176 Surprise

As the hundred men and two generals marched to the departure hall, they set up a rough pecking order and divided the men into ten-man units. The two generals would carry the explosives while the individual men would carry the shielding talismans. They would escort and protect the generals as they did their best to destroy the cannons.

The technician looked on in confusion when they entered the departure hall. "Send them to these coordinates," Deputy Mo said as he handed the balding man a folded sheet of paper.

The old man paled when he read the sheet but nodded. "You are aware of the risks involved, correct?"

"Naturally," Deputy Mo said. "But these are the marshal's orders and are not to be questioned. I want these men gone as soon as possible."

"Very well," the technician said. "Have them ready to go. In an incense time, I'll send them out."

Meanwhile, the men were all laughing and joking as they awaited their imminent demise. They were under no illusions about their odds of survival, even if they succeeded in their mission. "Who would have thought we'd have the luck to go out on a final desperate charge with the Lucky General. How many do you think we'll kill?"

"At least twenty thousand," a man said. "Otherwise we'll be dragging his reputation through the dirt.

"That's fair," another man said. "By the way, what kind of defensive goodies did you get?"

"Me?" one of them answered. "I got an Earth Shield Talisman. What about you?"

"An Earth Shield Talisman? What shitty luck, I also got one."

"Wait, you got a few of those as well? Aren't those useless in hand-to-hand combat?" Captain Tong said. "Can everyone else who got Earth Shield Talismans raise their hand?"

Everyone did.

"I thought I told you to get Ice Shield Talismans or something like that?" Feng Ming said.

"I'm sorry, I thought that they said ice shield," General Qin said. "If you think about it, both characters look very similar."

"Similar, my ass!" Feng Ming said angrily. "They look nothing alike! How the hell did someone like you become a general? Deputy Mo? Cancel the teleportation, we need to get something."

"Right away!" the old technician said. As he reached toward the "abort" formation, however, he accidentally tripped. His hand ran past it and reached another formation, the "launch formation." A white glow rapidly filled the room.

"Can you stop it?" Deputy Mo asked.

"I'm afraid not," the technician said as they looked at the expanding white diagram. "In fact, I didn't get to input all the coordinates. It would be a miracle if they end up where they're supposed to."

Deputy Mo sighed. "Godspeed, General Feng!" he yelled.

Meanwhile, Feng Ming and the others readied their weapons as they prepared for their surprise teleportation. The white glow intensified, and Feng Ming gasped as he was whisked away by gray spatial light along with the 101 others. They screamed in unison as their surroundings jolted before they appeared somewhere to the south.

They rubbed their eyes as the light faded, only to realize that they were surrounded by men in red armor who looked at them with slacked jaws. Feng Ming was the first to regain his bearings. He realized they'd appeared in an empty parade ground where the opposing army ran drills. He looked around and soon located what they were looking for—the five cannons and the sixth cannon that had yet to finish being constructed. As soon as it was complete, it would join the others and break through Southhaven Fortress's defenses.

"What are you all standing around for?" Feng Ming yelled. "Charge!"

His yell was echoed by the battle-hardened veterans beside him as they realized that not only had they survived, but they'd caught their enemies flat-footed and unprepared. Feng Ming and General Qin led the charge. Feng Ming's steps were swift and his spear incisive; he covered their group in a defensive molten cloud. General Qin's 10,000-jin greatsword, which was twice as tall as him, cleaved through large swaths of men, mounts, and machinery as they advanced.

In sixty breaths, they had covered half the distance to the cannons. Feng Ming casually tossed out an explosive flask, a single-use alchemical item that would detonate upon impact. It landed on a nearby wagon that carried a spare cannon. Pieces of shrapnel flew out toward nearby enemy troops. Conveniently, the large cannon landed on one of the few obscure black tents belonging to the Spirit Temple.

"Keep at it, men!" Feng Ming shouted. None of the hundred had fallen yet. They unloaded technique after technique, strike after strike toward the tender opening in their opponents' formation. Every strike felled three or four elite troops.

"Deputy, I found a weapons shack!" a man yelled.

"Stow away any weapons you find, and destroy any combustible goods," Feng Ming shouted, tossing out three other bundles of explosives.

This time, a large wind swept them up and brought them directly to the Spirit Temple tents. Dark crimson plumes emerged and let out tens of thousands of agonized wails. The screams sent shivers through Feng Ming's spine. At the same time, he noticed a large amount of merit rushing toward him. The men in the tents were incomparably evil—it was no wonder that fate wanted them dead so badly as to push the explosives in their direction.

As time passed, however, he grew worried. He and General Qin threw one explosive flask after another, and they all landed on the Spirit Temple's forces. They soon ran out of them, having only succeeded in destroying the western portion of the Spirit Temple's camp. Now only explosive talismans remained. Feng Ming had to make a choice—would they target the munitions tents or the cannons?

"To the munitions tents," Feng Ming swiftly ordered. Their group, which had just suffered their first casualty, cut a wide arc as it circled around eleven large carts covered in black tarps. Their pace slowed as they approached, and the enemy's forces mobilized against them.

"Pick one cart per talisman," Feng Ming said. Both General Qin and Feng Ming threw out one talisman at each of the ten carts simultaneously. They could only hope that they'd gotten the one with special ammunition. Feng Ming directed their forces to the canons to use their shields to defend against the explosion.

"Charge!" the men yelled. Hundreds of red-armored men roared as they attacked the hundred-man team that was lucky beyond all reason. Blades that should have struck their necks slipped from the southern force's fingers. Arrows missed their marks and struck their own men. Axes fell off their handles and weapons broke as they tried to stop them. By all rights, all hundred men should have died ten times over, yet only five brave men had fallen. The hundred men were like gods of war who couldn't be killed no matter what was thrown at them.

Fifty more feet, Feng Ming thought as he slashed and stabbed through soldier after soldier. The tall spider cannon's legs were rooted firmly in the ground before them.

Forty more feet.

Their pace slowed to a crawl as the enemy successfully surrounded them.

Twenty more feet.

"Everyone, jump!" Feng Ming yelled. Each of the men, sensing the desperation in his voice, unleashed their secret techniques one after another. Icy flood dragons and fiery phoenixes cleared swaths of men out of their way. Earthen spikes and poisonous vines batted away enemy forces. General Qin even threw his treasured greatsword, which flew out toward one of the spider cannons and struck its leg.

The sturdy structure collapsed under the 10,000-jin object and struck three other legs, causing the cannon to fall sideways and backward, crushing a hundred troops in the process. Now the cannon was facing the south.

The startled southern soldiers collapsed under their fierce assault. As soon as Feng Ming's group passed the invisible energy shield that had previously been defending the cannon, Feng Ming realized that it wasn't enough. It couldn't protect them from the back.

"Everyone, duck and use your Earth Shield Talismans!"

It suddenly dawned on the eighty-one remaining soldiers that the resulting explosion could easily take their lives. Fortunately, they weren't stuck with mediocre Ice Shield Talismans but the extremely useful Earth Shield Talismans. The eighty-one overjoyed men activated them one by one, forming an impromptu convex wall to defend against the imminent explosion.

***

"Will they succeed?" Marshal Yong thought as he looked worriedly at the live battle map. A large earthen shield had appeared just in front of a collapsed cannon. The building rumbled as their men absorbed yet another strike from the four old cannons and the newly installed one. If Deputy Feng's team hadn't downed that one piece of equipment, then the marshal and deputy marshal would have been forced to intervene. Even then, many of their men would have perished under the backlash of their formation.

Deputy Marshal Mo sighed. "The original plan was for them to destroy the cannons, since the possibility of there being extra munitions was very high. But even if they destroy those munitions, can't they always mobilize more and handle us just the same?"

"Let's wait and see," Marshal Yong said. He held high hopes for Brother Feng's only son. The room was dead silent as they waited for the inevitable detonation. A small glitch appeared on the screen as the talisman went off. One after another, they detonated. Large pieces of shrapnel flew from the munition wagons. However, these pieces of shrapnel were round.

"Even that failed," Deputy Mo said, shaking his head. "The munitions likely need a large impact to detonate. All they managed to do was scatter them, buying us a few hours at most."

After inspecting for another moment, he sighed. "They didn't even get the key munitions wagon. All the spheres they spread out were black, while the last of the eleven wagons contains the clear spheres. It's over, Marshal."

Many of the generals in the room's eyes became bloodshot. They channeled even more of their qi into the formation, preparing themselves for their inevitable demise.

Marshal Yong, however, stood staring at the battlefield projection. "Deputy Mo?" he asked.

"What is it?" Deputy Mo grumbled.

"Did you notice the direction that cannon is pointed in?" Marshal Yong said.

Before Deputy Mo could comment, a deafening boom sounded. It was followed by hundreds of much smaller booms. The map distorted as the projection recalculated the battlefield. It wasn't long before a small crater was revealed in the center of the map. It was surrounded by many much smaller craters. In fact, it seemed like at least half of the opposing forces had been destroyed in the explosion, and it was all thanks to the initial spreading out of the other munitions carts.

"That lucky son of a goat," Marshal Yong whispered as he reviewed the damages. "Without spreading out the munitions carts, we would have only destroyed a tenth of their forces. Even their cannons would have been fine. Now, not only have their munitions been destroyed, but so have the cannons and half their forces. All because the one remaining wagon with potent ammunition happened to be standing in the line of fire of the crippled cannon."

The other generals had halted channeling their qi. They looked on in awe as a valiant group of eighty-one men continued their charge through enemy forces. Little by little, these forces became aware of the group that was rapidly charging outward and began circling around them. Even with their previous domineering performance, it would be difficult to escape.

"What are all you dolts waiting for?" Marshal Yong yelled. He walked toward a panel and entered some commands. Then he grabbed his own focus point. "System, activate the Life-Reaping Sword! Everyone, channel as much qi as you can. We're going to save those men!"

***

"That was the most exciting thing I've ever done," General Qin said as he slashed through five men with his recovered greatsword. They could no longer advance, so they huddled together and fought for as much time as they could. The more men they took down, the safer the kingdom would be. "If we die, they'll sing songs about us for the next decade."

"The next decade?" Captain Tong said. "More like the next century!"

Feng Ming chuckled. "I don't think our time is up yet, boys. We're just killing time until the cavalry arrives."

"What cavalry?" General Qin said. "We're eight miles away from the wall. What could they possibly do to help us?"

Suddenly a large blue blade appeared in the sky and slashed beside them. A hundred men fell, their bodies completely burned to ashes by its overbearing strength. Feng Ming didn't bother explaining. He and the men charged forward, but it didn't take long for their enemies to surround them once more. Three more of their men died before the sword appeared once again and cleared their enemies like wheat on harvest day.

"Press on, men!" Feng Ming yelled, not daring to be the least bit negligent. He and his men all wore grim expressions. They stood a chance, but how many of their men would die in the process?"

***

Sweat ran down Marshal Yong's face as he struggled to maintain the offensive formation. The Life-Reaping Sword was initially meant to attack at a mile's distance, and doubling this distance quadrupled the energy consumption. Even by gathering every last drop of energy in the fortress, half the generals had already collapsed from exhaustion.

Just two more strikes, Marshal Yong said as he channeled much of his remaining qi. The phantom sword reaped another three hundred lives with this strike, but the cost was staggering. Thousands of high-grade spirit stones were ground to dust while half of the remaining men in the fortress collapsed.

"Deputy Mo," Marshal Yong said. "We'll need you to lead the forces for a few days while I recover from this last strike." The deputy bowed and walked over to support the marshal as he popped yet another qi-recovery pill. Marshal Yong ignited his core and channeled the new thread of qi through the formation, finally clearing an exit for the forty-four remaining men. "That's all I can do for them," Marshal Yong whispered as he panted.

Suddenly he felt a sharp pain in his back just below a shoulder blade. A look of shock covered the faces of the nearby generals as blood flowed through the marshal's chest and mouth. His vision blurred as he sank down to the floor. He heard sounds of clashing armor, followed by the footsteps of generals dragging Deputy Mo from behind him.

"Why?" Marshal Yong croaked as the world turned cold. He looked at the man he'd served with for a hundred years before realizing his eyes were different than usual. Thin crimson lines he'd assumed were fatigue ran across the man's glazed eyes.

"Ah," the marshal whispered. "I'm relieved. You weren't Deputy Mo after all." He lifted his bloody hand to his face and looked out at the blurry battlefield projection. To his relief, Deputy Marshal Feng and his troops had managed to break free.

***

"The Spirit Temple has suffered disastrous losses this time," a man said as he stared into a crystal ball. "Wasn't this stratagem said to be foolproof? Yet we lost five hundred shamans and half of our cannon fodder in the process. Meanwhile, they destroyed ten cannons that took us five hundred years to save for and a hundred years to manufacture. We could only recover scrap metal from what was left of them. We require an explanation."

"Relax," said the soothing voice of a youth from the crystal sphere. "We have achieved two of four objectives. The marshal is dead, and one of our secondary objectives was completed. We didn't take the wall down today, but it won't last long."

"It's easy for you to relax, when your Cult of Enlightenment only lost a few lowly members," the man retorted. "You devils multiply easily, but we shamans might not see more than ten members in a single year. We'll expect compensation."

"I'll inform our lord of your grievances," the youthful voice said. "In the meantime, proceed with the next phase of the plan and let our bosses have a chat about compensation. Though I have no idea why you'd want money of all things."

"We want money because it hurts you the most," the man said. "You've sown karma by making a bad plan, so we shall reap it. We shamans always have our revenge."