The Qingming heavy armored warriors pushed forward building by building, steadily and resolutely expanding their gains. The fighting on the ramparts of both flanks progressed relatively quickly; before long, half of the pass's walls were in Qingming's hands.
Wei Yuan stood above the fortress over the West Gate, taking in the entire battlefield. With him standing in midair, not a single Zhao dharma idol dared take to the sky.
Wei Yuan's fame and battle record had already spread far and wide. Any well-informed dharma idol cultivator knew that going up one or two at a time to contest him was nothing more than serving themselves up on a platter.
Even Qingming's light infantry were equipped with breastplates, helmets, and groin guards, giving them an overwhelming advantage in close-quarters combat. Even when struck head-on by gunshots, most were merely wounded rather than killed. In contrast, the majority of the Zhao troops wore leather armor, which offered flimsy protection against both buckshot and ordinary fire-gun rounds; many soldiers were even shot clean through.
In the eastern quarter of Hanyang Pass, several Zhao generals surrounded a woman clad in fiery red armor, pleading bitterly, "Fall back! If we don't retreat now, it will be too late!"
Seeing that nearly half the fortress had been lost in under an hour, the woman gritted her teeth in fury, flames billowing above her head. "Hold on a little longer! As long as we hold the East Gate, the worst that can happen is taking the long way out through the East Gate back to Zhao!"
A general muttered under his breath, "What if Wei Yuan sends troops to block the East Gate—"
The woman whipped around, glaring at him. "Where would Wei Yuan get the troops?"
The general hurriedly said, "This general only thought that if I were leading the army, I would certainly detach a force to lay an ambush outside the East Gate."
The woman sneered. "Since you're so brilliant, why don't I just hand the whole army over to you? I'll let you take my seat!"
The general dropped to his knees, not daring to rise. "This general wouldn't dare!"
At this point, two senior generals of higher rank stepped forward together and said, "May we ask General Su—the Princess had clearly laid out the strategy before she departed, so why change it all of a sudden? It is already late to retreat now; if we delay any longer, I fear the entire army will be wiped out!"
The woman replied coldly, "Before the Princess left, she gave me confidential instructions and handed me the commander's tally, placing me in full command! What, are you dissatisfied? Planning to seize power, are you?"
The two veteran generals exchanged glances, feeling helpless. "We would not dare! Since Her Highness gave instructions, we naturally shall obey. However, did Her Highness leave behind a handwritten decree or letter? Might we be permitted to view it?"
The female general's voice rose an octave in rage. "You dare disobey the Princess's orders?! Guards, cut these two old bastards down!"
The personal guards around them kept silent; these two veteran generals commanded immense prestige in the army, and no one dared lay a hand on them.
Seeing this, the female general grew even more furious. Drawing her longsword, she barked, "Are you trying to force my hand? Defy orders any further, and I will treat this as mutiny and slaughter every last one of you!"
The two veterans sighed and removed their helmets. "Pray calm your anger, General. We have offended, and we will plead guilty upon our return. But for now, we implore the General to think twice—the lives of over a hundred thousand soldiers hang upon your single thought!"
Flames erupted across the female general's entire body, the searing heat forcing the officers back a step. In terms of cultivation, none of the generals present was any match for her.
Now thoroughly incensed, she shouted, "Just because we don't retreat as you want, we're bound to be wiped out, bound to suffer total defeat? Pass my order: all forces fight to the death! Anyone who dares retreat shall be executed!"
In Wei Yuan's eyes, the Zhao army's military qi coalesced once more, surging vigorously.
He was somewhat puzzled. He had thought this would be an easy battle: once the Zhao army saw the situation turn against them, they should have retreated. Wei Yuan had planned to harry their retreat all the way, forcing them to abandon their baggage train. Once he drove them entirely back to Zhao, he would quit while he was ahead.
That way, he would have gained advantages, dampened the arrogance of Li Chengfeng's political rivals, avoided forging too deep a feud, recovered lost territory, and greatly enhanced his renown—a quadruple win.
Yet his fine calculations had fallen apart the moment the Zhao army fell back into the city to fight to the death.
No matter how hard Wei Yuan thought, he couldn't understand: was a so-called renowned pass thousands of li from their homeland—one whose defensive city array had already been dug out—worth fighting to the death like this?
Cui Yu, who knew what Wei Yuan was thinking, said at this moment, "How about we leave an escape route and let them go?"
Wei Yuan replied, "Do they look to you like they want to leave?"
Cui Yu was equally perplexed. "Could there be some prominent figure among the Zhao forces? Or did they discover some great treasure that cannot be moved for the time being?"
Wei Yuan's eyes lit up. "It must be so!"
Bao Yun appeared beside Wei Yuan and said, "What do you mean, 'it must be so'? I only see the glow of a few Scenery Command spirit treasures, and they aren't even that bright. If you don't believe me, why not call Perfected Chuhe over to take a look?"
Wei Yuan refused to give up. He immediately sent someone to the main camp to summon Perfected Chuhe. In the blink of an eye, the old Daoist arrived at the front lines. A flash of white light glinted from his hand, and the flying sable leaped into the air, vanishing into thin air.
Yet in Wei Yuan's eyes, a faint ripple could be seen darting rapidly toward the Zhao army within the city. That was the path of the flying sable. It could shuttle through the void, invisible to the naked eye, but disturbing the Great Dao of Space inevitably left traces, which could no longer escape Wei Yuan's sight.
Perfected Chuhe's face shifted, his snout extending outward into a giant rat's nose, wet and glossy black. He sniffed vigorously, and several thin wisps of treasure-qi light drifted out from the Zhao ranks and were inhaled into his nostrils.
Then the dharma idol manifestation vanished. Perfected Chuhe carefully savored the treasure qi, and after a moment, he said, "Nothing more than three or four Scenery Command spirit treasures, all ordinary stuff. I didn't see anything special, nor any rare treasures of heaven and earth. Quite a few things currently in the Medicine Garden are better than these."
Wei Yuan placed absolute trust in Chuhe's innate divine ability. His eyes gradually grew deep and dark as he said, "If they have no treasure to protect, then they truly intend to fight me to the bitter end? This army's bones are rather stiff!"
When dealing with an enemy of such backbone, Wei Yuan's policy was always to snap their spine completely to prevent future trouble. He immediately issued an order to the Dao Foundation warriors stationed with the artillery batteries in the rear: "Bombard the East Gate!"
Receiving the order, Lu Yu immediately unfolded the defense map of Hanyang Pass, measured the distance, calculated the target position parameters, and handed them to each gun crew. The cultivators operating the cannons made fine adjustments according to their respective positions, then began test-firing.
After a salvo of artillery fire, Hanyang Pass's East Gate was engulfed in a sea of flames.
The heavy cannons fired in rotation, gun by gun. Cultivators on the front lines observed the points of impact and transmitted the firing corrections to Wei Yuan's Dao Foundation warriors; once the forward warriors received them, the Dao Foundation warriors in the rear synchronized the adjustments. After each heavy cannon was calibrated, they fired in batteries of three, taking turns in an uninterrupted barrage against the East Gate.
With the East Gate plunged into an inferno, the Zhao soldiers in the city panicked, and chaos erupted. Several generals soon realized that the shells were actually flying in from outside the western walls, turning their faces ashen.
The bombardment at the East Gate continued relentlessly. High-yield shells rained down one after another, long since turning an area a hundred zhang around into a living purgatory where no one below the Dao Foundation realm could survive.
The shelling went on for quite some time without the slightest sign of abating. A Zhao general cried out in dismay, "Wei Yuan is cutting off our retreat!"
Their only way out sealed off by artillery fire, the Zhao soldiers inside—who had already been hanging on by a thread—finally broke. Men began to flee. The first batch of deserters was cut down by the discipline squads behind them, but as more and more ran and the artillery fire at the East Gate showed no sign of slackening, even the discipline squads joined the ranks of deserters.
Seeing the peril at the East Gate, many robust Zhao soldiers simply scrambled up the pass walls to scale them and flee. Those lacking strength and driven mad with terror charged straight into the East Gate, but under the dense artillery interdiction, less than thirty percent managed to cross the line of fire.
With chaos in the rear, the front lines began to crumble. Many Zhao soldiers surrendered on the spot, while even more chose to scale the walls and escape.
In an instant, the battle collapsed into rout. The Zhao military qi fluttered and was completely scattered by Qingming's military qi. Wei Yuan immediately took to the air, charging toward the Zhao center. A host of dragon guards and Palace of Grand Beginning dharma idols followed closely behind, hunting down Zhao dharma idol cultivators to do battle. With military qi bolstering them, the Qingming cultivators held an overwhelming advantage.
In the blink of an eye, dusk arrived. The sound of gunfire within the pass fortress finally ceased, sinking into silence.
Wei Yuan looked at the red-armored woman before him, drenched in blood, and reached out to remove her mask.
Beneath the mask was a face twisted with fury and humiliation. One could tell her features were quite fine, making her a great beauty, though she was noticeably a cut below Consort Yuan and Ningguo.
Wei Yuan reached out to lift her chin, turning her face left and right to inspect her closely. The woman struggled desperately, but having been captured severely wounded with her sea of consciousness sealed, she could not muster a shred of magic power and was utterly powerless to resist.
She shrieked, "Touch me again and I'll have the Princess kill you!"
Wei Yuan sighed. "As expected, you're not the Princess. I was wondering how she could look like this. Then who are you?"
The woman spat with a vicious "Peh!" aiming directly at Wei Yuan. Wei Yuan neither dodged nor flinched; the spit curved midair and smacked right back onto her own face. Wei Yuan then raised his hand and delivered a slap that swelled half her face.
However, because Wei Yuan had redirected her spit back onto her face before slapping her, his hand ended up smeared with plenty of saliva. A wave of nausea instantly churned in his stomach. He hastily pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his palm thoroughly, then blew a wisp of true fire over it to scorch it clean, dreading that any foul filth might remain.
"Y-You dare strike me?!" the woman stammered in disbelief.
Wei Yuan didn't bother to answer. Turning to his attendants, he said, "Since she isn't the Princess, she's of no use. Drag her away and behead her!"
The woman was terrified and shrieked, "The Princess and I grew up together! I am her best playmate! If you kill me, the Princess will never let you get away with it!"
Wei Yuan said indifferently, "I was planning to capture the Princess herself—do you think I'm afraid of her coming after me? If you can't speak properly, I don't mind cutting out your tongue first."
"You dare?!"
Before the words left her mouth, her left cheek took another slap. At Wei Yuan's signal, a dragon guard stepped forward, using Dao power to pull out her tongue, and swung a blade down!
"No! I'll talk!!" After her shriek, the woman realized the dragon guard's blade had merely grazed past her tongue, leaving only a hairline trace of blood.
A short while later.
Wei Yuan's expression was quite a sight. "So you're saying that the Princess originally left orders for you to probe and then retreat, but you refused to accept it and insisted on fighting this battle with me, is that right?"
"Yes," the woman replied, her face pale, no longer daring to be arrogant.
"You have a very close relationship with the Princess?"
"Very, very close. I am her closest confidante, the one she trusts most."
Wei Yuan seemed deep in thought. "What is your name?"
"Su... Su Hongmei."
Wei Yuan nodded. "You may go."
Su Hongmei could scarcely believe her ears. But Wei Yuan immediately withdrew the Dao power sealing her sea of consciousness, then ordered his men to fetch her magic treasure spirit sword and return it as well.
She had thought Wei Yuan was playing a cat-and-mouse game, yet even after she had flown several li away, Wei Yuan made no move at all, merely watching her depart.
Su Hongmei stopped and called out from a distance, "Why did you let me go?"
Wei Yuan was already pondering other matters. Offhandedly, he replied, "Because... you look good."
Su Hongmei's expression turned intensely conflicted in an instant. Stamping her foot, she turned and flew away into the distance.
Chapter 773