Badge in Azure

Behind Broken Blade Pass was the plains of Metatrin which were only two-hundred miles wide. There were no cities other than western town in the middle. There were many villages and castles built by many noble families on these plains though.

Originally, Saleen had planned to reconstruct Broken Blade Pass and seal off Metatrin’s plains in July. This place was very safe. Even if small armies managed to infiltrate through the mountains, they would not be of any threat to the castles.

Typically, Metatrin City’s threats mainly came from the north or the seas. The mountain pass in the west more or less guaranteed that there would not be any trouble there. The Holy See’s army came so quickly that Saleen did not have time to carry out his plans. Before he knew it he was facing the first major battle since his kingdom was built.

Within three days, the Holy See’s main army finally arrived at Broken Blade Pass. After encountering battles and ambushes by Saleen and Lex, the Holy See army had lost many auxiliary soldiers and the remaining soldiers were having a hard time traveling. Aside from the officers, everyone else has lost the privilege of being helped into armor, massages, washing of feet, being cooked for, and more.

Fortunately, there were many holy priests in the army. At the rate that the soldiers were becoming fatigued they would also have fallen sick long ago otherwise. Illnesses could spread easily and even though it might sound ridiculous, it was a proven fact that a soldier’s companions would also start to fall sick if he did not recover quickly.

The army arrived and set up camps outside of Broken Blade Pass. Using the stars as guides, this location was not far from the sea. The holy priests in the army only miscalculated by less than one-hundred miles. Even without a map, they could still estimate that Metatrin City should be less than three-hundred miles away.

If they could break through this impregnable pass, that heretic city would be within sight and reach.

The Holy See’s army saw the Broken Blade Pass as Metatrin City’s last line of defense. This pass towered over them at thirty yards high. Behind the city walls was a formation of big crossbows. The vanguard released a few flying puppets to try to recce what was behind the walls, but were shot down immediately.

The soldiers on the city walls were clad in fresh clothes and armors. For a newly built city to expand to such a stage, it should not be concealing any more forces. If it was that powerful it would not need to destroy all the small towns along the way.

They had no idea that this was exactly how Saleen wanted them to think. He did not intend to have his army fight with the enemy in a long-drawn battle. If they fought on the plains of the north Saleen would surely lose.

Saleen only built six battalions in total, which was already the limit. One of the battalions was even taken away by Lex. Amongst the remaining five battalions, the sixth battalion had encountered the Holy See army a few times and always ended up with casualties. Overall, they managed to survive because of the skeletal warhorses’ speed and the caution exhibited by the regiment leader.

The thirty-thousand soldiers recruited by the noble families were all relocated to western town. These soldiers were not as capable as the five battalions under Saleen so they ended up supporting the remaining battalion that Lex had left behind to defend the city.

The narrowest mountain pass at Broken Blade Pass was about a mile wide. That was too narrow for a one-hundred-thousand strong army. After the vanguard’s attempts to infiltrate from the sky were shot down, they dismissed the idea of using flying puppets as a mode of attack.

When the main army arrived, they did not attack the city immediately. Instead, they rested for one day before launching their first attack in the afternoon.

There were three doors at Broken Blade Pass. The two side doors were less than four yards wide while the main center door was twelve yards wide. The width of Qin’s large wagons were two point eight yards. A capable driver would be able to drive four wagons through this city gate.

The Tanggulasi army first tried to attack using catapults, but there was immediate retaliation. Both sides were heaving rocks at each other at around the same rate even though Broken Blade Pass possessed a slight height advantage. After battling this way for a few hours, both sides’ catapults were destroyed.

It was inevitable. The terrain in Broken Blade pass was narrow so it was useless even if they had more catapults. If they were to rebuild again in future, they would be able to construct an underground warehouse and set up real magic catapults. Right now, they could only retaliate in the same way that their enemy was attacking. Fortunately, there were a few mages who were still alert enough to keep the number of casualties low when both sides were flailing rocks at each other.

The battle situation eased a little when both sides’ catapults were destroyed. The men in Broken Blade Pass had no other choice but to try and destroy the enemy’s catapults because they had very few. When the enemy was attacking the city, the catapults would be able to injure many of Broken Blade Pass’ archers otherwise.

At four in the afternoon, both sides no longer had the capability of using catapults as a mode of attack. The Holy See’s stepped wagons came closer and the archers on these wagons began to shoot at the Broken Blade Pass.

Qin city walls contained bronze watchtowers within them that could defend against magic and divine spells. The watchtowers were added with high-quality rock materials and wood that had been strengthened by magic. Saleen had more than enough rock materials so he used them to build more than ten watchtowers of varying sizes.

These watchtowers were not damaged during the catapult attacks. There were holes in the watchtowers for archers to shoot at the Tanggulasi soldiers on stepped wagons. Inside the watchtowers were big crossbows. With the help of alchemy machines, one set only required two people to operate it.

There were many different models of big crossbows and one of them was designed so that one shot would release a spread of more than two-hundred arrows. In big battles such as this, accuracy was not the most important thing. When the enemy was a distance away, the most important things would be range and damage. Not everyone was at least the standard of middle-level swordmasters. To achieve accuracy, one would have to undergo tough training.

There was a swordmaster in every watchtower operating a smaller model of alchemy crossbow that was ready to take aim at the enemy’s stronger warriors at any time. The others would use the bigger crossbow to keep shooting and force the enemy back.

The Tanggulasi army deployed two groups of heavy-armored knights to attack from both flanks while a vehicle approached the city wall with soldiers hiding underneath it. Within the embrasure on the city wall, soldiers were shooting with their arrows. The soldiers hiding underneath the vehicle approached cautiously. The arrows struck the vehicle but did not penetrate it.

Behind the two small doors on the flanks of Broken Blade Pass were knights that had yet to get onto their horses. The enemy’s heavy-armored knights were already putting pressure on both flanks. Once the knights in Broken Blade Pass tried to charge out to attack, the heavy-armored knights would be able to push their way through.

The main force leading the charge on Metatrin City was a conventional army of the Tanggulasi Empire. There was nothing unexpected about their strategies, but there were also very little loopholes. First, they would use catapults to induce the enemy’s retaliation. After confirming the locations that the enemy was retaliating from, they would deploy the stepped wagons to suppress the watchtowers in the city in order to allow foot soldiers to approach the city wall.

The heavy-armored knights would put pressure on the flanks so that the city would not be able to launch a surprise counterattack. These sequences were exactly the same as those written on military books. The most impressive thing was that the majority of the soldiers were recruited at the very last minute. After a very short period of training, they were actually able to transition across different phases seamlessly.

Saleen’s caution helped him to avert a disaster. If he had activated an entire battalion to go head-on against the Holy See’s army the outcome would have been more disastrous than he could imagine.

Hundreds of soldiers reached the edge of the city walls under the protection of the vehicle. They took out shovels and tried to dig under the city wall.

Clank!

Sparks flew. Although these soldiers had yet to be trained in swordsmanship, they were as strong as first-grade swordsmen. They dug with all their might, but their shovels only struck rocks. The rocks were so hard that the shovels were blunted.

“We cannot dig through!” Some soldiers called out.

“Don’t dig anymore. Just pour down acid directly!” The officer amongst the soldiers ordered.

The soldiers unhooked the water bag from their waist, which contained acid created from divine spells.

Hiss…

White smoke began to rise. The city wall’s foundation was made from the white rocks dug out from Metatrin City. The acid only managed to rot away a layer as thick as a fingernail. Tens of soldiers tried to approach the city gate. It was made of wood so the acid should be able to create holes in it regardless of its thickness.

The moment they reached the center entrance, a metal hole suddenly appeared from above and hot oil came pouring down, followed by fire arrows.

The hot oil burned in front of the city gate and the officer at the back frowned upon this sight. If the other party was willing to set fire just outside of the city gate, it meant that the wooden door would not catch fire. Such an attack would burn down their own door even if it would cause great damage to their enemies otherwise.

Indeed, the hot oil burned furiously and quickly spread to both flanks, killing more than one-hundred Tanggulasi soldiers. Some soldiers’ limbs were so badly burned that they would not be able to continue fighting. They would not be able to flee even if they wanted to as the vehicle that they came on had also been burned.

Even though this attack was meant to test the strength and defense of Broken Blade Pass, hundreds of casualties was not a minor loss. The officer in the Pass was overjoyed when he heard about this news. All of a sudden, there was an explosion. All the soldiers that had been injured by the hot oil had taken out holy prose curses and carried out their final suicidal attack.

The simultaneous explosion of a few hundred holy prose curses was equivalent to a middle-level magic attack. If this explosion took place in a battle, hundreds of people within the vicinity would surely be affected. If it was a close-ranged battle, there would probably be thousands of casualties.

These few hundreds of soldiers were blown to pieces and their flesh and blood were stuck to the city walls. The soldiers in the city were horrified by the sound. Fortunately, the foundation of the city walls was made from white rocks, otherwise the acid and the explosion would have caused cracks in the wall.

Although the white rocks produced by Metatrin City could not be infused with magic it was harder than iron. Saleen had to use a grade-4 spell, current cutter, to collect the rocks gradually. An explosive attack such as this had little effects on white rocks.

A few hundred men gave up their lives only to blow up one big rock. The city wall was thirty yards high and its foundation was twelve yards deep. The explosion only blew off the foundation by a thickness of a finger. If the enemy chose to use this method to blow up the city wall, they would probably need the entire one-hundred-thousand strong army.

“Humph! Prepare the siege engine!” The Tanggulasi Empire’s officer gave the order. This was merely the beginning. The initial attacks helped him to understand that the only way to destroy this city was to either charge through the city gates or to climb over the city wall. If this was the case, it was time to show the Qins the courage and faith of the Tanggulasis!