Chapter 37: Blockade and Ambush

Twenty hours after the battle at Yongji Pass fortress concluded, the soldiers finished incinerating all the unauthorized structures outside the fortress. They returned, having harvested over a thousand heads.

Those camps were merely makeshift shelters constructed from tree branches—hardly even shacks. They were akin to the small piles of brushwood one might build for survival in the wild, barely taller than a person. A single spark had reduced them all to ash, effectively eliminating any last possibility of the enemy regrouping.

The melon-sized heads hanging from the soldiers' belts were even more eye-catching. If one were to evaluate the "gold content" of these thousand-plus heads from the perspective of the imperial court—ignoring the actual tactical context—the soldiers’ achievement in harvesting them would rank higher than the two thousand seven hundred and fifty-plus heads taken during the fortress defense. After all, the heads of the "Big Ones" possessed a greater visual impact than those of the smaller foes.

This was because, during the defensive battle, those who swarmed the walls to engage in the meat grinder were the smaller ones. However, during the pursuit, the smaller enemies were inconspicuous and too agile in their flight. Wu Fei’s soldiers had no intention of wasting their time; they hunted down the slower, larger ones, resulting in sixty percent of the collected heads belonging to the larger breed.

Of course, when it came to evaluating merit, Wu Fei still attributed the primary credit to the farmers who fought in the fortress battle; the difficulty of a set-piece defense and a pursuit differed greatly. As a commander, Wu Fei could not diminish their accomplishments in order to maintain his "economical and efficient" army.

Yet, when reporting to the imperial court, Wu Fei would certainly report them all as having been killed in open battle. In his official documents, he would emphasize: "The enemy did not flee, but fought to the last man. Our army won through bitter sacrifice! The heads presented are those of the most heinous and vicious criminals."

But, did the imperial court even have the capacity to pay out rewards anymore?

Wu Fei felt that his hoarding of heads was much like the national debt of the late American Empire in his previous life—the possibility of them ever being fully honored seemed increasingly remote. If the court could not pay the blood-money, then he would simply have to take on more "duties" to "alleviate the court's burdens."

...The Divider of Generations of Loyalty...

Continuing to observe the ongoing impact of this battle on the Southern Frontier: the heads taken during the pursuit, combined with the larger enemies who died in the fortress battle—nearly a thousand in total—essentially wiped out the cream of the barbarian forces south of the Ling River.

The bloodletting Wu Fei inflicted on the Southern Frontier had a far greater impact than the "sweeping" campaign Wu Hanluan once conducted against the Snake-folk.

Wu Hanluan’s suppression of the Snake-folk had limited deterrent effect on other tribes. Those tribes had merely encroached upon the space left by the declining Snake-folk, all while harboring rebellious hearts against the Northern Great Yao. In this battle, however, Wu Fei had effectively broken the legs of every powerful tribe in the Southern Frontier.

His previous aspiration to become the "Little Father of the Southern Tribes" had now taken a solid first step; he had mastered the force of the lash that only a father could wield.

When the blood-stained, dust-covered soldiers returned to the fortress, Wu Fei told them to rest quickly, as there was more work to be done. Tactically, the pursuit was over, but strategically, the hunt was not yet finished.

To an expert eye, Wu Fei’s execution of this campaign was like filling out a worksheet—every step was orderly, and the rhythm was perfectly managed.

For instance, the siege of Yongji Pass was planned to last only two days, a duration that was exactly right. If it had lasted longer, the piles of corpses beneath the fortress would have rotted, generating miasma and providing an opening for dark, evil sorcery.

Now, all the soldiers beneath the city walls began to dispose of the bodies. They tied the corpses with ropes and loaded them into the carriages of the "Wooden Oxen and Flowing Horses."

The mechanical transports did not carry the bodies outside the pass to be buried; instead, they were hauled into the fortress. They were not taken to the inner city, but rather pulled along the side gates of the barbican directly to the mountains connected to the pass. After geomantic calculations, they were tossed into a "Malice Pit."

Trip after trip, the carriages unfurled sails to harness the wind, dumping the corpses once the locations were found. The Malice Pit on the mountain seemed insatiable. Yet, as the mountain veins shifted, these pits would be clean again within a day.

The mountains on either side of Yongji Pass were lush and vibrant, as if smacking their lips, finding the offering to be quite delicious.

At midnight, Wu Fei and the flag-bearers of the main camp were busy with geomancy in the city. A cold mountain wind howled, and on the silk map, the mountains receiving the offerings revealed lines of cold light.

This was the pulse of the earth veins on Brocade Chicken Ridge. Wu Fei now knew that "Daoist arts" could achieve many miraculous things in this world. Though he still did not understand the principles, he was no longer surprised; he remained curious, but he was no longer afraid.

"The mountains of this world are alive," Wu Fei concluded. "Perhaps the entire planet is a living entity, not composed of carbon-based life, but perhaps life made of dark energy and dark matter."

When the earth veins fluctuated, the orientation of some mountain caverns would change. If one were to wander in without geomantic calculation, they would encounter endless "ghost walls," eventually becoming trapped and dying within the veins. But with accurate calculation, one could find shortcuts to cross the mountains rapidly, moving troops thousands of miles through the flow of the mountain veins.

All of the Great Yao’s passes were built where mountain energy was obstructed, and then connected through the fortresses. The fortresses served the function of controlling the power of the mountains.

Regarding the "Mountain God" system of this world, Wu Fei did not want to discard the scientific worldview of his past life. He followed Einstein's approach of assuming "physical constants," postulating that besides the life signs of manifest matter, there were also life signs in dark matter. But when he tried to chat with the system to verify this, the system gave its usual response: "Do not discuss physics in history class."

Returning to the present, having completed the geomantic tallies, Wu Fei stared at the lines representing the subterranean veins, searching for an interception point. He cast the military flag of the Wu Army; the flag was caught by a gale and carried to the mountain, where the mountain seemed to accept it, the banner planted firmly atop the Malice Pit, fluttering in the wind.

Behind Wu Fei, the Wooden Oxen and Flowing Horses, now armored with blade-plates, and the following infantry were ready.

At a cavern entrance on Yongji Pass that had originally been blocked by a massive boulder, the path was now cleared. As the Malice Pit opened, the troops and carriages began to enter; the pursuit had begun. The Old Uncle, wearing armor, walked over to take the reins of Wu Fei's horse.

Wu Fei could not possibly let the elderly man lead his horse, but he eventually agreed to the Old Uncle’s request to join the campaign.

The Old Uncle was overjoyed, promising not to trouble Wu Fei and vowing to simply beat the drums for the lads during the battle.

...The Tunnel Transit Begins, Six Days Later...

Shifting perspective to the other side, the inner disciple of the Southern Frontier’s Departing Fire Sect, Jiamude, was now in a state of utter dejection. Behind him were the troops who had fled with him—mountain ghouls, crocodile-skin tribe warriors, and giant spearmen. Of course, their numbers were few; each unit had only a third or a quarter of its original strength. He could gather fewer than a hundred and fifty of the "Big Ones," while the other seven hundred were all "Small Ones."

These were only gathered by force through his insect-gu; the rest of the troops had scattered to parts unknown.

Before the sect drove the Black Tide to mobilize, they had anticipated the possibility that "Yongji Pass would not be taken." But that was merely a hypothesis; the Great Yao defenders were expected to cower in fear within Yongji Pass, watching as the Black Tide ravaged the entire perimeter, while the sect seized the opportunity to insert influence among the tribes south of the pass.

Jiamude recalled how he had changed his target: after the Black Tide crossed the Ling River and initially faced the "gardening and pruning" of the Wu family army, he was astonished that these Great Yao defenders were so bold and their tactics so fluid.

Thus, he was forced to turn his target toward this Wu force that had emerged from the pass.

True, in his eyes, the strength of Wu Fei’s force was not great. He believed that if he could surround and kill them, he could teach that Great Yao border general a lesson. But in the course of the pursuit, he had ended up beneath the walls of Yongji Pass.

Once at the pass, he had originally intended to block the gate, but the various tribes of the Black Tide were sleepless and could only attack the fortress.

Jiamude reflected that every step he took was a matter of necessity. This left him with a deep sense of frustration.

Of course, the losses of the Black Tide were nothing. These Southern Frontier curs were destined to die in waves anyway. His purpose in coming was not to fight a war, but to use the conflict to feed this bronze coffin! He had originally intended to use the tribes north of the Ling River, but now, he had used the leaders of the Black Tide. As long as he could transport the bronze coffin back to Cloud-Cut Valley, it would be a great achievement.

As the third-generation disciple with the highest cultivation in the Departing Fire Sect, and the most favored, Jiamude was even resented by many veteran second-generation disciples. Yet, who else had his talent and deep favor from the Ancestor? That was why he had been given the opportunity to lead this army.

Just as he neared a small hill, Jiamude suddenly stopped. He sniffed the air and sensed a baleful aura!

He looked toward the hill, and suddenly, birds took flight in a flurry. Jiamude understood what was happening and ordered the various Southern Frontier tribes following him to cluster and form a formation. Well, their ability to form a formation was merely standing more densely together.

However, it was already too late. This was an ambush. On the high slope to the side, the Wooden Oxen and Flowing Horses—with their single-wheeled chassis and four mechanical legs galloping—formed a neat line, charging downward with terrifying momentum. And when the war machines reached the midpoint of the slope, the following army ranks pressed forward in a neat array.

Jiamude saw griffins circling in the sky, and standing in the direction of the command flag was a man. "That guy has no mount?!" This was his first impression upon seeing Wu Fei.

The Wooden Oxen and Flowing Horses hit a speed of twenty kilometers per hour—the speed of a bus—completing their first collision. The barbarians, who had yet to form up, were swept away like a tidal wave, and the blade-covered fronts of the carriages churned up sprays of blood.

As they smashed into the ranks of the Southern Frontier aliens, the huge sails began to unfurl, and a gale rose around the machines, giving them new force. The carriages tore through the formation and charged toward the opposite slope, preparing for a second round of slaughter.

A splash of fresh blood hit Jiamude’s fair face. He stood expressionless, truly stunned. His entire unit had been harvested for nearly a hundred lives while almost completely unprepared. Trembling, he drew a talisman from his hand and pressed it against the bronze coffin beneath him.

...The Confrontation Between the Legion and the Daoist Sect...

Wu Fei was busy maneuvering signal flags, guiding the airflow in the valley to help the six units of Wooden Oxen and Flowing Horses (a full twelve in total) launch with full sails.

This valley offered a perfect space for the war machines to perform. His own carriages were heavy-duty; typical chariots could not knock away monsters like the mountain ghouls, who could wield stone stalagmites as weapons. But this time, the large steel wheels at the base of the sail-chariots crushed the mountain ghouls' skulls outright.

As Wu Fei commanded the chariots, Auntie Three, who was at his side, warned: "The bronze coffin on the opposite side is about to undergo a strange transformation."

Deep in the center of the scattered and fleeing enemy ranks, the copper coffin clattered and shook as if in revolt. The patterns on its surface rotated like a combination lock, and then there were signs of a "Transformer-like" metamorphosis.

Wu Fei immediately ordered the chariots not to mind the bronze coffin and to simply "roll out" the other troops. Why use the word "roll"? Because the Southern Frontier group was like a lump of dough, and having been crushed by the carriages, they were now flattened across the valley.

Wu Fei asked Auntie Three: "Is that the 'insect-raising artifact' you spoke of?"

Auntie Three nodded obediently, though her eyes seemed to say: *Hungry, hungry, want to eat.*

If he hadn't known her mind was deeper than the sea, Wu Fei might have been fooled. This girl had changed her strategy recently.

After Wu Fei waved his signal flags, the army formation began to shift, surrounding the central command like an iron barrel. He was not yet proficient in charging formations, so he had learned his military tactics from Zhuge Liang.

Over there, the bronze coffin had finished its transformation. Within the hollow bronze structure, the entire coffin sprouted three heads and six arms. Well, the person inside the coffin was already a three-headed, six-armed being. Its heads and arms were normal in size, but each head radiated blood-colored energy, and this energy was controlled and encased by a television-sized structure. A closer look revealed that this hollow structure was also head-shaped, like three steel wire masks covering the coffin-person's heads.

After the entire bronze coffin transformed, it stood a full three *zhang* tall! Without a doubt, this was a giant war machine of the "Giant Soldier" class, and the corpse inside was the entity piloting the mecha.

However, the corpse looked as if it had been dismembered—head, hands, and legs, like a severed lotus root, embedded separately into the three heads and six arms of the giant.

On the battlefield, the giant soldier clattered toward Wu Fei’s array. If there had been accompanying soldiers around it, it would have been quite a threat, but at this moment, the other Southern Frontier enemies had been chased by the carriages to over two hundred paces away, leaving it to walk alone toward Wu Fei’s massive formation.

In the ranks, the sound of the Old Uncle’s drums grew rapid.

"Protect the General!" The front-line soldiers, holding long weapons, moved forward collectively, forming a dense formation. They gripped their long halberds tightly, and the baleful aura of the formation formed a wall.

Wu Fei watched his loyal soldiers and compared them to the bronze giant walking up the slope. Watching its step-by-step gait and the vibrations on the ground, Wu Fei had a plan.

The Great Yao’s Giant Soldiers were actually inferior in power systems to the "Heavy Haulers" of his previous life. In his past, those heavy trucks carrying steel coils were absolute monsters of physics in this world. No matter how dense a human formation was, they could charge through it because they were solid steel and boasted over five hundred horsepower. But the giant soldiers of this world—taking the Golden Ox as an example—relied on a power system that eight horses could drag. And this bronze coffin in front of him likely had even less power than eight horses. Moreover, most giant soldiers were hollow; the Golden Ox was made of wood, and this bronze giant was the same—it looked huge, but it was actually hollow.

Wu Fei looked at the hollow bronze structure. A long halberd could definitely pry and break the bronze structure. Of course, the strange energy inside might repair it after the damage. In other words, a full squad of halberdiers could block this giant.

In past sieges, the giant soldiers looked strong because they contained high concentrations of baleful aura! Baleful aura had corrosive properties.

Wu Fei could easily see how the Golden Ox’s horns destroyed fortress walls like piercing tofu; it wasn't that the material of the horns was strong or the power intense, but that the baleful aura turned the bricks and mortar of the wall into porridge.

...

Just as the bronze giant rushed to within fifty paces of him, Wu Fei reached behind his horse and grabbed a firearm with a barrel wrapped in numerous reinforcement ribs.

This was a custom firearm Wu Fei had made for himself. The bullet was made of purple copper, meaning it was also enchanted. It wasn't that he couldn't shoot from horseback; he just felt that firearms were more cost-effective.

The gun in Wu Fei’s hand was an enlarged, thickened version. It was a full three meters long, with two iron supports popping out from the front of the barrel, resting steadily on the ground. Wu Fei’s armor also featured structures known in this world as "Mechanism Arts," with support struts ejecting from his back and ground-anchors appearing on his calves, ready to transmit the recoil into the earth. This was the pinnacle of playing with the "technological trickery" of firearms.

Facing the bronze puppet emitting a strange odor, Wu Fei muttered, "Let's see how much remote damage I can deal," and inserted a clip of five bullets, linked together, into the black iron slot. Each bullet was as thick as an egg.

The bullets were pushed into the chamber, and the "Thunder" and "Lightning"—representing Yin and Yang—met in the chamber to complete the ignition. As he pulled the trigger, the muzzle roared with fire. Wu Fei’s body vibrated violently, the dust shaken from his armor creating a "ghost image" of dust that detached from his body. Beneath his feet, he plowed a one-inch furrow into the ground, and the support struts behind him sank in half an inch!

Wu Fei had aimed at the torso encased in the center of the bronze puppet. Well, at such close range, he couldn't miss. According to the common sense of his past life, this bullet, capable of creating a lethal cavity in an elephant, would surely cut the torso inside the coffin in two.

In fact, the structure of the bronze coffin was dented like a soda can by the bullet, forming a two-meter-deep depression, and it hissed with strange white gas—the kinetic energy of the bullet had been distributed by the bronze structure! But even with the distribution, it had cost the thing half its life.

Wu Fei showed a cruel smile: "Eat my Thunder Rocket!" He pulled the bolt, the copper casing fell, and he pulled the new trigger.

The firearm gathered terrifying baleful aura. After the bullet condensed the energy, Wu Fei fired for the second time, aiming at the exact same spot on the bronze puppet.

*Crash—!* Hundreds of meters away, the leaves trembled with the sound of the gunshot.

Auntie Three retracted her gaze from the bronze figure and turned to look at Wu Fei. She knew of his stubbornness.

Wu Fei believed that his "essence, energy, and spirit" were unbalanced, making it difficult to cultivate the "Non-Dual Path," so he could only take the heterodox route of accumulating baleful aura on external objects.

Yet, Auntie Three had not realized that Wu Fei’s "heterodox" system had reached this point.

Wu Fei put away his gun, retracted the back struts, and pulled up the ground-anchors from his feet. Auntie Three was still pondering the magnitude of his "heterodox" Daoist arts. Seeing this, Wu Fei responded modestly: "Just some technological trickery."

At the front of the formation, the soldiers let out a roar and pressed down on the fallen bronze puppet.

...Switching to the Victim's Perspective...

Jiamude knelt on the ground. He watched the bronze puppet, pinned down by dozens of long spears and unable to move, while he himself was being stepped on, face-first in the mud. The fire-ox he had been riding had its bleeding stopped by a "Life-Force Talisman" and had been carried away.

"Thunder Rocket?!" Jiamude choked on more dirt, critiquing Wu Fei’s shot at the bronze puppet: "Too fast. Seventy percent faster than a cannonball."

As he let his mind wander, the boot pressing on his back was lifted—the soldiers had made way for someone. Before he could gather his strength to leap away, he was firmly pinned down again.

"Yes, that's him. Right, he’s a pretty boy." Jiamude followed the Queen-like voice, seeing a three-zhang-long snake-monster—or, to be precise, a snake-girl who had shed her savage state through an "Enlightenment Pill." She was holding a portrait to compare it with him.

Jiamude, not yet thirty, looked up at the snake-girl. The snake-girl smiled, then suddenly grabbed his throat and hissed: "I really want to swallow you whole!"

A few dozen paces away, Wu Fei paused. Hearing the snake-girl, Little Green, threatening his prisoner, he couldn't help but smile.

However, a few seconds later, Wu Fei thought of a key point and his expression turned thoughtful.