The Human Emperor c1-2382

by Huangfu Qi (皇甫奇)

  Smoke and flames rose more than ten meters into the air in a shocking sight.

  The northeast had been cold and frozen, but now, all the chill had been swept away, leaving only roiling waves of heat.

  Snowflakes drifted down and melted into water, and when this water entered the kerosene, the flames burned even more fiercely.

  “Watch out!” a Turkic general cried out, but he was too late.

  The moment the soldiers reached the walls, Wang Chong had never thought about giving them a chance to escape.

  Dying screams could be heard through the black smoke, and the stench of burning flesh and skin filled the air.

  The high temperatures even made the shield carts turn bright red, the inscriptions and formations beginning to melt. As for the losses, they were innumerable.

  An Lushan and Yeon Gaesomun instantly paled at this sight.

  The orderly and somber ranks of the alliance army had instantly been turned into a hellish landscape.

  “This madman!”

  An Lushan cursed, his eyes flying open.

  Wang Chong loved the people of the Great Tang like they were his own children, and he had a virtuous reputation that no one could match, many people even revering him as a sage.

  But to the other countries, Wang Chong had nothing to do with the word ‘virtue’. His actions and methods were those of a complete devil.

  No—not even a devil could perpetrate such cruel acts.

  Not only was this sea of fire created by kerosene difficult to extinguish, the melting snow carried the kerosene with it and spread the fire.

  A general of average height, surrounded by a storm of energy, swiftly shouted an order. “Sandbags! Sandbags!”

  If one looked carefully, one would notice that this man wore five long sabers on his back. This was none other than the Brigadier General of Goguryeo, King Bojang.

  The army swiftly took action, the Goguryeon soldiers rushing up with packed cloth bags.

  These cloth bags were rapidly delivered to the front line.

  Bang!

  A Goguryeon soldier heaved the cloth bag on his shoulder into the sea of fire.

  The flames burned away the cloth, revealing large amounts of sea sand.

  In this alliance, each country had a specific job.

  When assaulting a city, one of the most common defenses was attack by fire. The task of dealing with this had been left to Goguryeo.

  Goguryeo and the Great Tang had fought for many years in close battles, so the Goguryeons were extremely experienced.

  King Bojang had even sent up a division of the army specifically for putting out fires.

  These cloth bags contained coarse sand extracted from the shores of the Goguryeo Empire and were excellent for putting out flames.

  King Bojang had planned on using this sand to fill in the moat, but the situation on the battlefield was constantly shifting, and the Great Tang had given him no chance. The forty thousand heavy infantry in their Hell Wheel Formation had already crossed the moat and plunged into the alliance army.

  As for later…

  Considering that they might have needed to use the sand to put out flames, King Bojang had decided to let Cui Qianyou use corpses to fill up the moat.

  Thudthudthud!

  As the bags were thrown into the fire, the flames were finally suppressed. But extinguishing the flames entirely was a much more difficult task.

  Before this battle, the Goguryeons had never imagined that they would be facing Arabian Kerosene.

  This sea sand was much less effective than expected.

  This man was truly frightening!

  It was fortunate that Zhang Shougui had been overseeing Andong, not him!

  As King Bojang looked at the distant walls, he felt his heart thump in fear.

  There were many ways a soldier could die on the battlefield, but being burned to death by kerosene was one of the cruelest.

  The Great Tang’s King of Foreign Lands was far crueler and more frightening than they had imagined!

  The Goguryeo Empire had always considered itself unlucky that it was located on a peninsula, restricted no matter in what direction it tried to expand. Moreover, the powerful Andong Protector-General Zhang Shougui of the Great Tang Empire had left the Goguryeo Empire bound to its current territory for decades.

  But now, King Bojang counted himself lucky that it had been Zhang Shougui. If not, he might have had to face the Great Demon King that was Wang Chong.

  This man’s methods and style would have left Goguryeo utterly ruined!

  As these thoughts ran through his mind, King Bojang suddenly heard a scream of terror from the distance.

  King Bojang instinctively turned to look, and the sight made this renowned general of Goguryeo shiver in fear.

  Bang!

  With a massive boom, a giant steel ball hurtled out of the air.

  No!

  This was not some simple metal ball, but a giant caltrop that was as tall as four people.

  The caltrop was covered in sharp spikes that were six to seven feet long, the tips gleaming with a frightening light.

  Swooshswooshswoosh!

  When the caltrop dropped to the ground, the spikes stabbed through the bodies of alliance soldiers, carrying them along as it rolled across the ground.

  The alliance soldiers all possessed above-average cultivation. In normal circumstances, they should not have been so easy to kill.

  But no matter how much Stellar Energy they had, they were nothing in front of this weighty caltrop and its sharp spikes, further bolstered by the power of gravity.

  “Ah!”

  Screams tore through the air as the giant caltrop rolled forward, carried by its immense inertia.

  Chapter 2174 - Khitan Braves! (I)

  Chapter 2174: Khitan Braves! (I)

  Translated by: Hypersheep325

  Edited by: Michyrr

  On the crowded battlefield, there was no space for the soldiers to dodge. In just a few moments, the caltrop had pierced through numerous alliance soldiers and ended their lives.

  As the caltrop rolled, it left a long and bloody path through the army.

  “Release!

  “Release!

  “Release!”

  Orders came from inside the fortress, and steel clattered and gears groaned. One giant caltrop after another arced through the air and crashed outside the fortress.

  The dense ranks of the alliance army instantly became a killing zone, with one of the caltrops even smashing into the Goguryeo soldiers transporting sand. Screams erupted as hundreds of Goguryeon soldiers were crushed like ants beneath the giant caltrop.

  They unleashed their Stellar Energies and hacked at the caltrops with their weapons to stop them, but their resistance was futile.

  “Retreat!”

  King Bojang instantly paled.

  The division transporting sand was not made of elites, so how could they stop these things?

  On the walls, whether it was the aloof Su Hanshan or Chen Burang and Sun Zhiming, all of them were relieved to hear the screams down below.

  An Lushan and his allies harbored ill ambitions. If they were allowed to enter the interior, countless common folk would suffer from disaster. They would never hold any pity for enemies.

  The kerosene bombs and giant caltrops instantly rendered the area in front of the fortress into a forbidden zone.

  “Release!”

  From the distant ranks of the alliance army, an order was shouted, and then the air howled as a massive boulder wreathed in destructive force hurtled toward the walls.

  One boulder, two, three…

  Hundreds of catapults were unleashed, aimed at the areas the kerosene bombs and caltrops were coming from.

  Only catapults could deal with catapults!

  In the face of the Great Tang’s fierce offensive, the alliance immediately used their own catapults to retaliate.

  The alliance had its catapults, and so did Wang Chong.

&nb
sp; But unlike the alliance, Wang Chong’s catapults were the metal catapults once used by Arabia.

  The only difference was that the Arabs had used the metal catapults to fling giants while Wang Chong had modified them to throw giant caltrops.

  The catapults could throw heavy things a very long distance, but there was a long interval between firing times—a critical flaw. However, Wang Chong’s metal catapults had special mechanisms that shortened the firing interval, even though they were launching caltrops that each weighed several tons.

  “Pass on my order! Have the Condor Snipers and master archers on the forward siege towers aim at the kerosene bombs. Detonate them at a distance of one thousand feet or more!”

  Beneath the six banners of the alliance, Gao Shang put away his folding fan, a sharp light in his eyes as he spoke.

  Nearby, a Goguryeon general was taken aback and instinctively turned to Goguryeon Emperor Yeon Gaesomun.

  The Condor Snipers on the siege towers were their men. What right did an advisor from Youzhou have to order them around?

  “Didn’t you hear? Go!” Yeon Gaesomun said without even turning his head.

  “Yes!”

  The general felt his heart chill as he dropped his head and ran off.

  “For this battle, let my men handle it!” The Khitan King spoke up in a gruff voice, plucking at his thick beard as he surveyed the battlefield.

  “My sons are the bravest. While you might be afraid of flames, we are not!”

  The Khitan King’s words made everyone fall silent, everyone looking at this rather ‘special’-looking Khitan King with strange looks.

  Tian Chengsi was particularly taken aback, barely able to say a word.

  This was kerosene that both water and sand found hard to extinguish. The Youzhou cavalry were brave, but not even they dared to charge in.

  “Hahaha, the Khitan King is truly fierce and courageous. Since that is so, then I must trouble you!”

  An Lushan heartily laughed, choosing to believe in the Khitan King.

  With a laugh, the Khitan King turned and left to make arrangements.

  A string of orders swiftly began to shift around the battlefield.

  Kaclack!

  Atop the siege towers, the Goguryeon Condor Snipers pulled back their bowstrings and took aim at the sky.

  Boom!

  With deafening howls, countless arrows shot out of the siege towers and collided against a kerosene bomb.

  Thudthudthud!

  The kerosene bombs began to explode more than one thousand feet in the air.

  The detonation of one kerosene bomb even managed to trigger a chain explosion with the waves of heat and flames it unleashed.

  No ordinary master archer could have so accurately calculated the trajectory of the kerosene bombs and detonated them more than one thousand feet in the air, but this was as normal as breathing for the Condor Snipers.

  The scattering and explosion of kerosene would normally only add to the flames and create even more damage, but this was why Gao Shang had required the kerosene bombs to be detonated more than one thousand feet in the air.

  This would allow all the kerosene to burn out in the air so that it would present no threat on the ground.

  Whoosh!

  As the kerosene bombs exploded, a blazing sea of fire appeared in the cold skies, a red light plating the clouds in a glorious sight.

  Wang Chong looked up at the blazing clouds and slightly frowned.

  Gao Shang! A thought flashed through Wang Chong’s mind.

  The alliance had many experts: An Lushan, Gao Shang, Cui Qianyou, Tiechi Bileli, and Yeon Gaesomun. They were all mighty powerhouses that excelled in both judgment and strategy. Defeating them was no easy task.

  But the more this was the case, the more determined Wang Chong was to break them.

  “Hmph, petty tricks!”

  Wang Chong coldly laughed and quickly regained his composure.

  The battle had only just begun, but the alliance had already lost numerous people without even climbing the walls.

  “If you really think that working together would be enough to defeat the Great Tang, you’re too naive!”

  ……

  Meanwhile, with the assistance from the archers on the siege towers, the pressure on the alliance was greatly reduced.

  Even so, the sea of fire in front of the fortress presented a formidable barrier to the alliance army.

  If they did not find a way to extinguish the flames, they still would not be able to assault the fortress.

  “Stand aside!”

  At this moment, gruff shouts came from the rear. Boom! A giant tree trunk flew out from the army and crashed into the sea of fire.

  The tree trunk was covered in black kerosene and began to burn.

  But at this moment…

  Clap!

  A foot stomped onto the thick trunk. At the same time, a Khitan warrior, his hair tied into braids, began to walk across the burning trunk, holding a tree trunk under each arm.

  Thud! Thud! The two tree trunks were also tossed into the sea of flame, the three tree trunks together forming a ‘path’ through the sea of fire.

  “Let me!”

  A Khitan warrior with bronze eyes, his body radiating fighting intent, charged like a bull into the sea of flames, also carrying two trunks under his arms.

  The blazing flames scorched the man, but neither this man nor the previous Khitan warrior seemed to notice, not even caring about the smell of burning flesh coming from their bodies.

  Thumpthump!

  More and more aggressive Khitan warriors, their bodies covered in wolfskin, began to charge in, throwing giant logs into the sea of fire and creating temporary ‘paths’ across the flames.

  “Ah!”

  Suddenly, one of the Khitan warriors fell into the sea of fire and was soon set aflame, but the other Khitan warriors seemed to not see, not even frowning as they charged forward.

  This sort of courage was truly astonishing.

  The Khitan Tribe controlled a small territory and was located between various other countries, but through brute strength, they had carved out their own land and held out against the attacks of other countries.

  Even though Andong Protector-General Zhang Shougui had tried many times to defeat them, he had been defeated each time, suffering significant losses with each attempt.

  Through this, one could see the ferocity of the Khitans.

  But a hundred rumors did not compare to a single meeting. At this moment, everyone could once more understand just how frightening the Khitans were!

  Atop his horse, King Bojang realized what was going on, and his expression turned harsh as he began to issue orders.

  “Go!

  “All soldiers, hurry and put on sand!

  “Anyone who has carried less than eight bags of sand in five minutes will be executed!”

  He now understood that these fearless Khitan warriors were braving the flames to create a path through the sea of fire to the walls of the fortress.

  Chapter 2175 - Khitan Braves! (II)

  Chapter 2175: Khitan Braves! (II)

  Translated by: Hypersheep325

  Edited by: Michyrr

  The tree trunks were easy to burn, and using this method could only temporarily avoid the sea of flames to create a path. One would still be scorched by the heat, and the trunks would be quickly burned up. These paths would not last for long.

  The other soldiers of the alliance could not use this method, as it would be no different from suicide.

  But if it was the Khitans… that was another matter entirely!

  “Use steel plates to help them create a path!”

  The others also began to realize what was going on.

  In the earlier battle, many shield carts had been destroyed. Now, numerous alliance soldiers worked together to push these destroyed shield carts into the sea of flames to help the Khitans open a path.

  Clang! Clang! Clang! Thousands of shield carts w
ere cast into the sea of flames.

  With the help of the alliance warriors, the force of the fire finally began to weaken, and the path of tree trunks extended all the way to the wall.

  “Go!”

  With a sharp bellow, the tens of thousands of Khitan soldiers crossed the path made of more than one hundred tree trunks.

  Even more astonishing was that while the first wave of Khitans crossed the path barefoot, those behind them rode atop horses.

  The round trunks were very unstable, and it would be very easy for horses to misstep or make the logs shift. But the Khitan cavalry seemed to be riding across level ground, displaying their masterful horsemanship. Besides one or two who accidentally fell into the flames, the other riders crossed smoothly.

  With the thundering of hooves, thousands of Khitan warriors gathered beneath the walls.

  Clang!

  A moment later, these bright-eyed Khitan warriors took out ropes that they flung up the walls.

  Sharp hooks attached to ropes that had been reinforced with steel wire flew up and latched onto the top of the walls. The Khitan warriors swiftly began to climb the ropes, holding their weapons in their mouths as they agilely scaled the walls like monkeys.

  This agility and speed left all the other alliance soldiers in the dust.

  The Khitans lived in the forests of the snowy plains. They were extremely resistant to cold and used to living amongst the trees.

  Though the Khitans were few in number, they were a most ferocious people. Climbing trees was a basic skill for them, and though the walls of the fortress were smooth, they were little different from trees to the Khitans.

  Swooshswooshswoosh!

  The tree trunks were still burning, but the Khitans had already scaled the walls, the ones at the front no more than ten-some meters from the top. With one lunge, they would be done.

  This astonishing sight made the eyes of the other alliance soldiers fly open, but it also filled them with excitement.

  “Khitans!”

  “Khitans!”

  “Khitans!”

  The cheers resounded through the world.

  The Khitans had brought more than one hundred thousand warriors to the alliance, more than enough to take the walls.