The Human Emperor c1-2382

by Huangfu Qi (皇甫奇)

Meanwhile, the other hundred-man Wushang Cavalry teams were employing the same methods on the Skyquaking Giants. After charging at a Skyquaking Giant, they would leave behind a Death’s Scythe team and move on to the next giant.

  One, two, three… in the blink of an eye, the five thousand Wushang Cavalry had split off more than one hundred Death’s Scythe teams. Moreover, based on the strength of the individual Skyquaking Giants, they would leave behind two, three, or even four teams.

  “Damn it! You useless things!”

  As the red-bearded leader of the Skyquaking Giants saw his men being held down, he could barely contain his anger.

  “It seems like I’ll have to do it myself! Humans, little different from ants, I will kill all of you!”

  Bang! The red-bearded giant stomped, cracking the ground as he covered nine meters in a single bound, beginning to travel with terrifying speed toward the giant ballistae commanded by Chen Bin and Xu Keyi.

  “Load!”

  “Release!”

  The air howled as a giant ballista bolt was fired at the red-bearded giant. The giant ballista bolt left behind a black blur as it flew through the air. Chen Bin and Xu Keyi had immediately ordered the ballista bolt to be fired upon sensing this new danger.

  Buzz! The red-bearded giant seemed to have predicted this ballista bolt, and by slightly leaning his body to the side, he succeeded in dodging it.

  “How could this be!”

  Chen Bin and Xu Keyi were both flabbergasted by this sight. The giant ballista bolt was extremely fast, much faster than the bolts fired by ordinary ballistae. Once fired, they were essentially impossible to dodge. Moreover, the giants were ten meters high and made for extremely large targets, making missing even more unlikely. Yet the red-bearded giant had managed to dodge it. Just this alone was proof that this giant was stronger than the rest.

  “Lowly humans! Take one of my attacks as well!!”

  The red-bearded giant grabbed a bulky horse corpse in each hand, and threw, transforming them into cannonballs.

  “Careful!”

  Chen Bin nervously pulled out his sword and ran toward one corpse. At the same time, seven of the strongest ballista soldiers manning the giant ballista jumped up with him.

  Bangbang!

  They mustered all their strength to attack the horse corpse.

  Boom! Chen Bin and the seven ballista soldiers smashed into the horse corpse, and in that moment, they all had a very strange feeling. Chen Bin felt like his attack was pushing up against the hard surface of a mountain. Not only was his attack ineffective, but the backlash of energy coming from the horse corpse made his bones groan as if they were about to fall apart, and his organs suffered a severe jolt.

  Plush! Chen Bin tasted sweetness in his throat as his body flew backward through the air to smash into the giant ballista behind him. At the same time, the seven ballista soldiers also screamed as they were knocked away.

  In that brief clash, Chen Bin and seven of his strongest ballista soldiers had been heavily injured by the horse corpse thrown by the red-bearded giant. In comparison to the giant, they were still too weak.

  Bang! At almost the same time, Xu Keyi screamed as he and his own elite ballista soldiers were thrown back by the other horse corpse. The red-bearded giant no longer had any obstructions between him and the giant ballistae, and the nearest group of Wushang Cavalry was still a hundred zhang away.

  “An excellent chance!”

  The red-bearded giant elatedly strode toward one of the giant ballistae.

  “Load! Load the ballista!”

  “Don’t let him get close! Use the giant ballista to kill him!”

  Without the command of Xu Keyi and Chen Bin, the remaining ballista soldiers quickly began to panic. At this moment, the only things that could stop the red-bearded giant were the regular ballistae of the Great Tang. Boomboomboom! Ten-some ballista bolts shrieked toward the giant from all directions.

  “Hah!”

  The red-bearded giant sneered. He waved his dark-green shield, one swing immediately knocking eight ballista bolts away while the rest struck the shield as ineffectually as if they had struck a sturdy city wall.

  Even while he blocked the ballista bolts, the red-bearded giant’s footsteps continued to rumble across the battlefield. In a few moments, he was only around seven meters from one of the giant ballistae. Given his height, he only needed to take one more step to be in attack range of that giant ballista.

  Not only that, Chen Bin and Xu Keyi had placed the two giant ballistae close together so that they could cooperate and maximize the power of the giant ballistae. This meant that once the red-bearded giant reached the first giant ballista, he would be only four meters away from the other one.

  “Danger! No matter what, he can’t be allowed to get any closer!”

  “If the giant ballistae are destroyed, we’re all doomed!”

  “Everyone, follow me! Charge!”

  Everyone in the surroundings who saw this sight paled in panic. Twenty-some Tang cavalry immediately began a heedless charge, but they were already too late. The red-bearded giant’s eyes were fixed on the two giant ballistae, not even paying attention to anyone else.

  Hwoom! A giant armored foot, blazing with green fire, rose into the air and began to descend toward the closest giant ballista.

  The mere act of raising this foot stirred an enormous gale that blew away three of the ballista soldiers on the giant ballista. Given the strength the red-bearded giant had displayed, if this foot managed to land, the giant ballista which had taken so much effort to construct would be pulverized into a million pieces.

  “Ah!”

  Cries of alarm and fear rose from all sides, and everyone froze in place as the giant ballista to which all their lives were tied neared its moment of destruction.

  But at this moment, a thin figure appeared atop the giant ballista. This person was wearing a white robe, their hair blowing in the wind. While everyone else was intimidated by the red-bearded giant’s strength and believed that the destruction of the giant ballista was certain, that person simply looked up and raised a single finger toward the descending sole of the giant.

  Bang!

  Time seemed to stop. The red-bearded giant’s mighty stomp which was capable of shattering even steel landed on that single finger like it had encountered the world’s hardiest fortress. The air exploded at the power of the impact, sweeping through the surroundings, but nothing seemed capable of moving that figure.

  “What sorcery is this? Who are you!”

  The red-bearded giant’s pupils constricted, his face contorting into a grimace. He knew well the power of his stomp, its dreadful might. No ordinary man could stop it with just a single finger.

  “The King of the Gangke!”

  The man raised his head and coldly announced his title, underscoring it with tremendous waves of energy exploding from his body.

  “Wrathful Tide!”

  There was a flash of what seemed like lightning, and the face of the nearly twenty-meter giant suddenly showed a hint of shock. Crssssh! His body was pushed backward, and only after he retreated more than ten zhang did that terrifying energy fully dissipate.

  Chapter 966 - The King of Giants!

  Chapter 966: The King of Giants!

  Translated by: Hypersheep325

  Edited by: Michyrr

  “Human! I admit that I underestimated you. I didn’t think that you would have such strength! But it is still too little. I will first kill you, and then I will destroy those two giant ballistae!”

  The red-bearded giant saw that he was unharmed and his expression relaxed.

  “Out of respect for you, once you are dead, I will remember your name, King of the Gangke!”

  “Hmph, is that so?”

  The Gangke King looked at the red-bearded giant and sneered, his eyes peering down at the giant’s legs.

  “What do you mean?”

  The red-bearded giant stared at the Gangke King in surprise. But be
fore he could finish speaking, he heard a metallic crack. Looking down, he saw that one of his sturdy green boots was covered in countless cracks. In a flash, it exploded into thousands of pieces, littering the ground.

  Even more shocking to the red-bearded giant was that he could sense a destructive stream of energy erupting out from under his feet. This stream of energy traveled up his right foot and exploded throughout his body. Plush! Blood gushed out from his right foot as a searing pain assailed his mind, causing him to yowl in pain.

  “You!”

  The red-bearded giant began to rapidly back up, staring at the Gangke King in shock. With just one finger, this human had managed to destroy one of his Giant God war boots, indicating that he clearly possessed extraordinary strength.

  “Don’t get happy just yet!”

  The Gangke King finally took a step forward. In the Western Regions, the Gangke were known as filthy pigs. As their leader, the Gangke King had always restrained himself. Only now did he have a chance to display his true strength.

  “Bright Fist of Massacre!”

  The callous Gangke King suddenly lunged forward like a large bird toward the nearly twenty-meter giant. Buzz! As his right fist punched forward, the air in a radius of several dozen zhang began to twist. A large illusion of a fist appeared behind him, then a second, a third, a fourth, and then hundreds upon hundreds of them. These countless fists fused into a mountainous fist that smashed into the red-bearded giant’s body.

  The Bright Fist of Massacre was a fist style the Gangke King had learned from a mysterious expert during his early years, when he had studied in the Central Plains. This fist style grew stronger when facing a stronger opponent. At its strongest, it could exhibit four times one’s strength, though it would place a correspondingly large burden on one’s body. Upon receiving it, the Gangke King began to research the technique, even combining it with the martial learnings of the Western Regions. In the end, he had succeeded in increasing the limit to five times his strength while also reducing the burden on his body, creating the current form of the Bright Fist of Massacre.

  “I don’t believe that I can lose to a puny human! Die for me!”

  The red-bearded giant seemed to be deeply humiliated by the fact that the Gangke King was coming at him. Infuriated, he gathered up all his strength and threw himself at the Gangke King.

  Boom! The giant’s steely fist flew through the air like a meteor, tearing open black fissures in space. The abnormal strength of the red-bearded giant meant that this punch of his could shatter even mountains. Any normal human struck by this would almost certainly be killed.

  Bang!

  Two fists, one large and one small, collided in the air. The gusts created by the impact were so fierce that the sky itself seemed on the verge of tearing apart.

  “Aaah!” The giants and Tang soldiers looked on as the red-bearded giant, the seemingly stronger party in this clash, suddenly screamed. His right fist burst apart in a bloody fountain as it broke at a strange angle. Moreover, the rest of this enormous power caused the red-bearded giant’s body to fold, kneeling to the ground and sending up a cloud of dust.

  “This is all there is to these so-called giants!”

  The Gangke King coldly chortled, and then he lunged forward.

  The Gangke King’s appearance caused the tide of battle to slowly begin to turn, rallying the surrounding soldiers.

  Even though the Gangke King and the Wushang Cavalry had somewhat ameliorated the attacks of the Skyquaking Giants, the Great Tang was still in an extremely vile situation.

  Roooar! The four Behemoths roared, their eyes red as they charged toward the first defense line in churning clouds of dust. Seven hundred zhang, six hundred zhang, five hundred zhang… at this distance, everyone could smell the pungent odor coming off the Behemoths’ bodies.

  And behind the Behemoths, an Arab cavalry force twice the size of the Great Tang army was rushing forth in a howling wave. If the Behemoths were the vanguard, the Arab cavalry brought up the rear. At a distance of six hundred zhang, the Tang soldiers at the first defense line could clearly see the bulging muscles, savage expressions, and bloodthirsty eyes of the Arab soldiers.

  Rumble! In a place the Tang couldn’t see, the ground suddenly split open, allowing a yellow-brown monster akin to a large centipede to rush out of the ground. The monster had many joints, a hide as hard as stone, and a horn as sharp as a sword.

  Sitting on the head of this monster was an ugly and hunchbacked man dressed in a dark red robe: the commander of the Behemoth Army, Masil.

  Buzz!

  Masil sat on the centipede monster and chanted a spell. Faint ripples of light began to shoot toward the four mountainous Behemoths.

  “Kill, kill! Exterminate all these infidels! Leave not one alive!”

  Masil stared at the long line of steel walls with an intimidating light in his eyes.

  The Behemoths were very hard to control. Once they began to attack, they would lose their ability to differentiate friend from foe. Thus, Masil rarely used more than two Behemoths at the same time, and when he did use two, he would keep them very far from each other, making them attack two separate targets. For example, he had made the Terrorizer attack the defense line while the Destroyer attacked the city walls.

  But the entire army had been watching as three formidable Behemoths in a row were killed by the Tang army, causing Masil to lose any semblance of pride. In order to salvage the reputation of the Behemoth Army, Masil was compelled to personally enter the battlefield.

  In all of the Abbasid Caliphate, only he was capable of controlling four Behemoths at the same time while preventing them from harming the soldiers on their own side.

  Rumble! After adjusting the movements of the Behemoths, fine-tuning the distance between them, Masil had his centipede monster burrow back into the earth, the hard rock appearing to be as soft as mud before it. In a flash, Masil and his centipede had vanished into the earth, and with their departure, the cracks in the earth closed, making it appear as if no one had ever been there.

  Farther back in the army, two impressive figures sat upon mighty steeds, their sharp eyes coldly observing the battlefield.

  “The Skyquaking Army has achieved its objective. The Great Tang can’t even fend for itself, and its soldiers are in complete disarray. Gao Xianzhi and the other Tang commanders have also had their strength drained and are no longer at peak condition,” Deputy Governor of the East Ziyad said from behind Abu Muslim. The blustery winds were causing the armor of the surrounding Arab cavalry to clatter, but Ziyad was an immovable mountain, his body exuding an invisible energy that repelled the turbulence. His expression was steely.

  He had been constantly observing the battle, and he could see that at this stage, the Tang army was now held hostage by the tempo of the Arabs. If this situation continued, only a few hours would be needed to completely wipe out the Tang soldiers.

  Once these Tang were killed, the last blockade to the Arabs’ eastern conquests would be swept away.

  “Don’t get careless! Until the Tang are actually defeated, we cannot show the slightest contempt, not even if we hold the absolute advantage! Were not the deaths of the Terrorizer and Destroyer enough?” Abu Muslim’s expression was abnormally calm, his face devoid of any sort of pride or conceit. As his eyes flitted past the corpses of two Behemoths, a hint of emotion flickered through his eyes. Both the Terrorizer and the Destroyer were extremely formidable existences within Arabia, having destroyed innumerable enemies and cities.

  No one could have expected these mighty beings to be defeated at Talas, to die at the hands of these infidels. There were too many inconceivable things about the Great Tang, particularly their young commander. Thus, until victory was absolutely certain, Abu Muslim would not permit himself to get careless.

  Moreover, the two giant ballistae had still not been destroyed. It was also important that they had succeeded in sowing discord within the Tang army, but it was far more important to Abu Musl
im that the two giant ballistae be destroyed.

  “What is Ghareeb Hassam doing? As the leader of the Skyquaking Army, he should begin moving soon,” Abu Muslim said.

  “The order has already been sent. Ghareeb Hassam should have already received it and will probably move out soon,” Deputy Governor Ziyad replied.

  The Skyquaking Giants were extremely powerful, but the upper ranks of the Arab army had always treated them with disrespect. The reason was that these giants were not terribly intelligent. However, Ziyad clearly had a different attitude toward the commander of the Skyquaking Army, this Ghareeb Hassam.

  “Pass on my order. Have him hurry up!” Abu Muslim said.

  “Yes!”

  Ziyad waved a hand behind him, and a messenger departed soon after.

  Chapter 967 - Ghareeb Hassam

  Chapter 967: Ghareeb Hassam

  Translated by: Hypersheep325

  Edited by: Michyrr

  While the war drums were thundering and the Arab army marched forward, in a place away from the battlefield, people were busy at work.

  The massive bodies of the Skyquaking Giants were gathered here, working on what appeared to be eight bronze catapults of enormous size. Each one of them was fifty to sixty meters tall, heavy and sturdy, each one weighing around sixty thousand jin.

  “Release!”

  “Release!”

  “Release!”

  An officer of the Skyquaking Army was standing in front of these eight bronze catapults, furiously bellowing orders. The air boomed as one mighty Skyquaking Giant after another was launched from the catapults.

  “Damn it! You useless things, can you not even do something as simple as this?”

  With a heaven-shaking roar, an enormous palm, so covered in muscle that it appeared like the gnarled roots of an ancient tree, shot in from the side, pushing aside the Skyquaking Giant officer. In front of this gigantic palm, the formidable officer appeared as light as a feather. The working Skyquaking Giants suddenly fell silent, lowering their heads and standing to the side like children who had made a mistake.

  Boom! A similarly gigantic foot stomped down, sending rocks flying and causing the ground to tremble and crack.