Chapter 91: The Bloody Battle at the Bastion
The earth trembled continuously, as if ten thousand heavy hammers were repeatedly pounding the surface. The pitch-black flood of scaled beasts had already surged to within a thousand meters of Panshi City's outer defense line. The air was thick with a pungent, fishy stench, mixed with the piercing sounds of carapaces scraping against each other and bones grinding together. Layer upon layer of roars converged into a massive wave, crashing fiercely against the concrete bastion that stood dozens of meters high.
On the city wall, all the defending troops held their breath in tense silence.
"Artillery positions, fire at will!"
At the frontline commander's order.
Rumble! Rumble! Rumble!
The heavy energy cannons mounted at the base of the city wall roared first. Streaks of blazing white energy bullets tore through the gray, hazy sky and slammed into the densest areas of the beast tide. Violent explosions sent shattered rocks and dark green beast blood flying, with mangled limbs of scaled beasts scattering in all directions. Yet, the endless waves of beasts behind them trampled over their companions' corpses without a moment's hesitation, still charging forward frantically. There were simply too many low-tier scaled beasts; the artillery fire could only tear open brief gaps, which were instantly filled by the newly surging bodies.
"Sea of Consciousness squads, activate the collective barrier!"
Jiang Tao let out a low shout. Over twenty Sea of Consciousness cultivators beside him focused their minds simultaneously. Dozens of psychic forces intertwined, raising a massive, invisible psychic light curtain in front of the city wall. In the next second, the large-scale psychic impact from the Ancient Progenitor underground arrived as expected.
An invisible psychic tidal wave crashed down. Several new recruits standing at the edge of the city wall trembled violently, their faces instantly turning deathly pale. Some collapsed to the ground, clutching their heads, suffering severe trauma to their Seas of Consciousness, blood overflowing from their mouths and noses.
Lin Yan's psychic web extended outward. Instead of trying to forcefully withstand this large-scale impact, he transformed his psychic power into countless fine threads, wrapping them around the psychic barriers of his nearby comrades to share the burden. His ancient martial arts foundation in mental cultivation gave him a level of psychic control far superior to those of the same tier. He could precisely detect the weak points of the barrier and promptly mend the cracks.
"Left side! The barrier is about to collapse!" a squad member roared.
Lin Yan's mind shifted, and a massive amount of psychic threads immediately tilted toward the left to reinforce it. The teetering psychic barrier stabilized once again, allowing several members on the verge of Sea of Consciousness collapse to catch their breath.
"Close-quarters units, get ready! The scaled beasts are reaching the wall!"
Visible to the naked eye, the first batch of heavily armored, burly scaled beasts had already reached the base of the bastion. Their thick, pitch-black carapaces were covered in protruding spikes. With a powerful thrust of their hind legs, their massive bodies leaped into the air. Their sharp claw tips scraped against the concrete walls, leaving deep scratches.
Da-da-da!
The automatic machine gun positions on the city wall opened fire with full force. Bullets rained down on the scaled beasts' armor, but most of the warheads were deflected by the hard shells. Only a few that hit weak points like eye sockets and joint gaps could severely wound the enemy.
Taking advantage of the momentum, a heavily armored scaled beast climbed onto the edge of the city wall. Its foul-smelling maw opened wide as it pounced directly at the nearest soldier. The soldier had no time to dodge and hastily raised his alloy short knife to block. The immense force sent him tumbling backward.
Old Chen strode forward, his long knife hacking down. The blade wedged precisely into the gap of the scaled beast's neck armor. Channeling his strength, he twisted fiercely. Dark green blood spurted out, and the heavily armored beast crashed heavily back down into the beast tide below the wall.
But more scaled beasts kept climbing up incessantly, like a swarm of black ants. Shouts of battle, the clash of metal, beast roars, and the agonizing screams of the wounded intertwined across various sections of the city wall. Every stretch of the wall had turned into a brutal melee battlefield.
Wielding a short blade, Lin Yan moved fluidly through the weak points of the city wall's defense. Balancing his psychic support with close-quarters combat, he immediately intercepted whenever a scaled beast managed to flip over the wall. His moves were concise and lethal, consisting entirely of killing techniques honed from fighting wild beasts deep in the mountains. He didn't pursue flashy moves; every single strike was aimed directly at the scaled beasts' weak points.
A slightly smaller but incredibly fast agile scaled beast bypassed the frontal defenders and launched a surprise attack from the side against a female squad member who was maintaining the psychic barrier. Completely focused on her mental defense, she had no spare attention to deal with physical attacks.
Lin Yan shifted his footing, his figure flashing sideways. With a reverse grip, he thrust his short blade directly into the scaled beast's eye socket. The monster convulsed violently, and he kicked its corpse off the high wall with a swift leg sweep.
"Thank you!" the female squad member panted heavily, not daring to lose focus as she continued to stabilize the psychic barrier.
The crisis was far from limited to the physical attacks of the scaled beasts. From the distant underground, the Ancient Progenitor continuously released psychic pressure, each wave stronger than the last. It could sense the exact positions of all the cultivators' Seas of Consciousness on the city wall, launching targeted strikes at specific points.
"South sector defense line, Sea of Consciousness monitoring alert! High-tier scaled beasts are approaching!"
The urgent shout of a monitoring officer came through the communicator.
Lin Yan raised his eyes and looked toward the south. Behind the beast tide, a massive creature far larger than ordinary heavily armored scaled beasts walked forward slowly. Its carapace gleamed with a dark purple luster, and several curved long horns grew from its head. A chilling, formidable psychic fluctuation emanated from its body. It was a fourth-tier scaled beast, the vanguard先锋 (vanguard/pioneer) under the Ancient Progenitor's command.
With every step the fourth-tier scaled beast took, the earth sank slightly. Low-tier scaled beasts along its path actively parted to both sides, clearing a path for it. It raised its head and let out a long, piercing roar, accompanied by an extremely powerful psychic shockwave.
Several cultivators maintaining the barrier on the south side of the city wall instantly clutched their heads and screamed in agony, and a massive gap appeared in their collective psychic barrier.
"Damn it!" Jiang Tao's pupils contracted sharply. "That thing's psychic impact can directly tear our combined barrier apart!"
Staring at the gap in the city wall, the fourth-tier scaled beast exerted force with its four limbs, its massive body charging fiercely toward the high wall.
Lin Yan's gaze darkened. While continuing to maintain a wide range of psychic threads to support his teammates, he adjusted his breathing, letting the inner qi of his ancient martial arts flow through his entire body.
This battle was not a simple squad ambush. The entire defense line of Panshi City was enduring a life-or-death test. The beast tide was endless, high-tier scaled beasts kept pressing forward, and distress signals from the other five bastions continued to echo in the communication channels.
The twenty-five-year war of attrition had now reached its most brutal day.
Lin Yan gripped his short blade tightly and stepped forward half a pace, his gaze fixed死死 (unblinkingly) on the approaching fourth-tier scaled beast.
"Everyone, hold the barrier! That giant beast is ours to handle."
On the city wall, all the defending troops held their breath in tense silence.
"Artillery positions, fire at will!"
At the frontline commander's order.
Rumble! Rumble! Rumble!
The heavy energy cannons mounted at the base of the city wall roared first. Streaks of blazing white energy bullets tore through the gray, hazy sky and slammed into the densest areas of the beast tide. Violent explosions sent shattered rocks and dark green beast blood flying, with mangled limbs of scaled beasts scattering in all directions. Yet, the endless waves of beasts behind them trampled over their companions' corpses without a moment's hesitation, still charging forward frantically. There were simply too many low-tier scaled beasts; the artillery fire could only tear open brief gaps, which were instantly filled by the newly surging bodies.
"Sea of Consciousness squads, activate the collective barrier!"
Jiang Tao let out a low shout. Over twenty Sea of Consciousness cultivators beside him focused their minds simultaneously. Dozens of psychic forces intertwined, raising a massive, invisible psychic light curtain in front of the city wall. In the next second, the large-scale psychic impact from the Ancient Progenitor underground arrived as expected.
An invisible psychic tidal wave crashed down. Several new recruits standing at the edge of the city wall trembled violently, their faces instantly turning deathly pale. Some collapsed to the ground, clutching their heads, suffering severe trauma to their Seas of Consciousness, blood overflowing from their mouths and noses.
Lin Yan's psychic web extended outward. Instead of trying to forcefully withstand this large-scale impact, he transformed his psychic power into countless fine threads, wrapping them around the psychic barriers of his nearby comrades to share the burden. His ancient martial arts foundation in mental cultivation gave him a level of psychic control far superior to those of the same tier. He could precisely detect the weak points of the barrier and promptly mend the cracks.
"Left side! The barrier is about to collapse!" a squad member roared.
Lin Yan's mind shifted, and a massive amount of psychic threads immediately tilted toward the left to reinforce it. The teetering psychic barrier stabilized once again, allowing several members on the verge of Sea of Consciousness collapse to catch their breath.
"Close-quarters units, get ready! The scaled beasts are reaching the wall!"
Visible to the naked eye, the first batch of heavily armored, burly scaled beasts had already reached the base of the bastion. Their thick, pitch-black carapaces were covered in protruding spikes. With a powerful thrust of their hind legs, their massive bodies leaped into the air. Their sharp claw tips scraped against the concrete walls, leaving deep scratches.
Da-da-da!
The automatic machine gun positions on the city wall opened fire with full force. Bullets rained down on the scaled beasts' armor, but most of the warheads were deflected by the hard shells. Only a few that hit weak points like eye sockets and joint gaps could severely wound the enemy.
Taking advantage of the momentum, a heavily armored scaled beast climbed onto the edge of the city wall. Its foul-smelling maw opened wide as it pounced directly at the nearest soldier. The soldier had no time to dodge and hastily raised his alloy short knife to block. The immense force sent him tumbling backward.
Old Chen strode forward, his long knife hacking down. The blade wedged precisely into the gap of the scaled beast's neck armor. Channeling his strength, he twisted fiercely. Dark green blood spurted out, and the heavily armored beast crashed heavily back down into the beast tide below the wall.
But more scaled beasts kept climbing up incessantly, like a swarm of black ants. Shouts of battle, the clash of metal, beast roars, and the agonizing screams of the wounded intertwined across various sections of the city wall. Every stretch of the wall had turned into a brutal melee battlefield.
Wielding a short blade, Lin Yan moved fluidly through the weak points of the city wall's defense. Balancing his psychic support with close-quarters combat, he immediately intercepted whenever a scaled beast managed to flip over the wall. His moves were concise and lethal, consisting entirely of killing techniques honed from fighting wild beasts deep in the mountains. He didn't pursue flashy moves; every single strike was aimed directly at the scaled beasts' weak points.
A slightly smaller but incredibly fast agile scaled beast bypassed the frontal defenders and launched a surprise attack from the side against a female squad member who was maintaining the psychic barrier. Completely focused on her mental defense, she had no spare attention to deal with physical attacks.
Lin Yan shifted his footing, his figure flashing sideways. With a reverse grip, he thrust his short blade directly into the scaled beast's eye socket. The monster convulsed violently, and he kicked its corpse off the high wall with a swift leg sweep.
"Thank you!" the female squad member panted heavily, not daring to lose focus as she continued to stabilize the psychic barrier.
The crisis was far from limited to the physical attacks of the scaled beasts. From the distant underground, the Ancient Progenitor continuously released psychic pressure, each wave stronger than the last. It could sense the exact positions of all the cultivators' Seas of Consciousness on the city wall, launching targeted strikes at specific points.
"South sector defense line, Sea of Consciousness monitoring alert! High-tier scaled beasts are approaching!"
The urgent shout of a monitoring officer came through the communicator.
Lin Yan raised his eyes and looked toward the south. Behind the beast tide, a massive creature far larger than ordinary heavily armored scaled beasts walked forward slowly. Its carapace gleamed with a dark purple luster, and several curved long horns grew from its head. A chilling, formidable psychic fluctuation emanated from its body. It was a fourth-tier scaled beast, the vanguard先锋 (vanguard/pioneer) under the Ancient Progenitor's command.
With every step the fourth-tier scaled beast took, the earth sank slightly. Low-tier scaled beasts along its path actively parted to both sides, clearing a path for it. It raised its head and let out a long, piercing roar, accompanied by an extremely powerful psychic shockwave.
Several cultivators maintaining the barrier on the south side of the city wall instantly clutched their heads and screamed in agony, and a massive gap appeared in their collective psychic barrier.
"Damn it!" Jiang Tao's pupils contracted sharply. "That thing's psychic impact can directly tear our combined barrier apart!"
Staring at the gap in the city wall, the fourth-tier scaled beast exerted force with its four limbs, its massive body charging fiercely toward the high wall.
Lin Yan's gaze darkened. While continuing to maintain a wide range of psychic threads to support his teammates, he adjusted his breathing, letting the inner qi of his ancient martial arts flow through his entire body.
This battle was not a simple squad ambush. The entire defense line of Panshi City was enduring a life-or-death test. The beast tide was endless, high-tier scaled beasts kept pressing forward, and distress signals from the other five bastions continued to echo in the communication channels.
The twenty-five-year war of attrition had now reached its most brutal day.
Lin Yan gripped his short blade tightly and stepped forward half a pace, his gaze fixed死死 (unblinkingly) on the approaching fourth-tier scaled beast.
"Everyone, hold the barrier! That giant beast is ours to handle."
