"More than four hundred provinces had raised their armies, with an enemy force of a hundred thousand cavalry."
"When the nation faced such a calamity, it was the summer of the fourth year of Hong'an."
"No matter how terrifying the situation, we have the men of Dongyang here."
"Bearing the righteous name of decisive action, let us roar and show the whole world!"
The rousing song, sung loudly by the soldiers of Dongyang, filled people with soaring excitement and an awe-inspiring sense of not understanding a thing.
Those who could not understand the lyrics or what they represented were left bewildered. Those who did understand wore furious expressions, their hearts burning with rage at the song's distortion of right and wrong, its sophistry, and its beastly logic.
This tiger-and-wolf army marched out in formation, immediately plunging the entire city into panic.
War was coming.
What a terrifying thing that was.
War meant burning, killing, and looting. It meant rivers of blood. It meant countless families being torn apart, people driven from their homes, wives separated from husbands and children from parents. Even this prosperous city might be destroyed in an instant, leaving hundreds of thousands or even millions as refugees overnight—refugees treated worse than beasts.
How could that not terrify people?
Not to mention that the ones taking action were the foreigners' troops.
The mere sound of wind and cranes made the grass and trees seem like enemy soldiers.
There was no need to urge or drive them away. Once they realized that war was brewing near the International Journalists' Club, the nearby residents packed their valuables and fled through the night, leaving not a single one behind. This greatly infuriated Kashu Ryuji, the army company commander.
The soldiers under his command had not vented their frustrations for some time.
He had intended to punish the savage Xinghan people while also relaxing and easing some pressure, just as he and his predecessors had done at Lion's Mouth. That way, they could vent their frustrations and boost morale at the same time. Instead, his plans had fallen through.
Kashu Ryuji could only make grand promises.
All the major roads near the International Journalists' Club had been sealed off. The surroundings were deathly silent, and not a single Xinghan person could be seen.
"Those despicable, shameless Zhina people sneak-attacked and destroyed our warships! Men of Dongyang! What do you say we should do?"
"Cut off their heads!" they answered in unison.
"Excellent! Very spirited!"
"They say that the Zhina people's god is inside!"
"A god who can sink warships and hurl thunder? Hahaha!"
Kashu Ryuji drew his samurai sword and waved it with dramatic emphasis, his tone utterly frenzied. Clearly, Commander Kashu Ryuji had not witnessed Lan Yi's divine might yesterday, nor seen him fly across the city. Arrogant and conceited, he simply refused to believe the timid, cowardly words of certain colleagues.
Some of the soldiers had seen it, however.
But in this rigidly hierarchical collective, where saying the wrong thing before battle could get one killed, the soldiers—mutated into stiff, killing machines—wisely chose silence.
The clever ones thought to themselves:
Even if he can fly, that doesn't mean he can stop bullets.
Even if he can stop bullets, there are still so many of us.
Apart from that somewhat dangerous Thunder God, no one in this journalists' club has the power to resist the army. We can avoid the Thunder God and kill the others first. If that doesn't work, we can retreat.
The clever ones were not wrong. The hastily assembled allied observation group nearby thought the same way.
They should be perfectly safe.
"Prepare to attack!"
"Kill every attacker inside!"
"Search strictly for anyone nearby who aided them. Within one day, you may relax and enjoy yourselves freely!"
Kashu Ryuji's final step in stirring up morale was also the most effective way for officers in feudal empires to encourage soldiers as fierce as wolves and tigers. Capture the target and kill all who resisted. Even if you massacred them, the Empire could ignore the feeble condemnation and protests.
If protests were effective, why would they need machine guns and cannons?
"Savage yellow monkeys."
An officer in the observation group raised his binoculars and commented in an aloof tone.
"Hey, Mr. Marco, want to bet how long these Dongyang people will take to capture the club?" an officer beside him asked with a whistle.
They understood this magical club better than the reckless and arrogant people of Dongyang did.
Apart from that mysterious Thunder Angel,
there were also some people inside who were extremely fast, immensely strong, and almost completely unaffected by pistol bullets. They called themselves martial artists. They would have to be dealt with using rows of rifles, heavy machine guns, and cannons.
That Thunder Angel seemed to have encountered some trouble.
They had made several probes during the second half of last night, but had not seen him anywhere.
"I'll bet one hour." Kent, who had suddenly spoken up from within the observation group, said this.
"One hour? This Dongyang army has decent discipline, and its weapons are first-rate. I think twenty minutes should be enough." Marco shrugged.
"Perhaps the Dongyang people will fail..." Albert casually voiced the thought everyone secretly acknowledged but, out of pride and various other reasons, did not want to say aloud. "...The Dongyang people are attacking. Hmm? Hey, wait, what's that? A leopard? How did he jump that high in a single bound?"
The Dongyang people had just launched their attack on the club's main entrance.
More than a dozen Dongyang soldiers in the front row, rifles in hand as they charged bravely forward, suddenly went berserk.
They howled like ghosts and wailed like wolves, as if they had encountered some invisible terror. They fired wildly in every direction, killing many of their own comrades on the spot!
It was like a signal.
The moment the Dongyang soldiers at the front went mad, countless people burst out from high places, blind spots, and beneath the eaves. Some even smashed straight through the walls, erupting into view like conjurers performing a trick!
Fast!
Incredibly fast!!
Faster than leopards! Fiercer than tigers! More violent than stampeding elephants!
Before the Dongyang soldiers could even turn their guns, disaster struck.
Rocks? Bricks?
No, no.
The frenzied Qi Cultivation Practitioners had hurled an entire wall through the air! The Dongyang soldiers standing in formation were instantly smashed into minced flesh. Even the stones that merely grazed them easily tore away muscle and bone!
The sight of human bodies exploding into blood mist beneath the bricks and stones was truly horrific!
The Qi Cultivation Practitioners—and even the Qi Cultivation Grand Completion martial artists—crippled more than forty men from this Dongyang company in their very first wave of attacks!
The two flanks facing them were ravaged beyond recognition.
The Dongyang soldiers at the high points had it even worse.
They had only just aimed down and fired two suppressing shots at the martial artists surging below, moving as swiftly as flying birds, when they were immediately targeted.
The weapons aimed at them were small stones that the martial artists casually crushed from bricks and held in their palms.
They did not need to aim.
With the strength of a Qi Cultivation Practitioner, within fifty meters, these rough, sharp shards of stone became deadly when flung with force! Even through clothing, they could still sink deep into flesh!
There were more than a dozen Dongyang soldiers at the high points.
They faced a hundred or more Qi Cultivation Practitioners casually flinging stones at them. These unlucky men were surrounded and brutally subjected to a living dismemberment in mere moments, then tumbled down and crashed heavily onto the road.
"They're so fast! I can't see their movements at all!"
"My God, I just saw someone get shot. He merely fell down, then stood up again!"
"The building! They knocked the building down!!"
Albert cried out in shock. It was as if he had been thrown into a mad battlefield, with everything before his eyes overturning common sense.
Rat-a-tat-tat!!
The heavy machine guns sealing off the streets roared furiously. The equally furious Dongyang soldiers shifted their cannons and finally organized a systematic counterattack.