Chapter Ninety-Seven: Yang Tianbao's Battle Against the Three Generals

When Wang Qingjie and He Xinzhou heard Zhu Hongxiu shouting, they withdrew a yard or two from the battlefield and looked toward the direction in which he was charging. Sure enough, they saw that the enemy had somehow broken through on the opposite side, and a great mass of enemy troops was now rushing toward the breach.

Wang Qingjie and He Xinzhou could not help thinking: We have more than thirty thousand soldiers here, surrounding an enemy force of over twenty thousand, and we have pressed them so tightly toward the center that those inside can scarcely move at all. How could they have broken through?

The two of them looked carefully toward the breach and saw a fierce warrior mounted on a strange beast, swinging a pair of heavy hammers as he swept and smashed at the soldiers on his right without pause. Wherever those iron hammers passed, more than a dozen soldiers were struck down at once, some even sent flying more than thirty feet away.

At the sight, Wang Qingjie and He Xinzhou ordered the troops here to continue killing the enemy, and sent a portion of the soldiers to intercept the enemy at the breach.

Then the two rode their mounts together toward that fierce warrior.

By the time they reached him, Zhu Hongxiu was already engaged in combat with Yang Tianbao.

"Hahaha! You three are the leaders of this army now, are you? Come at me together! You have killed so many of my men, so I will let you taste what death feels like too! No, that is not right. Once a man is dead, he feels nothing. I should say I will let you taste what it is like to be crippled!" Yang Tianbao said.

As he spoke, Yang Tianbao squeezed his legs, and the wolf-lion beast beneath him immediately fixed its deep blue eyes ahead, roared, and spewed a column of dark, chilly breath forward. Then it leaped straight toward Wang Qingjie.

At the same time, as Yang Tianbao sprang forward with the wolf-lion beast, he raised his twin hammers and crossed them against one another. With a thunderous bang, a beam of eerie white light shot toward Zhu Hongxiu on the right.

At first, Zhu Hongxiu thought Yang Tianbao was lifting the hammers to hurl them at him, so before the weapons could strike together, he had already darted aside.

The white light from Yang Tianbao's hammers struck a rock as large as a water vat several dozen yards away. With a deafening boom, the stone shattered into pieces.

Seeing this, Zhu Hongxiu was greatly shocked and secretly thankful that he had dodged in time. If that white light had hit him, even if it had not killed him, he feared he would have spent the rest of his life as a helpless cripple.

Zhu Hongxiu knew at once that this opponent was on the same level as Generals Huang Xianlin and Wei Xiaoping. In his heart he thought that this man was a master none of the three warrior-generals could afford to provoke.

Riding ahead on horseback, Wang Qingjie saw the wolf-lion beast open its mouth toward him and assumed it was about to roar at him, so he calmly watched to see what move the creature might make to attack him.

He never expected that after the beast roared, it would immediately blow a cold, chilling wind toward him.

Wang Qingjie's horse had already been terrified when it first saw those deep blue eyes staring at it. Now, with the beast roaring and sending that icy wind its way, it let out several shrill cries, lifted its forelegs, and tried to retreat.

But it was already too late. Wang Qingjie's horse was struck squarely in the chest by the beast's sinister breath.

The warhorse whinnied in pain and toppled backward to the ground.

Before it had fully fallen, Wang Qingjie braced his feet in the stirrups and leaped aside.

The horse landed on its side and lay there flailing its legs, trying to rise, but it had no strength left. It could only give out agonized cries.

Seeing that his warhorse had been brought down by nothing more than a single breath from the enemy's mount, Wang Qingjie was stunned. What sort of monster was this? Could a mere breath knock my warhorse flat like that?

By then, Yang Tianbao and the wolf-lion beast had already leaped into the air, only a yard away from Wang Qingjie.

Seeing the beast about to come crashing over his head, Wang Qingjie immediately crouched low and sprang off in the opposite direction.

As he leaped away, he drove the crescent blade in his hand toward the beast's belly.

The tip of Wang Qingjie's blade did strike the wolf-lion beast's lower abdomen, but it merely shaved off a few tufts of fur. It did not wound the creature at all.

Having landed to one side, Wang Qingjie looked at his blade in disbelief. The tip had clearly touched the enemy's monstrous mount, and his arm had even felt the recoil through the handle, yet he had not injured it in the slightest.

"General Zhu, what kind of beast is the enemy riding? My crescent blade could not even pierce its belly?" Wang Qingjie asked after steadying himself.

At that moment, He Xinzhou, seated upon his warhorse, held a painted halberd in both hands across his chest, his eyes fixed unblinkingly on the enemy.

"General Wang, look at your horse!" He Xinzhou suddenly said, his voice tight with alarm.

Wang Qingjie and Zhu Hongxiu turned their eyes toward the warhorse on the ground.

Where Wang Qingjie's horse had just been lying, there was now no trace of it. Only a heap of objects, faintly translucent and like shards of ice, remained on the ground, arranged in the shape of a horse sprawled there.

"What kind of monster is this? With nothing more than a breath of cold dark energy, it killed my horse and turned it to ice?" Wang Qingjie said in astonishment.

Zhu Hongxiu was equally stunned by the scene before him.

"Hahahaha!" Yang Tianbao, having just landed on the side and turned his wolf-lion beast back around, laughed scornfully. "Three warrior-generals, do you understand how formidable I am now? Why not surrender obediently? If you do, I may still leave you whole!"

"You arrogant fool, do not rejoice too soon! How could the mighty generals of the Azure Peak Kingdom ever surrender to the enemy so meekly? You only have the aid of a divine pair of weapons and a strange beast that can summon demonic winds, and yet you dare to act so wildly. In a moment, you will learn how formidable the three of us truly are!" Zhu Hongxiu said, gathering his strength and gripping his pair of golden whips. Taking up his stance, he added, "General Wang, General He, let us form a triangular formation and attack the enemy from three different directions at once. During the assault, watch the beast's mouth and be wary of the enemy's two great hammers!"

He Xinzhou, still on horseback, tightened his grip on the painted halberd in both hands and also took up his stance, moving to Yang Tianbao's right side. "General Wang, remember this: when that enemy's pair of giant hammers strike against each other, the white spectral light they produce can shatter huge rocks."

Wang Qingjie, too, gripped his crescent blade and leaped to Yang Tianbao's left. "General He, you must also remember this: the monster's mouth can spew dark breath that will turn us into ice!"

When he finished speaking, the three men advanced carefully toward Yang Tianbao and the wolf-lion beast, enclosing them at the center.

"Hahaha, hahaha! You three ignorant and presumptuous brutes!" Yang Tianbao laughed. "Since you refuse to surrender obediently, do not blame me if I leave none of you intact!"

With that, he sprang into the air, vaulting from the back of the wolf-lion beast. Twisting halfway in midair, he landed behind his mount and said, "Great Wolf, your task is the enemy on the left, the one called Wang Qingjie. I will handle the other two!"

Zhu Hongxiu saw that Yang Tianbao had deliberately turned his back toward the rear of his mount, allowing the beast to attack the enemy from the front while he remained behind it, safe from any attack that might come from the rear.

It was a method of battle he had never seen before. Still, the condition was that the mount itself had to be powerful enough to hold the line on its own.