RAT-TAT –
It was not fully light yet, and the mountain pass in front of Jifang City was still cloaked in mist when the ground started quaking.
An experienced general immediately caught on to what was happening. “ENEMIES CLOSING IN! GET READY TO FIGHT–!”
The army of the Great Wen arrived before daybreak, and this time around they were in appreciably larger numbers than they had been during the last offensive. The quake of the ground alone threw the Wan soldiers into panic.
However, the mountain pass was still shrouded in thick fog, and none of the sentries on watchtowers could get a clear view of the enemies. They only had a feeling that there was a sea of them outside the mountain pass!
TOOT – TOOT –
Soon a bulge blared out.
The garrison had mustered already when Chen Jing heard the bugle call, an ugly look instantly appearing on his face. They had not even bothered to send a soldier to inform him!
When he arrived at the ramparts with all haste, the commander of the garrison was already there, flanked by his lieutenants and advisers. Face darkening, he was just about to dress them down when he observed that the thick mist outside the mountain pass still had not dispersed. It was fully light, and theoretically the fog should have lifted. Why was it still so hazy?
Chen Jing knitted his brows, gazing fixedly out of the mountain pass.
As the large army of the Great Wen approached, the Wan soldiers guarding the mountain pass began to have difficulty breathing.
Though aware that this mountain pass was impregnable, troops of the Wan garrison, faced with such a formidable army of the Great Wen, still felt fear sweeping over them in waves in spite of themselves.
There had been once a time when the Wan Kingdom had almost subjugated the Great Yue; if Yuwen Tong’s grandfather had not managed to have his men withstand the attack of the Wan army, if Yuwen Tong, an up-and-coming young general, had not driven the Wan army out of the Great Yue with unstoppable momentum, the Wan cavalry would long since have flattened the Great Yue and subjected it to the Wan Kingdom’s rule, and the Great Wen would not have been founded.
Unfortunately for them, the Yuwen family was destined to be a mortal enemy of the Wan Kingdom. First there had been Yuwen Tong’s grandfather, and then there was Yuwen Tong. The Wan Kingdom had not only failed to annex that richly endowed country but also been losing one battle after another to Yuwen Tong’s army. The shoe was now on the other foot. In a rivalry for world supremacy, the competitors either won or died. In that year the Wan Kingdom had let the opportunity slip away, and now they were facing the danger of being annexed.
But it was no good dwelling on these, for the enemies were almost in sight.
“The weather is not very favorable to us,” commented the commander of the garrison stationed in Jifang City, a frown on his face.
“This is so weird. How come the mist still hasn’t lifted?”
All officers of the garrison were somewhat bewildered by the unusual weather conditions.
After about half an hour, the fog veiling the mountain pass finally cleared, and the soldiers could now see the situation outside distinctly. All of them gasped in alarm at the sight of the enemy.
There were too many of them …
The Great Wen actually had an army of this scale?!
The sea of enemy troops stretched as far as the eye could see and the total number of them seemed to be thrice what it had been the last time they had attacked.
“The North-Western Army led by Jiang Ke and Jiang Xi has joined forces with Yuwen Tong’s army, which is why Yuwen Tong has considerably more men under his command.”
The garrison commander had an apprehensive look on his face. Only yesterday, when the army of the Great Wen had been attacking this mountain pass, he had had a disagreement with Chen Jing, accusing him of exaggerating the enemy’s strength and disparaging their own. Was he going to suffer a defeat on this day which would surely feel like a slap across his face?
No. He couldn’t afford to let that happen. The mountain pass of Jifang City must not fall. He would end up dead if it was taken by the enemy.
The garrison commander clenched his teeth, his eyes raking Yuwen Tong’s army advancing towards the mountain pass. The army had finished mustering before the mist dispersed. Though in significantly larger numbers, they were in the same formation as they had been yesterday. The beat of war drums came from the opposite side and with that the attacks began.
RAT-TAT –
“Eek? Why are they attacking the same way they did yesterday?” said an officer beside the garrison commander in an astonished tone of voice, his face etched with bemusement.
The garrison commander perked up, cocked an eye at the enemies and found that they were indeed attacking exactly the same way they had done the day before. It seemed that their battle plans had not changed at all.
At the sight of this, he was numbly surprised at first, but then he was overjoyed and gave two derisive laughs. “People keep saying Yuwen Tong is an unequaled strategist, but now it seems he’s at the end of his rope. If this is how he plans to take our mountain pass, none of his men will make it out of the battlefield alive.”
“That’s true. Is Yuwen Tong soft in the head? Yesterday his strategy didn’t work, but today he’s doing it all over again. He must’ve exhausted his bag of tricks.”
“They call him the God of War, but it seems he’s unworthy of his reputation. Ha-ha … Lord Chen suggested His Majesty dispatch the northern garrisons south, but the way I see it, that’s totally unnecessary.”
Chen Jing looked coldly at them. He had been a high-ranking officer for many years, and the commanding air he emanated was far more intimidating than that of any of those people, all of whom immediately shut their mouths embarrassedly.
“Do not underestimate him. Yuwen Tong’s reputation is by no means unearned. I’m sure he’s doing this for a reason.”
After Chen Jing said this, a couple of officers inwardly rolled their eyes upwards, taking no heed of his words whatsoever.
Chen Jing, who sensed their disregard for him, was naturally consumed with anger.
At this time, the army of the Great Wen, following the same battle plan they had adopted yesterday, reached the foot of the mountain pass. The Wan soldiers standing guard immediately tensed up and the first salvo of arrows were fired.
…
Ling Zhang was standing not far away from the ramparts of the mountain pass, but none of the Wan soldiers had spotted him. The Illusion Formation had been activated before the fog lifted.
As the activator of the Formation, he was standing at one of the key Eyes of Formation and had been keeping a close watch on each and every move of the Wan soldiers guarding the pass.
With the Illusion Formation functioning, the Wan soldiers were indeed unable to see where Yuwen Tong’s army were actually going. Ling Zhang couldn’t help but heave a sigh of relief.
Now the Formation was in working order, and they had at least an hour to carry out their plans without the enemy noticing!
Yuwen Tong was directing the troops in person. Jiang Ke and Jiang Xi, leading two regiments respectively, covertly moved up to the flanks of the enemy guarding the mountain pass …
At the same time, Yuwen Jin and He Xiao, leading another two units respectively, followed in their wake.
Jiang Ke and Jiang Xi, leading crack troops, secretly climbed up the flanks of the mountain pass and immediately started slaughtering the enemies, clearing the way for Yuwen Jin’s and He Xiao’s men.
Yuwen Jin and He Xiao quickly led their men through the gaps in the enemy’s defenses on the two sides and entered the heights flanking the valley in which Jifang City was located …
Not until Jiang Ke’s and Jiang Xi’s men almost wiped out the defenders in the two positions did the other defenders noticed that something was wrong.
Chen Jing was the first one to detect the strong smell of blood carried over by the wind. The wind was blowing from the east and thus was not carrying the smell of blood from outside the mountain pass to the ramparts, which meant that the only possible source of the smell of blood in the wind was the soldiers guarding the east wing.
“Shit! Someone need to go and check the east wing right away!” cautioned Chen Jing, the middle of his forehead twitching.
The others still had not caught on to what was going on, for there seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary at the east wing.
“Go! You dare defy an order from a superior?!” railed Chen Jing, furious.
It was only then that an officer took some men and hurried to the east wing to help.
Jiang Xi and his men had wiped out the soldiers at the easy wing. Taking advantage of the terrain, they were lying in ambush, waiting for the enemy’s reinforcements to walk into the trap.
As a result, when the assistant garrison commander who had gone to the east wing with some men had not sent any messages back after quite some time, the others, including the garrison commander, began to panic.
“What’s going on? How come he still hasn’t sent us any messages?!”
“Send another backup unit! Now!”
“Commander––We–West wing’s under attack … ”
Right at this moment, a soldier rushed over and reported that the west wing was under attack. The soldier, grievously wounded, appearing to have fled to the ramparts in a great hurry, breathed his last and sank to the ground the moment he finished speaking.
The west wing was on the leeward side, which was why Chen Jing had not detected any smell of blood from that place or found out about it immediately. It was at this moment that he came to know that not only the east wing but also the west wing was in danger, but none of them had any idea when that had happened. They hadn’t even noticed anything out of the ordinary. This was so weird!
“Send backup to the west wing! We must stop them, whatever the cost!” bellowed Chen Jing, who then gritted his teeth.
This time the garrison commander did not dare raise any objections and hastened to have his lieutenant lead a backup unit to the west wing.
Chen Jing twisted his head aside and looked in the direction of the enemies at the foot of the mountain pass. The longer he observed, the more suspicious he was. How come the bodies of enemy soldiers had hardly increased after such a long time? Had their arrows been missing their targets all the time? Impossible – it was a sea of enemy troops down there, and the archers did not need to take aim at all!
“Something’s not right. Why are those hit by arrows not going down?” Chen Jing fixed an unblinking stare at the enemies.
“Your Lordship, those men are moving as stiffly as though … as though they are the undead!” his henchman suddenly exclaimed in horror.
The undead? That kind of creatures did exist? The garrison commander’s face turned ghastly white from fright. Did Yuwen Tong have some non-human soldiers under his command, by any chance?
Chen Jing was also astounded. He had several times fought Yuwen Tong’s army during its northward advance, but never once had he seen any enemy soldiers like this.
“Your Lordship, that master requests an audience with you,” a soldier suddenly reported.
Chen Jing frowned. Why did that Gu master come here at this point in time?
He wanted to turn the Gu master down and had opened his mouth already when he caught sight of those zombielike enemy soldiers and held back the words on the tip of his tongue. Eventually, feeling that the situation was rather eerie, he granted the Gu master’s request.
“This place is too dangerous, master. What is it you want to see me about?” Chen Jing asked the Gu master without preamble.
Unexpectedly, the Gu master directly replied, “I detected smell of blood so strong as though death was descending on this city. I would not live to see another day if I continue my closed-door cultivation.”
“What do you mean?” inquired Chen Jing, the look on his face instantly becoming ugly.
The Gu master walked up to the parapet, glanced down and was shocked. “Why do these men look so eccentric?” he said.
Chen Jing gave him a sketchy account of the events and then asked, “Can you tell what might be at play here, master?”
The Gu master’s countenance changed several times in a row and then, looking resentfully in the direction of the heavily guarded imperial carriage outside the pass in the distance, said, “I’ve never seen any living dead before. There are no such creatures as the undead in this world. This must be some kind of subterfuge of theirs.”
Chen Jing furrowed his brows. “Why have we still not received any messages from either of the two wings?” he suddenly demanded.
All others on the ramparts felt the hair on the backs of their necks rise at these words, cold sweat breaking out over their foreheads.
“Your Lordship! There!” someone abruptly yelled, pointing in the direction of somewhere outside the mountain pass.
Chen Jing immediately turned his head and observed that those “undead” soldiers suddenly started flickering. In addition, their bodies were slowly disappearing as though melting because of the wind …
“Wh–What the hell are those things?!” shouted the garrison commander in terror.
“Those are not men. It’s an illusion. You were fooled,” the Gu master suddenly said. “My grandfather once told me that several hundred years ago, in a previous dynasty, there used to be a Formation genius capable of deploying some kind of Illusion Formation made of images so vivid they looked exactly the same as real objects and creatures; he once projected the image of a whole city onto the Formation, misleading people into believing that the city was real when actually there was nothing there.”
What?
“Th–That kind of thing does exist in this wor–” exclaimed the garrison commander, who was interrupted in midstream by an arrow brushing past his sideburn. More than half of the “enemy soldiers” outside the pass had disappeared into thin air by now, and that arrow would have gone into his eye had he not subconsciously dodged it!
At the foot of the ramparts, the areas where there had hardly been any enemy soldiers a moment ago were now seething with them. Even the outside of the rampart was full of enemies climbing upwards!
Battle cry and the rumble of war drums making the welkin ring suddenly smote their ears. The Wan officers were unable to tell whether those enemy soldiers had just started shouting without warning or some kind of mysterious force that had been keeping them from hearing those sounds had just disappeared, along with whatever it was that had been deceiving their eyes …
“Thi–This can’t be happening! Guards! Guards!” the garrison commander cried out, panic-stricken.
He was in a state of stupor, powerless to distinguish the illusory enemies from the real ones, as though he had not woken up from sleep yet, as though what he was seeing was happening in his dream.
All of a sudden, a sharp long saber appeared out of thin air in front of him and was swung downwards at him squarely. The glaring Saber-light as piercingly cold as upper-air wind abruptly jogged him back to his senses and, flustered, he turned aside dodging the hack, whipped out his saber and parried the next slash almost reflexively but was knocked backwards several paces by the attacker’s powerful internal energy. Before he could regain his balance, the long saber came at him once again!
After several clashes of sabers, the garrison commander, still in a dreamy state, received a ferocious slash in the face which blinded him instantaneously, causing him an excrutiating pain in the eyes. He let out an anguished cry but the next moment an icy cold blade went through his heart, instantly silencing him, and with that he limply sank to the ground.
“Who … are … you?” The garrison commander jerkily asked a question and then breathed his last.
Ling Zhang, who had released his grip on the hilt of his saber, flintily glanced at the body on the ground and then withdrew his eyes.
Bringing this saber with him had been a spur-or-the-moment decision. As he had expected, it was not as handy as his sword.
He turned on his heel. Behind him were his bodyguards who had charged up the ramparts with him. They had surrounded Chen Jing and his subordinates, including that old gray-robed man whom he had heard of on that day but had never seen before.
Ling Zhang’s face went even colder. He whipped out his sword fastened to his belt. “Chen Jing, today your life ends.”
At the sight of Ling Zhang, Chen Jing felt as though he were experiencing once again the pain he had suffered when his ear had been cut off on that day. “You! Who the hell are you?!”
He had fought Yuwen Tong’s army many times, but he had never seen anybody like this man, whose kung fu was consummate, whose eyes were so intimidating that when making eye contact with this man, he felt as though he were being weighed down by a mountain. A top-ranking official in the Wan Kingdom for many years as he had been, he still found himself trying to avoid this man’s eyes in spite of himself!
“I guess there’s no harm in telling you who I am, given that you’ll soon meet your end. I’m Ling Zhang.”
Ling Zhang? Chen Jing was numbly astonished, but the next moment he caught on in shock. “You’re Yuwen Tong’s consort!”
