Chapter 1707 - 540: Xia Army’s Defense Strategy, Siege and Coordination (Part 2)

Chapter 1707: Chapter 540: Xia Army’s Defense Strategy, Siege and Coordination (Part 2)

Outside those burning timbers, it was obvious they were all wrapped in a layer of black material. That black material gleamed under the sunlight—it was clearly coal stone ground into crystalline powder.

Coal stone... can that be used for war?

The front-line commanders of the coalition army froze the instant they saw the wall of flame. When they snapped back to their senses, it was as if a door to a new world had just opened in their minds.

"A mere wall of fire, a petty trick, and you dare flaunt it before me, Cai Qiu!"

To the coalition of the two towns, this sheet of fire was naturally highly intimidating, but to Cai Qiu’s group, it seemed a bit underwhelming.

From among the many Xianyang Level experts behind Cai Qiuhu, a tall, middle-aged man shot out. He let out a cold shout, dropped swiftly from the sky, and landed directly at the very front of the coalition army, facing the wall of fire, drawing in a long breath.

That one breath lasted at least ten-plus seconds. His chest swelled high, a faint unnatural blue glow surfaced on his cheeks, and then he suddenly blew toward the flames.

Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu...

A cyan vortex abruptly spewed from his mouth. That vortex instantly swept up the cold air and snow mist within several hundred meters around, flew forward several meters, and transformed into a horizontal tornado that hurtled straight toward the wall of flames.

"Lord Lin, use..."

Cai Qiu’s Deceit Techniques were myriad; hoping to stop them with a single wall of fire was obviously unrealistic. The moment that man began inhaling, Zou Yuankai had already turned to Lin Kai to ask for instructions.

However, Lin Kai did not respond. Only when the cyan vortex streamed out of that man’s mouth did he shake his head and say softly, "No need. I never intended to use this fire wall to block them. It’s still early, there’s no rush."

Great Xia had more than enough tools to counter Deceit Techniques.

But Lin Kai clearly didn’t intend to bring them out so soon.

Boom......

As he rejected Zou Yuankai’s proposal, over there the cyan vortex finally smashed into the very center of the fire wall.

The trenches Great Xia had dug in advance were only for burying coal stone and timber, and only three to four meters deep to begin with. Struck by this violent vortex, the ground was instantly ripped open. The already burning coal stone, wood, and the coal stone below that had yet to ignite, together with the coal powder mixed among them, were all swept to both sides in a flash.

Fortunately, the vortex’s power was concentrated only in the very central area, with a diameter of roughly a hundred meters. Thus the gap that appeared in the wall of flame was likewise only about a hundred meters wide.

Of course, that hundred-meter stretch was more than enough for the coalition army to charge through.

"Kill————"

The coalition force that had just been blocked by the fire wall immediately surged forward again through the gap.

They had already been only thirty to forty meters from the city walls. Passing through the flames and leaping over the trench, they were practically pressed right up against the base of the walls.

"Pour water, don’t let the enemy climb the walls. Longkai, go down, take men and hold the city gate. If it really doesn’t work... then let them in!"

At that last sentence, Li Longkai immediately understood and nodded, then swiftly vaulted down from the ramparts.

"All troops, grip the chains tight, hold the gate."

"Hah!"

The five thousand behind the gate had long since taken hold of the chains, fully ready. At Li Longkai’s command, all five thousand roared in unison, violently wrapping the chains around themselves, then bracing hard against the ground, waiting in stillness for the assault outside the gate.

Clatter, clatter, clatter......

Up on the battlements, at the crenels as usual, the Xia Army soldiers began pouring the thawed running water down along the gaps.

Sizzle......

The extreme cold of the Ice Abyss made it so that uninsulated running water simply could not exist outside. The torrents of water cascading down the city walls froze before they even reached the bottom. The walls, which still had some roughness to them, instantly became slick as glass.

Hiss......

There were no shortage of powerful Cold Resistance Level fighters among the coalition. Though they clutched daggers or other tools to climb, their hands and feet still needed some points of leverage. But faced with these slick, slippery walls, forget leverage—they could barely keep their footing.

They could hardly stand as it was, and the soldiers on the battlements kept hurling boulders and loosing fire arrows down. Under such conditions, getting a Cold Resistance Level expert up onto the walls was virtually impossible.

Bang......

Boulders rolled down from the walls. Though the soldiers all possessed Cold Resistance Level Cultivation and their Skin Membranes and flesh were extraordinarily resilient—getting crushed by boulders wouldn’t kill them—injuries were unavoidable.

Injuries were secondary; the key point was that their attempt to scale the walls had basically collapsed completely.

"They’ve splashed water, the walls are too slippery to climb, and there are fire arrows and boulders. If we can’t get up, we have to break the gate!"

The fire arrows targeted people; the boulders targeted people; even the water streaming down the walls hadn’t stopped yet. With this triple hell of ice, fire, and stone unleashed, the coalition’s morale to storm the city plummeted by half in an instant.

The smarter commanders knew they had to break the gate. The problem was—they didn’t even have tools for breaking it!

The Cloud Ladder for siege operations was pioneered by Great Xia; Jinshan Wuchuan simply didn’t have such things. But they did have giant rams used to batter gates. The issue was, these fifty thousand men were rout survivors, beaten back from the Aikou pass. They hadn’t even managed to bring all their arrows, so how could they still have gate-rams?

Without battering rams, they could only pin their hopes on...

"All of you, out of the way!"

Before the commanders of the two towns could speak, over a hundred figures swooped down from the sky.

The leader was a middle-aged man. He flew to the gate first, cleaving aside the arrows shot toward him with a single stroke. His body flared with yellow light as he suddenly plunged out of midair.

Thud......

His body seemed to become as heavy as ten thousand pounds in an instant. When he hit the ground, he not only smashed out a sizable pit, but the surrounding area for several li even shook briefly. Then with a single lunge, he hurled himself straight at the city gate.