One hundred and fifty thousand experienced craftsmen were in the city, and though they were normally laying bricks, placing tiles, and building the city, when a battle began, they would become one hundred and fifty thousand pairs of eyes. They could serve as the best scouts and lookouts. No one should have been able to sneak past their eyes and infiltrate the city.
Yet it was a fact that before Dayan Mangban launched his sneak attack, no one in the city had noticed anything strange. Simply put, the enemy had not climbed over the walls, but had infiltrated the City of Steel beforehand.
From a certain perspective, this was utterly inconceivable.
"This… Time has been short, and we still haven"t had time to properly investigate. However, according to the procedure laid out by Lord Marquis, after the incident, we cleaned up the area and discovered several broken wooden chests.
"These chests all had a large hole, and half of the steel and building modules were missing."
Behind w.a.n.g Chong, a young officer, about twenty-eight years old, described the results of the preliminary investigation.
w.a.n.g Chong"s brow furrowed, but he quickly understood what was going on.
I really did underestimate him. He must have done something while the products were being s.h.i.+pped from the capital and the provinces. This Tibetan madman seems to be a far more meticulous person than I imagined, w.a.n.g Chong quietly said to himself.
In order to maintain secrecy, w.a.n.g Chong had sealed many of the modules for his City of Steel in wooden chests so that outsiders wouldn"t be able to tell what was inside. A large hole being made in these chests wasn"t enough to draw any sort of concern, but that so many steel modules were missing completely changed the nature of the matter.
There was a high chance that this was how the Tibetans had managed to sneak past his eyes as well as the eyes of the one hundred and fifty thousand craftsmen.
"I understand. Let"s leave the matter there! Strengthen the guard. In addition…"
w.a.n.g Chong began to head back when he suddenly stopped.
"Have some people clean this place up!"
After glancing behind him for a moment, w.a.n.g Chong quickly left.
The night winds howled, spreading a thick stench of blood through the air. The ground behind w.a.n.g Chong was strewn with the corpses of Tibetan White Braves. Nothing came without a price.
Dayan Mangban had retreated, but these two-hundred-some Tibetan elites were the price he had to pay.
……
Gallop!
The Tibetan White Braves rode through the darkness, fleeing toward the Tibetan Plateau. Next to Dayan Mangban, a Tibetan deputy general appeared greatly confused.
"Milord, what should we do now?"
The deputy general"s eyes were tinged with a deep worry.
More than two thousand White Braves had suffered two to three hundred losses in the attack on the city. The elite White Braves had never suffered such a heavy loss before. This tiny City of Steel had inflicted more damage to the White Braves than entire kingdoms.
At the very least, the White Braves had never suffered such casualties when they attacked Greater and Lesser Balur.
And when they thought about how Lord Dusong Mangpoje was waiting at the edge of the plateau for news of their victory, the soldiers couldn"t help but s.h.i.+ver in fear.
I really didn"t think that we would be defeated by that small city with only several thousand people guarding it!
I didn"t think that Great Tang brat would be even more impressive than the rumors. Milord has always been a master of siegecraft, never leaving a city empty-handed, but not even Milord personally taking action could deal with that boy.
And that city was incredibly tough. Zongka and Cangba with their Metal element abilities can easily turn a gate into powder or transform it into a giant. This move has always been effective in previous battles, but even after working for so long, those two only managed to dig a few inches into the wall. I truly can"t believe it.
General has always been proud. For him to lose to this Great Tang youth must be very difficult for him to accept.
Underneath the starry sky, the White Braves were thinking about the battle, a variety of expressions on their faces. However, none of them dared to voice their thoughts.
They had come very prepared for this operation, bringing with them battering rams from the Great Snow Mountain Sacred Ground, and grappling hooks for scaling the walls. They had wrapped the hooves of their horses, brought Metal element warriors, infiltrated the city beforehand… Using all these methods on a city still in the middle of construction was like using a sledgehammer to swat a fly.
But no one had expected their opponent to be so formidable.
And even their commander Dayan Mangban had lost to them.
In Ü-Tsang, Dayan Mangban might not have led troops in battle very often, but he had an extremely high prestige within the White Braves, no less than that of renowned generals like Huoshu Huicang.
In truth, Dayan Mangban had used his conquest of several small kingdoms to prove himself. In those countries, Dayan Mangban was even more famous than the other Great Generals of the empire.
That he would fail in this mission was completely unexpected. Even the personal involvement of their general had failed to kill that brat!
"Heheheh, that brat is even smarter than I thought. I underestimated him!"
A delighted voice rang in everyone"s ears. Dayan Mangban was smacking his lips and grinning. His face showed no dejection whatsoever at the loss. On the contrary, it was bursting with the will to battle.
"Milord…"
In a flash, everyone was stupefied. They had predicted all sorts of reactions from Dayan Mangban, how he would express his dejection and dismay, but they had never expected this.
"Heheheh!"
Dayan Mangban continued to chuckle to himself, his mind on the just-concluded battle rather than his subordinates.
His mind was abuzz with thoughts. It had been ages since he had encountered such an interesting foe. Dayan Mangban could sense that his opponent was clearly weaker than him. Normally, his first strike from his hiding spot would have settled things.
But this fellow had been extremely sensitive, and the blow had missed. This had never happened before.
Dayan Mangban had originally wanted to prevent w.a.n.g Chong from hiding himself in the crowd, using the more than one hundred thousand craftsmen as a s.h.i.+eld to avoid battle, or even abandoning the city as a whole and fleeing. Such actions would make the operation meaningless. Thus, a Brigadier General like Dayan Mangban had not used his strength to kill his way into the city, but chosen to silently hide nearby for the right moment to strike.
Dayan Mangban had used sneak attacks like this many times to deal with small kingdoms in Ü-Tsang"s periphery like Little Balur. The enemy commanders would often die before they were even able to see who their opponent was. But Dayan Mangban"s plans had encountered an unexpected roadblock. Everything had been going smoothly, and w.a.n.g Chong had had his attention drawn away by the soldiers in the city as planned, but then… the operation failed!
Not since Dayan Mangban had left the Great Snow Mountain Holy Temple had he encountered such a strategic and tactical genius!
"…But this was just an accident. You won"t get such a good chance next time," Dayan Mangban said, his eyes cold and bright, his expression like that of a savage beast.
The White Braves were skilled in fighting on an open field. In charging down the enemy, the White Braves could proudly look down upon the entire world, could contend against five, even ten times their number in enemy cavalry. But w.a.n.g Chong"s City of Steel was tough and lofty. Even a full-strength blow from a Brigadier General like Dayan Mangban had failed to knock over those walls that had been hastily built in a single month. This had also caught him by surprise.
Dayan Mangban had two to three thousand subordinates outside the walls, but they could never get in and help him fight w.a.n.g Chong. On the other hand, w.a.n.g Chong could call over two-hundred-some of his subordinates, divide them into squads and formations, and organize them to launch a constant stream of attacks, consuming his Stellar Energy. He had never encountered such a thing before.
It could be said that Dayan Mangban had never encountered an opponent with this kind of ability.
But this only further aroused Dayan Mangban"s killing intent. Right now, not even the Tsenpo"s order would make him put down this mission.
"There"s no need to worry about the Tsenpo and Lord Mangpoje. I"ll explain things to them."
Dayan Mangban gave a sinister smile as he looked profoundly into the distance.
"In addition, everyone should prepare themselves. We"ll be putting aside the City of Steel for the time being. We"ll return to the plateau in a little. Right now, follow me to the camp of the Qixi Protectorate army! Heheh! Since we can"t deal with that boy from the w.a.n.g Clan, we"ll collect a little interest first!"
"!!!"
The soldiers around him were at first dumbstruck, but they quickly began to cheer.
"Yes, Milord!"
The thunderous hooves of two-thousand-some White Braves suddenly changed direction, no longer on the road back to the Tibetan Plateau.
This night was bound to be a restless one!
……
Flapflap!
Not long after Dayan Mangban"s elite cavalry left, a messenger bird took off. This bird of pitch-black body and golden eyes flew through the air and into the main hall of the Qixi Protectorate headquarters. Buzz! At this moment, even time seemed to stop. A deathly stillness had settled over the Qixi Protectorate, as if all the air in a radius of several hundred li had been sucked out.
But then, the earth began to tremble, the Qixi Protectorate began to shudder, and a roar of unrestrained fury tore through the sky.
"b.a.s.t.a.r.d!
"Useless thing! You couldn"t even do something as small as this!
"This one has made all that effort in vain! f.u.c.king s.h.i.+t!"
An energy as vast as the mountains and seas exploded like a storm, alarming everything in a radius of a hundred li. Fumeng Lingcha was like a berserk beast, his hurricane of energy causing everyone to tremble in fear.
Qixi bordered the Tibetan Plateau, and Fumeng Lingcha had taken a great risk to create an opening for the Tibetan soldiers to come through. Dusong Mangpoje was a smart man, so he should have known what he wanted.
But Fumeng Lingcha had never expected that after all the risks he took, the Tibetans would still fail.