Longzang

Chapter 69 The first confrontation
As the Liao scouts fired their arrows, Fang Hetong stood up, drew his bow, and nocked an arrow. The runes on the bow lit up, and the arrow, as swift as lightning, pierced the chest of a Liao cavalryman!
As a Dao Foundation cultivator, Fang Hetong's arrow was far superior to that of an ordinary Liao scout. However, after firing the first arrow, his Dao power fluctuated, and he needed to catch his breath before he could fire a second arrow.

In that brief moment, the Liao scouts behind them reacted, and three riders simultaneously drew their bows, reflecting the attack from Fang Hetong.

Fang Hetong reacted extremely quickly, immediately ducking down. Two sharp arrows whistled past overhead; had Fang Hetong not fallen, these two arrows would have struck his head and chest respectively. The third arrow, however, struck much lower, hitting the battlements and actually piercing through them!

Fortunately, the fortified walls of Shayang Village were built in a very sophisticated way; they were actually stepped, with one step behind the wall and then another step lower. Fang Hetong lay prone on the lowest step, just in time to avoid the arrow that pierced through the wall.

After narrowly dodging three arrows, Fang Hetong got up again and shot down another scout.

This thoroughly enraged the Liao people, and a dozen or so riders began to advance, approaching Shayang Village. Their counterattack used heavy arrows; a single arrow from a hundred zhang away could pierce a wall a foot and a half thick. If they closed to within fifty zhang, the power of those heavy arrows would increase exponentially, and even Fang Hetong, a Foundation Establishment cultivator, dared not take them head-on.

Wei Yuan remained silent until Fang Hetong made his move, when he telepathically instructed Wei Yuan to be patient and wait for the Liao people to get closer. The Liao cavalry had already visited Shayang Village several times before, and they likely assumed that Fang Hetong was the only cultivator in the village, so suppressing him wouldn't be a problem.

Perhaps enraged by the deaths of two of his comrades, the Liao cavalry closed in to within thirty paces. Whenever Fang Hetong dared to show his head, several arrows would whistle through the air, pinning him down.

At this moment, Wei Yuan stood up and threw his short spear! The spear flew like lightning, appearing in front of the Liao cavalryman as soon as it left his hand. Before the Liao cavalryman could react, the spear had already pierced through his body. Then, the wounds on the Liao cavalryman's chest and back exploded at the same time, leaving a bloody hole in his body.

Wei Yuan used his Dao power to activate the iron box, from which short spears continuously sprang forth. Wei Yuan caught the spears in mid-air and hurled them in one swift motion, instantly shooting seven or eight scouts off their horses.

The Liao tribe reacted swiftly, sending several heavy arrows hurtling towards Wei Yuan with a sharp whistling sound, aimed directly at his vitals with excellent accuracy. Wei Yuan then used his short spear to kill one of the riders before dodging. However, the heavy arrows were even faster than Wei Yuan had anticipated, grazing past him and tearing open his shoulder armor, layer by layer, the inner lining armor and robes, leaving a thin scratch on his jade-like skin.

The power of this arrow is equivalent to that of a Dao Foundation Magic Weapon, and it is even slightly inferior to the strike that Xu Du delivered that pierced Wei Yuan's body back then.

Wei Yuan immediately targeted the archer, hurling two short spears in quick succession, but the archer dodged both. The Liao cavalryman seemed born to ride, maneuvering and rolling on horseback with effortless ease. However, just as the Liao cavalryman rolled off his horse, he saw three orbs of azure light flying towards him in succession!
The first beam of light struck the warhorse, exploding into dozens of sharp water blades that instantly slashed the horse and left the rider with several wounds. Two more beams of azure light followed in quick succession! The injured rider was unable to dodge, and he and his horse were instantly engulfed by the countless water blades.

The warhorse charged forward as if startled, galloping a hundred feet before suddenly collapsing, leaving a long trail of blood behind it. The rider was thrown from the horse, rolling several times on the ground before lying motionless on his back, a large pool of blood spreading beneath him.

The remaining scouts suddenly shouted, one of them turned and fled, while the rest charged towards Shayang Village like madmen. One of them stepped into a pit in the ground, his foreleg instantly breaking. The rider was thrown from his horse, flipped in the air, and landed steadily. Instead of fleeing, he drew his sword and charged towards the wall with a roar. When he was still several feet away from the wall, he leaped up and pounced on Wei Yuan.

A twelve-foot-long spear, like a dragon soaring from the sky, pierced through the air and pinned the Liao cavalryman in mid-air. The Liao rider struggled to look around, only to see all his comrades lying in pools of blood; he was the last man. He gasped for breath, but only coughed up mouthfuls of blood, unable to utter a single word.

Wei Yuan swung his spear, sending the knight flying outside the city.

Most of the last few scouts who charged were killed by Wei Yuan's spear, and two were shot by Fang Hetong. One more man also made it onto the city wall, where he was finally killed by Fang Hetong's sword. Thus, except for one who escaped, this entire Liao scout unit was wiped out.

The story is long, but the battle itself was extremely short; in the blink of an eye, an entire Liao cavalry unit was wiped out. Fang Hetong, leaning against the wall, gasped for breath, sweat pouring down his face. The continuous bursts of power had nearly depleted his Dao energy, leaving him somewhat exhausted. Wei Yuan, on the other hand, felt his Dao energy surging and turbulent throughout his body, unable to calm down for a long time.

After catching his breath, Fang Hetong said to Wei Yuan, "The one you killed with your Taoist magic was probably a captain with a rank. According to Liao tradition, if a captain dies in battle without killing all the enemies, the entire team must be executed. That's why these Liao people have gone mad. The rider who just escaped must have gone back to report the news, and then he will commit suicide."

Wei Yuan had heard of this tradition, but he only truly felt the pressure after encountering the Liao people charging to their deaths on the battlefield.

Although the Liao cavalry captain had not yet achieved the Dao Foundation stage, he was essentially at the Great Completion stage of Body Forging. The Liao people's Body Forging process differed from that of humans. The Liao people were naturally physically strong, so unlike humans who forged their bodies one by one—flesh, blood, bones, and spirit—they forged them simultaneously until their physical bodies were fully formed. Thus, the Liao people possessed some magical power in the early stages of Body Forging, albeit weak, enough to wield one or two low-level magical artifacts.

This Liao cavalry captain possessed an extremely formidable physique. Wei Yuan launched a series of attacks, forcing him to dodge and seizing the initiative. It took three water blade techniques to finally defeat his opponent. The captain's physical strength was such that many disciples in the Taichu Palace who were close to achieving the Great Perfection of Body Forging were no more than him, and the Dao Foundation of most small sects was even weaker than his.

Wei Yuan's three water blade techniques are different from ordinary water blade techniques. Back when he challenged the Zhigu Sect to a duel, a disciple threw a water blade technique at Wei Yuan. That water blade technique contained seven or eight sharp blades, while Wei Yuan's water blade technique now contains seventy or eighty sharp blades. An ordinary Dao Foundation cultivator from a small sect couldn't even withstand a single water blade technique from Wei Yuan.

Agula was just an ordinary tribe in Northern Liao, and this scout squad was merely a small platoon among the 100,000 archers. However, the captain of this squad was already close to the combat strength of an entry-level disciple of a celestial sect, and each of the scouts in the squad was equivalent to more than half of a human being with fused blood.

The Liao people were skilled in mounted archery, and their bow-making techniques surpassed those of the human race. Each cavalryman was equipped with a variety of arrows. For example, they initially used light arrows for surprise attacks, which were incredibly fast and silent. Later, for direct assaults, they switched to heavy arrows, which were devastating and powerful. In addition, they also had armor-piercing arrows, magic-piercing arrows, and swift arrows, among others.

In the very first battle, Wei Yuan discovered that a dozen or so ordinary Northern Liao scouts were enough to suppress an ordinary human cultivator at the Foundation Establishment stage. No wonder the human race was enslaved for two hundred thousand years in ancient times.

(End of this chapter)