUN!”

All of them scattered like birds escaping from a wildfire.

Kacha!

A mage, who had depleted his mana, failed to dodge in time and was chopped down by a terracotta soldier. Weakened and severely injured, he could only watch helplessly as another terracotta soldier raised its bloodied spear and thrust it into his chest.

Psh!

After slaying the mage, the terracotta soldiers proceeded to search for their next target.

Oblivious to them, a small slit appeared in the mage’s neck, and an eye hidden inside secretly observed the situation around it.

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…

Meanwhile, outside the city…

“This…”

Weryomahners stared at the blazing Great Patola in disbelief.

“How is it that I, a mage, am slower than an army?! What kind of ridiculous spell did their necromancer cast on these mudmen?!”

An army was bound to be much slower than an individual, not to mention that the Tang army had been busy fighting Little Patola when she left.

Even if she had taken a detour for her safety, it was still utterly ridiculous for the Tang army to have taken down Little Patola and arrived at Great Patola ahead of her!

“Those useless things!” Weryomahners cursed.

Realization finally dawned on her that Little and Great Patola’s military prowess had never been sufficient to stop the Tang army. Even if she made it to Great Patola in time, the city would have still swiftly collapsed to the Tang army’s overwhelming might.

What should I do now?

We have lost Great Patola, the chokepoint connecting the Tibetan Empire to Central Asia and the Western Region. That’s as good as the Tang army holding us by the neck…

She dared not return to the Tibetan Empire after her disastrous failure. Who knew how her master would punish her once she learned that she had completely messed up the mission?

“I need to make up for my failure…”

Weryomahners bit her fingernails as she opened up a map and studied it. Moments later, a daring idea popped into her mind.

“Maybe I could emulate the encirclement of Wei to rescue Zhao?”

…

In the Tibetan Plateau’s Holy City…

“What is Weryomahners doing?” Tsenpo Ling’s face was icy-cold.

That wretch. I ordered her to rush to Great and Little Patola and defend the region so that the Tang army won’t choke our access into the Western Region, but what happened afterward?

We lost Great and Little Patola shortly after!

And you had the galls to tell me to leave it to you? How did you lose so fast when you had such a strategic terrain advantage?

You’re an embarrassment to all Tibetans!

This isn’t good.

The Tang army conquering the Great and Little Patola is as good as the Tibetan Empire having two nails hammered deep into its back. From this day on, we’ll have to keep an eye on our back whenever we make a move against the Western Region.

“…”

While Tsenpo Ling was contemplating what she should do to deal with this disadvantageous situation, her eyes suddenly narrowed. Through her beholder, she saw a corpse squirming.

A skull-faced terracotta soldier emerged from the corpse. Followed by another one. And another one…

All of a sudden, the image relayed through the beholder vanished. The mage whom she had planted the beholder in had breathed his last.

“…The situation is worse than I have expected,” Tsenpo Ling murmured.

She finally knew why the frontlines had reported an endless army of undead troops, with estimates going in the millions.

Contrary to what she had initially thought, the enemy necromancer hadn’t built his undead army over many years. Instead, his army was growing with each battle they fought, summoning brand new undead soldiers from his enemies’ corpses.

And he was summoning more than one terracotta soldier from each corpse.

Terrifying. At this rate, I wouldn’t even be surprised if he squeezes out two terracotta soldiers from a chicken’s corpse.

This was terrible news for them. The Tang army would only snowball as time went on, eventually building up into a cataclysmic avalanche that would devour everything!

“This truly is a calamity like never before.”

Tsenpo Ling tapped her finger on the table as she pondered on a countermeasure to this crisis.

For one, they had to stop sending in normal troops to feed the enemy.

So what if the Tibetan soldiers were powerful?

They might be able to deal with ten or a hundred terracotta soldiers at once, but what about a thousand or ten thousand of them? The terracotta soldiers might not be strong enough to take them down, but they could exhaust or even just outright bury them!

Unless each Tibetan soldier could take down thousands of terracotta soldiers, engaging the enemy’s undead army in a battle of attrition would be suicide.

After some thought, Tsenpo Ling called her subordinate and relayed her order.

“Begin clearing all living beings from the areas around Great and Little Patola right away, be it human or livestock. No living being is allowed to remain there. Anyone who refuses the follow the orders… kill them!”

Since the Tang army relies on corpses to sustain their fighting prowess, I’ll create a no-living-being zone, where you won’t find any living being within a radius of hundreds of kilometers.

Let’s see how you replace your casualties then!

“Activate the combat puppets.”

Unlike war slaves, who were living beings robbed of their sense of self, combat puppets were true lifeless machines. These terrifying slaughter machines were primarily made out of stones and metals enchanted by human souls and blood.

Combat puppets were significantly stronger than war slaves, and they were much easier to maintain too. To top it off, combat puppets were impervious to fatigue, and they wouldn’t halt their footsteps until they were destroyed.

There were no glaring flaws in them other than their slow speed.

Tsenpo Ling saw combat puppets as an upgraded version of the terracotta soldiers; the former could easily curb the latter.

The only downside of the combat puppets was that there weren’t many of them. Still, they should easily suppress the terracotta soldiers on the battlefield.

“Also, send envoys to the Karluks, Beiting, and Anxi Protectorate General,” Tsenpo Ling added. “In particular, make sure to deliver hefty gifts to the Anxi Protectorate General.”