Chapter 2042: That Night, Everyone Met Their Maker
Zu An stared into the endless monster army. However, the monsters didn’t have officer banners like the humans, so it was hard to recognize who exactly was commanding them.
The Second Empress keenly sensed his frown and asked out of consideration, “Ah Zu, what’s wrong?”
Zu An shared his realization with her. He figured that since she had fought these monsters for a long time, perhaps she would know more.
The Second Empress shook her head and said, “It is honestly really strange. Most of the monsters have low intelligence and should be creatures that instinctively prey on food, and yet they are attacking with such strategy. They are even more fearless than human soldiers, so I do not know what to do either.”
When he heard her description, Zu An said seriously, “There"s definitely something commanding them, or else there would’ve been mutual slaughter among their army a long time ago. How could they possibly attack the city in such a concerted manner?”
“But we cannot tell who is commanding them at all,” the Second Empress said as she looked at the black expanse of monsters. Normally, if one wanted to command an army of such a huge scale, then apart from language, they had to understand flag signals, or drum beats. But these monsters didn’t have any of that. She didn’t even see any soldiers meant for pa.s.sing along orders.
The monster army once again swarmed toward Mengte City like an ocean wave. But this time, because of the incredible prowess Zu An displayed, the city’s soldiers were full of morale and continued to stop their a.s.sault. The city wall that had previously been broken down by the caterpillar became the focal point of the monsters’ attacks. But with Zu An’s a.s.sistance, the monsters weren’t able to break through. At the same time, many earth, ice, and water element cultivators worked together to rebuild it, forming a new city wall.
When she saw that a new city wall was going up, the Second Empress sighed in relief.
Zu An’s expression was grave, however. The fearless monsters continued charging forward again and again even though the fiends" side was always able to fend them off, forcing them to leave behind a pile of corpses. It didn’t look as if the monsters were decreasing in number at all. There were just way too many of them. Meanwhile, under the monster attacks, Mengte City’s soldiers were suffering casualties again and again. If this continued for two or three more rounds, their entire battle line could collapse.
In the past, when the Fiend races fought against the human army, it was none other than their numbers advantage that had put the humans in a difficult spot. Who could have thought that fortunes would rise and fall so quickly, for these foreign monsters’ numbers to far exceed their own?
The Tiger race’s leader, Hu Qianxiao, arrived at their side. He quietly said, “Second Empress, regent, we can’t hold on for much longer. Should we use this chance while everyone still has some strength left to break out of this encirclement?”
The Second Empress’ expression changed. If it were someone else who made this suggestion, perhaps she would have already executed them under military law. But Hu Qianxiao was different. His Tiger race warriors had brought heroic contributions the whole time.
“Of course I know that we can’t hold on for much longer, but there are monsters everywhere outside of the city. How can we break out?” she replied bitterly.
“Even so, the only thing awaiting us here is death. If we try to break out, we will still have a chance of survival. The most important thing is hope...” Hu Qianxiao said nervously. He naturally knew that the Second Empress was worried that the morale would drop if they chose to abandon the city. At that point, they wouldn’t be able to mount an effective retaliation at all. “This humble one is willing to be at the very vanguard of the attack. I vow to slaughter a b.l.o.o.d.y path of survival for everyone.”
He was also going for broke. Being at the very front meant there would definitely be terrible casualties. However, what he was more scared of was defending this spot to the death. If that happened, the entire army would be completely wiped out.
The Second Empress was hesitant. She could only look toward Zu An.
Zu An patted her hand to console her, saying, “Let’s not be in a rush to leave yet. It’ll be fine as long as we can figure out a way to defeat these monsters head-on.”
Hu Qianxiao laughed helplessly, saying, “These monsters’ forces are dozens of times larger than our own, and they are all individually strong. We have already tried all kinds of methods. If we could defeat them with a frontal a.s.sault, we wouldn’t have fled all the way here.”
There was no lack of famous generals among the Fiend races. That was also why, even though they had fallen into this trap, they were still able to hold on until now. They had already developed brilliant strategies outside the norm and used all kinds of schemes. But even so, they knew that there was no way of defeating these monsters, and they could only buy a bit more time.
“Just leave it to me,” Zu An said as he looked at the black ma.s.s of monsters. He seemed to have already come up with a plan.
Hu Qianxiao frowned, saying, “Regent, I know that your cultivation is high, but no matter how great an individual’s power is, they still cannot change much against this many monsters. Not even the late Fiend Emperor reincarnated could do anything in this situation.”
Zu An chuckled, saying, “The late Fiend Emperor is the late Fiend Emperor; I am myself. You can watch from right here, I’ll be back.”
Hu Qianxiao asked, “Do you need help? This one can go with you!” He was already one of those with the greatest fighting prowess out of the survivors.
“There’s no need. It’ll be done soon.” Zu An paused for a moment before saying, “Right, activate all of your defensive formations, the highest level you have.”
The Second Empress was stunned, saying, “But we don’t have enough resources left to begin with. If we activate all of our defenses to the maximum, that will use up all of the energy we have. We won’t be able to use them again!”
“Trust me,” Zu An said simply, then flew in the direction of the monster army.
When she saw him leave, the Second Empress was full of worry. The metal birds he had taken out were already extremely shocking, but defeating a monster army of a million was still beyond their power. Even if he took them out again, even without the giants, they still had ways of defeating them. Since then, she had already thought of many ways the monsters could deal with the metal birds. Even though Zu An’s cultivation was high, one man against a million monsters was like throwing a pebble into the ocean.
All of the soldiers in the city cheered when they saw Zu An charge out. Even though they didn’t know what kind of solution Zu An had, they had seen the regent’s power themselves. It was precisely because they didn’t have enough information that they had even greater hopes.
When she saw that, the Second Empress gritted her teeth. She ordered the troops to activate the highest-level defensive formation. At the same time, she flew over to the war drums. She pushed the drummers away and personally hit the drums to give Zu An support.
When he heard the pounding war drums behind him, Zu An turned around. Seeing the Second Empress behind him strike the drums with worry and resolution, he felt warm inside.
Suddenly, many of the flying monsters sensed his arrival. They rushed at him to rip him to pieces. However, one after another, golden ripples appeared in the sky behind Zu An. Then, countless metal weapons fired out from inside. All of the incoming monsters were instantly blasted apart.
When they saw that, the soldiers in Mengte City cheered even louder.
However, the truly strong individuals such as Hu Qianxiao and the Second Empress were full of worry. This move Zu An showed was strong, capable of single-handedly dominating an army of ten thousand. But what he was facing off against was a monster army of a million! On top of that, there were still some especially strong monsters on the other side! Perhaps his terrifying sword ki could kill many, many enemies, but more monsters would instantly drown him out and completely rip him apart. Only by increasing the distance and kiting the monsters, doing his best to face fewer enemies at a time and nibbling away at them while trying to stir up alarm in the enemy army, would he be able to earn a slight chance of survival for all of them.
And yet, what left the two of them stupefied was that Zu An didn’t fly around the edge of the enemy army, and instead went to the very center.
“Has he gone mad?!” Hu Qianxiao muttered to himself.
The Second Empress was also horrified. Even though Zu An was powerful, compared to the black expanse of monsters, he was just like an ant. Even if ten Fiend Emperors rushed at the monsters, they would still be drowned under the weight of numbers. How could he possibly be ten times stronger than the late Fiend Emperor?
When the monsters saw Zu An fly to the very center, many of them snickered. The ones at the very front were almost all cannon fodder, while this was where the stronger ones were. There was no lack of creatures on the level of the Heart-Devouring Demon Spiders and Demonic Motherbug there. Sinister looks appeared on their faces. They would soon teach this fella what it meant to try and fight numbers with his two measly fists!
We can drown you to death with just our spittle!
The golden sword ki was really terrifying, but there was a limit to its power. With so many of them to take on a share of the burden, blocking the attacks wasn’t difficult at all. Then, there would definitely be a chance to get closer and chew him to death.
The blood essence of someone this strong will definitely taste amazing!
When he saw those powerful monsters charge at him with sinister smiles, Zu An muttered to himself, “I’ve watched an animation where the main character had the nickname Nuclear Sword Immortal. It just so happens that I seem to be able to put together hydrogen bombs...”
While he spoke, a large, droplet-shaped iron ball suddenly appeared behind him.
“What is that?” Many of the great monsters were stunned. The metal ball looked to be a few meters long. It wasn’t even as large as many of their companions.
“You want to crush us to death with such a small metal ball?” they exclaimed, laughing.
“Be careful! Those metal spheres earlier were able to create explosions of great heat and force,” a more cautious monster warned.
“Heh, the things those metal birds dropped aren’t even enough to scratch an itch for us. A single punch will make him meet his maker!” a great monster that resembled a praying mantis replied, then sent a punch as fast as lightning at that iron sphere. It was so fast that the friction between its claw and the air produced a sunset-like radiance.
The other monsters nodded. The mantis’ claw was generally acknowledged to be the strongest among all of them. Its punch could crush any defenses, and it should have been more than enough to make the enemy meet their maker.
But what they didn’t expect was that the power of this punch was far greater than any of them had expected. It made all of them meet their maker!