Chapter 215: Horn Chaos Rises Again
In the prison of Storm City, a Horned Person with his face full of knife scars sensed the large-scale blood sacrifice of his fellow clansmen. He grabbed the iron bars of the dungeon and desperately shook them, emitting a chilling roar.
The Feathered Tribe prison guards outside the prison cell didn’t take these Horned People’s madness seriously, after all, they hadn’t given the Horned People water; the harsh confinement environment was enough to drive prisoners insane. So these prison guards directly locked the prison cell doors tight, aiming for out of sight, out of mind.
However, this former subordinate of Silver Horn melted away in the prison, leaving only a skeleton behind. And after the flesh left the skeleton, it didn’t turn into liquid, but became countless tiny soybean-sized pieces of meat that flowed away through the gaps in the prison floor.
…The perspective shifts outside the prison cell…
In the slave camp outside Storm City, inside a crude stone cave; those Horned People imprisoned as obedient slaves all heard a calling voice in their ears: “Freedom!” “Awaken!” “Rebel!”
Immediately after, these slaves chained, with haggard faces and disheveled fur, all saw a “meat pill” appear before them, and a seductive voice echoed in their minds; thus, under the Evil Moon in the sky, they stretched out their dirty hands, sending the meat pill into their mouths. After swallowing, their entire bodies’ flesh began to reshape.
The Horned People who completed the mutation synchronously looked up. Electric arcs shot from their horns, and they now possessed coordinated sensory abilities, then they began to maniacally stare in the direction of Storm City. Their crimson gazes revealed a deathly silence.
Note: Xuan Chong saw the record in Sky City that in ancient times, the Horned People group could receive radio communications with the horns on their heads, and their collective combat ability was quite strong.
One-third of the Horned People mutated, as for the other non-mutated Horned People, they looked at these enlarged kin in fear and trepidation. Although something in the radio waves they could sense told them: “Everyone, this ritual is our tribe’s ritual to select powerful warriors!” But their genetic instincts warned them that they were now very dangerous, just like antelopes among tiger leopards.
Soon, these non-mutated Horned People had their limbs broken and were subdued, then they were torn apart and devoured alive bit by bit.
Several hours later, a group of terrifying upright creatures appeared in the Horned People camp. Weighing one and a half tons, five or six meters tall, with particularly thick arms hanging past their knees; horns also grew on their arms.
These Horned People now underwent atavistic mutation, with hooked barbs appearing on their arms and knees. Tracing back to their genetic original form, it was a regular “ring,” similar to the eye of a needle for threading; its function was to bind external skeletal armor.
Just as in the 21st century, when humans design firearms and individual projectile weapons, they must consider the comfort of grips and shoulder stocks. The Horned People’s original design was to better fit heavy mecha.
Now the Evil Moon made the Horned People’s mutations very irregular. The Horned People perforated their keratin structures and bound war axes and saw blades to them.
At the early morning hour, in Storm City. The Feathered Tribe sentries on the city walls detected the bloody smell drifting from the slave field through the mist.
Some Feathered Tribe scouts wanted to fly up to check, but as soon as they took off, they were completely sliced in half, man and all, by a one-meter boomerang blade.
Immediately after, there were countless pained screams, and the conch alarm sounding an enemy attack—the Horned People began the siege. After the Horned People broke through the first line of defense, the Feathered People fell into street fighting within the city.
Especially when several large monsters emerged later, they were almost unsolvable for the Feathered Tribe warriors.
The five-to-six-meter-tall Horned People giant monsters were like the Green Giant Hulk, smashing and collapsing numerous buildings in the city; due to their own circumstances, the Feathered Tribe did not produce as many long spear experts as the Yao People.
Da Yao field battle soldiers could extend their spears to 1.5 zhang, and in some extreme cases, up to two zhang.
The method of using this great spear was to fling it from afar; the spearhead was so distant that it even needed markers attached, such as red tassels, to help spear soldiers lock onto flanking rabble with their peripheral vision. Under the control of the Wu Family Army’s spear experts, not only could large giant beasts not charge through the spear formation, even knife-wielding close-combat warriors couldn’t get near.
…On the other side…
Xuan Chong’s return pod fell from the sky back into the main camp. In these short ten days, signs of unrest had already appeared in the expeditionary army, with some soldiers no longer training but fishing by the seaside.
As a huge fireball streaked down from the sky and then deployed its parachute; these soldiers slacking by the sea dropped their fishing rods and hurriedly ran back to the main camp, hastily grabbing their weapons.
But quite a few unlucky ones failed to slip into the main camp before the camp fences closed, and had to crawl through them. Of course, these were formed into a suicide squad. Half an hour later, confirming Xuan Chong had returned, the whole army alert was lifted. Those guys assigned to the suicide squad were then taken to a small black room for individual rectification one by one.
Xuan Chong, who had landed, looked at these soldiers hugging his thighs and crying bitterly, feeling both amused and exasperated. —Truth be told, he had no right to punish them; as the main general playing missing for ten days (only a few leaders knew), he had already made the officers and soldiers anxious.
Xuan Chong returned to the military camp and conducted three days of rectification; various cases large and small led him to arrange over a hundred punishments. Of course, they were all light spankings, with very light paddles, no military police supervision, and no deduction of merit.
Actually, Xuan Chong was just using kicks to the butt to tell the lads he was back, letting them recover their state.
…The evil army is developing…
Tong Zheng Calendar Year 3, Month 5, Storm City had already been occupied by Horned People slaves. Most Feathered People fled, but a small portion stayed, and Gold Horn performed blood sacrifices on these Feathered Tribe elders and weaklings.
Batches of red beams descended, and the Horned People participating in the blood sacrifice began further mutation under these beams.
The Horned People evil followers began frantically devouring everything around them: corpses, soil, stones. Their bodies rapidly swelled.
Strangely, after some Horned People grew larger, the horns on their heads no longer showed. —In the species encyclopedia Xuan Chong saw, the original Horned People were three meters tall, while the degenerated Horned People now seen were mostly in the “juvenile stage,” and with sufficient energy supply, they would enter the growth stage.
Of course, the Evil Moon wouldn’t let the Horned People perfectly atavize; it always made them more grotesque. Some had multiple arms, some had horns twisted into crooked hooks.
Five days after the destruction of Storm City, the Horned People advanced north, once again laying siege to Griffon City; and the xenophobic Feathered Tribe in the city had no choice but to dispatch envoys—once again begging Xuan Chong to fulfill the contract.
In Ding Ling City, Xuan Chong, who was debugging the dismantled gene modification facility, met Ka Wu covered in blood.
Hearing that after Storm City fell, his ally’s city had also been breached, Xuan Chong asked: “Where is your king? Can’t he fly?”
In Xuan Chong’s impression, the Feathered People should flee if they couldn’t win. Ka Wu: “My king has already fallen in battle within the city; now the prince is leading the corps to gather citizens on the east side of the city-state.”
Xuan Chong thought for a moment and dispatched the Dragon Horse Cavalry regiment to check the situation opposite.
…Chaos…
Griffon City was burning; after the Horned People surged in through the breach in the northern city wall, they looted and killed in the city.
Especially the mutated Horned People surging out from the prison, cooperating inside and out with the invading Horned People. Large numbers of Feathered Tribe residents in the city fled to the seaside, escaping on fishing boats.
In Feathered Tribe culture, armies that breach a city prioritize looting and scavenging after occupying it, not controlling household registries, population maps, or the like.
After all, under slavery, the utilization value of manpower was often just coolies and playthings.
On the east side of the city, Prince Lu Er Ge led infantry phalanxes to gather personnel.
Ang Ri circled for a while, confirmed the situation, and dispatched a small team back to report. He himself landed in Lu Er Ge’s phalanx.
Ang Ri: “Respected Prince Your Highness, glad to see you. My family’s general’s corps is preparing.”
Lu Er Ge: “Have you come?”
Ang Ri: “The corps is ready; now my lord sent me to first confirm the situation.”
Lu Er Ge’s tone was somewhat irritable: “Are you coming or not?”
Ang Ri: “Your Highness, we will naturally come. But coming here, is it to defend the city, or to protect you and your citizens? Our army’s decision needs to be based on your side’s current situation.”
Lu Er Ge suppressed his anger: “If you are unwilling to help us, we will fight to the end ourselves.”
Ang Ri: “The general is inclined to help Your Highness the Prince regain the city. But it requires—”
Lu Er Ge rudely interrupted him: “We will not become your servants! —As he said this, red light flickered in his eyes.”
Ang Ri took a deep breath: “We never intended to treat allies that way, but since Your Excellency thinks so, I feel we lack consensus between us.”
…Allies are clueless…
Twelve hours later, Xuan Chong arrived five kilometers outside the city with four hundred reinforcements. From the sky, black smoke could already be seen rising straight up. —This number was negligible compared to the tens of thousands in the Thorn Plains campaign, but those who reached here were all experts!
These elite soldiers had already begun donning their lamellar armor and feeding their war horses chocolate-flavored nutrient blocks.
As two waves of Dragon Horse knights landed successively from the sky, reporting Gold Horn occupying Griffon City and Lu Er Ge the prince’s somewhat cold and distant attitude, Xuan Chong lowered his head in thought for a moment.
The generals from the north came cursing angrily; the Feathered Tribe people didn’t know a good heart.
Xuan Chong raised his head and glanced at these resentful people; they immediately restrained themselves. After confirming the meeting atmosphere was quiet, Xuan Chong fixed his gaze on Mu Yun Kuohai.
Xuan Chong: “Kuohai, come help me hold the map.”
Xuan Chong marked some key areas on the map: “Dock, warehouse, and city wall high points are now lightly guarded; we shall strike unexpectedly, seize them, then seal off the city’s road nodes.”
Then Xuan Chong issued orders for the light cavalry troops to seize all these important points and hold them for two hours. The rest of the troops were to don armor and advance at full speed.
After all orders were given, Xuan Chong patted Mu Yun Kuohai, “You need to be a hero!”
The veterans in the camp understood what was up. After Xuan Chong walked away, everyone congratulated the bewildered Mu Yun Kuohai.
During Xuan Chong’s extraterritorial expedition, he had already planned to use locals as the “fulcrum”; now that Lu Er Ge was uncooperative, don’t blame the Wu Family Army for arranging a backup candidate after victory.
The drop pods Xuan Chong brought down contained twenty-four portions of Feathered Tribe genetic modification potion materials, and chips to insert into the brain.
This genetic modification was the Feathered Tribe’s long-dreamed king trial reward; indeed, most nobles’ trials were for fun, and ultimately the king had to fly up to get the genetic modification reward to maintain the kingdom’s bloodline.
And kingdom nobles maintained their bloodlines from degeneration through promiscuity with the king, leaving illegitimate sons and daughters. Ritual laws didn’t apply to them; bloodline purity was paramount.
Xuan Chong could now create twenty-four kings! Enough for two round tables for himself.
…Demonstrate might, console…
Based on intelligence, Xuan Chong determined Gold Horn had left the city to pursue Lu Er Ge’s corps without power to return, and immediately ordered an elite surprise attack on Griffon City!
In Eastern military strategy, “to rescue Zhao, you don’t have to go to Zhao; gutting the enemy’s main base suffices!”
Of course, to the Feathered Tribe, this might seem a bit disloyal; Lu Er Ge believed that since foreign allies came, they should center their strategy around his own!
The Wu Family Army’s Dragon Horses flew hugging the three-zhang-high ground, advancing at extreme speed over the flat coastal terrain.
Compared to the freer Guiche, Tai Yue Luan, Feathered Tribe. Dragon Horses mostly flew using ground effect, and even had small claws on their wings; now in formation, the small claws on the wings of two Dragon Horses gripped together, forming a chained chain of Dragon Horses, with the overall wing surface more aerodynamically stable.
This team of Dragon Horse troops quickly arrived at Griffon City; the earlier cavalry had planned to charge up the ten-meter wooden-framed brick-skinned city walls and knock the Horned People off into the city below; but this beachhead-style battle didn’t occur. The Dragon Horses activated stealth technique, standing like stone sculptures on the platform of Griffon City’s white high tower.
This platform featured griffin reliefs. But unless Feathered People living here constantly, they wouldn’t suspect the extra statues; Horned People, long shackled, had no habit of looking up at grand landmark buildings.
Ten minutes later, the rapidly arriving Wu Family Army soldiers successfully scaled the city walls. Seeing the Horned People in the city still obliviously engrossed in looting, they didn’t charge down to fight.
Instead, they quickly dispersed to each city gate, then with a cannon shot, acted in sync, slitting the throats of the few Horned People still in the city defense facilities who had just eaten and drunk and were snoring away. Then they closed the city gates.
During this process of seizing the gates, the Horned People looting and rummaging in the city only saw fireworks rise from the city outskirts, then the gates closed.
Leader Gold Horn was not in the city. He took a hundred large mutants, five twisted monsters three zhang tall, and over a thousand underlings to besiege a small castle a hundred li northeast. Because Griffon City’s prince Lu Er Ge had retreated there with remnants.
Storm City had over two thousand scattered Horned People. Though still numerous, after surprise attacks from all directions, they were like headless flies. Just like when Wu Hengyu raided county cities from the state that year.
As Xuan Chong’s main force arrived, Dragon Horses swooped down from the walls, first left, then right, like brooms gathering dust into a pile, herding the Horned People into the city’s main thoroughfares, forcing them to trample each other.
Then shadows appeared in the sky; Guiche landed on high street points, its nine heads overlooking the streets like a Western evil dragon assaulting a castle, spewing a burst of dull yellow foul gas at the Horned People.
The composition of this “toxic breath,” Xuan Chong had tested: containing chlorine, oxygen, carbon, slightly heavier than air, preliminarily guessed to be “phosgene.” Not ruling out other components.
Xuan Chong didn’t want flame breath to damage wooden buildings, so had the Guiche use “poison breath,” which proved amazingly effective in narrow passages; large swaths of Horned People clutched their throats in violent convulsions. And this foul gas was contained within a fixed range.
At each street entrance, Da Yao spear soldiers formed spear walls; any escaping Horned People were impaled.
“Hey ha, hey ha!” The spear formation held at the gates for half an hour, directly skewering the Horned People group through.
Most barbarian tribes and peasant rebel troops often saw combat power plummet after entering a city. The Horned People were a prime example.
Under the steady advance of the spear phalanx, all movable Horned People on the streets were given an extra stab. Their looted wealth in big and small bundles fell to the ground, with no spear soldiers showing signs of bending down to take it.
And this wealth would later be collected by a separate team dispatched by the officers.
The entire army was like a precise harvester, Horned People cut to pieces like grass; while their collected wealth piled up like sheaves on carts.
An army’s strongest moment is when “upper and lower share the same desire,” and weakest when “each harbors their own thoughts.”
Blood flowed like rivers on the streets. The few Feathered People hiding in bell tower and other high tower building gaps, after vetting by Wu Family Army Crow People soldiers, were allowed to poke their bodies out from the building crevices to watch the situation below; of course, each had to wave a flag, or they’d be mistaken for Horned People and shot down directly by crossbows.
But these Feathered People “watching the parade” saw the city strewn with corpses, not daring to make a sound, fearing to disturb the cleanup work below.
