Chapter 2168: City Defense Battle! (IV)
Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
The people had been extremely enthusiastic about this recruitment drive. As the Great Tang’s War Saint and Supreme Marshal, Wang Chong was not one to just sit back and ignore all these excellent recruits.
The Hell Wheel!
This was the name of the formation used by Wang Chong’s forty thousand soldiers, one of the top-class formations of the apocalyptic era. In terms of strength, it could enter the top four, but unfortunately, it was not ranked amongst the top ten formations.
The reason was very simple. The Hell Wheel had very rigorous requirements. It needed thirty thousand soldiers at the very minimum, and all of them needed to be heavy soldiers that possessed prodigious levels of strength.
But in the apocalyptic era, the strength of the continent had been greatly reduced. It was simply impossible to gather thirty thousand elite heavy soldiers.
As it was impossible to use and verify, it could not be ranked.
The ten formations of the apocalyptic era had all been used in real battle.
Now that the Great Tang was at its apex of power and had an abundant supply of soldiers, Wang Chong was finally able to gather enough soldiers and realize the Hell Wheel.
The Hell Wheel, the wheel of hell!
This army was placed at the entrance to the steel fortress, making it none other than the gates of hell.
Wang Chong used this to let the alliance know that when they entered the range of the steel fortress, they would be walking through the gate of destruction!
Wang Chong slowly raised his right hand and said, “All soldiers, prioritize destroying the shield carts!”
“Yes!”
A messenger swiftly departed.
Though the Hell Wheel was formidable, for Wang Chong, Su Hanshan’s ballista army remained his most powerful and terrifying asset. Once the shield carts were destroyed, Su Hanshan’s ballista army would once more be usable, and the enemy side’s fatalities would accelerate.
Through this war, Wang Chong wanted to let all the other countries know that the Great Tang was not a country that could be offended lightly. To carelessly challenge it, one had to be ready to pay a most gruesome price.
Horses neighed and weapons clashed, and the screams of the dying merged together into a wail that resounded throughout the battlefield.
At this moment, the forty thousand soldiers were unstoppable.
The alliance army had originally believed that it would be able to easily take care of the forty thousand Tang soldiers now that order had been restored to the front, but to their shock, the situation had not changed at all. But when it seemed like their vast army would be held down by the forty thousand Tang soldiers forever, that their losses would continue to climb, a new development occurred.
“Out of the way!”
A furious roar swept over the battlefield in a wave of sound. A moment after this explosive wave of sound, the earth began to rumble with the pounding of hooves.
Whoosh!
The center of the alliance army parted, allowing a force of several tens of thousands of cavalry seething with killing intent and cold energy to charge out, the soldiers arranged in a special formation.
Bang!
Some of the alliance soldiers were slow to react, and one of them ended up being struck by a hoof. The explosive force from this incidental collision instantly sent the soldier flying through the air.
At the location of the hoof’s impact, the armor had crumpled inward.
Meanwhile, the horseman continued at the same speed as if he had run into a leaf.
Roooar!
A Tang captain in front of the steel fortress spotted this and instantly paled, his eyes narrowing.
Strong!
Very strong!
This force of cavalry coming out of the rear had a mountain-toppling momentum that was far above that of other cavalry.
This was an elite force!
Roooar!
The several tens of thousands of cavalry moved in unison, and as they accelerated, the energy above their heads condensed, upon which a roar that was half-human and half-beast resounded through the world.
A moment later, the space above this army began to shift, and then a sinister world appeared, a landscape of bone piles and rivers of blood in which the countless ghosts wailed. And in the depths of this world, a black river raged.
On this surging black torrent floated countless bodies and limbs.
This was a sight that could strike terror into any heart.
The Underworld Cavalry!
This was a special force that An Lushan had secretly trained.
Zhang Shougui originally had the elite Roaring Tiger Army under his command, but the Roaring Tiger Army had been too loyal to Zhang Shougui. An Lushan could not trust them, so in the war of the northeast, he had arranged it so that the Roaring Tiger Army was wiped out.
And if a large faction did not possess a special force like the Roaring Tiger Army or Divine Martial Army that could go one versus ten, or even one versus one hundred, it would never be able to stand tall in the world. Thus, once the Roaring Tiger Army was gone, An Lushan had to train up another force.
Of course, An Lushan had understood this a long time ago and had made the appropriate preparations.
And the Underworld Cavalry was the result of his patient and silent preparations.
The forty thousand Tang soldiers were abnormally strong. Ordinary soldiers were no good against them.
Only elites could contend against elites!
Clangclangclang!
As the Underworld Cavalry continued to advance, their energy began to shift. With a metallic clatter, war halos and seething black energy erupted from their feet. Their energy began to rapidly rise, and they were soon on par with Wang Chong’s force of forty thousand.
The wind stirred up by the charge of this army battered the walls of the steel fortress, causing those atop the walls to pale.
“Outwardly honest while inwardly treacherous! Everyone underestimated him. That he was able to train such an elite force that excels in all aspects makes this Hu scoundrel a match for any elite general in the world.
“It seems like he stole and put into practice the essence of Brother Zhang’s training methods!”
Wang Zhongsi couldn’t help but sigh.
“Hmph, in the feast of all countries, this scoundrel performed a silly and humiliating dance in the Pavilion of Petal and Sepal, causing all of the officials to laugh at him. But now, it’s hard to say who was the one being laughed at!” Abusi angrily said.
If not for all the officials of the court making this mistake, how could An Yaluoshan have been allowed to strengthen himself, much less be given a chance to join the other countries and rebel against the Great Tang?
Nearby, Zhang Shougui’s face alternated between green and white.
Though Abusi cursed the officials of the court, when it came down to the details, he was the true ‘initiator of evil’, the ‘archcriminal’.
If he had not been so conceited and so trusting in his mistaken judgment, things would have never reached this point.
From a certain perspective, he was the architect behind today’s situation.
But this very fact only made Zhang Shougui angrier.
Beast! No matter what, I’ll end your life myself and end this mistake, Zhang Shougui mentally swore, his fists clenching so hard that his fingernails bore into his flesh and drew blood.
“King of Foreign Lands, the enemy seems powerful. Should we withdraw the army? There’s still time!” Wang Zhongsi said in his deep and mellow voice. He had not seen Zhang Shougui’s reaction, as his eyes were focused on Wang Chong.
Forty thousand heavy infantry had killed nearly two hundred thousand of the enemy army, and the casualty ratio was one to forty. This sort of result was truly astonishing. Even if they retreated now, they had already reached their goal of damaging the enemy’s morale.
“No rush!”
Wang Chong was completely unperturbed, his face calm.
“It is not yet the time to retreat!”
Wang Chong spoke in a flat tone, but his voice seemed to be overflowing with confidence.
The three Great Generals were all taken aback by Wang Chong’s words. When infantry was pitted against cavalry without any sort of advantage in terrain, infantry suffered heavy losses. But it seemed that Wang Chong believed that these forty thousand soldiers were enough to deal with the several tens of thousands of Underworld Cavalry!
However, there was no time to think, as a heaven-shaking roar came from the front.
“Careful!”
The forty thousand Tang soldiers realized that something was going on and quickly adjusted their information to counter this new threat.
Three thousand feet!
One thousand feet!
Six hundred feet!
The distance shrank at astonishing speed as the thundering of hooves filled the air.
At this moment, the Tang soldiers and alliance soldiers were both drawn to the imminent clash of these two elite armies.
The battle had barely begun, but the elite forces on both sides had already begun to clash. This pace was far faster than had been anticipated!
“Tear them apart!”
In the distance, Cui Qianyou and Tian Qianzhen kept a close and cold eye on the battle.
In any era, when soldiers were of equivalent strength, the cavalry charge would always surpass infantry. Most importantly, the original idea behind the Underworld Cavalry was to use them against the Roaring Tiger Army in case their plan failed and they needed to fight with Zhang Shougui.
The Underworld Cavalry’s hypothetical enemy had been the Roaring Tiger Army, and their training method had used the training method of the Roaring Tiger Army as its reference.
As for the power of the cavalry charge…
Back in Youzhou, Cui Qianyou and Tian Qianzhen had tested it out and found that a single Underworld horseman bolstered by halos and traveling at maximum speed could blast through a tough and dense slab of Xuanwu Stone that was as tall as an adult man, and it could also leave a large depression in a three-foot-thick slab of refined iron.
Though Wang Chong’s infantry wore thick suits of armor, these could not be thicker or tougher than a three-foot-thick slab of refined iron!
Thus, even though the Underworld Cavalry was facing the world’s supreme War Saint, facing forty thousand soldiers with some sort of powerful formation, it felt no fear!
Neigh!
The six hundred feet went by in the blink of an eye, and the tens of thousands of Underworld Cavalry slammed into the forty thousand Tang heavy infantry.