Chapter 772
Chapter 772
“Move the crates to the top of the walls!”
As Xue Che gave the order, one hundred crates of poison gas vials were carried to the top of the walls. The moment Shen Lang's army approached the walls, they planned to hurl these vials down and wipe out the Nirvana Army. Until the crates were moved, the defenders of Nanzhu City all remained hidden behind the walls, out of sight. This was Xue Che. He was a man who would stop at nothing, every move he made a lethal trap designed to drive his enemies to their doom.
So, did Shen Lang have a way to counter Xue Che's poison gas vials? An antidote? He did not. Even Xue Che didn't have one, so it was impossible for Shen Lang to possess it. Fudao Mountain had an antidote, but it was for treating those already poisoned; an immunity elixir simply didn't exist. Therefore, if those poison gas vials were dropped and shattered on a massive scale, the Nirvana Army would surely be annihilated this time.
* * *
Shen Lang's Nirvana Army advanced over countless corpses, drawing closer to Nanzhu City. The five thousand warriors of the South Sea Sword Sect were all dead, but ten thousand defenders still remained inside the city. Soon, they were only two hundred meters from the base of the walls. From that distance, the Nirvana Army drew their bows, preparing to shoot down the enemy soldiers on the walls. Staring at Shen Lang with a cold expression, Xue Ding's eyes were filled with cruelty.
“Take cover!”
At his command, all ten thousand defenders ducked behind the battlements, keeping their heads down and giving the Nirvana Army no targets. Of course, in such situations, one could kill the hidden enemy by forgoing direct aim and instead loosing a volley of arrows into the sky, letting them rain down like a storm behind the battlements. The drawback, however, was the extremely low accuracy of such a tactic.
“Husband, I sense a fatal danger.”
Shen Lang nodded at Mulan's words.
“Continue the advance!”
The Nirvana Army resumed their march in an orderly fashion. Only a hundred meters now separated them from the city walls. The new heir, Xue Ding, continued to glare coldly at Shen Lang. As the Nirvana Army drew closer, his pupils constricted.
‘Come, Shen Lang, bring your Nirvana Army closer. The moment you reach the base of the walls, I will hurl these poison vials and kill every last one of you. I will make you wish for death even if you survive.’
Xue Ding had witnessed the effects of this poison; it was truly a product of hell. Once inhaled, it felt as though the inside of one's nose and trachea were being scorched, constantly bubbling before eventually rotting away. In an instant, the lungs would seem to cook, and within an hour at most, the poisoned individual would certainly die. One victim Xue Ding had seen had their eyes swell to more than twice their normal size, with up to five blisters forming before bursting, holes appearing at the corners of their eyes from which blood streamed down.
As has been said time and again, the Xue Clan never fought conventional battles, facing their enemies head-on.
‘A little closer, Shen Lang. Bring your Nirvana Army just a little closer.’
However, when they were about eighty or ninety meters from the wall, Shen Lang's Nirvana Army halted and advanced no further. It was still too far to kill them by throwing the poison vials. These weren't grenades that exploded, but vials that had to shatter on impact to release their contents. The warriors of the South Sea Sword Sect could have thrown these vials several dozen meters. But ordinary soldiers lacked that kind of throwing distance.
But at that moment, Shen Lang's army drew their bows, nocking special arrows. Furthermore, a rather crude-looking small vial was tied to each arrow. What was inside those vials? The Grade-Two Corpse Gu Worms. He had captured three vials of them; wasn't it time to put them to use? The quantity was small, but it was enough to kill many. The disciples of the South Sea Sword Sect had taken an immunity elixir, but Shen Lang believed it was unlikely the Xue Clan's private soldiers had done the same. After all, Fudao Mountain's immunity elixir was not so common that all of them could have taken it.
*Fwish, fwish, fwish, fwish.*
The Nirvana Army fired their arrows in a high arc, and the volley traced a curve through the air before descending upon the city wall. Xue Ding was aghast.
‘W-What is this?’
*Crash, crash, crash, crash.*
The next moment, the arrows fired by the Nirvana Army landed on the wall, and the vials tied to their shafts instantly shattered against the ground. Immediately, a thick green smoke billowed out from them, and upon seeing it, the color drained from Xue Ding's face.
‘Grade-Two Corpse Gu Worms? Why does Shen Lang have these too? Could it be that the three vials taken by Yan Nanfei's fleet ended up in Shen Lang's hands? That's too much of a coincidence.’
As he thought, it was indeed a great coincidence, but not entirely so. The three vials had been in Xue Fan's possession. When the great tsunami struck, he had instinctively clung to a log, and he had hidden them inside that very log. Such a precious item should not be kept in a box, as people tend to assume that anything in a box is valuable. Hiding it inside an ordinary piece of wood would not attract any attention. However, after the pirates rescued Xue Fan, they found a clue that something was hidden in the wood and discovered the three vials.
As soon as the Gu poison arrows fired by Shen Lang's Nirvana Army shattered, countless Gu worms burst forth, creating a toxic mist that enveloped the men on the ground. Moreover, the defenders' armor wasn't fully sealed, so the worms easily found their way into eyes, ears, noses, and mouths. They swiftly attacked the mucous membranes, burrowed into capillaries, and began to greedily devour blood, dividing and multiplying before spewing out a potent acid. And then, a hellish scene unfolded.
“Aaargh!”
Horrific screams followed as most of the Xue Clan's soldiers began to rot, starting from their faces and spreading across their entire bodies. The sight was as terrifying as looking upon the demons of hell themselves. They thrashed about madly, rolling on the ground, while Shen Lang's Nirvana Army continued to fire volleys of arrows into the air.
*Fwish, fwish, fwish, fwish.*
More Gu worm arrows landed and burst, and the number of Xue Clan soldiers poisoned by the Gu steadily increased. It was a scene of turning the enemy's own methods back against them. Suddenly, one of the soldiers afflicted by the Gu poison, unable to bear the immense pain, slammed his head with all his might against one of the crates on the wall.
“Aaaaargh!”
He used his last ounce of strength to lift the crate and bring it crashing down on his own head. Despite this, the crate thankfully didn't break, but as the soldier lost his grip, it tumbled to the hard ground and burst open, the poison gas inside instantly spreading to the surroundings. A yellow toxic fog enveloped an area of several dozen square meters, and screams even more horrific than before echoed through the air.
“My eyes! My nose! My mouth!”
The soldier screamed before coughing violently and vomiting yellow blood. His death from the poison gas was even more gruesome than those who had been afflicted by the Gu worms.
* * *
The moment Shen Lang saw this, the hair on his head stood on end.
‘Poison gas... To think the Xue Clan had poison gas as well! And that's a lethal gas, far more potent than the primitive gas bombs I created. Was this also made by Fudao Mountain? Hah, since it's come to this, you of the Xue Clan can enjoy all this poison gas for yourselves.’
“Change arrows!”
At Shen Lang's command, the Nirvana Army switched to another type of special arrow. They first lit the fuses, then fired them in a high arc into the air.
*Fwish, fwish, fwish, fwish.*
Another volley of arrows rained down upon the wall.
*Boom, boom, boom.*
The arrows all exploded; it turned out that a small explosive charge was tied to each one. However, their power was limited. Shen Lang's intention wasn't to kill more people with these small explosive arrows, but to use them to detonate the crates of poison gas on the wall. But his plan did not succeed easily. The gunpowder he had made was simply too weak.
“Husband, let me do it! Big Dummy, bring me a mast!”
A moment later, Big Dummy came over, shouldering a twenty-meter-long mast, and lifted it high. With a light leap of her beautiful body, Mulan jumped onto the mast and quickly scrambled to the very top. The mast she climbed was taller than the city wall, giving her a clear view of the poison gas crates placed behind the battlements. Mulan immediately drew her bow, and a heavy arrow shot from the powerful bow, flying straight toward a crate.
*Fwish.*
The arrow struck the crate like a bolt of lightning.
*Crack!*
The crate burst open, and poison gas spewed out from within.
“Agh!”
The area for dozens of meters around the crate turned into a living hell. Driven to the brink of fury by this turn of events, Xue Ding pointed at Jin Mulan and shouted.
“Shoot Jin Mulan down!”
The Xue Clan warriors frantically shot arrows at Mulan, but it was all in vain. Mulan had an incredible ability to sense danger and was extremely agile, allowing her to easily dodge all the arrows.
*Fwish, fwish, fwish, fwish.*
Her successive shots easily burst open every crate of poison gas, and the fearsome gas spread in all directions, mercilessly slaughtering the defenders.
“Get those poison gas crates out of here now! All martial experts, shoot down Jin Mulan and Big Dummy! Use fire arrows to burn that mast!”
At Xue Ding's command, the remaining Xue Clan soldiers grabbed the poison gas crates and fled for their lives. But just then, the color suddenly drained from Mulan's face. She stopped shooting, leaped from the mast, and landed beside Shen Lang. Shen Lang was greatly surprised.
‘What on earth happened to make my wife look so alarmed? We were slaughtering the enemy so smoothly, it couldn't be going better. Why did she suddenly stop?’
After landing, Mulan ran frantically to Shen Lang's side, instantly embracing him and covering his ears as she whispered.
“Husband, an earthquake is coming!”
Shen Lang was stunned.
‘An earthquake? But why didn't Mulan predict it sooner? Last time, with the great undersea earthquake, she foresaw it long before it happened.’
“This one happened suddenly, without a long buildup of energy in the earth's crust.”
On the wall, Xue Ding was also greatly surprised by Jin Mulan's abrupt actions.
‘What's going on? Why is Jin Mulan acting like that?’
And in the next instant.
*Ruuuumble...*
A deafening roar ripped through the sky, and then the ground split open with massive fissures as heaven and earth began to shake. Another great earthquake had struck.
*Ruuuumble...*
The buildings of Nanzhu City began to collapse, and the section of the wall right at the epicenter of the quake was mercilessly torn apart.
*Crash, crash, crash.*
The remaining crates of poison gas were thrown about by the shock, either being crushed or bursting open all at once, releasing a mad torrent of toxic fumes.
Now, a true hell on earth had descended upon Nanzhu City. Countless people in Nanzhu City died, either from the poison gas, swallowed by the fissures rent open by the earthquake, or crushed by massive falling stones.
It was as if some great cataclysm had befallen the heavens themselves. Why were great earthquakes striking this region one after another?
A quarter of an hour later, the surroundings finally grew quiet. Surveying the scene, the front wall of Nanzhu City had been torn asunder by the earthquake, leaving a massive breach, and the ten thousand defenders of Nanzhu City had been all but wiped out.
‘Is... is this the heavens trying to destroy our Xue Clan?’
And just like that, Nanzhu City, the longtime stronghold of the Xue Clan, had completely fallen.