"KILL! TRAMPLE THEM FLAT!"
At Scarface Wolf's roar, one hundred desert warhorses thundered down the gentle slope of the Canyon Road like a rolling red avalanche!
Riding in the front rank were thirty burly bandits holding thick rawhide shields in front of their chests and faces, ready to block the iron cactus needles that One-Eyed Jack had warned them about. Behind them charged seventy howling riders waving curved sabers, with Scarface Wolf and Blood-Axe Zhao leading the center wedge!
Up on the wooden watch-platform above the West Gate, Pei Xuan stood with his arms crossed, his gray robe fluttering in the morning wind.
"Three hundred feet... two hundred feet... one hundred feet..." Pei Xuan counted softly.
Down on the Canyon Road, Scarface Wolf's black stallion reached full speed, covering forty feet in a single heartbeat as it charged straight onto the flat stretch of dry red sand eighty feet outside the Guard Cactuses!
CRACK—SQUELCH!
The moment the iron-shod hooves of the front thirty warhorses slammed down onto the paper-thin layer of dry sand and brittle reeds—
The reeds snapped instantly, and one hundred and twenty horse hooves plunged two feet deep into eighty feet of Super-Slick Potato-Grease Clay!
There was zero friction. Adding boiled potato-starch skins and leftover scorpion frying grease to wet yellow bottom-clay had turned the eighty-foot trench into a giant skating rink greased with lard!
WHINNY—SLIIIIIIIDE!
Before the thirty front-row riders could even pull on their reins, all thirty warhorses lost their footing at the exact same instant! Their legs shot out sideways in four directions, and thirty thousand-pound horses dropped onto their bellies and sides, sliding forward through the yellow grease-mud like thirty giant greased pigs!
"WHOA! WHAT THE HELL IS ON THE ROAD?!"
"STOP! PULL BACK! IT'S SLIPPERY GREASE-MUD!"
The riders in the front row screamed at the top of their lungs, dropping their rawhide shields as they went flying over their horses' necks!
However, a cavalry charge of one hundred horses at full gallop cannot stop on a dime!
"Wait! Don't push from behind—!"
Blood-Axe Zhao, riding right behind the front rank, tried to yank his horse's reins with all his Rank 2 Early Martial strength.
Too late!
CRASH! WHAM! THUD! SPLAT!
The second rank of thirty-five galloping horses slammed straight into the sliding rumps of the first rank and hit the grease-mud trench themselves! A heartbeat later, the final rank of thirty-five horses plowed right into the back of the second rank!
It was the biggest horse-traffic pile-up the Red-Sand Wastes had ever seen!
Within five seconds, all one hundred warhorses and ninety-nine riders had slid all the way to the eastern edge of the eighty-foot grease-mud pit, tangling together in a six-foot-high mountain of kicking horse legs, mud-caked faces, dropped sabers, and groaning bandits!
And where was the eastern edge of the grease-mud pit?
Right at the thirty-five-foot firing line of the ten [Needle-Spitting Guard Cactuses]!
[TACTICAL ALERT: 100 Hostile Units immobilized inside Guard Cactus Kill-Zone!][Firing Full 600-Needle Volley — Pin-Cushion Mode Engaged!]
HUUUUUU—!
On both sides of the gate road, all ten six-foot-tall emerald Guard Cactuses puffed up like giant green blowfish, aiming their round center tubes straight at the tangled mountain of mud-covered bandits!
"OH NO! MY SHIELD FELL IN THE MUD!"
"COVER YOUR BUTTS! COVER YOUR—"
THWIP-THWIP-THWIP-THWIP-THWIP-THWIP!
Six hundred three-inch black-iron needles blasted out of the ten cactuses with a deafening roar!
Because the bandits were tangled upside down and sideways in the slippery grease-mud without their shields, their unarmored thighs, shoulders, and backsides were sticking straight up in the air like targets at a fairground!
Thwack-thwack-thwack-thwack!
"AIEEEEEE! MY ASS!"
"OW! OW! RIGHT IN THE TAILBONE!"
"I CAN'T FEEL MY LEGS! THE MUD IS EATING MY LEGS!"
Eighty-five bandits took five to ten three-inch iron needles each right in their rear ends and thighs! As the natural numbing sap on the needles flooded into their muscles, their lower bodies went stiff as boards. Whenever they tried to stand up in the slick potato-grease clay, their numb legs slipped right out from under them and they splashed face-first back into the yellow mud!
Even Second Boss Blood-Axe Zhao—a fierce Rank 2 Early Martial warrior—had been thrown off his horse when it collided with three others. Just as he planted his hands in the mud to flip himself upright, his leather-clad backside pointed straight toward the third pair of Guard Cactuses!
THWIP-THWIP-THWIP!
Eighteen black-iron needles punched through his trousers in a neat circle!
"YEEEOOOOW!"
Blood-Axe Zhao froze on all fours in the mud as a wave of bone-deep numbness spread across his rear end. Before he could even reach for his dropped battle-axes, a shadow fell over him from above!
It was Pei Xuan!
Leaping down from the gate platform with his 1,000-Jin Rank 1 Peak Martial power, Pei Xuan landed on a dry stepping-stone at the edge of the pit and swung the flat of a heavy iron spade right across the back of Blood-Axe Zhao's helmet!
CLANG!
At the same time, Stone and Uncle Tie jumped in from the left and right with heavy wooden beams, slamming them into Blood-Axe Zhao's numb shoulders! The Rank 2 Early deputy boss saw stars spin before his eyes and face-planted straight into two feet of yellow potato-mud with a wet blorp!
Out of the entire hundred-man army, only one person hadn't fallen into the mud pile!
"YOU RAT BASTARDS!"
A thunderous roar shook the gate!
It was Scarface Wolf!
The moment his black stallion had slid into the grease-mud trench, Scarface Wolf's Rank 2 Mid Martial reflexes had kicked in. With fifteen hundred pounds of Iron-Bone strength in his legs, he had stomped hard on his sliding saddle—pushing his own horse down into the mud—and used the rebound to leap thirty-five feet straight through the air over the grease pit!
With his wolf-skin cloak flying behind him and his blood boiling like a furnace, Scarface Wolf landed right in front of the West Gate, gripping his sixty-pound Black-Iron Long Spear with both hands!
"Pretty boy! Die on my spear!"
Scarface Wolf spotted Pei Xuan standing by the edge of the pit and thrust his sixty-pound iron spear forward with all fifteen hundred pounds of his Rank 2 Mid Martial strength! The heavy iron spearhead tore through the air with a shrill scream like a hungry viper!
Pei Xuan didn't even blink. He simply pointed one finger up at the gatehouse roof and said softly:
"Old Wei. Chop."
"HERE!"
High above the gate, a one-armed figure leaped down against the rising sun like a black thunderbolt falling from the sky!
It was Old Wei!
Gripping the five-foot hilt of the [Rank 2 Heavy Mountain-Cleaver Saber] in his single right hand, Old Wei didn't use any fancy tricks. He channeled all 1,100 Jin of his newly promoted Rank 2 Iron-Bone strength into his right arm, combined it with the 120-pound true mass of the compressed anvil blade and its +600 Jin Anvil Crushing Force, and brought the pitch-black saber whistling straight down on top of Scarface Wolf's spear!
Scarface Wolf saw the one-armed old man dropping toward him with a black broadsword and sneered wildly.
"A one-armed cripple dares block my sixty-pound Iron-Spine Spear?! Break for me!"
Scarface Wolf shifted his grip and swung his thick iron spear shaft upward with both hands to smash Old Wei's blade into pieces!
SHING—CRACK—BOOM!
The pitch-black edge of the [Heavy Mountain-Cleaver Saber] met the wrist-thick iron shaft of Scarface Wolf's spear!
There was no stalemate.
To Scarface Wolf's utter, soul-shaking horror, the pitch-black broadsword didn't bounce back or chip. Instead, it sheared straight through his sixty-pound solid iron spear shaft as effortlessly as a kitchen cleaver chopping a green scallion!
And the downward momentum of that terrifying 1,800-Jin chop didn't stop there!
WHOOOOSH—RIP—BOOM!
The five-foot black blade flashed past Scarface Wolf's nose, sliced the thick iron-studded chest plate of his wolf-skin armor cleanly down the middle without scratching his skin, split the heavy wooden war-saddle of a nearby stray horse in half, and slammed two feet deep into the hard-packed clay road between Scarface Wolf's boots!
A ten-foot-long fissure cracked open down the center of the road, blasting a wave of dust and gravel into the air that blew Scarface Wolf's hair straight back!
Dead silence fell over the West Gate.
Even the eighty-five bandits groaning in the grease-mud stopped screaming and stared at the gate with their jaws resting in the mud.
Scarface Wolf stood frozen like a stone statue, his legs spread wide over the two-foot-deep trench in the road. In his left hand he held the bottom half of his sixty-pound iron spear; in his right hand he held the top half. Both cut ends were as smooth and shiny as silver mirrors!
Slowly, Scarface Wolf looked down at his split iron breastplate, then looked up at Old Wei, who was resting the massive five-foot black saber calmly against his shoulder with one hand.
Gulp.
Just then, slow, lazy hoofsteps padded out from behind the wooden gatepost.
Old Yellow walked right up to the frozen Scarface Wolf, tilted his bald camel head sideways to inspect the terrified bandit chief, and worked his jaws twice.
Hock—PTOOEY!
A huge, warm glob of sticky yellow camel phlegm splattered right across Scarface Wolf's scarred nose and dripped into his open mouth.
Scarface Wolf didn't even dare wipe the camel spit off his face!
Clatter!
Both halves of his sixty-pound iron spear fell from his shaking hands. The ferocious Rank 2 Mid Martial Chief of the Sand-Jackal Gang dropped to his knees in the dirt so hard his kneecaps cracked the ground, and he slammed his forehead into the sand three times in a row:
"SPARE MY LIFE, GRANDMASTER! SPARE MY LIFE, MY LORD! SCARFACE WOLF SURRENDERS! THE ENTIRE SAND-JACKAL GANG SURRENDERS!"
Above Scarface Wolf's head, his dark-red status bar shattered and flipped straight to terrified green:
[ Captured Boss: Scarface Wolf (Rank 2 Mid Martial) ] * Loyalty: -50 -> 28 / 100 [Completely Broken / Awestruck!] * Current Thought: "What kind of monster village is this?! Even a one-armed gate guard has a divine treasure blade that cuts a sixty-pound iron spear in half like soft tofu! If he aimed two inches closer, I would be in two pieces right now! Kowtow hard so they don't chop my head off!"
Before Pei Xuan could even speak, One-Eyed Jack came running out from behind the gate wearing his bright-yellow [DEBTOR LABORER] vest and carrying a spare yellow vest and black shock-collar in his hands!
"Big Brother! You're still in one piece! Thank Heaven!"
One-Eyed Jack happily slapped the black shock-collar around Scarface Wolf's thick neck—click!—and helped his bewildered older brother slip his arms into a extra-large bright-yellow debtor vest!
"J-Jack?!" Scarface Wolf stared down at the bright-yellow vest on his chest with [DEBTOR LABORER] written across it. "Why are you putting this ugly yellow shirt on me?!"
"Congratulations, Big Brother!" One-Eyed Jack beamed with brotherly pride, pointing at the eighty-foot grease-mud pit and the two-foot crack in the road. "Your hundred horses just dirtied our village's new drainage ditch, ruined eighty feet of road surface, and wasted six hundred of our cactuses' iron needles! Housekeeper Hong Ling just calculated your bill on her abacus—after deducting your horses and weapons, you and your hundred brothers owe Dry-Well Village one thousand five hundred silver taels!"
"One thousand five hundred silver taels for falling in a mud pit?!" Scarface Wolf choked.
"Don't complain, Big Brother! Wait till you taste Fat Uncle Guo's Meat-Belly Giant Potato Stew and crispy fried scorpions at lunch!" One-Eyed Jack whispered eagerly in Scarface Wolf's ear. "Take it from your little brother—digging ditches here in a yellow vest is ten times better than eating dry horse-jerky in our stinking cave!"
An hour later, after all one hundred newly captured bandits had the iron needles pulled out of their backsides and were dressed in freshly fused Yellow Debtor Vests (Cost: 50 LP) to clean up the road, Pei Xuan led a fast expedition team six miles west down the canyon.
Riding at the front on captured warhorses were Pei Xuan, Old Wei, Hong Ling, Old Guo, Stone, and twenty newly promoted Rank 1 Early Martial village guards, guided by One-Eyed Jack and a very obedient Scarface Wolf.
Deep inside a ring of red sandstone cliffs lay Sand-Jackal Oasis—the secret stronghold where the Sand-Jackal Gang had holed up for the past five years.
Because Scarface Wolf had brought every single fighting man in his gang to attack Dry-Well Village at dawn, only six old bandit cooks were left guarding the camp—and the moment they saw Scarface Wolf wearing a yellow debtor vest and waving a shovel, all six surrendered without a fight!
What they found inside the oasis camp made everyone's eyes light up.
First, penned inside three large wooden stockades near a murky trickle of water were two hundred captive desert refugees—including whole families of stonemasons, potters, leather-workers, and farmers whom the Sand-Jackal Gang had kidnapped from passing caravans over the past year to dig caves for them!
When Pei Xuan personally smashed the iron locks off the stockade gates with his bare hands and had Old Guo pass out steaming baskets of roasted Meat-Belly Giant Potatoes and cold Sweet-Spring Water they had brought on the carts, all two hundred starving captives wept aloud and knelt on the ground, begging to move to Dry-Well Village!
Second, inside Scarface Wolf's main stone cave, Hong Ling let out a shriek of pure ecstasy that echoed for three miles.
"SILVER! SO MUCH SILVER!"
Hong Ling dived headfirst onto three heavy iron chests that Scarface Wolf unlocked for them. Inside the chests gleamed one thousand and eighty silver taels, three small bars of yellow gold, two hundred sets of leather armor and iron sabers, five hundred sacks of coarse barley and fodder, and forty sturdy pack-mules tied in the stable!
While Hong Ling was happily hugging the silver chests and clicking her abacus until smoke nearly came out of it, Pei Xuan picked up a rolled-up piece of yellowed Ancient Sheepskin Parchment lying at the very bottom of the third chest.
He unrolled the sheepskin. Drawn on it in faded red ink was a detailed terrain map of the northern Red-Sand Wastes, with a bright red circle marked fifteen miles north of Dry-Well Village:
[OFFICIAL PREFECTURE RECORD: WHITE-CRYSTAL UNDERGROUND SALT MINE & SCORPION CANYON]
==================================================================== [ SPECIAL MAP DISCOVERED: WHITE-CRYSTAL SALT MINE! ] * Location: 15 Miles North of Dry-Well Village (High-Priority Strategic Target) * Resource Value: Contains 500,000 Tons of Pure Rock Salt and Underground Iron-Sand Veins! ====================================================================
A massive salt mine just fifteen miles north! Pei Xuan tucked the sheepskin map safely into his robe. In this world, clean salt was controlled by wealthy Salt Barons and sold at sky-high prices. Once Dry-Well Village built up its defenses and workforce, that salt mine would print mountains of silver!
By sunset that evening, a grand, mile-long victory parade marched back through the West Gate of Dry-Well Village!
Leading the way were one hundred and thirty-one captured desert warhorses and forty pack-mules loaded down with grain sacks, iron weapons, and chests of silver, followed by two hundred freed captive families and one hundred and one new yellow-vested bandit debtors led by Scarface Wolf and Blood-Axe Zhao!
As Old Guo fired up all six giant iron cauldrons in the square to cook a massive welcome banquet of Meat-Potato Lamb Stew for the newcomers, Pei Xuan stood beside the sparkling [Sweet-Spring Spirit Well] and opened his glowing RTS Territory Screen:
==================================================================== [ TERRITORY STATUS — DRY-WELL VILLAGE (Level 1) ] ==================================================================== Territory Lord: Pei Xuan (Rank 1 Mid Martial — 500 Jin Strength) Total Population: 585 - 453 Free Citizens (103 Original + 150 Refugees + 200 Freed Captives) - 132 Yellow-Vest Debtors (31 Wave-1 Bandits + 101 Main Gang) -------------------------------------------------------------------- [ LOYALTY & DAILY POINT BREAKDOWN (60+ Loyalty: 478 / 585) ] - 1 Rank-2 Early Martial Guard (Old Wei): +100 LP / day - 22 Rank-1 Martial Fighters (Servants, Stone, Uncle Tie, One-Eyed Jack, + 17 Village/Debtor Veterans): +220 LP / day - 455 Loyal Rank-0 Citizens & Debtors: +455 LP / day *(Note: Rank-2 Scarface Wolf [Loyalty: 44] & Rank-2 Blood-Axe Zhao [Loyalty: 39] are rising fast after their first bowl of stew!)* -------------------------------------------------------------------- >> NEW PROJECTED DAILY INCOME: +650 LP / DAY! >> CURRENT LP BALANCE: 680 LP >> TREASURY SILVER: 1,080 Silver Taels + 3 Gold Bars ====================================================================
Everything looked booming—until the blazing desert sun sank completely behind the western dunes, and a freezing-cold night wind came howling across the Red-Sand Wastes!
Whoooooosh!
The temperature dropped forty degrees in half an hour.
Pei Xuan looked out across the village square and frowned.
Dry-Well Village had started with only thirty-five tiny, cracked mud huts built for a hundred people. Now, there were five hundred and eighty-five people crammed into the village!
Over four hundred men, women, children, and elderly refugees had nowhere to sleep indoors. They were huddled together around the dying fire-pits in the open dirt square under thin canvas cloths, shivering and sneezing as the freezing desert night wind blew red sand down their collars!
"Young Master," Hong Ling walked up holding a ledger, blowing on her cold fingers. "Five children and three old grandpas from the freed captives just started coughing from the cold night wind! Our thirty-five mud huts are packed so tight that people are sleeping standing up! What do we do?"
Pei Xuan looked at the shivering crowd of five hundred and eighty-five loyal citizens, then opened the [Tech Tree & Buildings] tab on his RTS screen, where the [Supreme Fusion Cube] was glowing brightly.
"With over six hundred Loyalty Points coming in every day, how can my people sleep in the dirt?" Pei Xuan said, his eyes glinting in the firelight. "Stone! One-Eyed Jack! Scarface Wolf! Bring me wet well mud, desert sandstone, and cool-moss weeds! Tonight, we're fusing a [Cool-Breeze Brick Kiln] and building everyone a real stone house!"