Chapter 500: Ü-Tsang! Ksitigarbha Secret Art!
Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
Clangclangclang!
Countless Tibetan scimitars flashed with cold light as they almost simultaneously attacked the Great Tang cavalry.
Sparks flew in this deafening clash, but the attacks of the Tibetans were almost completely stopped by the Meteoric Metal armor worn by the Great Tang cavalry.
"This…"
All the Tibetans were dumbfounded by this sight. The Great Tang soldiers had failed to break through the Tibetan fortress shroud, but the Tibetan scimitars had also been powerless against the Great Tang armor.
"We outnumber them. Hold them down and kill them all!"
It took only a split second for a ferocious order spoken in Tibetan to stir their cavalry into excitedly howling into the sky.
No matter how formidable the armor of these black-armored Tang cavalry was, one thousand were simply no match for three thousand Tibetan cavalry.
Thirty echelons, one wave cras.h.i.+ng down after another, created an impact that no person could withstand, not even these strange black-armored cavalry.
"Hmph, I thought that they were actually strong! Dengba, lead the army and kill all of them. Don"t let a single one escape!"
The muscular Tibetan commander coldly laughed, his mind completely at ease. At the start, he truly had been scared a little.
These Tang soldiers could not be understood with common sense, but they were still lacking. The middle-level fortress formed by one thousand Tibetan cavalry could block three or four thousand Tang soldiers, and he had three thousand elite cavalry with him.
He could already imagine those Great Tang soldiers being crushed into the dust.
"Once we kill this Tang army, we"ll lead the army east and exterminate that Great Tang Commandant with the surname Xu, and then there will be no one left in the southwest who can resist us… I actually thought that these Tang soldiers were some big deal, but it"s just a gra.s.shopper trying to block a carriage!"
A sneer hovered on the commander"s lips, yet this smile didn"t last too long before quickly vanis.h.i.+ng into a puff of smoke.
"Your thinking is too simple!"
In these brief seconds, no one had noticed the icy light in w.a.n.g Chong"s eyes. If the Tibetans really thought that this was all he had, then they were gravely mistaken.
If he didn"t have any confidence, he would have never risked having one thousand men face off in a contest of strength against three thousand Tibetan heavy cavalry.
Seconds flew by, and right when the Tibetans were howling and prepared to exterminate the Tang soldiers, w.a.n.g Chong suddenly put down a foot and unleashed the Bane of the Battlefield halo…
Boom!
Like a hurricane pa.s.sing through, an invisible energy spread out from w.a.n.g Chong"s body to everyone present. Although this energy couldn"t be seen, everyone could instantly hear an earthshaking boom in their ears, as if the earth itself was sundering apart.
Crack!
There was nothing in the air, but the middle-level Halo of Fortress shrouding the Tibetan army was suddenly covered in countless tiny cracks, after which it shattered into pieces.
"Not good!"
In an instant, all the Tibetan soldiers felt this change and paled, their minds in turmoil.
Without any warning, they found their strength suddenly plunging. The fortress was still there, but its toughness and l.u.s.ter had fallen an entire level, going from a middle-level fortress to an initial-level fortress formed from only one hundred people.
To these Tibetans who had worked together to form this fortress and had grown accustomed to its strength, this change was like a magnitude 8 earthquake.
In the long history of Ü-Tsang, from ancient times up to the present age, it had fought against countless powers from the Central Plains, but it was possible to say that not a single Tibetan had ever encountered such strange circ.u.mstances.
"What"s going on? Why did we get so weak!"
"The fortress! The fortress collapsed!"
"Impossible! This can"t be happening!"
"How could the Tang men weaken our fortress? That"s impossible! I don"t believe it! I won"t believe it!"
……
Though much time seemed to have pa.s.sed, it actually only took a few seconds to deal the Tibetans a destructive blow and throw them into chaos.
"An excellent chance!"
The Great Tang soldiers immediately noticed this change and were ecstatic, Li Siye and Old Eagle especially so.
Tibetans were not horse bandits, and horse bandits were not as difficult to deal with as the Ü-Tsang regular army. But without the protection of that vaulted fortress, everything was different.
The initial-level Halo of Fortress was still powerful, but it was of no threat to their army.
This was not their first time facing an initial-level Halo of Fortress, and the Wootz Steel weapons had already proved to be perfectly capable of breaking through such a defense.
It took only a few moments for all this to occur. With w.a.n.g Chong releasing both the Halo of Dusk Stallion and the Bane of the Battlefield, the tide of battle had completely s.h.i.+fted.
"Heaven-Earth Net!"
w.a.n.g Chong"s voice tore through the sky, and the two five-hundred-man units of cavalry began to carry out his order. If one said that the army was at first like some giant two-headed snake, it was now transforming into many little snakes.
Each little snake was made of one hundred soldiers.
Each unit had a hundred-man commander, ten-man commanders, and five-man commanders. Although each unit was small, each of them was complete, and each soldier was extremely nimble and quick to obey.
Rumble! After w.a.n.g Chong"s order, those soldiers which had originally been in Arrow Formation suddenly transformed into tiny snakes that crashed into the echelons of the Tibetan army.
The first time, their charge had been blocked by the middle-level fortress, but this time, nothing could halt their advance.
The initial-level fortress was still there, but it could no longer take physical form like a middle-level fortress and keep enemies out.
Swoos.h.!.+
One Wootz Steel sword after another cut through the air. The charge of the warhorses, the strength of the clan experts, and the inertia of the Tibetans charging toward them made for a power that could crush anything into powder.
Bengbengbengbeng!
The black-armored "snakes" plunged into the Tibetan echelons, crisscrossing through them. In just one round, a hundred-man echelon in the middle had been completely smashed, the Tibetan riders falling to the ground without even a groan. Even their horses had been chopped in half!
The warhorses flew out of the ranks, made a turn, and charged back into the Tibetan formation. They entered with full speed and exited at full speed, the flashes of swords leaving behind corpses in their wakes.
This hundred-man echelon was fully equipped and suited in the thick Tibetan armor, but none of them had been able to take a single blow from the "Heaven-Earth Net". The attacks came from every direction, and w.a.n.g Chong"s army didn"t stop. Whether or not they killed anyone, they would always enter and exit at full speed. These one thousand troops freely slaughtered their way through the Tibetan ranks, with not a single person able to stop them.
The small snakes that w.a.n.g Chong led were all independent and agile, yet they all seemed to be cooperating with each other, as if they were part of a single ent.i.ty.
These three thousand Tibetan cavalry were clearly facing only one-third their number, but the final result was that each hundred-man echelon was fighting against a furious wave of ten times their number.
The Echelon Formation that the Tibetans used to topple their opponents in a wave had now become a fatal weakness. The s.p.a.ce left between each echelon as a buffer for charging had now become a flaw that w.a.n.g Chong was exploiting.
Rumble!
Dust stirred and the earth quaked as Great Tang cavalry romped over the battlefield.
One round, two rounds, three rounds, four rounds…
Though an ordinary person might think only a few moments had pa.s.sed, to the Tibetans, it was an excruciating eternity. As horses neighed and blood splashed, the Tibetans had lost five hundred cavalry.
All of these people had been wearing the thick armor, had been armed to the teeth, and had been buffed by the Yak Halo and the initial-level Halo of Fortress. On a normal battlefield, five hundred men would have been enough to deal with several times their number.
But this time, it took only a few seconds for all of them to be wiped out. That thick armor that had been tempered hundreds of times was cut apart like tofu, leaving behind glossy cuts and falling together with severed limbs to the ground. It was a hair-raising scene that made one quail in fear.
In their first battle as a regular army, these soldiers equipped with Wootz Steel swords had exhibited an astonis.h.i.+ng strength, and what was even more astonis.h.i.+ng was the level of cohesiveness and flexibility they showed.
"No, I"m going to kill all of you!"
A roar of fury and surprise, spoken in the Tibetan tongue, echoed through the world. As w.a.n.g Chong"s soldiers finished their fifth go-around, they felt an extremely dangerous energy behind them.
w.a.n.g Chong"s heart chilled as he hurriedly turned his head. What he saw was a stalwart figure wearing golden gauntlets leaping into the air, his appearance like that of a descended G.o.d.
His visage was terrifying to behold, br.i.m.m.i.n.g with boundless anger and loathing. A destructive and majestic energy had gathered around him like lightning clouds and seemed ready to lash out at any moment.
"Not good!"
w.a.n.g Chong was stunned. The energy on this person"s body had increased at an absurd rate, and his body seemed to be swelling like a balloon, making his visage even more terrifying and vicious.
"The Ksitigarbha1 Secret Art!"
A lightning bolt flashed through his mind as w.a.n.g Chong instantly recognized what this Tibetan was up to. Almost all of Ü-Tsang"s martial arts originated from the Great Snow Mountain Holy Land. Unlike the Central Plains, Ü-Tsang had always maintained a single lineage.
And with its long history, it had acc.u.mulated a great many mysterious techniques.
The Ksitigarbha Secret Art was one of these.
A small number of the generals in the Ü-Tsang army could use secret arts that allowed their strength to climb to a terrifying level in a very short period of time, allowing them to destroy their opponents in a single blow.
This was a rumor that had been circulating in the Central Plains for some time, but there were few witnesses, so most people treated it as a joke.
But w.a.n.g Chong knew that this was no tall tale, and it certainly wasn"t a joke.
The reason was simple: w.a.n.g Chong had seen one with his own eyes!
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1. Ksitigarbha, whose Chinese name means "Earth Treasury", is a bodhisattva who is revered in East Asia. He is generally depicted as a bald monk, and he is known for taking a vow that he would not become a Buddha until all the h.e.l.ls were empty.↩