He Lingchuan felt a twinge of regret. He had never practiced archery, yet that shot had been remarkably accurate!
He had already climbed over the second barricade of carriages and shot these bolts from behind a wagon; in truth, he was only a dozen or so paces away from Meng Shan.
Measured by Meng Shan's strides, of course.
For the next shot, he aimed for the man's knee—the very spot Commander Xiao had struck earlier.
Unfortunately, his aim was off this time. The quarrel embedded itself in the thick armor without even piercing through the plate.
He simply fired another bolt.
Well, still hadn't even scraped the skin.
Yet Meng Shan was successfully enraged.
More importantly, he remembered his primary duty was to breach the formation! Commander Xiao was hard to kill, so he had better focus on completing his objective first.
Taking advantage of Xiao having been forced back, Meng Shan pivoted on his heel and strode aggressively toward the second barricade!
Muddy water splashed from the earth. He Lingchuan could even feel the wagon he was leaning against trembling.
"Clear out!" the nearby squad leader shouted hastily.
The defenders scattered like birds and beasts.
With a loud crack, the wagon overturned, and chests tumbled out.
With a furious roar, Meng Shan actually hoisted the wagon over his head and hurled it into the river!
In that instant, the green light enveloping him surged wildly.
"Holy shit!" Seeing this, He Lingchuan took to his heels, but as he fled, he didn't forget to twist around and loose the final bolt he had left.
His timing was exceptionally insidious, catching Meng Shan right when both hands were occupied throwing the wagon.
Other Gale soldiers had the same idea, and arrows rained down in that very moment.
Meng Shan ducked his head immediately.
He was already flushed red and thick-necked; retracting his head like a turtle into its shell, most of the arrows merely clattered against his heavy armor.
Yet two projectiles struck home: one pierced his neck, and the other lodged in his eye socket.
Meng Shan still did not fall. He leaped forward, followed immediately by another shield-slam into the earth.
Another wave of Gale soldiers went down.
*Stop jumping,* He Lingchuan thought, his heart in his throat. *The bastard's not a toad, so why is he hopping around so much?*
*If he jumps a few more times, he'll overshoot the trap!*
Fortunately, that skill apparently couldn't be used at will. Meng Shan switched back to striding forward, bracing for a body slam.
Nothing good ever came from taking a direct hit from him—He Lingchuan was living proof.
Yet just three strides in, a crisp metallic snap echoed from the ground—*clack*!
Meng Shan felt a sudden vice-like grip on his leg. An agonizing pain stabbed straight to his heart, robbing him of balance, and he crashed face-first to the ground.
When he slammed down with a roar of agony, the earth trembled once more, as if buckling under his weight.
"It caught him! It caught him!" The men cheered in jubilation. He Lingchuan exhaled a long breath.
"Thank you, Prefect Sun."
Meng Shan looked down and saw that his calf was clamped tightly in the jaws of a massive bear trap.
Rack his brains as he might, he could not fathom how on earth such an object had appeared on a battlefield!
In truth, this had come from Prefect Sun's chests. Over three feet in diameter, there were four in total, originally intended for catching brown bears. Those beasts could grow over twelve hundred jin, with thick hides and immense strength, so the traps made for them were the largest size with terrifying clamping force.
The Gale soldiers had deliberately buried them in the mud twenty feet behind the second barricade, lightly scattering ash and fallen leaves over the top and planting a grass marker that only their own men could recognize. In pitch-black darkness like this, who wouldn't fall for it?
This was the dirty trick He Lingchuan had devised.
No matter how powerful Meng Shan was, he was still human. Clamped by such an iron jaw, his shinbone snapped on the spot.
Encased in nearly two hundred jin of heavy armor, he couldn't stand up at all, leaving him to thrash around on the ground, howling loud enough to shake the heavens.
Seeing this, He Lingchuan finally vented the pent-up frustration in his chest.
"Plug the breach!" the squad leader directed the men to haul the wagons back and seal the gap in the line. A few stray enemies charged through during this time, but they were quickly cut down.
Meng Shan clearly commanded immense prestige in the Baling army. The moment he fell and wailed in pain, their morale collapsed across a wide swath.
The Gale Army's opponents suddenly weakened.
With the blessing of the State Token, they were already stronger individually than their foes. Now that the gap had widened further, slaughtering them was practically effortless.
The front line slowly pushed back, threatening to reach all the way to the first barricade.
If they could just close this gap, all of the Baling army's previous efforts would go down the drain.
Right at that moment, an archer up on the riverbank pointed into the distance and shouted, "Enemy reinforcements! Enemy reinforcements have arrived!"
No sooner had the words left his mouth than the blare of attack horns sounded from the Baling army's rear.
Commander Xiao speared an opponent to death before shouting up to the bluff, "How many?"
"Eight hundred—no, at least a thousand!"
The enemy's reinforcements had arrived first. Xiao's face sank. He waved for the soldiers in the rear to climb out from cover and clear out the enemies inside the first barricade first.
The wagons here were nearly battered to pieces and had to be reorganized.
Working under enemy fire was an excruciating task.
Wounded, He Lingchuan remained behind the second barricade and asked another casualty, "Why don't they deploy the heart-confusing bugs to support us?"
The heart-confusing bugs were the Three Corpse Worms; that was what everyone called them.
"Huh? What did you say?" The wounded soldier shot him a sideways glance. "What kind of thing is that? Never heard of it."
*Uh... do even these Gale soldiers not know about the Three Corpse Worms?*
He Lingchuan had no way to explain and could only chuckle dryly. "Nothing, nothing. I must be misremembering." Yet inwardly, he wondered: *Could Commander Zhong and General Red be treating the Three Corpse Worms as a secret weapon, hidden even from their own men?*
So in the end, they still had to rely on themselves.
Barely had the Gale Army finished fortifying their positions when the tide of enemies surged forward.
...
Roughly half an hour later.
The slope along the riverbank was drenched in blood; scarcely an inch of mud had been spared.
Of the three barricades, the first two had been utterly destroyed, leaving only the final one still holding firm.
He Lingchuan and the others had fallen back behind the third barricade. This was the Gale Army's last defensive line and their only hope of survival, making the fighting on both sides exceptionally brutal.
The archers on the riverbank had also been wiped out, leaving the high ground firmly in enemy hands.
The arrows raining down from above caused great distress to the Gale Army.
To be isolated without aid like this was truly the height of despair.
One man, his lips cracked and his face numb, muttered, "Where are the reinforcements? Where are our reinforcements?"
The enemy's reinforcements had arrived, so why was there still no sign of theirs?
Commander Xiao was covered in wounds as well, an open gash beneath his eye with flesh turned outward. A stray arrow from the bluff above had nearly taken out his eye.
"They will come," Xiao said coldly. "Grip your blade. If you ask one more time—"
He didn't finish his sentence, for a broken spear flew from behind a wagon, piercing the man straight through the heart.
The man would never have the chance to ask again.
Hu Min raised his arm and loosed an arrow back through the gaps of the wagon, avenging him.
He was too close to the wagons. He Lingchuan hoisted him from the ground, dragged him a few paces away, and propped him against a rock.
Hu Min nodded to him. "Thank you. I'll remember you."
He Lingchuan returned a smile, though he knew that was impossible.
Chapter 92