Chapter 1331: A Secret Maneuver (Part 2) [Requesting Monthly Tickets]

The granary wasn't part of Shen Tang and Gu De's plan, and the captain had deliberately placed Gu De under their noses, which meant that when the granary caught fire, he couldn't escape immediately. It wasn't until shortly after the captain left the camp, when a massive explosion occurred near the city gate, and the chaos in the camp prevented him from getting away, that he finally breathed a sigh of relief. He picked up his sword, kicked over an oil lamp, and fanned the flames with a gust of wind.

Flames raced up the flammable materials inside the tent.

This quickly attracted the attention of the guards outside the tent.

The guards entered the tent to check the situation.

The fire spread to every corner of the tent, the flames blinding, making it impossible to tell if anyone was still alive: "Quickly, put out the fire!"

Gu De made a hand seal and slipped into the chaos.

Each military camp has a unique layout, making it difficult to find a way out before the incantation wears off. Gu De was mentally prepared for this, but upon entering, he found the difficulty exceeded his expectations. The entire camp was laid out according to the principles of the Five Elements and the Eight Trigrams, with each tent serving as an inconspicuous focal point of the formation.

It doesn't seem very powerful when it's not activated, but once activated, it can trap a large army invisibly, making it extremely deceptive.

Thank goodness—

The military formations in this camp were not made too complicated.

After walking around several places, Gu De roughly figured out the pattern and quickly found the correct route. He passed a camp, and suddenly a dozen or so patrolling soldiers appeared in front of him, which had been empty just moments before.

"Who goes there? Why don't you stop?"

The hidden spell has failed.

Gu De dodged the arrow that nearly grazed his ear and plunged into the nearest tent. A soldier shouted, "Chase after him!"

They had barely stepped inside when their tents collapsed.

The soldiers quickly tore aside the obstruction of their view, looked around, and found that the suspicious thief was nowhere to be seen in the ruins of the camp.

"Chase him! He can't have gone far!"

Unfortunately, luck was on Gu De's side this time. The pursuers were forced to return to their posts after a short search, leaving them with no energy to capture him. Gu De escaped successfully and even met his colleagues who had come to meet him earlier: "Why did you act ahead of time?"

Whether the enemy was caught off guard is unknown, but he was certainly caught off guard. He asked his colleagues, who were also puzzled.

If the scouts discover the signal for action first, the colleagues have no choice but to act in advance; delaying the battle will result in a beating.

Their troops were divided into three groups.

One force deceived the enemy from the front, creating the illusion that they had to withdraw their troops due to Gu De's defection. While their troops appeared to be retreating for defense, they were actually making a rapid detour, simultaneously providing cover for the other two forces. The other two forces used the mountains as cover, digging tunnels into Suginaga County to target the garrison and city defense troops. These two forces were small, comprised entirely of elite troops.

Shen Tang made two plans.

If we can fight, then we'll take over Sugina County in one fell swoop.

If you can't fight, then take advantage of the situation and make your escape.

The primary objective of this mission is not to kill the enemy, but to cause destruction!

Smash it if you can, burn it if you can. Leave the mess for the Prefect of Sugyong County and the Commandant to deal with. In addition, given their previous attempts to sow discord, can the precarious balance between the two be maintained? Even if the Commandant has mastered the art of forbearance and retreats again and again, will the Prefect not harbor any murderous intent?

Once one party has the intention to kill, the matter is settled!

What Shen Tang needs to do is add fuel to the fire.

Gu De looked towards the rear camp and came up with a plan.

Most of the troops in the military camp had been transferred to the city wall, leaving the defenses weak and giving our side a significant opportunity. The camp was even set up according to the Bagua and Five Elements theory, a system that could not only make things difficult for the enemy but sometimes also for our own people. Those who could master this system were all highly trained and elite troops with exceptional execution capabilities. The group under the captain's command was still lacking in skill.

He whispered to his colleague, "Come closer, I have a plan."

If one masters the Five Elements and Eight Trigrams, one can even use the enemy's resources to create opportunities for oneself. If this camp is likened to a maze, the soldiers under the command of the captain have memorized every path to survival and every dead end. Unfamiliar enemies who rashly enter will soon lose their sense of direction, running around like headless flies, and will eventually be surrounded and annihilated by the enemy in an orderly manner.

Gu De escaped the maze not by rote memorization or luck, but by figuring out the underlying logic of the maze.

Find the pattern, master the pattern, and change the pattern.

No matter how varied the maze may be, Gu De always knew where the correct way out was, but what about the soldiers who relied on rote memorization?

They know what happened, but not why it happened.

This is a new version; all previous answers are invalid.

His colleague's eyes lit up: "Okay, I'll do as you say."

"Who do you think you are, you brat? Come here and prepare to die!"

A series of explosions erupted above the city wall. When the captain arrived, the guards on the city wall were lying on the ground, with blood flowing like a river. The city gate, which should have been closed at this time, was almost destroyed, with one half wide open and the other half showing a charred gash.

An unfamiliar flag was raised on the city wall.

One glance is enough to send your blood pressure soaring.

What is this behavior equivalent to? How is this scene any different from a pack of strange, rabid dogs suddenly running up to your front door and urinating?

Even a captain with such composure was provoked into anger.

"Get out of here now, and I might spare your lives!"

Hearing these words from above, Shen Tang, who had planted the flag, let out a sneer: "Be serious. War is not a child's game. One wrong move and you'll lose your life. If you were afraid of death, none of this would have happened tonight!"

The water pit under the granary has been dug, the fire has been set off, the city gate has been smashed, the guards have been killed, and the flag has been planted. The captain is now telling her to get lost and he'll spare her life. In this day and age, are there still such naive old men? To be honest, after dealing with old men like Gongyang Yongye from Yunda Weicheng for so long, she's not used to a normal old man like the captain.

The captain immediately spotted Shen Tang.

Seeing that it was this mad dog that urinated first, he immediately struck out with his palm, turning the opponent into a mad dog dumpling. Despite the captain's limited strength, the power of his palm strike far surpassed that of a normal eleventh-rank right guard. In Shen Tang's words, it was like being hit head-on by a category 17 typhoon.

Her body remained motionless, as if a mountain, while her clothes fluttered wildly.

But her hair couldn't stay that way; it had already been blown away by the wind.

The chilling sensation on her scalp caused Shen Tang's face to contort into a terrifying grimace. Turning her head, she only managed to catch a glimpse of a small black dot in the distance.

She cursed loudly, "You son of a bitch!"

At this moment, he couldn't care less about respecting the elderly and caring for the young; he wanted nothing more than to hurl insults at the captain himself, with his household registration book as the radius and his ancestors for eighteen generations as the circumference. Why resort to such magical attacks when you can just fight? Old Deng has no sense of martial ethics.

"He's even bald."

The captain never expected this to happen.

The evaluation came out off the cuff, breaking Shen Tang's defenses.

It's no wonder he said that. Bald people are really rare among martial artists. Most martial artists, even if they are troubled, are troubled by their own excessive blood and qi, which leads to thick hair. Baldness? Hair loss? You can't find one in a hundred. Even if someone is bald, it's a personal preference. They shave their heads voluntarily as a personal characteristic.

He can instantly identify any bald, tough guy mentioned.

Judging from Shen Tang's suddenly contorted features, this young man clearly didn't belong to the group that voluntarily shaved their heads. This little episode, aside from adding a bit of drama, had no other practical significance. The captain, disregarding the henchmen on the city wall, instantly closed in on Shen Tang.

Buzz—

A streak of crimson light descended from the sky.

It shattered the city wall bricks, which were half a person's height and thick, leaving scorched marks three feet wide and several feet long. The moment the long-handled sickle in the intruder's hand hit the ground, it instantly lengthened, transforming into a rope dart that shot towards him with an extremely piercing sound.

"Your opponent is your old man, me!"

The owner of the rope dart stood in front of Shen Tang, staring at the captain with his red eyes.

Hearing such rudeness from this young man, who even dared to call himself his father, even the captain, with over a hundred years of self-control, could hardly contain himself. Undisguised murderous intent flashed across his taut face: "You brat, you're asking for death!"

His response was a sharp blade piercing his vest.

The rope dart may seem soft and weak, with little lethality, but in the hands of this warrior, it was as agile as a limb, hitting exactly where it was pointed, like a venomous snake that could kill instantly, launching a deadly sneak attack from any unexpected corner.

Shen Tang withdrew from the battlefield.

Based on Xiahou Yu's intelligence, they made targeted arrangements against the Commandant, assigning a Tenth-Rank Left Attendant as his opponent, a general skilled in rope darts. It's known that the lower the rank of a martial artist, the smaller the difference in strength between them. The Tenth-Rank Left Attendant was naturally chosen as his opponent for this reason. Even if the Commandant could unlock some of his power, his strength wouldn't be enough to completely overwhelm the other side.

Shen Tang seized the opportunity to destroy the city wall defenses.

Construction must follow the design blueprints; destruction can be done with a blind eye.

The captain immediately saw through the irrationality of her behavior.

Normally, this person should have joined forces with his accomplices to take him down, rather than leaving someone weaker than him to cover their retreat—that's highly illogical. It's either a coincidence, or these people already knew his weakness.

He thought of Gu De.

Therefore, the answer can only be the latter.

"How arrogant and foolish!"

The next instant, the muscles on his back suddenly burst through his heavy armor, and more than a dozen strange vines shot out, not only accompanied by a piercing whistling sound, but these things could also spew out blue-purple flames, like blades of fire. Shen Tang found them familiar at first glance, but a second glance sent chills down his spine. Wasn't this thing related to the Corpse Vine?

A rope dart pierced six vines in succession, pinning them firmly to the city wall's bricks. However, the remaining vines were beyond its reach, and it could only watch helplessly as they attacked from its blind spot. In a flash, its body felt weightless.

The snow-white sword flashed with a few soft thuds.

The wildly surging vines were cut into eight pieces.

The rope-dart warrior nestled in Chen Tang's arms in a strange posture.

Shen Tang said, "Go down."

The rope-throwing warrior was much more robust than himself; even when curled up, he was still a large figure, blocking Shen Tang's view.

She murmured, "Thank you, my lord, for saving my life."

However, they dared not directly cede the battlefield.

As one of the participants in this operation, the rope-throwing general naturally knew the purpose of sending him: to restrain the captain's strength and prevent him from appearing at his peak. If the lord had gone himself, today would likely have been a fierce battle…

Shen Tang had no intention of directly confronting the Commandant.

She gathered a burst of martial energy in her palm and struck it directly into the general's back, while her other hand gathered literary energy and formed a hand seal: "Relax!"

When it comes to exploiting bugs, she's the real expert.

The rope-wielding warrior forcefully suppressed the restless martial energy within his meridians, striving to accept that unfamiliar and vast aura. The entire process seemed to have taken only a moment, yet also an eternity; a gurgling, cool spring spread throughout his mind—

My mind is clearer than ever before.

The world I saw with my eyes suddenly became unfamiliar.

Not only were the colors more vibrant, but even a tiny wormhole on a pillar dozens of feet away was clearly visible. Countless human clamors wafted in on the wind: shouts of battle, cries for help, screams, curses… With a thought, she could even hear the thunderous snoring, teeth grinding, and chewing sounds of the sleeping commoners in the more distant inner city, and the wailing cries of infants awakened from their deep sleep…

How did I suddenly hear all this?

What should have been a devastating turn of events caught her completely off guard, yet her heart remained steady, beating rhythmically as always, and even her skin temperature didn't change in the slightest. Even more mysteriously, her limbs began to move uncontrollably.

The rope dart retracted, transforming into a longsword in the palm of the hand.

These were not her will.

A familiar voice suddenly rang in his mind, and he made a starting gesture: "It's me. Don't panic, just watch."

Rope Dart General: "..."

so--

Was what she was seeing and hearing actually what her lord experienced every day? This realization reassured her considerably, and she felt at ease again. She turned her attention back to the differences.

Color, sound, smell, touch, intuition...

Completely different.

Before this, the captain's attacks were dense and tricky, leaving her unable to see any openings and her body unable to react in time. Now, however, she found that her opponent's speed had slowed down by more than half, yet she still had no openings. However, she had an unsettling feeling that she could dodge the killing blows.

This intuition is wonderful.

There's a kind of person who spends a month in the deep mountains during the dead of winter, accumulating all sorts of grime and grease on their body. Then they go to a perfume shop, soak in a hot bath for half an hour, and have the strongest bath attendant in the shop scrub them hard. Their muscles relax completely, and the word "comfort" fills every bone crevice, making them drowsy, floating on air, and sublimating on the spot.

It felt so good that she wanted to curl her toes in place! Just as she was lost in this fantasy, her lord's soft voice echoed deep within her mind: "You can make noise, but can you at least stop imagining things?"

Rope Dart General: "..."

She now feels the urge to pick her toes, but it's embarrassing.

How can the lord know what I'm thinking?

Little did they know, the captain was also shocked.

Not only were they shocked that the rope-dart warrior was willing to cooperate with such a dangerous act—Shen Tang wasn't just providing guidance from the sidelines, but was directly involved! It's important to know that the Lingtai (spirit platform) is recognized as the place that houses the spirit and soul, possessing an extremely strong instinct to reject anything outside it, and cannot tolerate the presence of a second aura. This place is extremely fragile; if any external aura harbors any malice, the master will either die or become mentally impaired!

At the same time, I was shocked that this bald man could be so shameless.

To restrain himself, he actually did such a thing!

"You cowardly wretch who clings to life and fears death!"

The captain had lived his whole life, and if it weren't for Shen Tang's actions, he wouldn't have known that he had such a weakness!

Using someone else's account to start a fight—is there any martial ethics left these days?

The world is going to the dogs, and people's hearts are no longer what they used to be!

(=￣ω￣=) Meow!

I applied for the monthly pass activity at noon, and before my nap I found it was still under review. When I woke up, there were no more spots left... Ugh, why is the review time so unpredictable?

PS: Regarding Tang Mei's actions, Zi Xu is essentially a wisp of literary energy carrying a portion of Tang Mei's consciousness, and the avatar she's currently using is a corpse. It's possible to temporarily log into someone else's account if the target doesn't resist.