Nine tolling bells?
Looking up at the ripples spreading across the city defense canopy, Xu Yuan's pondering gaze held a thread of hesitation.
On the borders of Great Yan, what enemy was met and how many times the alarm bell sounded were strictly dictated by statutory law.
Three tolls signaled a small enemy raid, six meant citywide martial readiness, and nine announced the crushing advance of a massive army. As for an assault by high-tier cultivators, the law dictated that only seven tolls should sound...
"Third Young Master, please accompany this official to the prefectural yamen at once."
While he was pondering, Si Zijing's voice suddenly came from the side. Unbeknownst to him, the Director of the Metropolitan Directorate of the Black Scale Guard had already stepped out of the tavern, staring at him with grave solemnity.
"Zhenxi Prefectural City is now considered a rear-echelon town. A sudden enemy assault will likely incite severe chaos."
Xu Yuan frowned slightly and glanced around at the deserted street. "Hasn't everything in the city already been placed under military administration?"
Under the Zhenxi Army's organization, most of the streets Xu Yuan had traversed on his way to this tavern had already been cleared of people.
Si Zijing spoke rapidly: "Not enough. There hasn't been enough time. They've arrived too fast. Even with the military forcefully intervening, half a day was only enough to clear out the common folk at the bottom. There was simply no time to do more—not to mention that the whole of Zhenxi Prefectural City is only nominally rallied behind the Commandery Princess. Sect spies and large numbers of fence-sitters still lurk within."
At this, Si Zijing paused, his voice tinged with urgency. "Now that you have openly revealed your identity, in this moment of peak turmoil, it is exceedingly likely someone will attempt to make a move against you."
"..."
Xu Yuan naturally knew someone would want to harm him.
After all, in the eyes of certain people, Li Junwu and Jiayi tied together were likely far less important than Xu Yuan alone. Wandering the city on his own was, in a sense, fishing for bites.
The sect faction was unlikely to send top experts to lurk within Zhenxi Prefectural City—now under martial law—just to assassinate him; to strike, they would have to mobilize high-ranking spies embedded in the Zhenxi Army.
If they dared to make an attempt, Tianye could simply deal with them along the way.
However, seeing the grave look across the effeminate man's face, Xu Yuan also knew that continuing to use himself as bait was bordering on uncontrollable risk.
After all,
those heavy defensive engines capable of gravely wounding or even slaying Transcendent Realm experts had already been activated.
Even with Tianye protecting him at his side, taking a direct hit from one would hardly be pleasant.
His thoughts reaching this point, Xu Yuan looked toward the towering city wall at the edge of his vision and uttered a single word:
"Let's go."
The moment the word fell,
Si Zijing bowed with clasped hands, sweeping Xu Yuan along as they sped toward the prefectural yamen—the safest place in Zhenxi Prefectural City right now.
The sudden tolling of the alarm bell had thrown the city's commoners into disarray and unsettled the prominent aristocratic clans, yet it had not ruffled the garrison troops stationed on duty atop the city walls.
The Zhenxi Army's Second Division was no second-line force permanently quartered in the rear; they were elites rotated back to rest and reorganize from the frontline of the Monan Protectorate.
On the distant horizon, a colossal cloud of smoke and dust rolled toward Zhenxi Prefectural City like a primordial behemoth.
Yet atop the city wall, many veterans among the defenders were still chatting and laughing.
"Old Liu, didn't the higher-ups say the attackers were high-tier cultivators? Why did the yamen strike the bell nine times?"
A company commander tapped his gauntleted fingers sequentially against the battlement, asking with a puzzled look, "Judging by that cloud of dust, this doesn't look like high-tier cultivators at all—more like a beast tide."
Xize Province had a long, narrow territory, bordered by the great desert to the north and the Wanxing Mountain Range to the south. The enemies of the Zhenxi Army were not just the Dachao. When military exigencies arose, a detachment would be diverted south to the Wanxing Mountain Range to aid in fighting Guyuan; furthermore, while roaming and patrolling the great desert, they occasionally encountered attacks from wolf packs or swarms of insects.
Beside the company commander, Officer Liu stared through the city defense canopy at the dust storm blotting out the distant horizon, his tone tinged with solemnity.
"In clear weather, the city defense formation can monitor a radius of a hundred li. Nine tolls definitely mean a beast tide. The Saints must have drawn them out."
The company commander rubbed his chin and said with a chuckle, "That works out fine. If only Saints were attacking the city, the military merits wouldn't have much to do with grunts like us. Now with monster beasts attacking, it makes up for it a bit."
Officer Liu frowned visibly and lowered his voice. "Li Mazi, are you really not afraid of dying? Do you even know what a Saint represents?"
Hearing this, the company commander answered without hesitation, "Didn't the higher-ups say we have Saints backing us up too? Once the fighting starts, all we need to do is circulate our cultivation methods."
"You really are naive..."
"How the hell am I naive?"
"Use that brain of yours and think! We know how powerful military arrays and city defense formations are—do you think those Saint-realm lords don't know? If the enemy dares to come, they must be certain they can breach the city!"
"Oh."
"'Oh'?!"
Officer Liu gripped his waist saber tightly. "'Oh' your ass! Oh?!"
"Hey, what're you getting so worked up for? I know your noggin usually works fast, but on the battlefield, it's better if your brain turns a little slower."
Li Mazi grinned, then abruptly wiped the smile from his face, adding meaningfully, "Consider that last comment unheard by your brother here. But you know very well what happens to anyone who disrupts military morale right before a battle, Old Liu."
"..." Officer Liu fell silent.
Li Mazi took out a token from his waist, attuned his senses to it briefly, and patted his friend on the shoulder with a quiet chuckle. "Formation authority for city defenses has been granted..."
Before he could finish, Li Mazi's expression abruptly froze. Paying Officer Liu no further heed, he spun around, leapt up, and landed before the giant siege crossbow mounted atop the gate tower.
Seeing this, Officer Liu parted his lips instinctively, but after a soft sigh, he turned to head back to his own defense sector.
Heavy city defense engines were meant to deal with high-value targets like high-tier cultivators, yet the operators' cultivation was usually too low to catch so much as the corner of a high-tier cultivator's robe. Thus, right before a battle, partial formation authority would be distributed to them to assist with aiming.
Clack.
Clack.
Clack.
The city clamored, the wall was hushed, footsteps echoing.
A few breaths after setting off,
Officer Liu's figure abruptly halted.
He noticed something amiss.
Something wrong with the sound.
That faint clicking did not seem to be his own footsteps—it was coming from behind him.
Puzzlement rising in his heart, Officer Liu turned back toward the gate tower on pure instinct.
Then,
his pupils shrank violently.
In his vision,
Li Mazi had already turned that heavy ballista around one hundred and eighty degrees, aiming it straight into the city.
What was the meaning of this?
His usually sharp mind crashed in an instant, yet his body moved on instinct.
He unleashed the fastest speed of his life, hurtling toward the gate tower.
He had no idea why Li Mazi had pivoted the ballista around, but he knew with absolute certainty that such a lethal siege engine must never be fired into the city!
His cultivation technique surged to life.
Sensing his call, the soldiers under his command responded in succession,
and his speed spiked violently.
The whistling wind mingled with the humming drone of the crossbow charging energy as the gate tower drew closer and closer in his vision—yet it seemed too late.
Yet right at that moment,
an afterimage so swift it was scarcely visible shot past him from beneath the gate tower, reaching the crossbow that was about to fire almost in an instant.
In the next breath,
a jade sword unsheathed.
Clang—!
A familiar head went flying before Officer Liu's eyes, hitting the stone with a dull thud and rolling right to his feet, leaving an arc of bright crimson blood trailing across the ground.
As if frozen time began to flow again, Officer Liu looked down at Li Mazi's severed head, then up at that ghostly, fleeting figure.
Zhou Chen wiped the blood from his jade sword, spared a cold glance at the company commander below, and spoke indifferently:
"This man committed treason. Let this serve as a warning."
With those words, he sped away toward his next destination, leaving Officer Liu standing frozen in place.
Several breaths passed before Officer Liu snapped out of his stupor as if waking from a nightmare. His gaze dropped, and he slammed a fist against the battlement.
He could not comprehend why a fellow like Li Mazi would betray them.
Nor could he understand why that high-tier cultivator had acted as though he had known all along that Li Mazi would turn traitor.
And when he lifted his eyes, he witnessed a sight he would never forget for the rest of his days.
Gate towers stood tall along the sprawling wall, where points of light flared into being, linking together like a constellation of stars.
Beneath Officer Liu's gaze, many of those flares rapidly dimmed and died out, but just as many streaks of light shot toward the interior of Zhenxi Prefectural City at speeds his eyes could not even follow.
As a company commander, he knew all too well what those glowing points meant.
Yet as a company commander, he had no idea what horrors Zhenxi Prefectural City was about to face.
As the upheaval erupted along the city wall, Xu Yuan was being swept along in low flight by Si Zijing. Almost at the exact same moment, Si Zijing detected the anomaly.
His Transcendent Realm cultivation allowed him to clearly see everything unfolding atop the gate towers, but the vast distance made it impossible for him to intervene immediately.
Beholding the scene, Si Zijing cursed instinctively, "What is that good-for-nothing Huang Shiwei doing over at the wall?! Why hasn't he killed off those crossbow operators yet?!"
Hearing this, Xu Yuan immediately looked toward the city wall. Circulating his cultivation technique, his heart sank the moment the faint pinpricks of light entered his view.
He had considered the possibility that the sects' undercover agents in the prefectural city might use the heavy defense engines to assassinate him, and he had even made preparations in advance. Yet he truly had never anticipated witnessing a scene where half of Zhenxi Prefectural City's heavy weapons were trained on him alone...
"Third Young Master... Wen told you that the entire Zhenxi Manor belongs to our people. How could you hope to contend against me?"
As thoughts flashed through his mind, a gentle, smiling female voice suddenly rang out from the streets below. "Is the Third Young Master satisfied with this return gift from Wen?"
The scholar surnamed Wen?
The moment he heard the voice, Xu Yuan looked down instinctively toward its source. At the end of the sound stood an ordinary-looking woman, smiling up at the sky.
Her cultivation was not high, merely at the Soul Condensation Realm.
Before she could speak again, a thread of qi dynamic shot from Si Zijing's palm, and peculiar markings surfaced across the woman's face in an instant.
In the next breath,
the woman collapsed limp like tofu, drawn upward through the air toward Si Zijing.
Witnessing this, Xu Yuan's mind raced. Without the slightest hesitation, he barked, "It's an avatar. Kill it outright."
Bang!
Mangled flesh and blood splattered toward the ground.
Almost at the very instant the woman died, the first colossal crystal arrow from the city wall arrived before the two men flying at low altitude.
Si Zijing hovered in midair. A magical talisman condensed in the void, intercepting the roaring flight path of the giant arrow, yet this only stalled the crystal bolt for a split second.
Heavy city defense engines were engineered specifically to kill high-tier cultivators!
The arrowheads were engraved with demon-breaking formation runes; ordinary spells shattered the instant they made contact.
Si Zijing knew this well, and he had condensed the talisman solely to buy that fleeting instant of delay.
Within a heartbeat,
threads of purple markings crawled over his right hand. He swung the hand forward, slamming it against the arrowhead.
Boom—!
A violent shockwave rippled across the sky. The mere aftershocks leveled half the street below, while the cost was half of Si Zijing's forearm, blown clean away.
Si Zijing racked his mind for countermeasures, the urgency in his eyes palpable.
What to do?
Linlang was currently at the prefectural yamen guarding the Commandery Princess and the Divine Maiden of the Great Desert; it could not rush here in time.
Third Young Master had deployed Huang Shiwei to the walls beforehand to neutralize any potential traitors, but now it appeared that nearly every company commander in the city had turned traitor—Huang Shiwei couldn't possibly eliminate them all in such a short window.
Moreover, Si Zijing was a spellcaster whose cultivation method specialized in stealth and assassination; heavy city defense engines were virtually his direct counter. Even if he unfolded his Dao domain, these crystal bolts would punch straight through it.
The only hope was that the Commandery Princess at the yamen would notice the catastrophe on the walls.
Although the flow of formation runes made it too late to revoke control from the mutinous commanders, she could still manipulate the city defense formation to shield them against the bombardment of these heavy weapons.
Si Zijing caught the sky barrier out of the corner of his eye, where ripples were gradually emerging layer by layer.
It seemed the Commandery Princess had already responded, but condensing a barrier with the city defense formation would take time—unless she used the formation itself to blow up those runic ballistas directly.
Prefectural Yamen, Military Affairs Hall.
"Get off me! Jin Shaoxiu, do you have a death wish?!"
Li Junwu's furious roar echoed inside and out as she tried with all her might to wrench her wrist from the man's vice-like grip. "We have to destroy those ballistas immediately, or Xu Yuan is as good as dead!"
Far from releasing his grip, the veteran General Jin channeled greater force to disrupt the origin qi within her body, shouting back just as fiercely:
"Commandery Princess, with a temperament like yours, how can you bear the future of Zhenxi Manor's million souls?!
"Now that both Zhan Xian'an and Lu Baizou are dead, no one in the city possesses the cultivation required to command an entire division! If you destroy every one of those ballistas, what will we use to fight off the six approaching Saints?!
"You have already sent Linlang to his aid, and Third Young Master Xu is bound to hold other trump cards up his sleeve!"
Boom—!
Another thunderous detonation blasted through midair. This time, Si Zijing lost his entire right arm.
Positioned behind him, Xu Yuan circulated his cultivation method while his mind worked at breakneck speed.
Yet he was not pondering a way to break the deadlock; rather, he was scrutinizing the motive behind the scholar surnamed Wen's actions.
These two crystal bolts striking in succession had aroused a suspicion in him.
Given the power of heavy city defense weapons, if they had fired in a single volley, Si Zijing would have been obliterated without a prayer of resisting.
Moreover, had the scholar surnamed Wen chosen to trigger this trump card simultaneously, the number of traitorous company commanders Huang Shiwei could have eliminated would have plummeted to near zero.
A volley from dozens of ballistas at that moment would have fashioned a certain-kill scenario for Xu Yuan in an instant.
Si Zijing couldn't possibly have stopped it.
Against such numbers and destructive power, even if Linlang were here, the beast would have had its hands full.
Glancing down at where the woman's avatar had been blown to bloody water, Xu Yuan's thoughts finally clicked into place.
The scholar surnamed Wen's actions had never been aimed at killing him from the start. Rather, they were meant to force him to reveal a trump card to save himself before the battle had even begun.
And judging by these relentless crystal bolts firing in rapid succession, the card she was targeting was undoubtedly Tianye's time-stopping Dao domain...
Chapter 649