Chapter 11: Decisive Battle in the State of Wei Section 13: The Battle of Remote City (Part III)

Section 13: The Battle of Bianyuan City (Part 3)

The members of the Viper Camp were all burning with intense fighting spirit. Led by Wang Ka, they charged through the other pass defense lines of the Wei army, assisting the Zheng army in breaking through the resistance and shattering the fortress defenses.

As they successfully breached three such gate-cities, the Jianyue Sect experts, urgently dispatched by the Wei army, finally arrived.

In an instant, the elite martial artists of the Viper Camp, headed by Wang Ka, found themselves completely entangled, forced to cope with the surrounding Wei army. They could no longer sweep through the battlefield with the unstoppable momentum they had shown before. Xiaocao was cornered by two Jianyue Sect experts who had leapt into the formation. The terrain gave her no room to retreat, and she had already drawn her short blade, using the Zilan Sacred Bow as a shield to desperately parry their attacks, leaving her with no opportunity to draw her bow.

"Kill these suicide troops!"

The Wei army commander ordered with gnashed teeth.

Wang Ka had just slain and wounded two Jianyue Sect experts when three more arrived. Seeing that everyone was bogged down and unable to free themselves, with yet another person joining the siege against Xiaocao, he hurriedly shouted the order, "Tighter defensive circle! We must give Xiaocao room to maneuver!" The suicide troops of the Viper Camp shouted their compliance in succession, but the reinforcements from the Jianyue Sect kept increasing. Clearly, the Wei army had been thoroughly terrified by the lethality of the Zilan Sacred Bow, and at all costs, they were determined to dispatch as many martial cultivators as possible to slaughter them.

More and more Viper Camp warriors were wounded by the Jianyue Sect experts. Just as the situation grew even more perilous, more than seventy figures flew through the sky.

The leader, spinning down mid-air, unleashed a single palm strike that crushed three Jianyue Sect experts besieging Xiaocao to death. As their long robes and sleeves swirled and danced, continuous cold starlight shot out in all directions, instantly killing and wounding over fifty Jianyue Sect experts.

"July!" Seeing that the newcomer was none other than July, wearing her golden phoenix crown, Xiaocao cried out in joyful surprise. The more than seventy Feixian Sect experts who followed July landed one after another, each picking an opponent to engage the Jianyue Sect experts alongside the Viper Camp suicide troops. In addition, five individuals carrying ten baskets of steel arrows dropped them beside Xiaocao.

"Marquis Xin, seeing the divine valor of your Viper Camp, specifically entrusted our sect's experts to come and assist, and brought along these steel arrows. Xiaocao, just use the Zilan Sacred Bow to kill the enemy; these Wei martial cultivators will naturally be handled by the experts of our sect!"

Xiaocao notched an arrow to the string and said happily, "With your help, why fear the Wei martial cultivators! Let them witness the might of the Zilan Sacred Bow." With that, she loosed a volley of arrows, instantly striking hundreds of Wei soldiers. "These are not the specially forged alloy steel arrows of the Viper Camp; their lethality is limited."

Faced with Xiaocao's complaint, July sighed helplessly and said, "These are standard steel arrows prepared by the military, naturally incomparable to the hundred divine Zilan arrows produced by the Viper Camp each month."

With the assistance of the Feixian Sect experts, the pressure on the Viper Camp suicide troops was drastically reduced. July protected Xiaocao so closely that not a single person could get near enough to interfere. Any Wei martial cultivator who attempted to stop Xiaocao from drawing her bow was blasted flying into the sky by July's palm strike before they could even reach her.

After two full quarters of such fierce fighting, the ground suddenly began to vibrate rhythmically.

The surrounding Wei army soldiers were seen retreating one after another, as a ring of heavily armored infantry closed in from all directions. Every single one of them stood seven feet tall, covered from head to toe in thick armor, and wielded heavy, massive iron shields, each weighing over eight hundred catties.

"The Wei Divine Armor Infantry!"

Wang Ka secretly sensed danger.

This heavy infantry unit was the elite of the Wei army's elites. Numbering ten thousand in total, nearly all of them stood seven feet tall and possessed astonishing physical strength. The heavy armor they wore weighed five hundred catties, and their iron shields weighed eight hundred catties. Ordinary cavalry charges were entirely useless against this heavy infantry unit of Wei, making them an invincible force of tigers and wolves.

Even if the divine Zilan arrows were not exhausted, it was unpredictable what kind of lethality they could inflict on these heavy infantrymen, let alone the fact that they were currently using ordinary steel arrows. Whether these could pierce two rows of heavy infantrymen remained a question.

Interspersed among the heavy infantry were Wei infantrymen wielding large shields, clearly deployed specifically to counter Xiaocao's Zilan Sacred Bow.

Xiaocao drew her bow to the full and loosed a volley of forty-nine steel arrows. Each steel arrow could only pierce the shield and body of a single heavy infantryman; by the time it penetrated the shield of the second, its momentum was entirely spent, and the shafts of the arrows bent and deformed under the immense stress.

"Hey, ho! Hey, ho!" The heavy infantrymen wielded iron spears, rhythmically striking their iron shields while shouting to boost their morale and prestige.

"Hmph! A bunch of clumsy turtles. I will break through the eastern side in the lead; once we break out of the encirclement, we needn't fear them catching up." With that, July charged alone toward the heavy infantry on the eastern side, her double palms striking two heavy shields. The immense force pushed two entire rows of heavy infantry crashing to the ground. She then grabbed two heavy iron shields and flung them fiercely. The howling, massive shields knocked down sixty to seventy heavy infantrymen in two rows.

However, the heavy infantry closing in from all directions left everyone except July and two top Feixian Sect experts helpless. They were gradually forced back, and the defensive circle grew tighter and tighter. Although each volley from Xiaocao's Zilan Sacred Bow could incapacitate dozens of heavy infantrymen, this level of lethality could not alter the trapped situation.

July fought and killed over three hundred heavily armored infantrymen in one breath, only to realize that Wang Ka and the Feixian Sect experts had fallen into a heavy encirclement. She had no choice but to turn back to assist, but she could not be in two places at once. The moment she helped relieve the pressure on one side, another side urgently cried out for rescue. The strength of the vast majority of experts was difficult to apply against this level of heavy infantry; physical punches and kicks dealt limited damage, or even proved entirely useless. Internal energy palm techniques could only kill one or two people directly in front of them, and the fine sabers and swords of the Viper Camp could not hack through the defense of the heavy shields at all. Only Wang Ka possessed the highest cultivation level, his twin sabers capable of piercing shields and slaying men, yet every single slash consumed a vast amount of his physical stamina.

Those heavy armored troops moved slowly, entirely refusing to use short attacks against long reach. They simply advanced with their shields raised, intending to tightly squeeze and crush the enemy to death.

Seeing the situation grow increasingly unfavorable, July, despite possessing formidable abilities, found herself unable to deploy them due to being constantly tied down by rescuing others. As for her supreme, ten-direction, all-encompassing area-of-effect killing technique, she dared not release it for fear of harming her own people.

Just as the situation became perilous, the formation of the heavy infantry on the east side suddenly fell into complete chaos.

Everyone witnessed a surging, blood-red energy radiance glowing in the sky above the enemy formation a hundred zhang away. Under this radiance, the Wei soldiers were tossed and flung like ants, flying straight up into the sky dozens of zhang high before crashing back down. That ball of energy radiance encompassed a circular space twenty zhang in diameter above the battlefield, rapidly closing in.

More than two hundred Feixian Sect disciples flew across the sky from afar, shouting from a distance, "The Northern Lord, hearing that the Wei heavy infantry is here, has specifically come to aid the Martial尊." As soon as these Feixian Sect experts arrived, they each used their unique skills to assist July and the Viper Camp in fighting the surrounding heavy infantry.

In just a moment, that ball of blood-red energy radiance arrived.

The heavy infantry in its path were routed into complete disarray, knocked crooked and tumbling in all directions.

July saw the Northern Lord once again, noticing that he was gripping a captured heavy infantry large shield in each hand. As he charged all the way through, the heavy infantry on both sides were knocked down in sprawling rows. The dozen or so unassuming warriors following closely behind him all possessed astonishing physical strength, wielding the heavy iron spears of the heavy infantry as weapons and sweeping away the oncoming heavy infantrymen along the way.

The disciples of the Sunset Cloud Sect who practiced the Soul Decisive Art were categorized into several tiers based on their loyalty and aptitude. At the apex of the pyramid stood Bu Jingxian, Bai Yue, Bai Xing, and Gui Jianchou. Every day, they were responsible for helping two to three soul-cultivators of exceptional aptitude and steadfast loyalty, sacrificing their own cultivation time to accelerate the progress of the others' mental techniques.

The brother and sister Zhao Tian and Zhao Ji, Bilian, and the Four Seasons Flower Envoys, who served as Bai Yue and Bai Xing's personal bodyguards, belonged to this class of soul-cultivators. Every day, they in turn assisted soul-cultivators of the third tier, and so on.

For this reason, Bu Jingxian's cultivation progress over the past few years had been significantly affected. After reaching the tenth tier of the Soul Decisive Art, he had dedicated himself wholeheartedly to assisting the Zhao siblings, striving to help them reach the ninth tier ahead of time and break through the major bottleneck of the tenth-tier mental technique.

When he left the State of Zhou, the Soul Decisive Art cultivation levels of Bai Yue, Bai Xing, and Gui Jianchou had all reached the tenth and ninth tiers. The soul arts of the Zhao sisters, Bilian, and the Four Seasons Flower Envoys were all between the seventh and eighth tiers.

The dozen or so individuals who charged into the Wei army alongside Bu Jingxian today possessed soul art cultivation levels between the fifth and sixth tiers, and all of them possessed superior innate aptitudes. Under the effect of the tenth-tier Soul Decisive Art's special energy field—which boosted physical energy by 200%—the physical stamina of each person exceeded 1,800, reaching an astonishing level of over 2,400 during actual combat.

All of these individuals knew that within the red-light energy field of the Lord's left bank, their strength increased astonishingly. To ordinary Wei soldiers, every single one of them was a monster wielding divine strength and impervious to blades and spears.

The heavy infantry that the Wei army took such pride in was utterly vulnerable before the soul-spirit army of soul-cultivators led by Bu Jingxian.

"Circular formation! Assist the Zheng State's Viper Camp in breaking out of the heavy infantry encirclement. Do not let the enemy block the Zilan Sacred Bow."

At Bu Jingxian's command, those dozen individuals immediately formed a circular array with him at the center, assisting the Viper Camp and Feixian Sect experts in dealing with the heavy infantry. With their joining, the momentum of the heavy infantry was instantly shattered. A single palm strike powered by a soul-cultivator could topple a row of a dozen or twenty heavy infantrymen, reducing them to complete harmlessness.

The heavy infantry were already slow-moving; once knocked over, it was extremely difficult for them to stand back up.

Bu Jingxian smiled faintly at July and said, "The Feixian Sect's martial arts excel at displaying might without distractions amidst chaotic armies. Your honorable country's Viper Camp can be left to the people I brought to assist. The Martial尊 should lead your sect's experts to slaughter the enemy instead."

July had long known that Marquis Xin was allied with the Soul Spirit Army, and having witnessed the hypocritical faces of scum in many prestigious sects during her travels, she no longer cared as much about the past matters concerning Li Shao. At this moment, she certainly would not let petty grievances overshadow the bigger picture, nor did she wish to speak with Bu Jingxian, the Feixian Sect's enemy. Seeing that the people he brought possessed astonishing physical stamina—making them the exact nemeses of these heavy infantrymen—she immediately ordered fifty Feixian Sect experts to remain and assist the Viper Camp.

Then she said to Xiaocao, "Xiaocao, be careful. I will go to the east to clear obstacles for you." With a single leap, she soared ten zhang high into the air.

Landing a few times by stepping off the shoulders of Wei soldiers to gain leverage, she flew fifty zhang away before leaping another ten zhang high once more.

Seeing this, Bu Jingxian knew that July was unwilling to let people underestimate the might of the Feixian Sect and wanted to show off her skills to overshadow the grand entrance he had made with his people. Yet he cared even more about July's use of the name 'Xiaocao,' and could not help glancing at the young woman who, unwilling to waste arrows at the moment, wielded the world-famous Zilan Sacred Bow.

He remembered that years ago, in the estate of a slave owner in the State of Han, July had been close to a young slave of similar age, and that girl was called Xiaocao. However, too much time had passed, and everyone's appearance had changed as they grew up. Although he secretly guessed the truth, he could not be certain from her facial features alone whether this woman was an old friend of his past.