Demoness, where are you Fleeing to?
Chapter 835 - 693: Prepare to Die

Chapter 835: Chapter 693: Prepare to Die

After the explosion, Li Xuan’s royal flag and banner were also subjected to a heavy rain of fragmented rocks.

However, at Li Xuan’s location, with the blood and military might of hundreds of thousands of soldiers condensed, and seven strands of Dragon Qi taking the form of ’Jiao Dragons’ spiraling and dancing around him, the stone rain was repelled midair.

The shockwave sweeping in from the direction of the city walls parted before the royal flag and banner, diverting to both sides.

Zhang Yue, witnessing the extensive collapse of the city wall before him, couldn’t help but open his mouth wide, unable to close it for a long time.

"It actually collapsed?" A thrill of excitement he couldn’t contain spread across his face, "This is truly divine!"

He couldn’t help but be excited, for subduing the Xiangwang Manor signified that the authority of the current new Emperor and The Court would be even more stable.

The defeat of Prince Xiang and Prince Ning was enough to deter all those with wolf-like ambitions throughout the land.

Zhang Yue and his family had inevitably tied their fate to Li Xuan, sharing both honor and disgrace, success and failure.

His father, Earl Huaiyuan Zhang Zhong, had recently been appointed to an official position, named as the Zongbingguan of Guangxi by The Court.

This was undoubtedly Li Xuan’s doing. Although military appointments above the third rank required the consensus of eight regent ministers, or a court promotion, as the ’Dadudu of five armies’ and ’Chief Fuzheng Minister,’ Li Xuan wielded enormous influence over military appointments.

Therefore, the stronger and more stable the imperial court, the more prosperous the house of Earl Huaiyuan would be.

"With this city breached, peace will come to the land!" Ao Shuying, standing beside Li Xuan, couldn’t help feeling joy mixed with confusion, "But it seems that methods of breaching cities like yours have been tried by others several hundred years ago, more than once, yet no one has ever succeeded."

She knew that not only had Li Xuan used a great amount of gunpowder this time, but also filled it with tens of thousands of Explosive Flame Characters, and even employed nine Annihilation Cores passed down in secret from Longhu Mountain. It could be said that the materials were plentiful.

Yet in fact, some predecessors used even more materials. During the era of Emperor Tai of Jin, a famous general attempted to breach a city by placing ten annihilation bombs beneath the city walls, each bomb thrice as powerful as an Annihilation Core.

However, the result was a near success but ultimately a failure; the city wall stood unscathed, whereas the tunnel where the explosives were laid collapsed, killing and injuring over a hundred artisans who could not escape in time.

Li Xuan’s response, however, was quite mundane. He shook his head slightly, "It’s not enough to simply bury the explosives; they need to be properly sealed. Those predecessors likely failed because their sealing was inadequate."

In fact, there are other issues to consider, such as positioning, the amount of explosive loaded, and the shape of the chambers, as well as waterproofing. Given that the city of Xiangyang is near a river, the tunnels they dug were extremely damp, even leaking water.

But the key issue was still ’sealing.’ If the sealing wasn’t done properly, the explosive gases would escape from the weakest point, failing to affect the city walls.

This world’s city walls are not only exceptionally sturdy, but also constructed of huge blocks of iron-like stone, further fortified by Arrays inside them.

If the blasting isn’t done properly, even a nuclear bomb would hardly shudder them.

Only precisely calibrated directional blasting could destroy them.

"Sealing?" Ao Shuying pondered and then showed understanding, "That’s why you said that after this battle, all the city walls in the world would become obsolete."

She smiled slightly, taking some pleasure in the misfortune, "I heard that Prince Yi Yu Jianshen has been conscripting commoners around Xi’an, using materials provided by Jinque Palace, and in these two months, he’s built hundreds of miles of defenses, including a six-zhang-high wall that stretches across a hundred and twenty-seven miles. Won’t all that now have been pointless?"

"You can’t say completely pointless," Li Xuan’s lips tipped up slightly, "However, the effectiveness of that wall will probably not meet their expectations."

At this moment, most of his attention was on Dasiming.

As the rain of fragmented stones in the sky ceased, Jin Army from all three directions roared a thunderous, earth-shattering, cloud-piercing cry.

Although the majority were briefly deafened by the recent explosion, this did not hinder their following actions.

At this moment, everyone was flushed with excitement and surging with passion.

They could no longer hear the instructions of the generals around them, but they instinctively charged forward, like crazed wolves.

Except for the forty thousand soldiers of Shenji Camp perched atop the high platforms and the twenty thousand Liaodong Cavalry reserved at the rear, the tens of thousands of Jin soldiers clad in dark armors, surged like a tide toward the breaches in the three city walls.

At this very moment, the formation of the advancing Jin Army had already become unmanageable.

And yet, their martial spirit was even more concentrated and turbulent than when they used to form up, culminating in three massive pillars of blood that soared between heaven and earth.

This caused the Jin forces on all three sides to be irresistible, transforming into a red tide that engulfed everything!

Any attempt by the Prince Xiang’s army inside the city to resist was immediately flattened and swept away in an instant. They were as vulnerable as ants before a torrential flood!

At this time, not much resistance could be mustered within Xiangyang City either.

Most of Prince Xiang’s forces had been stationed on the walls or hidden within ’Hidden Soldier Caves.’ With the resonating booms that shook the earth, most of these elite soldiers were also buried beneath the rubble.

What remained of Prince Xiang’s army, though still numbering over a hundred thousand, were largely terrified and demoralized, their morale and fighting spirit completely crushed.

Some were trampled into mud by the surge of the onslaught; others ran off in disgrace, discarding their armor and shields, and hid in the nearby dwellings.

Only an extremely small number of Prince Xiang’s soldiers managed to escape into the inner city of Xiangyang.

However, at this moment on the ramparts of the inner city of Xiangyang, the son of Prince Xiang, Yu Qiyong, with blood streaming from his seven orifices, watched the scene before him near hysteria, "Impossible! This cannot be possible. My father spent 1.5 million taels of patterned silver on these city walls. Not to mention that so-called ’Annihilation Core,’ even a heavenly level expert couldn’t have brought it down in a single strike."

After the explosive blast, Lord of Baihu Palace, Shi Tianze, immediately deduced that the outer city wall could no longer be defended. Therefore, he quickly wrapped Yu Qiyong with his mana and rescued him to this location.

But Yu Qiyong couldn’t believe it even at this moment; he suspected he was in a dream.

The defenses of Xiangyang’s city walls were complete, as solid as bedrock, and could even withstand direct hits from more than a dozen heavenly level masters. How could it have collapsed suddenly? How was it even possible?

Lord of Baihu Palace, Shi Tianze, also doubted whether he was dreaming. He was a famous general of Han descent from the early years of the Mongo Era and took part in the Battle of Xiangyang.

Back then, with the help of the color-eyed people, he had tried to blow up one of the military forts on the outskirts of Xiangyang. But the result was only that some of the Zhao soldiers in the fort were stunned, while the fort itself, which was only one li in circumference, remained unmoved.

So although Shi Tianze knew that the Jin Army was digging tunnels, he never considered this possibility from the beginning to the end.

However, it was clearly not the time to investigate the causes. He turned to Dasiming with an extremely ugly expression, "Great Dasiming, this inner city certainly can’t be defended; the fall of Xiangyang City is imminent, with nothing left to rely on. We need to consider retreating."

From the corner of his eye, Lord of Baihu Palace, Shi Tianze, glanced toward the ’Zhengfan Xiantian Beidou Stars Array’ in the sky and his face twitched slightly.

Previously, they were puzzled about what County Prince Li Xuan of Fenyang aimed to achieve with his arrangements.

But now he knew; it was a trap all along!

Actually, even if Xiangyang city was intact, they would have to consider breaking the Array, sending some of the heavenly experts back to Jinque Palace quickly, to prevent others from taking advantage of Heaven Palace.

But with Xiangyang under siege, they were pushed into an even more perilous situation.

The ambition of County Prince Li Xuan of Fenyang was so greedy and vicious that it sent chills down the spine.

This foe was not just content with blocking and restraining them here; he clearly intended to trap and annihilate all the people from Jinque Palace within the ’Zhengfan Xiantian Beidou Stars Array’!

Dasiming also realized the severity of the situation, "Can this inner city last until dawn?"

She had just weighed the pros and cons and remembered that at this moment, the person protecting the Nine Palaces was her most accomplished disciple.

Others might betray, but only this disciple would never turn against her.

Therefore, the core Array hub of Heaven Palace should be fine; the target was mostly likely East Island.

East Island was home to all sorts of exotic treasures and magical instruments accumulated by Jinque Palace over the years, including those recently sent from beyond the skies after the Heaven Gap opened, which all together were worth more than 1.2 billion taels of patterned silver.

But as the saying goes, "choose the lesser of two evils," compared to this vast wealth, the many heavenly level experts she brought to Xiangyang were the true foundation of Jinque Palace.

They could only hold their ground here until dawn when the ’Venus Star’ would appear in the sky, and the power of the heavenly stars would greatly diminish.

The lethality of the ’Zhengfan Xiantian Beidou Stars Array’ would decline by nearly half, making that the perfect opportunity to break out.

"It probably can’t be defended."

Lord of Baihu Palace, Shi Tianze, shook his head. Although he was a well-known general of the Mengyuan Era, in such a situation, he was like a skilled woman who could do nothing without rice.

And it was at this very moment that noise suddenly erupted from the eastern gate of the inner city.

When Shi Tianze looked over, he saw a Canjiang-dressed officer unexpectedly slaughter all of Prince Xiang’s soldiers who were trying to close the gate, catching everyone off-guard.

As he killed and stopped the city gate from closing, he shouted, "My lords! Prince Xiang poisoned the Crown Prince before, and now the son of Prince Xiang has committed treason. The crimes of Xiangwang Manor are notorious and heinous! Now that The Court’s army has entered the city to eradicate the traitors, follow me if you do not want to die!"

"Courting death!"

With a hum of rage, Dasiming immediately pointed remotely and directly ordered the man’s death with the law of Lvling.

It was then that she heard a great Dragon Roar.

A figure carrying seven golden Dragon Qi appeared before the city gate.

The Rule of Extreme Heaven by Dasiming was also split and cut off by a force of the same level.

There stood County Prince Fenyang, Li Xuan, looking coldly and remotely at Dasiming, "Are you the master of Jinque Palace? Are you ready to die?"

In that instant, the force of ten thousand Jin Army soldiers condensed into a giant white tiger, pressing down upon Dasiming with overwhelming force, causing a huge wave of Yuan Qi to burst between them.

Amidst the massive tremors, Li Xuan, with the Liuli Haoqi as his core, enveloped by Dragon Qi and the brilliant light of an invincible army, had already lunged towards Dasiming with a dazzling knife visibility shining in his hand.