Respecting your opponent is a matter of utmost respect.
Otherwise, why would Shen Tang rush to replenish her strength?
"Here, are two pancakes enough?" Shen Tang was very generous to Shao Chong, giving him two crispy pancakes right away.
Shao Chong's mouth watered at the aroma of the flatbread.
One bite left a large gash.
"Two aren't enough, do you have any more?" Shao Chong wiped away the crumbs with his finger, chewing as he asked, "Shen Jun, who's the chef who makes these pancakes? Their skills are really good."
Shen Tang: "That's true, don't you know who trained them?"
As he spoke, he generously distributed two more pancakes.
The two of them ate their rice with such natural smacking sounds that Wu Xian was starting to question his own existence—was this pancake really that delicious?
Shen Tang had a carefree attitude that didn't care about her teammates' lives. Ignoring the occasion, she tilted her head and whispered to Shao Chong, "I know you have a lot of experience fighting against the generals under Zheng Qiao. Can you tell me how strong they are?"
Shao Chong said, "The weak ones are all dead."
Shen Tang asked him, "What about the stronger one?"
Shao Chong shook his head and said, "I haven't encountered it yet."
Shen Tang: "..."
Shao Chong wasn't speaking in Versailles; he was stating the absolute truth. Ordinary fifteenth-rank junior cultivators would be either killed or severely injured if they encountered his relentless fighting style. Most of his opponents were below that level. The Dragon Slaying Bureau didn't always launch joint attacks; they would divide their forces to strike various locations when necessary. He hadn't yet encountered Zheng Qiao's renowned sixteenth-rank senior cultivator.
Zheng Qiao initially didn't take the Dragon Slaying Bureau's allied forces seriously, so he naturally didn't send out his top combat power. It wasn't until the entire Yanzhou region was taken over by the allied forces and they were sharpening their knives to point their swords at Ganzhou that he revealed a trump card: a sixteenth-rank Grand Master. In addition, the allied forces were not united, and the majority of Yanzhou that they had taken over was lost without any suspense.
“However, it seems we’ve encountered a tough nut to crack today.” Shao Chong held the pancake in both hands, taking a bite from left to right, then from right to left, as if afraid Shen Tang wouldn’t believe him, and warned, “This person is dangerous! I might not be a match for him…”
Even Shao Chong felt it was dangerous...
Shen Tang said, "The one in charge of the troops is a sixteenth-rank Grand Master."
The other party was also very cunning, starting trouble before dawn.
The time when the various battalions of the Allied Forces set up their cooking pots and cooked their meals differed.
I reckon there are quite a few soldiers on the field who are still hungry.
Shen Tang swallowed the last bite of the pancake: "We're in for a tough battle."
"The tougher the battle, the better; that's what makes an enemy valuable!" Shao Chong showed no fear; his eyes were practically overflowing with excitement. Judging from his eager expression, he couldn't wait to finish the rest of the food, spur his horse, and charge into battle to fight to the death.
He said in a rather childish way, "I've already started to crave it."
Shen Tang asked him, "What do you yearn for?"
Shao Chong smiled cruelly: "Their heads!"
Although the Gu worms within him had fallen into a dormant state, Shao Chong was the undisputed dominant force. At this moment, he was almost unaffected by the Gu worms, but the killings of the past few years and his thirst for blood were deeply ingrained in his bones and soul. He needed the blood of his enemies to make his blood boil; only then did he feel truly alive. The stronger he became, the hotter his blood burned!
Upon hearing this, Shen Tang silently moved to the side.
Shao Chong looked hurt, and even the remaining pancakes lost their flavor. He asked, "Shen Jun, are you... afraid of me?"
Shen Tang shook her head and said, "No."
Her lips were glistening and clear, like a deer in a deep forest.
"If that's the case, then why are you avoiding me?"
Shen Tang said expressionlessly, "I don't like it when people steal my kills. Enemy kills belong to me. We've run into each other!"
Shao Chong didn't know what "coincidentally matching numbers" meant, but he could tell that Shen Tang wasn't genuinely disgusted or afraid of him, so he couldn't help but smile again. The two chatted enthusiastically below, while smoke billowed from the battlefield, creating an unusual atmosphere.
Jiang Ao's warhorse trotted to the front of the battle.
He glanced at the diverse flags of the allied forces and sneered, "You rabble, if any of you want to keep your lives, you'd better dismount and surrender now. Because after this, it will be too late for you to beg for mercy!"
A commotion broke out among the last of the allied troops.
Jiang Ao's voice could be clearly heard by everyone!
Such strength is truly terrifying!
Alliance leader Huang Lie calmly lifted his eyelids, his expression unwavering, while the allied generals were enraged by the provocation. At this moment, a burly general stepped forward, riding a large, white-browed tiger with piercing eyes. The tiger was enormous, easily taller than a man, its exposed fur glossy and smooth, and it was clad in full armor, yet it moved silently and with light steps.
With each breath in and out, stale air is exhaled and exhaled.
The aura of the king of beasts made the warhorse restless.
The man clasped his hands in a deep voice and said, "Alliance Leader, this humble general requests to fight!"
Shen Tang's eyes suddenly lit up: "A big tiger?"
"This is the first time I've ever seen a mount that isn't a warhorse!" She had heard that the mounts of martial arts warriors were diverse and varied, including but not limited to those that ran on land, swam in water, and flew in the sky, simply encompassing land, sea, and air.
The Warhorse is the standard version, while the non-Warhorse is the hidden version.
The first time I solidified a warhorse, it was as exciting as opening a blind box.
"How could this be the first time?" Shao Chong was very honest. He pointed to the motorcycle under Shen Tang's legs and said, "Isn't this it?"
He was not yet intelligent enough to distinguish between a horse and a mule, but his twelfth brother, Chao Lian, had told him that Shen Jun's mount was a mule.
Now that my wisdom has been awakened, I can distinguish things more clearly.
Shen Tang: "..."
The motorcycle beneath him seemed to sense something, turning its head to wink at Chen Tang, as if to say—what's wrong? You're not satisfied with me?
Shen Tang naturally shook her head and denied it three times in a row.
She is not, she didn't, it's not her!
However, Alliance Leader Huang Lie politely declined the general's request to fight.
The general said angrily, "I know I am no match for him, but I am willing to fight to the death to deplete his martial energy and stamina for you all!"
He wasn't unaware of the danger Jiang Ao posed.
But Jiang Ao has already humiliated us so openly, how can we tolerate this?
He was willing to risk his life for a second chance to kill Jiang Ao and avenge himself! It's said that martial artists have fierce tempers; the ruthless fear the stubborn, and the stubborn fear the reckless. This guy truly wasn't afraid of death at all; even his death was carried out with righteous indignation!
Huang Lie gestured for him to calm down.
As the leader of the alliance, he needs to weigh the pros and cons.
Should we engage in duel, or abandon the duel and launch a direct attack?
Without the natural defenses of Chaoli Pass, and despite having the formidable Jiang Ao in command, he only brought 100,000 troops. Compared to Zheng Qiao's elite forces, their own top-tier combat strength was insufficient, putting them at a disadvantage in duels. Accepting duels would simply be a waste of morale, giving the enemy a boost. Only by engaging in direct combat could their top-tier forces engage Jiang Ao, allowing their numerical advantage to materialize!
But if it's a duel...
Shen Tang, who is superior to Gong Xi Chou, and Shao Chong under Gu Ren's command, are both capable of fighting Jiang Ao. If Jiang Ao can be killed before the battle begins, the Chao Li Pass side will be leaderless, and their morale will be severely damaged, which will also benefit our side.
He was particularly concerned about Shen Tang!
Before Huang Lie and his allies could choose a path, Jiang Ao continued his mockery, each word hitting a landmine. Seeing that no one from the allied forces emerged, he laughed and recounted an old story: "I heard your leader's surname is Huang? What was his name again, Huang Lie? Before he rose to power, he was just a barefoot itinerant doctor? That reminds me of something from the past."
Shen Tang complained, "He started telling stories too?"
Using the humiliation of the alliance leader Huang Lie as a pretext to humiliate the entire coalition?
As it turned out, Jiang Ao's actions were even more despicable than she had imagined, because the story he told was a massacre of a city that he had led his troops to carry out! The massacre was not for killing, but for the purpose of accumulating wealth, and it was also a generous reward from his superiors to the soldiers who had followed him on his campaigns! Wealth and women were all in the city, and how many women one had and how much wealth one possessed depended on one's own abilities.
They robbed money, food, and women; whoever got what they wanted kept it.
The reason is that the military pay is too low, not enough for soldiers to risk their lives.
The result was—
He ripped open the abdomen and severed the intestines, using the liquid to measure the corpse.
Corpses lay strewn across the fields, and blood flowed for miles.
Huang Lie's wife and children were in the city.
Jiang Ao sneered: "I heard that Alliance Leader Huang's first wife was a country woman? Her son was mediocre and her daughter was plain-looking? It's a pity that I didn't know beforehand that they were Alliance Leader Huang's wife and children, who were taken advantage of by my reckless soldiers."
This caused an uproar among the Allied forces.
One after another, the generals, filled with grief and indignation, volunteered to fight.
"Leader, allow me to kill him!"
"This humble general requests to fight!"
"This humble general is no exception!"
One side of Chaoli Pass.
Previously, Wei Shou looked at Jiang Ao as someone courting death, but now he looked at him as a corpse. He'd seen people eagerly seeking insults, but never someone so eager to die; even the King of Hell couldn't stop him. He sneered, "I'm ashamed to be associated with such a beast!"
Normally, a true martial artist wouldn't go to such extremes. In a battle between two armies, if the enemy's family is captured, they would either treat them well or release them. Because fortunes change, and no one knows if the same fate might befall them one day.
Leaving a way out for others is also a way to accumulate good karma for one's blood relatives.
Jiang Ao broke the rules; he will surely die a horrible death!
"Does the person who challenged him only have one page in his household registration book?" Even Shen Tang, who was wary of Huang Lie, couldn't bear to listen anymore. There are many ways to humiliate someone, but Jiang Ao used the most despicable one!
Will his humiliation really suppress the coalition forces?
Are you sure you don't want the Allied forces to unite in grief and anger?
At this moment, a young general in snow-white armor, the main cavalry commander under Huang Lie, stepped forward. Judging from his appearance, he seemed to be around twenty years old, but the martial aura and demeanor surrounding him were not what one would expect from someone his age. As soon as he stepped out, even Shen Tang's eyes lit up—this man was extremely handsome, and in no way inferior to Gong Xi Chou, who had taken a rebellious stance against foreign lands.
He said in a deep voice, "My lord, this humble general requests permission to fight!"
The black-clad warrior standing beside Huang Lie shifted his feet, but Huang Lie raised a hand to stop him. Even though the anger and killing intent within him were already surging like a volcano, uncontrollable, his face remained largely expressionless: "Huang Lie is unworthy, a middle-aged man with the talent and appearance of an inferior, yet I aspire to the ambitions of a superior. In the eyes of the world, this is indeed overestimating myself, but—"
He rose and bowed deeply to the allied forces, taking a deep breath: "Are kings and nobles born with special privileges? Since this tyrannical ruler is unworthy of his position, why can't we be dragged down from the grass he tramples underfoot? Anyone can sit on this throne, but he is the only one who cannot!"
"Well said!" It was Gu Ren's third brother who spoke. His parents, wife, and children had all died tragically under Zheng Qiao's soldiers' swords, so he understood Huang Lie's feelings best. He patted his breastplate and said in a powerful voice, "Even we lowly grass have the heart to slay dragons! We challenge that scoundrel. What does it matter what his strength is? So what if he's a sixteenth-rank Grand Master? He won't be leaving alive today!"
Huang Lie stood up and snatched a pair of drumsticks from the war drum.
Seeing this, everyone understood Huang Lie's plan.
"I beat the drum for you all, wishing you great military success!"
Chu Yao faced the wind, squinting slightly.
Although the scholar's eyesight was not as good as the warrior's, Jiang Ao's location was not too far for him. If he channeled his literary energy into his eyes, he could not only clearly see Jiang Ao's facial features, but also see every single hair. After a long while, he withdrew his gaze.
This person—
He knows it very well.
"I don't know if it's still a single page in the household registration book now, but it certainly was in the past." Chu Yao had heard his lord mention the "household registration book," a kind of book for registering household members. "Back then, he went too far and said, 'A great man has no worries about not having a wife.' After his defeat, he abandoned his wife and daughter to escape. You can imagine the fate of the widow and her children. It's not surprising that he can do these things now."
Shen Tang turned to look at Chu Yao: "Do you know Wu Hui?"
Chu Yao calmly replied, "We've fought before."
At that time, it wasn't yet the sixteenth-rank Grand Master.
It's just the fourteenth grade, right-hand side.
"The outcome of the confrontation?"
"A defeated opponent."
A mocking smile appeared on Chu Yao's lips. He felt it was time to let some old acquaintances reminisce about their youthful days.
So that everyone doesn't think he's dead!
"Alliance Leader Huang."
Huang Lie, who was about to give an order, paused in his tracks.
He recognized Chu Yao and knew he was a strategist under Shen Tang.
Chu Yao laughed and said, "I know some things about the enemy's martial artists. Since he's the one who started this, we don't need to be polite. Let's exchange greetings before the battle, as a way of returning the favor."
Huang Lie looked at him with suspicion. It wasn't that he was thinking of the three heroes of Chu Kingdom back then; in fact, this continent was full of ups and downs, with countless geniuses. Chu Yao was just a figure from a small country who became famous more than twenty years ago, and apart from the older generation who had experienced it, many people had never even heard of him. Huang Lie simply didn't believe that Jiang Ao, a sixteenth-grade Grand Master, could have any scandalous secrets to ridicule.
Hey, there really is.
Jiang Ao was smug, thinking the allied forces had been humiliated beyond recognition, when suddenly the vanguard parted to the sides, revealing a young scholar with graying hair and a loose-fitting scholar's robe. Jiang Ao mocked, "What, are all your military generals dead?"
A scholar with a refined mind emerged from the crowd.
Chu Yao smiled gently: "General Jiang is joking. You seem to overestimate your own power. This little bit of force won't even kill anyone. What I don't understand is why General Jiang is speaking so eloquently here. Are you perhaps very proud of your disastrous defeat back then, when you abandoned your wife and daughters to their deaths? Even tigers don't eat their cubs. General Jiang is more like a wild beast than that tiger. I wonder how you have the face to live on in this world!"
Jiang Ao's expression changed instantly.
"Who are you?"
The matter Chu Yao was referring to was more than twenty years ago.
That was one of the most humiliating moments in Jiang Ao's life, one he was ashamed of, but he didn't regret it. Chu Yao bringing up the past only brought him anger, not remorse. As long as he was alive, what woman couldn't he have? How many children couldn't he have?
Chu Yao simply smiled and said, "Important people often have bad memories."
Jiang Ao stared intently at Chu Yao's face.
A memory that he had almost forgotten resurfaced.
The composed young scholar before him vaguely matched the spirited young scholar he remembered. A name he'd forgotten for years suddenly surged into his mind, eliciting both shock and anger: "You are—"
He couldn't utter that name.
Because the young scholar raised his hand and unleashed an incomparably powerful literary attack on him—[Silence and Speech Deprivation]!
Jiang Ao's meridians and martial energy were momentarily blocked.
Huang Lie roared from the rear: "All troops, attack!"
_(:з」∠)_
Ugh, I was so angry yesterday. I clearly uploaded 4032 words using the PC Writer Assistant, but the backend subscription count was only 3980 – just 20 words short! Thank goodness yesterday was the 27th, otherwise I would have lost my bonus this month, boohoo.
P.S.: Tax refunds are now available after midnight.
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