Chapter 118: Cylinder

Thousands upon thousands of Servants howled as they charged the City Wall. The red-coated Roving Bandits followed behind the Servants, splitting into groups of several dozen and aiming their bows at the Battlements where the attack was focused.

Several cannon blasts sounded from the wall, white smoke billowing into the air. Amid the tide of Roving Bandits, it was nearly impossible to tell if they had hit anything.

The tide of Servants reached the base of the wall. Countless bamboo ladders were raised. Push-poles thrust out from the Arrow Crenels, and the two sides began another contest of strength. The Roving Bandits holding the ladders howled hoarsely, desperately shoving the bamboo ladders forward.

Some bamboo ladders were angled more steeply, not using Hooks to latch onto the Battlements but bracing directly against the outer wall. This way, the wall top could not push them away, but climbing up would be more difficult. Once a bamboo ladder was steady, Servants gripping Short Blades began scaling it.

Behind the bamboo ladders came Servants carrying tables. The tables were very heavy, with something spread on top of them. They arrived a little later than the ladders. Over a hundred tables were successively placed flush against the base of the wall.

The Long Family overseeing the battle shouted, "One man, two bricks, and you can return to camp to sleep in comfort, with food and drink!"

Amid the shouting, the Servants scrambled under the tables and began using iron picks and iron chisels to dig out the wall bricks. Many had no iron tools and held only a sharpened wooden stick, stabbing desperately at the gaps with the point.

A Gong sounded from the wall top, and a thunderous Battle Cry erupted. Countless defenders flashed into view at the gaps in the Battlements. Medicine Crossbowmen loosed Crossbow Bolts at the Servants coming up behind. Stones and Grey Jars rained down. The Servants beneath the bamboo ladders raised Shields to fend off the stones. Those that struck the tables produced booming thuds.

Beneath the wall, the twang of bowstrings vibrated. Arrows flew at the Battlements like a swarm of locusts, so dense at the Arrow Crenels that they collided in midair. The clanging of arrows striking the Battlements was incessant. Arrow shafts that snapped against the wall bricks clattered down, landing on the tabletops below.

The Community Soldiers doing the throwing were occasionally struck in the face, vanishing from the Arrow Crenels with miserable screams, but more Community Soldiers always appeared to take their place.

Xiao Wazi led a Team of red-coated Child Army soldiers, standing twenty paces from the City Wall. Two bamboo ladders lay on the ground before them. Most of them had no bows. A few Servants held door planks in front, blocking the Crossbow Bolts shot from the wall. Two Child Army soldiers who had bows stood on either side of the door planks, loosing arrows at the wall from time to time.

Xiao Wazi stood between the two door planks, with nothing in front of him to block the view. The scene of the City Assault unfolded completely before his eyes.

The Servants crouching under the tables shouted frantically, their hands ceaselessly prying at the gaps in the City Wall. The moment a single brick came loose, it would spark a brawl among several people nearby, all fighting to snatch it.

The stones the wall top dropped, braving casualties, smashed onto the tables, yet most failed to penetrate. The stones barely bounced; they stopped dead with a muffled thud. The stones that had wreaked havoc on the eastern wall yesterday posed almost no threat to the Servants using tables today.

Xiao Wazi was not surprised, because these tables had all been reinforced last night. They were at least two layers of wood planks, and some were even butcher blocks used for chopping meat. After years of repeated pounding, the density of those blocks had become immense, allowing them to better withstand impact. There was also a layer of earth on these tables, and atop the earth was spread a layer of water-soaked Cotton. The Cotton provided both fire protection and cushioning. This made the tables very heavy, but it also greatly enhanced their defensive power. Ordinary-sized stones could do nothing against those tables.

The wall top then hurled down batches of Lime Pots. The pottery jars shattered upon landing, white lime dust billowing everywhere. Visibility beneath the City Wall became blurred. The Servants under the tables coughed violently, but it was not enough to drive them away. They persisted in digging out the wall bricks.

On a bamboo ladder nearby, a Servant was climbing. His clothes were tattered, and he clenched a half-broken Waist Saber between his teeth. He was already nearing the wall top.

Xiao Wazi stood outside the wooden planks, tilting his head back to watch that Servant. A Medicine Crossbow bolt whooshed past his right arm and struck the door plank. Xiao Wazi did not even glance at it.

A dark, burly Child Army soldier beside him bellowed, "Xiao Wazi, you're leading us today. Don't let anyone else snatch the First to Ascend merit."

Xiao Wazi watched that Servant intently and said, "He's about to die."

Just as he finished speaking, that Servant's upper body leaned over the wall top. His right hand drew his Sword, his left grabbed the upper edge of the Battlement. Just as he prepared to leap onto the wall, several furious shouts erupted from above. Several Polearm heads viciously stabbed into his chest. The Servant screamed miserably. The broken Sword in his hand feebly hacked twice at the spear shafts.

The Polearm tips withdrew. The Servant lurched to the right and plummeted straight down from the wall, landing prone beneath it without the slightest sign of life.

"Told you," Xiao Wazi said. He walked back between the two door planks, sat down, took out a Tobacco Pipe, lit it with his Tinder Pouch, and watched while puffing away.

The loud-voiced Child Army soldier from before said to Xiao Wazi, "You're leading the troops. When exactly are we going up? The master did say, if you're First to Ascend the wall, you can become a Long Family."

"Still early," Xiao Wazi said. His bright eyes fixed on the lime-dust-choked area beneath the wall. "It's not 'First to Ascend the wall and become a Long Family.' It's 'First to Ascend the wall and survive to become a Long Family.'"

"Aren't you going to avenge your brother?"

"You have to be alive to get revenge. Dead, you avenge nothing."

"Then how long exactly do we have to wait? I'm itching to kill someone."

Xiao Wazi exhaled a puff of smoke, calm in a way utterly unlike a youth. "There are too many Corvee Soldiers here. Going up a bamboo ladder is just death. We wait for them to dig into the wall."

As he spoke, a Servant burst out of the lime dust cloud, clutching two wall bricks to his chest. He sprinted back to the Long Family's side and threw both the wall bricks and the iron chisel onto the ground.

The Long Family handed over a bamboo tally. The Servant took it, overjoyed, and ran back toward the Camp Stockade without looking back, waving that bamboo tally the whole way. No one stopped him.

The Long Family waved a hand, and another Servant grabbed the iron chisel and charged to the base of the City Wall.

By now, the bamboo ladders were successively leaning against the City Wall. Some battle-hungry Long Family began climbing the wall themselves. Most of them carried round Shields, constantly probing at the Battlements. The Polearm soldiers at the Arrow Crenels, fearing arrows, dared not step forward to thrust and could only defend from inside the wall, attacking only when they saw a head emerge. The fighting at the tops of the bamboo ladders gradually intensified. Several Roving Bandits were climbing a single ladder, and the Servants below grew denser and denser, shouting encouragement, hoping the Long Family would reach the wall top.

Shouting continued on the City Wall. Someone was constantly calling out some kind of numbers. Long Spears were shifting toward the bamboo ladders. The attacks from the wall top at the digging section noticeably lessened; the stones and Lime Pots being thrown were decreasing.

The wall top began lighting Straw Bundles and pushing them down. The Straw Bundles, trailing dense smoke and flames, hit the ground and splashed up showers of sparks. The Roving Bandits below dodged frantically. The wall top followed up by hurling down Fire Bottles and more Straw Bundles, spreading the flames.

The crowds beneath some bamboo ladders were dispersed. The bamboo ladders were scorched and ignited in the flames. Under more bamboo ladders, Long Family were overseeing the battle. Servants braved the stones, using long-shafted weapons to push the Straw Bundles aside.

At the bamboo ladder positions, the fighting was fierce and thick smoke rolled. The attacks at the wall-digging section grew fewer and fewer. After the first brick was pried out, the speed steadily increased. Servants who dug out wall bricks ran out in an endless stream. The pile of bricks on the ground behind them rapidly grew. A second Long Family led a team over, preparing to relieve the first. Servants began arriving with iron spades, shovels, and similar tools, ready to start digging into the Rammed Earth.

Several Servants set fire to two nearby thatched huts. The dense smoke blanketed a section of the wall top. Coughing erupted above, and the volume of thrown objects decreased further.

That dark, burly Child Army soldier was getting worked up watching this. He paced back and forth excitedly in front of the door planks and shouted, "Xiao Wazi, there are fewer people on this section of the wall. If we set up a ladder and go up, we're sure to make it."

Xiao Wazi slowly stood up. The Child Army soldiers around him urged him on incessantly, but Xiao Wazi remained silent, just staring intently at the smoke-shrouded wall top.

A dark, black object appeared at an Arrow Crenel in the wall-digging section. For a moment, Xiao Wazi could not even tell what it was.

The archers behind fired volley after volley. Over ten arrows shot toward that black object simultaneously, striking it with loud clangs and scraping off many small black fragments before glancing away. Not a single one penetrated.

Only then did Xiao Wazi see clearly: it was the bottom of a black wok. Someone was holding up a black wok and leaning out to observe beneath the wall. They must have detected something unusual about this section of the City Wall.

The black wok paused for a moment. Dozens of arrows could do nothing against that round, curved object. In fact, many that hit it had their arrowheads snap off.

Xiao Wazi's mouth opened in a delighted grin. It was the first time he had ever seen anyone use such a thing during City Defense, and he had never imagined it would be so effective.

A bout of shouting came from the wall top, followed by white smoke rising. At the nearby Arrow Crenels, Straw Bundles were being hoisted onto the Battlements. The white smoke gradually turned into bright flames.

"They're going to burn people," Xiao Wazi said, sitting on the ground and resting his Tobacco Pipe on his knee.

The Long Family overseeing the battle shouted an order. A group of Servants wielding the kind of pitchforks used for tossing hay in villages charged forward. The archers behind launched a volley of attacks. Arrows whooshed into the Arrow Crenels, striking the Straw Bundles and kicking up clusters of sparks.

The Straw Bundles were pushed down, landing on the tables and blazing fiercely. They failed to ignite the water-soaked Cotton blankets. The Servants beneath continued their frenzied digging. Only in Two Places did they fall beside the tables, the flames scorching the Servants underneath. Cries for help rose from below. Several men with pitchforks rushed up, hooked the Straw Bundles, and tossed them aside, leaving them to burn on their own.

After a moment, two more black woks poked out from above. Another volley of arrows was loosed. This time, one Light Arrow pierced through a wok bottom. A miserable scream came from inside, and it quickly retracted. The other wok withstood the arrows, paused for a moment, and then retracted, having clearly completed its mission of observing beneath the wall.

Above, Long Spears could be seen shifting, and then someone shouted loudly, "Fire Thunder."

Xiao Wazi listened carefully. They were indeed shouting "Fire Thunder." He Turned Around and went back behind the door planks, this time only sticking his head out.

The entire section of the wall fell silent for a moment. Only at the bamboo ladders did the desperate fighting continue. Suddenly, a series of furious shouts erupted from above. Over a dozen round cylinders trailing sparks were first hurled from this section of the wall top. Their landing point was not straight down, but several paces out.

Two Servants who had just gotten their two bricks emerged from under a table. They did not see those cylinders and ran straight toward the Long Family.

"Take cover!" Xiao Wazi shouted to the Child Army soldiers, pressing himself tightly behind the door plank.

A flash of fire. The dozen or so objects exploded almost simultaneously. Over ten thunderous booms erupted in quick succession. Dense white smoke instantly swallowed the two Servants. Atop the white smoke, a red headscarf flew high into the air.

Xiao Wazi's ears rang. He could not hear a thing. That explosive roar was even louder than the loudest firecrackers during Spring Festival.

Two Servants burst out of the white smoke. One pitched straight to the ground. The other, his hair disheveled, stumbled two steps forward and then collapsed to his knees. He knelt there blankly for a moment, then dropped the bricks in his hands and let out a harrowing, miserable howl.

A wave of howls came from within the dense smoke beneath the City Wall. It seemed the Servants digging at the wall had also suffered casualties.

Xiao Wazi watched nervously. From his experience following the Roving Bandit army in City Assaults, the most terrifying thing was Gunpowder weapons. Tongcheng's cannons were much the same as elsewhere — all locally made, crudely manufactured Small Cannons. Not only were they weak, but once you reached the base of the wall, they were basically useless. But the things being thrown down now looked very much like Thunderclap Bombs or something similar.

The Servant before him had a face covered in blood, with some sharp black objects embedded in it. His clothes were already torn, seeping patches of bloodstains. He knelt on the ground, letting out inhuman, piercing screams. His hands ceaselessly felt over his body, yet pulled away the moment they touched. No especially severe Injury could be seen, yet he seemed to be wounded all over his body.

Beside that man lay a cylinder that had not exploded. Xiao Wazi looked closely and saw that the cylinder body was made of paper, shaped like a large firecracker, as thick as a grown man's calf. A bamboo tube with a hole had been added on top as a cap, probably to protect the fuse.

Screams came from outside the door plank. Xiao Wazi stuck his head out to look. That dark, stocky Child Army soldier was clutching his face, rolling ceaselessly on the ground, streams of blood seeping through the gaps between his Fingers.

"Drag him in!" Xiao Wazi howled toward the side. Several Child Army soldiers ran out from behind the door plank.

At that moment, another round of shouts came from the city wall. Under Xiao Wazi's gaze, a section of the bamboo ladder launched out dozens of cylinders, which fell among the dense mass of Servants below the wall.