Chapter 679: I Have to Charge In
The forces of the South Camp Eight Great Kings stirred.
It was the dead of night, the hour when humanity's defenses were at their lowest, their eyelids heaviest.
Even modern folks, seasoned veterans of sleepless nights, would struggle to keep their eyes open at such an hour.
The South Camp Eight Great Kings, choosing this precise moment for his night raid, felt victory was already more than half secured.
Ten thousand rebel soldiers advanced, each clenching a copper coin between their teeth.
This was a "masterstroke" the South Camp Eight Great Kings had gleaned from "Romance of the Three Kingdoms," confident it would render his men silent. Yet, as they marched out, he quickly discovered his grave miscalculation.
The rebel soldiers, copper coins notwithstanding, could still speak.
“Damn it all,” the South Camp Eight Great Kings grumbled. “That 'Romance of the Three Kingdoms' truly led me astray!”
The South Camp Eight Great Kings continued, copper coin still firmly lodged, “This lying book! You can clearly speak with a coin in your mouth. Look at me, I'm speaking perfectly fluently right now.”
“Precisely, precisely! This isn’t the General’s fault,” another agreed fervently. “It’s those authors, just churning out drivel!”
“Our General, speaking so clearly with a coin in his mouth, it’s truly a divine skill!” yet another exclaimed. “Only the General possesses such talent! He is the greatest!”
Suddenly, the South Camp Eight Great Kings frowned, a realization dawning. “Wait,” he muttered, “can’t all of you do it too?”
The subordinate went silent, unable to offer a coherent reply.
And so, with their dubious whispered exchanges continuing, the rebel soldiers crept forward.
They first moved eastward, looping around to the eastern side of Wenxian County, before carefully and stealthily creeping closer.
The moonlight was stark, providing just enough light to see a few dozen feet ahead. Beyond that meager reach, however, stretched only a formless, inky black.
In such low visibility, arquebusiers were effectively useless; there was nothing to fear, absolutely nothing to worry about.
One rebel soldier, trudging along, suddenly felt a prickle of unease. “General,” he whispered, “the bushes beside us just rustled twice. It felt like some peculiar creature was moving alongside us.”
The South Camp Eight Great Kings scoffed, “A peculiar creature? How peculiar could it possibly be?”
“Palm-sized,” the soldier replied, his voice barely a murmur. “Very small. I only caught a fleeting black shadow before it darted back into the undergrowth. Couldn’t get a clear look.”
“Palm-sized, you say?” the South Camp Eight Great Kings dismissed. “A rat, then. What else could it possibly be? Stop being so damn paranoid; the dead of night is precisely when rats scurry out to play.”
The rebel soldier, who had been on the verge of investigating the rustling bushes, had no choice but to press onward after the rebuke.
Concealed in the undergrowth, the Little Heavenly Lord, Li Daoxuan's avatar, finally poked his head out from behind a giant fern leaf. “Hmph!” he scoffed quietly.
Moments later...
Ahead lay Gao Family Village’s meticulously planned ambush zone.
The ambush hadn't been set directly at the city gates, but at a calculated distance away. The reasoning was simple: once rebel forces reached the city walls, they would naturally form ranks and meticulously ready themselves for battle.
However, still some distance from their target, the rebel soldiers would be at their most relaxed, their guard down.
They would never in their wildest dreams have conceived that their enemies from within the city would advance to this midpoint to spring a trap.
Li Daoxuan instantly shifted his consciousness, transferring into the small silver-thread Heavenly Lord statue pinned to Chen Yuanbo’s chest. In a voice audible only to Chen Yuanbo, he murmured, “You may begin!”
Chen Yuanbo secretly rejoiced. He quickly straightened his posture, his voice firm. “Issue the command: begin the operation! Operation code name: 'Eliminate South Camp Eight Great Kings,' abbreviated as 'Gan-Nan.'”
Fan Shangzheng, standing beside him, looked utterly bewildered. “Begun?” he stammered. “Have the rebels arrived already?”
Chen Yuanbo nodded decisively. “They’re here,” he affirmed. “Right within that profound darkness ahead.”
Fan Shangzheng pressed, “How in the world do you know the rebels have arrived? This official hasn’t seen a single one, nor any torches, nor heard a sound! It’s absolute pitch-black out there.”
“A secret military method!” Chen Yuanbo declared with a knowing smile. “It’s called ‘Night Cry Communication.’ Those bird calls you just heard were messages relayed back from our scouts.”
Fan Shangzheng was utterly thunderstruck, bowing in admiration. “I have served as an official for many years,” he confessed, “and considered myself broadly knowledgeable, yet I never imagined such a method of communication existed in this world. Today, my eyes have truly been opened! Though,” he added with a slight cough, “that operation code name of yours, ‘Gan-Nan,’ might just invite some trouble from the people of Gannan.”
The moment Chen Yuanbo’s command was issued, a soldier swiftly moved. Clutching a fire starter, he jogged to a shallow ditch just outside the city walls. He struck the flint, sparked the starter, and flung it into the trench with a practiced flick of the wrist...
“BOOM!”
A searing flash of fire erupted from the ditch, then tore rapidly forward along its length, a blazing serpent uncoiling across the ground.
It was then revealed that the engineers had previously dug this very ditch, lining it with dry grass and dousing it liberally with lamp oil. Now, ignited, the oil blazed furiously, its flames racing along the trench and spreading rapidly forward.
The firelight flowed like a fiery stream, branching ahead into two separate currents of flame, which then split again. In mere moments, a vast expanse of the battlefield was starkly illuminated by the fire from the trenches.
And right in the heart of this now-blazing zone stood the South Camp Eight Great Kings and his unsuspecting raiding party.
The rebels stood utterly stunned. One moment they were creeping through the dark, the next, two fiery dragons roared towards them from the front, then flames erupted all around—on the ground, everywhere! The sudden conflagration turned night into blinding day.
The rebel soldiers scrambled back, desperate to distance themselves from the fiery trenches.
The South Camp Eight Great Kings recoiled, a terrible understanding dawning on him. “An ambush!” he bellowed, his voice raw with fury. “Our night raid plan has been exposed!”
Before his roar had even faded, the surrounding darkness erupted with the crack of arquebuses.
“CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!”
From their concealed positions in the woods surrounding the ambush, the arquebusiers unleashed a volley.
The inferno illuminated the rebel soldiers with unforgiving clarity, allowing the arquebusiers to pick them off from a considerable distance. In stark contrast, the rebels, bathed in the glaring light, peered into the black abyss beyond, seeing absolutely nothing.
The enemy stood exposed; they remained hidden.
Swathes of rebel soldiers crumpled, struck down by the relentless fire.
Some desperately drew their bows, hoping to retaliate, but how could they strike back at an enemy they couldn’t even see? Their arrows flew wildly into the impenetrable darkness, utterly without aim.
Others, brandishing swords, yearned to charge into the woods for close-quarters combat with the arquebusiers. But after sprinting for a considerable distance, they found not a single enemy, only to be struck by a shot and collapse, lifeless, to the ground.
From the distant shadows, Fan Shangzheng watched the rebels as though they were actors spotlighted on a grand stage. He saw them shriek, collapse, and stumble aimlessly, utterly disoriented, unable to even discern their cardinal directions.
“Utterly satisfying,” Fan Shangzheng couldn’t help but marvel, a grim smile playing on his lips. “To unleash such a pummeling on the rebels, it’s truly a sight to behold.”
Just then, Hero Xiao, who had been seated motionlessly nearby, engrossed in his practice of the Ice Soul Condensing Qi Technique, abruptly rose to his feet.
His sudden movement made Fan Shangzheng jump. “Oh, Hero Xiao!” he exclaimed, startled. “You’re finally awake? You missed quite the spectacle just now, what a shame, what a shame.”
Li Daoxuan chuckled softly. “No matter,” he said, “what comes next will be even more thrilling.”
With a swift, almost ethereal movement, he drew a gleaming sword. “You all remain here,” he declared, his voice firm. “I must go and charge in.”
“Ah? Your... your Excellency?” Chen Yuanbo stammered, caught off guard.
Li Daoxuan offered a wry smile. “The South Camp Eight Great Kings is currently fleeing for his life,” he explained. “Arquebusiers would find it difficult to capture him, as their effectiveness lies in ranged attacks. Leaping from cover and rushing into the fray to seize someone is inherently perilous. Therefore... I shall handle this personally.”
Sword held casually in one hand, he strode purposefully forward, breaking into a determined run.
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