The dull 'swish' sounds never ceased.
Just moments ago, the dozen or so heads of the Grand Chancellor’s palace attendants exploded one after another.
They hadn’t even caught sight of what technique the enemy used before being killed on the spot.
Hundreds of armored soldiers shouted in unison.
A general suddenly raised his left fist, shouting, "Shields!"
The soldiers swiftly reached behind and lifted half-body-high heavy shields made of steel with rhinoceros hide adorned with beast face patterns.
With a loud clang, they planted them firmly in front of themselves.
Clang, clang, clang — a dozen or more terrifying impacts rang out continuously.
The soldiers holding the heavy shields groaned in unison, their left hands gripping the shields wracked with unbearable pain, the bones of their wrists shattered by the enormous force.
In the center of each steel shield was a dent roughly the size of a human head.
The rhino hide surface of the shield shattered inch by inch, and around the dent, countless tiny hairline cracks spiderwebbed across the steel.
Right in the center of the dent was clearly a walnut-sized iron pellet.
“Heh, the Dayin Dynasty isn’t all a bunch of trash,” a deep voice rumbled from behind the assassination squad.
A few days ago, this man had broken into the stone chamber where Leshan was training in the middle of the night, killing more than a dozen of Leshan’s trusted men.
Yet, he eventually spared the burly Leshan himself.
Now he strode forward arrogantly, parting the crowd.
The burly man wore ancient-colored, ornate half-body bronze armor.
His right hand toyed with a few iron pellets, while his left hand dragged a huge hemp sack along the ground, which scraped against the stone bricks, producing a muffled metallic clattering.
“You all, don’t keep serving these corrupt officials... We came today to seek justice... Make way, and you can live!”
His gaze cut like a knife, locking onto the general commanding the several hundred armored soldiers.
Cold sweat poured down the general’s entire body.
He knew well how formidable those dozen or so palace attendants were—experts in the Scripture-Opening Realm whom Zhu Chong had spent a fortune recruiting from the martial world.
With Zhu Chong’s status and wealth, the vast Grand Chancellor’s mansion only managed to gather fewer than thirty such attendants.
Yet today, more than half were wiped out like chicks without a mother!
Panting heavily, the general suddenly raised his horse-slaying saber and shouted, “Traitors and rebels! Men, kill the invaders with me... If we don’t die today, the Chancellor will not forget us!”
The hundreds of armored soldiers shouted in unison, raising their long blades.
The blade light glistened like snow, their steps booming like thunder.
These soldiers raised their heavy shields and formed battle formations, countercharging the assassins before them.
“What a pity, all real heroes,” the burly man shook his head and sighed. “Ah well, remember my name—I'm Xiong Taidou. You lot, you’re truly wasted!”
Xiong Taidou took a deep breath.
His muscles suddenly collapsed inward in a strange way, and in an instant, he transformed into a skin-and-bones skeleton frame.
Then, with a prolonged breath, his muscles rapidly swelled, his height soaring over a foot taller.
Xiong Taidou became a giant over ten feet tall, muscles knotted and bulging.
The originally pitch-black muscles now shimmered faintly with a layer of golden light.
Like a palm fan, his right hand plunged into the hemp sack in his left hand and grabbed out a dozen iron pellets, tossing them casually above his head.
The iron pellets rose several feet high before falling rapidly.
His right index finger flicked swiftly, striking the pellets and causing terrifying booming sounds.
One iron pellet after another flew out at such speed they became afterimages to the naked eye, detonating airbursts as large as water jars.
The force was several times more brutal than when he had just slain those dozen attendants.
Heavy shields exploded in the deafening sonic booms as iron pellets pierced through them and the armored soldiers behind, shredding both armor and flesh into bloody pieces.
One pellet alone could carve a bloody path through the dense formation.
A dozen pellets easily killed thirty to forty armored soldiers.
Xiong Taidou grabbed another handful of iron pellets and continued launching them with rapid finger flicks.
The dense sound of continuous explosions filled the air.
The heavily armored soldiers holding heavy shields moved sluggishly, and though they were still over ten yards away from Xiong Taidou, they were already torn to pieces by the relentless onslaught of iron pellets.
This terrifying barrage lasted only a few breaths.
Every one of these brave armored soldiers lay dead.
Xiong Taidou smiled widely and gently shook his head, “When the gap in cultivation is so vast, what use is number? Heh, it’s just military merit.”
Saying the words "military merit," Xiong Taidou glanced back at the thousands of expressionless assassins gathering behind him.
He raised his right hand and waved it forward lightly.
“Purge the tyrant, kill the traitors!”
The thousands of assassins seemed injected with adrenaline, howling loudly the slogan “Purge the tyrant!” Like a tide, they rushed through the second main gate, instantly demolishing the halls where Grand Chancellor Zhu Chong normally met guests and held banquets.
Xiong Taidou led from the front.
Wherever there was resistance, he was like a flying iron pellet, blasting anyone resisting into pieces.
With his fierce slaughtering power, the assassins stormed through as if there was no one in their way, breaking into several courtyards of the Grand Chancellor’s mansion, killing countless family guards, household servants, and stewards, then charging straight into the rear garden.
Inside the rear garden, the grand gate stood open wide.
Outrushed heavily armored city defense soldiers as if their tails were on fire, bursting into the rear garden through the gate.
Groups of assassins gathered near the rear gate, locked in fierce battle with the city defense soldiers rushing in for reinforcements.
Inside the rear garden, fake mountains and groves sprawled endlessly, along with numerous streams and ponds—all carefully made landscape features.
The terrain was complicated, with many winding, secluded paths and very narrow roads.
Such a garden was exquisite and elegant for hosting guests and drinking while enjoying the scenery.
But when assassins intruded and city defense troops tried to push in to rescue people, it became extremely awkward.
The assassins moved agilely through the fake mountains and forested paths, emerging from all sorts of unbelievable hiding places to wildly attack the incoming city defense forces.
The heavily armored soldiers wielding long weapons found it difficult even to form a five-man formation.
Facing relentless assassination attacks, breaching the rear garden became a massive challenge.
Moreover, the smoke and fragrant aroma from two burning carts still drifted through the air.
The individual cultivation of the assassins was no weaker than that of the city defense soldiers.
And the weapons used by the assassins were all military-grade arms manufactured officially by the Dayin Dynasty, with impressive destructive power.
Under such ebb and flow, the rescue operation of the city defense forces was rather chaotic.
Near the north gate of the rear garden, corpse piles rose several feet high.
Even so, at their best, the city defense forces only managed to advance less than twenty yards inside the north gate.
Zhu Chong, Bai Changkong, and their comrades stood in the tall building.
The entire fake mountain was surrounded on all sides by thousands of elite family guards of the Grand Chancellor’s mansion.
They used the fake mountains as a solid defensive line.
Around the small building, at the peaks of the fake mountains, several heavy crossbows were set up.
Their massive bolts locked onto the only stone stairway leading up the mountain.
Anyone attempting to ascend faced a merciless hail of crossbow bolts.
Under Xiong Taidou’s lead, the assassin squad poured in and quickly scattered the small groups of family guards inside the rear garden.
Lanterns and torches lit up the surroundings brightly.
Xiong Taidou and his group swiftly reached the base of the fake mountain.
From this distance, Zhu Chong and others as well as Xiong Taidou himself could clearly see each other’s appearance—Xiong Taidou’s grizzled form versus the splash of vibrant purple robes atop the small building.
“Purge the tyrant! Kill the traitors!” Xiong Taidou shouted hoarsely, playing with an iron pellet as he looked up toward Zhu Chong and his allies on the rooftop.
“Purge the tyrant?” Zhu Chong, hands behind his back, spoke lightly and teasingly to his peers. “Shouldn’t that be going after that old eunuch Yu Changle instead?”
“Kill the traitors?” Zhu Chong smiled calmly at his equally composed comrades. “Which one of us here is a traitor?”
Bai Changkong and the others stroked their beards and smiled.
‘Traitors’?
Ha! They were dignified gentlemen—how could they possibly be ‘traitors’?
From below came Xiong Taidou’s roar again: “To avenge the fathers and elders of Anping Prefecture!”
The previously composed gentlemen’s smiles stiffened instantly.
“Anping Prefecture!” Zhu Chong took a deep breath. “Wasn’t that matter already settled?”
Standing beside Zhu Chong, the current Minister of the Household Ministry, Cui Wubu, tall and elegant with refined good looks, stroked his neatly groomed inch-and-a-half-long beard and said serenely, “The Household Ministry took care of Anping Prefecture properly. There was absolutely no error.”
Nearby, the Chief Justice, Shang Yang, folded his hands behind his back and said indifferently, “The Justice Department lodged no interference either. The Chancellor knows full well that all involved in the Anping Prefecture incident were exiled to Xiyou Prefecture. Along the way, they all contracted plague and died midway.”
Zhu Chong laughed, “Then, where did all these people bursting into my Grand Chancellor’s mansion, shouting and killing, suddenly come from?”
Shaking his head, his gaze swept over the scholars and gentlemen beside him.
Zhu Chong murmured, “It seems they’ve taken the upper hand now.”
Xiong Taidou led the charge, bringing the assassin team up the stone stairway and onto the fake mountain.
The stairs were narrow—only about six feet wide.
The Grand Chancellor’s guards had no choice but to line up one by one on the stairs, forming a long defensive line.
As Xiong Taidou climbed, only one guard could battle him at a time.
Playing with his iron pellet in his right hand, each time he encountered a guard, he would fire an iron pellet at them.
The narrow stone stairs were bordered by exquisitely carved faux mountain walls, leaving the guards no room to dodge—they had to absorb the blows head-on.
Deafening sonic booms exploded again and again.
One guard after another fell to the ground, killed instantly.
Cutting through like a hot knife through butter, Xiong Taidou reached the top of the stairs.
Simultaneously, eight heavy crossbows surrounding the area fired deep, dull booms.
Twenty-four bolts as large as spears blasted from the steel crossbows, piercing Xiong Taidou’s body ferociously.
The officials on the tall building applauded loudly.
But in the next moment, the cheers abruptly stopped.
The twenty-four bolts hit Xiong Taidou, but accompanied by harsh clashes of metal, the bolts bent, shook, and rebounded, flying thirty yards away each.
None could pierce his skin; they only left sesame-seed size white marks on his body.
(End of chapter)