The Eagle with Broken Wings
Li Meng frowned as he looked at the front line. The second thousand-man battle group had collapsed. Although it was quickly suppressed and reorganized by the supervisory team, its morale had been severely damaged, and it would be difficult to put it to use in this battle.
Even more seriously, with the defeat of the second warband, several other warbands nearby who witnessed it were clearly affected, and their advance slowed down subconsciously.
"Old Li, I'll lead my cavalry in a charge!" Xu Yueming turned to leave.
"Halt!" Li Meng shouted coldly, ordering the messenger beside him, "Order the air cavalry to attack and destroy the enemy's ballistae!"
The giant eagle riders hovering in the sky quickly sprang into action, their enormous wings beating against the air as they Pounce towards the ballista array on the hill.
Just then, a Sword Qi swept across the sky, instantly passing the Pounce giant eagle.
Blood splattered across the sky. Jiang Hanyan stared at the sky and saw a flying sword rapidly slashing through the air, killing one giant eagle after another.
"It's Li Xuanfeng!" The image of a certain true disciple flashed through her mind. As the only level 7 Daoist in Xuanwei Monastery, Li Xuanfeng was currently the only one capable of using a sword to launch an attack.
"Boom~"
A semi-transparent shockwave spread out, resembling the burst of anti-aircraft artillery fire.
The giant eagle riders hit by the mental shockwave plummeted to the ground like fighter jets with broken wings.
A barrage of powerful crossbow bolts ripped through the air, striking the falling giant eagles precisely to prevent them from breaking free of their chaotic consciousness.
The Evil Eye used the trajectory of the giant eagle's Pounce to launch Mind Shock Blast, allowing the heavy crossbowmen to take the opportunity to shoot down the enemies who were no longer able to dodge.
Almost in one wave of attacks, twenty or thirty giant eagle riders fell, immediately causing the remaining sixty or seventy giant eagles to hesitate and hover in the sky.
Building an air cavalry force in the Spirit Realm is very difficult; it requires finding suitable flying mounts and then investing a lot of resources in careful training.
The entire Jiang Lineage territory had fewer than two hundred giant eagle riders, and only one hundred accompanied the legion. A single air raid had wiped out a quarter of them, causing Li Meng's heart to tremble with pain. "Quickly, order the air cavalry to retreat!"
But at that moment, more than twenty giant eagles swooped down from the sky and swooped down on the ground army formation!
"What are they doing?!" Xu Yueming gasped for breath, almost bursting with rage at the Giant Eagle Knights' foolish actions. "They're throwing their lives away!"
Li Meng, however, had calmed down. "You're right... the enemy probably possesses some kind of mind-controlling magic..."
Looking at the air knight shot to death by arrows, he recalled the inexplicable suicide of the giant eagle that had been sent to its death during the pre-battle reconnaissance mission.
"Well done, Qiuqiu!" Lin Xu looked at the falling giant eagle, a smile appearing on his face. "Half of it is gone."
"Yes, the threat posed by the enemy's air cavalry to us has decreased significantly."
The sky is a force of nature, and with the giant eagle rider's flight altitude, even throwing a Shitou into the army formation would be enough to kill someone.
Watching the giant eagle knights flee in disarray, Lin Xu looked back at the enemy formation.
The ballista never stopped firing, maintaining a rate of fire of one round per minute.
After repeated artillery bombardments that successively routed four thousand-man battle groups, the front lines of both sides finally closed to within 500 meters.
"Catapults, aim and fire!" Lin Xu ordered again.
"Bang!"
Twenty spirit-patterned catapults launched simultaneously, and dozens of stone balls loaded in the throwing bags scattered evenly in the sky.
Stone balls, each about 20 centimeters in diameter, were launched and, with the powerful swing of the spirit-patterned throwing arm, traversed a distance of 500 meters before falling like raindrops.
Ah~
The force of the falling stone easily shattered the shield, smashing the leather-clad human body into a bloody mess.
Compared to a crossbow bolt that can only pierce three to five people, a catapult can launch dozens of stone projectiles in a single volley.
A single volley of fire resulted in hundreds of casualties, and the nearby five or six battle groups were instantly littered with corpses, their morale plummeting!
"Damn it, does the enemy have a hero who specializes in weaponry?!" Looking at the heavy losses suffered by the battle group at the front, Li Meng's emotions, which had just calmed down, surged again.
"War Spell: Aegis of the Atmosphere!"
He had to once again rally his troops and unleash war magic.
A transparent shield formed, enveloping the entire legion.
The crossbow bolts struck hard against the transparent shield, creating ripples in the air.
He paused briefly, and the arrow pierced the shield, falling into the fray and killing an unfortunate soldier.
Lin Xu frowned slightly as he watched the rain of stone balls falling from the sky being blocked by the transparent shield.
The falling stones had far less penetrating power than crossbow bolts, and they bounced off and fell to the ground.
"Replace it with a large stone ball!" he decisively ordered.
Every spell has to be considered in terms of cost, and he didn't believe that the opponent's war spells that maintained this range would be unaffected.
The catapult's loading team quickly changed the type of stone projectiles, switching from small stones specifically designed for soldiers to projectiles with a diameter exceeding 1 mm.
A large stone sphere, about 1 meter in diameter.
This exceeds the weight limit of ancient catapults, and only a catapult imbued with spirits could launch such a heavy stone ball hundreds of meters.
"Boom~"
The heavy stone ball struck the Aegis of the Atmosphere, creating ripples at the point of impact.
Soon, the stone sphere broke through the atmospheric shield, fell from the sky, crashed into the group of soldiers, and carved a path of flesh and blood.
"Order all battle groups to disperse!" Li Meng's expression changed, and he quickly changed his strategy.
"Prepare to engage the enemy!" Lin Xu swept across the battlefield, and the soldiers who had been resting on the ground stood up, ready for battle.
"Why hasn't A-Xu come back for dinner yet?" Mother Lin asked anxiously as she passed through the Spirit Realm Passage and entered the Xuanwei Monastery.
It was already noon, and according to past practice, Lin Xu should have been home by now.
The Daoist temple was deserted. Apart from the servants sweeping and fetching water, the Daoist priests who used to wear robes were nowhere to be seen.
Mother Lin walked out of the Daoist temple, puzzled, only to see a group of Daoist priests hurrying by. "What's going on here? So many people..."
With a sense of foreboding, she walked to the side of the road.
"Madam!" A voice called out in her ear. She turned around and saw a young female Daoist priest in a Daoist robe.
"The Dao Lord is currently defending against foreign enemies. Please return to Qimeng City immediately to avoid being caught in the crossfire!" Meng Yaoguang bowed to Mother Lin.
Mother Lin herself was unaware that she had been specially marked by the Dao Lord in the eyes of the Dharma Protector, so as soon as she appeared, Meng Yaoguang, who happened to be passing by, hurriedly came out to dissuade her.
"A-Xu fighting a war?" Mother Lin was startled.
"It's the Jiang Lineage," Meng Yaoguang explained simply. "You should go back now. We're here; nothing will happen."
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"Alright, be careful." Mother Lin was a sensible person. After watching Meng Yaoguang leave, she turned around and returned to Qimeng City.
"No, I need to talk to Elder Jiang and Wanqing about this..." She hesitated for a few steps, then quickly picked up her alchemy phone. "Hello, is this Elder Jiang?"