Chapter 23: Chapter 23: Extraordinary Battle, Commences!
The rolling dust accompanied by thousands of monstrous beasts surged swiftly toward the city wall entrance!
Just as Yan Shaohua had said earlier, the beast tide had split into two during its advance.
Each led by several leader-level beasts, they charged towards the south and west sides of the city gate.
As one formation dashed ahead, a leader-level giant serpent suddenly raised its head, hissing loudly.
Behind it, thousands of beasts seemed to receive some kind of instruction, also roaring toward the sky.
As this roar echoed.
The wind and sand between heaven and earth suddenly gathered rapidly, and within a few breaths, formed a terrifying giant mouth of smoky sand filled with sharp fangs!
This enormous mouth, as if ready to devour all things, bellowed with a primal savagery directly at the city gate!
At the same time.
On the south wall, a military commander standing at the forefront suddenly raised a command flag, shouting out a syllable.
Swish—
All the soldiers simultaneously stepped forward, their armor emitting a crisp sound as they raised their spears sharply aimed at the beast tide.
The commander waved the flag once more.
Drink!
The thousands of soldiers roared in unison, their blood boiling, as several arrays on the city lit up simultaneously.
Along with the soldiers’ momentum and the enhancement of the arrays, a phantom of a silver spear suddenly materialized in the sky.
The command flag waved a third time.
The soldiers held their breath and stepped forward again, thrusting their spears heavily!
The phantom in the sky seemed to receive a command, rushing with unmatched aura straight for the smoky sand giant mouth!
Boom—
The spear tore through the mouth fiercely, breaking the spear’s tip and piercing the mouth completely, then both exploded, scattering into light spots and disappearing!
The arrays on the city wall dimmed instantly, while hundreds of soldiers staggered back several steps.
Within the beast tide, dozens of black serpents suddenly convulsed violently, falling to the ground.
They were then trampled into blood and mud by their beast comrades advancing forward.
The first round of confrontation ended in a draw!
At the same time.
Four kilometers outside the city, behind the terraced hillside.
Yan Shaohua lowered his binoculars and asked the head of the regiment’s direct information team beside him:
"Have the spear phantom and sand mouth images been recorded into the X system?
This is one of the strongest collective attack methods on both sides, very valuable for reference.
Now, the beast tide is about one kilometer from the city, it would take approximately three to four minutes to reach the gate, can we analyze some data during this time?"
The leader pointed to several technical personnel outside the tents, their fingers rapidly flying over keyboards:
"Colonel, the images have been successfully recorded, Xiaofang and his team are building models.
Fortunately, Colonel Lin brought a mini supercomputer this time, otherwise, just the X system would take at least half an hour to yield results."
An adjutant nearby scratched his head, curiously asking:
"Those two phantoms exploded in the air without destroying any entity, can we still calculate their power?"
The information team leader explained:
"Though the phantoms did not damage any entity, we recorded the time from their formation to collision.
And the phantoms’ explosion in the air affected a large amount of sand and trees on the ground.
We only need to capture six clear images of branches bending, remove the influence from wind at the technical department contemporaneously, and deduce the curvature function of the six shockwaves.
Then using WeChat supercomputer for cross-analysis of these six curvature functions, we can further deduce the complete ’multi-axis-distance’ attenuation formula to easily restore the explosion power of the two phantoms."
While they spoke, a technical staffer outside the tent suddenly stood up and hurried over:
"Report, analysis results are out."
Yan Shaohua saluted him: "Comrade Xiaofang, thank you for your hard work. Time is crucial; just give us the data directly."
Xiaofang straightened up and quickly reported:
"The explosion energy of the two phantoms is approximately 6800 kilojoules, the energy level is medium, but the mechanical energy produced is high.
The power is roughly equivalent to three 155mm howitzers exploding simultaneously, with an absolute kill radius of about 45 meters and an effective kill radius of around 100 meters."
Yan Shaohua thoughtfully pressed his chin:
"With attacks like these from thousands of soldiers in military formations and thousands of beasts, such power is expected.
If our troops were to throw grenades simultaneously in one direction, it wouldn’t be much weaker.
The beast tide didn’t waste the sand mouth on Captain Yao, indicating high energy consumption of such tactics, likely the same on the city’s side.
Altogether only seven or eighty arrays, this move wasted a tenth already, remaining ones can’t all be attack arrays, right?
Calculating back and forth, city and beast tide might each unleash one or two waves of such attacks.
This is good, gives us a glimpse of both sides’ trump card.
The adjutant nodded, preparing to speak when a battle observation officer shouted suddenly:
"Report, the second round of attack and defense has started!"
........
Four kilometers distance from Yan Shaohua’s temporary base, the beast tide divided into two groups, like two giant hands encroaching on the city from the west and south sides.
When the beast tide was about fifty meters from the city.
On the south wall, three elders who sat with closed eyes the entire time had the one on the far left suddenly open his eyes.
He lightly shouted, forming a Dao seal with both hands.
Suddenly, a red light leaped from his index finger, transforming instantly into a crimson spiritual bird.
The spiritual bird, trailing a long tail of light flames, flew quickly and lightly pecked at all sides of the city walls.
Where it flew, all the arrays seemed to be infused with life, shining brightly.
The arrays linked and intertwined one after another, finally forming a light curtain enveloping the entire city.
The vanguard unit of dozens of beasts couldn’t stop quickly, crashing heavily against the light curtain.
The light curtain did not move, but these beasts were forcefully pushed back.
Half of them, like the previous black serpents, were trampled into meat paste by their comrades.
Yet none of the people in the city, whether the outsiders or members of the Fire Squad behind the terraced fields, were relaxed by this.
The number of the beast tide was extremely large, with no less than eight thousand beasts, and considering visual error, it’s possible to exceed ten thousand.
Fifty or so casualties were nothing to the beast tide.
This light curtain is likely the city’s greatest reliance, once it’s breached, the city defenders will face a beast siege.
If these beasts ascend the wall, the city will face brutal melee with each human confronting two beasts.
The most numerous in the beast tide are the giant black serpents, typically four to five meters long, with significant toxicity.
Facing these serpents, forget two, even five ordinary people fighting one could face total annihilation.
Thus, the ascension of beasts into melee signals impending doom for the city.
After the light curtain appeared, the eight leader-level beasts glanced at each other, growling several commands to their subordinates.
Soon, formations began to change amongst the beasts:
Approximately a thousand beasts were separated to engage in tentative harassment on the other city walls.
Simultaneously, black serpents withdrew, leaving giants and two-headed bulls in the forefront.
During the beasts’ reformation, twenty Extraordinary stepped forward to the city wall, ready for battle.
Both sides faced off for about half a minute when the largest scaled giant serpent flicked its tongue.
"Hiss—"
The next moment, hundreds of two-headed bulls lowered their heads, revealing sharp horns, and charged fiercely at the light curtain!