Chapter 596: The City Falls
The Qin warriors in the front row all lowered their halberds, their gleaming blades protruding like hedgehogs.
The Blood Shadow Step crashed into him.
The outer disciples in the first row couldn't stop their momentum and crashed into the halberd formation along with their afterimages.
The first few men were pierced by three halberds at the same time, their bodies hanging on the halberd shafts like rags, and the blood mist they spat out sprayed all over the faces of those behind them.
The elite soldiers roared in unison, twisting and lifting the corpse with their arms, sending it flying and crashing into the charging group behind them.
Using the corpse of his companion as cover, an outer disciple crouched down and crawled under the halberd shaft, his blood-coagulated claws reaching out, his five fingers digging into the ankle of a warrior.
The soldier grunted, his legs went weak, and just as he was about to swing his halberd to stab again, the centurion next to him kicked the outer disciple in the shoulder, sending him tumbling to the ground.
"Don't break the formation! Third row! Cover for the enemy!"
But the Demon Sect disciples went berserk, attacking one after another as soon as one of them died.
Someone swept a bone-crushing whip kick from the side, striking the soldier's shin with a hidden force that penetrated to the bone. The soldier's leg snapped, and he was forced to kneel on one knee in pain.
Before he could even get up with his halberd, two demonic sect disciples pounced on him, one grabbing his waist and the other choking him, and the three of them rolled into the crowd together.
"These bastards are absolutely reckless!"
A young warrior wiped his face, not even having time to pull back his halberd, and with a backhand, drew his short sword from his waist and stabbed the outer disciple in front of him.
"Scared?" The old soldier beside him swept his halberd across, knocking two enemies off the moat.
"Screw it! I just find it disgusting! Those bastards are dead and still trying to bite me!"
"Then don't get bitten!"
Hundreds of second-stage awakened warriors mingled among the elite troops, like tigers among sheep.
A physical awakener gripped a giant tower shield with both hands and swatted it left and right like swatting flies, each blow sending three or five outer disciples flying backward.
He was chanting, "One, two, three, hey, this is even more fun than playing whack-a-mole!"
The power-type Awakener next to him was even more formidable. He held a massive iron hammer that was half a person's height in his hand, and the hammerhead was twice the size of a human head.
He stepped forward, twisted his waist, and swung the sledgehammer horizontally, the hammer wind whipping up rubble and broken blades, accompanied by a dull whistling sound.
"boom!"
With one blow, the three outer disciples who were charging at the front were sent flying, swords and bodies alike.
The one at the very front had a chunk of his chest collapse, and he crashed into the enemy ranks behind him like a tattered sack, knocking down a whole bunch of them.
Two people next to him were hit by the hammer's wind, and half of their arms were twisted into bizarre angles on the spot. While they were still in mid-air, blood was already spurting from their mouths.
"That was exhilarating!" the power-type awakener roared, gripping his hammer with both hands, and swept into the crowd like a black whirlwind.
With a slam of the hammer, the ground exploded with a ring of spiderweb-like cracks, and several demonic sect disciples who tried to roll close to the ground were thrown two feet off the ground by the shock.
The hammer then flicked upwards, striking the chin of the person in the very front.
The fire-elemental awakener was even more ruthless. He suddenly pointed his staff forward, and the firelight gathered at the tip of the staff suddenly lengthened, transforming into a fire snake more than ten meters long, which shot out wildly along the ground.
Wherever the fire snake passed, the soil cracked and the air distorted. The outer disciples didn't even have time to dodge before the entire group was engulfed by the flames. Screams filled the air, and the air was thick with the smell of burning flesh.
"You're burning too close! You've singed off my eyebrows!" A nearby Awakened One wielding a knife shouted, jumping up and down.
"I'll shave your head for free, aren't you going to thank me?" The fire-elemental awakener laughed and threw another fireball.
The outer disciples were finally afraid. It wasn't that they lacked courage, but after being bombarded by the Qin crossbow formation, the halberd formation, and hundreds of awakened individuals, their remaining courage had burned away like oil.
"I'm not fighting anymore! I surrender!"
"Run! Go back to the city!"
"The city gates aren't closed yet! Run!"
But the demonic sect disciples behind the city gate, seeing that things were not going well, actually closed the gate.
The outer disciples who {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} had escaped were blocked outside their own city gates. They were both angry and afraid, and they pounded on the door and cursed loudly.
"You sons of bitches! Open the door!"
"I've risked my life for this sect, and you're shutting me down!"
"Stop pushing! The door won't open!"
One of the outer disciples who had escaped to the gate was shot through the back by a Qin crossbow bolt from behind. His hands scratched several bloody marks on the city gate before he slowly slid down.
More people crowded in front of the gate, pushing and shoving each other, until they were forced to the edge of the moat, where they fell one after another.
"Ignore the skirmishers! Bring up the battering ram! Keep smashing!"
The soldiers pushed the battering ram back to the city gate, tightened the chains, raised the giant wolf-headed hammer high, and slammed it down hard on the already crumbling city gate.
"boom!!!"
The city gate was shattered.
Purple light and shattered wood fragments burst forth, raining down in all directions.
"Charge in!"
The Qin elite soldiers and garrison troops surged into the gate like a tide, only to be met head-on by thousands of outer disciples who were already lined up in formation inside the barbican.
"Release the arrows!"
"shield!"
The space inside the barbican was cramped, and demonic sect disciples continued to fire arrows and throw stones at the entrance from the city walls.
The soldiers who rushed in had to step over broken arrows and corpses to get to the front of the road with each step.
"This place is like a coffin!" someone cursed.
"Then let's flip the coffin lid!" The centurion next to him raised his sword to block the two blows and kicked the outer disciple in front of him to the ground.
The soldiers formed a shield wall and pushed inward like an iron wall.
Under the cover of a rain of arrows, the outer disciples used their swords, claws, and their lives to ram against the wall.
Inside the barbican, the glint of swords was like boiling water, and blood seeped out from the cracks in the bricks. The ground was slippery and sticky underfoot, and every step felt like fighting for your life in a swamp.
"Don't stop! Push them in! Push them all against the wall!" the centurion roared, brandishing his halberd.
"It's so crowded! So crowded! My back is practically plastered to the wall!"
One of the demonic sect disciples was so suffocated by his own people that he couldn't breathe, and his face turned a deep purplish-red.
"What's wrong with you sticking your back to the wall? I can't even pull out my knife!" someone next to him shouted, their voice trembling with tears.
"We have to pull it out, even if we can't! We're going to die whether we're behind or in front, so let's charge back!"
"Stop pushing! I'm going to throw up if you keep pushing!"
"Ouch! Who the hell stepped on my foot?!"
This was hardly a war; it was more like a group of sardines being crammed into a stone coffin, with no room to even turn over.
Thirty thousand elite Qin troops poured in through the collapsed city gates like black water, spearmen and halberds in front, crossbowmen behind, like iron brushes, sweeping down the demonic sect disciples in the barbican layer by layer.
Two hours later, the inner gate of the barbican also shattered under the continuous pounding of the battering ram.
"The city has fallen! The city has fallen! Charge in!" A centurion shouted, brandishing his halberd.
This time, there was no decent resistance from behind the city gate.
Thousands of handyman disciples crowded behind the door, holding black iron rods and swords picked up from the corpses, like a flock of sheep forced into a corner by a flood.
Some people were trembling, and some were still crying out, "The sect leader will not let you go!" But the moment the black torrent surged in, all the sounds turned into screams and wails.
"Don't kill me! I surrender! I'm just a farmer!"
"Me too! I've never even touched a knife! I just picked up this stick!"
"Get out of the way! You're blocking my way!" A soldier kicked him aside.
"Brother! I have an eighty-year-old mother at home, ah!"
"When you were throwing stones at us from the city wall, why didn't you mention you had an old mother at home?"
Another soldier swung his sword and pinned the man to the ground.
The servants at the city gate were quickly cleared out.
The corpses piled up behind the door, forming a blood wall half a person high.
The main force charged into the city over this wall, and the real street fighting began from this moment.
The streets were blocked by various roadblocks and collapsed houses, and the remnants of the Demon Sect kept fighting their way out from rooftops, alleyways, and cellars, like wild dogs driven to the brink of despair.
The army of the Beacon Fire Territory was divided into small teams, clearing through the streets and alleys one by one, with shields blocking the way, crossbowmen following behind, and awakened ones clearing the path.
The flames and shouts of battle spread from the west of the city to the east, illuminating the entire Blood Nest No. 10. (End of tour)