A flood of pressure began to sweep over the world.
Buzz!
Everyone instantly paled at the sight.
One!
Two!
Three!
Four!
Four enormous Behemoths were slowly approaching the Tang camp.
“How could this be? How can the Arabs still have this many of those enormous monsters?!”
A gasp of shock could be heard. The Ferghanan commander Banahan grimaced, and though his soldiers said nothing, the look on their faces was enough to see how they felt.
“This is probably all their soldiers,” the mounted Wang Chong next to Banahan calmly said. His eyes flickered for a moment in the fierce winds, but they remained hard and determined. He understood more about the Behemoth Army than anyone else present.
Since it was an army, there was naturally more than one or two Behemoths!
The first two assaults could be considered probing or disdain from the enemy. This time, however, the opposing commander had cast aside their disdain and placed all their attention on this battle.
According to Arab histories, the Behemoth Army has never dispatched two or more in a single battle, but this time, they’re sending out four… This is truly a great honor! Wang Chong sarcastically noted to himself.
To any faction or power, the Behemoth Army was a dreadful force that could sweep away all opposition. These were beings that one was liable to associate with mysterious myths and legends, even though these Behemoths actually had very little to do with such myths!
These four Behemoths also posed an enormous pressure to Wang Chong. But since he now had two giant ballistae that could be used against the Behemoths, Wang Chong felt much more assured.
At the very least, these Behemoths were no longer invincible.
Boom!
The four Behemoths slowly approached like towering mountains. But when they were still only ten-some zhang from the Arab formation, they suddenly stopped as if frozen in place.
The rest of the Arab army also seemed to freeze.
Everyone was left at a loss by this abrupt scene.
“Lord Marquis, the Arabs have already blown the horn, so why did they stop? What are the Arabs waiting for?”
Xue Qianjun was astonished, his gaze turning to Wang Chong, mounted on the White-hoofed Shadow. They were all prepared for battle, but the two hundred thousand Arab soldiers and the four dreadful Behemoths had all stopped. The Tang were left confused and dumbfounded by this decision.
Wang Chong said nothing, his hands gripping the reins of his horse as his mind ran through countless thoughts. He had vaguely sensed something from the Arab army, but in this short time, he couldn’t quite understand what it was.
Ever since he had interfered, the Battle of Talas had taken a completely different course from the one in his memories. He could no longer predict what was going to happen.
The anxiety and unease thickened over the silent battlefield.
“Are they ready?”
Abu Muslim’s towering figure in the rear of the army spoke to someone behind him.
A burly Arab general behind Abu Muslim bowed and replied with abnormal subservience, “Lord Governor, everything is ready! All that is needed is Milord’s order!”
“Very good!”
Abu Muslim’s eyes glimmered with sharp light.
“Masil, begin!”
This order was spoken with a biting chill, an extreme bleakness.
Roooar!
The Behemoths roared, and the Arab army began to part, leaving a path for the four mountainous beings. Slowly, they began to step forward. Boom! The first Behemoth moved, then the second, the third… The four Behemoths bellowed as they began to charge toward the Tang.
As they began to charge, everyone could clearly see that the heads of the four Behemoths were covered in thick helmets. This sight made all of them grimace. It was very obvious that the Arabs had absorbed their lesson and increased the defenses around the vital heads of the Behemoths.
“Ready!”
Wang Chong gestured, and Chen Bin and Xu Keyi unsheathed their swords and began to issue orders.
Hundreds of ballista soldiers began to get to work.
Metal clanging and creaking could be heard as the soldiers nervously loaded the giant ballistae and aimed them at the Behemoths. The Great Tang only had two giant ballistae, but there were four Behemoths. No one knew how they would deal with all of them.
“Wang Chong, do we have any more of these giant ballistae in the camp? Can we make more?”
Gao Xianzhi galloped up to Wang Chong’s side, his gaze tinged with concern as he looked ahead.
“No!”
Wang Chong shook his head.
“Until now, the giant ballistae were just a concept that we never tried before. It was enough of a miracle for us to build two and have them work normally. For the time being, we won’t be able to build a third one.”
In normal circumstances, the Tang should have never had the Behemoths as opponents in the Battle of Talas. That they had been able to build two giant ballistae was already a blessing from the heavens.
Chapter 962 - Giants! Meteors Plunge From the Heavens!
Chapter 962: Giants! Meteors Plunge From the Heavens!
Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
“Lord Marquis, in truth… in our current situation, we might be able to build another one.”
An elderly voice came from behind Wang Chong.
The four Tang commanders turned to look at Zhang Shouzhi.
“The greatest difficulty posed by the giant ballistae was that we had no experience building them. It was also partially that the materials were special and we didn’t quite understand how to properly use them. But now that we’ve made two, we have experience that we can rely on. Although building a third will still be extremely difficult, we can do it as long as we have enough time. Moreover, the ballistae that were destroyed can be used as materials. For the rest of the parts, we can forge them on the spot. There’s also an easy solution for the ballista bolts…”
With these last words, Zhang Shouzhi turned to the fallen Arabian Behemoths at the first defense line.
The ballista bolts used by the giant ballistae were different from normal bolts. Zhang Shouzhi and his craftsmen had forged them in the capital, gathering together the best artisans and craftsmen from the smithing clans. Moreover, they had been made with the best techniques and materials available, and after they were finished, they had even been bolstered by many formations and inscriptions.
It was precisely all these measures that allowed the giant ballista bolts to pierce through the tough and pliable hides of the Behemoths and then be hammered into their steely skulls. Such ballista bolts could not be casually forged on the battlefield. But these giant ballista bolts were also the thing they needed to worry about the least.
“I understand!” the Vice Protector-General of the Anxi Protectorate army, Cheng Qianli, declared with a sharp light in his eyes. He immediately galloped toward the corpse of the hippo-shaped Behemoth. Jumping onto the head, he reached into a bloody hole and pulled hard. Plush! In a spray of blood, a heavy giant ballista bolt emerged from the slain Behemoth’s skull.
Boom!
Cheng Qianli’s actions were clean and straightforward, these enormous ballista bolts seeming to be as light as a feather in his hands. One after another, he pulled them out and threw them to a place near one of the giant ballistae. Large clouds of dust churned in the air as he threw them down.
These giant ballista bolts were each extremely heavy. Only elite generals like Cheng Qianli had the strength to pull them out.
In a few moments, thirty to forty giant ballista bolts had been gathered and piled up beside the two giant ballistae.
Bong! Bong! Bong!
War drums began to bang from the Arab camp. Not long after the four Behemoths began to move, the two hundred thousand Arab cavalry that had stood on the sidelines
this entire time began to move as well, black waves surging up behind the Behemoths toward the Tang defense line.
“Kill!”
“Destroy them! Kill these heathens!”
The thundering of the war drums was joined by the Arab calls to battle, and a somber and savage wind began to sweep across the battlefield.
The battle was finally beginning!
“Ready!”
A resounding voice carried across the overcast sky, and with this order, the clanging of weapons being unsheathed and readied echoed over the defense line, their edges brightly gleaming.
“Shield men, get ready!”
“Ballista soldiers, get to your positions!”
“Cavalry, assume formation!”
One crisp order after another was sent through the ranks. In a flash, the reinforcements from Qixi and the Anxi Protectorate army, more than one hundred thousand soldiers in all, began to move. The sounds of marching, the clattering of army and weapons, the vibrating of shields, and the hammering of the forges fused into a single din.
The Tang army became an enormous machine, shrouded in an intimidating aura.
The battlefield was so somber that even the distant Tibetans and Turks were affected, all of them so overcome by nerves that they almost forgot to breathe.
Abu Muslim gazed at the Tang defense line and suddenly ordered, “Masil! Get ready! You should join the assault as well!”
“Heh! Understood.”
Masil had apparently expected this. He looked at the defense line and gave a sinister chuckle, then began walking to the rear. Boom! A crack opened up in the ground, and Masil vanished through it.
Roooar!
The Behemoths roared, their heavy footsteps causing the earth to quiver. As they got closer and closer to the steel walls, their weighty bodies stirred clouds of dust ten-some meters high. Behind the Behemoths, the Arab cavalry waved their scimitars as they charged up in a flood.
Three thousand zhang!
Twenty-five hundred zhang!
The four Behemoths and the sea of Arab cavalry behind them charged at full speed toward the Tang defense line.
“All soldiers, stand ready!”
Li Siye led the five thousand Wushang Cavalry in standing at the very front, his thunderous voice ringing in everyone’s ears.
Tension!
Incomparable tension!
The air of confrontation between the two armies rapidly thickened. The Arabs, Tang, and the mercenaries all had their eyes locked forward, their hands clenched tightly on their weapons, the veins bulging out from their skin.
At this moment, even Wang Chong and Gao Xianzhi looked a little nervous. This could be the decisive battle between the Arabs and the Tang.
When the Arabs and the Behemoths were still two thousand zhang away, Wang Chong pulled out his sword and issued an order. “Ballista soldiers!”
The three thousand ballistae began to creak as the bolts were loaded and aimed.
The ballistae were the only things capable of posing a threat to both the Arab cavalry and the Behemoths at the same time. Although they were not as damaging as the giant ballistae, they made up for it in their numbers.
But just when the three thousand ballistae had been loaded and aimed, a shrill whistle suddenly exploded in everyone’s ears. On the distant horizon, behind the Arab army, the ground suddenly shook as if something had exploded out of it.
The shaking and the shifting lights and shadows that accompanied it immediately caught everyone’s attention.
“What’s that?” Cheng Qianli asked, squinting.
Wang Chong, Gao Xianzhi, and Cheng Qianli stood side by side on the front line, observing that distant sight. Wang Chong and Gao Xianzhi said nothing, but they both felt an ill foreboding at the same time. Whatever that sound was, for it to appear at a time like this was definitely not a good thing.
Whooah!
The soldiers suddenly broke into an uproar. The army had not needed to wait long for the answer to the riddle to be revealed.
“Look over there!”
“What’s that?”
“A meteor! It’s a meteor!”
As the soldiers looked on in astonishment, an enormous ‘meteor’ appeared over the defense line, its surface burning with dark green flames as it spun through the air. It was moving with incredible speed. By the time the soldiers had noticed, it was only several hundred zhang from their heads.
“Careful!”
Wang Chong’s pupils constricted, immediately reacting to the intense danger he felt. This sight was far too strange, far beyond what he had predicted. But even with Wang Chong’s warning, it was still too late…
Boom!
In a flash, that enormous, blazing ‘meteor’ had covered those several hundred zhang and smashed into the ground.
“Ah!”
The meteor made its explosive impact, the air suddenly filling with screams as Tang soldiers and Western Regions mercenaries were sent flying by the shockwaves. Tiny rocks and stones sprayed outward, transformed by the force of the impact into sharp arrows that peppered the surrounding soldiers.
Neeeigh! The warhorses cried out, their eyes wide as they galloped in fear to the rear. The army around the site of the meteor’s impact was in chaos.
And in the center of this chaos was an enormous pit, ten-some meters in diameter and seven meters at its deepest. At the very bottom was what could only be called a ‘giant egg’. The egg was a mottled dark green, as tall as five or six adult men. It appeared to be made of some sort of sturdy metal and was still burning with green flames.
Kacrack! The giant egg began to crinkle, and a thin black crack appeared on the giant egg that everyone had mistaken for a meteor. Boom! Before anyone could react, an enormous palm like pitch-black steel burst out of the egg, grabbing onto the edge of a crack.
“Hahaha, all of you die for me!”
A sinister and cruel voice, suffused with an intense killing intent, suddenly rang out in everyone’s ears. In that moment, everyone realized that the palm that had emerged out of the giant egg was even larger than a horse! And in that egg, they could clearly make out a dreadful pair of red eyes.
“Ah!”
Cries of alarm rang out in the air as countless warhorses took off in fright. As the soldiers looked on in horror, the egg fully split open, and with a clattering of metal, a pitch-black giant rose from inside.
Ten meters, fifteen meters, seventeen meters… in the end, the giant man’s height finally stopped rising at eighteen meters.
Black steely skin, a large and fierce body, cruel and evil eyes that lusted for destruction—this was clearly a primordial giant spoken of in myths! And that mottled green egg shell was clearly that giant’s armor.
Bang!
An enormous gray boulder flew through the air. The moment the giant had ‘risen from the earth’ and revealed its true form, it had taken up a giant rock half a man tall and thrown it. Bang! An unlucky mercenary was struck, both he and his horse smashed into paste before even having a chance to scream. And the rock continued on its remaining momentum to carve a bloody path through the dense ranks of the army. It left behind a trail of corpses and severed limbs in its wake, belonging to both man and horse.
Chapter 963 - The Threat of the Skyquaking Giants!
Chapter 963: The Threat of the Skyquaking Giants!
Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
“Hahaha, all of you damnable ants, die for me!”
Savage laughter rang out over the army.
Bang! Right after throwing the rock, the giant lunged forward with the agility of an ape, jumping out from the pit. Boom! The steely black arms swept out like a wheel, and before anyone could react, twenty to thirty Tang cavalry were tossed screaming into the air.
And this green-armored giant scarcely paused for a breath. He immediately lunged forward, snatching an enormous green shield as he charged here and there, tossing all the soldiers in his way into the air.
<
br /> “Form a defense line!”
“Careful!”
“Surround him!”
This attack was so sudden that all the soldiers around the pit were in complete disarray. Countless Tang soldiers, soldiers from Greater and Lesser Balur, and mercenaries from the Western Regions rushed in from all directions, but none of them could take even a single blow from the terrifying giant.
Rumble! Soldier after soldier, group after group, rank after rank… countless soldiers were swept up like dust or withered leaves, tossed about by the eighteen-meter giant. In front of the entire army, the giant was unstoppable, opening up a massacre right in the middle of the ranks.
From the landing of the meteor to now, the Tang had suffered casualties of at least one hundred men. So unexpected was this assault that even Gao Xianzhi, Wang Chong, and Cheng Qianli paled in shock.
“Chen Bin! The ballistae!”
A frantic and furious bellow erupted from the front of the defense line. Wang Chong’s face had contorted into a ghastly grimace at the sight of that giant wreaking havoc in the army, and his heart sank like a stone.
A Skyquaking Giant!
Although the surrounding soldiers and generals knew not the origin of that giant, Wang Chong had recognized it at a glance. These were the renowned Skyquaking Giants that the Arabs had used in the Battle of Talas during his last life.
Wang Chong was not surprised by the appearance of a Skyquaking Giant, but he had never expected it to appear on the battlefield in this sort of way. More importantly, the Skyquaking Giant would not have come alone. After all, it was part of the Skyquaking Army!
This meant…
“Whooah!”
“Look at that!”
“Shit! Get out of the way!”
As if responding to Wang Chong’s thoughts, the earth shook with impacts, rocks and dirt gushing into the air. In the middle of the chaos, more of the blazing meteors had descended from the sky, smashing into various areas of the army.
Roooar!
In the midst of fierce explosions, the towering Skyquaking Giants howled, raising up their arms with a momentum that could push up the heavens as they emerged from their giant eggs to appear before the army.
The Human Emperor c1-2382 Page 622
