Killing to Protect

The horn's cry was a mournful wail, like weeping and complaining.

It wasn't the horn for charging, but the whistle for driving livestock.

A gap opened in the Barbarians' formation, and nearly a thousand ragged people were driven by the cavalry's whips and the flat of their blades, stumbling towards the moat.

They were the people of Da Liang, the "Two-Legged Sheep" captured and plundered by the Barbarians as they swept south.

The cries of the elderly, the screams of women, the wails of children, merged into a desperate torrent that battered the eardrums of the Black Stone County defenders.

"Don't shoot! That's my uncle!"

"That's Sister-in-law Wang from the next village!"

On the city walls, the local militia, who had been gripping their weapons, stirred. Though the three hundred private soldiers had received training, they were still locals. Seeing the familiar faces below, their swords began to tremble, and they couldn't bring themselves to pull the trigger on their crossbows.

The Barbarian cavalry hid behind the crowd, letting out shrill, mocking laughter.

This was their usual trick – "filling the moat." Using living bodies to fill the moat would not only exhaust the defenders' arrows but also shatter their morale.

"Boss..." Pockmarked looked at Ji Ye, his voice trembling, "How... how can we kill them?"

Ji Ye looked down at the scene below, his expressionless.

The captives had reached the edge of the moat. Behind them were the Barbarians' gleaming sabers, and before them, the icy river. Those who tried to turn back were immediately cut down; those who jumped into the river to swim were dragged down by exhaustion.

"This is war."

Ji Ye's voice was soft, scattering in the wind.

He snatched a heavy crossbow from a nearby archer, cocked it, and aimed.

His target wasn't the Barbarian soldiers behind, but an old man from Da Liang running at the very front.

The old man was carrying a sandbag, forced upon him by the Barbarians as material to fill the river.

Clang!

The bowstring vibrated.

The thick crossbow bolt whistled through the air and instantly pierced the old man's chest.

He fell by the river, his blood staining the sandbag.

Silence descended upon the city wall.

Everyone stared at Ji Ye in disbelief. They were their own people!

"What are you standing around for?"

Ji Ye reloaded the crossbow, his voice as cold as iron. "They are no longer people; they are the Barbarians' shields, their tools of attack. If you let them get closer, it will be your fathers and mothers, your wives and children who die."

"Shoot!"

Ji Ye pulled the trigger again, killing a woman holding a child.

His hand was steady, terrifyingly steady. But no one saw that the knuckles gripping the crossbow had turned white, even cracking and drawing blood.

The most cruel thing in this world is not killing the enemy, but killing one's own.

But it had to be done.

Compassion cannot command an army. If they showed mercy now and let these nearly a thousand people fill the moat and break their formation, the tens of thousands of Black Stone County civilians behind them would truly have no chance of survival.

"Shoot!!"

Pockmarked, his eyes red, let out a heart-wrenching roar and pulled the trigger with his eyes closed.

Clang, clang, clang!

A sparse volley of arrows fell, then became dense.

The cries from below turned into screams of agony.

Blood stained the moat, and bodies piled up, truly nearing the point of filling the river.

In the Barbarian camp.

The giant man sitting in the war chariot watched the scene, a cruel smile curling his lips.

"Ruthless."

He waved his hand, his palm as large as a fan seeming to block out the sun.

"Attack the city."

This time, it was no longer a probing attack.

As the war drums sounded, the true Barbarian elites – the "Wolf Cavalry" – dismounted, raising their round shields and carrying their crude ladders. Stepping over the corpses of their own people and the captives, they launched their charge.

They moved with the agility of apes, maintaining their balance even on the slippery ice.

"Pour the Golden Juice!"

Can't find the book title, try searching for the author. Maybe the name was changed!

Ji Ye dropped the heavy crossbow and picked up his iron spear.

More than a dozen large pots were overturned, and scalding sewage poured down the city walls.

"Ah--!!!"

That scream was ten times more piercing than before.

The Golden Juice was not only scalding but also filthy. Once it touched the skin, even if it didn't scald you to death, the wound would quickly fester and become infected. In this era without antibiotics, it was essentially a death sentence.

The steaming excrement was poured onto the Barbarian soldiers' leather armor, instantly scalding their flesh. The Barbarians on the siege ladders fell like dumplings.

But the Barbarians were too frenzied.

As the men in front fell, those behind climbed over the twitching bodies of their comrades.

A burly Barbarian Centurion, holding a wooden plank like a shield, charged through the rain of arrows and Golden Juice, gripping the battlements with one hand.

"Die!"

He roared, using the momentum to flip onto the city wall. His curved saber instantly cut down two local guards.

He was a master of the Bone Forging Realm!

Ordinary local guards were like lambs to the slaughter before him.

"Get out of the way!"

A fierce shout.

Ji Ye charged forward, dragging his iron spear.

The Centurion grinned, thinking another fool had come to die, and swung his saber.

But this time, he was wrong.

Ji Ye didn't even try to block. He swung his eighty-pound iron spear like a club, unleashing his Triple Brute Force with a whistling gust of wind.

"Clang!"

The curved saber was smashed and bent. The iron spear, with undiminished force, slammed heavily into the Centurion's waist.

"Crack!"

The Centurion's body folded at a grotesque angle, his spine instantly shattered. He was flung from the city wall like a cannonball, tracing a parabola through the air before landing in the sea of enemies below.

Killed in one strike.

"Who else?!"

Ji Ye stood with his spear planted, covered in blood, like a demon god.

The morale of the defenders on the city wall surged. Their fear transformed into a frenzied killing intent.

If their leader was this fierce, why should they be afraid?

The first wave of attack was repelled.

But this was just the beginning.

In the distance, a war chariot slowly advanced.

A giant man stood up and took down a massive iron-bow from his back.

The bow was half a person's height, and its string was as thick as a child's arm.

He nocked an arrow as large as a spear and slowly drew it back.

His target was the most conspicuous figure on the city tower—Ji Ye.

A chilling sensation, as if being targeted by a venomous snake, instantly enveloped Ji Ye.

"Dodge!"

Ji Ye instinctively sensed the danger and shoved Mazzi, who was beside him, away.

"Twang!"

A sound like a thunderclap echoed as the bowstring snapped.

The next moment, the battlements where Ji Ye had been standing exploded. The giant arrow pierced the blue bricks, its remaining force still potent as it embedded itself in a watchtower pillar behind, the fletching still trembling violently.

If he had been half a second slower, Ji Ye would have been blown to pieces.

Ji Ye got up from the ground and looked at the deeply embedded giant arrow, his pupils constricting.

Is this the power of the Organ Tempering Realm?

Piercing a thousand paces, penetrating stone with force.

He looked up into the distance.

The giant man did not shoot again. He lowered his bow and, from miles away, made a throat-slitting gesture at Ji Ye.