After searching Batunlu's body, Wang Chong's gaze turned to the corpse of the horse that Batunlu had been riding.
If Batunlu hadn't hidden anything on his body, then it could only be on the corpse of the horse.
But a moment later, Wang Chong was once again disappointed.
"Impossible. Where did I go wrong? Could it be that Batunlu doesn't actually have any martial arts manuals on him? "
Wang Chong rubbed his chin, a puzzled look in his eyes.
He had thought that Batunlu would have hidden nothing under the saddle, but there was nothing under the saddle. It seemed that he would not be able to obtain Batunlu's Ksitigarbha Secret Technique and the Six-Armed Ksitigarbha Vajra Warrior.
However, when Wang Chong's gaze swept across Batunlu's boots, a thought flashed through his mind. Suddenly, Wang Chong seemed to discover something.
Batunlu's boots looked different from ordinary people's. Wang Chong was wearing a pair himself, but he knew how thick they were. Batunlu's boots were clearly thicker. Could it be....
At this thought, Wang Chong's heart thumped. Suddenly, he bent down, took out his WuZi Steel sword, and carefully cut open the outer layer of the boot.
"Clack!"
The moment the boot was cut open, something fell out and landed on the ground. It was a colorful, meticulous, and carefully folded golden scroll that looked like a piece of silk or a piece of cloth.
"It really is here!"
Wang Chong's eyes brightened, and he was overjoyed. He picked up the thick golden scroll from the ground and gently unfurled it. A greenish-black Six-Armed Ksitigarbha Vajra stood on dried bones and black clouds, its body blazing with raging flames. It seemed both angry and angry as it leapt up, as if about to pounce out.
"It really is Ksitigarbha Vajra Warrior! He hid it so well!"
Wang Chong laughed heartily. A famous general like Batunlu really did have something valuable on him. However, wasn't this a little too well-hidden? If he had not been careful enough to notice that the thickness of the boot was off, he would never have guessed that Batunlu had hidden it so well.
"Right, there's also a boot!"
Wang Chong's heart lit up. He picked up the WuZi Steel sword and simply cut open the sole of Batunlu's other left boot. Just as Wang Chong had guessed, Batunlu's Ksitigarbha secret art, which stimulated the potential of his life force, was indeed hidden in the inner layer of his left boot. Unlike the Six-Armed Ksitigarbha Vajra Guardian, Batunlu's Ksitigarbha Secret Art was just a thin square of paper, densely scrawled with Tibetan characters.
"Fortunately, I learned the language of Ouzan in my previous life. Otherwise, even if I obtained these two techniques, they would be useless."
Glancing at it, Wang Chong couldn't help but rejoice.
These two techniques were written in the Ouzan language, which was completely different from the language of the Central Plains. If one didn't recognize the Ouzan characters, it was obvious that obtaining these two secret manuals would be useless.
"The Eagle!"
After putting away the two secret manuals, Wang Chong stood up. He had just called out "The Eagle" when he suddenly heard a rumble in his mind.
"Warning. A major incident has occurred. The Annam Protectorate has lost a large number of troops. Lion City is about to fall. Countdown: three days. After three days, if host has not reached within five hundred li of Lion City, the mission will be considered a failure and will be completely obliterated! "
The Stone of Destiny's voice was cold, mechanical, and devoid of emotion.
When he heard this icy voice, Wang Chong's body trembled. The blood drained from his face, turning it deathly white.
"How is this possible?"
Wang Chong paled. This was the first time he had heard a warning from the Stone of Destiny in the past few days. This sort of warning would normally not appear, but when it did, it meant that something major had happened.
"Lion City is cultivated by Zhang Shouzhi. Its walls are impenetrable, and it's guarded by eighty thousand soldiers. How could it possibly fall?"
Wang Chong couldn't believe his ears.
This city had been built with a large amount of gold. The outer walls were made of fine iron, and many sturdiness inscriptions had been added to them. The walls were smooth and steep, impossible to climb. When Wang Chong had first built this city, it had been for the sake of war, to provide a fortress for the Annam Protectorate.
In reality, this city had served its purpose.
The reason why Wang Chong had been able to calmly spend so much time training his troops was because Wang Chong firmly believed that Lion City wouldn't fall in a short period of time. But now, everything had changed.
"Just what happened in the south?"
Wang Chong's face paled.
The joy he had felt from defeating Batunlu and the three thousand Ouzan soldiers had vanished without a trace. At this moment, a massive sense of danger descended from the heavens, firmly enveloping Wang Chong. Wang Chong looked into the distance. Although he couldn't see anything from here, Wang Chong could sense that a dark cloud was sweeping in from the south.
The southwestern campaign was developing far more fiercely than he had imagined.
Xianyu Zhongtong had been defeated. This was an indisputable fact. Regardless of how much he owed this war or the empire in the future, if he couldn't reach the Erhai plains within three days, he was clearly doomed.
Something that he didn't know about had happened in the south, but Wang Chong couldn't figure out what it was. Just what could have caused Lion City to suffer such heavy losses?
"Young Master, what's wrong?"
A concerned voice came from the side. The Eagle walked up from behind, a worried expression on his face.
He had been paying attention to Wang Chong for a while now. Wang Chong had been standing there motionlessly, his face pale. This sort of mental state was abnormal no matter how one looked at it, and it was extremely worrying.
"It's nothing!"
Wang Chong stuffed Batunlu's golden boxing gloves into The Eagle's hands.
"This set of boxing gloves is for you!"
Once he finished speaking, he strode forward, somersaulted, jumped on the horse's back, and raised his arm.
"All soldiers, hear my order! Drop everything and advance at full speed!"
Rumble!
Everyone was dumbfounded by this order. These corpses hadn't even been buried, so why were they suddenly moving? But despite their confusion, everyone immediately mounted their horses and marched.
"What's going on?"
Li Siye rode over and asked. He had also sensed that something was wrong with Wang Chong.
"Something's happened up ahead. Move immediately. The Eagle, have you found that Commandant Xu? "
Wang Chong asked.
"Mm."
The Eagle nodded.
"Move out!"
… …
The mountain was tall and straight, and the forest was dense.
Amidst the howling winds, a black-faced, bearded, and burly man wearing the standard armor of a Tang dynasty commandant stood at the peak of the mountain. There were actually very few particularly tall mountain ranges in the southwest, and in this area, this mountain was undoubtedly the tallest. Standing here, he could see everything going on in his surroundings.
This was also why he had chosen to set up camp here.
"Strange?"
Xu Shilin stood at the top of the mountain, surrounded by guards. His eyes narrowed in confusion as he gazed into the distance.
"Did you find out?"
"Yes, it wasn't a trap. Batunlu really did retreat, and we don't know what happened either."
"Didn't you continue to investigate where they went?"
"This … we were also worried that it was a trap, so we didn't pursue very far. We only carefully searched the surroundings and confirmed that there were no ambushes, and that there were no problems, before we returned."
The scout captain bowed and hesitated for a moment before replying respectfully.
"Got it. You may leave!"
Xu Shilin frowned and quickly dismissed the scout captain with a wave of his hand.
Batunlu had clearly been on the verge of launching an attack, but for some reason, he had suddenly disappeared. All of this seemed very strange, but this was not what Xu Shilin was most worried about … Xu Shilin's eyes swept across the densely packed and heavily guarded army, and a trace of deep worry flashed through his eyes.
These people were all people he had gathered from all over the place during this period of time. In total, they numbered around five thousand. But this increase in numbers did not give Xu Shilin the slightest peace of mind. On the contrary, he felt even more perplexed and uneasy.
General Li had died in battle!
The empire's brightest star had died on the way south. Even though Xu Shilin had warned him, this did not change the fact that the army of sixty thousand had been destroyed by Ouzan before they could even arrive. And an even greater danger lay in the southwest.
Xu Shilin had served in the army for twenty years, participated in all kinds of battles, big and small, and experienced all kinds of dangers, but he still did not dare say that he had encountered such a great danger before his eyes!
The three hundred thousand-strong Mengshe Zhao army and the two hundred thousand-strong Ouzan Ngari Royal Lineage had joined forces and defeated the one hundred and eighty thousand Annam Protectorate soldiers by the Erhai plains. This was an unprecedented crisis in the history of the empire. The door to the southwest had been opened, and tens of thousands of common people were exposed to the hooves of foreign horses.
The Tang dynasty, which had been peaceful for centuries, was about to receive its first heavy blow!
And for him and the Tang dynasty soldiers here, the dilemma was that whether they moved forward or backward, there was only death waiting for them. If they moved forward, what awaited them was the five hundred thousand-strong allied army of Mengshe Zhao and Ouzan. An army of five thousand would be like a mantis trying to stop a chariot, seeking their own destruction.
If they moved forward … military orders must be obeyed! They had originally come to reinforce the Annam Protectorate. Their mission had not been completed, and their goal had not been reached. How could they retreat? Not to mention, who knew how many Ouzan soldiers were waiting for them.
"Reporting! Enemy presence! "
Suddenly, a mournful voice came from the sentry post set up halfway up the mountain.
This voice immediately woke Xu Shilin up from his deep thoughts. At the same time, the five thousand Tang dynasty soldiers on the mountain moved quickly. The grinding sound of machinery rang out incessantly, and all the spears and swords were aimed outside the mountain. The atmosphere suddenly became tense.
Gallop!
The enemy had arrived faster than expected. Looking from afar, one could see smoke and dust billowing at the end of the earth. Torrents of steel surged forward like ten thousand horses, their momentum extremely terrifying.
"Sir, the Ouzan people have arrived. What should we do next?"
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
