The Human Emperor c1-2382

by Huangfu Qi (皇甫奇)

  Not even someone as powerful as Gao Xianzhi knew how to cultivate past the peak of the Saint Martial realm. That invisible barrier was as unbreakable as the heavens themselves. But the Demonic Emperor Old Man’s words had opened a new door for him, revealing a higher realm above the Saint Martial realm.

  Cheng Qianli couldn’t help but ask, “So that Qutaybah has already reached that level? If that’s the case, isn’t it basically impossible for us to defeat him?”

  “It’s not so bad as that. Based on what I’ve seen, that Qutaybah only managed to accidentally and barely reach the Subtle realm. If he had managed to completely grasp the abilities of the Subtle realm, his attacks would be of a completely different nature. The Sword Qi would not be as grand and magnificent, but the power would be even more frightening!”

  The Wushang Village Chief ambled forward on his cane and suddenly spoke.

  “Brother Wenfu and I discussed this topic for a very long time back in the valley. The Subtle realm is vast and also pertains to the mysteries of space. It’s no easy feat to master it. That Qutaybah might be strong, but he is still within the realm of martial artists.”

  Ever since the conclusion of the battle of the triangular gap on the Tibetan Plateau, the Wushang Village Chief and the Demonic Emperor Old Man had remained at Wushang Village. One reason was to search for that mysterious object that had made the Central Plains quake for nearly one thousand years. The other reason was to exchange their learnings and theories on the principles of the world so that they could seek an even higher realm of martial arts.

  The ‘Subtle realm’ was the realm that the two had perceived in this exchange, an even more exquisite realm that resided above the peak of the Saint Martial realm.

  “Master and Senior have both touched upon that realm now?”

  Wang Chong voiced the question that burned in everyone’s mind.

  The war still hung over everyone’s heads and the Arabs still had four Great Generals who had not entered the field. In this decisive conflict, two terrifying existences of the ‘Subtle realm’ would completely alter the course of this battle, with the Great Tang’s chances of victory greatly increasing. It would also have a completely different meaning for Wang Chong.

  His maser cultivated the Myriad Spirit Sea Art. In the battle against Qutaybah, when he had gathered the Origin Energy of the world into a storm, Wang Chong had already sensed that his master had followed the alternative path presented by that supreme technique to reach another lofty summit, perhaps even reaching an even higher realm of strength.

  To his surprise, a hint of gloom flitted through the eyes of the Demonic Emperor Old Man and Wushang Village Chief, and the mood became depressed.

  “No!” the Demonic Emperor Old Man said with a deep sigh.

  “Brother Wenfu’s talent and attainments in the martial path are truly something this old man has never seen before in his life. With his qualities, if his dantian had not been broken, he would have already reached the exquisite and profound realm!” the Wushang Village Chief said.

  Wang Chong instantly felt his heart sink as he inadvertently shot a glance at his master. The Demonic Emperor Old Man gave a comforting smile, but Wang Chong’s heart remained dejected. He had known that his master’s cultivation had been limited by the condition of his dantian, but never that its effects would still be so significant. Based on what the Wushang Village Chief had said, the destruction of his master’s dantian might have made it impossible for him to ever reach that Subtle realm.

  “Master, can not even the Myriad Spirit Sea Art resolve this problem?” Wang Chong reluctantly asked.

  A teacher for a day, a father for a lifetime. No matter what, Wang Chong did not want his master to feel regretful and held back by the state of his dantian for the rest of his life.

  “Chong-er, your master understands what you are thinking. But your master has already experienced everything this life has to offer. The happiest moment of your master’s life was taking you and Xiaoyao as his disciples. As for the rest, your master does not care.”

  The Demonic Emperor Old Man gently chuckled. In this aspect, he was abnormally openminded.

  He had lived a life of arrogance and pride, looked up to by vast multitudes. He had also been pursued and hunted down by countless people. But no matter how disappointing or satisfying his life had been, at the very end of it, he had still managed to climb back up and even take on two disciples that he could be proud of, experiencing a rare moment of warmth.

  He had nothing to regret about his life.

  The powerful realms of martial arts were naturally something that everyone wanted to pursue, but this was no longer the sole desire for the Demonic Emperor Old Man.

  “Haha, the vast sea is all-accepting and all-encompassing. This is one of the aspects that this humble self admires Brother Wenfu for,” the Wushang Village Chief said. “As for the problem of Brother Wenfu’s dantian, we discussed it back in the valley, but there aren’t many good solutions. There is no question about the profundity of the Myriad Spirit Sea Art. If I had not seen it for myself, I would have found it difficult to imagine that someone with a broken dantian could rise to an even higher level of strength.

  “There are fifty paths of the Great Dao, but the heavens use only forty-nine while the last is unused1. There is nothing that is perfect in this world, and this is a flaw that cannot be filled. With Brother Wenfu’s blessing, this old man has managed to touch upon that threshold, but given my age, this old man also has little hope of reaching that exquisite realm.”

  The Wushang Village Chief gave a warm and genial smile. It was truly a great regret to touch upon that realm yet be unable to enter it, but the Wushang Village Chief was also rather openminded about it.

  Everyone in the hall had dejected looks on their faces. When they had heard about this ‘Subtle realm’, they had all believed that the Demonic Emperor Old Man and the Wushang Village Chief had reached it, little imagining that they were both only a sliver away.

  “Regardless of how it is, the assistance of these two seniors is a fortuitous event for the Great Tang. At the very least, we can now fight a battle with Qutaybah.”

  Gao Xianzhi’s words brought everyone back to the battlefield. The four hundred thousand Arab soldiers were still hungrily eyeing the city and still presented an enormous threat.

  “I just want to mention one thing.” A young and aloof voice, lacking any sort of courtesy, suddenly spoke. “Dalun Ruozan and Duwu Sili led their army through Ü-Tsang’s northwest, passing through Greater and Lesser Balur. If all goes as expected, they should arrive on the battlefield soon. Once the two armies merge, we will be at an even greater disadvantage.”

  Everyone immediately focused their eyes on the speaker. They were greeted by the fearless gaze of a young commander next to Wang Chong, his lips tightly pursed and his face cold and proud.

  No one said anything, but the officers of the Anxi Protectorate army couldn’t help but slightly frown. From the armor this officer was wearing, he clearly wasn’t of a very high rank. There were many commanders present, even Vice Protector-Generals, but everyone spoke politely and courteously. No one dared to speak like this person had.

  Gao Xianzhi faintly smiled as he asked, “Wang Chong, this young brother is…?”

  He cared little about this young officer’s rashness. Although he had never met him before, those who had come with the reinforcements to this place were basically Wang Chong’s people.

  “Su Hanshan!”

  Su Hanshan directly met Gao Xianzhi’s gaze. Even in front of the illustrious Protector-General of the Western Regions, Su Hanshan showed no sign of backing down.

  Your personality is just as bad as ever.

  Wang Chong mentally gave a bitter laugh. This was not his first time interacting with Su Hanshan, and he knew that Su Hanshan’s personality was foul and stubborn, as it always had been since their first meeting.

  “Protector-General Gao, please do not take offense. This is just
how he is. He played a great part in the army’s timely arrival,” Wang Chong explained.

  Wang Chong had long ago learned about how Su Hanshan had defeated Dalun Ruozan and Duwu Sili en route. Su Hanshan was born with little talent for socializing and working with the norms of the world. This was his greatest flaw in his last life. Wang Chong could only support and assist him from the side.

  “Heh, there’s no need for Protector-General Wang to explain. Those with ability all have a little temper, and what he says is true. We’ve seen nothing of Dalun Ruozan and Duwu Sili ever since they disappeared. Both of them are cunning old foxes. In addition to the Arabs, we also need to guard against the Tibetans and Western Turks.”

  In a flash, the hall fell silent. One Qutaybah was vexing enough. Dalun Ruozan and Duwu Sili along with their armies only made the situation worse.

  “The number of soldiers the Arabs and Tibetans have left is no longer very important to the outcome of this war!”

  Wang Chong’s sudden outburst drew the attention of everyone in the hall.

  “Quality is better than quantity when it comes to soldiers. Although the Arabs and Tibetans have more than four hundred thousand elites, we have an army of one hundred and ten thousand of the finest elites of the Great Tang. The Divine Prison Army, the Xuanwu Army, the Dragon Stallion Army, the Roaring Tiger Army… these are all the strongest soldiers of the Great Tang. Not all of them have entered the field yet. Besides that, Su Hanshan also brought five thousand Great Tang ballistae, giving us more than six thousand ballistae at Talas… This sort of army is unparalleled in the Great Tang!”

  Wang Chong’s gaze slowly scanned the crowd, his eyes determined and his expression confident.

  The Divine Prison Army, the Xuanwu Army, the Dragon Stallion Army, the Divine Martial Army… An army consisting of the most elite units of the Great Tang was one that all empires could only dream of, an extravagance that was extremely difficult to realize. These soldiers had all been honed and tempered over ten-some years, picked from the elite of the elite. Each of them was a powerful and experienced force on the battlefield.

  Together with more than six thousand unstoppable Tang ballistae, they could truly tear down any opposition they might face. The power of this army was definitely not inferior to the Arab army, and even surpassed it in some aspects.

  “Arabia might be strong! But the Great Tang is definitely not weak! In this battle, we will let the Arabs experience the true soul of the dragon! What it truly means to be a man!”

  Wang Chong’s deafening cry was almost infectiously persuasive.

  ______________1. This line is a reference to the Book of Changes and Chinese divination, particularly when using yarrow stalks. In this method of divination, one takes fifty yarrow stalks but then deliberately sets one aside, with the divination method then performed using the remaining forty-nine.↩

  Chapter 1069 - Arabia's Ally, Dalun Ruozan Arrives

  Chapter 1069: Arabia’s Ally, Dalun Ruozan Arrives

  Translated by: Hypersheep325

  Edited by: Michyrr

  The hall was still as Wang Chong’s words echoed through the room and through the minds of everyone present. The suppressed and heavy mood was instantly revived and galvanized by Wang Chong’s rallying cry.

  The Divine Prison Army, the Xuanwu Army, the Dragon Stallion Army… There was also the second batch of reinforcements from Qixi. No one except Wang Chong knew the exact composition of the reinforcement army; even Gao Xianzhi was not clear on all the forces that Wang Chong had called from the interior.

  At the very least, Gao Xianzhi had never heard of any Xuanwu Army or Divine Prison Army in the Imperial Army, nor did he know how powerful they were.

  But Wang Chong, as the manager of the entire plan, naturally understood what was going on more than anyone else.

  ‘Quality is greater than quantity when it comes to soldiers.’ This was not merely a saying, but a principle that Wang Chong had believed in for his entire life.

  As someone who had reincarnated and had experienced so much, he was accustomed to winning battles while outnumbered. The number of soldiers was very important, but the overall quality of a soldier was the most important.

  The Great Tang had been able to rely on an army of six hundred thousand soldiers to conquer the surrounding empires and forge a mythical golden age and empire of unprecedented size precisely because of the quality of its soldiers!

  “Wang Chong, what sort of idea do you have?” Gao Xianzhi suddenly asked.

  For Gao Xianzhi, this battle had already completely surpassed his expectations from when he first set out to attack the Shi Kingdom. But Wang Chong was different. He was still very young, but he had a deep understanding of war and had thoroughly planned out this entire battle, including the reinforcements.

  That the reinforcements had been able to reach sixty thousand, all of them elite soldiers, was undoubtedly because Wang Chong had prepared for this before the battle had even begun.

  “Heh.”

  Wang Chong chuckled in reply.

  “The Arabs are not as powerful as imagined. Although I can’t guarantee the final result of this battle, I can at least guarantee that no matter what the Arabs want, they won’t be leaving Talas without suffering an unprecedentedly severe wound!”

  Wang Chong’s eyes flashed with steely resolve.

  ……

  Talas quickly entered a tense preparation phase as all the reinforcements entered the city to undergo strict training. All the elite armies that had come were existences on par with the Iron Wall Army, but on the battlefield, what armies needed the most was teamwork.

  Now that the reinforcements had arrived and the Arabs did not dare to attack, Wang Chong began a consolidation of these elite forces, an extremely tense training session. Wang Chong was personally handling the training of this army. As the strongest War Saint of the Central Plains, Wang Chong had not fully trained an army like this for a very long time. He did so now because he regarded this battle with utmost importance.

  ……

  As Wang Chong began his training in Talas under the darkness of the night, in the distant Arab camp, all the Arab commanders except Qutaybah had gathered together.

  “What do all of you think about this battle?”

  They all stood around an Arabic-style table. Abu Muslim stood up and looked around at his comrades.

  The tent was quiet as everyone silently pondered the topographical map of Talas on the table. Osman and Aybak had the most complicated expressions. Yesterday, they would have definitely scoffed at Abu Muslim’s question. Aybak and Osman rarely used any special tactics when dealing with infidel empires, and the Arabian Empire rarely used any special strategies or formations in its foreign wars.

  When one side reached a certain overwhelming level of power, all strategies and wisdom went out the window. Strength was the greatest wisdom and the greatest strategy.

  “This empire is very difficult to deal with. It might even be stronger than the Sassanid Dynasty. If I didn’t see it for myself, I would truly find it difficult to believe that they could have someone who could stand on the same level as Qutaybah, and that it would be an old man,” Osman sternly said, a pensive look on his face.

  “Not only that. The reinforcements they brought appear to be extremely powerful, on the same level of power as the Anxi Protectorate’s Iron Wall Army,” Aybak grimly added. “If they’re all that strong, then even though they only have around one hundred thousand soldiers, it won’t be as easy as we imagine to destroy them.”

  As the Mameluke Commander, the most unique commander in the entire empire, Aybak rarely concerned himself with the exact situation of the battlefield, nor would he intervene in these large-scale clashes of armies. But the army behind the defense line was now so powerful that not even Aybak could ignore it.

  “Overall, our greatest advantage is the initiative provided by our cavalry,” Ziyad sternly said. “The Tang defense line makes it very difficult for our soldi
ers to exert their full power, but it restrains them as well. Without that defense line, their defensive abilities are far too weak. For the short term, as long as we still hold the initiative, they won’t dare to leave their defense line to attack, giving us the liberty of choosing when to strike.”

  As the Deputy Governor of the East, Ziyad was for the first time counting himself lucky to have been born in a horseback empire. Otherwise, he would find it very difficult to imagine any other faction that could contend against this empire. Not only that, Ziyad had an intense feeling that this opponent they were facing at Talas was second in power only to Arabia, a true ‘Number Two Empire’.

  “This battle is already very hard to judge. Until we determine the true strength of the Tang reinforcements, we won’t be able to engage in a full-scale offensive,” Abu Muslim said. “Right now, we must wait for the Tibetans and Western Turks to arrive. Although these two empires of the east aren’t as strong as our Arabia, their understanding of the Great Tang might bring us some unexpected aid.”

  Throughout the course of this war, he had understood that the Tang were not as feeble as he had imagined. Arabia had to think of every method and gather all its strength to completely crush the Tang. Otherwise, the Arabs might be the ones facing the predicament the Tang were currently dealing with.

  “I’ve never met these Tibetans and Western Turks you speak of, but if you insist on waiting until they arrive to begin the decisive battle, have you thought about how to explain this to Qutaybah?” Osman loudly asked as he stared across the map at Abu Muslim.

  This conference in the middle of the night had gathered together all the other Arab commanders as well as the governors Abu Muslim and Osman, but Qutaybah was missing. With the quarrel in the daytime still fresh on everybody’s minds, nobody dared to offend Qutaybah again. Qutaybah was a true battle maniac. The retreat during the day had already left him extremely dissatisfied. If Abu Muslim insisted on waiting several more days for the Tibetans and Western Turks to arrive, everyone would find it hard to imagine Qutaybah’s reaction.