The Magus Era

”Haha, haha, hah!” Carrying a heavy spear and wrapped in a raging fire, Ji Xia was ready to start a massacre. But, on seeing the enemies stand on the ladders about a hundred meters away from the city wall without knowing what to do, Ji Xia couldn’t help but laugh out loud. He raised his left hand, clenched his fingers, and gathered the fire power in his palm. Within a blink of an eye, a bowl-sized crimson fire thunder bomb grew rumblingly in his palm.

Flicking his fingers, Ji Xia released the fire thunder bomb.

Boom!

Surrounded by the nine tiny dragons, the bomb swiftly bumped against a ladder and vented a strong, raging fire. Thin thunder bolts twisting in the fire struck on the tens of warriors on the ladder and made them fall to the ground while howling.

Yi Di and his warriors had been laughing wildly as well. They pulled open their bows and released a wave of arrows towards the enemies on top of the ladders.

A hundred meters was such a short distance. Not to mention the Eastern Wasteland archers under Yi Di’s command, even Yu Mu, who was usually the slowest one, had now been grinningly holding a longbow and shooting arrows accurately towards the enemies on the ladder.

The arrows dove down from the sky, sending the warriors on the ladders down to the ground like raindrops that rippled the water in the city moat. Enormous octopus tentacles wriggled out of the water and dragged all the fallen warriors down to the bottom.

Finally, some enemies couldn’t stand the anger and fear. They gripped their shields and carried their long blades, bursting into raging shouts as they leaped up from the top of the ladders against the rain of arrows with all their strength, and attempting to climb up to the city wall.

At the moment, the ladders were still about a hundred meters away from the city wall, and meters lower than the top of the wall. Normally, any relatively stronger human warrior could easily cover this distance. But, suppressed by the heaven and earth great formation, not even Divine Magi could hop onto the city wall.

Large groups of warriors leaped up from the ladders. While roaring, they reached forward for tens of meters. But, they all began falling from about thirty meters away to the city wall.

In the city moat, enormous octopus tentacles had been waving happily, coiling around those warriors even before they fell into the river.

Far behind the area, Gong Sun Lang stared at those ladders, which were shorter than they were supposed to be for an unknown reason, and could not say a word within a long while.

This kind of ladder was designed especially for the Chi Ban Mountain line of defense, to allow human warriors to launch a counteroffensive on the campsites and forts on mountaintops which belonged to the humankind but were occupied by the non-humankind, under the effects of the space sealing magic cast by non-humankind enchanters.

Chi Ban Mountain was cliffy, and any cliff in that area could be thousands of meters tall. Therefore, these ladders should at least be thousands of meters long. Gong Sun Lang’s warriors should have been able to easily cross the river and reach the top of the city wall with them.

”How can these be so short? These…these ladders are no more than a hundred meters long!” Gong Sun Lang screamed shrilly, ”So much shorter? Why? How could this happen? How should I attack the city now? What should I do?”

The Gong Sun Family manager slowly put his mouth near Gong Sun Lang’s ear and murmured, ”Minister Lang, these ladders are also especially ’processed’ by Minister Xiong…Eh, these ladders were made from a hundred types of essence metal, through over ten-thousand secret processes. These are especially strong and sturdy, almost magic-proof, and very costly!”

Licking his lips, this manager chuckled, ”Minister Xiong took away a big half of each ladder…We should save costs, shouldn’t we? Minister Xiong prepared to sell all these ladders to large families and clans…When they would purchase the ladders and find out that the ladders were actually shorter than they were supposed to be, Minister Xiong would be able to charge them another sum of money!”

”My dear brother…My dear brother!” Gong Sun Lang sighed to the sky. Looking at the thousands of ladders and the warriors who had been falling from the ladders like raindrops, he suddenly grabbed the neck of this manager and yelled, ”Go tell my brother, I want thirty percent of the profit! At least thirty percent!”

”Ten percent tops!” The manager looked at Gong Sun Lang seriously, ”Minister Lang, you are not the only brother of Minister Xiong, and the profit should be split evenly, right? Otherwise, how can the business go on? And, as Minister Xiong said, Emperor Xun is everyone’s backer now. So, the largest profit should belong to him.”

”Damn it! Does that make any difference than giving it to himself?” Gong Sun Lang looked at the minister sullenly and responded, ”Alright, we’ll talk about it later. Tell me, what should we do now to get on that city wall?”

The minister glanced at all the warriors who had been thrown down to the water by the arrows from the city wall. Remaining silent for a while, he laughed out loud abruptly and said, ”Isn’t that simple? It’s just a hundred meters, right? Make human ladders! Idiots!”

”Ah!” Gong Sun Lang gave a high-pitched shout. Looking at the disordered array, he laughed as well, ”Ahyaya, you are so smart! I didn’t think that we actually had smart people like you in our Gong Sun Family! Hah, what’s your name? Follow my lead from now on, you will not regret!”

The manager hurriedly gave a large grin and responded, ”Minister Lang, I am your nephew. My name is Gong Sun Liang! You must remember me…Back then, Minister Yang, you were investigated for falsifying accounts, but they failed to discover anything wrong from the few accounting records made by me!”

Gong Sun Lang laughed out loud, patted Gong Sun Liang’s shoulder, and said delightfully, ”You, I remember, ah. Follow my lead, and you will be treated well!”

On the city wall, Ji Xia and his warriors heard the enemies on the ladders burst into thunderous roar and watched them drop the weapons and shields, climbing onto each other’s shoulders and interweaving their limbs. Gradually, the human ladders reached tens of meters tall, then fell forward. Along with a muffled thud, they built a ’human bridge’ between each ladder and the city wall.

Gong Sun Lang’s warriors cheered in deep voices. In ordered lines, they trod on their comrades’ bodies and marched to Yao Mountain City.

”Who are directing these warriors? I need to break his leg and chop off his head!” Looking at the warriors who built the ’human bridges’ with their bodies, Ji Xia’s eye corners twitched intensely as he growled out loud.

He wielded his long spear and released a streak of fire, crushing the three human bridges in front of him and incinerating thousands of human warriors.

”Boys, kill!” Ji Xia raised the long spear and roared like a ferocious beast.

The human bridges were broken one after another, and countless warriors fell into the city moat.