The Human Emperor c1-2382

by Huangfu Qi (皇甫奇)

  "Die for me!"

  The muscular figures of the Tang axemen advanced through the enemy ranks with fierce expressions on their faces and veins bulging out of their skin. Their excellent and sturdy armor and the inscribed axes in their hands allowed them to easily hew through the enemy ranks.

  "Aaaaah!"

  Screams filled the air as the Tibetan and Mengshe Zhao soldiers were cut down like stalks of wheat. A few Mengshe Zhao soldiers were even cleaved in two by the giant axes, their bodies falling both to the left and the right.

  Amongst all infantry, axemen had always been the strongest, and they were always selected from the cream of the crop. An axeman was always at True Martial Tier 6 at the minimum, and with the massive debuff inflicted on the enemy army by Wang Chong's Bane of the Battlefield, these axemen proved even more effective.

  In an army, axemen had incredible offensive power, always used for a vigorous push to break the enemy formation when the situation was looking unfavorable.

  Boom boom boom!

  To the southeast, southwest, northwest… in every direction, the army that had once held the advantage began to crumble. None of the soldiers were able to put up any resistance.

  "This, this… What's going on here?"

  "How could their strength change so quickly!"

  "What sort of power could have this large a range!"

  ……

  The transformation on the battlefield had shocked everyone. This was not the first time Wang Chong had used the Bane of the Battlefield Halo, but this was the first time that it was on a battlefield of many tens of thousands, allowing it to produce never-before-seen results.

  Even a fool would be able to notice that the Bane of the Battlefield was affecting the entire mountain and perhaps even beyond its boundaries.

  "Great Minister, what do we do?"

  People began to turn toward Dalun Ruozan at the base of the mountain.

  "There's no need to worry. Such a large halo must have extremely large costs. Pass on my order to continue the assault!" Dalun Ruozan pronounced with a wave of his hand.

  Although he didn't know how Wang Chong had managed it, in Dalun Ruozan's view, there was only one thing in this world that could inflict such a large-scale debuff on the enemy army's halos, and that was another halo.

  But every halo required a consumption of energy. The more people it encompassed, the more energy it consumed. Given the massive range Wang Chong's halo covered, Dalun Ruozan was confident that it would quickly sap the user of all his energy.

  More importantly, in this sort of battle, the strongest halo or the strongest existence could not achieve much against an army of hundreds of thousands.

  If Huoshu Huicang alone could win a war, what did they need all the other soldiers for?

  But Dalun Ruozan quickly realized that his judgment was wrong.

  Neigh!

  As countless people looked on, a fierce cry arose from the summit. A divine steed with snow-white hooves appeared under the banner, a beanstalk in its mouth.

  And the erect figure on the back of this horse was like the sun in the sky, attracting everyone's gaze.

  At this moment, Wang Chong appeared like a handsome god looking down from the heavens.

  Chapter 605: The Decisive Battle! The Skyquaking Army!

  Translated by: Hypersheep325

  Edited by: Michyrr

  Buzz!

  The air trembled as a Halo of Thorns began to spread from under the feet of the White-hoofed Shadow, pouring down from the summit like a flood to expand over the army. This strange Halo of Thorns began to buff the various shield soldiers, axemen, and archers, instantly raising the strength of the Annan Protectorate army.

  Even Dalun Ruozan could tell that the Tang army had clearly become much stronger, exuding a brand-new aura.

  One halo weakened the enemy soldiers while the other halo strengthened his own. Even Dalun Ruozan couldn't help but widen his eyes in shock.

  "What sort of halo is this!"

  Dalun Ruozan was mentally shocked by something else.

  For a normal halo to buff one of strength, dexterity, or speed was already decent enough, but Wang Chong could simultaneously buff all three.

  In these circumstances, in this terrain, the eighty to ninety thousand soldiers of the Annan Protectorate army could defend the mountain so tightly that nothing would be able to make it through.

  "Send an order to Duan Yangyan. Have him use his elephants to immediately shatter their formation!"

  Dalun Ruozan's eyes narrowed as he swiftly issued this order.

  Wang Chong had many secrets. In Dalun Ruozan's experience, a halo that covered such a large area could only be possessed by a Great General, but Wang Chong was clearly no Great General.

  And besides that, this sort of halo that could simultaneously raise strength, dexterity and speed was no ordinary technique. It would be extremely rare in any empire, and even the most illustrious Great Snow Mountain Holy Temple of Ü-Tsang did not have many such techniques.

  "In addition, the division of giants that the Abbasid Caliphate helped us train should have arrived. It's their turn to move out!"

  With these final words, Dalun Ruozan's gaze turned extremely dark.

  Ü-Tsang and the Abbasid Caliphate had begun to work together very early on. In addition, their collaboration was far from restricted to that black kerosene. The division of giants was one of the fruits of their alliance.

  Roar!

  A roar came from the distant horizon—brutal, cruel, wild, and imbued with a desire to maim and massacre. It was so loud that it sounded like a peal of thunder, so loud that it even drowned the sounds of fighting and the blares of the elephants.

  The earth rumbled as if a great army was approaching from the distance.

  This turmoil attracted everyone's notice, including that of Wang Chong on the summit.

  "This is…"

  Wang Chong slightly narrowed his eyes, a hint of confusion appearing within them. The Great Tang had been fighting with Mengshe Zhao and Ü-Tsang for some time, so each side had a general understanding of all the soldiers each side could put into play.

  But Wang Chong could guarantee that he had never felt this sort of energy before.

  Buzz!

  Upon clearly making out that thing appearing on the horizon, even Wang Chong had to widen his eyes.

  A group of giant figures had suddenly appeared on the horizon. The reason he thought of them as 'figures' and not 'soldiers' was that Wang Chong had never before seen 'humans' with such massive bodies.

  The bodies of these 'creatures' were all incredibly muscular, and even more astonishing was their height. All of them were six to seven meters tall, three to four times taller than a normal person.

  Their skin was pitch-black, their expressions vicious, contorted, and ugly, and the thick plate armor covering their bodies was itself dreadful to behold. However, there was no doubt that they were humans.

  "Aaaaah!"

  "Get out of the way! Hurry!"

  Screams began to fill the air, not from the Tang soldiers, but from the distant Tibetan warriors. When these giants appeared, their wild and brutal aura made even the well-trained highland steeds whinny in fright. All of the Tibetans began to flee out of the path of these giants.

  As the giants approached, the Tibetans parted like waves, or like a flock urged on by a shepherd. Although these giants were wearing plate armor that must have weighed around a thousand jin and were wielding crude maces, cudgels, spears, and shields, all of them were running at a speed that could outrun warhorses.

  "What sort of monster is this?"

  Chen Shusun's eyes were twitching in shock. Though he had fought with the Tibetans for more than a month, he had never seen a monster appear amongst the Tibetan ranks. These could not be humans, only human-shaped monsters.

  Although these monsters were still a distance away, the cruel and bloodthirsty aura that preceded them caused even Chen Shusun's heart to madly beat in fe
ar. These soldiers had no place in a regular battle.

  "They're from Sindhu!"

  Although the monsters were still very far away, Wang Chong could tell at a glance from their pitch-black skin that they had once been part of the impoverished people of Sindhu.

  Connecting this fact to their massive constitutions caused a name to instantly emerge in Wang Chong's mind.

  "The Skyquaking Army!"

  Wang Chong muttered this name to himself.

  In all of human history, whether here or in any other parallel universe, blood vessels and skeletal structures restricted the average human to a height of two meters.

  It was extremely rare for someone with a height between 2.2 to 2.4 meters like the Invincible Great General Li Siye to appear.

  But this did not mean that monsters who were even larger and taller than Li Siye did not exist. At least in the history that Wang Chong knew of, a very special army had existed for a short time: the Skyquaking Army!

  Wang Chong recalled that in the lands to the west, within the borders of the impoverished Sindhu, the Abbasid Caliphate and Ü-Tsang, which bordered Sindhu, worked together on a plan.

  They dispatched people into Sindhu to find young and orphaned people of abnormal height. The Abbasid Caliphate and Ü-Tsang began to raise these people, feeding them all kinds of medicines and specially-treated eagle, tiger, lion, and elephant meat.

  They had them cultivate an ancient technique from some waning religion while also constantly using special techniques to stimulate their acupuncture points, awakening their potential.

  In the end, they succeeded in raising massive beings possessing limitless strength, which they called the 'Skyquaking Army'.

  It was rumored that each soldier of the Skyquaking Army was seven or eight meters tall, some of them even approaching ten meters. And the Arabs were constantly using ancient and secret techniques to strengthen them.

  At the end, the soldiers of the Skyquaking Army were trained so that they could rely purely on their innate strength to fight against experts of the Profound Martial realm, even the Imperial Martial realm. It was like they had been trained through a system completely different from the martial arts system currently used by everyone else.

  Wang Chong had never seen the soldiers of the so-called Skyquaking Army, but he had heard many rumors about them. And in all the earth, everyone only treated the 'Skyquaking Giants' like a joke, a complete and utter joke.

  After all, people could not grow that tall.

  But Wang Chong was different. Many years after the Battle of Talas, he had gotten to know several soldiers of the Anxi Protectorate army who had served under Gao Xianzhi and fled that battle. Based on what they said, when Gao Xianzhi battled with the Abbasid Caliphate, the soldiers of the Skyquaking Army had been amongst the ranks of the Abbasid Caliphate army, and the soldiers of Anxi had even battled with them…

  But because Gao Xianzhi was already losing the battle at the time, the Skyquaking Army and Skyquaking Giants raised by the Abbasid Caliphate had only appeared for a brief moment, and very few people knew of them.

  The soldier of the Anxi Protectorate that Wang Chong had met disappeared soon after their meeting, so Wang Chong had never been able to verify the rumor.

  Thus, Wang Chong couldn't provide any more information than this.

  But Wang Chong had never imagined that the Skyquaking Army would appear here.

  The Tibetans really are working with the Arabs, and they even collaborated on this 'Skyquaking Army' plan. In addition, the prime conspirator working with the Arabs is actually Dalun Ruozan!

  Wang Chong's mind was in turmoil. Never had he imagined that he would meet the premature form of the Skyquaking Giants here. They had appeared far earlier than their rumored first appearance.

  Dalun Ruozan truly is like Geluofeng. Both are incredibly ambitious and both have been making plans for a long time. Even without Geluofeng, Dalun Ruozan would still have sent out soldiers. This Skyquaking Army is the reinforcements they had prepared on the plateau. In my last life, the Annan Protectorate army was wiped out at Erhai, but things are completely different in this life…

  On the summit, Wang Chong continued to think.

  His interference had caused the southwestern war to follow a completely different track from his last life. First it was the sturdy Lion City by the Erhai, leading to a month-long siege.

  After that was the 'steel fortress' he had erected on this mountain, yet another barrier that the Mengshe–Ü-Tsang army would have to overcome and could not ignore.

  Events had developed far beyond their original trajectory.

  The Arabian Kerosene had appeared, as had the Skyquaking Army in its initial stages and the siege weapons… Not even Wang Chong was sure how the southwestern war would progress.

  More importantly, Wang Chong knew why Dalun Ruozan had dispatched this army…

  Because both the elephants from the forests of Erhai and the Skyquaking Giants relied on their fleshly strength to fight.

  Wang Chong's Bane of the Battlefield Halo was useless against the Erhai elephants and Skyquaking Giants.

  Biaaaah!

  With a heaven-shaking blare, the first to strike was not the distant and dreadful figures of the Skyquaking Giants, but the nearby Erhai elephants with their extremely long tusks.

  Boom!

  Two steel walls and the Tang soldiers behind them were flung into the air. Two Erhai elephants, eight to nine meters high and enclosed in white plate armor, led the charge up the mountain, accompanied by countless Tibetan and White Elephant Corps soldiers.

  In the distance, even more Erhai elephants were trumpeting as they approached, their trunks raised into the air as they stirred up large clouds of dust in their charge. Duan Yangyan had changed up his plans. This time, his White Elephant Corps had no intention of dragging away the metal walls. Its goal was to knock them down and open a path for the Mengshe–Ü-Tsang army.

  Chapter 606: The Decisive Battle! The Dragon Son Corps!

  Translated by: Hypersheep325

  Edited by: Michyrr

  The most terrifying thing about these Erhai elephants was that they remained completely unaffected by the debuff effect of the Bane of the Battlefield. At this very moment, they had become the sharp tool utilized by the Mengshe–Ü-Tsang army to break the Tang lines.

  Biaaaah!

  Two elephants shrilly blared as their giant feet slammed down on the Tang soldiers like descending mountains.

  "Aaaaah!"

  Fear spread across the faces of all of the Annan Protectorate army soldiers, for their resistance was insignificant against the impervious and overpowering elephants.

  As that heavy foot crashed down, the Tang soldiers had no time to dodge, and even their armor crumpled with them as they were smashed into pulp.

  Biaaaah! The elephant raised its trunk high as it rampaged unstoppably through the Tang ranks.

  Roar!

  Suddenly, a sonic attack struck. The massive energy contained within this voice jolted aside the metal covers, allowing the sound to explode in the elephant's mind.

  Right when the elephant raised its head in fright, a metal halberd flew through the air and pierced into the elephant's eye, embedding itself deep into its skull. The elephant's legs went soft as it crashed into the ground, blood gushing out from its punctured eye.

  Although they possessed a powerful vitality and enormous strength, beasts were not humans, and the intelligence of elephants was far beneath that of humans. Against human experts, it was still easily felled by a single strike.

  "Axemen, cut down the guards on the elephants!"

  The middle of the mountain was in chaos. A fully-armored general bellowed this order, his eyes red with madness. The Annan Protectorate army had never been in such a perilous situation before. The lives of more than eighty thousand soldiers were holding on by a single thread. If they could not stop this wave of attacks, the entire army would be wiped out.

  In order to stop this
attack, all the generals invested all their energy.

  "Kill the elephant guards!"

  Bangbang! Two soldiers of the White Elephant Corps, struck by whirling axes, dropped down from the head of an elephant. Soon after, two Tang soldiers as nimble as apes began to climb up the elephant's nose! Sploosh! Two sharp swords stabbed into the eyes of the elephant.

  "Seize them!"

  "Damn it, don't let them escape!"

  Sabers and spears madly stabbed down from the elephant's head at the Tang soldiers, but those Tang soldiers had already rolled back down the elephant's corpse and vanished.

  Five days had been enough for Dalun Ruozan and the Mengshe–Ü-Tsang army to think of many ways to protect the elephants against the Tang attacks, but Wang Chong had also had ample time to think of methods to deal with the elephants. Killing the elephant guards was one of these methods.

  Rumble!

  In this fierce melee, dust suddenly began to rise from the southeast as a massive boom rang out. When the battle was at its most intense, the Mengshe–Ü-Tsang forces in the southeast retreated without warning. All the Tang soldiers were caught by surprise, but in the intense melee, their bodies dragged them forward in pursuit.

  "Interesting—they're learning from me!"

  At the summit, Wang Chong's eyes lit up as he saw this, a smile appearing on his face. Dalun Ruozan had actually taken the move he had used against the Mengshe Zhao army and used it against him, replaying this familiar scene before his eyes.

  "Pass on my order. Transfer General Luo Ji to the southeast."

  "Yes, your subordinate will go."

  A messenger quickly stood up and left to deliver this order.

  "Dalun Ruozan, if you want to use my methods to deal with me, you have to see who your opponent is."

  A sneer crept onto Wang Chong's lips. Dalun Ruozan was truly formidable to have grasped this tactic in such a short time and to have successfully trained a group of soldiers in it, but his spear was still a far cry from breaking Wang Chong's shield.

  Luo Ji's troops were extremely skilled in offense. If they had the smallest chance, they would immediately bite down and refuse to let go. If the Mengshe–Ü-Tsang army dared to intentionally reveal a flaw before him, they would only be ruining themselves.