Chapter Thirty-Two: The Battle of Mount Qier

The red cloth at the entrance signaled that the sentry post had been neutralized by Li Gui. For the sake of caution, Lin Shize crept forward gingerly to find two corpses, each with a triangular arrow embedded in their necks. Satisfied that it was safe, Lin retrieved the arrows and gestured to his men to continue the advance.

The soldiers drew their sabers and moved quickly behind Lin. Along the way, they encountered numerous bodies; caught in the dense fog and ambushed at close range by triangular arrows, even the battle-hardened Mengla soldiers had been unable to defend themselves.

The group successfully reached the base of the Mengla military fortress. Li Gui emerged from the thick fog and whispered, "Captain, I just received word that a prince of the Mengla has arrived, accompanied by at least three hundred guards. I heard the sentries talking about it; he is already inside the fortress."

Lin Shize frowned. This unexpected development meant the enemy’s numbers had suddenly increased to six hundred. Without hesitation, he made a split-second decision. "Two of you, come with me. We’re changing into Mengla uniforms. The rest of you wait for my signal. If we can infiltrate, we will; if not, we storm the gate."

Hesitation breeds disaster. At this stage, they had to push forward even if the path ahead was a sea of fire. If they faltered now, the morale of his men would collapse, and all their efforts over the past few days would be in vain.

Lin Shize donned the stolen sentry uniform and, posing as a relief guard, swaggered toward the Mengla camp. He even greeted the soldiers on the walls with a smile. They entered the gate with surprising ease. Once inside, Lin immediately spotted the stairs leading to the ramparts.

Outside the walls, hidden by the dense forest, Li Gui gripped his fists, eyes locked on the soldiers above. At any sign of trouble, he would order his men to loose their arrows and support the commander.

Inside, Lin Shize slowly crept toward the top of the wall. To allow his men to storm in, he had to lower the drawbridge, and the controls were on the ramparts.

"Halt! Which post are you from? Who gave you permission to come up here?" A Mengla officer barked, blocking Lin’s path.

Lin Shize beamed at him. "How can you not recognize me? I’m so-and-so’s cousin!"

The officer blinked, confused. He had never seen this young man before, let alone known him. "You..."

Before the officer could finish, the smiling youth drove his saber into the man’s chest without changing his expression.

The other Mengla soldiers on the wall were stunned and prepared to attack, but Lin Shize’s men were already upon them. As the last Mengla soldier reached for his horn to sound the alarm, a saber whistled through the air and pinned him to the spot. The other two soldiers seized the moment of confusion to strike down their nearby opponents.

***

Chaoketu was heading toward the gate with his personal guard. The Third Prince was currently the most favored of the Mengla royals, with rumors suggesting he might soon displace the Crown Prince. His visit to the Qier Mountains was meant to earn him a reputation as a leader who cared for his men, and to showcase his bravery, he had brought only three hundred guards.

Thinking of the promises the Prince had made him, Chaoketu felt a surge of ambition. He had spent too long on the frontier; though he was a commander of a region, his career had stalled because he lacked a power base at court. Now, by hitching his wagon to the Prince, his future path to promotion seemed clear. If he secured the favor of the next ruler, what wealth or status could he not attain? He had to perform well today and show the Prince the quality of his elite troops.

As Chaoketu approached the wall, he felt something was wrong. It was too quiet. Even if the guards were silent, there should have been the sound of footsteps, but the entire wall was shrouded in an eerie stillness.

Chaoketu was vigilant enough to notice even these small anomalies. Suddenly, countless arrows flew out of the thick fog, their deadly tips cold and sharp.

"General, look out!" Two of his guards threw themselves in front of him, disregarding their own lives. *Thwack, thwack, thwack!* The arrows pierced their armor with dull thuds.

Everything happened too quickly. Before the arrows had even stopped, countless Da Qi soldiers in iron armor roared as they charged out of the fog.

"Enemy attack!" Chaoketu shouted, retreating without hesitation. With only a small guard unit, he knew he couldn't fight head-on; he needed to regroup his forces.

Lin Shize immediately turned to Liu Wu. "Take your men and block their escape route. Don't let a single enemy escape. The rest of you, follow me! Don’t give them a moment to breathe. Stick to them and hold them down."

Zhao Dahu and Gou Dan led fifty men each, setting fires and creating chaos. Lin Shize, leading a hundred, charged wherever the Mengla soldiers tried to form ranks, shattering their formations.

Without their horses, the combat effectiveness of the Mengla soldiers dropped by at least half, yet they remained a formidable threat. Lin Shize maximized his unit's advantage, using their strengths to strike the enemy's weaknesses. No matter how fierce the Mengla were in individual combat, they were no match for the 'three-man' tactical formations.

The Mengla soldiers inside the fort rushed toward the sound of the fighting, but were met with a hail of triangular arrows.

*Woo—!*

The sound of Liu Wu’s horn echoed from the rear. Great fires roared, burning away the mist and revealing the full scope of the battlefield. The Mengla were horrified to realize they were surrounded. Driven by the instinct for survival, the battle escalated into a white-hot frenzy.

Lin Shize held the front line, preventing the enemy from breaking through, while Wang Li and Chen Xin directed their archers to rain arrows down upon the foe.

*Ha! Hei! Ha!*

After three roars, Lin saw a row of elite, iron-clad Mengla troops charging toward them through the gaps in the enemy ranks. Their long sabers flashed, instantly breaking Lin’s first defensive line.

Lin ordered a retreat, and his archers unleashed a volley of triangular arrows at point-blank range. At twenty paces, the arrows proved devastating. The front rank of iron-clad soldiers fell like hedgehogs.

Just as Lin was about to order a push, he saw a row of even more massive, heavy-armored soldiers emerging behind the fallen iron-clads.

*It was a trap!* The iron-clads had been mere bait to cover the heavy infantry, allowing them to close in quickly.

"Armor-piercing bolts! Quickly!"

The triangular arrows were gone. All that remained were the heavy armor-piercing bolts. Over a hundred bolts whistled through the air, striking the heavy armor of the advancing soldiers...