The walls of Yanmen Pass were pocked with craters from boulders, stained with filthy blood, and marked by all manner of scorch marks.
Five days had passed since Xiao Mo took up the defense of the city.
Over those few days, the Wei Kingdom's army had launched a fierce assault on Yanmen Pass.
Fortunately, the City Protection Array at Yanmen was quite durable, and Xiao Mo had been directing the defense on the walls day and night without the slightest slackening.
So after five days, the Wei Kingdom's army had still made no progress at all.
The Wei Kingdom's general, Guo Xin, was already growing anxious.
Each day Yanmen Pass held out, the remaining eleven cities in the southern border grew that much more vulnerable.
Although Xiao Mo's army was short on provisions and desperately lacking in all kinds of supplies, were the supplies in the Wei Kingdom's eleven southern cities really abundant? They were hardly any better off than Yanmen Pass.
Moreover, the longer the siege dragged on, the more it wore down the morale of his own troops.
Morale was crucial in a great battle. Without it, an army was like a heap of loose sand: difficult to command, and liable to shatter at the first charge!
So in the days that followed, Guo Xin tried every method he could think of.
For three straight days, Guo Xin attacked the city by day, then temporarily withdrew when night fell.
But on the fourth night, deep in the dead of night, Guo Xin launched a massive assault.
He had not expected that Xiao Mo was already prepared. Countless flaming arrows rained down on them, and the entire battlefield seemed to blaze as bright as day.
When a nighttime assault failed, they tried digging tunnels.
The protective arrays around most