Chapter 371 Kill

Chapter 371: Kill

This time, Yun Mingyue didn't slash or block. She simply urged her warhorse forward and rode past him.

In the instant they passed each other, the curved blade, with the smallest motion and the greatest speed, swept flat along the barely visible gap between the collar of his iron armor and the lower edge of his helmet.

A line of blood suddenly appeared. The Western Rong general's roar was cut short.

He clutched his neck as blood gushed between his fingers, his throat gurgling. The last thing his eyes reflected was the silhouette of the female general reining her horse around—her profile cold as carved stone.

"Thud." The heavy body hit the ground. All around, there was dead silence.

Only the cold wind, carrying the stench of blood, swept over the stunned faces of the Western Rong soldiers.

Yun Mingyue reined in her horse, her breathing slightly ragged. Her disheveled black hair clung to her forehead where blood and sweat mingled, making her sharp brows and eyes seem even more like a blade drawn from its sheath.

She glanced at the twitching corpse on the ground, then bent down and hooked the hilt of the dagger still embedded in the body with the bloodstained tip of her blade.

With a slight twist, she pulled it free, casually wiped it on her saddle blanket, and slid it back into her boot.

"The enemy chieftain is dead." Her voice, hoarse from exertion and her earlier shouting, was like ice scraping across iron—clear and cold. "Return to the city."

The remaining cavalry snapped awake as if from a dream, erupting in muffled roars as they fought their way toward her.

The charge back into the city was even bloodier. The chaos caused by the general's death was spreading, but the ferocity of the Western Rong army had also been fully ignited.

Yun Mingyue remained at the very front. Each rise and fall of her long blade was the epitome of simplicity—and lethality.

She no longer spoke. She simply used her blade to clear the way, occasionally tilting her head to dodge stray arrows.

Blood kept splattering across her face. Her gaze remained locked on the gap in the city gate, which grew ever closer ahead.

The moment she finally charged into the shadow of the barbican, the portcullis slammed shut.

Inside the gate tunnel, the thick stench of blood was almost palpable. Yun Mingyue reined in her horse; the warhorse reared, letting out a weary whinny.

She sat upright in the saddle, back straight as a ramrod, the hand holding the curved blade hanging at her side, blood dripping from its tip and carving a small dark pit into the dust.

She dismounted swiftly and strode toward the inner city steps, her every step rock-steady.

When she once again stood atop the battlements, the cold wind bit at her. Outside the city, the Western Rong army, after a brief moment of chaos, was already beginning to regroup.

Yun Mingyue gripped the parapet, her gaze fixed on the distance. Her disheveled hair whipped wildly in the wind, her face streaked with blood and grime, yet the cold gleam in her eyes could not be concealed.

She raised a hand to wipe a fleck of blood from the corner of her mouth, then spoke to the few low-ranking officers gathered around. Her voice was low, yet it chilled every heart:

"Count the casualties. Reinforce the gates. Gather arrows and boulders."

"The Western Rong will return soon."

"Next time, aim for their new commander."

On the walls and below, only the wind and snow howled.

And beneath that tattered banner bearing the character "Zhou," Yun Mingyue stood like a blade sheathed in its scabbard—in the brief silence, gathering strength for the next, even more brutal round of combat.

...

Day three. The snow had stopped. The sky was a leaden gray, a suffocating weight pressing down.

On the tower, rolling logs and stones had long since been exhausted. Even the door panels and beams torn from buildings had all been hurled down.

Quivers were completely empty, leaving only a few broken arrows crudely lashed to wooden poles as substitutes.

Fire-oil jars lay shattered at the foot of the wall, leaving behind patches of scorched black stains.

The smell in the air had shifted from the initial smoke and blood to a thick stench of char, rot, and despairing stillness.

The defenders numbered less than a third of their original force, and every last one of them was wounded.

Many simply leaned against the walls, hollow-eyed, staring at the seemingly endless Western Rong camp beyond the city. They were too exhausted—too tired for even fear to feel sharp.

Yun Mingyue sat with her back against the cold inner wall, amid a pile of blood-caked bricks.

The wounds on her right hand—at the base of her thumb and in her palm—had long since split open and festered from the constant swinging of her blade, the flesh laid bare down to the bone.

At this moment, she was biting one end of a relatively clean strip of gauze between her teeth, her left hand clumsily but firmly wrapping the wound on her right.

The gauze had just been torn from the inner lining of a fallen soldier's tunic, smelling of earth and a faint trace of blood.

With each wrap, the veins at her temples pulsed slightly.

Sweat mixed with blood slid from her temples, freezing into dark red ice crystals along her jawline.

Finally, she finished wrapping. Using her teeth and left hand together, she tied a tight knot, then turned her head and spat out a mouthful of bloody spittle.

"Damn it..." she muttered hoarsely, her voice barely human.

It wasn't a complaint—more a frustration that this body, pushed to its limits, could still feel pain.

She pushed herself up against the wall, rising slowly. The knife wound on her left leg made her sway, but she quickly steadied herself.

Her gaze swept over the defenders on the tower—some sitting, some lying, all at death's door—then over the piles of unburied corpses, both friend and foe, stacked below the walls.

Finally, it settled beyond the city. The Western Rong army was mobilizing—infantry formations far larger than the previous two days were assembling, more siege engines being pushed to the front lines.

Clearly, they intended to give this broken, isolated city no chance to catch its breath. They were preparing their final, most ferocious assault.

The clamor within the city had weakened considerably compared to the previous two days, but near the south gate, a few scattered figures carrying families and belongings were still struggling to move.

The man A Qing had sent back reported that the mountain roads were difficult, the old and weak too numerous—nearly a thousand civilians had yet to evacuate from Yun City's borders.

"Yun Zhong." Her voice was low, yet it jolted the old family retainer leaning against the wall nearby. He snapped to attention and struggled to his feet.

"Anyone who can still breathe, stand up." Yun Mingyue did not look at Yun Zhong. Her gaze remained fixed beyond the city, her tone terrifyingly calm.

"Gather everyone who can hold a weapon. Behind the gates, at the street intersections, beneath the walls... every place that can slow the enemy down."

She paused, then finally turned to face the figures on the tower who were struggling to their feet, swaying unsteadily.

Her face was filthy, her eyes betraying no emotion. Slowly, she drew the blade that had already been chipped and notched countless times.

Her gaze swept across every numb face, finally fixing on some point in the void, as if issuing a final order to herself: "Prepare for a fight to the death."

There was no rousing response—only the sound of heavy, suppressed breathing, and the rustle of weapons scraping against walls and ground.

Those who could still move began silently converging toward the barricades behind the main gate and the ramps leading up the wall.

They gripped whatever could still be called a weapon, their eyes gradually shifting from hollow to fierce.

That was the last light of someone stripped of all hope—a feral, man-eating gleam.

The war horns of the Western Rong army sounded again, low and long, with a note of finality.

The massive infantry formations began to advance—siege towers, scaling ladders, battering rams... a black shadow of death slowly creeping forward.

Yun Mingyue stood atop the broken battlements directly above the main gate, both hands gripping the hilt of her blade.

"Come on," she mouthed silently to the approaching black tide.

But just as the Western Rong vanguard entered their final charge distance, in that split-second, hair-trigger moment—

"Woo—woo—woo—!" A starkly different, urgent horn call suddenly blared from the far flank-rear of the Western Rong army, from far off on the horizon!

Then came a sound—muffled like rolling thunder, yet far denser and more earth-shaking than marching infantry—the thunder of hooves!

Not hundreds, not thousands—it was the rumble of tens of thousands of iron hooves striking the frozen earth, making the very ground shake!

The Western Rong assault suddenly ground to a halt. The charging infantry stumbled to a halt, looking back in confusion. Even the clumsy siege engines seemed to hesitate.

There, on the distant flank of the Western Rong army, snow and dust shot skyward. A black torrent, like a raging tide born out of nowhere, was sweeping in at terrifying speed!

At the very front of that torrent, several massive banners whipped wildly in the wind. Though too far away to make out the insignia, the colors and style of those banners... were definitely not the Western Rong's!

That sudden cavalry force wasn't heading straight for Cloud City—it was driving with unstoppable momentum, slamming hard into the Western Rong formation's relatively weaker flank-rear!

From the Western Rong central command came the urgent, shrill clang of gongs—the retreat signal!

The black cavalry torrent sliced into the Western Rong flank like a hot knife through frozen fat.

Still far off, but the banners of that army were gradually coming into focus.

The banner's field was deep black, edged with dark-gold flame patterns, and at its center was a single character, stark and murderous: "Ling."

Nanling?!

Zhao Cheng walked among the tents, his boots on mud-snow frozen solid, soaked with blood and churned by countless trampling feet.

His boots had long since lost their original color, and every step came with a sticky, sucking feel.

"Here! Seal this gap with sandbags and door panels ripped off the houses! Move it, and move it fast!"

He pointed at a section of wall smashed open by catapult stones. "Crossbows?! Have the arrows been restocked yet?!"

"General, we're down to our last thirty percent of arrows! Rolling logs and boulders are just about gone too!" The quartermaster's face was creased with worry.

Zhao Cheng's brow knitted into a tight knot. He said, "I know," and kept moving.

He kept inspecting along the wall, thick with the stench of burning and blood, his sharp eyes sweeping over the face of every exhausted soldier.

"Scouts?! Have the three scout teams I sent come back?! The Northern Di's movements today are off—what the hell is going on?! And what about the Western Rong side—any news from Cloud City?!"

His deputy general hurried alongside, rattling off: "General, the scouts just reported back. Dust is rising in huge columns behind the Northern Di's main camp—looks like large-scale troop movements, but their destination is unclear.

The Western Rong forces besieging Cloud City look bigger than we estimated. Our first relief force of five hundred cavalry got ambushed at Yellow Gorge Pass, thirty li from Cloud City—by Western Rong elite raiders. We lost nearly a hundred men, and they're bogged down!"

Zhao Cheng stopped dead. He felt hot blood rush to his head, his vision went black for a moment, and he swayed.

He quickly braced himself against the cold crenellation beside him, barely stopping himself from falling.

Days of sleepless tension and crushing pressure made this bad news the last straw.

"Damn it all!" He ground the curse out between his teeth, his chest heaving violently, as if a fire were burning inside him, yet smothered by the cold weight of reality.

If Cloud City fell, the western gateway would be wide open. The Western Rong cavalry could pour through, join forces with the Northern Di in a pincer movement, and the main city would truly become a death trap!

Those five hundred cavalry were squeezed out of an already stretched-thin garrison—and they got ambushed!

He squeezed his eyes shut tight. When he opened them again, the bloodshot veins were even more fierce, but he forced back that momentary dizziness and helplessness.

"From my personal guard battalion, pull another three hundred riders! Have Wang the Bearded lead them, bypass Yellow Gorge, and take the dangerous old mine road. Whatever it costs, they must reach the area around Cloud City before nightfall tomorrow!

Even if they can't break the siege, they'll stick a thorn in the Western Rong's back!"

"Yes!" The deputy general's heart clenched. He knew this was a burn-the-boats move—the personal guard was Zhao Cheng's last core fighting force.

The order had barely left his mouth when a soldier, face caked with dust, armor stained with blood, staggered up the ramp and practically collapsed in front of Zhao Cheng, gasping like a bellows: "Gen... General! Urgent report! Urgent report!..."

Zhao Cheng, already on edge, felt his temples pounding. He snapped irritably: "What's gone wrong now?! Did the Southern barbarians send more men?!"

The soldier, cowed by his fury, stammered even worse: "N-no... not the Southern barbarians! It's... it's Nanling! The Nanling army!"

"Nanling?!" Zhao Cheng's pupils contracted sharply, his heart skipping a beat. Could Nanling be seizing the moment to hit us from the south too?

Was this it—were they about to see three... no, four kingdoms carving up Great Zhou?!

He felt his vision go dark again. This time he genuinely couldn't stay upright, nearly collapsing on the spot. His voice went up a pitch: "Nanling is attacking too?!"

"No, no, no!" The messenger shook his head frantically, his face red with urgency. "Not attacking! It's... Nanling sent a large army that suddenly hit the flank-rear of the Western Rong forces besieging Cloud City!"

"..." Zhao Cheng stood with his mouth open, frozen. He wondered if he was hallucinating from sheer sleep deprivation—this was utterly absurd.

Nanling? Attacking the Western Rong? That was more unbelievable than the Northern Di suddenly laying down their weapons and becoming Buddhists!

Before he could even process this earth-shattering news, another messenger came scrambling up, nearly tripping over himself.

His face wore a bizarre expression—a mix of utter shock and wild elation—and his voice was so shrill it almost cracked:

"Report!!! General! Eight-hundred-li urgent dispatch! News from the southern front!

Nanling... another Nanling army, taking the desolate route through Cangmang Mountain, launched a surprise attack on the rear supply depots and main supply stations of several Southern barbarian vassal states!

Their spearhead is aimed straight at the Southern barbarian capital! The Southern barbarian front-line army is in chaos—some units have already started hastily pulling back to defend!"

"..." Zhao Cheng stood completely frozen.

The sword hilt he'd unconsciously gripped loosened, then tightened, then loosened again.

He looked at the first messenger, then the second, then at his deputy general, who was just as dumbfounded.

The cold wind whipped snow pellets into his face, stinging—reminding him this wasn't a dream.

Nanling... who had been quiet all along, had not only suddenly lunged out to bite the Western Rong mid-meal, but had also delivered a gut-punch to the Southern barbarians at the same time?

What the hell... was this a collective outbreak of rabies? Or did they all take some kind of wrong meds?

The massive shock of information and the bizarre reversal of the situation left Zhao Cheng's head spinning. He instinctively raised a hand and rubbed hard at his throbbing temples.