The sounds of charging, galloping, throwing, hacking, and roaring filled the air without end, engulfing the land. Their sheer volume made the earth rumble as though it were trembling.
More than five thousand knights attacked after extensive preparations, their momentum focused and unwavering. With Tovi Belle's precise deployment and the support of siege equipment, they unleashed fighting power far beyond what their numbers suggested. In less than a minute, they had seized the walls. More and more men climbed the siege ladders onto the walkways, exposing the incompetence of the Qi Kingdom's soldiers.
By contrast, the soldiers below seemed dispirited. The recent events involving Lin Yanmu and Qi Qing had kept them awake at night. Some had even dreamed days earlier that they would be beheaded, and similar rumors circulated through the camps. Though no one voiced it openly, a considerable number of them had already grown uneasy. In battle, that unease disrupted their breathing, throwing off the rhythm of their wrists and footwork until the slightest error gave an enemy the chance to kill them with a single strike.
Of the Qi Kingdom army's original sixteen thousand men, fewer than twelve thousand remained after subtracting the three thousand "rebels" under Qian Mu and his two companions and the thousand elite soldiers who had been killed. They still outnumbered the Knights' Order's five thousand men by more than two to one, but numbers were secondary. Morale and fighting strength mattered far more. Under the present circumstances, the gap between the two sides was shrinking, and someone was closing that final gap step by step.
Whoosh! A gigantic palm of green light descended from the sky, slamming toward the ground.
Feeling its overwhelming force, Qi Qing's face turned ashen, but his hands moved without hesitation. He braced both arms above his