Longzang

Chapter 720 A Different Kind of War
In the northern frontier, the flames of war raged, and with deafening explosions, many Liaodong horses reared up, showing their fear.

Dressed in the uniform of an ordinary soldier, armored and helmeted, Wei Yuan stood atop the city wall, reaping the lives of Liao cavalry one by one with his flying sword spear. At this moment, he had activated his concealment ability and was protected by his luck. Even if Yu Jing's divine sense swept over him, he would mistake Wei Yuan for an ordinary human cultivator, whose cultivation had just entered the Foundation Establishment stage and was nothing special. Even if a Dharma Avatar came to kill him, it would be a waste of effort.

Wei Yuan was actually guiding more than two hundred shells at the same time, finely adjusting their trajectories in the air to hit the densest area of ​​the Liao cavalry. Even if the Liao people jumped into the trenches, the shells could still explode accurately above their heads.

But as far as the eye could see, the Liao tribes were everywhere, and the whistling rain of arrows never stopped. This time, the Liao soldiers wearing heavy armor had increased significantly, and their weapons had been changed to large shields and crossbows, as they jumped into the trenches to engage the humans in hand-to-hand combat.

The Liao people's crossbows were incredibly powerful, capable of piercing through breastplates made by Qingming soldiers, requiring massive shields for protection. Although the crossbows were slow to reload, their terrifying close-range power greatly enhanced the Liao people's fighting strength, causing a sharp increase in casualties among the Daoist soldiers in the trenches.

In the air above the Liao formation, the avatar of the Left Wise King stared at the battlefield, his face extremely grim. Even as an immortal, he hadn't expected the cannons on the Azure Sky to suddenly multiply several times over, turning the area around the town into a sea of ​​fire.

Moreover, with Wei Yuan's guidance, the artillery fire was extremely precise, covering area by area. After each area was bombarded, it was completely turned into a wasteland. None of the Liao cavalry remaining in the bombardment zone survived. It truly became a case of artillery bombardment.

Wei Yuan thus continuously created gaps around the town, disrupting the Liao army's offensive rhythm and cutting off their reinforcements.

By this time, the Liao army surrounding the town had reached nearly a million men, surging against the defensive line wave after wave like a tidal wave. Wei Yuan, on the other hand, was prepared to use up all his cannonballs in this attack.

The Left Wise King's avatar also possessed powerful divine sense, scanning the entire battlefield every so often. This was perception rather than attack, so it did not trigger an automatic counterattack from the Northern Mountain Gate.

The results of the scan were hard for the Left Wise King to accept. He had spent a huge amount of military funds, distributed countless high-grade armor and magical artifacts, dispersed the power of the northern mountain gate, and then launched a four-sided attack. Yet the casualty ratio was even higher than the previous times, close to one to five.

Did he spend all of his hundreds of millions of taels of silver on dogs?

At this moment, another unit of the Northern Liao army split up, and numerous soldiers and warriors pushed out an extremely terrifying giant crossbow cart. The cart had eight rows of wheels at the front and back, and it carried a ballista that was more than five zhang long. At this moment, a giant crossbow that was four zhang long and shone with the light of a magical artifact was mounted on it.

The giant crossbow trolley moved slowly, stopping when it was still more than ten miles from the town. Then, a powerful warrior of the Dharma Aspect level drove wooden stakes into the ground to stabilize the trolley.

Wei Yuan naturally couldn't stand idly by, so he immediately guided the cannonballs to bombard the town at maximum range. However, all the cannonballs were intercepted by the Liao tribe's Dharma Aspect archers. Then, the Liao tribe adjusted the angle of the giant crossbow, and four Dao Foundation Perfection warriors simultaneously pulled the trigger. The giant crossbow trolley suddenly emitted a halo of light, and the crossbow bolts had already pierced the sky and arrived at the town.

Just before the crossbow bolts were about to be fired, Wei Yuan could no longer conceal his identity. He used his Dao power to transform into a whirlwind, blowing away all the warriors on the city wall.

The giant crossbow bolt pierced the city wall, sinking completely in instantly. The city wall, like a wet dough ball, suddenly swelled up, warping so distorted it seemed unreal. Then the entire city wall exploded, sending countless shards of rock flying into the sky!
Scattered bricks and stones fell like jade, stirring up clouds of dust. When the dust settled, the tower on the city wall had vanished, and more than half of the city wall had collapsed. Only the fletching of the giant crossbow bolt remained sticking out.

The five cannons originally mounted on the city tower were all thrown dozens of feet away. Fortunately, Wei Yuan had dispersed the Taoist soldiers in advance, otherwise none of the hundreds of Taoist soldiers stationed on the city tower would have survived.

The Liao generals and commanders stared wide-eyed at the city walls in disbelief. These giant crossbow trolleys were the Liao's siege weapons; each arrow was equivalent to a strike from a powerful magical artifact. Against the traditional city walls, which were made of rammed earth and sealed with rice mortar, a single arrow could penetrate thirty zhang (approximately 15 meters).

If Wei Yuan were stationed in some famous city or formidable pass, that would be fine. But it was just a small town, with walls less than ten zhang high. The Liao generals, and even the incarnation of the Left Wise King, wanted to see an arrow destroy the city gate, then pierce through the entire city and pin it to the other side of the wall. That was the scene they wanted to witness.

In the end, this arrow only managed to collapse half of the city tower.

The avatar of the Left Wise King steadied himself and looked towards the breach in the city gate tower. He saw that the actual thickness of the tower was far greater than its height, reaching a staggering twenty zhang (approximately 63 meters). According to historical records, the city gate tower was at most five zhang (approximately 10 meters) thick.

The gap was covered with grayish-white fragments, neither like stone nor traditional mortar. Several steel bars remained among the fragments, and every few feet there was a layer of steel plate buried.

This giant magical arrow pierced through a strange reinforced gray stone band seven or eight zhang deep, broke through three layers of steel shields, and finally exhausted its power. And in front of it lay a city wall four or five zhang thick.

The Left Wise King's face was ashen, unable to maintain his composure. This city wall was built so solidly by Wei Yuan, how could a normal person possibly break it open?
If it weren't for the arrival of specially designed siege ballistae for fortified passes, ordinary ballistae would have been utterly useless in breaching the city. As for the heavy siege arrows used by Dharma Aspect cultivators, they probably wouldn't have broken through even if they had caused the Dharma Aspect cultivators to collapse. Wei Yuan was secretly alarmed; the Liao people's giant crossbows were truly formidable, their power more than double that of the eight giant crossbows at Hanyang Pass back then. Fortunately, he had consulted past war records and had some understanding of the Liao people's siege weaponry, so he worked day and night with cement to widen and thicken the city walls, and finally, his efforts paid off.

Undeterred, the Liao tribe immediately prepared for their next attack. Thousands of Liao warriors exerted their strength simultaneously, turning multiple winches to slowly draw the giant crossbow. Then, a dozen or so Dao Foundation Perfection warriors worked together to lift a four-zhang (approximately 10 meters) crossbow bolt and load it into the quiver. Finally, several Dharma Aspects infused the trolley with magical power.

At the command of the Liao general, another halo of light rose above the chariot, and a giant arrow pierced the air, embedding itself in the side of the city tower. The city tower and the nearby city wall expanded and twisted again, and a gap appeared in a section of the wall next to the city tower, but there was no large-scale collapse.

Wei Yuan had a contingency plan in place for the breach in the city wall. After the breach appeared, the soldiers brought out several infantry cannons, their dark muzzles aimed directly at the opening. The Liao cavalry, for a moment, dared not charge towards the breach.

At this moment, the Liao tribe slowly fired a third giant arrow, which this time hit the other side of the city wall. After three arrows, the city wall was finally destroyed beyond recognition, and all the dozen or so cannons on this defensive line fell silent.

The Liao general swung his sword forward again, and another giant arrow flew through the breach, carving a bloody path through the city before crashing into the opposite wall with a deafening roar, collapsing a small section. This time the losses were much heavier; several infantry cannons deployed within the city were destroyed, and over a hundred soldiers were killed or wounded.

Large numbers of Liao cavalry began to charge into the city through the breach and started fighting.

Wei Yuan remained calm and ordered the final plan to be activated. A large number of Dao soldiers resting in the city quickly dispersed and scattered into the surrounding trenches. Most of the infantry artillery pieces were not heavy; two Foundation Establishment cultivators could carry them and run quickly, and with three to five more people carrying the shells, they could form an artillery team.

In the blink of an eye, the Liao cavalry that had entered the city suddenly found themselves without an opponent, and many of the city's defensive cannons turned around and bombarded the city. In the blink of an eye, the Liao cavalry that had entered the city suffered heavy casualties.

Although the town had fallen, the war had only just begun. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers gathered and dispersed erratically within a trench network spanning nearly a hundred miles.

The silver-haired woman felt a chill run down her spine as she looked at the densely packed small outposts before her. The million-strong Liao army now faced over a thousand firing positions.

She felt that from that moment on, the war was being fought in a quagmire.

The Liao general was still using giant crossbows to demolish the city walls, but he had deliberately slowed down the pace. Each of these giant crossbow bolts cost hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, and the crossbow cart needed to be repaired and maintained every twenty bolts fired, which amounted to small mountains of silver.

The Left Wise King stood with his hands behind his back, his face ashen. When he first heard that Wei Yuan had gone north, he had wanted to meet this rising star of the human race and see what kind of skill Wei Yuan, who had routed the millions of soldiers of the Wu tribe, possessed, and what kind of legendary feats he could create that would be remembered for generations to come.

But he never expected that from the very first battle, Wei Yuan would simply hold the line and wear down the enemy, endlessly holding the line and wearing down the enemy, every day's battle was a mess. And this messy war lasted for more than half a year. Now, having finally managed to break through the tortoise shell of Zhencheng, he was facing an even bigger messy war.

Countless Liao cavalry charged into the human camp, but no matter how agile the Liao horses were, they could not defend against the flying arrows from all angles, nor could they avoid the crisscrossing trenches on the ground. Every now and then, the horses would stumble and fall into the trenches, followed by a hail of bullets and iron pellets.

The Liao cavalry that charged into the position were wiped out in the blink of an eye. The centurions and chiliarchs who were commanding at the front shouted for the knights to dismount, take up their crossbows and shields, and jump into the trenches to fight the humans hand-to-hand.

The human camp was like a swamp, and countless Liao cavalrymen were heading deeper into it.

While the north was ravaged by war, a hundred thousand troops, consisting entirely of cavalry and mounted infantry, had been assembled in the Azure Sky. The army was divided into two hundred units of five hundred men each. Each unit commander carried a magical sword materialized by Zhang Sheng, which allowed them to communicate directly with him.

Zhang Sheng stood on a chariot, her graceful figure ethereal. Without her making a move, each captain naturally knew their destination, route, and arrival time.

Hundreds of squads scattered in a flash, like a stampeding herd of beasts, disappearing into the earth. Zhang Sheng, on the other hand, moved with the chariot troops.

On the western lands, the Zhao army was slowly marching north when suddenly alarms sounded, and enemies appeared from all directions!
(End of this chapter)