There was a human scent to it.
A mighty force, dragon-carved crossbows; their cries split the air, startling flying swans.
On campaign, they showed their skill with the bow; their plans revealed their talent for victory.
This little poem described the rat-demon archers guarding the entrance to Shamen Village on Yellow Wind Ridge!
They had once been a unit of the local Kingdom of Sihali's Four-Feather Army. They were the kingdom's finest crossbowmen, armed with dragon-bone repeating crossbows and Four-Feather Great Bolts, said to pierce iron plates!
The so-called "Four-Feather Great Bolts" were a special kind of arrow. Their manufacture was fairly complex, and they were characterized by long shafts made from carefully selected wood and four carefully chosen feathers.
The shafts were generally made from durable wood or bamboo, while the feathers came from certain specific kinds of birds, ensuring the arrows' stability and flight performance.
It was said that these arrows had been widely used during the Tang dynasty, especially in the military campaigns of Emperor Taizong of Tang Li Shimin. This showed just how outstanding they were on the battlefield.
More importantly, when those rat demons imbued with spiritual energy used secret arts to control the dragon-bone repeating crossbows and the Four-Feather Great Bolts said to pierce iron plates, they could fire several arrows at once and imbue them with considerable fire damage. In other words, they could shoot what were commonly known as "fire arrows."
On top of that, the rat demons had cunningly set up four teams of around forty crossbowmen, armed with dragon-bone repeating crossbows, in ambush on the cliffs beside the road at the village entrance. A single volley could unleash hundreds of bolts, blotting out the sky. In such a situation, forget an ordinary monkey—even a great demon or a god could