The Human Emperor

Translated by: Hypersheep325

Edited by: Michyrr

Boomboomboom!

As the craftsmen continued the repairs, giant ballista bolts howled overhead, the gusts of wind they generated sweeping up the debris on the ground. Bang! A bolt quickly slammed into the forehead of a tiger Behemoth.

After this, twenty-some more giant ballista bolts swiftly followed. This vicious tiger Behemoth howled in extreme pain as its body went stiff and crashed to the ground, crushing several dozen steel walls into pancakes.

And then another one fell, and another…

With piercing howls, more and more Behemoths crashed to the ground.

The Great Tang also did not choose to wrangle with these enormous beings, drawing back its soldiers to minimize losses.

At this time, the Arabs had already lost thirty-seven Behemoths and were still losing more.

However, the focus of attention on the battlefield was not the Behemoths, but the clash at the front line.

“Kill!”

“Kill!”

War cries in Han and Arabic resounded above the steel defense line. Zhangchou Jianqiong and An Sishun had separately led their forces in piercing through the Arab flanks, after which they had smoothly joined forces.

In the entire process, Zhangchou Jianqiong and An Sishun had not even needed to speak to each other.

As two of the illustrious Great Generals of the empire, they possessed insight, experience, and mastery of the art of war far above average. By the time they had stepped onto the battlefield, they had already simulated the battle countless times and understood what they needed to do.

Behind the steel defense line, Gao Xianzhi sent out a powerful mental wave and declared, “The Arabs have lost!”

Elsewhere, Abusi and Wang Zhongsi nodded.

From the moment Zhangchou Jianqiong and An Sishun had led their armies in piercing through the flanks of the Arab army, they had known what the pair was attempting to achieve.

Being surrounded by the enemy force was a major taboo on the battlefield, but it seemed that the Arab commander had no idea.

Even though Arabia was a powerful country, it was still lacking in terms of tactics compared to the Great Tang.

“Not good!”

In the middle of the Arab army, Apolis suddenly paled as he saw Zhangchou Jianqiong and An Sishun complete the encirclement. But unfortunately, his realization had come too late.

“It’s time to begin the harvest!”

“These Arabs are done for!”

As Zhangchou Jianqiong and An Sishun completed their encirclement, their eyes flashed with harsh light. Now that they had joined together, the two commanders immediately launched a full offensive against the surrounded Arab army.

“Kill!”

War cries shook the heavens as the Annan Protectorate army and Beiting Protectorate army charged at the Arabs, their morale soaring to unprecedented levels. Thud! Thud! Thud! The panicked Arab cavalry were cut down like weeds, and everywhere they looked, they could only see the Tang cavalry seething with killing intent.

Some of the Arab cavalry brashly shouted and tried to turn around their horses and charge at the enemy, but they were hindered by their fellow soldiers.

Moreover, once the Annan Protectorate army and Beiting Protectorate army completed their encirclement, the Arab cavalry lost the space to build up enough speed for a charge.

In this sort of large-scale battle, cavalry that was surrounded did not have enough space to charge, making them worse than infantry and essentially sealing their fate. This was why Wang Zhongsi, An Sishun, and Gao Xianzhi had determined that the Arabs had lost.

“Ah!”

Screams tore through the air as great swaths of the Arab ranks were cut down.

They were forced back again and again by the Great Tang’s fierce offensive, but behind them were the stalwart ranks of the Tang shield soldiers. The Arabs fell into even greater disarray.

However, on this battlefield, the greatest variable was not with Zhangchou Jianqiong and An Sishun, but at the first defense line.

“Ah!”

The Silver Spear Army cavalry screamed as they were cut down. When Zhangchou Jianqiong had left with the Annan Protectorate army to attack the enemy army, he had left behind seven-thousand-some infantry.

Plush! Sharp weapons swept across the ground, smoothly inserting themselves between chinks of armor and cutting down the legs of horses, then stabbing into the small crack in the underbelly armor of the horses.

These Annan Protectorate army infantry were as nimble as foxes and as dextrous as apes, constantly maneuvering beneath the horses. Thud! Thud! Thud! As these infantry continued their assault, the Silver Spear Army horses crashed to the ground and were rendered motionless.

“Ballistae, height of eighty-seven! Shoot!” A cold voice came from behind the defense line.

Creeeak! With the sound of groaning gears, the tens of thousands of ballistae were loaded and aimed.

Thudthudthud!

The air exploded as a wave of ballista bolts hurtled through the air. This time, without the protection of the Silver Spear Army’s massive shields, the Arabs could no longer stop Su Hanshan’s ballistae.

Plush! Plush! Plush! Gleaming with a fatal light, the ballista bolts flew through the air and blasted through flesh and armor. Row after row of Arab cavalry was pierced through, the bodies of men and horses falling to the ground.

“Shit! Careful!”

“The Tang are firing their ballistae again!”

“Get out of the way! Out of the way! The vanguard has fallen!”

“Ah! We’re dead!”

Fear spread like a plague through the army. An Arab horseman stared in panic at that grim barrage. Ninety percent of the Arab cavalry in this expedition had never been to the east. They had only ever heard about the east and about Wang Chong’s feats.

People believed their eyes more than their ears, and who would ever believe such things unless they had seen it with their own eyes?

For the first time, the valiant Arab cavalry of the western world felt a fear that came from the depths of their souls. Those strange eastern machines would cut down countless lives with each volley, and no armor, distance, or Stellar Energy was capable of stopping their lethal bolts.

Boom! A ballista bolt howled through the air, and the Arab horseman went stiff as he looked down to see the large hole through his chest, upon which he collapsed together with his horse.

The Arab cavalry were slain in the thousands and tens of thousands, many of them dying without even having time to grunt. But there were also the heavily wounded, their screams of despair mixing together with the thud of falling bodies.

In the distance, behind the steel walls, Su Hanshan continued to coldly command his ballistae, ordering them to fire volley after volley of lethal bolts. Boom! Boom! Boom! As the heavens rumbled, the Arab losses climbed at an astonishing rate.

Both advancing and retreating meant only death for these Arab cavalry.

The Great Tang ballistae were each manned by five men, with each man assigned to a certain duty. But Su Hanshan and Zhang Shouzhi had modified the procedure so that each ballista team could be cut down to four men. This meant that ten thousand ballistae needed forty thousand men to operate them, but they killed far more than the number of soldiers they required. Forty thousand, eighty thousand, even a hundred thousand cavalry could not compare in efficiency to the forty thousand men manning the ballistae.

Forty thousand, seventy thousand, eighty thousand, one hundred and ten thousand…

By now, the two-hundred-thousand-some Arab cavalry had experienced horrifying losses, and the endless barrage filled the surviving Arabs with despair.

The Behemoth Army had not fallen, nor had the giant sandworms, and the giant birds were still holding out, but the vanguard on the ground was on the verge of crumbling.

A few moments ago, they had still been an unstoppable flood seething with killing intent, but now, they were silent, and all they could see was mountains of corpses, abandoned weapons, and shattered armor, a fog of blood permeating the air.

“Retreat! Retreeeat!”

Upon seeing this hellish landscape, Apolis finally grew afraid. As Khatabah’s valiant vanguard general, Apolis had never retreated in front of anything, but in the face of these terrifying losses, Apolis felt a chill.

While this empire of the eastern world did not possess Arabia’s Behemoths or its enormous army of powerful cavalry, it could lay claim to its own formidable reapers of death.

If they did not fall back now, these lethal weapons would wipe out his army before they had any hope of breaking the Tang defense line. At this moment, Apolis finally understood the Great Tang’s strategic objective.

He had truly underestimated these eastern infidel armies too much. He should have never let them break through his flanks and surround them. If his army were not surrounded by the Tang army and unable to retreat, he would not have been pushed into such a grim situation and suffered such heavy losses.

“All generals, hear me! Follow me and focus on exterminating those two Tang commanders!”

Clang! Apolis raised his scimitar as he cried out, pointing his weapon at Zhangchou Jianqiong and An Sishun.

Apolis’s eyes were razor-sharp. He could not break through the Tang ballistae and the defense line. Such an action was little different from suicide. But even if he retreated, he could not go back empty-handed. He had to make this empire of the east pay a price.