"The main rebel force is here! There are so many of them... so many!"
The sentry at the Gao Village Family walls was the first to let out a panicked shriek. For a villager who had spent his entire life in a tiny cluster of huts, never venturing beyond the local market, the sight of a thousand men marching in unison was a soul-crushing spectacle of raw power.
Up in the heavens, Li Dao Xuan squinted through the glass. Honestly, he wasn't that impressed.
To him, it looked like a high school sports day where thirty classes were lining up for the opening ceremony. In fact, these bandits had far less discipline than a group of modern teenagers. They didn't have a formation to speak of, nor did they have a unified cadence; they were just a disorganized swarm of dirty, desperate men running in a general direction.
When they passed his "review stand," they certainly didn't shout any slogans about academic excellence.
Their physical condition was also noticeably inferior to a modern student's. It was a year of Great Drought, after all. These men hadn't seen a full meal in months, leaving them yellow-faced, gaunt, and clearly malnourished.
Compared to the villagers of the Gao Village Family, who had spent the last two weeks feasting on rice, flour, oil, meat, and vegetables, their physical strength wasn't even on the same level.
However, the bandits possessed one thing the villagers lacked.
Momentum.
They were professional predators. They had already pillaged several villages, murdered countless innocents, and had even successfully stormed the famous Bai Family Fort. They had "combat experience." They had the confidence born of brutality and the cold-blooded resolve required to hack a living human being to death without vomiting.
They could commit atrocities without a flicker of remorse.
In the theater of war, that kind of psychological edge is a massive force multiplier.
The peaceful farmers of the Gao Village Family had none of that.
Seeing nearly a thousand enemies closing in, they began to tremble like leaves in a storm. Even with San Shier and Gao Yiye constantly offering reassurances, "Do not fear, we have Dao Xuan Tianzun's protection," the villagers couldn't stop their teeth from chattering.
The rebel army came to a halt about a hundred meters from the walls.
A man stepped forward, brandishing a massive ghost-head saber. One look at his face told you he was the villain of the story.
He let out a roar that echoed off the stone.
"My name is Wushang Mingwang! You cowards of the Gao Village Family, listen well! I heard you think you're special because of this high wall. I was going to let your pathetic village go for ten piculs of grain, but now? Now there is only death. When these walls fall, I won't leave a single chicken or dog alive! To hell with your mother!"
Behind him, a thousand bandits repeated his threat in a unified, guttural roar that seemed to shake the very air.
The villagers went silent, their faces turning a ghostly white.
Even San Shier was starting to lose his nerve; his hands were shaking as he gripped his robes.
Mr. Bai, however, let out a cold, sharp snort.
"What a bunch of idiots. Barking threats like that before a battle just tells the defenders they have absolutely no choice but to fight to the death. A bandit is just a bandit; they don't understand the first thing about psychological warfare. To take a fortress like this, you should be promising rewards and using soft words to entice someone inside to betray the gate."
"Well, his 'scaring the life out of us' tactic is working pretty well too," San Shier muttered, his voice trembling. "I am currently feeling quite... terrified."
Mr. Bai snapped at him, "Don't lose your head over a bit of shouting."
"I'm a man of the brush!" San Shier shot back.
"So am I!" Mr. Bai yelled, his volume increasing. "Forget it, I don't have time to argue with you."
He turned toward his primary defense and shouted, "Blacksmiths! When I say 'strike,' you strike!"
Li Da and Gao Yiyi gripped their sledgehammers and shouted back, "Understood!"
Mr. Bai then turned to the battlements.
"Bai family guards, you take the first wave!"
The dozen battle-hardened guards gave a crisp acknowledgment.
"Gao Chuwu, Zheng Daniu! You two lead the second wave for support!"
The two muscular youths nodded, their faces grim but determined.
"Does everyone know their stations?" Mr. Bai roared.
"Yes!"
"I... I think so..."
"Probably!"
The responses were a chaotic mess of firm shouts and hesitant stammers. This ragtag group of a hundred defenders was a patchwork of varying training levels and courage. In truth, they weren't much more organized than the bandits outside.
By this time, Li Dao Xuan had already pulled up a small stool.
He sat outside the craft box with a bowl of braised pork over rice in one hand and a magnifying glass in the other, ready to enjoy a front-row seat to an ancient war epic.
Outside the walls, the rebel chieftain Wushang Mingwang swept his saber through the air.
"Charge!"
The second-in-command beside him leaned in, looking a bit awkward.
"Boss, that wall is huge. Where exactly are we charging? We can't exactly run up the side of it."
Wushang Mingwang turned on him, eyes blazing.
"What about the ladders I told you to build? We lean them against the wall, we climb up, we win! Simple!"
"Oh! Right!"
"And the sharpened battering ram?" the chieftain barked. "We smash through that wooden plank of a gate, we swarm in, we win! Get moving!"
"Understood, Boss!"
Wushang Mingwang gestured to his sea of men.
"A thousand against a hundred! How do we lose? Don't just stand there, charge! Just like we did at the Bai Family Fort! One push and it's over!"
He brandished his saber, and with a collective, bloodthirsty howl, the mass of bandits began to sprint toward the Gao Village Family, waving a chaotic assortment of weapons and lugging crude ladders and a heavy timber ram.
As the wave of enemies surged forward, the villagers' terror reached a breaking point.
They huddled together, paralyzed by fear.
Even Gao Yiye felt her legs turning to jelly as she stood atop the wall.
But then she remembered something the Third Madame had once told her.
"The more dignified your bearing, the more people will respect the Great Dao Xuan Tianzun."
Despite the cold sweat on her neck, she gritted her teeth and forced herself to stand perfectly still, projecting an aura of divine calm.
Suddenly, Mr. Bai's voice sliced through the chaos like a whip.
"Blacksmiths! Strike!"
Standing safely behind the tall stone wall, Li Da and Gao Yiyi couldn't see the terrifying sight of a thousand screaming men charging their position.
Because of the wall's height, they felt surprisingly detached from the fear.
Their hands were steady as they gripped their iron hammers.
At the signal, both men swung their heavy sledges simultaneously, slamming them down onto the catches of the catapults in front of them.
The hammers met the plastic mechanisms with a dull thud.
The two green catapults shuddered violently, and two massive boulders were hurled into the sky.
The stones whistled over the battlements, cutting through the air with a terrifying whoosh.
Gao Chuwu and the others on the wall instinctively looked up, watching the massive shadows streak over their heads.
Every eye in the village followed the trajectory of those two rocks as they soared out over the plains.
Boom!
The first boulder slammed directly into the center of the charging rebel ranks, instantly liquefying the man it hit.
The stones didn't stop there. They maintained their momentum, tumbling and bouncing forward through the dense crowd. They plowed two gory furrows through the human mass, crushing bone and tearing flesh with indifferent brutality.
The rebel army erupted in a cacophony of horror.
"WHATTT THE HELL!"
"Zhang San was right in front of me... he's just... he's just red paste now! Aaaaah!"
"My face is covered in blood! It's everywhere!"
"Damn, To hell with this!"
"Fuxk...What kind of weapon is that? Where did those boulders come from?"
The bandit charge, once a solid wave of aggression, was instantly thrown into a state of total panic.
But the nightmare was only beginning.
There were eighteen more catapults waiting in reserve.
The two blacksmiths didn't even stop to admire their handiwork.
They simply stepped to the next pair of machines, raised their hammers, and slammed them down again...