Chapter 670
Chapter 670
*Swish, swish, swish, swish.*
Without any need for new orders, the three thousand eight hundred soldiers of the Second Nirvana Army continuously drew their bows. They loosed fifteen arrows a minute, an astonishing rate of fire. The dense rain of arrows they unleashed surpassed that of an archery corps of at least ten thousand men. The three thousand private soldiers of the Jin Clan had thought this would surely be the end, that they would all be annihilated. How could they possibly win against an army of fifty thousand? But they had been indebted to the Jin Clan for too long, their families serving as private soldiers for generations. They had no thoughts of fleeing elsewhere; if they were to die, so be it.
Before the battle began, they had considered themselves dead men walking, but now, it seemed they wouldn't even have a chance to fight. Their only job was to continuously bring more arrows. The Second Nirvana Army went through them too quickly. Each man could fire off a full quiver of fifty arrows in the time it took to drink half a cup of tea.
***
A distance of two hundred and fifty meters was immense. It was a difficult range to aim at even with a rifle, let alone a bow. Hitting anything from that far out was purely a matter of luck. So, no matter how far the Second Nirvana Army could shoot, their initial accuracy wasn't high. Each volley of over three thousand arrows killed, at most, a few dozen men.
A few dozen casualties meant little to an army of over twenty thousand. What was terrifying, however, was that the Second Nirvana Army fired relentlessly, without a hint of exhaustion or any decrease in speed. Volley after volley of arrows rained down from the sky as Nangong Ao's twenty thousand troops charged madly toward the fortress. They were armored; as long as they weren't hit in the neck, they would be fine.
But that was wishful thinking. As they charged, the distance to the Second Nirvana Army shrank, finally closing to one hundred meters. At that range, everything became lethal. The arrows of the Second Nirvana Army became terrifyingly accurate. While not every shot was a bullseye, their hit rate was astonishingly high. These were men who had trained in storms and on tempestuous waves. They didn't aim for targets; they aimed for slender twigs. Killing a living person was easier than hitting a twig, even if these people knew how to run.
*Swish, swish, swish, swish, swish.*
The arrow rain transformed into a deluge of slaughter, and the armor worn by Nangong Ao’s army was useless. The arrowheads Shen Lang had crafted were made of pure steel, incredibly sharp. Combined with the power of the two-dan stone bows, thin armor was pierced instantly. Yet, even after being hit, most of them kept running forward. The arrowheads could pierce their armor, but they stopped just short of penetrating deep into their flesh. However, if they were hit at a closer range, death would be instant; even armor wouldn't save them. The Nirvana Army's arrows would easily pierce their armor and embed themselves three or four inches deep into their bodies.
*Swish, swish, swish, swish, swish.*
The rain of arrows fell tirelessly, relentlessly. Nangong Ao's army charged forward with great courage, but their charge had lost all meaning. It was a one-sided slaughter.
‘They shoot, they shoot! We die, we die!’
Almost no enemy soldier could get within fifty paces of the fortress walls; every last one of them was cut down. The closer they got to the walls, the more bodies piled up, eventually forming a grim mountain of the dead.
"Shieldmen, shieldmen, form up!"
An officer under Nangong Ao rode back and forth, constantly directing his troops and sending more men to charge the walls. To think a battle would be fought like this—it was like something out of a nightmare. This army had seen many battlefields and had few shields left. Still, they managed to gather the remaining shieldmen to form a shield wall. The rest of the army hid behind them, which slowed their advance to a crawl, but it was better than being openly slaughtered.
Yet, it was still useless. As they drew closer to the walls, their shields were brutally pierced by arrows. Though the arrows couldn't pass all the way through to kill the men behind, they could still cause casualties. More importantly, the shield formation had gaps. Once they were within thirty meters, the Second Nirvana Army could aim for those gaps.
*Swish, swish, swish, swish.*
Each arrow, like a cunning viper, found its way through the cracks in the shield wall. Then, an even more astonishing scene unfolded. Jin Mulan made her move. The bow in her hands was a composite bow over one hundred and seventy centimeters long. Its strength was impossible to guess. Every arrow she fired was forged from pure steel.
*Swish, swish, swish, swish.*
Arrows shot out like cannonballs, each one weighing two pounds.
*Thud, thud, thud.*
The force was so immense that a single arrow could send a shield flying. The warriors holding them couldn't withstand the impact at all. Some shields even exploded into splinters upon being hit. Despite this, Nangong Ao's army, relying on their shield formation, managed to charge to the base of the fortress walls.
*Crash, crash, crash.*
Suddenly, numerous barrels of fish oil were thrown from above, drenching the shields. A single fire arrow followed, and the shields burst into flames. Being made of wood, they burned remarkably well. Why weren't shields made of iron? They were too heavy, and iron was extremely precious. Almost every shield in this world was made of wood, reinforced with long nails or steel spikes to increase its sturdiness. It was the same method used for wooden shields on ancient Earth.
*Thump, thump, thump, thump.*
More large stones were hurled down from the walls, smashing violently onto the shields. First burned by fire, then battered by rocks, the enemy shieldmen could no longer hold on, and the shield wall collapsed.
"Charge! Charge! If we can get onto the walls, we'll win! Once we're in close combat, their archers will be useless!"
Numerous siege ladders were propped against the walls, and enemy soldiers swarmed up them like ants. But without the shield wall, it was all in vain. At such close range, the arrows of the Second Nirvana Army possessed astonishing killing power, easily shooting the enemy soldiers off the ladders.
*Swish, swish, swish, swish.*
The Nirvana Army shot them down with frenzied efficiency. Their coordination was flawless. One-third of them shot down the enemies climbing the walls, while the other two-thirds shot down the enemies at the base. They divided their targets and fired in perfect unison, maximizing their lethality. They slaughtered and slaughtered. Not a single one of Nangong Ao's soldiers made it halfway up the walls. Below, the pile of corpses grew higher and higher until it became a mountain.
Nangong Ao watched the scene, a furious rage boiling inside him as his entire body turned ice-cold.
‘How long has it been since the battle started? Two hours? How many casualties? Thirty thousand men have assaulted the fortress in waves, and we’ve already lost over a third of them. To kill over ten thousand men in just two hours… how is this possible? Where in the world did Shen Lang find such an archery corps? I’ve never heard of such a terrifying army. They’re nothing short of killing machines.’
The adjutant beside him shouted.
"Grand Marshal, Grand Marshal, we must sound the gongs and retreat! We can't go on like this!"
The situation on the battlefield was on the verge of collapse. The attacking army had given its all but couldn't even climb the walls. After losing over a third of their thirty thousand men, their morale had shattered. If they didn't retreat now, deserters would start to appear, and that would disrupt the formations in the rear.
"Retreat! Retreat!"
Nangong Ao roared the order, his voice raw. A sharp, urgent gong began to sound. On the battlefield, Nangong Ao's army, as if granted a great pardon, immediately turned and fled. The battle to attack the Count of Xuanwu's Estate, which had lasted a little over two hours, came to an end. The fields were littered with the bodies of Nangong Ao's soldiers, a testament to their staggering losses.
No words could describe the agony of Nangong Ao’s army. They were questioning their very existence.
‘Why? Why is this happening? Before, when we were the army of Yue attacking the Qiang, we were beaten to a pulp. Now, we've surrendered to the Qiang to attack Yue, and we're getting beaten to a pulp again. Jin Clan, if your army is this incredible, what were you doing before? If you had been on the Southern Ou battlefield, we wouldn't have been so utterly defeated.’
And yet, while the casualties in this battle were horrifyingly high, it wasn't a gruesome fight. Because there had been no close-quarters combat, very few soldiers had shed blood, and there were no severed limbs. A single arrow wound doesn't cause much bleeding before death. Moreover, in the relatively confined space, surrounded by their own comrades, the sheer number of casualties didn't feel so devastatingly real. It was only when they retreated that they saw the ground was covered in mountains of corpses. And as they fled, an even more terrifying nightmare began. They had shown their backs to the Second Nirvana Army.
*Swish, swish, swish, swish.*
Atop the fortress walls, the Second Nirvana Army fired without a hint of fatigue. They continued to shoot with the same mad frenzy as before the retreat, reaping the lives of the enemy. During this retreat alone, they ruthlessly shot down several thousand more men.
***
After suffering immense casualties and with most of their army decimated, they returned to their camp, only to be met with an even more infuriating sight. Several hundred people had walked out of the Count of Xuanwu's Estate. They had opened the gates and strolled out with a shrug.
‘Damn you, our grand army is besieging your fortress, and you just walk out the gates? Can’t you show your enemy some respect?’
Why had these several hundred warriors of the Jin Clan come out? They had come to collect arrows. The battle had lasted less than four hours, but at least several hundred thousand arrows had been fired. The expenditure was enormous. The battlefield was now covered in arrows, sticking out of the enemy corpses like porcupine quills. As they collected the arrows, they cursed fiercely.
"You sons of bitches, couldn't you have run on open ground? You stepped on our arrows and broke them all."
‘Damn it all. Can’t you watch where you’re going when you run? Haven’t you ever learned not to be picky about your path when you’re panicking?’
Nangong Ao's grand army was only three hundred meters away, yet these few hundred men leisurely collected bundle after bundle of arrows, loaded them onto carts, and transported them back into the fortress. Nangong Ao's army could only watch the scene, feeling an unparalleled sense of humiliation.
‘Should we charge in and cut down those few hundred scoundrels? No, that’s impossible. Those bastards shoot too accurately.’
And so, tens of thousands of men could only stand by and watch as a few hundred men casually picked up trash on the battlefield.