Chapter 534 - Sun Quan Army VS Undead Army (1)
The shared injuries from Diaochan didn"t affect other officers that had sworn allegiance to her as she limited the damage transfer to only Liu Yang and Li Feihong.
This was the perk of being the superior, who was acknowledged as an immortal liege. She could choose which vessels that would bear her injuries.
Had she been selfish, she could have transferred all damage to one person. However, that person would have died from soul injuries.
Diaochan understood the fundamental strength of her subordinates. She had faith that Li Feihong and Liu Yang could recover from the damage within a few months, which would be faster than weaker officers, who might need several years.
The sacrifice of the three strongest fighters might hinder the entire army as a whole, but it prevented unnecessary casualties.
Sun Quan was thankful that Diaochan didn"t pa.s.s on the soul injuries to him and his officers. Or else, he would have been crippled.
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Zhuge Liang: "By the way, where is Gan Ning"s unit?"
Diaochan: "His fleet is still far away from Guangling. That"s odd. He should have gotten there last month."
Diaochan: "Never mind. I knew why he"s delayed. He ran into a foreign cultivator, the queen of Wo at that."
Diaochan: "From their conversation, Gan Ning is doing well gaining the favor from the queen. We can let it slide for now."
Guo Jia: "Wo Country? I remember them. They"re friendly islanders. We can leave them alone."
Zhuge Liang: "Give me the details of this country. Maybe we can trade with them to acquire extra resources for the southern campaign."
The chat kept on going as Diaochan relayed her vision to the two strategists.
However, Sun Quan didn"t pay attention to the current clan messages since he was busy organizing the troops to construct a fort. A big fight was coming.
…
= Jiujiang County, East of Shouchun =
2 AM.
Jiujiang County was an agriculture county that specialized in farming. Farmlands were everywhere, yet a large wooden fort stood out like a sore thumb in the middle of farm fields. Spike barricades, trenches, and watchtowers formed three lines of defense toward the east.
Many days had pa.s.sed since Sun Shangxiang"s humiliating retreat. She swallowed her pride and helped Sun Quan constructing a defensive fort and traps for the upcoming battle.
They couldn"t mobilize their armies due to the threat of Gan Ji.
But today, they received a piece of good news. Diaochan had successfully killed Gan Ji in Li Feihong"s dimension.
Without Gan Ji or the threat of an 8-wing cultivator, Sun Quan and Sun Shangxiang were free to engage against the zombie horde.
Unfortunately, the news came a bit late. Before the sun had set, the zombie horde was already upon them.
"UUUuuuuUUUgggHHH"
A deep howl came from 250,000 remaining zombies who survived the collateral damage from the fight. When these monsters saw a large structure and various watchtowers, they screeched and began to run.
Despite being zombies, the running speed was on par with Usain Bolt.
On the other hand, skeletons formed ranks and marched forward as if they were trained as a proper army.
Their distance was 500 meters away from the first layer of fortress traps and barricades.
…
100 Meters behind the first line of barricades, five hundred arrow towers linked together into a long wall for boarding 10,000 crossbowmen and 100 rookie snipers.
Behind these towers, several wooden bridges connected the formation of watchtowers to the second line of the defense mud wall. This was their escape route in the case that the undead army could break through their defense.
In front of the watchtowers, harvested paddy fields had been transformed into a 5-meter-deep and 50-meter-wide moat, protecting the east side of Sun Quan"s new fort.
Inside the moat, underground water flooded the bottom moat, which turned the soil into a muddy swamp. Thousands of bamboo pikes pointed to the sky, waiting for any foolish invader to fall and be impaled by them. This was the giant pitfall trap waiting for the mindless zombies.
The preparation was set. The rest was up to the performance of the soldiers and their generals.
"Watch closely how my arrows. .h.i.t."
From one of the watchtowers, Sun Shangxiang demonstrated how to kill zombies by activating her homing arrows. Fifty silver arrows flew and created a glittering arc and precisely plunged the arrowheads into 50 zombies" foreheads.
50 targeted zombies collapsed with only one hit.
"See? You only need to aim at their heads."
Huang Gai, who was standing by Sun Shangxiang"s side, squinted his eyes to see the dead zombies from over 300 meters away.
"Are they dead?"
"Obviously."
"But, princess… Our archers are not that accurate. A volley of 1,000 arrows usually hit only 400-500 soldiers, and only less than a half can precisely hit the heads."
Huang Gai and his soldiers got used to ancient warfare tactics.
A platoon of 1,000 archers always fired their arrows at a targeted area at the same time, which was a common arrow volley. Archers only took aim when they were defending against a few enemies. Most of the time, they aimed at a general direction and fired randomly since most shots were likely to hit someone among a crowd of a chaotic battlefield.
The zombie army countered this tactic since their bodies could withstand projectiles. Only their brain was vulnerable.
"Use the guns," Sun Shangxiang rolled her eyes, "Diaochan"s rifles are there for the tasks, right? Have the elite riflemen gun down those zombies. As for archers, be prepare to use cannons against those skeletons."
Huang Gai nodded and relayed his order to his elites to swap out repeating crossbows for sniper rifles.
Although not many soldiers had trained with this weapon, a hundred snipers were enough to wither down running zombies.
100,000 Running zombies charged forward. 200 Meters remained until they would reach the first line of spike barricades.
*BANG*
*BANG*
*BANG*
*BANG*
Rookie snipers got to use their live bullets for the first time. Unfortunately, the first volley wasn"t accurate as only 50 zombies died.
These soldiers got nervous as they were standing on the top of watchtowers. Seeing the ma.s.sive troops rus.h.i.+ng at them frightened them that their performance dropped.
150 Meters remained. The zombies" das.h.i.+ng speed got even faster when they found Sun Quan"s soldiers.
Crossbowmen and archers on towers didn"t wait for snipers to do all the work. They unleashed everything they had to the zombies.
As Sun Shangxiang"s words had already been pa.s.sed down, all soldiers didn"t shoot in a general direction. They properly aimed at the heads of the zombies.
Still, the majority of zombies braced the attacks and charged at the watchtowers. They ignored the arrow rain and ran in frantic, drooling and screaming in delight by the smell of the living soldiers on the watchtowers.
But one remaining obstacle stopped the zombies" advance, the trap moat.
Several thousands of zombies fell into the moat and were slowed down by the mud. Half of the victims got impaled by bamboo spears.
Archers on the watchtowers sneered at these stupid zombies. They took their time and aimed.
As their targets were less than 50 meters away, their accuracy got sharper. Several thousand arrows found their ways into the brains of the zombies.
Sun Shangxiang"s homing arrows kept pouring onto the undead. She also detached her souls to increase her firepower.
At the firing rate of 175 arrows per second, Sun Shangxiang became a slaughtering machine, who gave her subordinates hope and courage.
Corpses began to pile on top of another as more zombies fell into the moat. Rain of arrows and bullets hailed onto the newcomers without stopping.
The battle seemed easy at first as the zombies couldn"t climb up the moat and die one after another. But 20 minutes later, Sun Shangxiang"s soldiers began to run out of ammunition.
Zombies started to climb on top of each other to reach the watchtowers. From the depth of 5 meters, the corpses and struggling zombies piled up, becoming stairs for others. The bamboo spears inside the moat also became useless.
At that point, Sun Shangxiang sent out her new order before the soldiers could react.
"Retreat to the second line of defense! Don"t bother going into melee with those zombies!"
Huang Gai and his men abandoned the first wall of watchtowers and retreated in order. The soldiers looked disappointed that they didn"t get to fight in melee combat.
Sun Shangxiang was afraid of one characteristic of zombies, which she had seen a lot in modern movies, the zombie virus. Once bitten, the victim could mutate into one of them, and that could cause a s...o...b..ll effect on the whole army.
In j.a.panese chess, shogi, a king"s early escape is worth eight moves. Sun Shangxiang applied this principle to warfare.
And her judgment was correct. A group of the surviving zombies managed to get out of the ditch 5 minutes later after the retreat order was in motion. These frantic deadmen began climbing the watchtowers.
On the other side of the moat, 150,000 skeletons stopped moving. They gazed blankly at the zombie-filled moat.
Sun Shangxiang and Huang Gai retreated last since they could fly. When they took flight and saw the action of the skeleton soldiers, Huang Gai questioned Sun Shangxiang"s strategy.
"Are you sure those monsters will fall to our traps?"
Sun Shangxiang shook her head as she wasn"t confident, "For zombies, they will. But for those guys, I don"t think so. You go lead the second line. I"ll just float around here and shoot at those bones."
As Sun Shangxiang was speaking, she unleashed another batch of magic arrows at the skeleton soldiers, who were standing still in formation.
50 arrows penetrated into 50 skulls.
Yet, their glowing red eyes stared at Sun Shangxiang. They grabbed the light arrows and yanked them out as if they were a nuisance. Only one of them looked confused before it collapsed on the ground.
"DAFUQ!?" Sun Shangxiang was shocked.
"Did you empower your skill with life force?"
"Well, s.h.i.+t. I didn"t. d.a.m.n YOU, b.o.n.e.r b.a.s.t.a.r.dS!! YOU"VE FORCED ME TO SPEND MY PRECIOUS LIFESPAN!!"
Sun Shangxiang shot 50 more magic homing arrows. This time, she enhanced her light arrows with her life force, which consumed 500 years of lifespan per shooting one homing arrow.
50 Arrows made an arc and hit the same targets that Sun Shangxiang had failed to kill.
*BOOM*
*BOOM*
*BOOM*
49 Skulls shattered by the impact of 50 enhanced arrows. Only one arrow missed its target as it was laying on the ground, so the arrow hit another skeleton instead.
"I see. So that"s how it is," Huang Gai was enlightened. He rushed back to inform the men that they need to spend some lifespan to kill the skeletons. As for zombies, a simple arrow in the brain was enough to down them.
But Huang Gai failed to notice that all skeletons at the back of the undead platoons had faint glowing red eyeb.a.l.l.s inside their skull.
They gazed at Huang Gai and Sun Shangxiang in the sky. The jaws and teeth clattered as if it muttered some unknown words.
As if they had intelligence, 10,000 of the bone soldiers detached from their formation and jumped into the moat. The group piled the corpses of zombies to make bridges for their colleagues. They also didn"t forget to disarm the bamboo spear traps.
Another batch of 10,000 skeletons also jumped into the moat. They picked up the used arrows of Sun Shangxiang"s soldiers and dissected the remaining corpses, prying off bones from the dead zombies.
Leg bones, rib cages, spines, and various parts of human bones were brought back to the skeleton army.
The rest of the skeletons began to a.s.semble the collected parts into their new weapon. Many of them began sharpening the newly acquired bones into a make-s.h.i.+ft spear, and a dozen of them merged their skeleton frame with small bone pieces, enhancing their strength.
Every action of the skeleton army didn"t escape Sun Shangxiang"s keen eyes.
"Motherf.u.c.kers," Sun Shangxiang cursed as she sent a private message to Sun Quan to give him the authority. The foul mouth G.o.ddess continued spending more life forces into her homing arrow skills and sniped the bone soldiers.
The bone army glared back at Sun Shangxiang with hatred. Yet, they ignored her and continued working on their new weapons and the bridge.
The bone soldier, who was shot by Sun Shangxiang"s dud homing arrow, also glanced at her. It was still alive.