Twenty horses crossed the city bridge and entered Maka City. When the last horse ran across the city bridge, the bridge slowly rose, and the soldiers at the city gate quickly rode their horses into the city and closed the heavy iron gate.
The city gate soldiers were already in position, aiming their arrows at the gorillas and the bandits outside the city wall.
After rushing into the city gate, Dampa dismounted and quickly rushed up the stone steps to the city gate platform. When he reached the top of the stone stairwell, he saw Baqar and other gate soldiers standing not far away. He quickly rushed to Baqar.
"Father," Dampa yelled. "Father, the enemy is approaching with a large group of Malik's men and several gorillas."
Baqar yelled, "Everyone, get in position!" He walked up to Dampa, who also rushed towards him.
"Father," Dampa lowered his voice to prevent the gate soldiers from hearing. "We don't have enough people to defend this side of the city gate."
Baqar looked at the approaching enemy and said, "I believe Malik had this in mind when planning this attack." He sighed. "How many soldiers do we have?"
Dampa looked at Baqar with a worried look on his face. "Less than two hundreds. We are outnumbered," Dampa said. "Father, what should we do?"
Baqar knew they were outnumbered, but he had no idea they were vastly outnumbered. Normally, this side of Maka City is always lightly guarded due to terrain reasons. Moreover, there is the first village on this side of the city, which serves as the first layer of protection and lookout, so most of the soldiers and palace guards are on the other side of Mount Zin.
"We must do everything we can to keep the enemy out." He turned around and found the city gate captain standing not far from him. "Captain." Baqar turned to the right. "Start the evacuation process now, call in all the trained soldiers to defend the city. Have some soldiers lead the people to the other side of Mount Zin."
"Yes, my lord," the captain responded, rushing down the stone stairwell.
Baqar walked to the edge of the city wall and looked at the rows of gorillas. He turned to Dampa and said, "Even if we defeat those gorillas, Malik's men will attack." He sighed. "If we want to survive this battle, we must defend with all our strength. We need the archers to weaken the enemy's attack by thirty percent. How is the arrow situation?"
"There are a lot of arrows, and if we work out a good strategy, I believe we can cut Malik's attacks by forty percent before they reach the city walls," Dampa said.
"Perfect," Baqar said. "Before they reach the city wall, cut their attack in half. Only in this way can we save half of our manpower." Looking at the gorillas and enemies lined up on the top of the mountain, he sighed. "Listen, men!" Baqar's voice sounded. "The enemy will attack us within an hour. There are one to two hundred archers. Make sure every arrow you shoot hits the target. The first-level archers stand behind the second-level archers. We must cut their men and animal combined powers by half before they reach the moat." He turned around and looked at the people standing behind him. "Prepare yourself to fight until dawn!"
Standing behind the gorillas, Meng stared at Mount Zin in front of him. His heart beat faster as he finally realized that freeing his master was only an arm's length away. He knew that releasing the Zahog phoenix was something that had to be done, and he knew that many innocent lives would be lost, but at this time, he was willing to use anything in exchange for his master's freedom. Looking at the white smoke rising from the top of Mount Zin, he suddenly felt excited, knowing that his master would soon be free. This thought made his heart tremble with happiness, and he break out in a cold sweat.
"Your master is right behind you," Meng shouted. "Now, it's time to take back what's yours." He smiled at the bandits and the gorillas. "Go and make your master proud."
The gorillas roared loudly and rushed down the hillside towards the south gate of Maka City, with the bandits following closely behind.
Standing on the city gate platform, the platform on which Baqar and others were standing began to shake, causing Baqar and others to look towards the top of the hill.
Seeing the charging enemies, Baqar shouted, "Men! Get in position!"
The archers standing on the city wall took their positions, hung arrows on their bows, and aimed at the running bandits and gorillas.
The archers aimed their bows at the approaching enemies. The bowstring is drawn back, ready to release the fingers holding the nock, as soon as the order is given.
Watching the bandits and gorillas closing in on their target, Dampa yelled, "Fire!"
The first group of archers aimed their bows at the sky rather than directly at the incoming enemies. They released their arrows and then quickly moved back as a second group of archers took their place. Now the second group of archers aimed their arrows at the incoming enemies and began shooting.
"Make every arrow count!" Dama shouted.
The second wave of arrows first hit the gorillas on the front line, and a moment later the first wave of arrows rained down on the bandits and the gorillas. Seeing people and gorillas dying left and right, the bandits slowly began to slow down, allowing the gorillas to charge forward.
"Since it's their battle, let them clear the way for us!"
Many of the bandits started shouting to other bandits to let the gorillas rush ahead while keeping their distance.
Seeing another wave of arrows flying towards the charging gorillas, Meng raised two fingers, quickly drew a talisman in the air, pushed the drawn talisman forward to block the incoming arrows. Once in the air, the talisman quickly shattered, generating an energy shock wave that blasted the arrows back onto the city wall. The team of injured and uninjured gorillas continued their charge towards the south gate of Maka City.
"Incoming," Dampa shouted.
The archers and soldiers on the city wall grabbed their shields and raised their shields high to block the incoming arrows.
Meng knew that with his limited abilities, he could cause great harm to the human soldiers on the city gate, but the main reason why he came here was not to cause damage to the city itself, but to clear his way to Mount Zin. Seeing that he had the upper hand, he suddenly raised two fingers again and was about to draw another talisman when he felt a sharp object pressing against him behind his back.
"I've advised you to go to Green Mountain and live a peaceful life with Lady Lai." Bong's angry voice sounded from behind Meng. "Put your finger down and stop what you're doing before I thrust my spear into you."
Meng lowered down his hand. "Your Highness," Meng said with a smile, and slowly turned around to face Bong. Meng's eyes widened with happiness when he saw Yul and Abrafo also with Bong.
"You little liar," Bong said through gritted teeth. "Why do you still have such a smile on your face?"
Yul looked at Meng and asked, "Did you and Xun's gorillas murder the villagers?
Meng smiled and said, "I wouldn't call that murder. I have kindly asked them to let us pass through, but when we told him we were going to Maka City the old chief of the village refused to let us pass. Now attacking Maka City is for the same reason. I kindly asked Baqar's son to let us pass through the city, but he refused. They were the first to draw their swords, so you can't blame us for drawing our swords."
Bong pressed his spear right at the chest of Meng. "If they don't let you through, must you kill them?"
"I have to prove my point. I always negotiate peacefully, and I will not use violence if it is not necessary," Meng said with a smile.
Abrafo scoffed. "You sound so innocent right now," Abrafo mocked. "Everything that happened was someone else's fault, not yours."
Meng smiled and said, "You are absolutely right. This bloodshed is not my fault. If they let us pass, there will be no loss of life. To be honest, I personally don't like killing people, especially innocent people. I hate the smell of blood and the painful cries of the dying."
Abrafo grinned, "You psycho."
"How much of a saint are you." Bong mocked. "Now, call back your gorilla troops."
Meng chuckled softly and said, "I can't call them back even if I want to."
"Why?" Yul asked staring at Meng.
Meng said with a smiled, "The only person they listen to is their leader. As you three have seen, I am not their leader."
Back on top of the mountain, in a secluded hiding place, Fufu angrily pacing back and forth between eight women, three men and three Tanzanies. "I don't understand why they didn't let me go with them," Fufu said impatiently.
U-ri said, "Lady Fufu, it's a good thing they don't let you go with them. Now, the anger in your heart prevents you from making correct judgments. Moreover, they have dealt with Meng before, and they know Meng better than you. Keeping you with us was a broad decision."
Bo said, "Captain, Sir U-ri is right. Making decisions in a hurry is not a good thing, and if Lord Baqar is here, he would say the same thing."
Fufu closed her eyes and breathed slowly through her nostrils, trying to calm down the anger in her heart.
"I know my friend will not betray you," Hajime said. "You must trust our friends as much as we do. I know my friends will do whatever they can to limit the loss of life."
Ya said, "Why do you say that?"
Hajime said, "I'm not going to lie. We know that if Xun's gorilla troops and Malik's men are here, there will be deaths. We can't stop the killing, but we will try to help limit the number of deaths as little as possible."
Fufu opened her eyes and said, "Ya, Sir Hajime is right, there will be deaths in every battle. Even when I was rescuing prisoners, I lost a lot of my good men."
U-ri looked at Fufu and found that her clothes were soaked with blood, so he walked up to Fufu and said, "Let me check your wounds."
U-ri was about to reach out to check Fufu's wound when Fufu suddenly pushed U-ri to the ground. She raised her right arm and blocked the incoming kick. The force of this kick made Fufu stagger back a few steps towards the direction of the eight women.
Xun swung the spear directly towards U-ri's head.