The Objective

The earth trembled, shaking the newly built houses along with it. Behind a low earthen wall, several men lay flat against the parapet, their faces pale as they looked upon the endless Shaman army. One young man's legs abruptly gave way, and he slumped to the ground, unable to rise. His companions promptly dragged him into a nearby hovel, vanishing from sight. A Shaman general studied the deathly silent city ahead. After a moment's thought, he pointed a finger. Three thousand Shaman warriors immediately wheeled about and charged into the city, while the rest of the army continued advancing toward the center of the domain. Atop the domain's main peak, Wei Yuan knitted his brows. The Shamans had detached far fewer troops than he had anticipated. Cui Yu arrived at Wei Yuan's side and spoke rapidly. "Latest report: Yue Jinshan's army is now less than three hundred li from the Shamans. At a rapid march, they will arrive in less than half a day, perfectly positioned to sever the Shaman rearguard." "General Yue commands troops with exceptional skill!" Wei Yuan remarked, offering no empty flattery. For an army to advance fifteen hundred li in less than two days while absorbing and reorganizing forces along the march was a feat worthy of a famed commander. Cui Yu said, "General Yue was widely renowned in the Northern Frontier as well, having fought several major campaigns in recent years. I simply didn't expect him to be reassigned to Ningxi. Word from my clan says he brought ten thousand northern frontier veterans with him this time; their combat power is formidable." "Then we must hold out until he arrives," Wei Yuan said slowly. "General Yue is a man of high character; he would never pull such underhanded tricks." Cui Yu had guessed what Wei Yuan was hinting at. "Let us hope so." Wei Yuan soared into the sky and soon vanished toward the north. In the northwestern city, Shaman warriors moved swiftly and silently through the streets. The interior was no longer composed purely of hovels; many households had erected low walls roughly three feet high. Built from clay and packed stone, they were hardly impenetrable, but tearing them down still required effort. Countless low walls slowed the Shamans' advance and carved the battlefield into small, isolated pockets. A Shaman warrior tore aside the entrance of a hovel and lunged inside. The instant he crossed the threshold, several figures burst from the darkness, their short blades stabbing into his body all at once! The Shaman warrior roared. A sweep of his blade cleaved two men in half at the waist. A third person huddled trembling in the corner of the room. The Shaman warrior approached in silence, raising his broadsword. The figure huddled in the corner was gripping a short iron rod. In the Shaman warrior's eyes, not even the heavy spears of the Northern Liao were anything to fear, let alone an iron rod under two feet long—even if sparks were sputtering from its rear for reasons he could not fathom. The Shaman warrior raised his blade high, just about to bring it down, when a deafening bang exploded. It felt as if a sledgehammer had slammed into his chest. Blown backward uncontrollably, he crashed through the wall, leaving a gaping hole. With a furious shout, the Shaman warrior hurled his blade, pinning the slight figure to the wall. Looking down, he saw a small hole through the iron armor over his chest. The wound was not broad, yet extraordinarily deep. Possessing savage ferocity, the warrior thrust a claw-like finger into the wound and, after a moment, dug out an iron pellet. Even now, he had no idea how he had been injured. A tall Shaman captain passed by. Glancing at the warrior's wound, he summoned two warriors and ordered them to carry the wounded man outside the city. This was a clear domain of the mortal realm; if left untreated, injuries would rapidly fester and deteriorate. The captain stepped into the hovel where the struggle had just ended. Sweeping his gaze around, he noticed something amiss with a section of the floorboards in the corner. He struck down with his blade, shattering the wood to reveal a passageway descending into the earth. Gauging the dimensions of the tunnel, he cast aside his battleaxe and heavy shield, leaping into the shaft with only a short blade in hand. Through his divine sense, he could tell an open space lay not far ahead, sheltering several people. The captain quickened his pace and burst into a chamber in the blink of an eye. The room was dark, nearly devoid of light, concealing several frail humans. They were more pathetic than the Northern Liao children he had seen. For a moment, the captain could not understand why he had been summoned from ten thousand li away in the north just to deal with such feeble prey. Darkness posed no obstacle to the Shamans. Even the faintest glimmer was enough for them to see clearly, not to mention the sparks sputtering in the room. These creatures were too weak to even be called adversaries; their only weapons were a few short rods spitting fire. Suddenly, bursts of blinding, unbearable light flared before his eyes, followed by sharp, concurrent agony in several places across his body, as though multiple chisels had been driven deep into his flesh! The sensation was much like being struck by the arrows of the Liao barbarians. But having taken countless arrows before, the captain was long accustomed to such pain. With a roar, his blade flashed, cutting down everyone in the room before he slowly collapsed. As more Shaman warriors entered the city, they uncovered an increasing number of subterranean shafts and plunged underground. Skirmishes erupted throughout the dark, labyrinthine tunnels, punctuated by the muffled crack of gunfire. Wei Yuan continued to endure. In the brief span since the battle began, over a thousand of the three thousand city defense troops had already lost their lives. This garrison included a thousand men transferred from Yong'an. Yet the Shamans had suffered barely over a hundred casualties. A casualty ratio of ten to one—and that was with every single defender armed with a firearm. Had they fought in the open without firearms, this newly formed force might have been entirely wiped out without inflicting fifty casualties on the enemy. Yet the time had not yet come. Wei Yuan forcibly suppressed the anxiety in his heart, striving to ignore the surging casualty count and the agonizing screams, desperate pleas, and furious reproaches flooding his divine sense. He did his utmost to reduce himself to a cold, unfeeling calculating machine. According to Xu Wenwu, in his world, the things best at calculating were machines, and machines had no emotions. Because of that, the humans of that world were constantly fantasizing about machines ruling the world. When Wei Yuan had first heard of it, he had an intuitive feeling that such a reality was not so far away. Yet now, no matter how hard Wei Yuan tried to strip all emotion from his decisions, he simply could not do it; his heart still tore with excruciating grief. At last, the Shaman main force bypassed the city, driving straight toward the center of the domain. Aside from a handful of surface lookouts, all three thousand warriors who had assaulted the city had also descended underground. With a flick of his divine sense, Wei Yuan struck a small bell buried deep beneath the city. The chime seemed to possess boundless penetration, resounding far and wide through the subterranean depths. In the darkness, countless people roared and shrieked, snatching up their weapons and charging the Shaman soldiers. They knew that when the bell rang for the third time, miraculous power would descend—and having experienced that power before, every single one of them felt capable of tearing those Shamans apart with their bare hands! An invisible power descended upon the city, and an indescribable tempest erupted underground! The Shaman general leading the main force turned back in astonishment to look at the city. The surface appeared entirely serene, yet something was happening below; he could clearly sense the auras of his elite warriors being snuffed out in vast swathes! Both shocked and furious, he could not comprehend what was unfolding. That terrifying tempest of aura lasted only a brief moment before subsiding, lasting less than ten breaths from start to finish. Yet in that fleeting span, more than half of the Shaman warriors underground had seen their life signs extinguished! The general hesitated briefly, then detached another five thousand troops into the city while the remainder pressed on toward the domain's center. Whatever scheme his opponent had devised, his mission would be complete so long as he shattered the boundary stone. At the edge of the domain, two Great Shamans stood suspended in the air, watching the battle from afar. Sensing the sudden shift in the battlefield's aura, the Great Shaman on the left said, "It's back! That power—the power that turns humans into beasts! We must provide support!" The Great Shaman on the right remained utterly motionless. "What are you waiting for?" The Great Shaman on the right finally turned his head, saying coldly, "Phantom, do you not sense it? The eyes of many human old monsters are watching this place. The moment we make a move, who knows who will leap out to intercept us? Ah, quite right—someone from a backwater tribe like yours becoming a Great Shaman was mere luck; expecting you to understand the complexities of the battlefield is impossible. Right now, all you need to do is obey my command. You do not need your own ideas, and you certainly do not need your suggestions." Phantom could only say, "As you wish." Yet many of the warriors sent into the city across both waves came from her tribe. They were the finest fighters of her entire people, having fought in the north for years. Fighting in the north brought honor and riches, whereas here they would only perish to incomprehensible enemy tricks, gaining nothing in return. When the second detachment of five thousand warriors entered the underground, that bizarre, shudder-inducing power descended once more. In an instant, half of those five thousand potent auras were extinguished. Phantom shrieked, "We cannot keep feeding troops in piecemeal like this! They have traps underground! We must commit a massive force and attack continuously until that city is leveled to the ground!" The Great Shaman did not even look at her this time, merely pointing toward the center of the domain. "The eyes of every old monster are focused there, and our objective lies there as well. This city is nothing more than a tool the enemy is using to slow our advance. What we must do now is keep pressing forward, concentrating our main force to strike the domain's center. Once we take the center, he will see how foolish it was to scatter his forces defending individual cities. If we can force the human old monsters to show their hand first, half the victory is ours." Only then did he turn back to Phantom and add, "Do you know? The only thing more detestable than a dull opponent is an ignorant teammate who loves offering advice."