"Loose arrows! Hurry, loose arrows!"
A squad leader in leather armor swung his arm, waving his notched saber as he ran back and forth.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Hundreds of feathered arrows flew down from the battlements, plunging into the tightly packed crowd.
The marauders carried scaling ladders and pushed siege engines built from rough timber, trampling their companions' corpses as they forced their way forward.
Arrows fell like flying locusts. The marauders in front fell in swathes, while those behind charged on with bloodshot eyes.
"Logs! Rocks! Push them down, now!"
Four or five soldiers shouted in unison, prying up a thigh-thick log together and shoving it hard through a crenel.
The log rolled down a scaling ladder, shattering the breastbones of the marauders in its path and sending them tumbling like dumplings into a pot.
Their shrill screams had barely begun before the earthshaking battle cries drowned them out.
"Boiling shit! Bring up the boiling shit!"
Several cooks ran over carrying a large iron pot, its foul stench sweeping across the battlements on the wind.
Splash!
The boiling shit poured down from the wall.
The marauders it struck rolled on the ground in agony, their flesh sizzling and smoking, rotting into a mass in the blink of an eye.
But there were simply too many marauders. Dozens of scaling ladders hooked onto the walls at once.
"Kill them all! Get into the city and seize the grain and women!"
Marauders scrambled over one another to climb onto the battlements.
Blades met at close quarters, and the wall instantly became a meat grinder.
Li San gripped his spear and thrust viciously, skewering a marauder who had just climbed onto the wall and knocking him down.
Another marauder lunged in from the side and severed his left arm with a single slash.
Blood sprayed wildly.
Li San's features twisted with pain. Clutching his shoulder, he staggered backward until his lower back pressed against a crenel.
The marauder lunged at him with a savage grin.
Li San spat out bloody froth, then suddenly grinned, baring bloodstained teeth.
"You son of a bitch! I've killed twenty today. That's a hundred taels in bounties alone. I've already gotten my money's worth!"
"If I die fighting now, my wife gets another hundred taels in compensation! A bloody fortune!"
Li San's eyes turned vicious, and he hurled himself straight onto the marauder's blade.
Squelch!
The steel saber pierced Li San's belly, its tip protruding from his lower back.
"Come to hell with me!"
Li San clenched his teeth until they cracked and used his momentum to topple over the wall.
Two figures fell from the battlements. After a dull thud, neither moved again.
Several wounded city guards nearby saw this, and their breathing immediately grew heavy.
"Fuck them! Fight these bastards to the death!"
The soldiers howled and threw themselves at the marauders climbing onto the wall.
But the marauders came in relentless waves, and a breach was still torn in the defenses along the western stretch.
More than twenty ferocious marauders cut down the defenders and charged down the steps toward Lin Yuan.
Lin Yuan pressed his right hand to his saber's hilt and drew it without hesitation.
Clang!
A three-foot-long arc of blood-red saber Qi swept out, instantly cutting the charging marauders in half at the waist.
The eastern stretch of wall was likewise awash in bloody wind and crimson rain.
Shen Qing's saber strikes were fierce and swift. Silver-white flashes of saber light erupted through the crowd, killing every marauder who came within three paces of her.
Three li outside the city, on a raised platform before the central command tent.
A burly, middle-aged man of about fifty stood with his hands behind his back, clad in heavy dark-iron armor, his narrowed eyes studying the distant battlements.
This was none other than Zhao Wuya, General Who Awed the Distant Lands.
Seeing that dark-robed figure at the northeastern corner cut down dozens of men in succession, Zhao Wuya frowned.
"Those damned Dragon Guards!"
His expression instantly turned cold.
The city had already prepared its defenses. The Zhao Clan members inside were probably facing more ill fortune than good.
It was only a pity about his three children, especially the youngest, whom he had yet to hear call him Father.
But compared to his grand ambitions, what did a few sacrifices matter?
He suddenly turned his head and gave a low command to the shadows beside him.
"Send word to the Shadow Guard. Execute the decapitation strike!"
A moment later, ten black figures shot out from behind the army's formation, racing low over the ground.
Their speed was astonishing. With a light tap against a siege engine, they vaulted weightlessly onto the northern stretch of wall.
The six Dragon Guard riders stationed there immediately noticed something was wrong.
"Form up! Stop them!"
All six drew their embroidered spring sabers and charged straight at them.
The black-clad man in front did not even raise his head. A pitch-black dagger slid from his sleeve.
His body swayed where he stood, becoming an afterimage that darted swiftly among the six riders.
Slice! Slice! Slice!
Faint sounds of slicing rang out.
The black-clad man appeared thirty feet away and flicked the blood droplets off his dagger with a backward motion.
Behind him, the six Dragon Guard riders froze where they stood, still poised to charge and swing their sabers.
Their eyes widened as they clutched their throats in terror, the life rapidly fading from their eyes.
Six corpses collapsed in a tangled sprawl.
On the western wall.
Lin Yuan had just casually cut down two marauders. He raised his head and caught the whole scene.
His expression darkened. Tapping his toes lightly against the ground, he rose as though riding the wind and sped along the passage.
During the fighting, he had been using Flowing Cloud Steps to weave through the crowd, and his proficiency in this lightness technique was already considerable.
[Martial arts: Flowing Cloud Steps (minor accomplishment 12/80)]
In moments, Lin Yuan had closed the distance.
Once he drew closer, he could not help wondering.
The enemy was clearly right before him, yet he could not sense the slightest fluctuation of blood Qi from him.
He could not be bothered to think further. Leaping into the air, he slashed straight down at the head of the black-clad man who had just attacked!
Hum!
A three-foot-long arc of blood-red saber Qi tore through the air!
The black-clad man's body twisted strangely, slipping away along the edge of the saber Qi.
Before Lin Yuan could land, the black-clad man bent his knees slightly and sprang into the air, thrusting his dagger straight at Lin Yuan's throat!
There was nothing to push against in midair, and he was about to collide with the dagger.
Lin Yuan's expression remained unchanged as he stamped his left foot hard onto the top of his right.
Flowing Cloud Steps!
His falling body rose dozens of feet out of thin air, narrowly avoiding the strike.
The black-clad man's strike missed. He landed on the wall and looked up at Lin Yuan, his body pausing slightly.
What sort of lightness technique was that?
The other nine black-clad men reacted extremely quickly, instantly surrounding him and completely blocking every place Lin Yuan could land.
Ten daggers gleaming with dark light rose together. The moment Lin Yuan landed, they would riddle him with holes.
In midair, Lin Yuan curled his lips and sneered.
Did they really think I couldn't fly?
Just as he began to fall, he planted his right foot on top of his left. The blood Qi inside him surged, and his whole body rose another ten feet or so!
Then he gripped his saber with both hands and slashed downward three times in succession!
Swish! Swish! Swish!
Three three-foot-long arcs of blood-red saber Qi formed a triangle, howling downward to engulf the men below.
The black-clad men's expressions changed drastically, and they hurriedly scattered.
Though their movement techniques were fast, the battlements were narrow, and the three arcs of saber Qi covered a wide area.
Squelch!
Two black-clad men who lagged behind failed to dodge and were instantly sliced into pieces by the saber Qi, their organs spilling across the ground.
Lin Yuan landed steadily on a merlon, his long saber pointing diagonally toward the ground.
The remaining eight black-clad men exchanged glances and decisively abandoned the tough bone that was Lin Yuan.
Their figures flickered, and they charged straight into the city guards, specifically targeting the squad leaders in leather armor!
"Hold your ground, all of you! Don't-"
Nearby, a squad leader with a full beard was roaring and brandishing his saber when a black shadow swept past behind him.
His voice cut off abruptly. Clutching his neck with both hands, he collapsed to the ground with a thud.
"You're courting death!"
A sharp shout came from the east.
Shen Qing raced over, her embroidered spring saber raised high as her blood Qi erupted with a roar.
A five-foot-long arc of silver-white saber Qi tore through the air and caught up with the black-clad man, splitting him in half from behind!
At the same time.
Another black-clad man had already closed in on another squad leader, his pitch-black dagger less than three inches from the man's heart.
The squad leader's hands and feet went cold, and his pupils abruptly contracted.
Whoosh!
A light breeze swept past.
Using Flowing Cloud Steps, Lin Yuan left several afterimages as his figure flickered. Though he moved later, he arrived first, pressing right up behind the black-clad man and sweeping his long saber across!
The hairs on the back of the black-clad man's neck stood on end. Not daring to continue his killing strike, he rolled clumsily to the side, narrowly evading the slash.
The squad leader who had escaped death dropped onto his backside, still shaken.
Having lost three men in succession, the remaining seven black-clad men recognized the pair's strength and immediately changed tactics.
They swiftly gathered together, standing back-to-back as their hands formed a strange seal.
Strange fluctuations emanated from the seven men, and their presences intertwined and merged.
The next instant.
A vast, icy presence soared into the sky, knocking every marauder and soldier within dozens of feet to the ground.
Lin Yuan's and Shen Qing's eyelids twitched violently at the same time.
That merged presence had actually forced its way into the second rank late stage!
And it was not over yet!
A phantom of a pitch-black dagger, seven inches long, condensed above the seven black-clad men's heads.
Their leader abruptly pointed at Lin Yuan and Shen Qing.
"Go!"
The dagger phantom swelled in the wind, growing to thirty meters in the blink of an eye.
The enormous black shadow blotted out the daylight and came howling toward the two of them with a terrifying presence!