The darkness before dawn was the hardest to endure.
The wind had stopped, and so had the snow. Between heaven and earth, only one sound remained—the heavy panting of the defenders atop the walls, and the groans the wounded suppressed in their throats.
Ji Ye sat in a sheltered spot beneath the watchtower, with an iron field pot set up before him. The water in the pot had long since boiled dry, leaving only large chunks of half-cooked horsemeat sizzling in grease. It was from dead horses dragged back from beneath the walls last night. The meat had turned sour and was hard as firewood.
Yet he ate quickly.
There was none of the refinement of chewing slowly and savoring every bite. He was more like a beast feeding. He tore into the scalding chunks of meat with great bites, crushing sinew, membrane, and cartilage together before swallowing. The sound of his gulping was especially clear atop the deathly silent wall.
"Gulp... gulp..."
As a great quantity of bloody food entered his stomach, the qi and blood within Ji Ye's nearly exhausted body slowly began to revive. His stomach was like an enormous millstone, frantically squeezing every shred of energy from the food and sending it throughout his limbs and bones.
The bruises on his body faded at a visible rate, while torn muscle fibers writhed and reformed.
That was the terrifying part of this body modified by Triple Brute Force—as long as it had enough energy, it could cling tenaciously to life like a cockroach.
"Boss..."
Pockmarked came over carrying a bowl of cloudy liquor, his gaze somewhat vacant. "We counted just now. Of our three hundred brothers, eighty are gone. The Local Militia... more than a hundred died, and several dozen ran."
In a single night, more than half had become casualties.
And that was with Fierce Fire Oil and Golden Juice aiding them.
"Don't chase those who ran."
Ji Ye swallowed his last bite of meat, grabbed the bowl of liquor, and drained it in one gulp. The fiery alcohol washed away the greasy, bloody taste in his mouth.
"Those who stay behind will only be sent to their deaths. Collect the blades of our fallen brothers and give them to those still able to move."
He rose and rolled his stiff neck. His joints let out a series of sharp cracks.
At that moment, the eastern horizon showed a faint fish-belly white.
The dim light illuminated the scene beneath the walls, making everyone atop them suck in a cold breath.
There were no corpses.
The hundreds of bodies piled beneath the walls last night, whether Barbarians or Great Liang civilians, had all vanished.
In their place stood earthen platforms rising two hundred paces away.
And atop those platforms stood over a dozen crude but massive wooden devices. Their long throwing arms pointed to the sky, with millstone-sized rocks loaded in the leather slings at the ends.
"Catapults..."
Ji Ye's pupils abruptly contracted.
The Barbarians might have been savage, but they were not stupid. They knew how to learn, how to make use of craftsmen. These catapults had clearly been hastily constructed overnight. Though crude, they were more than enough to batter down the rammed-earth, brick-clad walls of this county town.
"So this is their trump card."
Ji Ye tightened his grip on his iron spear until his knuckles went white.
If last night's raid had been a bayonet fight, then now the enemy intended to use heavy artillery to flatten their position.
"That's... that's Old Zhang's millstone!"
A Local Militia man pointed at the pile of stone projectiles beside the catapults in the distance and broke down sobbing. "That's what our village used to grind flour!"
The Barbarians had stripped every nearby village clean, tearing down roof beams for supports and hauling away millstones for ammunition.
They were using Great Liang's bones to smash Great Liang's flesh.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The dull war drums sounded again.
This time, there were no battle cries and no charge.
Flags waved in the Barbarian camp.
"Fire!"
Accompanied by the teeth-grinding creak of twisting wood, more than a dozen millstone-sized boulders howled into the sky, tracing arcs of death through the air.
"Take cover! Find shelter!!"
Ji Ye's shrill roar rang across the walls.
But he knew there was nowhere to hide.
The wall was only so wide. Where could they possibly go?
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The boulders crashed down.
The walls shook violently, as though an earthquake had struck.
One boulder smashed into the watchtower. Amid the flying splinters, two archers were crushed directly into pulp.
Another struck the battlements. Hard blue bricks burst apart like tofu, and the flying rubble battered several Local Militia men until their heads were broken and bloodied.
Yet another landed beside the huge pot used to boil Golden Juice.
Scalding liquid manure splashed everywhere, followed by screams all around.
This was no longer war. This was one-sided demolition.
"Ji Ye!!"
A thunderous roar came from the Barbarian ranks.
That giant commander stood atop a tall war chariot, an iron-backed bow in his hand. Though hundreds of paces away, his voice could still be heard clearly.
"I am Hulei, chief of the Wulu Tribe!"
"Hand over your head and surrender the city! I will permit you to serve as a commander of a thousand slaves!"
"Otherwise, when the city falls, not even chickens and dogs will be spared!!"
Hulei's voice echoed across the battlefield, carrying the piercing force unique to the Organ Tempering Realm. It made the defenders' eardrums ache.
Surrender?
Commander of a thousand slaves?
Ji Ye wiped the dust from his face and looked at the defenders around him, who had been driven into a headlong scramble by the boulders, despair filling their eyes.
Their morale was about to break.
Under such absolute suppression of strength and siege engines, human courage was as fragile as a soap bubble.
He had to do something.
Ji Ye bent down and pulled a curved blade from a dead Barbarian soldier's body.
He walked to the edge of the wall, took a deep breath, gathered his breath, and roared down below:
"Hulei!!"
His voice was not as thunderous as the other man's, but empowered by the lung capacity granted by Triple Brute Force, it still carried far.
"Your grandpa only eats meat. I won't be anyone's dog!"
"If you've got the guts, stop hiding in the back playing with rocks! Get over here! Your grandpa will teach you how to die!"
A provocation.
A naked, undisguised provocation.
He was gambling on the Barbarian chief's pride, gambling on the self-respect of a powerful man.
Hulei heard him.
He narrowed his eyes, the fury in them nearly taking physical form. An ant in the Bone Forging Realm dared humiliate him before the entire army?
"Seeking death."
Hulei snorted coldly, but he did not rush over for a duel as Ji Ye had expected.
He was a commander, not a reckless fool.
"Keep firing."
Hulei gave the order coldly. "Fire until he kneels."
"And..."
He beckoned, and several personal guards behind him pushed forward a prison cart.
Inside the cart was a disheveled woman wearing the official robes of Great Liang. Though they were tattered beyond recognition, one could vaguely tell they were... the County Magistrate's official robes?
No. She was Zhou Dexing's most favored concubine. A few days ago, Zhou Dexing had sent her out of the city in an attempt to escape, but she had still fallen into Barbarian hands.
"Hang her from the catapult."
Hulei smiled cruelly. "Since his mouth is so hard, give him a grand gift."
"No! No!"
The woman's shrill screams rang out, but she was soon tied to the end of the catapult's throwing arm.
"Fire!"
Snap!
As the mechanism released, that living woman was hurled into the sky like a stone.
She traced an arc of despair through the air, accompanied by a long, agonized scream.
Smack.
A dull impact that made one's scalp crawl.
She crashed onto the wall, not far from Ji Ye's feet.
A mangled mass of flesh and blood, no longer remotely human in shape.
The entire field fell silent.
Only the winches of the catapults continued to turn.
"This is the fate that awaits you!"
Hulei roared with laughter.
Ji Ye lowered his head and looked at that mass of flesh. There was no expression on his face.
But his grip around the iron spear was so tight that his nails dug deeply into his palms, blood dripping down the shaft.
"Pockmarked."
Ji Ye's voice was terrifyingly calm.
"Move all the remaining Fierce Fire Oil to the city gate."
"Boss? What are you going to do?"
"Since they refuse to come over..."
Ji Ye raised his head. In his eyes was madness as deep and bottomless as an abyss.
"Then we'll go out."
"This battle can't be held."
"We can only trade lives for lives."
Before you continue