In the northern frontier, the flames of war blazed fiercely. Accompanied by deafening explosions, many Liao horses reared on their hind legs in terror.
Clad in ordinary soldier's armor and helmet, Wei Yuan stood atop the city wall, harvesting the lives of Liao cavalrymen one shot at a time with his flying-sword gun. He had activated his concealment abilities and was cloaked in karmic luck; even if a Scenery Command divine sense swept over him, it would mistake him for an ordinary human cultivator who had barely stepped into the Dao Foundation stage—so utterly mundane that a dharma idol cultivator would deem striking him down a waste of effort.
In truth, Wei Yuan was simultaneously guiding more than two hundred cannonballs, fine-tuning their trajectories midair to slam into the densest clusters of Liao cavalry. Even when the Liao leaped into trenches, the shells detonated with pinpoint accuracy directly above their heads.
Yet as far as the eye could see, the surrounding wilderness was packed with the Liao Clan, and the shrieking rain of arrows in the sky never ceased for a moment. This time, the number of heavily armored troops among the Liao had visibly increased. They had also swapped their armaments for large shields and hand crossbows, leaping into the trenches to grapple with the humans in hand-to-hand combat.
The hand crossbows wielded by the Liao packed tremendous punch, capable of piercing straight through breastplates manufactured in Qingming; only massive shields could hold them at bay. Though slow to reload, their terrifying power at close quarters significantly elevated the Liao's combat strength, sending the casualty rate of Dao soldiers in the trenches soaring.
In the sky above the Liao ranks, the Left Sage King's avatar gazed down at the battlefield, his expression thoroughly grim. Even as an immortal, he had never anticipated that the artillery brought from Qingming would suddenly multiply several times over—the perimeter of the garrison city was practically an ocean of fire.
Furthermore, guided by Wei Yuan, the barrage was astonishingly precise, sweeping over one zone after another. Once each sector had been pounded, it was reduced completely to scorched earth. Not a single Liao rider lingering in the bombardment zone survived; the cannon fire truly scoured the ground clean.
In this manner, Wei Yuan continually carved out empty zones around the garrison city, disrupting the tempo of the Liao assault and cutting off reinforcements to the Liao forces pushing forward.
By now, the Liao army encircling the garrison city numbered nearly a million, crashing against the defensive line wave upon wave like a tidal surge. Wei Yuan, meanwhile, was prepared to expend every last cannonball in this single engagement.
The Left Sage King's avatar possessed formidable divine sense as well, sweeping across the entire battlefield at intervals. This was mere observation rather than an attack, so it did not trigger an automatic retaliation from the Northern Mountain Gate.
Yet the losses revealed by his scans were difficult for the Left Sage King to accept. He had expended a staggering military fortune, issued countless high-grade armors and magical artifacts, dispelled the power of the Northern Mountain Gate, and laid siege from all four sides—only for their casualty ratio to end up even worse than in previous encounters, approaching nearly five to one?
Had the more than a hundred million taels of immortal silver he spent gone entirely to the dogs?
Just then, another section of the Northern Liao ranks parted, and numerous soldiers and mighty warriors rolled out a terrifying colossal ballista cart. Beneath the cart carriage were eight rows of wheels front to back; mounted atop was a bed crossbow over fifty feet long, currently fitted with a forty-foot colossal bolt gleaming all over with artifact light.
The colossal ballista cart lumbered forward, halting more than a dozen li from the garrison city. Mighty warriors at the dharma idol level then hammered wooden stakes into the ground, stabilizing the carriage.
Wei Yuan naturally could not sit idly by; he immediately guided cannonballs at maximum range to bombard it. But all the shells were intercepted by Liao archers at the dharma idol level. The Liao then adjusted the angle of the colossal ballista, and four mighty warriors at the peak of Dao Foundation wrenched the release mechanism simultaneously. A brilliant halo flared from the colossal ballista cart, and the bolt tore across the sky, arriving at the garrison city in a flash.
The moment before the bolt was released, Wei Yuan could no longer conceal his identity. He converted his Dao power into a howling gale, sweeping all the soldiers off the gate tower.
The colossal bolt slammed into the gate tower, sinking completely into it in an instant. The gate tower swelled violently like wet dough, twisting until it seemed surreal. Then the entire structure blew apart, blasting countless shattered stone slabs into the sky!
Fragments of masonry rained down like hail, kicking up plumes of dust and smoke. When the haze finally settled, the pavilion atop the gate tower had vanished without a trace, more than half of the gate tower had collapsed, and only the fletching of the colossal bolt remained exposed.
All five cannons originally mounted on the gate tower were thrown several hundred feet away. Fortunately, Wei Yuan had swept the Dao soldiers clear beforehand; otherwise, not one of the hundreds stationed on the gate tower would have survived.
Meanwhile, the Liao generals stared wide-eyed, looking at the gate tower in disbelief. Such colossal ballista carts were siege superweapons of the Liao Clan. Each shot was equivalent to a strike from a Scenery Command spirit treasure; against traditional city walls made of stone-faced rammed earth bound with rice mortar, a single bolt could punch through three hundred feet.
Had Wei Yuan been defending some world-renowned stronghold or mighty pass, that would be one thing. But this was merely a petty garrison city whose walls were not even a hundred feet tall! What the Liao generals—and even the Left Sage King's avatar—had expected to see was the bolt obliterating the gate tower, punching through the entire town, and lodging into the far city wall. That was how it was supposed to go!
Yet this shot had only brought down half of the gate tower?
Composing himself, the Left Sage King's avatar peered toward the breach, only to discover that the structure's actual thickness far exceeded its height—it was an astonishing two hundred feet thick! According to their intelligence, the gate tower of this garrison city should have been fifty feet thick at most.
The breach was strewn with grayish-white debris, neither resembling stone nor traditional mortar. Multiple steel rebars remained embedded among the rubble, and every few feet, a layer of steel plating had been laid.
This spirit treasure colossal bolt had pierced through seventy or eighty feet of this bizarre reinforced gray stone zone, punched through three layers of steel plates, and finally exhausted its momentum. And ahead of it, another forty to fifty feet of wall still stood.
The Left Sage King's avatar's face was as dark as still water, utterly unable to maintain his composure. Wei Yuan had built this gate tower so absurdly sturdy—how was any normal person supposed to blast through it?
If they had not brought up a siege ballista cart specifically designed for mighty passes and impenetrable fortresses, ordinary bed crossbows wouldn't have stood a chance of breaching the city. As for the siege heavy arrows meant for dharma idol cultivators, they would likely fire until their dharma idols collapsed without making a dent.
Wei Yuan was secretly startled as well. The Liao Clan's colossal ballista was exceedingly overbearing; its power was more than double that of the eight colossal ballistas at Hanyang Pass back then! Fortunately, he had consulted records of past wars and understood the Liao Clan's siege engines, so he had worked day and night using cement to widen and thicken the walls. It had finally paid off.
Not disheartened, the Liao immediately prepared their next strike. A thousand Liao mighty warriors exerted their strength together, cranking multiple winches to slowly draw the colossal ballista. Then over a dozen mighty warriors at peak Dao Foundation joined forces to hoist another forty-foot bolt into the groove. Finally, several dharma idols channeled magic power into the cart.
With a shout of command from the Liao general, another halo rose above the cart, and the colossal bolt tore through the air, embedding itself in one flank of the gate tower. The tower and the adjacent wall once again swelled and distorted. A breach appeared in a section of wall beside the gate tower, but no massive collapse occurred.
Wei Yuan already had contingency plans for a breached wall. Behind the gap, Dao soldiers rolled out several infantry guns, aiming their dark muzzles right at the breach. For a moment, the Liao iron cavalry didn't dare charge into the opening.
At this point, the Liao slowly loaded a third colossal bolt, this time striking the other side of the gate tower. After three bolts, the gate tower was finally battered beyond recognition, and all dozen-odd cannons along this defensive sector fell silent.
The Liao general swept his precious blade forward once more. Another colossal bolt flew through the breach, plowing a bloody corridor through the town before slamming into the opposite wall with a thunderous roar, collapsing a short section. This time the loss was somewhat heavy: multiple infantry guns deployed inside the town were destroyed, and over a hundred Dao soldiers were killed or wounded.
Large formations of Liao iron cavalry surged through the breach into the town, and the slaughter began.
Wei Yuan did not panic; he ordered the final plan initiated. Large numbers of Dao soldiers resting in the town rapidly dispersed into the surrounding trenches. Most infantry guns were not heavy—two Dao Foundation cultivators could lift one and sprint, while another three to five carried shells, forming a complete gun crew.
In the blink of an eye, the Liao iron cavalry that had charged inside found themselves with no enemies to fight. Meanwhile, many of the city defense cannons atop the surviving walls swiveled around to blast inward, inflicting terrible casualties on the intruders in moments.
Though the garrison town had been breached, the war had only just begun. Over a hundred thousand Dao soldiers gathered and dispersed unpredictably across nearly a hundred li of trench networks dense as a spiderweb, appearing and vanishing like ghosts.
Watching the dense swarm of small strongpoints before her, even the silver-haired woman felt her scalp tingle with dread. What the one-million-strong Liao army now faced was more than a thousand fortified fire points.
She felt that from this moment on, the war would be fought in a quagmire.
The Liao commanding general was still using the colossal ballista to dismantle the city wall, but he had deliberately slowed his pace. Each of these colossal bolts cost hundreds of thousands of taels of immortal silver, and the cart required maintenance and overhaul every twenty shots—amounts of immortal silver piled as high as mountains.
The Left Sage King's avatar stood with his hands behind his back, his face livid. When he had first heard that Wei Yuan was heading north, he had looked forward to meeting this rising talent of the human race, eager to see what caliber of commander could shatter the Shaman army of millions, and what sort of legendary campaigns worthy of eternal praise Wei Yuan might wage.
Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that from the very first battle, Wei Yuan would do nothing but dig in and fight a brutal war of attrition—and then stubbornly hold on, trading losses, trading losses, trading losses. Every single day was a miserable slog. And this grueling slog had dragged on for over half a year! Now that they had finally cracked open the tortoise shell of the garrison city, they were met with an even vaster slog.
Countless Liao riders spurred their horses into the human positions. But no matter how agile the Liao horses were, they could hardly defend against flying arrows shooting from every angle, nor could they avoid the crisscrossing trenches scoring the earth. Horses frequently stumbled and pitched forward, tumbling rider and steed into the trenches, where they were instantly greeted by a hail of bullets and iron shot.
The Liao cavalrymen who charged into the positions were wiped out in moments. The centurions and chiliarchs directing the frontline shouted orders for the horsemen to dismount, take up their crossbows and shields, and leap into the trenches to grapple with the humans in hand-to-hand combat.
The human positions were like a swamp, and countless Liao warriors were marching deeper and deeper into the mire.
While the north was mired in an ugly slog at every turn, a hundred-thousand-strong army had mustered in Qingming, entirely composed of cavalry and mounted infantry. Divided into units of five hundred, the hundred thousand troops formed two hundred detachments in total. In the hand of every detachment captain was an immortal sword manifested by Zhang Sheng, through which they could communicate directly with her.
Zhang Sheng stood atop a war chariot, her bearing transcendent as an immortal. Without her even making a gesture, each captain naturally knew their destination, march route, and time limit for arrival.
With that, the hundreds of detachments dispersed in a rush, scattering across the land like a stampeding herd of beasts. Zhang Sheng moved alongside the chariot division.
Across the lands of the Western Regions, the Zhao army was marching slowly northward when alarm horns suddenly blared—enemies had appeared from every direction!
Chapter 717