A user equipment (UE) may experience poor communication with a network access device, and the network access device may configure the UE to connect to, and route communications through, one or more relay nodes (e.g., which may be another UE, a network operator-deployed relay, etc.). Techniques are described whereby these relay nodes may autonomously form a wireless backhaul network. Sequential implementations are considered such that the size of the wireless backhaul network may scale efficiently. In some examples, the wireless backhaul network may form by reusing existing connectivity establishment procedures. Importantly, the proposed techniques enable a relay to possess (e.g., be configured with) functionality that may traditionally be associated with a UE, base station, and gateway. Such multi-faceted functionality may enable the described sequential formation of wireless backhaul networks with tree topology.