Chapter 705: Night Assault

Tong Mo gestured for Yan Baoru to sit, then took a seat across the tea table with a sigh. "The situation has truly left me no choice. Only then did I trouble Master Yan to come lend this old man a hand. I..."

Yan Baoru raised a sleeve and cut him off, her voice pleasant. "Grand Minister Tong, your steward has already explained what you want. It is not that I, Yan Baoru, refuse to give you face, but with two states at war, what difference can my little ability make?"

Tong Mo hurriedly said, "Master Yan is too modest. Your spiritual power is boundless..."

Yan Baoru raised a hand again. "Grand Minister Tong, don't make things difficult for me. The three major sects of Song are full of experts. I cannot afford to provoke them. If I involve myself in something like this, the three major sects of Song will never let me go. They will hunt me until I am dead. States fight one day and make peace the next. Today's enemies can become tomorrow's allies, changing sides faster than one turns the page of a book." One slender finger tapped the volume on the table. "Grand Minister Tong, I truly cannot afford to play games like yours, and I genuinely do not dare offend the three major sects of Song. Still, since you personally asked, there is one thing I can promise. If the city falls, I will do my utmost to keep you safe."

Tong Mo wanted to speak but stopped himself. He had hoped to ask this woman to use her formidable cultivation to disrupt the enemy's offensive and preserve the capital, which in effect meant preserving his own power.

But Yan Baoru had already made herself this clear. Pressing further would be excessive, and he could not force her in any case. In the end, he had no choice but to let the matter drop. Having someone protect him at the critical moment was still better than having no one, and with an expert like her at his residence, he could at least set his mind at ease.

...

Once darkness fell, the Song army launched another probing assault.

At the height of the fighting, a figure suddenly shot into the air from among the attacking troops. A surging wave of auroral radiance burst around him, an astonishing phenomenon invisible to ordinary eyes and visible only through a cultivator's Dharma Eye.

A figure also shot up from the city tower and released the same dazzling radiance.

The first cultivator sent forth a blaze of light. A phantom sword appeared in the void, poised to slash down upon the city wall.

Anyone with sufficient discernment could tell at a glance that someone in the Song army had activated a Heavenly Sword Talisman. The attacker meant to use its overwhelming destructive power to break through Yanjing's broad, solid walls and open a path for the Song army into the capital.

The second cultivator likewise activated a Heavenly Sword Talisman. His phantom sword slashed toward the Song cultivator instead.

The Song cultivator hovering in midair was startled and immediately drove his own sword phantom forward to block.

Boom!

Thunder split the sky. Ordinary people mistook it for a thunderclap, but through the Dharma Eye, cultivators could see two colossal sword shadows colliding in the air, dazzling streams of light bursting in every direction.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

There was not merely one clash. The Song cultivator and the Yan cultivator each unleashed all twelve Heavenly Sword aura-shadows, hacking them against one another in succession.

The earth-shaking detonations in the night sky terrified men both inside and outside the city. The violent gale unleashed by the collision sent people atop the walls and below them flying from their feet.

At the residence of the Grand Minister of Works, a figure shot from a room, arced upward through the air, and came to a floating halt. Her garments fluttered as a pair of bright eyes, opened with the Dharma Eye, gazed toward the place where brilliant light filled the sky. It was Yan Baoru.

"When two states go to war, their resources truly are beyond what ordinary people can compare with. They've actually brought out Heavenly Sword Talismans!" Yan Baoru murmured as she hovered in the air.

Inside the Yan imperial palace, Meng Xuan had been sitting silently with his eyes closed atop a high pavilion. At the sound, his eyes snapped open and he turned toward the auroral radiance blooming above the eastern city gate.

An Elder of Lingjian Mountain flashed up onto the pavilion. After gazing into the distance for a moment, he said gravely, "Sect Leader, that should be Senior Martial Uncle Guan, who is stationed at the East Gate!"

Meng Xuan nodded. "For someone qualified to use a Heavenly Sword Talisman to have appeared, it seems one of the top experts from Song's three major sects has arrived."

The Elder beside him nodded as well. Heavenly Sword Talismans were ruinously expensive. Even in a great sect like theirs, only the Sect Leader and venerable elders of the sect were qualified to carry one. Equipping everyone was simply impossible. The same was true in other sects. The status of someone able to launch an attack with a Heavenly Sword Talisman could therefore be readily imagined.

"It was probably someone on the Song side who used a Heavenly Sword Talisman first, intending to breach the city. How could Senior Martial Uncle Guan simply stand by and watch the position under his protection be smashed open? He could hardly bear that disgrace, so he was forced to answer with a Heavenly Sword Talisman of his own."

Meng Xuan gave a slight nod, agreeing.

There was another reason for that judgment. They had already made preparations for the possibility that Yanjing could not be held and were ready to abandon the capital at any time. It would make no sense to expend something as costly as a Heavenly Sword Talisman on a place they might soon abandon. Senior Martial Uncle Guan would never have used his talisman first unless he had no other choice.

Above the East Gate, the deafening explosions that had left everyone's ears ringing finally ceased, but the gale still howled.

Two elderly men floated opposite one another in the air, glaring angrily. Both were aching over the loss.

A single Heavenly Sword Talisman was worth more than ten million gold coins. One test was enough. No one could afford to use such things like cabbages. Neither man had a second one on him, and even if he had, he would not have taken it out merely to burn it away against another talisman.

Something like this had to be saved for the moment when it mattered most. Even using one against a massed army was painful. Suppose a Heavenly Sword Talisman killed eight hundred or a thousand men at once—what difference did that make to armies numbered in the tens of thousands? Almost none at all.

The next moment, both men attacked in fury. They collided in midair and fought without either gaining the upper hand, rising higher and higher as they battled until continuous booms rolled through the sky.

Outside the city, a group of Song cultivators swept through the air toward the walls. The Yan cultivators defending the city immediately counterattacked. The fighting moved from the battlements into the city itself. Houses repeatedly collapsed under the aftershocks of combat, sending terrified civilians fleeing in tears.

This was entirely different from the earlier assaults. The strength and numbers of the cultivators who had come with Luo Zhao were clearly far beyond those attached to the vanguard force.

Seeing this, another large group of cultivators guarding Yanjing immediately flew over to reinforce the defenders.

Many more cultivators also appeared with their true faces hidden beneath disguises and joined in helping Yan's side.

Not every cultivator had Yan Baoru's standing and could simply refuse men like Tong Mo. At the same time, these people did not want the Song cultivators to recognize them, so they had no choice but to conceal their identities before entering the fight. Tong Mo's oppressive influence had indeed forced the officials of the court to tap an enormous reserve of connections. Officials great and small alike had called in cultivator acquaintances from the cultivation world to come help.

The connections, foundations, and hidden potential of one of the seven great capitals beneath Heaven truly could not be underestimated.

Outside the city, the Song army launched a full assault from every direction. For a time, battle cries shook all four sides of the capital.

The troops led by Shang Chaozong could only watch from far away. Firelight blazed around the walls, but beyond that the surroundings were pitch-black. With no way to see the situation clearly, Shang Chaozong did not dare order a reckless charge.

On the battlements, Ga Miaoshui tore off his cloak and led a group of eunuchs into the fighting without holding anything back.

The people of the capital spent the entire night in terror and unease. No one slept.

Tong Mo and the other senior ministers remained beside Shang Jianxiong through the night, enduring the same fear and anxiety. Shang Jianxiong's adult sons, led by the Crown Prince, had all put on armor and taken up weapons to guard the palace.

The imperial consorts trembled with fear. Some were frightened to tears. They feared that if the city fell, the enemy army might not even have time to do anything to them before the emperor dealt with them himself.

The Empress paced inside and outside her chambers. No one in the entire imperial palace could undress and sleep in peace.

"Your Majesty, the sounds of fighting seem to have stopped!" a maid suddenly called.

The Empress turned toward the first glow of dawn on the horizon and immediately sent a eunuch to find out what had happened.

As the sky began to brighten, the troops who had fought all night were exhausted. Even climbing the towering city walls had become difficult, morale and strength both spent. It was no longer suitable to continue forcing the assault, so Luo Zhao ordered the retreat.

The Song cultivators fighting inside the city had also reached their limit. One after another, they leaped back over the walls and returned to the Song lines, withdrawing with the army.

Corpses were piled thick atop the walls. Many smoldered in the fires, giving off a nauseating stench of scorched flesh.

Ga Miaoshui's clothes were torn. His hair hung loose, and he was covered in blood, all his usual neat dignity gone. He stood directly above the main East Gate. The flexible sword in his hand had already been put away and replaced by a great saber planted against the stone for support. He watched the enemy army recede like a tide, the killing intent still fierce in eyes reddened from slaughter.

Even he did not know how many people he had killed that night. By the end, he had stopped thinking about spiritual power at all. As long as someone was not one of his own, he had almost killed on sight. For a man who had always loved cleanliness, this was the first time in his life he had personally carried out slaughter on such a scale.

Behind him, the eunuchs were each in miserable condition as well. Every one of them had done all he could.

"Director, the Chief Steward ordered this servant to bring pastries the ladies of the inner palace made for you with their own hands."

A cleanly dressed eunuch picked his way around the men carrying corpses and came to Ga Miaoshui's side. Behind him followed a group of eunuchs carrying shoulder poles up the wall.

The newly arrived eunuchs took one look at the heaps of corpses and smelled the stink of burned flesh. Several nearly vomited.

Ga Miaoshui suddenly turned, his voice deep. "What virtue or merit does this servant possess? How could I eat pastries made by my masters' own hands?"

The eunuch's eyes immediately reddened when he saw Ga Miaoshui in such a state. He knew how fastidious the man normally was. To see him reduced to this made the savagery of the night's fighting obvious. Wiping his tears, he choked out, "The Chief Steward said this is the ladies' heartfelt intention! He said the lads are to eat without worry and then put everything they have into killing the enemy. Don't fail the ladies' goodwill, and don't let the people outside look down on those of us from the palace."

Since these were Tian Yu's words, and Tian Yu was also Ga Miaoshui's master, Ga Miaoshui fell silent.

The eunuch immediately gestured. Someone brought over a food box and opened it. The eunuch took it in both hands, knelt, and raised it respectfully.

Ga Miaoshui reached out with a hand covered in blood and took a pastry. Just as he was about to put it in his mouth, he suddenly looked to one side. The soldiers on the wall were all quietly watching, apparently curious to see what food from the palace was like.

He slowly said in a deep voice, "Distribute the pastries. Let the soldiers have a taste as well. Tell everyone they are a small token from the ladies of the inner palace."

Only after personally leading men into battle and killing the enemy did he truly understand why the generals he had seen in the past sometimes did such things. It was not affectation. Some things could only be understood after one had lived through them.

...

"The entire city has only two hundred thousand defending troops. Split among four walls, how many men can there be on each side? I have three million troops attacking from all directions at once. Why has the city still not fallen?"

Luo Zhao angrily rebuked the general responsible for the attack on the East Gate.

The general seemed to have expected the question. He called forward a young officer behind him who was covered head to toe in blood and had the man answer instead.

The young officer wiped the blood from his face and cupped his hands. "Grand Commander-in-Chief, there are far more than two hundred thousand defenders. From what I saw, there must be over a million. Huge numbers of able-bodied young men from the capital have taken up weapons and gone onto the walls. There are also many men dressed as household servants who are excellent fighters, each able to take on ten ordinary men. I fought my way onto the wall at the risk of my life and saw that there were many more able-bodied young men waiting behind it as reserves. The moment a gap appeared, they immediately climbed up to fill it. I was forced off the wall and fell into the crowd below. The mass of people broke my fall, and only by luck did I survive."

Luo Zhao raised his head and looked at Yanjing's immense, towering walls. He understood now. Yanjing had resolved to resist to the death. The whole city had been mobilized.

This time, he had bitten into a hard bone.

[End of Chapter 705]