Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
Buzz!
The air trembled as a Halo of Thorns began to spread from under the feet of the White-hoofed Shadow, pouring down from the summit like a flood to expand over the army. This strange Halo of Thorns began to buff the various s.h.i.+eld soldiers, axemen, and archers, instantly raising the strength of the Annan Protectorate army.
Even Dalun Ruozan could tell that the Tang army had clearly become much stronger, exuding a brand-new aura.
One halo weakened the enemy soldiers while the other halo strengthened his own. Even Dalun Ruozan couldn"t help but widen his eyes in shock.
"What sort of halo is this!"
Dalun Ruozan was mentally shocked by something else.
For a normal halo to buff one of strength, dexterity, or speed was already decent enough, but w.a.n.g Chong could simultaneously buff all three.
In these circ.u.mstances, in this terrain, the eighty to ninety thousand soldiers of the Annan Protectorate army could defend the mountain so tightly that nothing would be able to make it through.
"Send an order to Duan Yangyan. Have him use his elephants to immediately shatter their formation!"
Dalun Ruozan"s eyes narrowed as he swiftly issued this order.
w.a.n.g Chong had many secrets. In Dalun Ruozan"s experience, a halo that covered such a large area could only be possessed by a Great General, but w.a.n.g Chong was clearly no Great General.
And besides that, this sort of halo that could simultaneously raise strength, dexterity and speed was no ordinary technique. It would be extremely rare in any empire, and even the most ill.u.s.trious Great Snow Mountain Holy Temple of Ü-Tsang did not have many such techniques.
"In addition, the division of giants that the Abbasid Caliphate helped us train should have arrived. It"s their turn to move out!"
With these final words, Dalun Ruozan"s gaze turned extremely dark.
Ü-Tsang and the Abbasid Caliphate had begun to work together very early on. In addition, their collaboration was far from restricted to that black kerosene. The division of giants was one of the fruits of their alliance.
Roar!
A roar came from the distant horizon—brutal, cruel, wild, and imbued with a desire to maim and ma.s.sacre. It was so loud that it sounded like a peal of thunder, so loud that it even drowned the sounds of fighting and the blares of the elephants.
The earth rumbled as if a great army was approaching from the distance.
This turmoil attracted everyone"s notice, including that of w.a.n.g Chong on the summit.
"This is…"
w.a.n.g Chong slightly narrowed his eyes, a hint of confusion appearing within them. The Great Tang had been fighting with Mengshe Zhao and Ü-Tsang for some time, so each side had a general understanding of all the soldiers each side could put into play.
But w.a.n.g Chong could guarantee that he had never felt this sort of energy before.
Buzz!
Upon clearly making out that thing appearing on the horizon, even w.a.n.g Chong had to widen his eyes.
A group of giant figures had suddenly appeared on the horizon. The reason he thought of them as "figures" and not "soldiers" was that w.a.n.g Chong had never before seen "humans" with such ma.s.sive bodies.
The bodies of these "creatures" were all incredibly muscular, and even more astonis.h.i.+ng was their height. All of them were six to seven meters tall, three to four times taller than a normal person.
Their skin was pitch-black, their expressions vicious, contorted, and ugly, and the thick plate armor covering their bodies was itself dreadful to behold. However, there was no doubt that they were humans.
"Aaaaah!"
"Get out of the way! Hurry!"
Screams began to fill the air, not from the Tang soldiers, but from the distant Tibetan warriors. When these giants appeared, their wild and brutal aura made even the well-trained highland steeds whinny in fright. All of the Tibetans began to flee out of the path of these giants.
As the giants approached, the Tibetans parted like waves, or like a flock urged on by a shepherd. Although these giants were wearing plate armor that must have weighed around a thousand jin and were wielding crude maces, cudgels, spears, and s.h.i.+elds, all of them were running at a speed that could outrun warhorses.
"What sort of monster is this?"
Chen Shusun"s eyes were twitching in shock. Though he had fought with the Tibetans for more than a month, he had never seen a monster appear amongst the Tibetan ranks. These could not be humans, only human-shaped monsters.
Although these monsters were still a distance away, the cruel and bloodthirsty aura that preceded them caused even Chen Shusun"s heart to madly beat in fear. These soldiers had no place in a regular battle.
"They"re from Sindhu!"
Although the monsters were still very far away, w.a.n.g Chong could tell at a glance from their pitch-black skin that they had once been part of the impoverished people of Sindhu.
Connecting this fact to their ma.s.sive const.i.tutions caused a name to instantly emerge in w.a.n.g Chong"s mind.
"The Skyquaking Army!"
w.a.n.g Chong muttered this name to himself.
In all of human history, whether here or in any other parallel universe, blood vessels and skeletal structures restricted the average human to a height of two meters.
It was extremely rare for someone with a height between 2.2 to 2.4 meters like the Invincible Great General Li Siye to appear.
But this did not mean that monsters who were even larger and taller than Li Siye did not exist. At least in the history that w.a.n.g Chong knew of, a very special army had existed for a short time: the Skyquaking Army!
w.a.n.g Chong recalled that in the lands to the west, within the borders of the impoverished Sindhu, the Abbasid Caliphate and Ü-Tsang, which bordered Sindhu, worked together on a plan.
They dispatched people into Sindhu to find young and orphaned people of abnormal height. The Abbasid Caliphate and Ü-Tsang began to raise these people, feeding them all kinds of medicines and specially-treated eagle, tiger, lion, and elephant meat.
They had them cultivate an ancient technique from some waning religion while also constantly using special techniques to stimulate their acupuncture points, awakening their potential.
In the end, they succeeded in raising ma.s.sive beings possessing limitless strength, which they called the "Skyquaking Army".
It was rumored that each soldier of the Skyquaking Army was seven or eight meters tall, some of them even approaching ten meters. And the Arabs were constantly using ancient and secret techniques to strengthen them.
At the end, the soldiers of the Skyquaking Army were trained so that they could rely purely on their innate strength to fight against experts of the Profound Martial realm, even the Imperial Martial realm. It was like they had been trained through a system completely different from the martial arts system currently used by everyone else.
w.a.n.g Chong had never seen the soldiers of the so-called Skyquaking Army, but he had heard many rumors about them. And in all the earth, everyone only treated the "Skyquaking Giants" like a joke, a complete and utter joke.
After all, people could not grow that tall.
But w.a.n.g Chong was different. Many years after the Battle of Talas, he had gotten to know several soldiers of the Anxi Protectorate army who had served under Gao Xianzhi and fled that battle. Based on what they said, when Gao Xianzhi battled with the Abbasid Caliphate, the soldiers of the Skyquaking Army had been amongst the ranks of the Abbasid Caliphate army, and the soldiers of Anxi had even battled with them…
But because Gao Xianzhi was already losing the battle at the time, the Skyquaking Army and Skyquaking Giants raised by the Abbasid Caliphate had only appeared for a brief moment, and very few people knew of them.
The soldier of the Anxi Protectorate that w.a.n.g Chong had met disappeared soon after their meeting, so w.a.n.g Chong had never been able to verify the rumor.
Thus, w.a.n.g Chong couldn"t provide any more information than this.
But w.a.n.g Chong had never imagined that the Skyquaking Army would appear here.
The Tibetans really are working with the Arabs, and they even collaborated on this "Skyquaking Army" plan. In addition, the prime conspirator working with the Arabs is actually Dalun Ruozan!
w.a.n.g Chong"s mind was in turmoil. Never had he imagined that he would meet the premature form of the Skyquaking Giants here. They had appeared far earlier than their rumored first appearance.
Dalun Ruozan truly is like Geluofeng. Both are incredibly ambitious and both have been making plans for a long time. Even without Geluofeng, Dalun Ruozan would still have sent out soldiers. This Skyquaking Army is the reinforcements they had prepared on the plateau. In my last life, the Annan Protectorate army was wiped out at Erhai, but things are completely different in this life…
On the summit, w.a.n.g Chong continued to think.
His interference had caused the southwestern war to follow a completely different track from his last life. First it was the st.u.r.dy Lion City by the Erhai, leading to a month-long siege.
After that was the "steel fortress" he had erected on this mountain, yet another barrier that the Mengshe–Ü-Tsang army would have to overcome and could not ignore.
Events had developed far beyond their original trajectory.
The Arabian Kerosene had appeared, as had the Skyquaking Army in its initial stages and the siege weapons… Not even w.a.n.g Chong was sure how the southwestern war would progress.
More importantly, w.a.n.g Chong knew why Dalun Ruozan had dispatched this army…
Because both the elephants from the forests of Erhai and the Skyquaking Giants relied on their fleshly strength to fight.
w.a.n.g Chong"s Bane of the Battlefield Halo was useless against the Erhai elephants and Skyquaking Giants.
Biaaaah!
With a heaven-shaking blare, the first to strike was not the distant and dreadful figures of the Skyquaking Giants, but the nearby Erhai elephants with their extremely long tusks.
Boom!
Two steel walls and the Tang soldiers behind them were flung into the air. Two Erhai elephants, eight to nine meters high and enclosed in white plate armor, led the charge up the mountain, accompanied by countless Tibetan and White Elephant Corps soldiers.
In the distance, even more Erhai elephants were trumpeting as they approached, their trunks raised into the air as they stirred up large clouds of dust in their charge. Duan Yangyan had changed up his plans. This time, his White Elephant Corps had no intention of dragging away the metal walls. Its goal was to knock them down and open a path for the Mengshe–Ü-Tsang army.