191: Chapter 191 Fire the Cannon

With one command!

The ten "war golem Type II" units slowly raised their steel right arms, which were thicker than water vats, and the six pitch-black, sinister gun barrels that exuded an endless aura of death began to rotate slowly!

"Da-da-da-da-da-da-da—!"

A terrifying metal storm, like the roar of the Grim Reaper, erupted with a boom!

Thousands of armor-piercing shells made of specially crafted refined steel formed torrents of steel capable of tearing through everything, pouring madly at a terrifying speed toward the three War Puppets still charging forward!

"Clang, clang, clang!"

A rapid series of impacts, like rain hitting banana leaves, rang out!

The sturdy shells of those three War Puppets, capable of withstanding sword slashes, were like paper in the face of this unreasonable, terrifying metal storm, easily pierced through on the spot!

Countless precision parts and scalding machine oil gushed out like fountains from their bodies, which had been riddled with holes like sieves!

"Boom!"

Accompanied by three earth-shattering roars, those three War Puppets, in which the Crown Prince Party and Blood Wolf King had placed high hopes, were blasted to pieces on the spot by the terrifying metal storm before they could even get within a hundred paces of the "Steel Great Wall," turning into a pile of scrap metal billowing with black smoke and burning with raging flames!

Dimensional reduction strike!

This was a complete, unreasonable dimensional reduction strike!

Azure Wolf King's face was ashen. He looked at his last hope, now reduced to a pile of scrap metal, and his heart, which had always been cruel and violent, was completely shattered at this moment by the torrent of steel descending from the sky!

With a "thud," his knees went weak, and he fell powerlessly from his tall warhorse.

All luster in his eyes was lost, leaving only endless confusion and disbelief.

He muttered to himself, his voice filled with endless bitterness and despair.

"Lost... We have lost..."

"So... so this is what war truly looks like..."

And this scene was the final straw that broke the camel's back, completely crushing the last shred of resistance in the Heavenly Wolf Iron Cavalry, whose morale had already collapsed and whose formations were in chaos!

"Devils! They are devils!"

"Run! We aren't fighting humans at all! We are fighting a group of demons from Hell!"

Panic, like the most terrible plague, spread wildly among the remnants of the Heavenly Wolf Iron Cavalry!

They no longer had any Battle Intent, dropped their weapons, and fled in all directions toward the vast grasslands like headless flies!

The army collapsed like a falling mountain!

A surprise attack that had been highly anticipated by Blood Wolf King came to an end in such a dramatic and shocking manner.

The 150,000 Heavenly Wolf Iron Cavalry led by Azure Wolf King, after suffering heavy casualties of over 100,000, finally brought the remaining fewer than 50,000 remnants back into the depths of the vast grasslands like stray dogs, severely wounded in their Origin Qi!

This battle also left an indelible, terrifying mark on the proud spine of the grassland tribes!

It made them develop a fear from the depths of their Soul and into their very bones toward the unreasonable, terrifying firearms of the Panshi Army!

From then on, no one on the grasslands dared to head south again!

And the Northern Territory, because of this thorough and decisive victory, completely lifted all threats from the north, and the rear was completely stabilized!

Gao Feng could finally concentrate all his energy on the upcoming final battle with the so-called "Jiangnan Alliance"!

The news of the great victory in the Northern Territory grew wings and spread across mountains and rivers at a terrifying speed, almost like a plague, to the Jiangnan region, which was already surging with undercurrents!

When the battle report, which described in detail how the Heavenly Wolf Iron Cavalry was decimated and slaughtered before the earth-shattering, terrifying firearms of the Panshi Army, was placed before the various feudal lords of the Jiangnan Alliance.

The entire central command tent of the Alliance instantly fell into a deathly silence!

Those faces that were usually full of majesty and calculation were now, without exception, covered in a deathly pallor and bone-deep fear!

"One... one hundred thousand cavalry... in... in one night... vanished into smoke?"

The strongest, and current leader of the Alliance, King of Chu Xie Changhuan, read the words on the battle report with a trembling voice. He felt his hands and feet turn cold, and a chill rushed from the soles of his feet straight to his crown, making him feel as if he had fallen into an ice cellar!

He never dreamed that the Heavenly Wolf Iron Cavalry, which once made the entire Central Plains tremble with fear and was regarded by them as a major threat, would be defeated so miserably and completely in such a crushing manner!

This was no longer war!

This was a massacre!

It was a one-sided, unreasonable, bloody massacre carried out by a higher-dimensional force against a group of primitive people still in the cold weapon era!

And this scene was the final straw that broke the camel's back, completely crushing the already fragile psychological defense line of the so-called "Jiangnan Alliance"!

"It's over... everything is over..."

A feudal lord who looked shifty and had a thin, small stature slumped to the ground, his eyes filled with terror, leaving only deathly despair.

He was the King of Wu, who had always been dissatisfied with the King of Chu and had long been secretly turned by Xu Changqing's "Sky Net."

"Your Highness King of Chu! How... how can we still fight?!" Another feudal lord, also pale-faced, screamed along. He was the King of Yue, who was in cahoots with the King of Wu.

"That traitor Gao Feng was able to slaughter 150,000 of the Tianlang Tribe's cavalry in a single night! Our 800,000-strong army may look imposing, but in the face of his earth-shattering 'Demonic Technique,' I fear it will just take a little more effort for him!"

"Yes! Your Highness King of Chu! We cannot continue to be stubborn! We should immediately surrender to His Highness the Prince of Yan... No! To His Majesty the Emperor of Yan! Otherwise, we will all repeat the same fate as Qingzhou City!"

For a time, the entire command tent was filled with cries and pleas.

The so-called "Jiangnan Alliance," in the face of Gao Feng's unreasonable absolute strength, had completely disintegrated from within before the war even began!

King of Chu Xie Changhuan looked at these "allies" before him who had long been scared out of their wits and were making fools of themselves; his face, which was usually full of majesty, turned livid!

He slammed the table, letting out a roar filled with endless anger and unwillingness!

"Enough! Everyone shut up!"

"A bunch of trash! You haven't even started fighting yet, and you're already scared like this! You have completely disgraced us lords of Jiangnan!"

"Although Gao Feng's firearms are powerful, we are not without the strength to fight!"

"We have the natural barrier of the great river! We have the 'Black Water' fleet! As long as we can hold the Yangtze River defense line, Gao Feng's million-strong army will never be able to step a foot onto my Jiangnan land!"

Although Xie Changhuan's words were full of confidence, his slightly trembling voice had already exposed his inner fear and anxiety.

However, at this moment, the King of Wu and the King of Yue suddenly exchanged glances, and in each other's eyes, they saw a trace of resolute ruthlessness!

They knew they couldn't wait any longer!

If they waited any longer, they would sink into the abyss of no return along with Xie Changhuan's sinking ship!

"Your Highness King of Chu, since you are stubborn, don't blame us for being heartless!"

The King of Wu suddenly let out a sharp shout, pulled out a command arrow he had prepared from his bosom, and slammed it onto the ground!

"Guards! Take this traitor Xie Changhuan down for me!"

With one command!

Hundreds of Wu and Yue personal guards, who had long been lying in ambush outside the command tent, poured in like a tide, surrounding the dumbfounded Xie Changhuan and his few remaining Chu generals!

"You... what are you doing?! Are you rebelling?!" Xie Changhuan roared in disbelief!

He never dreamed that his so-called "allies" would turn against him at this most critical moment!

"Hahaha! Rebellion?" The King of Wu let out a mocking, crazy laugh, "Xie Changhuan! Why don't you take a piss and look at yourself in the reflection! With what you are, do you deserve to be our leader?"

"Today, we will act on behalf of Heaven and use your head as our pledge of allegiance to defect to His Majesty the Emperor of Yan!"

...

And just as the mutiny broke out within the Jiangnan Alliance and it became a complete mess.

Gao Feng finally seized this once-in-a-lifetime, excellent opportunity!

He stood up abruptly from the commander's seat that symbolized supreme power, and in his eyes, as deep as the stars, an unprecedented, brilliant divine light erupted!

He knew the moment for the final battle had arrived!

"Pass on my royal order!"

"All armies! Total attack!"

With one command, the thousands of troops moved like thunder!

The hundreds of thousands of Panshi Army soldiers who had already assembled and were waiting on the north bank of the river, like tigers descending from the mountain, let out deafening, crazy roars and launched the final total attack toward the turbulent, vast river!

However, contrary to everyone's expectations, the Panshi Army did not build any pontoon bridges or use small boats to force a crossing as they had imagined.

Just then, at the mouth of the great river, in the thin mist of the morning light, ten terrifying "monsters" made entirely of cast steel, with huge "wings" on both sides of the hull and billowing smoke rising from their tops, appeared slowly before everyone like ancient beasts awakening from the abyss!

They were the true water trump card of the Panshi Army, which Gongshu Ban had spent countless efforts to barely build under the guidance of Gao Feng's "future knowledge" that transcended this era by nearly a thousand years—

Steam-powered paddle-wheel armored warships!

These warships, each over a hundred zhang long and twenty zhang wide, were magnificent in scale. While they could not compare to the giant towerships of the "Black Water" fleet, the heavy steel armor covering their hulls and the massive paddle wheels on both sides—constantly turning, churning the river water, and providing a ceaseless source of power—imbued them with a sense of sci-fi and violent aesthetics completely out of place in this era!

And on those sturdy decks, dozens of small-caliber "Divine Might" cannons, specially modified for naval warfare, were densely mounted.

"The Great River as a natural barrier? Before my steel fleet, it's nothing more than a bathtub!"

Gao Feng stood at the bow of the most majestic flagship, the "Zhenyuan." He felt the biting river wind blowing against his face and watched the magnificent mountains and rivers slowly receding beneath his feet. His deep eyes were filled with the supreme dominance of one who rules the world!

"Woo—!!!!!"

Accompanied by a series of long, piercing steam whistles filled with endless majesty, the ten steam warships, like ten red-hot blades, charged fiercely toward the "Black Water" fleet, which was still showing off its might on the river, at a terrifying speed far exceeding that of the sailing towerships!

An unprecedented dimensionality-reducing strike, capable of overturning the naval warfare landscape of the entire era, erupted violently across this vast expanse of the river in the most magnificent and shocking way!

"What... what kind of monsters are those?!"

A Chu army soldier responsible for lookout duty on the flagship of the "Black Water" fleet watched those ten steel behemoths charging toward them upstream at an incredible speed. He let out a shrill scream filled with endless fear and disbelief!

His heart, long tempered to be as hard as iron by the winds and waves of the Great River, was completely crushed at this moment by that unreasonable, absolute technological power!

"What are you panicking about?! They're just for show!" A seemingly experienced naval commander, though filled with equal horror in his heart, roared with feigned ferocity.

"Pass on my order! All towerships, turn around immediately! Use our catapults and ballistae to smash those iron lumps into pieces!"

Upon the order!

Those hundreds of giant towerships, resembling maritime fortresses, began to slowly adjust their hulls. The tens of thousands of Chu sailors, under the command of their respective officers, hurriedly operated those heavy catapults and ballistae!

However, their speed was simply too slow!

Before the steam-powered paddle-wheel warships of the Panshi Army, their primitive power, relying on sails and human-powered oars, was like the difference between a toddler learning to walk and a full-grown man moving with the speed of lightning!

Before they could complete their turn, and before they could fire their first round of attacks!

The steel fleet of the Panshi Army had already charged right in front of them!

"Fire!"

Gao Feng's voice was cold, devoid of even a trace of emotion!

With the order given!

The hundreds of small-caliber "Divine Might" cannons, which had already completed loading and aiming, simultaneously let out a deafening roar of death!

"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"

That overwhelming rain of death, like the scythe of the Grim Reaper, covered the already chaotic "Black Water" fleet with terrifying, unstoppable, thunderous precision!

"Boom—!!!!!"

A series of earth-shattering explosions erupted across the vast river surface!

The seemingly indestructible South Sea ironwood hulls, before those terrifying cannonballs capable of piercing steel plates, were as if made of paper, easily torn open on the spot, revealing shocking, massive holes!

Countless Chu sailors, unable to even let out a scream, were blown into fragments of wood and flesh by the whistling cannonballs, along with their ships!

In an instant, the entire "Black Water" fleet plunged into unprecedented chaos and death!

"Counterattack! Quickly, counterattack!" A Chu army general let out a shrill roar filled with endless fear and madness!

After paying the heavy price of having dozens of towerships sunk on the spot, the surviving towerships finally managed to complete their turn, aiming their menacing ballistae and catapults at the steel warships that were weaving back and forth through their fleet like ghosts!

"Fire! Fire with everything you've got!"

"Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!"

Thousands of giant crossbow bolts, capable of piercing city walls, and hundreds of massive boulders weighing a hundred jin, crashed wildly toward the Panshi Army's steel fleet with a shrill whistle that tore through the air!

However, the scene that followed plunged all the surviving Chu naval forces into endless despair!

"Clang! Clang!"

A series of dense impact sounds, like rain hitting banana leaves, rang out!

Those terrifying attacks, capable of piercing heavy armor and city walls, landed on the hulls of the Panshi Army's warships, which were wrapped in heavy steel armor, only to spark a series of dazzling sparks and leave behind shallow white scratches!

It couldn't even be considered tickling them!

"No! This is impossible! This is absolutely impossible!"

On the flagship of the Chu King Xie Changhuan, a Grand Admiral in charge of commanding the battle looked at the terrifying scene before him, which completely exceeded the scope of his cognition. He let out a shrill, inhuman wail, his entire being seemingly drained of all spirit, and he collapsed onto the deck!

He knew they were finished!

This invincible navy of theirs, which had once been the pride of the entire Jiangnan, was nothing more than a flock of lambs waiting to be slaughtered before these steel monsters from the North!

And just at this moment, Gao Feng's cold, emotionless voice of judgment once again resounded across the entire river surface.

"Target, enemy flagship! Three rounds of volley fire, sink it for me!"

With the order given!

The ten steam warships simultaneously turned their cannons, locking those hundreds of pitch-black, deadly barrels with pinpoint precision onto that most majestic flagship, which flew the massive commander's flag bearing the character "Chu"!

"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"

Three rounds, a full three rounds, of saturation bombardment with nearly a thousand cannonballs!

That flagship, which once symbolized the supreme power of the Chu King, could not even put up a decent resistance before being blasted into a massive, burning wreck by that terrifying, world-destroying artillery fire!

The thousands of elite Chu troops on board, including the Grand Admiral who had just been giving orders, did not survive!

With the sinking of the flagship, the "Black Water" fleet, whose morale had already collapsed and whose formation was in chaos, completely lost its last shred of will to resist!

They threw down their weapons and knelt on the decks, offering their most humble surrender to the steel fleet that was as invincible as a god!

A naval battle that the Jiangnan Alliance had pinned high hopes on came to an end in such a dramatic and shocking manner.

The Jiangnan navy was completely annihilated!

...

On the riverbank, the hundreds of thousands of Alliance troops, whose morale had long since shattered, witnessed that terrifying, god-like scene with their own eyes. Their already fragile hearts of Martial Artists were completely crushed at this moment by the steel fleet that had descended from the heavens!

"The navy has been defeated! The entire navy has been wiped out!"

"Run! Those... those Northerners are devils! They know Demonic Technique!"

Panic, like the most terrifying plague, spread wildly throughout the entire Alliance army!

And just at this moment, the armies of Wu and Yue, which had already completed their assembly in secret, suddenly let out a heaven-shaking shout and launched the most lethal backstab against the already chaotic Chu central camp!

Attacked from both front and rear!

The defeat was like a collapsing mountain!

That seemingly indestructible million-strong army, under this double pincer attack from inside and outside, instantly disintegrated and routed!

Under the desperate protection of the few thousand elite guards remaining from his royal tent, Chu King Xie Changhuan, like a stray dog, fought a bloody path out of the mountain of corpses and sea of blood, fleeing in disgrace toward his capital, Shouchun!

However, he ultimately could not escape the inescapable net that had already been laid for him.

Three days later, outside the city of Shouchun.

Xie Changhuan looked at the Panshi Army camp that had surrounded the entire capital, making it airtight. He looked at the city walls, where the flags had already been replaced with the characters "Wu" and "Yue." All the color drained from his face, which had always been full of dignity, in an instant!

He knew he was finished.

His grand dream of unifying Jiangnan and claiming the world had shattered.

He did not choose the meaningless struggle of a trapped beast, nor did he choose the cowardly act of suicide.

To preserve the Bloodline of his Xie clan and to save the people of the entire city from slaughter, he chose the only, and most humiliating, path.

Open the gates, surrender.

...

Several days later, inside the main hall of the Chu Palace.

Gao Feng sat high upon the throne that once belonged to Xie Changhuan. He quietly watched the prisoner kneeling before him, who had long since shed all traces of royal dominance, leaving only endless despondency and loneliness.

"Xie Changhuan, do you know where you went wrong?" Gao Feng's voice was calm, without a ripple of emotion.

Upon hearing this, Xie Changhuan slowly raised his head. His murky eyes looked complexly at the young monarch before him, who was countless years younger than himself but already stood at the pinnacle of power. He said in a hoarse voice:

"Winners are kings, losers are bandits; there is no right or wrong. I only hate that I do not have your heaven-defying means, nor your world-destroying 'Demonic Technique'."

"Demonic Technique?" Gao Feng let out a disdainful chuckle upon hearing this.

"Xie Changhuan, you are wrong, and wrong in a big way."

"The reason I was able to win is not because of any so-called 'Demonic Technique', but because of the 'Dao'."