Standing beneath the commander's banner was a fierce Qi general, a full two feet taller than the peers around him. He watched tens of thousands of Qi troops before the lines leave their earthworks and charge toward Xiaoyaoyu ahead.
Inside Xiaoyaoyu, artillery roared in an unbroken din, flames rising everywhere. The Qi artillery bombardment continued relentlessly, set to cease only when the infantry closed to within a hundred zhang or so.
Observing the immense might of the bombardment, the general nodded. "The artillery training of our Great Qi—er, Tang—is peerless under heaven. The coordination between heavy artillery and infantry alone is unmatched! Under a bombardment like this, even if the Zhenshan Army were made of iron, they'd still be ground to dust!"
The deputy generals at his side immediately chimed in, "General Pei has been undefeated all the way. This time will surely be just as effortless!"
The general burst into hearty laughter. "An appetizer like this won't satisfy Pei Delun's appetite! Once we take the mountain pass ahead, we'll sweep all the way south to meet that Li Zhi, and show these peripheral legion fellows what the Dragon Martial Imperial Guard is made of!"
"General is mighty!"
Amid Pei Delun's ringing laughter, masses of Qi troops braved the smoke and flames to charge into Xiaoyaoyu. Almost the instant the artillery ceased, their boots breached the valley. To cultivators in the second or third stage of Body Casting, a distance of a hundred zhang took only a few rapid strides.
Yet as soon as the Qi troops set foot inside, the glow of an array formation suddenly flared within the dense smoke and flames. Countless Zhenshan soldiers emerged from nowhere, clashing with the Qi soldiers. The weapons in their hands were peculiar, with extraordinarily large bores; amidst roaring blasts, heavily armored Qi troops were blasted off their feet one after another, crashing down never to rise again.
Both sides clashed furiously, casualties climbing rapidly, but within moments, everything fell quiet. The tens of thousands of vanguard Qi soldiers were completely silenced. Those enemy soldiers concealed themselves once more; shielded by the array, Pei Delun could not even discern how they hid or how they appeared.
A sudden stillness descended upon the battlefield, so absolute that Pei Delun could distinctly hear the sound of his own breathing and rushing blood.
His face turned cold as frost. "Well played, Li Zhi! To think you hid an elite force here! But with this place isolated and devoid of reinforcements, aren't you just serving them up on a platter for me? Men, summon the Shenji Battalion!"
A moment later, over two hundred heavily armored warriors stood before Pei Delun. Incredibly, every single one of them was at the Dao Foundation realm, and each was hung with magical artifacts—bearing more than one immortal sword apiece. They were armed to the teeth!
Pei Delun said, "There are quite a few templates hidden up ahead. In the next assault, I will send a hundred-thousand-strong army. You will charge through the air, damage their array, and slay the enemy templates. Can you do it?"
A Shenji soldier at peak Dao Foundation licked his lips. "So they're templates! Rest assured, Commander! If I don't slay at least ten in this battle, I'll return to face punishment!"
Pei Delun shouted his approval and immediately ordered the artillery to open fire again. This time, they bombarded the valley for a full half hour before the main Qi host surged toward Xiaoyaoyu. As the infantry broke into the position, the two hundred Dao Foundation cultivators of the Shenji Battalion flew into Xiaoyaoyu with magical artifacts and immortal swords in hand, ready to hunt down and slaughter the enemy templates.
The cultivator at peak Dao Foundation was the first to plunge into the enemy lines. Flashes of light burst in front of him as several enemy soldiers manifested flying swords, thrusting them through the air toward him!
"Come on, then!" he bellowed. His left hand conjured a flare of earthy-yellow radiance, blocking every flying sword. Then, a tiny blood-red sword shot like lightning from between his brows, instantly piercing through one man's chest!
Taking on multiple foes at once and slaying an opponent in a single exchange—the sheer prowess of this cultivator was plain to see!
Watching from afar, Pei Delun shouted in praise, already intending to credit the man with the top merit once the battle ended.
The Shenji cultivator was laughing aloud when he suddenly saw hundreds of Zhenshan soldiers raise their heads from the ground below and lock their eyes onto him. In the next instant, every single one of them unleashed a flying sword!
Scared out of his wits, the cultivator only had time to let out a shriek before hundreds of flying swords blew him apart in midair, reducing him to a shower of blood!
Then the radiance of magical artifacts flared continuously, shining in mutual resonance and illuminating the entire battlefield. Over ten thousand flying swords soared into the sky. Wherever that dazzling brilliance swept, the Shenji Battalion cultivators plunged from the air like rain, leaving less than half alive. Then another wave of over ten thousand flying swords rose into the sky, and not a single one remained.
Pei Delun saw with utter clarity that these flying swords were manifested with Dao power, completely different from the projectiles shot by flying-sword guns. Such flying swords were all magical artifacts; no matter how inferior or weak, only a Dao Foundation cultivator could wield one.
That volley of over ten thousand flying swords just now meant ten thousand Dao Foundation cultivators!
Yet before the first wave of ten thousand flying swords was even recalled, another wave arrived—another ten thousand swords. Pei Delun felt an icy chill envelop his body, as though he had plunged into a frozen abyss. He knew that not only were the two hundred Dao Foundation cultivators of the Shenji Battalion gone, but the hundred thousand Imperial Guards who had just charged into the valley would never return either.
Pei Delun descended from the air and stood before the central command tent. Dazed for a long while, he finally said in a slow, halting voice, "Send a dispatch requesting reinforcements from His Majesty... Request that His Majesty dispatch at least three or four princes here to take charge of the situation."
There were a full twenty thousand Dao Foundation cultivators in the array formation inside the valley ahead. Even if all of them were templates, dealing with them would require at least two or three Scenery Command experts.
To be safe, Pei Delun added two more Scenery Command cultivators to his estimate.
Then he called a halt to the artillery fire. Shells were expensive, and against so many Dao Foundation cultivators bolstered by the advantage of an array, the killing effect of heavy artillery was quite limited. It was better not to squander ammunition.
To the south of Xiaoyaoyu, a large Qi army also appeared. The banners in this host bore four or five different insignias belonging to various generals. Clearly eager for combat and terrified that others might steal the glory, they opened fire the moment they arrived and launched fierce assaults as soon as the barrage stopped. Across three or four successive waves, they successively committed seventy to eighty thousand men—and not a single one ever returned.
In southeastern Jin, having attacked furiously for days, the Qi troops were running low on supplies and short on ammunition. Moreover, with troops being diverted to reopen their rear passage, they were forced to halt their offensive.
Yet before the Qi army had rested even half a day, a torrential deluge of artillery shells suddenly rained down from the Zhenshan Army's positions, blotting out the sky! Caught completely off guard, the Qi soldiers were blasted into dizzying disarray by the unprecedentedly ferocious bombardment, while their artillery positions were wiped out one after another.
The Zhenshan Army even dispatched several small floating vessels capable of carrying only a few men each. Flying alongside the shells over the Qi positions, they hunted down the rear artillery batteries and destroyed them in sudden strikes one by one.
Along the vast front, nearly all of the Qi positions were engulfed in a sea of fire. The Zhenshan Army seemed to materialize out of thin air, brutally smashing through the Qi lines and driving deep into their rear. From beginning to end, the merciless bombardment never ceased, as if shells cost nothing at all. The ferocity of the artillery fire was several times more intense than the bombardment the Qi army had launched before their own general offensive.
Li Zhi concealed himself in the air, watching as over a dozen breaches opened along the extensive Qi defensive line, while large columns of the Zhenshan Army thrust aggressively into their depth.
While coordinating shell barrages to strike key targets, Li Zhi maneuvered his armies to focus on encircling and annihilating the Qi elite. As for those whose nepotistic ties were strong but whose fighting ability was abysmal, he spared them for now, leaving them to be dealt with another day.
Half a day later, the Qi battle lines crumbled completely. The army fractured into isolated units fighting for themselves; many troops simply fled outright, without even leaving a rearguard.
Chapter 1487