Ji Xia ascended the battlements behind General Ji Qianqing, his boots scraping against the weather-worn stone steps of Taicang's western wall. When he finally raised his gaze beyond the parapets, the sight that greeted him was both magnificent and terrifying.
Six thousand Hyena-Dog warriors stood arrayed across the barren plains in perfect, grotesque formation:
One thousand Ravenous Hounds, their hulking, dog-headed frames towering over men, clad in patchwork armor of stitched beast hides. Saliva dripped from their exposed fangs as they wheezed through flared nostrils, their bloodshot yellow eyes scanning the walls with predatory hunger. Each gripped spiked iron clubs notched with the bones of past victims.
Five thousand Scavengers—smaller but no less fearsome—circled behind them like vultures, their crude longswords glinting under the sickly sun.
But it was the monstrosity chained at the rear that made Ji Xia's throat constrict:
A three-zhang-tall (10-meter) Gold-Devouring Ape, its muscular arms thicker than temple pillars, strained against black iron shackles manned by a hundred Hyena-Dog handlers. The beast's dagger-like claws tore furrows in the earth as it roared, its spittle spraying like acid where it struck stone.
"Those... are the Hyena-Dog armies?" Ji Xia muttered, his fingers tightening around the battlement's edge.
Ji Qianqing's voice was grim. "The Ravenous Hounds are all Sixth Heaven experts. Each could slaughter a hundred of our men alone. And that ape—" She nodded toward the chained behemoth. "—was captured from Zhouqing. It can pulverize our iron gates bare-handed."
A sudden war horn's shriek split the air.
As one, the Hyena-Dog forces dropped onto all fours, their spines contorting with unnatural flexibility. A chorus of guttural howls erupted as they charged, their clawed feet kicking up dust clouds.
From the ramparts, Commander Zuo Kun bellowed: "Archers—fire at will! Prepare incendiary boulders!"
Two thousand Taicang bowmen drew their spirit-imbued longbows—crafted from the flexible wood of the Singing Trees of Cangqing Mountain. The arrows' blue-glowing tips hummed as they loosed, tearing through the air with supersonic cracks.
Ji Xia watched, awestruck, as one stray arrow sank into a roadside boulder—splitting it clean in half.
Yet the Ravenous Hounds moved like phantoms:
The two black-furred Hound Generals leaped ten zhang (30 meters) vertically, their clubs swatting arrows aside with bursts of azure energy.
Lesser Hounds dodged in zig-zag patterns, their preternatural reflexes allowing some to snatch arrows mid-flight.
"This... this isn't medieval warfare," Ji Xia whispered. "This is monsters versus mortals."
One Hound General plunged a silver needle into the Gold-Devouring Ape's forehead. The beast convulsed, its eyes flooding crimson—then went perfectly still.
A heartbeat later, it caught a flaming boulder hurled from Taicang's catapults—and hurled it back with double the force.
Ji Qianqing's sword, Qing Jun, flashed from its scabbard. A five-zhang-wide crescent of blue spirit energy sliced the projectile apart—but the fragments still obliterated three dozen soldiers in explosions of gore.
Abandoned as Ji Qianqing engaged the ape, Ji Xia found himself cornered by a frothing Hound. Its rusty scimitar arced toward his neck—
Vengeance materialized in a crimson streak, its serrated edge shearing through the Hound's blade before piercing its heart. The creature died with a look of genuine surprise.
Nearby, a brawny Taicang soldier—no older than twenty—collapsed beside Ji Xia, his greatsword still embedded in a Hound's skull. Blood seeped from his shattered ribs.
"Why fight when you're outmatched?" Ji Xia hissed, dragging him behind a rubble pile.
The youth coughed up a tooth and grinned. "Better to die standing... than live kneeling... as their livestock."