Longzang

Chapter 1068 Marching North

The greatest threat from the direction of Ji State is not ordinary soldiers, but Dao soldiers.

Wei Yuan asked around, but no one knew the origin of the gray-clad Dao soldiers, so naturally they had no way of knowing their characteristics. However, based on its performance in actual combat, Xuan Yue and Zhi Dan Sanren both believed that this was a precious treasure for human warfare, and it certainly wouldn't be cheap. The cost of refining each Dao soldier should be equivalent to at least ten elite Qingming Heavy Armor soldiers.

At this time, the northern mountain people continued to appear in an endless stream, and five million had already been seen within the detection range. They would soon approach the border defense line set up by Wei Yuan.

After much deliberation, Wei Yuan finally made up his mind and began to readjust his deployment. All 500,000 elite troops marched north to attack the mountain people!

On the Ji defense line, Wei Yuan left only 150,000 garrison troops and 50,000 reserve troops, then dispersed heavy artillery and protected it with a large force. This way, at least they wouldn't be wiped out by the Daoist soldiers sent down by the immortals like in the first battle.

Wei Yuan then ordered continuous missile strikes against the Ji army's rear grain depots and supply convoys, in an effort to delay the Ji army's next general offensive as much as possible.

Subsequently, Wei Yuan personally led all the cultivators of Taichu Palace out in full force and marched north.

The territory of the State of Ji, on its northwestern border.

This is a low hilly area where positions have been built on many high points, forming the newly established northern defense line.

This defensive line primarily protected the mountain people, so it was not continuous. Instead, it existed as a series of small fortresses that could cover and support each other with firepower.

It was early morning, and a thin layer of morning mist hung over the mountains. The soldiers in the fortress watchtower vigilantly surveyed their surroundings. They had received a battle report that the mountain tribes' army had penetrated deep into their territory and was likely to reach the defensive line that day.

A young sentry in the watchtower looked at the unusually quiet morning mist, his Adam's apple bobbing, a strange chill creeping over him.

Captain Daoji, who was observing in another direction, noticed the young sentry's unusual behavior, walked over, patted him on the shoulder, and asked, "What did you find?"

The young sentry's face grew paler and paler as he said, "The fog... hasn't moved..."

Captain Daoji's pupils suddenly contracted as he looked ahead, only to see that the mist that filled the mountains had strangely stopped!

"Mountain dweller! Go and ring the bell!"

The young sentry rushed towards the alarm bell, but several arrows had already shot out from the fog. Captain Doki desperately tried to intercept them, but was ultimately pierced through the chest by three arrows. In the instant he bought with his life, the young sentry finally rang the alarm bell.

The bell rang throughout the camp, and all the soldiers who were still resting immediately jumped out of bed, ran to the armory, collected their weapons and ammunition, and then rushed to their respective positions.

Suddenly, an explosion rang out in the morning mist, sending several mountain villagers flying out of the fog. The explosions then intensified, and large numbers of short mountain people bravely fought their way out of the minefield, using their own flesh and blood to push through the debris!

Bang! Bang! Bang! A series of muffled gunshots rang out as three rotary cannons opened fire, reaping the lives of the mountain people who rushed up from different angles.

Rotary machine guns are now commonplace in the Azure Nether Army, and there is no longer a shortage of late-stage Dao Foundation level marksmen. A small fortress with a few hundred people will be equipped with three rotary machine guns.

At the same time, the infantry guns deployed in the fortress began to roar, continuously pounding shells into the morning mist. By this time, all the soldiers were on duty, and the firepower intensified dramatically, cutting down swathes of mountain people!
However, the ordinary mountain dwellers were only four feet tall, and they were extremely agile, leaping like a group of darting monkeys. In the blink of an eye, they rushed through the fire blockade zone, stormed into the fortress, and stormed into the building. Some of the mountain dwellers even crawled into the fortress through the firing ports.

The battle instantly erupted in every corner of the base. The Azure Warriors, clad in plate breastplates, relied on shotguns and pistols for close combat, while the mountain people's short knives and daggers were utterly ineffective against their armor.

However, the mountain people's weapons were coated with deadly toxins; even a small cut would cause the entire arm or thigh to swell rapidly, rendering the person incapacitated. The mountain people also had specific preparations in place; many warriors were equipped with powerful crossbows or blunt weapons such as hammers.

As a large number of short mountain people flooded the fortress, two enormous figures emerged from the morning mist. Only when they stepped out of the mist did they feel the earth tremble.

Two mountain giants charged to the fortress. One rammed into the watchtower, while the other swung a giant hammer weighing tens of thousands of pounds and smashed it heavily onto the front bunker, instantly destroying it and turning the warriors and mountain people inside into mincemeat!
The fierce battle lasted for a full half hour before the battlefield gradually quieted down. The two mountain giants, both covered in wounds, sat panting on the top of a bunker, with several small mountain people crawling on top of them, cleaning their wounds.

The two giants each carried a corpse of a blue-haired warrior, gnawing on it while conversing in muffled voices.

The mountain people dragged out the corpses, stacking the human bodies in one pile and the mountain people's bodies in another. They rummaged through the corpses and found all sorts of weapons, equipment, and daily necessities; almost anything they could carry was taken out, carefully packed and sealed, and then sent to the rear.

Several other mountain dwellers, dressed in distinctive attire, were using various tools to measure and draw maps throughout the fortress. These mountain dwellers possessed their own measurement system and specialized tools, allowing them to draw maps quickly, accurately, and with a chilling precision.

The dozens of surviving prisoners were taken to the rear and disappeared into the morning mist.

Countless mountain dwellers continued to emerge from the fog, pausing briefly at the fortress. Moments later, several mountain dwellers, dressed in distinctly finer attire, also emerged from the fog and wandered around the fortress, taking in the sights.

By this time, all the equipment and tools had been dismantled, and the mountain people began to dismantle the buildings. They dismantled with extreme care, sawing open sections of the walls, carefully recording the structure and materials of the cross-sections, and taking samples of each material, labeling them with detailed information, and then sorting and packing them into boxes before sending them to the rear.

Just as the mountain people were busy at work, one of them, dressed in fine clothes, suddenly looked up at the sky, a flash of panic in his eyes. At that moment, a black dot moving at extremely high speed suddenly appeared in the sky and crashed towards the fortress!

The noble mountain dweller acted swiftly, and a stone projectile suddenly appeared in the air, colliding with the incoming cannonball mid-air!

With a deafening roar, the massive explosion startled all the mountain dwellers, and the shockwave whipped up a fierce wind on the ground. But in the blink of an eye, countless more shells appeared. The mountain nobleman fought desperately to intercept them, but could only watch helplessly as the shells fell one by one.

With a furious roar, he grabbed the crate already filled with materials and threw it into the morning mist. Soon after, the entire fortress was engulfed in artillery fire and turned into a sea of ​​flames.

Twenty miles away, dozens of armored trucks were setting up their supports, and the large-caliber heavy cannons on the trucks roared continuously, bombarding the fallen fortress. Wei Yuan stood in the air, his eyes like lightning, his divine sense covering a radius of a hundred miles around, constantly guiding the shells to correct their impact points, blasting the mountain people to smithereens.

However, the morning mist had a significant effect on obstructing divine sense, and Wei Yuan could only see a little over a mile deep before he could no longer see clearly beyond that.

The bombardment lasted a full quarter of an hour. After thousands of shells washed over the ground, the area around the fortress was completely devoid of life and utterly silent. The mountain people had all fled into the depths of the morning mist. Only then did Wei Yuan wave his hand, and a large number of cuirassier infantrymen climbed the mountain to recapture the fortress, while simultaneously using their military aura to dispel the thick fog.

The heavy artillery vehicles then retracted their supports, and the army continued forward to the next fallen fortress.

On the map in Wei Yuan's mind, four fortresses had fallen. The four fortresses were lined up in a row, hundreds of miles apart. This was also the front line of the mountain people's attack.

The surging torrent of steel charged toward the center of the mountain people's front, aiming to split the mountain people's army in two.

(End of this chapter)