Stealing The Heavens
chapter-56

While grabbing Lu Chengfeng with one hand, Wu Qi continued leaping in midair. Both his eyes were staring straight at the fragments of flesh and bones that were shooting in their direction.

It was an assassination again, and it was the same cruel approach of a suicide attack. The two 'assassins' who had just self-exploded should be the personal guards who grew up together with Liu Suifeng, the one who followed him here. Since Liu Suifeng was dead, their existence had become meaningless. That was the reason why they sacrificed their life and launched a deadly blow at Wu Qi and Lu Chengfeng.

Poisonous shredded meat, broken bones, together with a huge amount of pungent, stinking blood of black color was coming their way. Wu Qi took a deep breath with full composure, throwing Lu Chengfeng to his back while stretching another arm forward in a slapping motion.

70% of his innate water energy had gathered in the center of his palm. A sharp whistling noise suddenly came from the surrounding air as an invisible vortex was forming quickly. The surrounding water element energy was crazily drawn into this vortex. Gradually, a misty vortex with the diameter of nearly ten feet made its appearance in front of Wu Qi. All the fragments and poisonous blood produced from the self-explosion of two assassins were instantly absorbed by the vortex and compressed into a ball with the diameter of a few feet.

Using the Hand of Web to absorb, he then spat them out with full strength. Like a bomb that suddenly exploded, broken flesh and bones instantly shot back from where they came at top speed.

Ten blade energy beams were shot up from the ground, blocking off every single direction of retreat for Wu Qi and Lu Chengfeng. They were emanating a shivering energy, so sharp that they even started to penetrate Wu Qi's body from afar. Although these blade beams were still a dozen feet away from Wu Qi, they had made him feel a prickling sensation all over his body. Ten twisted, vague, black figures were following closely behind these blade beams, dashing towards Wu Qi and Lu Chengfeng. Their cold, merciless eyes were staring straight at Wu Qi, portraying a brutal and determined look of never stopping until they reached their goal.

Countless broken bones, shredded meat, and poisonous liquid came fast in their way. They impacted on the blade beams and repelled them. These then continued on their way and hit right onto those black figures, impaling their close-fitting protection cloth and causing splashes of blood to reach their body.

A muffled boom rang through the air. Wu Qi was knocked flying away for over two hundred feet high up into the sky by the powerful impact force that exploded from those ten blade beams. A tremendous force penetrated through his palms and came into his body, shook his meridians in both arms and caused them to keep vibrating. Fortunately, from his entire body, both his arms were the part with the most abundant innate energy, and the part with toughest meridians and strongest force. Thus, even though he felt a severe pain in them, he actually didn't suffer any injury.

Instead, all his internal organs were badly shaken by the tremendous force that came through his arms, and all of them consequently suffered a mild injury. Wu Qi opened his mouth and spat out a mouthful of blood. Without hesitation, he circulated the innate water energy from the water meridians into the meridians in other parts of his body, using it to nourish the injured internal organs. The once painful internal organs were now covered by a layer of refreshing and cold energy. The pain quickly faded away, and the mild injuries had been taken care of.

Ten black figures, who used a strange method to travel and come out from underground, let out a shrill and miserable howl at the same time. Thick white smoke was seen rising from their body, sending forth a smell of bone and flesh melting which could turn one's stomach. They were struggling and twisting desperately on the ground. Within the time of few breaths, they were all killed by the poison.

Wu Qi landed forcefully on the ground. As the injuries on his internal organ hadn't fully healed, he staggered his feet and nearly fell. Zhang Hu hastened his pace and supported him from his side. In a hurry, Wu Qi shouted with a stern voice, "All men retreat back to the city! Shut all the city gates and defend! Those who panic will be punished with death!"

With an unsightly expression, Lu Chengfeng led everyone and quickly retreated into Little Meng City and shut the worn-out city gate. A few pale-faced city guards pulled up the suspension bridge outside of the city gate at top speed. Amidst the creaking noise, the suspension bridge of Little Meng City, which was less than twenty feet long and possessed not much of defensive strength, was slowly pulled up.

Upon hearing the order of Ma Liang, all six thousand soldiers of Yulin Army pulled out loaded strongbows from a large leather bag mounted on the side of their Crocottas. The shape of this strongbow looked exactly the same as the nine-bolts crossbow, yet it was three times bigger. It was a weapon the Lu Kingdom made specifically for all the elite army men directly under them, the 'Nine Cloud Piercing Strongbow'. The power of it was at least double that of the nine-bolts crossbow used by the private guards of those rich and influential families.

All the cavalries of Yulin Army raised up the Nine Cloud Piercing Strongbow at the same time. As Ma Liang raised his right arm and waved forcefully down, the trigger of all strongbows was pulled together. A loud twanging sound burst through the scene as a dark cloud was seen soaring up into the sky above these cavalries. More than sixty thousand pure steel bolts were shooting up into the sky at top speed, piercing through the distance of about two miles before turning their head down towards Little Meng City.

The rain of pure steel bolts had totally blanketed the city wall from this direction. These were pure steel bolts falling down from a high altitude. If there were only one or two of them, Wu Qi would still have the courage to stand up against them. And if it was seven to eight, he could dodge them with ease. However, these tens of thousands of bolts were falling down like a dark cloud, and even Wu Qi was frightened by them. He cried and hurriedly fled down from the city wall.

Wu Qi, Lu Chengfeng, Zhang Hu, Hu Wei, and those newly recruited hanger-ons of Lu Chengfeng, anyone with sufficient cultivation to respond had jumped off the city wall in an instant, standing squeezed up against the city wall. They were standing in the blind spot of the bolts, and it was the only safe place around this part of the city wall.

Two thousand city guards of Little Meng City stood on top of the city wall, staring blankly at the rains of bolts showering down from the sky. They were dumbfounded, and none of them could put up any response. As the whistling noise pierced through the air, the bolts rained down in quick, piercing through the body of these soldiers.

Painful howls kept echoing out from the scene. The city wall was now fully covered with more than ten thousand bolts. A huge amount of fresh blood burst out from countless wounds, like fountains sprinkling water. They immediately stained the entire city wall with a crimson color. The wall made from clay quickly absorbed the sticky, warm blood slowly but surely, and took a strange tint of soy sauce.

There were another tens of thousands of bolts that fell into the city and landed into the houses of civilian located closer to the city wall. Miserable cries and howls were heard coming from these houses. These bolts were made of pure steel and were heavy. As they were falling down from a high altitude, they carried a huge amount of kinetic energy, which was capable of piercing through two layers of heavy armor, let alone human bodies, which was much more fragile and weak. Those civilians who were hit by the heavy bolts were all nailed to the ground, and could only howl crazily while waiting for their death to arrive.

A loud boom suddenly rang through the air. A couple of houses had their main supporting pillar broken by the rapid fire of heavy bolts, causing the three floored town houses to collapse with a loud boom. Dust rose to the sky as the entire Little Meng City was filled with noises of crying and yelling. Using his powerful innate energy Ma Liang let out a deafening shout. It was so loud that every single person in the city could hear his order of mass slaughter.

Lu Chengfeng's face turned deathly pale. Clenching both fists tightly, he shouted out with a stern voice, "Lord Puyang, Princess Yingchuan! If Lu Chengfeng manages to survive today, I'll definitely fight you to the last gasp!"

Wu Qi shouted at him in a low voice, "It is near impossible for them to kill you, but it is a different case for the people of Little Meng City! Zhang Hu, Hu Wei, gather your men. Meng Xiaobai, bring all your uncles from the Meng Village here too. I want everyone to assembly in the Mayor's mansion. There we'll seek the opportunity to break out from this siege!"

Stamping his feet ferociously, Wu Qi cursed and said, "We're not at the same level as the enemy. The only thing we can do is protect all the elite personnel of young master. As for those city guards, we have no choice but to abandon them! Damn it! I need a man to lead the city guards and fight those Yulin Army! If the situation turned unfavorable, at least they have to buy us enough time to retreat!"

Yulin Army had shown their formidable overall strength. With just one round of firing with their Nine Cloud Piercing Strongbows, they had killed more than two thousands city guards. Wu Qi totally had no confidence in fighting this enemy with the city guards, who lacked armors and weapons. Compelled by the situation, the priority would be protecting the elites and right-hand men of Lu Chengfeng, thus sacrificing the city guards. In addition to that, he had to try his best to create an opportunity for this elite personnel of Lu Chengfeng to escape.

Not only did those Crocottas possess a powerful combative strength, their speed in short distance charging was even more incredible. Without a powerful shooter, it was basically impossible for Wu Qi, Lu Chengfeng, and few others to escape smoothly. There must be someone who was willing to sacrifice himself, leading the city guards to cover their back.

Xiaohei jumped out from the crowd and shouted loudly, "Wu Qi, you'll protect young master and retreat. Xiaohei will lead the city guards and fight with them!"

Wu Qi kicked Xiaohei aside and said with a cold smile, "If young master had one hundred men of sacrifice, I wouldn’t care if you wanted to hang yourself, cut your own throat, or jump off the cliff. But as for now, your young master only has a handful of trusted subordinates. Although you wish to get yourself killed, I'm not going to let that happen!"

While rolling his eyes quickly, Wu Qi dragged Lu Chengfeng and brought the group into the Mayor's mansion. He then moved out all the gold bars hiding underneath Lu Chengfeng's bed and had them piled up in an emptied field in front of Mayor mansion. After doing that, he summoned all the city guards remaining in the city and had them gathered on the street. Wu Qi pointed at those gold bars and said loudly, "My brothers, there is someone who wants to make things difficult for young master! These gold bars in front of you are worth two hundred thousand gold coins. Kill them all, and the gold would be yours!"

It was the same old trick of 'generous rewards rouse one’s heroism'. Nevertheless, such trick could always bring an unexpected yet tremendous result.

All the soldiers of city guard had their eyes turned bright. One after another, they raised their weapon high up in the air, threw their head back and let out a thunderous roar into the sky. "Fight to the death! Fight to the death! Fight to the death!"

More than twenty thousand men were shouting the battle cry of 'fight to the death' at the same time. The thunderous battle cry soared high up into the sky and even shook the ground of Little Meng City.

Outside of the city, both Ma Liang and Luo Kedi heard the frenzied roars coming from within the city. It made their expressions change instantly. With such a high spirit, the difficulty for them to breach the city had become tougher. Though they believed firmly that with the force they brought here, it was more than enough to slaughter the entire Little Meng City, but if Yulin Army suffered from too many causalities, how were they going to answer all the parties involved?

Hesitating for some moments, Luo Kedi gave a new order.

Six thousand Crocottas Cavalries were divided into four large groups and surrounded Little Meng City from four directions. The strings of their Nine Cloud Piercing Strongbows had been cocked, and were reloaded with a new bolt.

Dust rose to the sky as a large fleet of coaches moved along the main road and approached Little Meng City. Rushed by Luo Kedi and Ma Liang, over eight hundred men who came together with the coaches began to unload the things carried in the coaches. After working restlessly for some time, they finally assembled eighty peculiar machines.

These machines looked similar to a coffin. They had four wheels installed underneath and could be pulled by men. They were divided into four groups as well, and had surrounded Little Meng City from four directions.

Standing on the rooftop of a tower in mayor mansion, Lu Chengfeng had his face turned pale when he saw these machines.

"That Princess Yingchuan is such a bi*ch. In order to take revenge for her son, she even deployed the 'Mo Machine' which was supposed to guard the capital?"

Wu Qi was pretty amazed to hear Lu Chengfeng, who was a cultured and elegant man, scold a princess with the word 'bi*ch'.

But, what exactly was this machine that made Lu Chengfeng lose his manners?

"What is a ‘Mo Machine'? Are they strong?" Wu Qi asked hurriedly.