radicalducati Page 110
Page 110
Deep within the smoke and dust, only Liu Hong's eight-armed, gilded demon god figure remained unmoved, with four dragon-coiled staffs swirling around him like a group of dragons looking around. He trampled the broken spear and shield under his feet, his cold eyes sharp as he looked down at the flying Great Sage that he had cleaved open with his divine power.
The outcome is decided!
Chapter 302: The Seven Killing Stars Fight the Demon King (Bonus Chapter for 3300 Monthly Tickets)
Just as Liu Hong was about to capture the two alive, a deafening roar erupted from Mount Mangdang once again. The Demon King Fan Rui bravely stepped forward, dressed in a dark black Taoist robe with endless Tai Chi and Bagua patterns woven with golden silk threads. At this moment, those dark golden trigrams seemed to come alive, radiating a dazzling golden light!
She made hand seals and chanted incantations, her eyes bursting forth with two terrifying halos of spiritual energy, transforming into two chaotic nebula vortexes that devoured light. Her withered fingers pressed down, and twelve precious swords moved like steel dragons without wind, slowly encircling and swimming around him. The runes on the swords lit up one after another, and with each slight turn of the blade, they silently cut through tiny, inky spatial rifts in the air! A surging field of spiritual energy erupted from his hunched and withered body.
"disease!!!"
Fan Rui roared, his voice like the fury of an ancient bell! The pupils of the suspended chaotic nebula suddenly shrank! The twelve jade flying swords transformed into twelve long rainbows in response to his command, weaving into a net of sword rain that hurtled towards Liu Hong's face!
This is a third-circle psionic telekinetic throw.
The Mindbreaker Zhu Tong is half demon and half warrior, and he is not a control-type psychic, so he can only control nine swords.
Liu Hong didn't put all his strength into his spiritual energy either; his current limit is ten, which is slightly better than Zhu Tong's.
Fan Rui appears to be an expert in psychic manipulation; she was able to control twelve swords simultaneously and kill the enemy at the same time.
Liu Hong remained calm and composed. His eight arms hovered in the air, his golden dragon-scaled armor shimmering with a corona-like luster, and his deep dragon eyes transformed into two burning, molten gold stars! A vast, tangible spiritual force erupted from between his brows, creating ripples of distorted light around him! The four dark gold dragon-coiled staffs, suspended in mid-air, split again, now comprising ten! The dragon patterns coiled around the staffs were activated, transforming into countless roaring, energy dragons!
Each dragon eye locked onto the ten directions, and each staff vibrated and hummed at a high frequency, resonating with a metallic buzzing that tore at the eardrums, causing the space at the tip of the staff to ripple with dense, folded waves like water!
"Clang! Clang! Clang!!!"
Liu Hong manipulated ten dragon-coiled staffs, smashing them fiercely towards the twelve swords controlled by Fan Rui. The ten staffs formed a square formation, with the tips of the staffs exhaling and intertwining with the breath of dragons, instantly condensing into a solid, tangible, crimson-gold glass shield. The shield's surface was covered with flowing, endlessly vibrant dragon patterns! It crashed head-on into the azure lightning sword net that descended from above.
As the sword and staff clashed, a deafening explosion resounded throughout the universe! The light shield and the lightning net tore and collided wildly, scattering waterfalls of golden and green lightning sparks. The shockwave swept across the earth like a heavy hammer, raising clouds of dust!
Fan Rui wielded his sword with unwavering confidence, while Liu Hong mimicked Fan Rui's tactics, manipulating his long staff with pinpoint accuracy. The jade sword and the dark gold dragon staff collided, struck, swept, chopped, entangled, and guided with incredible precision! Each clash of staff and sword was not a physical collision, but a battle of wills between two psionicists! Countless fine, incandescent spatial cracks appeared and disappeared wildly at each point of impact, each crack permeated with terrifying subspace energy before vanishing.
The two fought for twenty or thirty rounds without a clear victor. The ten staffs and twelve swords were locked in a stalemate, transforming into twenty-two afterimages that swirled wildly in a storm! The staff shadows were like a raging horde of dragons tearing and attacking, each strike attempting to crush the spiritual energy of the sword array. The sword light was like a shadowy dragon, gliding and flickering, each cunning thrust aimed directly at the spiritual core of the dragon staff! Azure sword energy, dark gold staff light, and incandescent spatial rifts burst forth, intertwined, and annihilated wildly, forming a constantly expanding, bizarrely colored core of a destructive storm above the two.
The escaping energy turbulence, like a runaway miniature subspace storm, silently shredded the surrounding camps and trees into dust.
Liu Hongrong's golden pupils blazed with light, his incomparably powerful spiritual energy pouring down like molten lava, attempting to crush the spirit of the chaotic demon king Fan Rui with a pure will to destroy. Each mental impact caused the illusory figure to flicker uncertainly.
Fan Rui's expression remained unchanged, but the deep light in her chaotic starry eyes burned even brighter! She forcefully resisted Liu Hong's overwhelming spiritual energy and even launched a counterattack. Her psychic power was not like Liu Hong's sweeping energy crushing and head-on collision, but rather highly skillful and visually appealing. A large amount of spiritual energy transformed into billions of invisible needles, flowing upstream against Liu Hong's domineering spiritual torrent, silently eroding and entangling it, attempting to dismantle the foundation of this power. However, all of this was resisted by the nine-tailed fox-shaped spiritual energy barrier, preventing Fan Rui's spiritual energy impact from affecting Liu Hong in the slightest.
The two fought for fifty rounds, and were still evenly matched.
However, the battle between the soldiers had already been decided. The light infantry of Mangdang Mountain was indeed powerful, but they were somewhat powerless against the main force of Liangshan. Their shields could block arrows, but they could not stop the bullets of matchlock guns. Faced with the volley of muskets from Huyan Zhuo's Fourth Army, the infantry of Mangdang Mountain fell like weeds.
Even at mid-range, the javelins and throwing knives thrown by these light infantrymen could still injure the heavily armored Liangshan infantry.
In close combat, these light infantrymen, who had no armor or formation and only the advantage of speed and frenzy, were completely suppressed by the Liangshan heavy infantry who formed a dense formation!
Seeing that his soldiers were about to be defeated, the mischievous Fan Rui tried to escape, and Liu Hong also gave up his playful mood and stopped fighting with Fan Rui.
He killed Xiang Chong instantly in order to test the power of his Charge Heavenly Strike.
Then, in order to test his multi-armed fighting skills, he used only techniques to fight Lee Gon for a long time.
In order to master the new spiritual power, he used only spiritual power to fight Fan Rui for fifty rounds without a clear winner.
When Liu Hong combined these abilities, the three members of Mangdang Mountain were no match for him. Fan Rui's magic resistance was terrifying, so there was no need to use psionic energy! With a burst of lightning, the Reverse Scale in his palm instantly transformed into a giant cannon over five meters long! The entire cannon was forged from illusory shadow dragon scales and flowing golden lightning, its surface covered with constantly flickering bone-white runes! The inner wall of the muzzle was a rapidly rotating energy storm of crimson and pale white, with a core point compressed to its extreme—a dark singularity—emitting a terrifying gravitational force that caused space to collapse!
With all eight arms working together, Liu Hong resembled eight giant arms of gods and demons supporting a living volcano about to erupt. The moment the cannon roared, the space in front of the muzzle collapsed and shattered like a fragile glass mirror! What spewed from the muzzle was not flames or beams of light, but a full fifty-one stars that had been forcibly compressed and bound before bursting open!
Heavenly Divine Slash!!!
Wherever the stars passed, the air was ionized and burned, creating fifty-one vacuum death tunnels! The earth was torn apart by an invisible gravitational force, arching upwards and shattering like waves! The wooden walls of nearby camps turned to dust silently, like paper!
Fan Rui's calm, unchanging starry eyes were completely filled with shock for the first time the moment the star was unleashed! The twelve jade flying swords cried out as they returned to defend, forming a sword screen.
However, while this thing could withstand the normal bombardment of the Panlong Staff, it couldn't withstand the destructive burst of the Sevenfold Heavenly Gang Slash! Soon, under the bombardment of the stars, it emitted a metallic groan of being unable to bear the strain. The light of the hexagrams flowing on the phantom flickered wildly, dimmed, and finally shattered into pieces! Fan Rui was struck as if by lightning. His withered body swayed violently, and streams of dark golden blood spurted from his seven orifices at the same time!
After breaking the sword formation, the remaining stars posed no further obstacle! Like over forty world-destroying warhammers hurled by celestial beings, they slammed into the last few layers of psionic shields that Fan Rui had hastily erected, accompanied by ear-piercing shrieks of vacuum. The shields vanished instantly, like soap bubbles in the sunlight! The final thirty-odd stars struck Fan Rui's withered body solidly and without any frills, blasting her away!
Magic resistance? Can it withstand a physical attack like Heavenly Strike?
The author says:
Author's note: Please vote for me!
Chapter 303: The Great Victory at Liangshan with Double Mountain Robes
The cataclysmic roar of those fifty-one physical stars had not yet dissipated, and the billowing lava craters and the pungent smell of burning sulfur enveloped the surrounding area like the breath of death. As the dust settled, the bandits who had been lucky enough to escape the shockwave were fixated on the heart of the battlefield—the Mischievous Demon King Fan Rui, the Flying Great Sage Li Gun, and the Eight-Armed Nezha Xiang Chong, all lying on the ground, barely alive, defeated by Liu Hong. This scene of defeat pierced the already fragile nerves of every bandit soldier!
A deathly silence enveloped the remaining troops of Mangdang Mountain! Even the mountain wind seemed frozen by fear. The next moment, a shrill, inhuman wail exploded from the throat of a bandit soldier, like the fuse that ignited a powder keg! All the bandits who witnessed this hellish scene felt their morale snap completely with a "crack"!
In an instant, the entire light infantry of Mangdang Mountain collapsed. Soldiers abandoned their armor and fled in all directions! The steel swords, spears, and shields they had been gripping tightly were like red-hot irons, which they frantically threw and smashed on the ground! Fine leather armor and chainmail were forcibly torn off, ignoring the countless people who were tripped up, as they only wanted to escape from this mark of death! Heavy helmets were ripped off and thrown into the mud with a clanging sound.
The crowd instantly transformed into a frenzied, chaotic swarm of ants, devoid of their hive! No direction! No formation! They only sought to get as far away from the Liangshan army as possible! Those in front were knocked down by those behind, and those who fell were immediately trampled by countless panicked feet! Screams, the cracking of bones, and the dying cries of those being trampled were instantly drowned out by even greater cries of panic.
Pushing, collapsing, and rout! The once-solid formation crumbled in an instant! Some managed to escape, while others could not, and could only kneel on the ground, crying and kowtowing repeatedly towards Liangshan, surrendering with a French military salute.
In an instant, the mountains and fields were filled with the shadows of people fleeing for their lives, abandoning their armor and weapons. Like a herd of deer scattered by tigers, they broke down their own gates, trampled their tents, and even tumbled down steep slopes! Barefoot, with their clothes open and belts undone, they squeezed out the last bit of strength to escape! The howls of crying for their parents, the desperate pleas, and the roars of cursing each other, mixed with the mountain wind, formed a complete and despicable prelude to their escape.
Taking advantage of the momentum, the Liangshan troops launched a fierce attack and stormed Fan Rui's Mangdang Mountain camp, capturing the bandit stronghold. The soldiers happily bound the three leaders and brought them to the tent, where the leaders sat down. After the soldiers had bound Fan Rui, Xiang Chong, and Li Gun and brought them to their command, Liu Hong, seeing this, quickly ordered the ropes to be untied and personally offered them wine.
“Three heroes, please don’t blame us. In the face of the enemy, we have no other choice. I, the Great Sage of Chaos, have long admired your names and wished to invite you to Liangshan to join us in upholding justice and acting on behalf of Heaven. However, due to unforeseen circumstances, I was unable to do so. If you three do not mind, Liu Hong is willing to return to the stronghold with the three of you. I would be extremely fortunate.”
Upon hearing this, the three men, who were already convinced of Liu Hong's abilities, and seeing his sincere attempt to recruit them, and knowing they were no match for him, could only prostrate themselves on the ground.
"We have long admired the name of the Great Sage of Chaos, and who in Shandong does not know your esteemed title? We, your humble servants, have simply been unworthy to pay our respects! It turns out you, brother, are truly righteous. We, who failed to recognize your virtue and defied Heaven and Earth, are now captured. Even death is too lenient for us; we are treated with courtesy. If you spare our lives and take us in, we swear to repay your great kindness with our lives!!!"
Liu Hong laughed heartily and immediately helped the three women up. Because Fan Rui also practiced Taoism and Confucianism, he joined the secret military advisory group. Wu Yong, Gongsun Sheng, Zhu Wu, and Fan Rui formed a group that jointly led the secret military advisory group.
Xiang Chong and Li Gun are also extremely powerful fighters, considered strong among the Earthly Fiends, and have been appointed as commanders.
The earthly evil power of the three also flowed back to Liu Hong, and Shi Jin and the other three also submitted to him.
[Shi Jin - Tianwei Star]: Doubles the speed of gaining experience, learning skills, and growing.
[Zhu Wu - Earthly Star]: Magic Resistance +10 (based on character level)
[Fan Rui - Earth Star]: Spell damage +10 (based on character level)
[Xiang Chong - Earth Flying Star]: Gain the multi-weapon combat feat. Hit chance is reduced by 1 when launching multiple attacks simultaneously.
[Lee Gon - Earthwalker]: Gains mastery of multiple weapon combat feats. Hit chance is reduced by 1 when launching multiple attacks simultaneously. (Total -2)
[Chen Da - Earthly Star]: Strength +2
[Yang Chun - Earth Concealment Star]: Agility +2
Chen Da and Yang Chun's abilities are simple and unpretentious. Although the values are relatively low, it's better to have them than not.
Xiang Chong and Li Gun provided multi-weapon combat expertise, making Liu Hong's eight-armed combat mode more skillful and refined. Zhu Wu and Fan Rui provided magical attack and defense resistance. Shi Jin's contribution was more subtle, providing a terrifying growth ability. It didn't improve Liu Hong much at the moment, but his future prospects were very strong.
This is understandable. Shi Jin originally only knew some fancy moves and rudimentary skills, while she only studied with Wang Jin, the instructor of the 800,000 Imperial Guards, for a year, and her strength was enough to enter the ranks of the Eight Tiger Generals, on par with people like Hua Rong, Yang Zhi, Suo Chao, and Xu Ning.
After taking over Mangdang Mountain, Liu Hong began to reorganize the troops there, transforming them into skirmishers—stop throwing long knives and throwing knives! You are all excellent light infantrymen, pick up your matchlock guns and train skirmishers with me!
This type of light infantry skirmisher has two main purposes: one is to fight against the enemy's dense formations, repeatedly harass and strike, constantly making the enemy witness their comrades fall, thereby weakening the enemy's morale and making them so weak that they collapse when they engage in battle with their own dense formations.
The second was to deliberately shoot enemy officers and sergeants to disrupt their command system.
The advantage of skirmishers lies in their loose formation, which makes it not worthwhile for the enemy to waste firepower with a volley. Instead, they can harass the enemy like mosquitoes. Skirmishers have a much higher hit rate than dense formations, and the effect is even better when some elite archers are added.
They can also fire volleys or fire randomly; the former can cause significant casualties, while the latter, even with a few missed shots, can harass the enemy like mosquitoes. If the enemy fires a volley, even if a few are killed, the damage is minimal. It's essentially meaningless; if they charge in a large square formation, even dense heavy infantry cannot catch up with these light infantry. They are a very useful auxiliary force.
Liu Hong planned to use the elite light infantry from Mangdang Mountain and Shaohua Mountain to form his first skirmish unit.
Chapter 304: Shandong Resurgence and the Anti-Liang Alliance
Just as Liu Hong had captured Shaohua Mountain and Mangdang Mountain, taking over their leaders and bandits, news came from the Penglai caravan that they had made contact with the Jin people. The Jin people were quite surprised to see these Song people and said with delight, "The last time we saw you Song people was during the reign of Emperor Taizu of Song. They came to me to buy horses."
It turns out that communication between the Song Dynasty and the Northeast was completely blocked by the Liao Dynasty.
However, the Liao dynasty was severely wounded by the Jin dynasty, and the entire Northeast had fallen. The Jin's territory had expanded from the Changbai Mountains and Heilongjiang River region to the coast of the Bohai Sea. Jurchen merchants began to carry out a series of operations along the Bohai Sea coastline, even reaching Shandong.
Meanwhile, Liangshanbo, under Liu Hong's instructions, was doing the same thing. The Liang and Jin gangs, whose names were written as "merchants" but read as "spies," immediately began a series of intelligence exchanges and commodity swaps.
The Jurchens bought silk and cloth from Shandong, while the Liangshan people bought animal hides and dragon scales from the Northeast, exchanging information between the Central Plains and the Northeast.
While establishing trade relations with the Jurchens, Liangshan also established some trade relations with the Liao Dynasty. However, this time it was not about exchanging goods, but about Liangshan spending money like crazy – "Shut up, take the money, and stay away from my horse."
Liangshan is truly short of horses. Now that they have finally opened up a sea outlet and can communicate with Liao and Jin, they should immediately take out all the money from those wealthy landowners to buy horses. Horses from Youyun, the grasslands, and the Northeast are all fine. They will take as many as they can get and try to truly build a cavalry legion of 5,000 men!
Faced with Liangshan's rampant expansion, several nearby prefectures and counties were terrified. Downstream, the capillaries formed by local tyrants and wealthy landowners were severed by Liangshan, and they were unable to mobilize grassroots forces at all.
Neither Gao Qiu nor other high-ranking officials wanted to take responsibility for the expedition against Liangshan, and they couldn't get any reinforcements.
In this desperate situation where there was no way out but to go to heaven and no way to escape to hell, the Shandong officials basically all became accomplices of Liangshan – whatever, just shut up and don't take away my official hat.
Only four officials were still resisting.
That was Gao Qiu's younger brother, Gao Lian, the magistrate of Gaotang County.
The Prefect of Dongping Prefecture, and his subordinate military commander: Dong Ping, the Double-Spear General.
The Prefect of Dongchang Prefecture, and the Commander of his troops: Zhang Qing, the Featherless Arrow.
And most importantly, the prefect of Jeju: Jang Suk-ye.
The four officials were truly at their wits' end, so they formed a mutual protection organization in Shandong to deal with the terrifyingly powerful Liangshan Marsh. After fighting against Liangshan for so many years, Zhang Shuye finally understood Liu Hong's tactics. In the end, Liangshan was just a group of bandits who had risen up. They could only unite the common people, merchants, and other people at the bottom of society, and use their large numbers to fight against the higher-ups.
So Zhang Shuye practiced the Heart Sutra in reverse. He united all forces that could be united: the wealthy landowners in Shandong who had not yet been wiped out, the local tyrants who oppressed the people, the merchants in the county town who bullied men and women... In short, he wanted to unite with all those whom Liangshan wanted to defeat. These people were also terrified of Liangshan. In order to save their lives, they had no choice but to unite with Zhang Shuye. Before long, they formed a considerable force.
Among them, there are two most powerful ones. The leader is Master Zeng from Zengtou City. He is not a local. He is a Jurchen who fled from the Northeast to the Song Dynasty. He is a beastman who can switch between human and animal forms at will. However, he is old and can no longer fight.
However, he had five sons under his command, each more formidable than the last, known as the Five Tigers of the Zeng Family. He also hired two instructors. Su Ding was not well-known, but Shi Wengong was quite terrifying. Upon hearing this name, Lin Chong and Lu Zhisheng both turned pale with fright.
"What's wrong? Sister, is Shi Wengong really that powerful?"
"She is Master's chief disciple. She is the senior sister of all of us. She is indeed very capable. Before I ascended to the Demon Realm, I couldn't beat her. I don't know about her after I ascended to the Demon Realm."
Lin Chong said with some apprehension.
"Damn it, this Shi Wengong is actually hiding here."
For the first time, Lu Zhisheng's fearless face revealed a look of apprehension.
"She used to be a member of the Guanzhong Army of the Great Song Dynasty, just like her master. They were equals and peers, but she was extremely shameless. In order to learn her master's skills, she knelt down and kowtowed to him, becoming his disciple in one go, even though she was a few years older than him."
“I worked with her when I was in the Kansai Army. She didn’t care about the process or the sacrifices; she only cared about the result. She would stop at nothing to achieve victory. In her words, no sacrifice was too great to be unacceptable. As long as we could achieve final victory, anything we did could be forgiven.”
I remember once, in order to defeat a group of Western Xia cavalry, she even sold out a battalion of her comrades as bait! She let a thousand brothers sacrifice themselves in vain, just to set up an encirclement and annihilate this group of five hundred Western Xia cavalry.
In the end, her reputation so bad that no one in the entire Kansai Army wanted to fight alongside her, so she retired and left, only to end up here as an instructor.
Lu Zhisheng snorted coldly.
"Anyway, when I'm with my brothers and we're on her side, I would never dare to entrust my back to her."
"Has your sister ever fought Shi Wengong? How strong is she?"
Liu Hong asked Lu Zhisheng, the oldest among them and the one who had followed his master the longest, with curiosity.
"They practiced martial arts in the training ground."
Lu Zhisheng said briefly, then snorted coldly and fell silent, not wanting to reveal who won or lost. Liu Hong could already guess the outcome from this performance.
"I see. It seems that Shi Wengong is indeed formidable."
Liu Hong didn't press the matter further or embarrass his sister. He looked at the next set of information, which said that this anti-Liang alliance had two powerful organizations outside the imperial court: Zengtou City and Yuanbi Village.
What the hell is this? Is there such a stronghold in Water Margin? Or is it comparable to Zengtou City?
Liu Hong flipped through the intelligence provided by Zhu Gui.
It is said that this Ape Arm Village was occupied by a mother and daughter. The mother, Chen Xizhen, was a Taoist nun who, like Master Gongsun, studied the Five Thunder Orthodox Method. The daughter, Chen Liqing, was a fierce general, heroic and majestic, whose archery skills were comparable to Hua Rong's.
Liu Hong was surprised after hearing this.
Chen Xizhen?! Chen Liqing? Isn't that someone from *The Water Margin*? This is a bizarre sequel to *Water Margin*, its parody rivaling the Ottomans' claim to be the legitimate rulers of Rome. It tells the story of a father and daughter who are invincible, forced by the court to become bandits, and then defeat Liangshan Marsh. With such strength, they'll surely be able to resist the Jin dynasty in a few years, right?
Not only do I have to fight the Jin dynasty, which is about to take off, after crossing over to Liangshan, but I also have to fight against these guys?!
At this moment, facing the chaos in Qingzhou, the imperial court dismissed Prefect Murong and sent a new person to serve as the prefect of Qingzhou. This new person was none other than Yun Tianbiao, the most powerful general of the Eight Directions Cloud Thunder Command of the Righteous Heart Thunder Mansion in "The Tale of the Suppression of Bandits".
Chapter 305: Chai Jin Imprisoned in Gaotang County (Bonus Chapter for 3350 Monthly Tickets!)
After reviewing the intelligence around him, Liu Hong felt immense pressure and began a new round of reforms to the Liangshan army.
One major reason why the Song Dynasty's military strength was so poor was its chaotic and disorganized approach. For example, it allowed Dong Ping, a military commander from Dongping Prefecture, to lead 500 imperial guards from the central government.