荔枝影院

Edited by: Michyrr

“This... How?”

Gao Xianzhi froze, finally realizing that there was something unusual about this long saber. That it could stop flicks from his finger meant that Wang Chong was already very experienced in forging this new kind of weapon. The sheer toughness and tenacity of the blade meant that the quality of this weapon had taken a massive leap, surpassing the vast majority of this world’s weapons.

“A good saber! A truly excellent saber! Long is easy to break, and I’ve never encountered a long saber that can break this rule. Wang Chong, I didn’t think that you had this skill. Wonderful!”

Gao Xianzhi was an illustrious Great General with ten-some years of battlefield experience, and he almost instinctively felt that these long sabers had enormous value. Whoosh! Gao Xianzhi immediately snatched the eight-foot Mo Saber from its silk box. As he turned it over in his hands and waved it around, his eyes grew brighter and brighter.

This saber was also easy to slash and hack with, so together with its toughness, it was essentially a hegemon amongst sabers.

A single such saber might not be that amazing, but thousands of men equipped with this Mo Saber would be a dreadful flood of destruction on the battlefield.

This saber was a weapon that was made to dominate the battlefield.

“Wang Chong, how many of these weapons do you have?”

Gao Xianzhi turned to Wang Chong. He now understood what Wang Chong meant with his Mo Saber soldiers. If a unit of elites were entirely equipped with these long sabers, they would possess unimaginable killing power. And Wang Chong could tell at a glance that this weapon was eight feet long precisely so that infantry could use it to deal with cavalry.

If this sort of saber were swung down, both the horse and the rider atop it would be in range of the Mo Saber’s attacks. Such was the terrifying power of this saber that Gao Xianzhi was wholly capable of imagining the scene of both rider and horse being cleaved into two on the battlefield.

“Zhang Shouzhi has already forged more than one hundred. As long as Milord agrees, all the craftsmen will begin to work on this task. Within a month, all the Mo Sabers should be completed. Before this, we can have the soldiers use wooden staves as substitutes,” Wang Chong seriously said.

Wang Chong had forged this Mo Saber using forging techniques from far beyond this generation. In terms of materials, Wang Chong had gathered up many of the Arabian scimitars and melted them down into the finest steel. By mixing this steel together with Meteoric Metal and a small amount of Wootz Steel, he was able to create this Mo Saber that was both tough and easy to wield, making it a true treasure amongst sabers.

“Wang Chong, we’ll follow this bold plan of yours! I will have the Anxi Protectorate army do everything it can to help you!”

Gao Xianzhi’s eyes flashed with a strange light as he made his decision.

Rumble! Gao Xianzhi would never know that the moment he agreed, the entire manner in which war played out on this continent changed with it. A soldier type that had never been seen before was about to take the stage!

After sending off Gao Xianzhi, Wang Chong himself soon left the study. In the northern training ground of Talas, Wang Chong met with Li Siye and his forty-six hundred Wushang Cavalry.

“Lord Marquis!”

Li Siye rode his Ferghana horse up to Wang Chong, placing a hand on his chest and bowing.

Wang Chong raised his head and asked, “Are they ready?”

“Lord Marquis, be at ease. Everyone is awaiting Lord Marquis’s call!”

Wang Chong nodded and sternly said, “Very good. Take these sheets of paper and have the Wushang Cavalry train according to them day and night. Our time is very limited. In one month, you must finish cultivating this formation.”

“Your subordinate will do all in his power to fulfill this order!”

Li Siye shot a glance at the contents of those papers, which caused his expression to turn grim and his pupils to constrict. After bidding farewell to Wang Chong, he immediately rode back to his men.

‘Asura Hell’!

This was the name of the formation that Wang Chong had described on those two sheets of paper. Li Siye had heard Wang Chong occasionally mention some Ten Great Formations. The Wushang Cavalry’s Ten Charges Ten Victories Formation was ranked the lowest of these ten, and the Asura Hell... was ranked second.

......

Gao Xianzhi entered the reception hall of the Lord of Talas and returned to his residence. After taking off the new suit of armor Wang Chong had forged for him, he seated himself before his own desk and began to handle military affairs.

Just like Wang Chong, Gao Xianzhi had many tasks to take care of. The treatment of the Anxi Protectorate army’s wounded, the distribution of supplies, the placating of the Ferghanans and the Karluks, the repairs to the city, the patrol routes of the scouts... there were far too many matters to handle.

By the time Gao Xianzhi had finished reviewing all his documents, it was extremely late.

Placing his brush on the rack, Gao Xianzhi rubbed his eyes, a hint of fatigue within them. Winds would herald a storm. Although Talas was peaceful now, everyone could sense an enormous pressure. The sixty thousand soldiers of the Tang army were seizing every moment, doing all they could to strengthen themselves for the vicious battle ahead.

There was a knock on the door, and a guard of the Anxi Protectorate walked in with a cup of tea.

“Milord has worked hard. Drink some tea and rest.”

“Put it down.” Gao Xianzhi lightly rapped on his desk.

After the guard left, Gao Xianzhi took up the tea cup and was just about to take a sip when his gaze flitted past two thin sheets of paper, which made him remember something.

“It’s that technique Wang Chong recommended to me.”

At Gao Xianzhi’s level of cultivation, it was extremely difficult to make any progress. Almost on instinct, Gao Xianzhi had not believed that this thing could be of any help to him. But in the end, Gao Xianzhi could not bear to deny Wang Chong’s good intentions.

“I should still take a look.”

Gao Xianzhi shook his head and smiled. He casually took up those two sheets of paper and gave them a glance, but this single glance was like a sharp jab, causing his entire body to tremble and all his fatigue to vanish.

“How could there be something like this?”

Gao Xianzhi stared at a line of words on one of the papers.

‘When heart and mind are one, Sword Qi melts into the void.’

This short sentence was exactly the same as one of the mantras in Gao Xianzhi’s Six Ultimate Majesties God Technique. Gao Xianzhi sat straight up on his chair and continued to read, his expression growing more diligent and solemn the more he read. After reading the last word, Gao Xianzhi gave a long sigh of wonder and slowly raised his head, but he remained speechless for some time.

The hall was quiet, but Gao Xianzhi’s mind at this moment was raging with torrential waves.

The technique that Wang Chong had given him was actually quite similar to the technique Gao Xianzhi cultivated, but its power... was much stronger than Gao Xianzhi’s technique. It was almost like it was an upgraded version! Gao Xianzhi had never encountered a situation like this before.

The two were different in various ways, but deep down, they inevitably shared the same root!

“I already did thorough research on this line of techniques, and I was sure that there were no offshoots. Could it be that I was wrong? The Six Ultimate Majesties God Technique that I cultivate is actually only a derivative of some ancient technique, and there’s an even stronger technique above it?”

Gao Xianzhi held the two sheets of paper as he muttered to himself.

The room was quiet, but enormous streams of energy surged around Gao Xianzhi. Lowering his head, Gao Xianzhi read the two sheets of paper several more times, eventually memorizing all their contents. After some time...

Bang!

An invisible force seemed to pull the two large doors of the reception hall open, and all the tables and chairs in the room were pushed out. Gao Xianzhi sat on the ground, a vast energy rising from his body. And the Stellar Energy within his body was slowly beginning to flow in a direction it had never gone before.

......

“Congratulations to user! For obtaining the Great General’s Heart (Gratitude) and obtaining Gao Xianzhi’s good opinion, you have subtly altered the course of this battle and have been rewarded 100 points of Destiny Energy!”

At this very moment, on the northern training ground of Talas, Wang Chong received a message from the Stone of Destiny. The voice caused Wang Chong to suddenly turn his head, whereupon he noticed a pure energy rising into the air from the direction of the reception hall of the Lord of Talas. At this sight, a faint smile appeared on his face.

Everything was on the right track!

In that apocalyptic age, many supreme experts had worked together to take Gao Xianzhi’s Six Ultimate Majesties God Technique and create one of the supreme Great General techniques, the Eight Ultimate Sunderings Art. Now, more than twenty years before it had actually been completed, it had returned to Gao Xianzhi’s hands. This subtle shift in history had been facilitated solely by Wang Chong. Yet another step had been taken off the original path.

The Eight Ultimate Sunderings Art had very strict cultivation requirements. One needed to have reached the Great General level, and one needed to cultivate it undisturbed and without pause for an entire month. This was the reason Wang Chong had not given Gao Xianzhi the Eight Ultimate Sunderings Art at the very beginning.

Wang Chong turned his head to a nearby Qixi messenger.

“Inform Cheng Qianli to dispatch men to ensure that no one gets within one hundred zhang of the Lord of Talas’s residence.”

“Yes, Milord!”

......

Time slowly passed. While Talas was a hive of activity where everyone was preparing for battle, more than sixty li away, the Western Turkic camp was fraught with tension.

Rumble!

Thunder rumbled and dark clouds seethed above the Turkic camp, with even more clouds being gathered in from the surroundings. Where the thunderclouds were most unsettled, a blue stream of energy soared into the sky, a dazzling landmark between the heavens and the earth.

Beneath this blue pillar of energy, floating in the air, was a muscular and tyrannical figure. He was equipped in a full suit of armor, and a black cape on his back snapped in the wind. His entire body exuded a despotic and scornful aura.

Shamask, Chekun Benba, and the other Turkic generals tightly guarded the area around Duwu Sili, and farther away, the thousands upon thousands of Turkic cavalry were a tide of steel that flowed around Duwu Sili, apparently adhering to some sort of law or rule. They roared as they galloped, their eyes shining with a fervent light.