Land Deeds Consolidate Hearts and Gather Popular Spirit, Baleful Intent Gathers Over the City to Lure the Enemy Out

Previously, when it was not yet a "certain death" situation, merely a dozen or so Blood-Clad Army soldiers had been able to use the murderous aura on their bodies to cow them for a time.

Now that Zhao Cheng himself had appeared, the baleful aura he had carved out from mountains of corpses and seas of blood was a hundred times denser than that of a dozen Blood-Clad Army soldiers combined.

An ordinary civilian needed only one glance at him to feel that aura scrape across their skin like knives. Their entire body went weak, and their hands and feet trembled beyond control.

Then there were the thousand-odd blood-clad cavalry behind him, every one of them wearing armor stained in blood and holding weapons that gleamed with icy light. The tremors of their hooves traveled through the ground to their feet, as though even the earth itself were shaking with them.

Such overwhelming killing intent, such chilling martial might forged from a host of thousands, such an indomitable and valiant charge—even a disciplined army of iron would be struck with fear at the sight of it and dare not contend against it.

Much less these ordinary folk, who knew nothing but tilling the fields and had never seen such a spectacle in their lives.

When the first person in the crowd took half a step back on trembling legs, the rest of the civilians seemed to find an outlet for their fear. In an instant, they scattered in a panic, retreating rapidly toward the city gates and pressing shoulder to shoulder against the cold gate, pounding desperately on its doors.

Each of them cried themselves hoarse. "Open the gates! Open them, quickly! Let us in!"

But the guards behind the gates had long since received Han Lie's orders. Naturally, they