The sensation was exhilarating, but disorienting. When a person's physical faculties suddenly surged, it was far too easy to lose coordination.
An enemy soldier vaulted over a carriage, swinging a battle-axe straight at him. He Lingchuan swept it aside with one hand, pivoted smoothly, and delivered a vicious slash.
Judging by the force he had put into the strike, his opponent's chest and belly should have been severely mangled, leaving him to clutch his chest and collapse in a spray of blood. Yet the moment he swung the blade, He Lingchuan felt the difference—it was astonishingly fast and brutally fierce.
The enemy was cleaved in two midair, his spine severed clean through. With the wind blowing straight toward him, a blast of hot blood splattered across He Lingchuan's face, nearly blinding him.
As He Lingchuan reached up to rub his eyes, another Baling soldier surged forward to stab him. Commander Xiao kicked the attacker away and called out to He Lingchuan, "Conserve your strength, or you won't even be able to lift your arms in a moment!"
Combat required not just speed, accuracy, and savagery, but endurance and tenacity as well. No one knew how long this battle would last, but only those who lived to the end would taste victory.
He Lingchuan spat twice, his saliva thick with blood.
His opponent's blood.
The rusty tang in his mouth made his stomach turn.
The last time he had killed anyone was back in the Panlong Wasteland, and that had been with throwing daggers. This was the first time he had hacked an opponent into two gory halves in close-quarters melee, spilling entrails across the ground.
Yet he had no time to feel sick, as enemies surged forward in an endless tide.
Before launching their assault, the Baling army had realized the carriage barricade blocked the path, making it impossible for their hard-hitting cavalry to break through. Their solution was to send ferocious foot soldiers charging ahead to vault the barricade and clash with the Gale Army, buying time for the men behind them to drag the carriages aside.
They had tried an amphibious flanking attack as well, since the river flowed right beside them. But that played directly into the hands of the archers stationed atop the bank. Every shot struck true. Hindered by the water, the men struggled to maneuver, and whenever one managed to scramble near the shore, the Gale Army speared him like meat on a spit.
Worse still, the Baling Kingdom lay deep in the continental interior, and very few of its soldiers knew how to swim. Out of over twenty who jumped into the water, only two or three succeeded in slipping past the barricade and reaching the Gale Army's ranks, where they were promptly poked to death.
Consequently, a group of enemy soldiers began scrambling up the steep riverbank, intent on slaying the archers so they could loose arrows from the high ground themselves.
Once Commander Xiao and his men cut down the front-line shock troops, they switched to spears and halberds, thrusting at the enemy soldiers hauling at the carriages to disrupt their efforts.
Everyone understood their objective was not to win, but merely to hold the line until reinforcements arrived.
The fighting was white-hot from the very start. He Lingchuan did not even have a moment to catch his breath or feel nausea. Repelling another foe, he drew the one-handed crossbow strapped to his back and loosed a bolt upward.
*Thwack!*
An unlucky devil nearing the top of the bank caught the bolt and tumbled headfirst down the slope.
He Lingchuan broke into a cold sweat. He had aimed straight for the Baling soldier's head, only to hit the man's rear. His marksmanship was far too crude; he needed far more practice.
Suddenly, a massive shape came hurtling through the air beside him, smashing to pieces upon impact.
He Lingchuan looked over and saw it was a carriage, which had originally carried two large chests. Both chests were now flung clear.
A Gale soldier beside him screamed, "Watch out!"
He Lingchuan barely turned his head when a mountain of a silhouette blotted out all the light before him. From below, something struck upward with crushing, terrifying momentum!
In that split second, he had time only to raise his arms and shield his face.
*BANG!*
With a deafening crash, he was blasted ten feet into the air and flung twenty feet away.
In that instant, his left forearm snapped, though the sickening crack was completely drowned out by the thunderous impact. He Lingchuan could not hold back a cry of agony midair, and when he hit the ground, he rolled several times, utterly unable to stand.
The piercing, bone-deep pain of a shattered limb was something he had never experienced before.
It was fortunate that his reflexes had been quick enough to lean back and raise his arms to block. Otherwise, that crushing strike would have smashed his jaw to pieces and caused severe brain trauma or an immediate fatal embolism. This strike was commonly known as the "skyward cannon"; anyone sent flying by it would be knocked unconscious at best, and killed on the spot at worst. In either case, they would not be getting back up.
Spotting his plight, nearby enemies rushed forward to claim his head. Fortunately, He Lingchuan's mind remained clear. Seeing a bloodstained axe descending from above, he forced himself to roll aside, barely evading the decapitating blow.
The enemy swung with such reckless force that the axe head, glinting with cold light, embedded itself in the sand barely two inches from He Lingchuan's nose!
Even in the Panlong illusion, death had never brushed this close.
*Was this really a dream? Weren't people supposed to feel no pain in dreams?*
He Lingchuan's eyes widened, his heart thumping wildly from the adrenaline surge. Before the soldier could wrench the axe free, He Lingchuan drove a kick straight into his belly. Stumbling back, the man lost his grip on the haft.
A Gale soldier behind him seized the opening, sweeping his saber horizontally and cleaving the man's head from his shoulders.
He who lived by the blade died by the blade.
The severed head thudded to the earth, rolled once, and ended up facing He Lingchuan directly, its bulging eyeballs fixed in an expression beyond description.
The Gale soldier extended a hand, hauling He Lingchuan up from the ground. "You all right?"
He Lingchuan's face was chalk-white, his teeth chattering uncontrollably, and cold sweat poured down his forehead like rain. "I'm... fine."
Deep down, he knew the State Token had temporarily dulled every soldier's perception of pain to meet the demands of battle. In other words, once the token's enhancement faded, his broken arm would hurt even more!
*Did a dream really need to be this realistic?*
He cursed the broken saber in his heart.
"Your arm is broken." The soldier turned his head and shouted, "A'luo!"
Ducking through the hail of weapons and arrows, another warrior rushed over, hoisted He Lingchuan up, and helped him sit down at the base of the embankment.
Every squad in the Gale Army had an auxiliary medic. A'luo popped a pill straight into He Lingchuan's mouth. "Swallow it!"
The pill tasted faintly sweet and melted instantly upon touching his tongue, flowing down his throat like a soothing nectar.
Within a dozen breaths, the throbbing pain in He Lingchuan's left arm subsided considerably.
Under the empowerment of the State Token, the efficacy of medicine was amplified as well.
A'luo pulled out several wooden splints, expertly setting the broken bone, applying a medicinal paste, and binding the left arm firmly against He Lingchuan's ribs with practiced skill.
"This will keep you together for now. If you make it back alive, you'll need two months of bed rest!"
He Lingchuan grabbed his one-handed crossbow. "Help me reload."
With only one functional arm, he couldn't cock the weapon.
A'luo paused in surprise, but complied nonetheless, loading two bolts into the crossbow.
He Lingchuan drew a couple of deep breaths to steady his nerves, then raised the crossbow with one hand, aiming toward the culprit who had just injured him.
A'luo followed his gaze and blurted, "You took a hit from Meng Shan? Impressive—you actually survived!"
He patted He Lingchuan's shoulder lightly, then turned back to tend to others. The fiercer the fighting grew, the heavier his workload became.
The target of He Lingchuan's aim, Meng Shan, was a bear of a man, standing a full head taller than even a tall man like He Lingchuan and carrying twice his bulk.
His heavy armor was custom-made, two sizes larger than ordinary gear. Standing still, he resembled a heavy wooden gate; charging forward, he looked like a roaring locomotive.
The enemies who had vaulted the barricade earlier were all nimble, agile runts, so He Lingchuan had never expected this mountain of a man to get across. In truth, clad in heavy armor as he was, Meng Shan could never have jumped it under normal circumstances. Earlier, Commander Xiao and his men had stacked the carriages like building blocks, laboring to hoist the largest carriage atop several others and weighting it down with two massive chests.
Chapter 90