The Human Emperor

“This subordinate will comply!”

Li Siye’s voice resounded from the army.

Clang! Li Siye pulled down his visor, completing the encasement of his body in armor. With his sword held in both hands, Li Siye strode over to the edge of the black pits into which the giant worms had vanished.

Nearby, Young Master Qingyang, Sword Dragon, Zhao Fengchen, and Saint Martial realm experts from the army also walked out, also equipped with heavy armor and two-handed swords. Their weapons were all made of Wootz Steel and their suits of armor were all made of formidable Meteoric Metal.

The earth began to tremble again, the shattered stones on the ground shaking. With a terrifying roar, a massive sandworm, its stony skin covered in wrinkles, shot from the ground with lightning-fast speed.

The many years this creature spent beneath the earth meant that it had long ago ceased to have any eyes, ears, or nose. All it had was its massive, many-layered maw lined with teeth.

These teeth were extremely sharp and powerful. Several hundred soldiers had already been devoured by these giant sandworm monsters! Even their armor had been eviscerated and crushed into scrap by those sharp teeth.

Many of those soldiers had died almost immediately after being devoured.

As that giant sandworm shot out of the ground, Li Siye suddenly roared, “Die!” Gripping his Wootz Steel sword, he shot forward like a cannonball and leaped into the sandworm’s open mouth.

Raaaa! After devouring Li Siye, the sandworm shot through the air, its long body turning in the air, and then burrowed back into the earth.

Not long after Li Siye and that sandworm vanished, Young Master Qingyang, Sword Dragon, Zhao Fengchen, and other experts also threw themselves into the mouths of the other sandworms, vanishing into the ground with them.

Upon seeing this, Abu Muslim and the other Arab commanders frowned.

But things were far from over…

In the back of Wang Chong’s army was a force of armored infantry guarding nearly one thousand abnormally huge wooden crates. They had not taken part in the battle and seemed to show no signs of participating.

But at this moment, as if receiving an order, these infantry came to life and walked over to those massive crates.

A large hammer covered in inscriptions was held aloft and then slammed down on the lock of one of the wooden crates, creating a shower of sparks. With a crack, the lock was shattered. Once the locks were undone, the soldiers swiftly pushed open the crates.

As the crates opened, there was a great din of cawing and screeching. Countless birds flew out of the crates, covering the sky. Five thousand, six thousand… A dense flock of ten thousand birds instantly blotted out the sky.

Let alone the Arabs, even the Tang soldiers were stunned by this sight, not having expected those crates to be holding so many birds.

In the Rebellion of the Three Princes, Goguryeon Eagle King Kim U-Seok had bought and trained a large number of birds. With this vast flock of birds, he had taken control of the capital, even controlling the skies above Wang Chong’s residence so that he couldn’t send information by bird.

Kim U-Seok was dead, but his birds had all been taken by Old Eagle and brought to the front line.

With sharp screeches, the numerous birds swiftly began to fly toward the giant bird army.

The distance of tens of thousands of feet went by in the blink of an eye, and those tens of thousands of birds soon engulfed the giant bird army.

Under Old Eagle’s command, those fierce birds began to lunge, peck, scratch, and beat at the giant birds.

“Careful!”

“Exterminate them!”

“There’s something weird on the claws of those birds! Watch out!”

The Arabs on the backs of the giant birds initially did not take this sudden assault very seriously, but they quickly realized that these birds were far from just being a mere nuisance. Their claws and beaks gleamed with steel.

A giant bird roared and slashed at a large rock eagle, but a moment later, at least forty other birds converged on the giant bird from all sides.

Swish! A gyrfalcon pecked and instantly pierced a bloody hole in the giant bird, whose thick black armor suddenly seemed as fragile as paper.

“Wootz Steel!”

The Arab on the back of the giant bird instantly turned pale.

The giant birds were all equipped with heavy armor forged by the finest smiths of Arabia. These were meant to guard against the attacks of master archers, countering their greatest threat.

But these birds could tear through the armor with their beaks and claws. There was only one kind of metal with this sort of effect: the Wootz Steel used by the King of Foreign Lands.

The giant bird riders all paled in fear upon understanding what was so special about these birds.

Screeching and crying resounded through the air as more and more birds engulfed the giant birds and their riders.

The pieces of armor were torn away, and the attack soon began to have very obvious effects on the giant bird army’s offensive.

Quantity had a quality all its own, and under the attack of countless birds, a large piece of armor dropped down from the chest of a giant bird, crashing into the ground in a shower of debris. Without this piece of armor, a large part of the giant bird was exposed.

Several dozen birds immediately charged in and began to tear through the bird. Blood gushed out from the wounds, and even the intestines were pulled out.

Keeee! Black feathers showered down as the bird shrieked. Finally, the giant bird could take no more and tumbled from the sky with its rider, slamming down in a cloud of dust.

Then came a second, a third… Under the frenzied attacks of the birds, the giant bird army’s situation grew worse and worse. They no longer had any energy to attack the Tang army.

“Everything has its counter, just like His Highness said. While we might not be able to raise these giant beasts, that doesn’t mean we don’t have ways of dealing with them!”

On the ground, Old Eagle looked up to the sky.

Whether it was during the Battle of Talas or the Rebellion of the Three Princes, the air, this region which had once been forbidden to humans, was turning into an increasingly contested battlefield, and it was now normal to see birds tearing at each other for supremacy.

Although the Great Tang had not expected these giant birds, it had an eagle army prepared to deal with aerial assaults.

Wootz Steel was extremely precious, and even Wang Chong had only equipped one force en masse with Wootz Steel weapons, his Wushang Cavalry. Thus, Old Eagle did not dare to ask for much. For each bird, whether gyrfalcon or rock eagle, only the very tips of their weapons were Wootz Steel.

Fortunately, birds had a particular way of attacking, and the beaks and claws didn’t use up that much Wootz Steel. A single Wootz Steel sword could equip at least one thousand birds, allowing for the possibility of Old Eagle’s Wootz Steel eagle army.

In Old Eagle’s view, an army of ten thousand birds equipped with Wootz Steel weapons could deal with any force of birds, regardless of kind or training. The only thing he hadn’t expected was that the Arabs would send these giant birds before their hunting falcons.

The giant birds continued to plummet from the sky, but Old Eagle’s forces were also suffering losses. However, the giant bird army had begun to panic and was now focused completely on dealing with the vast flock of birds around it.

On the elephant Behemoth, Khatabah’s pupils constricted as he suddenly ordered, “Pass on my order! Send out the hunting falcons!”

It was Khatabah’s rule that he would never send additional soldiers for the first probing assault. It was both meaningless and unnecessary. But that aerial battle above the defense line had forced Khatabah to break his rule.

Those tens of thousands of birds were enough to completely wipe out his giant bird army. While the giant birds could hold out for now and had not suffered large losses, their complete loss was only a matter of time. Moreover, if they were hindered like this, there was no point in sending them out in the first place.

Following Khatabah’s order, the Arabian hunting falcons took to the skies like arrows leaving their bows, shooting toward the fierce battle in the air.