The fifteenth night — the moon was not yet full.

The soldiers on the Jizhou city wall had spent an entire day holding off a relentless assault. Both they and the enemy below had suffered countless casualties.

Yet they knew all too well that the attacks would not stop, because the strike from within the city that everyone was waiting for had not yet come.

Outside the walls, torches formed a sea of fire. Standing on the battlements and looking down, that ocean of flame was more spectacular than all the stars in the sky.

The dark gave arrows the gift of invisibility — they showed their terrible faces only when they arrived. And so many who glimpsed that terrible face were dead in the next breath.

Zeng Ling stood beside the battlements, watching the field below, issuing orders without pause.

On the east wall, the Yuzhou army had been attacking since the moment the sun rose that morning; now the moon already hung in the sky.

A heavy crossbow bolt crashed into the battlement not far from where Zeng Ling stood, and a fragment of broken brick flew out and grazed his cheek — quick as a shooting star, leaving a bloody gash.

Zeng Ling’s head snapped to one side. Instinctively he raised a hand and touched his cheek, then looked down at the blood on his fingers. His eyes flickered.

Still not here?

He stared at the blood on his fingers, but it was Luo Jing his thoughts kept returning to.

“Scaling ladders!”

Beside him someone screamed it in a ragged voice.

A scaling ladder hooked onto the top of the wall. A soldier immediately grabbed a hooked pole to push it away — but couldn’t move it.

The ladder was too tall; the soldiers’ arms weren’t long enough to push it free at that height. They needed the long hooked poles to lever it outward.

The soldier roared and strained, and nearby Jizhou soldiers came to help — yet strangely, the ladder seemed to weigh a thousand pounds, and several men together couldn’t shift it.

On the ladder, Yuzhou soldiers clenched horizontal blades between their teeth and scrambled upward hand over foot.

After paying the price of countless lives, someone had thought of a solution.

They had lashed ropes to the ladders — at the upper-middle section — so that when a ladder successfully hooked onto the wall, a crowd of soldiers below could grab the ropes and haul downward with all their strength. They would sooner rip the ladder apart than let the defenders push it over.

With the weight of all those men dragging downward, the ladders at first truly could not be shoved free.

The first Yuzhou soldier to reach the top of the Jizhou wall was a company commander. But he did not get to demonstrate his prowess on those battlements.

He had a horizontal blade clenched between his teeth and his hand braced on the parapet — the instant he began to pull himself over, a blade came down on his arm, leaving his hand behind on the stone.

Another blade drove through his chest; it was twisted viciously. He screamed and toppled backward.

He fell, and took the man directly below him down with him. When they hit the ground, the dead man did not rise; the living one couldn’t rise either, not for some time.

The Yuzhou soldiers behind them scrambled up quickly. The first one to reach the top leapt from the ladder and threw himself directly into the midst of the Jizhou soldiers.

He swung his horizontal blade in a frenzy — but it was completely meaningless. He had hurled himself into a crowd, and there were too many blades waiting in that crowd.

One cut, and another, and another…

The first Yuzhou soldier to truly set foot on Jizhou’s wall was hacked to pieces.

“Cut the ladders!”

The defenders shouted it.

If they couldn’t push them free, then cut them down.

Beside each ladder that had hooked onto the wall, many Jizhou soldiers leaned out over the parapet and hacked at the wood with their blades, stroke after stroke.

But ladder rungs aren’t made of paper — they didn’t give way so easily.

One Jizhou soldier leaning out and swinging his blade was grabbed by a Yuzhou soldier on the ladder and went tumbling over the wall.

The Jizhou soldier who fell lay on the ground below, looking up into face after face filled with nothing but hatred and killing intent.

Blades came down without number, and soon — just like the first Yuzhou soldier who had scaled the wall — the first Jizhou soldier to fall was hacked to pieces.

With a crack, one ladder nearby did not break because the defenders had cut it — it was the men pulling it that tore it apart. They had hauled too hard, and the ladder snapped in the middle; the men on top cried out as they fell.

“Pour the fire oil!”

Liu Ge came charging from nearby, shouting as he ran.

The defenders poured heated oil down over the wall. Immediately a wave of screaming rose from below — anyone the hot oil found, face or hands, would lose a layer of skin at a touch.

A Yuzhou soldier just scrambling up the wall received a full basin of hot oil full in the face. The pain and terror — who could imagine it?

He fell straight down, bones shattering on impact, but the more agonizing agony was his shredded skin.

The oil-soaked ladder was touched with a torch and caught. The oil ran downward; the fire ran with it. The men on the ladder tried to retreat, but those below them blocked their way, and the descent was far slower than the oil could flow.

The oil reached a man’s hands. He was so frightened he let go — forgetting he was still on the ladder.

Again and again the nail-studded drop-boards were flung down from the walls. Each time they were hauled back up, the clustered spikes were pulling long threads of blood. In the gaps between those nails, pieces of shattered skulls were visible — blood-matted hair still clinging to them.

Horn—

Horn, horn—

Suddenly the warning horn rang out from within the city. Zeng Ling, deep in command, whipped around at the sound.

He’s here.

At last.

The three thousand Tiger-Leopard Cavalry he had searched for, searched for, and still not found — at last they had come. That young general, who believed himself peerless on any battlefield, had at last come.

On the main street, Luo Jing sat in the saddle in full battle array, looking toward the distance. Over at the east gate, there should be countless Jizhou soldiers waiting — to stop him, Zeng Ling must have devised ten thousand stratagems.

And not just the east gate: to be safe, all six gates of Jizhou would have ambushes, and many of them.

So what of it?

Luo Jing had no fear of any ambush. He had one goal: to spend his three thousand Tiger-Leopard Cavalry as the price to smash through to the gate.

Whether on open plain or city street, the moment his Tiger-Leopard Cavalry ran, there was no one who could stop them.

“There!” Luo Jing leveled his long lance and pointed toward the east gate, voice ringing out: “There will be the enemy’s ambush — their arrow formations, and countless men who will throw their lives away trying to stop us.”

He glanced back and said: “They are willing to die for it. We will go and collect those lives.”

Luo Jing pulled his visor down and spurred his horse forward.

“Tiger-Leopard Cavalry!”

He gave a thunderous shout.

Three thousand riders answered together as one: “Trample the formations!”

On the main street leading to the east gate, the cavalry’s hoofbeats rolled forward like thunder. Each strike of those hooves seemed to land directly against the chest.

“Arrows!”

Luo Jing shouted from the very front.

The riders behind him flattened themselves against their horses’ necks. The incoming arrows swept over them like a driving rainstorm.

Ahead lay the Jizhou army’s arrow formation — soldiers who had been waiting there knew exactly what they had to do.

If they failed to stop the Tiger-Leopard Cavalry and the east gate was seized, every man wearing a Jizhou uniform might die.

Arrows poured in without stop, and Tiger-Leopard Cavalry riders fell from their saddles one after another — yet the charge did not slow by a single beat.

Cavalry speed, once pushed to its extreme, gave an arrow formation only three or four shots’ worth of time.

From the moment riders entered arrow range to the moment they crashed into the formation, the gap was not long; an archer who managed four shots was already skilled.

Watching the Tiger-Leopard Cavalry bearing down on them, the arrow formation began splitting to the sides — archers wore almost no armor; if the cavalry hit them, they would be cut through like paper figures.

Behind the arrow formation lay a shield formation.

Layer upon layer of shields.

Countless Jizhou soldiers braced infantry tower-shields against the ground, crouching behind them, shouldering the weight with their bodies.

Behind each row of shield-bearers was a rank of spearmen.

Layer upon layer stacked together, they became the most unyielding dam this world could offer.

No matter how ferociously the Tiger-Leopard Cavalry surged, they could not so easily sweep a dam aside.

“Javelins!”

Luo Jing’s hoarse voice rang from the head of the charge.

Riders raised their javelins and hurled them — a dense shadow flying into the shield formation.

These javelins had originally been intended for the arrow formation; the arrow formation had already retreated, so the shield-bearers received them instead.

Three thousand Tiger-Leopard Cavalry could not all charge down one single street, and the Jizhou defenders could not hold just one single street either.

Across several parallel streets heading toward the gate, the scene was nearly identical.

Arrow formation, then shield formation — layer upon layer — the wall of bronze and iron that the Youzhou soldiers had built for the Tiger-Leopard Cavalry.

On the city wall, Zeng Ling raised his spyglass and looked toward the interior of the city. He had already lost all concern for the Yuzhou army outside the walls; his only thought now was to send Luo Jing to his grave.

Watching the shield formation hold the Tiger-Leopard Cavalry in check, Zeng Ling immediately shouted: “Sound the horn — tell the rear units to close in and cut off Luo Jing’s line of retreat!”

The horns on the wall rang out again. Jizhou soldiers emerged throughout the city — like many small streams converging toward a great river.

Zeng Ling watched the Tiger-Leopard Cavalry about to crash into the shield formation, and the corner of his mouth could not help curling slightly upward.

Cavalry without their speed — Tiger-Leopard Cavalry without their speed — what could even the most fearsome troops do then?

The shield formation was solid and heavy. No cavalry charge could break through it.

But Zeng Ling had underestimated Luo Jing — and underestimated the willingness of these Tiger-Leopard Cavalry soldiers to die.

Every one of these Tiger-Leopard Cavalry riders had been trained personally by Luo Jing. His orders — not one of the three thousand would question them, not one would fail to carry them out.

“Smash through!”

Luo Jing led the charge headfirst into the shield formation.

Why were the Tiger-Leopard Cavalry soldiers willing to die? Why did they never question Luo Jing’s commands?

Because Luo Jing charged first, every single time. He was always the first.

His warhorse slammed into the shield formation, broke through the first layer, crashed through the spearmen behind it, and rammed into the second layer.

The horse shrieked. After being driven through with countless spears, it could hold on no longer and went down.

He had ridden into it — and the Tiger-Leopard Cavalry riders behind him did not slow, not a single one. One after another they charged directly into the wall.

Spears drove through warhorses; horses were knocked over where they stood. Those horses not caught by spears leapt up and came crashing down onto the soldiers behind the line.

For a moment, men and horses were in chaos.

Of course Luo Jing was not simply charging blindly. He had thought through everything — had turned over countless times in his mind what measures Zeng Ling would use against his Tiger-Leopard Cavalry.

The arrow formation, the shield formation now before him: these had appeared in his mind more than once.

And his solution to the arrow formation and the shield formation was one thing only.

That was —

Himself.

“I am Luo Jing of Youzhou! Any who stands before me dies!”

Luo Jing stood alone at the front. Within the sweep of his lance, there was no living person. He advanced, and those who came into his lance’s range became dead men.

Luo Jing looked up at the city wall above him. He could not see where Zeng Ling stood — but contempt showed plainly in his eyes.

You devised ten thousand stratagems to stop me.

I need only one to break your ten thousand.

In this world —

I am unrivaled.

Luo Jing alone plunged into the shield formation. Shields shattered; lives ceased.

Within the sweep of that long lance, no living person remained.

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