Chapter 694

Bolhu had faced off against the siege trebuchets before, and naturally knew these siege trebuchets could not be opposed by ordinary Yuan soldiers.

But Yanmen Pass was not only defended by siege trebuchets—it also had defensive arrays.

Thus, despite heavy losses, he gritted his teeth and continued ordering the drummers to beat the drums, forcing the assault to hold.

The bolts fired from the fourteen siege trebuchets rained like a storm, like raging dragons.

As if tearing apart the sky beyond the southern city wall.

Countless Yuan soldiers and laborers perished beneath the bolts of the siege trebuchets.

Watching these soldiers, even the disciples of the Demon Master's Palace, fall and bleed.

Meng Chixing was heartbroken.

He had already lost his finest disciple, Pang Ban!

Here, he could not afford to lose any more disciples of the Demon Master's Palace.

Otherwise, his Demon Master's Palace would surely sink to an even lower position.

"Hah!"

Meng Chixing roared, instantly unleashing his spiritual force, then frantically drawing in heavenly and earthly qi for himself.

A strange thing happened.

The bolts from the siege trebuchets, which had been roaring like furious dragons, suddenly curved midair.

Either guided by Meng Chixing's spiritual force toward himself, where he continuously ground away their momentum with heavenly and earthly qi before shattering them,

Or corrupted by his spiritual force and flung far beyond the battlefield.

At this moment, it seemed as if he alone had intercepted the entire assault of the fourteen siege trebuchets.

Bolhu, witnessing this scene, could not help but exclaim in delight,

"Demon Master, mighty!"

He was the main general of the Western Yuan army and a favored general of the Yuan Khan, Temujin.

His spontaneous cry naturally caused the other soldiers to follow, shouting, "Demon Master, mighty!"

The cry spread layer by layer, reaching nearly every Yuan person on the southern battlefield.

Whether soldier, officer, or laborer, all who saw Meng Chixing's divine display felt compelled to shout, "Demon Master, mighty!"

As these cries of "Demon Master, mighty!" rose, Yuan morale surged.

The assault grew even fiercer.

Yuchi Zhen, watching from below on the ground, could not help but silently marvel.

He thought to himself: had this Demon Master not underestimated him just now,

and struck immediately with spiritual force to disrupt him, then unleashed invisible ice blades in a sudden ambush,

The moment he struck, he used his spiritual anomaly power to interfere with him, then suddenly launched a vicious attack with an invisible ice blade.

Fortunately, this Demon Master had spent too long above, rarely setting foot on a battlefield.

He did not know that in warfare, one must give everything—unlike in Wu Lin, where one must test each step cautiously.

Seeing Meng Chixing temporarily pinned down by the siege trebuchets, Yuchi Zhen exhaled in relief, then led the last four remaining Tang soldiers down the ropes hanging from the wall, returning to Chengguan.

Seeing Meng Chixing temporarily held back by the giant siege crossbows, Yuchi Zhen let out a breath of relief, and with the last four remaining Tang Army soldiers, followed the ropes lowered from the city wall back up onto Chengguan.

Yuchi Zhen was drenched in blood, but had no time to clean himself—he rushed immediately to Captain Chen, who was operating the siege trebuchet, to express his gratitude.

Captain Chen fired another bolt, then handed the trebuchet over to Meng Chixing.

Then he looked at Yuchi Zhen, drenched in blood, nearly a living corpse, and behind him, the four surviving Tang death soldiers, missing limbs yet still standing.

Then he looked at Yuchi Zhen before him, drenched in blood, nearly a man made of blood, and behind him, the four Great Tang death warriors who, though missing arms and legs, had still survived.

"Welcome home!"

501 Vow to perish with Yanmen Pass!

"Welcome home!"

Along the wall, though everyone was occupied with their duties and no one could rest,

At this moment, all of them joined Captain Chen in shouting aloud, expressing from the depths of their hearts their respect for these men.

Amidst the tidal wave of a hundred thousand troops, Yuchi Zhen and fewer than thirty Tang soldiers had dared to sortie and fight against the assault,

buying precious time for the arrival of Datangyan Sect's siege trebuchets.

In the end, Yuchi Zhen, the Tang Lord Sikong and Right Grand General of the Jin Wuwei, was drenched in blood.

The four surviving Tang soldiers were even worse—missing limbs, each wounded.

They seemed as if they had rolled through hell itself before returning.

How could such men not inspire the Tang soldiers' reverence?

If any Tang civilians were present, they would have gone even wilder.

Several soldiers' eyes filled with tears; Yuchi Zhen himself understood why Yanmen Pass was called the Tang's foremost frontier.

"Thank you, brothers. Today, I, Yuchi, swear here: I will perish with Yanmen Pass!"

He was the Tang Lord Sikong, descendant of the famed Duke of E, and in a certain sense, one of the pinnacle figures of the Tang hierarchy.

His declaration stirred countless soldiers' hearts with unyielding, death-defying resolve.

"Perish with Yanmen Pass!"

The four soldiers who had returned with him immediately shouted aloud.

As their cries rose, soldiers around them spontaneously joined in.

The shouts surged like waves, spreading throughout Yanmen Pass.

On the eastern, southern, and northern walls, fewer than five thousand Tang soldiers now shouted in unison.

Upon the eastern, southern, and northern stretches of the city wall, the fewer than five thousand Great Tang soldiers all spontaneously began to roar in unison.

"We will live and die with Yanmen Pass!"

Though they numbered fewer than five thousand, at this moment their cries were mingled with the blood of Tang men.

Their ringing shouts were, surprisingly, no less than the "Mighty Demon Master" roar of tens of thousands of Dayuan soldiers and laborers on the southern battlefield.

Seeing this, Borhu's head ached all the more.

This Tang Army truly lived up to its name as the force that had blocked him for half his life.

Even though they had been replaced countless times, their military soul had endured all along.

With such a military soul present, taking Yanmen Pass this time would indeed demand no small a price.

Fortunately!

Yanmen Pass's defending general, Wang Xiaojie, had left before the battle.

Also fortunately!

At present, Yanmen Pass held only half its garrison.

Otherwise, the difficulty of his siege would have more than doubled!

As both sides' battle cries rang out, the fighting gradually entered a white-hot stage.

Soldiers on both sides ceaselessly shot arrows across the distance; Yuan soldiers even directed the laborers to begin filling in the moat.

The fighting grew ever more intense.

The fourteen giant siege crossbows still roared as they had at first, tearing apart the sky.

But with Meng Chixing present, his formless, intangible psychic power, combined with his cultivation, single-handedly withstood the assault of all fourteen giant siege crossbows.

This made the Dayuan offensive grow fiercer and fiercer.

"Captain Chen, this can't go on, can it? The moat is nearly half-filled already.

Once the moat is filled and the Yuan army presses in en masse, I'm afraid we'll suffer devastating losses."

Yuchi Zhen rested briefly, gave the bloodstains on his armor a quick wipe, then returned to the city tower.

Seeing the battle growing tight, he could not help turning to Captain Chen to ask.

Though he was the commanding general in this battle, he had only just arrived and was unfamiliar with Yanmen Pass's defenses.

Therefore, before the battle he had already handed over all command authority to Captain Chen.

For now, this arrangement was working out well enough.

Under Captain Chen's deployment, though the Yuan offensive was fierce, attacking from three sides at once,

Yanmen Pass still held firm, like a reef amid towering waves.

Captain Chen watched Meng Chixing display his might—surpassing even Bi Xuan of the night before—and could not help sighing inwardly as he replied,

"Lord Sikong..."