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Watching, her heart felt as if it was being squeezed by a rope.

Fortunately, Gu Xiaoxi quickly placed her palm over the wound, tightly covering the bleeding injury.

A moment later, the bleeding on her shoulder had stopped, leaving behind a huge scab.

Yun Xiao immediately took out some medicine, applied it to Gu Xiaoxi’s shoulder, and then bandaged her up.

By then, it was time to deal with the wound on her foot.

The lower leg, previously bound with a bandage, bled less after it was unwrapped.

Removing the bullet would surely be a process that would further damage the wound.

...

Having been through it once, Yun Xiao was much calmer this time.

And she had thought of a method: to freeze the wound to reduce bleeding when digging out the bullet.

This not only effectively worked but also served as a pain reliever.

Compared with the first time, when Gu Xiaoxi was in so much pain she was drenched in sweat,

this time, with the wound frozen, it felt numb, as if she had been given an anesthetic, and she felt no pain at all.

Gu Xiaoxi looked at the two bullets that had been removed. She quickly adjusted her Inner Breath and had Yun Xiao watch over her.

She needed to circulate the cultivation technique within her body to heal the injuries further.

"Is Gu Xiaoxi all right?" Xu Shaohua provided simple bandaging for all the soldiers, preparing to retreat. Since there were no doctors, they could only bandage everyone up using the first aid methods they had learned.

"I want to know when the reinforcements will arrive. Since we’ve discovered a large number of enemies and sent out distress signals, shouldn’t they be coming quickly to reinforce us?" Instead of answering Xu Shaohua’s question, Gu Xiaoxi asked one of her own.

Xu Shaohua looked back at Ah Ke, who was communicating with other units, and shook his head, "I don’t know either."

"Everyone, quickly move the wounded and change locations. There’s a large force coming our way," Gu Xiaoxi suddenly retracted her hand and said with a grave expression.

"A large force, where? How come we haven’t seen them?" Ah Ke was also full of guilt at this moment. As the commander of this operation, he truly felt that he had let everyone down.

"By the time you see them, we’ll be facing another fierce battle," Gu Xiaoxi retorted uncompromisingly. "Find the horses that haven’t gone far. All the wounded should mount up."

It was only then that Ah Ke remembered to check the cargo on the horses.

When he looked inside the bags, he found nothing but foam and spat out blood in anger, "We’ve been tricked. These drugs are fake. Where are the real ones?"

Gu Xiaoxi just gave him a cold look and ignored him.

Together with everyone else, she placed the bodies of deceased comrades onto horses’ backs, assisted the wounded, and quickly moved away from the battlefield.

Ten minutes later, Gu Xiaoxi found a spot with a high vantage perfect for ambush and had everyone stop there.

Waiting for rescue! They were also waiting for the real enemy to arrive.

Without reinforcements, the seven or eight of them remaining would not be able to capture the hundreds of enemies.

At that moment, Ah Ke hid behind a dune with a heavy expression.

He explained to Gu Xiaoxi through his headset, "I’ve contacted other teams. They too encountered stealth attacks, but only small groups of enemies, nothing serious."

As Gu Xiaoxi listened, her gaze grew deeper.

She took the headset from his hand and contacted the first team.

"We haven’t spotted any enemies and can’t leave yet, but the first squad has dispatched ten people to support us. Please wait patiently!"

Gu Xiaoxi then contacted the second squad, receiving the same response.

She didn’t know whose deployment this was.

Clearly, it was a mess.

Gu Xiaoxi threw the headset back to Ah Ke, her face showing anger as she said, "Directly contact the highest commander and have the two closest teams come for support. If they’re not here in ten minutes, the consequences will be dire!"

"What?" Ah Ke didn’t understand Gu Xiaoxi’s intention.

Gu Xiaoxi, with the last of her patience, drew a simple strategic diagram on the ground with her dagger.

"Look here! Our team is divided into six squads, each ambushed in six different locations with a total of two hundred men. The enemy is cunning; they don’t come directly but send out scouts one by one.

The first fifty men who appeared were just probing our numbers.

Of course, they also intended to lure us into their encirclement.

And you all, like fools, fell for it. If you all died, they could smoothly choose this path to escape. "

Gu Xiaoxi’s voice didn’t stop there but continued, "Even if you didn’t die, you’re left as nothing but a rabble of wounded survivors. If a hundred of them charged here to break through, do you think just a few of us, injured as we are, could fight off a band of desperate outlaws?"

Upon hearing this, everyone inhaled sharply and fell silent.

Ah Ke immediately countered, "Why are you so sure the enemy will pass through here?"

"Because, so far, our defenses here are the weakest. The squads are too far apart from each other, and we can’t wait for all the reinforcements; we can only wait for the ones that are closest," Gu Xiaoxi angrily declared.

It had been made very clear during her communication with the other units.

The other units also faced attacks, but not on the same large scale as they did.

Rather, these were minor assaults. When the enemies couldn’t win, they suffered a few casualties, and the rest retreated.

Actually, when Gu Xiaoxi had been speaking, no one had fully grasped the severity of the situation.

Ah Ke also didn’t believe that the enemy would coincidentally break through from their position.

Just as he was calling headquarters again, suddenly, not far away, the deafening sound of horse hooves resounded once more.

This time, the criminals no longer proceeded with stop-and-go movements.

Instead of walking, they charged at them on horseback at the fastest speed.

Gu Xiaoxi had long had everyone lie in ambush, weapons ready, as the enemy nearly reached the base of the dunes.

She was the first to pull the pin on her grenade.

The explosion woke the astonished crowd, and everyone picked up their weapons to fight back.

A hundred cavalrymen, unstoppable as bamboo breaking, charged toward them.

Seeing that they were about to reach them, Ah Ke’s guts turned blue with regret.

If he hadn’t been so obsessed with fighting, chasing the enemy, letting everyone be surrounded. Perhaps they wouldn’t have chosen his position as their breach point.

If he had listened to Gu Xiaoxi’s words and strongly requested help from the two closest teams at the first chance. Maybe they wouldn’t be in danger again now.

Obviously, it was too late for regrets now.

Soon, the last of his comrades beside him died.

Meanwhile, within Group Z, seven or eight were injured and two died, with the rest fighting desperately.

Gu Xiaoxi, seeing her comrades couldn’t hold on any longer, immediately stood up and said to Yun Xiao, "Use your Ice Fall to cover me."

"Xiao Xi, there are too many of them. If you go..." Yun Xiao saw Gu Xiaoxi had already charged forward, and more words were useless.

She could only quickly stand up and dodge the enemy’s gunfire while using Ice Fall to cover Gu Xiaoxi as she approached the enemy.

By then, Gu Xiaoxi had no way out.

Since she couldn’t watch all her comrades die, she had no choice but to bravely charge forward.

There was hope for survival in fighting, but no hope in giving up!

When Gu Xiaoxi got close to the criminals, she had no more bullets left in her gun.

She threw away her weapon. The only thing she could do was to throw out all her daggers, controlling four to attack and using the remaining three to block bullets.

"One person trying to take on so many of us? Soldier, you must be sick of living!" the men on horseback said with rough, disdainful voices, laughing arrogantly.

But before their laughter ended, their throats were slashed open.

Blood suddenly gushed out.

Gu Xiaoxi’s face was splashed with blood, the nauseating stench made her frown.

The others, coming to their senses, realized her peril and began to fire at her all at once.

Yun Xiao had also followed her to the front.

Her Ice Needles flew swiftly through the air, constantly felling enemies.

Gu Xiaoxi was caught off guard and injured in the waist again. But there was no time to think about the pain because nearly seventy to eighty enemies were still before her.

She wove through the enemy ranks, using her Qinggong to its fastest, dodging and weaving.

Each time, she fought as if her life depended on it.

The injured lying on the hillside watched with tears moistening their eyes.

They never thought that in the face of war, they would need two women to protect them.

Xu Shaohua clenched his weapon tightly, resolved to fight with this group to the end.

Those injured members of Group Z, even the wounded, all gripped their weapons and opened fire fully.

Gu Xiaoxi and Yun Xiao fought bloodily.

Still, there were casualties behind them.

From the original eighteen in Group Z, now only about ten remained.

Gu Xiaoxi suddenly cried out, shedding a tear of rage.

She had promised Quan Shaoqing to protect everyone, to bring them all back safe and sound.

Now, half a month since arriving in Dongqi Country, she watched helplessly as her comrades died around her.

All of a sudden, Gu Xiaoxi leaped up, her Qinggong allowing her to jump ten meters high. She opened her arms wide and concentrated all of her Inner Strength in the palms of her hands.

Then the air in the night bent with the distortion, accompanied by a gale, her hands came together. The power gathered in her palms was ferociously thrust towards the crowd of criminals.

Immediately, more than a dozen were knocked off their horses by the force of her Inner Strength.

But because she could not guard the front and back, her arms were injured once again.

New wounds on top of old, Yun Xiao’s eyes had long since turned red, and she was no longer pulling her punches.

Worried for Gu Xiaoxi, she wanted to take on more of the burden for her.

However, her speed was not fast enough.

Soon, her thigh was injured too!

And before long, she could not even move.

Seeing a horse charging towards her, it was clear the enemy intended to trample her to death.

Yun Xiao, in a state of shock, immediately froze the horse’s hooves with ice. Clearly, exhausted as she was, she could no longer control her Special Ability to handle the horse.