Bachelor [EN]: Chapter 742

Not long after, Han Li moved with the scarred giant to another section of the city wall, where he saw the red tide of serpent monsters.

It was a sight that made one’s blood run colder than the pack of blue wolves.

The only good news was that the serpent monsters that had appeared this time were not poisonous, making them easier to deal with.

Looking at the distant wave of serpents, Han Li noticed that there were giant serpents several times the size of their brethren scattered throughout, and he sighed.

The mutated serpents were nearly ten yards long, not small compared to the red flood dragons [mythical, powerful serpentine creatures].

It was obvious what would happen if ordinary people were swallowed while fighting such giant monsters.

Moreover, the number of mutated monsters among the red serpent tide seemed even greater than the blue wolf pack. After seeing the two groups of monsters, Han Li felt a little regretful that he hadn’t been able to observe the leopard avian beasts that Zhang Gui had mentioned.

According to the scarred giant, the leopard avian beasts rested in hidden places and would not reveal themselves until the attack began.

“What are the monsters waiting for? I’m curious why they aren’t attacking right away,” Han Li suddenly asked, looking down at the red serpent horde.

“Since the monster hordes are led by intelligent demon beasts, they don’t just rush in like a mindless stampede. They communicate with other monster groups to decide when to attack and then advance simultaneously. Generally, the attack begins within a day or so after the monsters gather. Well, let’s go. The Heavenly Cave Chamber should have received orders to prepare as well. It’ll be difficult to achieve anything significant in such a large-scale battle, but we should do our best. If we can gain some enlightenment during the battle and reach a higher realm, that would be even better.”

Zhang Gui scoffed and led Han Li back to the inn inside the city.

Orders had been issued for everyone to gather at the assembly point immediately, and the man in the golden robe and the cultivators of the Golden Jade Sect had already left.

Zhang Gui immediately led 200 of the Heavenly Cave Chamber’s guards out of the inn with great fanfare.

Outside the inn, there were countless private soldiers and cultivators gathered, much like the Heavenly Cave Chamber.

They didn’t seem as numerous or as brave as the Heavenly Cave Chamber’s guards, but they were grouped in numbers ranging from half a dozen to a dozen or so. So, Han Li and the Heavenly Cave Chamber group couldn’t help but attract attention.

Among them, 50 were cavalrymen riding giant horned wolves, which was only natural. These Sūn Wolf Beasts were one of the few combat monsters that humans had domesticated.

They had to be carefully raised from a young age to eliminate their wild nature so that they could move as one with the cavalry on the battlefield, which made them quite expensive.

Only places with abundant resources like the Heavenly Cave Chamber could provide Sūn Wolf Beasts to their guards.

Under the gaze of others, they reached a large plaza near the city wall, which happened to be on the side where the blue wolf pack had gathered.

Tens of thousands of young and middle-aged men, private soldiers in various attire, and cultivators were already gathered there.

There were many riding Sūn Wolf Beasts, but even with the Heavenly Cave Chamber’s cavalry, they did not exceed 300.

The An Yuan City soldiers standing guard throughout the plaza were all fully armed.

A middle-aged man in silver armor and helmet appeared at the end of the plaza, speaking to a Confucian scholar and a monk beside him, who seemed to be the ones in charge here.

Upon closer inspection, Han Li was surprised to see that he was the commander he had met at the city gate when entering An Yuan City, and the Confucian scholar and monk beside him were the cultivators who had inspected the Heavenly Cave Chamber’s transport convoy.

Then, the middle-aged man in silver armor checked if all the soldiers had gathered and immediately waved his arm behind him.

At that, a soldier with a booming voice stood up and shouted loudly to prepare for battle.

The cavalrymen were gathered separately to form a cavalry formation, and the land vehicles led by giant tortoises were pushed to the center of the plaza, where they distributed large quantities of weapons and a small amount of armor to the young and middle-aged men.

The cultivators had no interest in such weapons, so they stood in place and watched.

While the An Yuan City soldiers were distributing weapons to the ordinary people, no one paid attention to the private soldier groups or individual cultivators like Han Li.

At that moment, a long wolf howl echoed from outside, and within its chilling sound was a bloodthirsty madness.

“Awoo!”

“……!”

As time passed, the howls grew louder, and eventually, millions of wolves began to howl simultaneously.

However, that was just the beginning, as a bizarre demon beast cry, “shhh-shhh-shhh,” was heard from above. It wasn’t a rough wave like the wolf howls, but it made the listeners’ hair stand on end.

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!

At the same time, the sound of gongs rang out from the city walls, and a man’s voice echoed deeply. It wasn’t loud, but it was clearly audible to everyone gathered in the plaza.

“Everyone, be careful! The demon beast horde is moving towards the city walls.”

Unexpectedly, a Foundation Establishment cultivator [a level of cultivation] in a gray robe was standing in the air, leaning on a long sword, and shouting. This was happening all over An Yuan City, and warnings were being issued simultaneously.

At the same time, the entire An Yuan City was in turmoil, and the waiting soldiers moved into formation, and the giant crossbow arrows on the city walls finally began to move.

The soldiers in the plaza also quickened their pace of distributing weapons at the shout of the middle-aged man in silver armor.

Then, someone approached and divided the private soldier groups and cultivators, and as the battle was imminent, even some of the arrogant cultivators obediently followed the instructions.

Soon, a dozen or so units of 200 men each were formed. The Heavenly Cave Chamber was recognized as an independent unit because their own guards originally numbered 200.

Also, the cultivators who had already trained in various techniques and the armed private soldier groups who had received training went up to the city walls first and joined the An Yuan City soldiers.

However, the young and middle-aged men made up of ordinary people were organized into reserve units and were not immediately sent into battle.

The Heavenly Cave Chamber’s guards were too conspicuous, so they were immediately assigned to the first wave of the vanguard. Thus, Han Li, along with the remaining 200 Heavenly Cave Chamber guards, took charge of one section of the city wall and joined the soldiers waiting there to defend it.

As Han Li stood on the city wall and looked out, the blue wolves had already stopped howling and were slowly approaching, surrounding the city.

‘It’s like a giant, moving blue prairie…’

The sound of the monsters’ footsteps as the blue wolf pack moved made the soldiers’ burden even greater. The soldiers’ faces were already pale, but no one encouraged them.

For ordinary people, the fall of the city meant that they and their entire families would be slaughtered.

No matter how afraid they were, once the monsters attacked, the An Yuan City soldiers would never retreat and would fight to the end.

That was why the commanders of each city wall, the low-ranking military officers, had ordered preparations for battle and did not give any speeches to boost morale.

The wolves’ movement speed wasn’t fast, but they were becoming clearer and clearer.

Also, the mutated monsters, which were twice the size of ordinary blue wolves, were now clearly visible.

The mutated monsters located throughout the wolf pack were covered in thick blue fur, but their eyes were not black but shone with a jade-colored demonic aura, clearly indicating that they possessed intelligence.

Seeing this, Han Li frowned.

‘They don’t look easy to deal with at a glance, and there are so many of them!’

He stood behind the An Yuan City military officer in charge of the city wall, along with a giant who was tall and nearly two yards in height.

At Zhang Gui’s suggestion, who had experienced several demon beast tides, the two of them were assigned to protect the commander.

If something happened to the commander, the defense line itself would become chaotic.

The giant was a cultivator named ‘Du Su’ from the Heavenly Cave Chamber, who had mastered a technique to grow his body and unleash great strength. It was said that he had already mastered the technique to its peak and was the strongest man in the Heavenly Cave Chamber before Han Li arrived.

He was one of the few who had challenged Han Li after he became the commander of the guard unit.

The surprised look on his face after Han Li easily lifted and threw a several-thousand-pound boulder was quite a sight.

Currently, Han Li held a thin sword in one hand, and the giant held a two-yard-long special spiked club, standing on either side of the military officer. The 30-year-old military officer was an ordinary-looking man with a frail body, wearing silver armor and a long sword at his waist.

However, his sharp eyes conveyed the dignity of a commander. It seemed that he was also a cultivator with a decent level of cultivation.

That was because many cultivators among the ordinary people of the Spirit Realm who had reached a certain level often joined the armies of each city. Some of the higher-level ones even looked down on high-level cultivators.

As Han Li was expressionlessly watching the approaching wave of blue wolves, suddenly, explosions erupted from behind, and over a hundred fireballs were launched outside the city, falling into the wolf pack.

Boom! Boom!

With the roar and the flames rising, hundreds of blue wolves were instantly covered in blood.

Although it was ordinary fire, the wolf monsters were no different from ordinary beasts, so they had no choice but to suffer.

Seeing this, Han Li turned his head with interest.

In an open space not far from the city wall, there were rows of objects that were called catapults in the mortal realm.

Large numbers of soldiers, under someone’s orders, placed something that looked like a bright red bead on them and launched them, and the same giant fireballs as before flew in an arc over the city wall and into the demon beast horde.

Then, countless blue wolves were burned to death. In just two attacks, they had already killed over 20,000 blue wolves, so the power of the catapults was considerable.

However, the wolves did not remain still. Enraged by the fireball attacks, the wolves roared magnificently and, under the orders of the mutated wolf monsters, began to rush forward in groups of a dozen or so.

The ground rumbled, and the monsters quickly closed the short distance, and they began to climb the city wall, which was over ten yards high, with great ferocity.

One blue wolf after another kicked off the ground and struck the smooth city wall with their sharp claws, creating a one-yard-long groove, and then other monsters jumped up again and quickly began to climb the city wall.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

From the city wall, soldiers rained down arrows, knocking the blue wolves down. The ordinary people of the Spirit Realm were much stronger than the ordinary people of the mortal realm, so their killing power was also higher.

However, the number of blue wolves was too great, and there was no way to stop them with this alone. The wolf monsters, disregarding the deaths of their brethren, continued to surge forward and were quickly climbing onto the city wall.

However, the guards on the city wall had already prepared, so as soon as a blue wolf jumped up, three or four of them would stab it simultaneously with long weapons, knock it to the ground, and then swing their swords to cut it down before the monster could cause any trouble.

Arrows rained down from below the city wall, and above the city wall, the glint of swords flashed, and shouts and monster roars intertwined.

However, Han Li did not step forward but stood behind the giant and the military officer, listening to how he commanded the soldiers and assessing the defense capabilities here.

In his view, although the blue wolves were ferocious, the humans had been preparing for the demon beast tide for a long time, so it didn’t seem like anything would happen right away. Perhaps the worst battles would take place in the last few days.