Just as the Northern Liao scouts released their arrows, Fang Hetong rose to his full height. Drawing his own bow and nocking an arrow, the runes along its limbs lit up, and an arrow shot forth like lightning, instantly piercing the chest of a Liao rider!
As a Dao Foundation cultivator, Fang Hetong's shot was naturally far beyond anything an ordinary Liao scout could muster. But after unleashing that single arrow, his Dao power fluctuated, requiring him to catch his breath before he could fire a second.
In the span of that single breath, the Liao scouts in the rear had already reacted. Three riders drew their bows simultaneously, returning fire at Fang Hetong.
Fang Hetong's reflexes were exceptionally swift; he dropped flat at once. Two sharp arrows whizzed over the rampart; had he not ducked, they would have struck him in the head and torso. The third arrow flew much lower, slamming into a crenel—and punching straight through it!
Fortunately, the fortified walls of Shayang Village were crafted with great ingenuity, laid out in stepped tiers: one step behind the crenels, and another step lower behind that. Fang Hetong lay flat on the lowest tier, cleanly avoiding the arrow that had pierced the wall.
Having narrowly escaped the three arrows, Fang Hetong rose once more and shot down another scout.
This thoroughly enraged the Liao men. Over a dozen riders began advancing, closing in on Shayang Village. In their counterattack, they used heavy arrows; from a hundred zhang away, a single shot had pierced a foot-and-a-half-thick crenel. If they closed to within fifty zhang, the power of those heavy arrows would multiply, to the point where even a Dao Foundation cultivator like Fang Hetong would not dare take a hit head-on.
Wei Yuan had remained hidden, biding his time. Before making his move, Fang Hetong had sent him a voice transmission telling him to hold back until the Liao men drew closer. The Liao cavalry had raided Shayang Village several times before and likely assumed Fang Hetong was still the only cultivator here, confident they could suppress him without trouble.
Perhaps provoked beyond measure by the deaths of two comrades in succession, the Liao riders pressed forward until they were thirty zhang away. Whenever Fang Hetong dared to show his head, several whistling arrows forced him right back down.
At that moment, Wei Yuan rose to his full height and hurled a short spear! The spear flew like lightning. The instant it left his hand, it appeared right before a Liao rider. Before the warrior could even react, the spear punched straight through him. The wounds on his chest and back burst open at once, leaving a gaping, bloody hole through his body.
As Wei Yuan channeled his Dao power into the iron case, short spears popped out one after another. Wei Yuan snatched them from the air and hurled them in one fluid motion, felling seven or eight scouts from their mounts in the blink of an eye.
The Liao Clan reacted with remarkable speed. Piercing shrieks tore through the air as several heavy arrows streaked toward Wei Yuan, aimed with deadly precision at his vitals. Wei Yuan hurled another spear to kill one more rider before dodging. Yet the heavy arrows flew even faster than he had anticipated. One grazed past him, slicing clean through his shoulder armor, then cutting layer by layer through his inner armor and Daoist robes beneath, ultimately leaving a fine scratch on his jade-translucent skin.
The might of this arrow was already comparable to a Dao Foundation magical artifact; even Xu Du's strike that had pierced Wei Yuan's body back then fell slightly short of it.
Wei Yuan immediately locked onto the archer and hurled two short spears in rapid succession, but the rider dodged both. The Liao warrior moved as though born in the saddle, rolling and shifting across the horse's back at will. Yet just as he vaulted back up from the flank of his mount, three bursts of aqua-blue light came hurtling toward him in succession!
The first burst slammed into the warhorse and exploded, releasing dozens of razor-sharp water blades that shredded the steed with wounds in an instant and slashed the rider with several cuts. The next two bursts arrived right behind it! Wounded and unable to dodge, the rider and his mount were instantly engulfed by countless water blades.
The warhorse bolted forward in panic, galloping a hundred zhang before suddenly collapsing, leaving a long trail of blood in its wake. Thrown from the saddle, the rider tumbled several times upon hitting the ground and lay motionless on his back as a widening pool of blood spread beneath him.
The remaining scouts shouted wildly. One turned his horse to flee, while the rest charged toward Shayang Village like madmen. One rider's mount stepped into a pitfall trap, its forelegs snapping instantly. Thrown from the saddle, the rider flipped in midair and landed steadily on his feet. Instead of fleeing, he drew his waist saber and charged the wall with a howling roar. When he was still several zhang from the rampart, he sprang into the air, lunging straight at Wei Yuan.
A twelve-foot spear shot through the air like a dragon descending from beyond the heavens, pinning the Liao warrior in midair.
The Liao rider struggled to look around, only to see that all his comrades were already lying in pools of blood. He was the last one left. A rattling wheeze sounded from his throat, but all he could do was cough up mouthfuls of fresh blood, unable to utter a single word.
With a flick of his spear, Wei Yuan flung the warrior over the village wall.
Most of the remaining scouts who charged had been brought down by Wei Yuan's short spears, while two were shot dead by Fang Hetong. Another had managed to scale the wall, only to be cut down by Fang Hetong's sword. Aside from the lone rider who fled, this patrol of Liao scouts was completely annihilated.
Though it took long to tell, the battle had lasted only a brief moment; in the blink of an eye, an entire squad of Liao cavalry had been wiped out. Fang Hetong braced himself against a crenel, panting heavily with sweat pouring down like rain. The consecutive bursts of immense power had nearly drained his Dao power dry, leaving him utterly exhausted. Wei Yuan, meanwhile, felt the Dao power throughout his body surging and churning, taking a long while to calm down.
Catching his breath, Fang Hetong said to Wei Yuan, "The one you killed with your Dao art must have been a ranked squad leader. By Liao tradition, if a squad leader falls and the enemies are not completely wiped out, the entire squad is put to death. That's why those Liao men went mad. The one who fled just now is probably going back to deliver the report—and then he will take his own life."
Wei Yuan had heard of this tradition before, but only after facing a desperate charge by Liao warriors on the battlefield did he truly feel that kind of pressure.
Though that Liao squad leader had not yet established a Dao Foundation, he was equivalent to Body Casting perfection. The Liao people's method of Body Casting differed from that of humans. Born with formidable physiques, they did not need to temper flesh, blood, bone, and spirit step by step as humans did. Instead, they tempered them simultaneously until reaching perfection in Body Casting. Because of this, Liao warriors possessed a bit of dharmic power even in the early stages of Body Casting. Weak as it was, it allowed them to wield one or two low-grade magical artifacts.
This squad leader's body had been exceptionally robust. Wei Yuan had launched aggressive strikes to force him to dodge, seizing the initiative, and had to use three Water Blade Arts to finish him off. This leader's physical resilience was on par with many disciples in the Palace of Grand Beginning who were nearing perfection in Body Casting, while Dao Foundation cultivators from minor sects were mostly inferior to him.
Wei Yuan's three Water Blade Arts were quite different from ordinary ones. Back when he brawled with the Traditionalist Faction, a disciple had hurled a Water Blade Art at him. That technique had contained only seven or eight sharp blades, whereas Wei Yuan's single Water Blade Art now released seventy or eighty. An ordinary Dao Foundation cultivator from a minor sect would not even be able to withstand a single cast of Wei Yuan's Water Blade Art.
Agula was merely an ordinary tribe in Northern Liao, and this patrol was just the most ordinary squad among its hundred thousand bowmen. Yet the squad leader of such a small unit possessed combat power approaching that of an entry-level disciple of an immortal sect, and every scout in the squad was equivalent to a human cultivator who had completed more than half of Blood Merging.
The Liao Clan excelled in mounted archery, and their bow-making skill surpassed that of the human race. Each cavalryman was equipped with various types of arrows. For instance, in their initial ambush, they had used light arrows, lightning-fast and silent. Later, during their assault, they switched to heavy arrows, devastating and overwhelming in power. Beyond that, they had armor-piercing arrows, spell-breaking arrows, gale arrows, and more.
From this recent battle, Wei Yuan had realized that a dozen or so ordinary Northern Liao scouts could suppress an ordinary human Dao Foundation cultivator. No wonder the human race had been enslaved for a full two hundred thousand years in ancient times.
Chapter 69