Chapter 852
Chapter 852
*Swoosh.*
Before Commander Burke could finish his sentence, his body was cleaved in two. An Amazon general leaped onto the rampart and cut him down with a single stroke. Wielding a war blade that weighed over a hundred pounds, she could easily slice a man in half.
*Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh.*
Every time their arms rose and fell with their blades, enemy soldiers were successively cut in two.
A few minutes later, the battle was over. The two thousand enemy soldiers who had occupied Chunhua Pass were all dead, not a single corpse left intact. The Amazon warriors were merciless to their foes. They either beheaded them, cut them in half at the waist, or split them vertically down the middle.
*Thud, thud, thud, thud.*
Soon, the gates of Chunhua Pass opened, and the Amazon warhorses surged through, continuing their mad gallop southward. However, most of the Amazon warriors didn't go through the gate; they leaped directly onto the walls, then jumped down from the five-meter-high ramparts. Their movements were as fluid as water. Though two thousand soldiers had been defending this six-li-long wall, they couldn't hold back the Amazon warriors for more than a few minutes.
Shen Lang watched this brief battle with great admiration.
“Too strong. Far too strong.”
Princess Dora said to him.
“Your Excellency Shen Lang, I know you’re deeply moved, but please don’t press *that* against me. If you keep this up, I might have to consider wearing thigh armor.”
“Don’t do that. The edges of thigh armor are hard and sharp; you might hurt your legs.”
“If your hand doesn’t leave my thigh, my sword might just cut off your fingers.”
“Dora, aren't you going to be cute like you used to be? You used to touch me of your own accord.”
“You were a woman back then, Lady Rongnana.”
Shen Lang wanted to tell her to just think of him as a woman, but he feared she might actually take a sword and make him one. That would be truly tragic. After breaking through the walls of Chunhua Pass, Shen Lang gave his command.
“Eight hundred will remain to guard this pass and cut off the enemy’s escape. The remaining seven thousand two hundred will advance south at full speed to save Mulan City.”
At Shen Lang’s command, the seventy-two hundred Amazon warriors picked up their pace and charged south, a sight truly like a raging tidal wave.
***
The battle at Mulan City had been raging for three hours. The situation was far more brutal than anticipated. Count Austin had initially estimated around fifteen thousand casualties, but after nearly three hours of fighting, the number had already surpassed that. The Easterners’ thunderous weapons were too powerful, reaping countless lives as if they were the god of death himself. The ground outside the city walls was pockmarked with hundreds of large craters from the continuous explosions, each one filled to the brim with corpses. Most of the bodies were not even whole. Crimson blood stained the earth red. In response, Count Austin and Count Duke hastily repaired a dozen trebuchets to once again try and suppress the firepower from atop the walls.
However, the Easterners in Mulan City braved the danger and used their exploding iron balls, slaughtering the forces of Count Austin and Count Duke once more. Still, accidents were frequent, and dozens of grenades exploded among Mulan City’s own defenders. The result was catastrophic. Over two hundred were killed in the blasts, and several large holes were even blown into the city walls.
This was a war between peoples, a war of honor. The armies on both sides were fired up with an unparalleled will to fight. Despite the immense casualties on both sides, their morale remained sky-high. Under the cover of suppressive fire, the grand armies of Count Austin and Count Duke charged the walls again.
*Boom!*
Explosions erupted across the ground, but they grew more sporadic. The trebuchets inside the city were almost all broken, and it would take at least two or four hours before they could be fired again. Moreover, they had nearly exhausted their supply of explosives. The defending force, originally two thousand strong, had dwindled to less than fourteen hundred. But they still had defensive materials on the walls—logs and stone blocks—and they used these to fight the enemy.
General Nanfeng, the leader of the Eastern Knights, drew his greatsword and roared.
“Thanks to His Majesty’s wisdom and foresight, we were blessed with powerful new weapons. But now that the new weapons are gone, we must fulfill our duty as warriors. We will defend Empress City with our lives! We live and die with Empress City! Long live His Majesty! Long live, long live, long live!”
Count Austin and Count Duke watched the scene from a high vantage point. Count Austin spoke slowly.
“A truly brave army.”
Count Duke said.
“Indeed! But the bravest soldiers die the fastest. The battle will soon be over.”
“Yes. It will be over soon! We’ve already suffered over twenty thousand casualties. But it doesn’t matter!”
*Bwoooooo.*
As the horns sounded, the fourth siege began. Twenty thousand of Count Austin and Count Duke’s troops charged madly toward Mulan City again. This time, their advance to the base of the walls was relatively smooth. The trebuchets on the walls were broken and could no longer be used, and the defenders had run out of grenades.
*Thump, thump, thump.*
Numerous siege ladders were slammed against the city walls, and enemy soldiers swarmed up them like ants. From the ramparts, logs rained down in unison, and the defenders lifted massive stones, desperately hurling them below. Even so, the grenades were too precious; they had to be thrown with all their might only at the most densely packed enemy formations.
*Boom!*
A single grenade instantly claimed about twenty lives, and the battle reached its most fevered pitch.
“Die, die!”
“Kill them!”
***
Inside the City Lord's Manor, Zhang Chunhua listened to the deafening roars from outside and took a sip of fine wine. Hundreds of pounds of explosives were already buried beneath the manor, along with vast quantities of black powder, fish oil, sulfuric acid, and countless secret documents. Once the city fell, the enemy would surely swarm into this manor. When that happened, she would blow it to smithereens, incinerating all secrets and taking hundreds of enemy soldiers with her.
She had worn a gorgeous dress today, even deliberately pulling down the chest part. It was for her own satisfaction, after all. A little cleavage was easy enough to create with some pushing. Listening to the sounds of fighting and killing outside, she knew the final moment was approaching. In half an hour at most, Mulan City would fall, and she would vanish like smoke along with this manor. Reluctantly, she took another sip of wine, then another.
‘I don’t believe it. I refuse to believe this is the outcome. Shen Lang has turned the tide in situations far worse than this. Is this really how it ends? Shen Lang, this city is named after your wife. It doesn't matter if a fortress named after me falls, but can you really stand by and watch Empress City be taken? Are you going to start from scratch again? If you’re going to pull off some miracle, then for fuck’s sake, get a move on. If you dare show up at the last minute to save the day, I’ll piss all over your face. I guarantee it’ll be hot.’
But just then.
*Thump, thump, thump, thump.*
The ground began to tremble. It wasn’t the shaking from an explosion, but a vibration like a small earthquake. A mix of shock and joy on her face, she hurried up the stairs. The manor was four stories high, probably the tallest building here. Wearing her splendid dress, she climbed to the very top and looked far to the north. In the distance, she saw a ferocious wave crashing down from the north.
Shen Lang was here. He was leading an incomparably powerful army, charging toward Mulan City.
***
From their high vantage point, Count Austin and Count Duke saw them even sooner than Zhang Chunhua. Their faces instantly turned pale, unable to believe what they were seeing.
‘Those… those are Amazon warriors? How is that possible? For a thousand years, no one has ever conquered the Amazon tribes, not even the Seirun Dynasty. How did Shen Lang manage it? How large is that Amazon army? Five thousand? Seven thousand? How did he win their loyalty?’
Count Duke and Count Austin knew better than anyone how formidable the Amazon warriors were. They were as strong as a fierce thunderstorm, as a tempest. They currently had ten thousand men attacking the city, with another forty thousand in reserve.
“Form ranks to meet the enemy!”
“Shield formation, long spear formation!”
At the counts’ command, the forty-thousand-strong army swiftly formed up, turning to face north. The massive force transformed into something like a tortoise shell, thousands of huge shields creating a makeshift wall of steel.
“Hah, hah, hah, hah.”
The soldiers panted heavily.
‘They say the Amazon warriors are incredibly strong. We’ll see about that today. Can a few thousand of you really defeat tens of thousands of us?’
“Come on!”
Viewed from above, the forty-thousand-strong army of Count Austin and Count Duke formed ten square formations, stretching for several li like a steel bulwark. In contrast, the Amazon warriors swept down like a tidal wave, devouring everything in their path. Princess Dora was thrilled by the situation. She loved to fight; the more numerous and powerful the enemy, the better.
“Faster.”
The Amazon warriors’ mounts grew inexplicably excited as well. Already charging at a furious pace, they accelerated again, instantly reaching a speed of twenty-five meters per second.
“Charge, charge!”
The Amazon cavalry drew closer and closer to the forty-thousand-strong enemy formation, until they were just a hundred meters away. The world fell into a brief silence, and then…
*Rumble!*
The two armies clashed in an instant, and without any suspense, the enemy lines snapped like rotten wood. The Amazon legion effortlessly tore through the steel formation of the massive army, then proceeded to trample, slaughter, and crush them relentlessly. Wherever the Amazon cavalry passed, the enemy soldiers were ground into meat paste.
“Long live His Majesty! Long live, long live, long live!”
“Long live! Long live!”
A great roar erupted from Mulan City. The soldiers’ morale soared to the heavens. No words could describe the thrill and joy felt by the defenders of Mulan City. Their Majesty had truly returned, performed a miracle, and saved Empress City. Their blood boiling, they threw themselves into the fight with even greater ferocity.