Hold the Door T_T

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As the sun looked down from above and gleamed down upon the countless shields and swords below, a flurry of yells broke out.

“Surrender or perish!” Hundreds of thousands of soldiers chanted over and over as the forces under Yuying, Lingqi and Ling’s command surrounded Rainbow Rock city.

Lingqi’s fifty thousand conscripted soldiers were situated at the front of the army and acted as the vanguard. Yuying had a massive siege ram built and given to the conscripted soldiers so they can fulfill their task of gathering as much attention from the enemy as possible. Of course, if they just so happen to manage to break through the city gates then it would serve as a bonus.

The soldiers above the city walls watched in horror as all possibly exist in and out of the city teamed with enemy soldiers clad in black armor. As the forces of Aurora continued to chant “surrender or perish” the soldiers of the Rainbow Rock Army could not help but tremble.

“Vanguard, move out! Head for the western gate!” Yuying commanded as she sat atop a throne of skulls.

Soon enough the rumbling sound of wheels could be heard as the conscripted soldiers pushed their massive siege ram toward the city’s main gate.

“Tho-those are our men down there!” Someone yelled from atop the walls as they spotted Lingqi’s conscripted soldiers who were still wearing the Rainbow Rock Army’s standard gray armor with blue trim.

“It doesn’t matter! Archers fire at will! If that siege ram reaches the gate, then the city will fall!” The Rainbow Rock Army’s general said.

“But General Hong Yang if we open the gates and allow them in, we would gain a substantial number of troops to defend the city with. Considering how the enemy is only sending our former soldiers to test the waters.” A soldier said.

“Fool have you not heard the ruthlessness and cunning the enemy generals possess? You think they would be dumb enough to simply send in our former soldiers without planning for a scenario such as that?” General Hong Yang said.

“Archers fire!” General Hong Yan commanded once more.

Soon the skies were filled with countless arrows and the sun was blocked out from view as the soldiers atop Rainbow Rock City’s western wall fired arrow after arrow at their former comrades.

“Move the catapults into range.” Lingqi commanded and before long dozens of catapults appeared and were loaded with large clay pots filled with poison.

“Launch!!!” Lingqi said with a wave of her hand.

With Lingqi’s orders being passed down the catapults fired one after the other, sending dozens of earthen pots into the air. Some of these pots smashed into the city walls while others impacted directly on the soldiers atop the walls, covering them in a thick purplish goo.

“This poison only reacts when in sunlight and will turn into a thick mist in about three seconds. One… Two… Three…” Lingqi said as a cloud of purplish mist formed atop the city walls. As a cloud of poison covered the top of the city walls, one after the other soldiers began to fall over as all of the fresh uncontaminated air was gone.

“Don’t breathe in the smoke! Don’t breathe the smoke!” Someone yelled however they too fell over. However due to the lack of available ingredients, Lingqi was not able to produce a lot of her poison so only a small portion of the soldiers on the wall was affected so countless arrows continued to rain down from above the walls.

“Have shield unit move forward and form formations around the vanguard! Have the Vanguard move back and regroup with shield unit!” Yuying commanded as the conscripted soldiers began to break out of formation and suffer heavy casualties. Soon horns and flags were raised to signal to direct the soldiers out on the battlefield.

At first, she had left the conscripted soldiers totally open to enemy attack to draw their attention and taunt them into using their arrows. However now that the conscripted soldiers were taking unnecessary casualties and the volume of arrows being shot from the walls began to decrease it was time to have armored units move forward.

Once the shield unit and the conscripted soldiers grouped together and continued to head toward the city wall, Yuying gave the order for the rest of the soldiers under her command to move forward but stay clear of the area where the enemy’s arrows can reach them.

“Ask the southern and northern gates to send us reinforcements!” General Hong Yang said after he had his men carry the unconscious down the walls. Although Lingqi’s poison only affect a few small sections of the wall, there were gaps that needed to be filled in.

On the opposite side of the city, Ling could be seen standing atop a column of swirling water with thousands of soldiers standing in neat rows below.

“Time for me to move in.” Ling murmured as she spotted the enemy soldiers above the city walls begin to move and reinforce each other.

With their goal of diverting the enemy's forces to the western gate complete, the column of water underneath Ling’s feet began to move forward.

Soon a bubble of water covered Ling from all sides as thousands of droplets of water rose into the air. Once Ling’s column of water closed in on the city the archers atop the walls began to fire arrows at her, but to no effect because Ling’s water shield.

In a flash dozens of rays of light condensed and began to carve away at the city walls, wherever and whatever they touched instantly light aflame or began to melt.

“Wretches invaders! Feel my wrath!” A roar could be heard echoing throughout the battlefield as a javelin whizzed through the sky and impaled Ling’s water bubble. Unlike the arrows that were caught earlier, the javelin punctured the water bubble causing it to burst into countless droplets.

Thankfully Ling had quickly manipulated the column of water she was standing on, allowing her to dodge what would have been a deadly blow. The javelin that would have easily pierced through Ling’s neck had only left a minor scratch. However, the distraction the javelin caused had interrupted her concentration thus canceling the rays of light that were cutting through the city walls.

Squinting her eyes and looking at the city walls, Ling could spot a soldier clad in gleaming gemlike armor with a quiver of javelins tied to his back.

With a hmph, Ling made her water column rise higher into the sky while thickening her water bubble and then restarting her efforts to burn a hole through the city walls.

Since Rainbow Rock City was the capital city of the province, it’s walls were reinforced causing it to take considerably longer to break through it, however once the walls could be breached and the soldiers of Aurora storm in the city was theirs for the taking.

Had the man clad in crystal armor been a mage then Ling would have dealt with him instantly, but since he was a warrior she doubled her efforts to take down the walls. It was not because warriors were inferior to mages, but it was due to the fact that warriors did not possess techniques or attacks that could affect large areas but were superior to mages in close range combat. A high level could easily dodge Ling’s attacks and possibly move in and kill her if given the opportunity.

Ling’s only current advantages over a high-level warrior was that they had to take down their opponents one by one and at close range, meaning if Ling took down the city walls and her soldiers stormed in, she could use numbers to deal with the man clad in crystal armor.

“You think I can’t get you if you stay up there?” The crystal armor clad man bellowed as he pulled out two javelins from his quiver. As the man’s muscles flexed and his grip loosened, one of the deadly looking javelins shot through the air toward Ling.

“Not again…” Ling murmured as she watched the javelin flying straight for her without batting an eye. Unlike before she had no intention of attempting to dodge but simply waited.

Like before the javelin easily broke through the water bubble and homed in on Ling, but when it was mere inches away from her abdomen, Ling reformed the water bubble and with a thought made it freeze into ice.

Once the water bubble froze the javelin stopped moving forward as its tip was about to stab into Ling.

Although she managed to stop the javelin Ling did not even have a moment to rest because the crystal armor clad man had sent yet another javelin soaring through the skies.

With a wave of Ling’s hand, the ice instantly turned back into the water and wrapped around the javelin that had been caught moments ago. With her thoughts manipulating the water, Ling sent the javelin she caught into the air as well.

Moments later the two javelins collided and sent sparks and shrapnel flying in all directions. Some of the shrapnel even managed to find their way into Ling’s newly formed water bubble.

“Maybe I’ll see how well he can stand the heat.” Ling said as she decided to momentarily stop attempting to melt through the base of the city walls but instead unleash some havoc on the top of the wall.

Soon enough dozens of rays of condense light drew paths of deaths on the city walls as they headed for the top of the walls where countless soldiers stop tightly packed.

Heart-wrenching screams were audible moments later as dozens of men were either burned to ashes or cut to pieces by the intense heat packed in the rays of light.

Surprisingly enough the warrior clad in crystal armor pushed away all those in front of him and bolted toward one of Ling’s rays of light. In his hand was a large circular shield that shone in a magnificent blue hue.

What happened next would leave Ling speechless as the man used his shield to deflect Ling’s ray of light downward at an area where thousands of Ling’s soldiers stood.

“Damn…” Ling cursed as a few of her soldiers sustained injuries before she could cancel out her technique.

“I have to be prepared for the next time he does that…” She thought as she glared at the man clad in crystal armor who was showing a proud smile through the opening in his helmet.

Thus, Ling decided to forgo any more attempts at directly attacking the tops of the walls and stuck to trying to melt the walls while dodging the crystal armor-clad man’s javelins.

“He’ll run out eventually…” She murmured as she gulped down a small bottle of essence water.

On the other side of the wall, the conscripted soldiers had valiantly made their way to the city’s front gates and the siege ram began to pound against the wood and iron gate.

“HOLD THE DOOR!!!!” The soldiers within the city yelled.

“HOLD THE DOOR!!!”

“HOLD THE DOOR!!!!”

Soon it became a maddening chant as they tried to pile whatever they could find behind the city walls to prevent the siege ram from knocking it down. There was also one particularly large built man who had his back pressed against the gates, it could be said that it was thanks to this man that the iron doors had not fallen. Had he not held the doors then perhaps Yuying’s soldiers would have already knocked down the doors. From this alone we could only guess his level of cultivation.

“What's taking Ling so long…” Yuying said as she clicked her tongue and with a sigh a column of bones rose up underneath her throne made of skulls lifting Yuying into the air. Had Ling successfully entered the city a flare would have been shot into the air however after some time had passed and with nothing happening Yuying decided she had to act.

“Bring out the siege towers!” Yuying commanded figuring something was preventing Ling from entering the city.

Upon receiving their commands Yuying’s soldiers quickly dispatched two large towers that rose higher than the city walls. With teams of armored horses and men pushing and pulling them, the two towers filled with archers inched toward the city.

Preparing for possible enemy fire attacks, Yuying’s men began to pour hundreds of buckets of water onto the tower as they neared the city walls.

“Any obstacle that stands in my way of reuniting with him will be crushed.” Yuying said as she watched her soldiers move into action.

While Ling and Yuying were busy, Lingqi began to perform a song on her zither with hundreds of musicians playing in an orchestra with her. Since there weren’t too many useful herbs in the area to create enough poison, she decided to affect the battle in another manner.

Once Lingqi’s invigorating tone drifted into the ears of the conscripted soldiers and the shield unit, they felt their bodies become empowered and their strength renewed.

It was said the music affects the soul and soothes the body so depending on what melody Lingqi decided to play, the soldiers on the battlefield will feel a different emotion.

If she played an upbeat energetic tone then the soldiers would feel invigorated, if she played a sad tone and directed it at the soldiers atop the walls then their morale would fall, basically, Lingqi was subtly able to alter people’s moods at will. This was because Lingqi’s essence was weaved into the strings of her zither whenever she plucked a string and then sent across the battlefield or wherever she chooses.

Sadly, the music could not affect the battle more directly like poison.

Despite many hours passing since the start of the battle, neither sides really took significant damage however things were about to change because despite being bombarded by javelins, Ling managed to cut a small hole in the city wall and Yuying’s siege towers managed to close in on the city walls without suffering significant damage.

“Heavy cavalry move forward!” Ling commanded as she caught a javelin in her frozen water bubble.

“Deploy oil!” Yuying commanded the soldiers in the siege tower to being tossing pots of oil onto the city walls.

“Th-this is oil!” The soldiers of the Rainbow Rock Army yelled to each other as the soldiers of Aurora tossed clay pots onto the city walls.

“Surrender or perish! Surrender or perish!” Yuying’s men chanted.