When Irina returns to the village, Feicui Long's army is ready, the soldiers wear their armor and their weapons, depending on each role, each one carries different equipment, the soldiers of the front line wear heavy plate armors made of energetic metals and as weapons they carry their halberds, swords as secondary weapons and maces as tertiary weapons, with some carrying modified shields to reduce weight and make them lighter.
Although unfortunately not all of them, since Feicui Long himself is the one who has to make them and they are not precisely simple to create, there are also melee troops with sword and shield, with secondary weapons of war hammers, behind them are the archers and crossbowmen with mixed energy bows and crossbows and even further back the mixed energy riflemen, all of them wearing energetic beast leather armor with a chestplate made of energetic metal and a gambeson.
Lastly there are the mages and elementalists, with only a few of them, more precisely out of the 60 troops there were barely 9 between the two roles and if Annie is counted together with Clarisa and Arianne they would be 12, their equipment was not very different from that of the archers and others.
The horses and the supply carriages are loaded, everything is ready, then Feicui Long saw Irina arrive with her group of 5 and Annie.
He greets all of them and begins to speak: "We are all finally gathered here, now I will announce how you will be organized, I want you to pay close attention."
Then he begins to explain and give the assignments: "We will divide into 5 teams, each team will be made up of the main body and some people will be added as support, in addition to these teams 3, their main body will be 10 people, while the last two will be 15 people, since they will handle the heaviest tasks."
Feicui Long then looks at everyone and says out loud: "Let us begin with the three smaller teams, Team number 1, Frozen Golden Lion Team, its leader will be Alexei, it will be made up of his entire squad of 10, as support Miss Elise and her combat maids will join, your job will be to deploy the traps and carry out skirmish attacks to weaken enemy numbers."
After finishing saying it, one of Feicui Long's guards takes the sheet he had in his hand and hands it to the group of people and guides them to the marked carriages.
Feicui Long continues: "Group number two Ambassadors of the Dragon, the group will be led by Miss Emma, who offered to bring all the members of the Emerald-Golden Dragon God temple as support, in addition to that Miss Evelyn and her combat maids will also join, it will depend on you to ambush enemy reinforcements and scouting teams."
The same guard repeats the same process and Feicui Long quickly continues with the third team 3: "The Crimson Burning Wolf Team, will be directed by Gloria and will be supported by Caroline, Arianne, Andrea and Freja, your objective is simple attack vulnerable points and enemy supplies, avoid confrontation if it is not necessary."
The process was the same and then he went on to announce the last two groups: "The fourth team of the Dragon's Descendants, will be led by Mariane together with Ada, they will be accompanied by Melina and Callista, in addition to Annie, lastly my team, the Rulers of the Emerald-Golden Skies, I will take direct control, Ayame, Irina and her exploration squad will accompany me, as well as Isabella."
Turning serious he looks at Mariane and her team and says: "One will be in charge of wearing down the enemy and the other will be in charge of the frontal clash, so I expect you to be extremely careful and not pursue any retreating enemy."
Isabella could feel the tension in Feicui Long's body even if she was not by his side, the past experience cannot be said to have traumatized him, but it obviously generates concerns… because after all what is he going to do if something similar happens?, will he be able to get away with it this time?, will he have to force himself again and use his dragon soul?
But even though she wanted to jump and support him she knew that all this paraphernalia is only to increase troop morale…
Feicui Long looks at all his troops, some go in a mix of emerald, gold and white, while the other part wears emerald, gold with touches of amethyst and topaz… of course, these colors were painted, unfortunately he does not have enough money to buy energetic materials of that quality.
As for why those colors… he still remembers when the twins asked him that and the answer is… to be able to differentiate between his personal guard and the army, since on one hand he wants to differentiate two concepts… one that his army belongs to his empire, while his guard is directly connected to him and the family he is forming.
Not to mention that his guard is directly connected to his god aspect and although it may seem strange for him to divide his military forces into branches, especially with the problems his temple has due to something similar, in reality it is the next logical step.
Thanks to several reasons, the main ones are obvious, although he uses contracts a lot, he will not be able to do so with everyone, his soul has a pressure limit that it can withstand even if that limit increases with his strength and therefore at some point there will be commanders or generals without contract and concentrating so much power in individuals… is not very good for those who govern.
Another reason is reputation, by dividing his troops into different forces, he ensures that the reputation of some does not affect the others as much, that is why he also plans to create other groups such as city guards or imperial guards that will protect the territories and obviously by specialty, where he will also create aerial, naval and submarine forces, space forces, etc.
And about why those specific colors… well the emerald-golden dragon guard represents him directly, while his troops represent the empire, which is being built by him and Isabella, hence they share the white which mixes the colors of the two houses.
Then finally after meditating he gives the order and says: "Well, it is time, let us march comrades, to eliminate that which threatens us."
The 86 people in total marched dividing themselves and heading to the areas marked on the map, their first objective to unload in all the hideouts their supplies and mounts…
…
This process, although easy, took some time, a day and a half more or less, but Feicui Long frowned the entire process…
He realized that the situation was more troublesome than he imagined, the whole time there were patrols of lizardmen and they did not seem like simple scouts…
Especially because he had seen some riding giant wood-scale lizards, when he killed the alpha of the lizard scouting group, only that alpha and two other members possessed such a mount and that entire group was about 50 something members.
Now he could see 3 to 5 or even more of these lizards in groups of 10 or 20, it was obvious that they were war parties, this was not an exploratory expansion, but clearly a takeover of the area.
Isabella notices his irritation and touches his back to tell him: "It's fine darling, at least we discovered them in time, no matter how prepared they are, their level of strength is low and their numbers are similar, so don't worry."
Feicui Long shakes his head: "It's not so much that, but what they are planning, why do it now so suddenly?, after all their main area is more than 50 kilometers from here."
Irina who is eating beside the two nods and says: "That same thing I was wondering, they seem to be looking for something urgent, in fact I had forgotten to say it, but I saw that they were taking fauna women to their camp, considering that there are more faun tribes here, it is likely that it has something to do with that."
Feicui Long opens his eyes and says: "If you knew that why did you omit it?"
Irina a bit embarrassed says: "It's just that… we were already late and when I arrived the young master was already explaining everything…"
Feicui Long sighs and says: "It doesn't matter, let's go, it's time, we have to start moving, the other teams are going to start with their part as well."
…
On the side of the frozen golden lion team, Alexei walked with his gifted plate armor and with the growth-type weapons of his family… the precious frozen golden lion axe, the frozen golden lion shield and the frozen golden eagle protection necklace.
These were his most valuable possessions and in turn his greatest weapons, next to him was his beloved wife, Alina and on the other side his faithful companion, Vera, an immature frozen golden lioness or at least not so much anymore.
He and his sister each possessed a companion beast, the two beasts of House Ognova, his sister as the heir of the frozen golden eagle queen has the golden eagle and he, as the protector of his sister the lioness, but as his family was cursed, both his sister's talents and those of their beasts and their growth were affected…
It was only thanks to his generous young master who not only saved them from a life of slavery by buying them, but on top of that removed their curses, that they were able to grow…
That is why he was here without fear, marching through these lands of no one putting himself in danger, to repay the generosity of his young master.
Alina who had been paying attention to the surroundings says: "Here, clear the area and let's set up the first fragmented formations."
Alexei smiled and with his axe in hand quickly jumped into the air and clashes his powerful axe overflowing with the power of the ice element and the metal element against the claw of a bear of about three meters that just appeared in front of them…