The air near the southern barricade was thick with the copper tang of blood and the frantic, rhythmic chanting of desperate men. Among the chaos, Zheng Daniu stumbled forward, a man who possessed about as much martial talent as a sack of potatoes. When a bandit named Yi Dao lunged from the fray, swinging a heavy pudao with a murderous whistle, Zheng Daniu didn't even have time to blink, let alone dodge. The cold steel bit deep, striking him square in the chest with a jarring metallic clang. He had been wearing the Liangdang armor gifted to him by Gao Yiyi, a solid, unyielding slab of iron plate that covered his entire torso like a fortress wall.
The result of a heavy blade meeting a thick iron plate was, naturally, rather underwhelming for the attacker.
"Whoa! Scared the living daylights out of me!" Zheng Daniu gasped, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
But as the realization dawned on him that he was entirely unharmed, his fear evaporated, replaced by a wide, goofy grin.
He started to chuckle, a low, silly sound that felt entirely out of place amidst the carnage.
Yi Dao, his eyes widening in disbelief, didn't hesitate.
He swung his blade again, this time aiming for Zheng Daniu's throat.
Your neck can't be made of iron too, you damn fool! he thought, putting every ounce of his desperate strength into the killing blow.
But halfway through its arc, the blade simply stopped.
It didn't bounce off armor or hit a shield. It froze in mid-air as if caught in an invisible vice.
The bandit tugged.
It wouldn't budge.
He yanked with both hands, his face turning a purplish hue from the exertion, but it was as if the air itself had turned into solid granite.
Eh? What's going on? There's nothing there! What in the heavens is holding my sword?
The force holding the sword was, of course, Li Dao Xuan.
As a notoriously protective Tianzun, the lives of his tiny people were ten thousand times more precious than those of the marauding ants outside. Moreover, Zheng Daniu had been a star contributor to his micro-carving revenue lately. There was no way he was going to let his best "employee" get butchered by some nameless bandit.
Seeing the blade whistling toward Zheng Daniu's neck, Dao Xuan Tianzun had simply reached down and pinched the air with two fingers, clamping the tiny blade firmly in place.
Yi Dao strained until his veins bulged, but his efforts were utterly useless against the grip of a god.
From the distance, Gao Yiye's voice rang out across the battlefield, sharp and commanding.
"Zheng Daniu! Tianzun has pinned the enemy's blade for you! Why are you just standing there laughing like an idiot?"
Zheng Daniu blinked, his brain finally catching up.
"Eh? Oh! Right!"
He snapped out of his daze and hoisted his heavy axe.
He might not know kung fu, but he had spent the last few weeks in the mountains felling century-old trees to provide wood for the village's two master sculptors. For every haul he brought back, he was rewarded by Dao Xuan Tianzun with a massive basin of "Fat House Happy Water," the legendary iced cola.
After ten days of heavy labor and even heavier soda consumption, Zheng Daniu had grown considerably sturdier, his muscles thick and his belly starting to show the prosperous roundness of a well-fed man.
When he swung that axe, even the ancient trees of the hillside seemed to want to pull up their roots and flee.
Yi Dao's thick leather armor offered about as much protection as a wet sheet of paper against such a blunt, massive force.
Thwack!
A dull, wet sound echoed.
Yi Dao felt a sudden, searing agony rip through his midsection. He looked down, watching in numb horror as the axe blade sliced through the tough ox-hide, opening a jagged maw from which blood began to hiss and pour.
He looked up at the sky one last time, eyes filled with a bewildered light, before collapsing backward into the mud.
Zheng Daniu hoisted his axe high and let out a guttural roar.
"Dao Xuan Tianzun protects us!"
The surrounding villagers, emboldened by the sight, joined in the thunderous shout.
"Dao Xuan Tianzun protects us!"
Meanwhile, the bandit leader known as Fang Wushang, the self-proclaimed "Wushang Mingwang," was starting to feel that things were going south.
Being the leader, he had naturally led the charge, surrounded by his most ferocious elite guards. Because they were at the very front of the formation, the massive boulders hurled by the catapults had all whistled over their heads, crashing into the ranks behind them. As long as he wasn't the one getting flattened, he wasn't particularly bothered.
Even after reaching the base of the wall, he hadn't bothered to climb. Instead, he stood safely on the ground, waving his arms and barking orders, pushing his bravest subordinates up the siege ladders. Again, the falling rocks and scalding oil had missed him by a hair's breadth. And again, as long as it wasn't his skin burning, he felt no fear.
He continued to brandish his massive ghost-head saber, shouting encouragement and threats to keep the momentum going.
But as he stood there directing the "grand invasion," he slowly realized the shouting around him was getting quieter.
The air was becoming strangely empty.
"Wait... where is my army of twelve hundred men?"
Fang Wushang turned around, expecting to see a sea of bandits.
Instead, he saw a desolate wasteland.
Behind him, there was no army, only a few dozen stragglers shivering in the dust.
The relentless barrage from the catapults had been devastating. The first volley of twenty massive stones had rained down like the wrath of heaven, systematically pulverizing the morale of the bandit horde.
The men in the back had no desire to play a lottery where the prize was being turned into a pancake.
They had broken ranks, scattered, and vanished into the wilderness like smoke in the wind.
This left the vanguard at the foot of the wall completely isolated.
For every man crushed by a stone, their numbers dwindled.
For every man scalded by oil or poked off a ladder by a militia spear, the "army" shrank further.
Fang Wushang, standing at the very front of the chaos, had been too busy basking in his own perceived glory to notice his forces evaporating behind his back.
In that moment, Fang Wushang finally understood the harsh reality of "the defender's advantage."
This was, after all, his first time actually trying to take a fortified town.
He had learned everything he knew about warfare from storytelling performances in tea houses, which made it seem like you just had to lean a ladder against a wall and climb up to victory.
Real combat, he discovered, was a lot more complicated and significantly more lethal.
A bandit's morale wasn't something a man like him could hold together once the giant rocks started falling.
"Retreat! Fall back! Everybody out!" Fang Wushang bellowed, his voice cracking.
Without waiting for a response, he turned tail and bolted as fast as his legs could carry him.
The few dozen elite bandits remaining didn't need a second invitation. They spun around and fled alongside their leader.
Up on the wall, Bai Yuan narrowed his eyes.
He reached out a hand and shouted, "Bring me a bow!"
A guard immediately scurried forward, handing him a fine hunting bow.
The guard stood ready, clearing his throat so he could shout "Magnificent shot!" the moment the arrow flew, hoping to suck up to his master.
Bai Yuan took a deep breath, nocked an arrow, and aimed it right between Fang Wushang's shoulder blades.
He drew the string taut, his face a mask of scholar-warrior concentration.
With a sharp twang, the string vibrated, and the arrow streaked through the air like a startled swan...
Swish!
The arrow whistled past Fang Wushang, missing him by a good three feet.
The guard who had been prepared to cheer froze, his mouth hanging open in an awkward silence.
The surrounding villagers and guards shared a collective look of profound "no comment."
Bai Yuan coughed softly, his old face flushing a light shade of crimson.
He quickly shoved the bow back into the guard's hands and patted his palms together, looking away as if nothing had happened.
Focus on the commanding, old man, he told himself. Let's just cross out 'Archery' from the Six Arts of a Gentleman for today.
Fortunately, his minor embarrassment didn't change the outcome of the battle.
As the bandits disappeared into the distance, the pressure on the wall vanished.
The villagers began to erupt in cheers, hugging one another and waving their makeshift weapons.
"We won!"
"We held them off!"
"Gao Village is safe!"
"Dao Xuan Tianzun protects us! Dao Xuan Tianzun protects us!"
Bai Yuan looked around at the celebrating crowd and let out a sharp, frustrated huff.
"What are you all so happy about? We let the bandit chief escape! That Fang Wushang is a petty, vengeful man. He'll go back to his mountain, lick his wounds, and wait for the moment we let our guard down to come back and slit our throats in our sleep."
The cheers died down instantly.
The villagers looked at each other, the cold reality sinking in.
He was right.
A commoner's greatest fear wasn't a quick fight. It was being "remembered" by a bandit.
It was one thing to be safe behind the walls of Gao Village, but what about when they had to go out to gather herbs, travel to the county seat, or visit relatives in a neighboring village?
If Fang Wushang was out there lurking in the shadows, they were all as good as dead.
Just as the atmosphere turned grim, Gao Yiye's voice rose above the murmurs.
She pointed a slender finger at the receding figure of the bandit leader in the distance.
"Watch closely, everyone!" she shouted, her eyes gleaming with divine certainty. "Dao Xuan Tianzun is about to manifest his immortal power and uproot this evil for us once and for all!"
The villagers' eyes lit up with renewed hope.
Even Bai Yuan paused, his skepticism warring with his curiosity.
Suddenly, the sky seemed to groan.
A sound like rolling thunder and howling wind split the air, as if something gargantuan were parting the clouds and descending at terminal velocity.
An invisible, crushing pressure swept across the clearing outside the wall, kicking up a violent cyclone of dust that spiraled outward in a perfect ring.
Then came the sound.
BOOM!
A deafening explosion rocked the earth, sending tremors through the very foundations of the village walls.
The ground groaned and buckled.
Fang Wushang, who had been sprinting for his life, along with every one of his guards within a thirty-foot radius, was instantaneously flattened into a gory paste.
The spot where they had stood just a second ago was no longer level ground. It had collapsed into a massive, deep depression in the earth, a crater shaped precisely like a colossal human palm.
The remains of the "Supreme Bright King" lay at the very center of that palm print, crushed into the soil as if by the very hand of God.