At the third watch of the night, the heavens were caught between darkness and dawn.
Outside the northern wall of Iron Wall City, the barbarian army loomed like a moving sea of ink.
The Blood Eagle Tribe's main force had quietly crossed the river the night before. Now, in the darkness before dawn, they had finished forming ranks.
On the battlements, torches swayed in the morning wind.
Li Xuan stood behind the crenellation, blood-colored astral energy slowly circulating over his body like a thin layer of blood armor.
His gaze swept across the army below.
Heavy infantry stood at the front, archers in the center, and cavalry on both wings. Battering rams and catapults slowly advanced.
Real war had never been child's play like a martial artist's duel. It was a merciless meat grinder.
"Crossbowmen, prepare!" Wang Meng's voice came from the tower, hoarse yet resolute.
The six hundred defenders raised their longbows, arrowheads aimed at the army below.
"General Li." An old soldier walked to Li Xuan's side and handed him a newly forged long saber. "The blacksmiths in the city worked through the night to make this. Though it can't compare to that wolf saber..."
The saber was three feet long, its back thick and heavy, its edge rough.
Li Xuan took it and weighed it in his hand. Around twenty pounds—perfect for hacking.
"Thanks."
The old soldier grinned, revealing a smile missing two teeth. "We're the ones who should be thanking you. If you hadn't carved through the enemy ranks yesterday, the barbarians would have already reached the walls last night."
Before his voice had faded—
Wuu—
The barbarian horn, like the roar of an ancient behemoth, tore through the morning mist.
The first assault had begun.
Three hundred catapults fired at once, their millstone-sized rocks crashing toward the walls like a swarm of locusts.
The rumble was deafening, and the entire stretch of wall trembled.
Flying rubble splattered everywhere. Several defenders were struck and turned into heaps of flesh on the spot.
"Raise your shields!" Wang Meng roared.
Li Xuan advanced instead of retreating. With astral energy protecting his body, he punched apart a flying stone.
The rubble slammed against his astral energy with a muffled impact, making the blood-red light ripple faintly.
After his Constitution had broken through fifty, ordinary catapult stones could no longer hurt him in the slightest.
But the walls could not hold.
A section on the eastern side, already fragile to begin with, was struck repeatedly. With a thunderous crash, it collapsed, revealing a gap three zhang wide.
"Fill it!" Wang Meng personally led men over, using sandbags, door panels, and even corpses to plug the breach.
At that moment, the barbarian infantry had already charged to within a hundred paces of the city.
A rain of arrows poured down.
The defenders loosed their arrows while the barbarians raised their shields. Amid the clanging, dozens of barbarians still fell, but even more surged forward, fearless of death.
The siege ladders had arrived.
This time there were not ten or twenty, but more than a hundred.
They rose like a forest.
"Rolling stones!" Chen Feng commanded from the left wing.
Stones rolled down, smashing several siege ladders.
But there were simply too many barbarians. As one group fell, new ones immediately took their place.
The first siege ladder reached the wall.
Li Xuan moved.
He shot across twenty zhang like a blood-colored meteor, appearing before the ladder in an instant.
His saber swept sideways, severing the top of the ladder. The climbing barbarians screamed as they plummeted.
But the second and third ladders followed close behind.
Crisis erupted across the battlements.
Barbarian heavy infantry climbed onto the wall, their great axes hacking through the defenders, who fell like stalks of wheat.
Li Xuan charged into the crowd, his long saber spinning like a wheel. Wherever it passed, severed limbs flew.
The Blood Fiend Bone Forging Technique circulated madly, and the killing intent on the battlefield surged into his body like a tide.
[Blood Fiend Bone Forging Technique, Third Layer: Initial Mastery → Minor Mastery]
His astral energy grew a little denser.
But the barbarians seemed impossible to kill off.
Kill ten, and twenty replaced them. Kill twenty, and fifty took their place.
Li Xuan was drenched in blood, unable to tell whether it belonged to the enemy or himself.
The old wound in his left shoulder split open, and a deep gash was carved into his right leg by an axe blade. Yet he seemed not to feel the pain. Wherever his blade flashed, someone died.
"Li Xuan!" Chen Feng fought his way to his side. His longsword had broken, and he had switched to a short saber. "The eastern wall won't hold! General Wang orders you to go to the central tower!"
Li Xuan looked up.
At the breach in the east, the barbarians surged in like a flood.
Wang Meng led his personal guards in a desperate battle, but they were hopelessly outnumbered and steadily driven back.
"You go to the right wing," Li Xuan said. "Hold for half an incense stick."
"Half an incense stick? You—"
"After half an incense stick, if the eastern wall hasn't been retaken, lead the men out through the southern gate."
After saying this, Li Xuan leaped from the city wall.
He landed inside the breach in the eastern wall, right amid the barbarian vanguard.
His long saber swept across, cutting three barbarians in half at the waist. Reversing his grip, he cleaved open a fourth man's chest.
But more barbarians poured through the breach.
Li Xuan drew a deep breath.
Wolf Soul Mark, activate!
His soul strength temporarily surged to fifteen points, and invisible soul ripples spread outward from him.
The dozens of barbarians at the very front stiffened. Their eyes dulled, blood flowed from their seven orifices, and they crumpled to the ground.
This was pure suppression through soul power.
But the shaman was already dead, and no one could see through this technique.
The barbarian assault faltered.
Taking advantage of the opening, Li Xuan charged toward the breach, his saber striking repeatedly as he cut down every barbarian who forced his way inside.
Then he grabbed the corpse of a heavily armored barbarian and used it to block the breach.
"Sandbags! Quickly!"
The defenders came to their senses and frantically hurled sandbags toward the breach.
But the barbarians would not give them time.
From the central army beneath the Blood Eagle Tribe's banner, a general in golden armor and an eagle helmet raised his hand.
Three thousand heavy cavalry surged toward the city gate like a torrent of steel!
"Battering rams!" someone on the wall screamed.
Within the barbarian formation, ten enormous siege carts were slowly pushed forward.
A massive iron-clad timber hung from the front of each cart. Dozens of barbarians pushed them as they charged toward the city gate.
Iron Wall City's gate was only a wooden door clad in iron.
It could not hold.
Li Xuan knew that once the gate fell, everything would be over.
He looked toward the central tower.
Wang Meng had seen it as well. This General Zhenbei's face was deathly pale, yet he suddenly smiled.
"Li Xuan!" he rasped. "Take the men and withdraw! I'll cover the retreat!"
"General—"
"This is a military order!" Wang Meng drew his sword and pointed it toward the battlefield below. "The men of the Northern Territory may die in battle, but they must never flee! But you're different—you have to live. Go to the Crimson Firmament Sect and tell the people of the world that Iron Wall City held for ten days and killed thirty thousand barbarian dogs!"
He turned to his personal guards. "Open the city gate."
"General?!"
"Open the city gate!" Resolve flashed through Wang Meng's eyes. "Rather than wait for them to smash it open, we might as well charge out and kill our way through. Once the heavy cavalry enters the city, not one of us will survive. But outside... I'll make them understand what the Northern Garrison Army means!"
The city gate slowly opened.
Wang Meng led three hundred personal guards, spurring their horses into the open.
Flammable materials were strapped to their bodies. Like three hundred torches, they charged toward the barbarian cavalry.
A life for a life.
Flesh and blood crashing into a torrent of steel.
Boom—
The impact sounded like muffled thunder.
The three hundred men were swallowed up in an instant.
But the barbarian cavalry's formation was thrown into disarray, and the advance of the battering rams faltered.
Li Xuan clenched the hilt of his saber, his fingernails digging into his flesh.
He saw Wang Meng swinging his longsword amid the chaotic army, cutting down three riders before several spears pierced through him and pinned him to the ground. The General Zhenbei took one last look at Iron Wall City, grinned, and then suddenly detonated all the burning materials strapped to his body.
Flames exploded, engulfing more than ten riders nearby.
The defenders on the wall saw red.
"Avenged the general!"
"Kill—!"
The defenders counterattacked like maddened tigers.
Li Xuan, however, calmed down.
He leaped onto the city wall and looked toward the barbarian central army.
The golden-armored general was watching all this with a cold smile, as though he were watching a performance.
Li Xuan closed his eyes and looked inward at the panel.
[Potential Points: 5.3] [Constitution: 51.8] [Strength: 10.8] [Blood Fiend Bone Forging Technique, Third Layer: Minor Mastery]
The killing intent on the battlefield had grown so dense it was visible to the naked eye. Blood-colored mist spread above and below the walls, while the wails of the dead echoed in the wind.
All of this was nourishment.
He circulated the mental cultivation method of the third layer of the Blood Fiend Bone Forging Technique, absorbing the killing intent with abandon.
Astral energy surged through his body. Agonizing pain like shattered bones came from within, only for them to mend in an instant.
With every shattering and repair, his bones grew a little harder, and his astral energy grew a little denser.
[Blood Fiend Bone Forging Technique, Third Layer: Minor Mastery → Grand Mastery] [Effect: Astral Energy Protection Strength +100%, Strength +50%]
His Strength surged to sixteen points!
Li Xuan opened his eyes, blood light solid and tangible within them.
He leaped from the wall and landed amid the barbarian army!
The instant he touched down, his long saber swept sideways.
With astral energy empowering it, the saber light became a blood-colored crescent moon. Every barbarian within a radius of three zhang—whether heavily or lightly armored—was cut in half at the waist!
Blood sprayed like a fountain.
Li Xuan did not stop. He charged toward a battering ram.
He threw a punch.
Astral energy gathered around his fist, transforming into a blood-colored fist imprint that slammed into the iron-clad timber.
Boom!
The timber exploded, and the siege cart shattered into pieces!
Seeing this, the defenders' morale soared.
"General Li! General Li!"
But Li Xuan knew this still was not enough.
He looked toward the golden-armored general in the central army.
The general looked back at him, and gravity finally appeared in his eyes.
Three hundred paces separated them, their gazes clashing like blades.
"Kill him." The golden-armored general waved his hand.
Three figures charged out from the barbarian ranks.
One wielded twin hammers, stood nine chi tall, and had muscles bulging like an iron tower.
One carried a long spear, his slender figure and steps as elusive as a ghost.
One was empty-handed, his fingernails black as ink and shimmering with a sinister light.
All three were at the eighth layer of Body Tempering!
"The Blood Eagle Tribe's three thousand-man commanders." The hammer-wielder bared his teeth. "Kid, dying by our hands is your honor."
Li Xuan said nothing.
He glanced at the sky.
The eastern horizon had already begun to pale like the belly of a fish.
Dawn was approaching.
But Iron Wall City would likely never see that dawn.
"Come together," Li Xuan said. "Save time."
The three exchanged glances and struck simultaneously.
The hammer was like a collapsing mountain, the spear like a venomous snake, the claws like ghostly shadows.
Li Xuan swept his saber horizontally, his gangqi erupting.
Crimson gangqi surged like flames, enveloping his entire body.
Saber and hammer collided, the hammer-wielding warrior stumbling back three steps.
Li Xuan smoothly sidestepped, letting the long spear pass, and formed his left hand into a claw, grabbing the shaft and twisting with force.
The spearman's expression shifted; he released the weapon to abandon it, but it was too late.
Li Xuan's saber-edge had already arrived.
Splat.
A head flew into the air.
The hammer-wielding warrior roared, both hammers smashing down together.
Li Xuan neither dodged nor evaded, his gangqi protecting his body as he took the hammer blow head-on.
The gangqi rippled, but Li Xuan did not budge an inch.
With a backhanded slash, he cleaved the heavy hammer apart, the blade sweeping across the hammer wielder's throat.
Seeing this, the unarmed martial artist turned and tried to flee.
Li Xuan hurled his long saber.
The blade flew like a shooting star, piercing clean through the man's back.
Three breaths, three men slain.
The barbarian army formation fell into a dead silence.
Li Xuan pulled out his long saber and looked toward the general in golden armor.
That general could finally sit still no longer.
He slowly stood up, removing his eagle helmet to reveal a face crisscrossed with scars.
"Blood Eagle Tribe, vice commander, Wanyan Xiong." He spoke, his voice sounding like grinding metal. "You injured me yesterday, and today... I will surely kill you."
Li Xuan remembered. Yesterday outside the dense forest, Wanyan Xiong had led three thousand cavalry in pursuit and had been heavily wounded by him before escaping.
So it was him.
"Has your injury healed?" Li Xuan asked.
"Thanks to you," Wanyan Xiong grinned, his scars contorting.
He leaped down from the war chariot, landing without a sound.
A crimson halberd appeared in his hands.
The halberd was twelve feet long, its blade curved like an eagle's talon, entirely blood-red as though dripping with fresh gore.
"This halberd is named Blood Eagle. It has drunk the blood of three thousand, and today it adds you to the count."
Li Xuan tightened his grip on the saber hilt.
Gangqi surged within his body.
He knew that this battle would decide the final moments of Iron Wall City.
Win, and they might hold out for another half-day.
Lose, and the city would fall to ruin with no survivors left.
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