"Damn it, why haven't the reinforcements from the Sword Sect arrived yet?" Guo Ming cursed internally.
Unaware that the Sword Sect had already been annihilated by the Dragoon Army, Guo Ming still believed the sect's forces were en route to support him. If he knew that it was the very Dragoon Army before him that had destroyed the Sword Sect, the realization would likely have killed him on the spot.
Watching his Imperial Guards fall like wheat before a scythe, butchered by Yuan Zuozong and the Dragoon Army, Guo Ming finally lost his composure. He shouted at the soldiers stationed on the city wall, "Quick! Prepare the formation and ready the archers!"
"But... General, our men are still down there..." The adjutant beside him hesitated. The enemy was already entangled in close combat with their troops. If they fired arrows now, they would surely hit their own.
"I'm not asking you to think! Just do it!" Guo Ming's eyes blazed with fury, his voice a near roar. Seeing the wild, animalistic rage in his general's eyes, the adjutant snapped out of his hesitation. In the few seconds he had delayed, thousands more Imperial Guards had perished.
Gritting his teeth, the adjutant commanded, "Target below the city! Fire the arrows!"
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! A storm of arrows rained down from the city walls.
"Huh? Arrow rain?" Yuan Zuozong, leading the charge, noticed the incoming barrage and smirked. The Dragoon Army, clad in full-body enchanted black iron armor, was unfazed. These arrows wouldn't even scratch their armor, and with the siege crossbows unable to target them effectively from the city walls, they had nothing to fear.
But while the Dragoons ignored the rain of arrows, the same could not be said for the Imperial Guards. The dragon-hunting crossbows of the Great Zhou Dynasty, powerful as they were, tore through the armor of the Imperial Guards as if it were paper. The moment the arrows fell, the Dragoon Army remained unscathed, but the Imperial Guards suffered heavy casualties.
"Ahhh! Why? We're on the same side! Why are they shooting at us?"
"Is our general blind? Can't he tell friend from foe?"
Caught between the merciless Dragoons and the betrayal from their own side, the Imperial Guards cursed in despair. Many began to realize the grim reality.
"Damn it! Can't you see? We've been abandoned!"
"If they're leaving us to die, why should we keep fighting? Let's surrender!"
"Don't kill me! I surrender!"
With betrayal from above and death all around, many Imperial Guards dropped their weapons and knelt, pleading for mercy. However, the Dragoons showed no mercy.
"Why are you still killing us? We've surrendered! Do you have no humanity?" they cried out, but the Dragoons answered only with cold, indifferent eyes and sharp blades. The orders were clear—no mercy for those who had taken up arms against them.
Meanwhile, Orion, leading the Dragoons, seethed with anger. He watched as the opposing forces killed their own men. "These bastards! They're killing their own! Capture that enemy commander alive! I want to see if his brain is made of pig slop!"
His anger was palpable, his frustration mounting as the Imperial Guards were cut down not by his hand but by their own.
Guo Ming, too, was growing desperate. He realized too late that the arrows and crossbows were ineffective against the Dragoons, while his own troops were being decimated.
"What in the world is their armor made of? Even the dragon-hunting crossbows can't pierce it!" Guo Ming muttered, his face pale and his hands trembling. With ranged attacks proving useless and close combat a bloodbath, he knew the battle was lost.
"This... it's over. Completely over," Guo Ming whispered, his voice hollow. He had hoped to hold out for a day or two, but now he realized he had been deluding himself. He didn't even have the courage to face Yuan Zuozong, the embodiment of death on the battlefield.
The Dragoons swiftly annihilated the hundreds of thousands of Imperial Guards under the city wall in the time it took for a single stick of incense to burn. Yuan Zuozong, bored by the ease of the slaughter, knew the outcome had never been in doubt. The massacre was swift and brutal, leaving only a sea of blood and shattered bodies in its wake.
On the city walls, those defenders who had not yet been touched by the carnage below could no longer bear the pressure. "These cavalrymen are demons! We can't beat them!"
"I want to go home!"
"Get out of my way! I don't want to die here!"
Even the most hardened veterans were fleeing, abandoning their posts in terror. Some jumped from the walls in desperation, shattering bones upon landing, but anything was better than facing the wrath of the Dragoons.
Yuan Zuozong almost laughed at the sight. "Dragoon Army, charge!" he commanded, watching as his forces stormed the walls, ready for another round of slaughter.
What followed was another massacre, swift and merciless.