Chapter 103: The Enemy’s Devastating Assault

Having flown to the battlefield where the two armies were locked in combat, Yang Shengtian saw that his own soldiers had been surrounded on all sides by Huang Xianlin’s men. They were being slaughtered in a miserable fashion; nearly a third had already fallen.

“Where is Yang Tianbao? Could he have been killed by the enemy, leaving his men to fight alone? And his wolf mount is not here either. Was it slain as well? His mount, the great wolf, is a wolf-lion beast with skin hard as steel. Ordinary weapons cannot even wound it. One might say it is a monster invulnerable to blades and spears!”

As he thought this, Yang Shengtian rode the beast Little Black and plunged into the midst of the battle between the two armies.

Once Little Black entered the battlefield, its ferocity was astonishing. It charged straight into the outer ring of Huang Xianlin’s soldiers at terrifying speed. Those standing in its path thrust the sharp tips of their weapons at it, but Little Black showed not the slightest fear, as though no one stood before it at all.

Any soldier or weapon it struck was either hurled more than a dozen meters away or smashed cleanly in two and scattered across the ground. As it rammed forward, it also spewed yellow flames in all directions.

In an instant, some of Huang Xianlin’s soldiers were scorched into wild flight, rolling on the ground as their cries shook the heavens, while others were flung through the air for more than ten meters.

At once, the soldiers surrounding the outer edge of Yang Shengtian’s force were breached by his mount, Little Black, opening a gap in the encirclement.

Yang Shengtian shouted to the troops, “Brothers, break out from here quickly! Hurry!”

The soldiers nearest the breach immediately surged toward the opening.

After breaking through one layer of siege, Yang Shengtian clamped his legs, and Little Black leaped toward another direction, using the same tactic once more—spewing yellow fire and hurling itself into the enemy soldiers elsewhere.

At that moment, Huang Xianlin also arrived. Seeing the monstrous power of Yang Shengtian’s mount, he was left stunned. What kind of strange divine beast was this? So fierce? My qilin divine beast is not here, and even if it were, it would not be this monster’s match. At such power, perhaps only General Wei Xiaoping’s Big Yellow could contend with it!

“General Wei Xiaoping?” Huang Xianlin thought again. “Right—what has General Wei Xiaoping become now?”

“Zhu Hongxiu, He Xinzhou, Wang Qingjie, all of you, converge on that beast and hold it back!” Huang Xianlin shouted, sweeping his gaze around as he looked for an unmounted horse to borrow.

He leaped onto a warhorse and pointed the wolf-tooth spear in his hand toward Yang Shengtian. The horse immediately carried Huang Xianlin toward him.

Mounted on his beast, Yang Shengtian kept charging recklessly into the enemy troops on the outside. In less than a quarter of an hour, he had helped his soldiers break through four exits, while also killing more than a hundred of Huang Xianlin’s soldiers and mounts.

At that moment, seeing Huang Xianlin and three of his generals closing in on him, Yang Shengtian halted Little Black and said, “General Huang, go. Leave your soldiers and those three generals here to fight me.”

“General Yang, why should I leave? Do you think Huang is a man who fears death?” Huang Xianlin said resolutely.

Yang Shengtian said, “Because just now, in the air, you did not explain certain things to me in detail. I still do not fully understand some matters of my own, so I need to keep you here to speak to me again someday.”

“No need,” Huang Xianlin replied. “General Yang, in our Azure Peak Kingdom, generals and soldiers have always shared life and death together. We would never abandon our men out of cowardice!”

Yang Shengtian fixed his eyes on Huang Xianlin’s face. Huang Xianlin and his three generals were also looking back at him with a gaze of calm readiness for death.

“If that is so, then come on!” Yang Shengtian said, raising his right hand.

At once, the mysterious bow appeared in his hand again.

When Huang Xianlin saw this, he stared at the bow in Yang Shengtian’s grasp and said to the three generals beside him, “Everyone, jump into the enemy ranks at once. Do not fight this General Yang face to face for now!”

Zhu Hongxiu beside him immediately did not understand and asked, “General Huang, why? The three of us, plus you, makes four. Could we really not defeat him alone?”

“Yes, General! In my view, aside from his mount, he is not all that frightening. If we back away like this, won’t he laugh at us?” Wang Qingjie said.

Huang Xianlin held his wolf-tooth spear horizontally across his chest and stepped back as he spoke in a low voice: “The enchanted bow in his hand is a divine bow. It can be controlled by his will, changing into hundreds of identical bows, and then hundreds of mysterious arrows can be fired at once. An ordinary person cannot withstand even a single exchange before being struck. And after being wounded by such arrows, one must be healed by the wings at both ends of the bow before recovery is possible!”

“Then telling us to jump into the enemy ranks—isn’t that walking straight into a trap, letting the enemy kill us?” He Xinzhou said.

“With our strength, ordinary soldiers cannot wound or capture us. But if we are amid their ranks, then should he dare use that mysterious bow, he will be constrained by concern for the surrounding troops, and his own soldiers will be harmed as well. And that man is loyal to his men; he prizes their lives. So I judge that he will not fire on them!”

“Since the general says that divine bow is so formidable, then let us charge into the densest part of the enemy formation!” Zhu Hongxiu said.

So Zhu Hongxiu took the lead and leaped toward the area where the encircled enemy soldiers were thickest; Wang Qingjie and He Xinzhou followed after him.

Seeing the three generals depart, Huang Xianlin took up his stance and said to Yang Shengtian, “Come then, General Yang!”

Yang Shengtian glanced at Huang Xianlin once, then turned away to continue breaking a path for his trapped soldiers elsewhere.

Watching Yang Shengtian go to relieve his besieged troops in another place, Huang Xianlin thought: Since I cannot beat you, I will not fight you. I will kill your soldiers instead. You break through one place, and I will lead my men to seal another. I will kill as many as I can.

Just then, several familiar wolf howls rang out, followed by cries of agony from soldiers. Soon after, the sound of ice shattering could also be heard.

Huang Xianlin looked toward the source of the noise and saw that, at some unknown point, Yang Tianbao had mounted his wolf-lion beast and was slaughtering the soldiers along the western outer perimeter of Huang Xianlin’s forces.

Ever since Wang Qingjie had pierced out its right eye, that wolf-lion beast had nursed a savage hatred, and when it killed, it was even more ferocious than before.

The wolf-lion beast kept spewing sinister cold breath at the soldiers blocking its way. At closer range, it opened its jaws and bit one soldier after another, then violently shook its head and hurled the bitten men more than ten meters away.

As for Yang Tianbao, seated atop his mount, his heart ached over the loss of the beast’s eye. He vented all his hatred upon Huang Xianlin’s soldiers. With his two iron hammers, he swung left and right, striking and sweeping in both directions. Wherever the hammers passed, a bloody road appeared.

From the speed with which Yang Tianbao, in less than a quarter of an hour, had slain and wounded more than a hundred men, it could be seen that his great wolf killed ordinary soldiers no more slowly than Yang Shengtian and Yang Shengtian’s Little Black!

Seeing how devastating Yang Shengtian and Yang Tianbao were, and watching the trapped enemy troops constantly break out through the encirclement, only to surge back toward his own soldiers and even seem poised to encircle them in turn, Huang Xianlin grew deeply anxious and wondered what to do.

Soon he called the three generals over and said, “Do you see? Judging from the killing power of the two enemy generals, within three hours the enemy will completely break through our encirclement. Although our forces now may still outnumber theirs by ten thousand, once their troops fully escape the encirclement, they will gain room to maneuver and freedom to deploy. That will greatly benefit them, and our soldiers will be far less able to wound them. Add to that the two enemy generals charging among us as though each were worth a hundred men, and by then our side will suffer massive casualties. Our fighting strength will be greatly reduced! So I think this: first, spread out along the encirclement and rally part of the army to fight desperately, striking toward the breach and forcing the enemy back inside the ring. Then, Zhu and He, after you finish rallying your men, immediately intercept Yang Tianbao. If you can kill him, do so as quickly as possible; if not, then keep him occupied and delay him as long as you can, buying time for our soldiers to kill the enemy. Wang and I will go intercept Yang Shengtian, and we shall use the same method I just described. If we can stall him, we should stall him as long as possible; if we can kill him, then all the better!”