No one knew what was happening. This was the Kunwu Training Camp; it was just a short distance away from Great Tang’s capital, Chang’an. Not to mention, it had Imperial Army members from the royal court standing guard here.
But Zhao Qianqiu’s response was no lie. The arrow that struck Chi Weisi was no lie. And the cries of agony from the Imperial Army guards tumbling down the mountain was no lie either.
Without a doubt, this wasn’t a test that Zhao Qianqiu had prepared for them. This was a real enemy attack!
“Careful! Stay away from the windows!”
Without much time to think, Wang Chong bellowed loudly. He swung his sword at the oil lamp, and pu, the wick was cut, and the entire room plunged into darkness.
Xiu xiu xiu!
At the same moment, the terrifying sound of something sharp tearing through space sounded. But this time, it wasn’t just a single one—more than a dozen arrows whizzed through the windows.
Xiu! One of them brushed by Wang Chong’s head. The powerful wind pressure from the arrow left his hair standing on end. It felt as though he had just had a close brush with the God of Death.
Boom boom boom!
At the same time, a deafening rumble sounded behind Wang Chong. Ten arrows struck the area where Chi Weisi was pinned to originally, and accompanied by loud rumbling and a huge cloud of dust, the entire wall collapsed.
Even Su Hanshan’s face warped in shock upon realizing the fearsome strength behind those arrows.
“Everyone, get down! Now!”
Zhao Qianqiu had barely managed to save Chi Weisi by an inch. Crawling on the floor, he bellowed in a panic. He knew that this wasn’t a rehearsal; he didn’t plan for these arrows.
At the very least, he would never go to the extent of killing the guards of Kunwu Training Camp to test his students.
“Follow me, and don’t make a sound!”
Zhao Qianqiu’s voice sounded in everyone’s ears. His tone was suppressed, and there was a hoarse and anxious edge to it.
But just then, someone interjected.
“Don’t move abruptly! It might not necessarily be safer outside. The assailants are Turk master archers!”
The one who spoke was Wang Chong. His voice sounded vastly different from before.
When those sharp arrows flew by at close quarters, Wang Chong clearly saw their appearance—they were wolf fang arrows.
These savage-looking arrows had serrated arrowheads, similar to that of a wolf’s fang. Were it to sink into one’s flesh, its hook would prevent one from extracting the arrow easily.
And if one were to attempt to do it forcefully, it could result in irreversible damage.
This kind of arrow could only be found in the Eastern and Western Turkic Khaganate.
“… Master archers possess extraordinary eyesight. Given how there’s no cover outside, leaving this room might put us in greater danger instead. Since there are tiger corpses on the floor, let’s pile them up in front of the window to use as cover against the arrows instead!”
In the darkness, Wang Chong’s voice was steady and calm. Instead of a teenage child, he seemed like a veteran general who had gone through innumerable bloody battlefields.
This kind of calm steadiness induced rationality and bred trust from others.
“How could I have forgotten about that! If we were to use the tiger corpses as cover against those sharp arrows, this place could serve as a fortress instead!”
Wang Chong’s reminder had jolted Zhao Qianqiu awake. Even though Wang Chong and Su Hanshan had managed to slay them with relative ease, the tigers’ massive physiques and resilient bones still made them an excellent cover against the enemies’ barrage.
On top of that, three of them were even dressed in sturdy Xuan metal armor. With such defense, they need not worry too much about the master archers.
Zhao Qianqiu had panicked out of concern for his students’ safety. In the heat of the moment, all he could think of was how he could bring his students to safety. However, he failed to consider the possibility that they might already be in the safest place.
“Listen to Wang Chong. Pile the tiger carcasses in our most vulnerable areas.”
Zhao Qianqiu instructed.
Peng!
A eight hundred jin tiger was placed vertically against the direction where the arrows were coming from. Surprisingly, Su Hanshan was the first to make a move.
He was significantly stronger than Wang Chong and those heavy tiger carcasses seemed to weigh nothing in his hands.
Peng peng peng. Following Su Hanshan’s lead, Zhuang Zhengping, Zhao Jingdian, and the others got into action as well. The tigers were around 2.45m tall each, and so, a couple of them was more than sufficient to block cover one side of the wall.
Not only so, they even managed to stack an additional layer behind it.
Pu pu pu! After the crowd was done, another rain of arrows showered down.
Wang Chong’s action of extinguishing the lights had played a crucial role. Unable to see the situation in the room, those Turk master archers could only shoot blindly. Innumerable wolf fang arrows pierced through the wall, only to be blocked by the tiger carcasses.
“Careful, those Turk master archers is also capable of high trajectory shots! Hide below the tiger carcasses.”
Wang Chong didn’t dare to get careless at all. He pulled an armored tiger over and hid beneath it. The massive physique of the tigers proved to be a valuable asset at this moment, allowing him to hide his entire body beneath it with ease.
Zhao Dingdian, Zhuang Weisi, and the others also immediately followed suit.
This assault was different from that of the tigers released by Zhao Qianqiu. These were all real experts, and everyone could feel the threat of death looming right above them.
Xiu xiu xiu!
The terrifying sound of sharp arrows whizzing through thin air sounded. As though responding to Wang Chong’s warning, more than fifty sharp arrows rained down from above.
Those arrows were shot into the heavens before slowly curving down with increasing speed. With immense might, they pierced through the ceiling and fell onto the ground.
The sight of the arrow shafts vibrating as they struck the ground due by their immense force left everyone with goosebumps. If not for Wang Chong’s reminder, they would have surely be pierced by those arrows.
However, with their current cover, no matter how dense the rain of arrows was, the group had nothing to fear.
——The tigers that Zhao Qianqiu used to attack them previously had now become their protective amulet instead. This was something that no one could have anticipated.
Xiu xiu xiu!
Another barrage of arrows even larger than the previous one came crashing down. At least sixty sharp arrows burrowed in through the roof, covering the entire room and beyond.
Listening to the relentless sound of falling arrows, the crowd couldn’t help but feel extremely relieved. If not for Wang Chong’s advice, they would all have been turned into porcupines by now!
After several more volleys, the master archers, feeling certain that it was impossible for there to be any survivors remaining in the room, moved on to other targets.
But the complexion of the group in the room remained awful.
“Turk master archers… Why are there Turk master archers here?”
Beneath the armored tiger carcass, Wang Chong’s mind was in turmoil. He never expected for a night assault to occur on the very first day of Kunwu Training Camp’s establishment.
Kunwu Training Camp had quite a sizeable number of Imperial Army experts. If the enemy were to attempt to forcefully overrun it with brute force, they would surely incur heavy casualties.
Yet, Wang Chong failed to consider the possibility of utilizing master archers.
With master archers, there would be no need for the assailants to be on White Tiger Peak at all. Given their attack range of several li, they could easily strike their targets from several mountains away.
The guards that the royal court posted here posed no threat to them at all—everyone was no different from live target dummies.
But that wasn’t what Wang Chong was concerned about.
Wang Chong had never heard of the Kunwu Training Camp coming under the assault of Turk master archers in his previous life. He couldn’t tell whether the matter had been silenced then or whether his presence had changed the future.
“As an important base for grooming future talents of the royal court, even the Sage Emperor views the Three Great Training Camps with grave importance. It seems like the Turks feel threatened by this matter.”
Wang Chong’s heart felt heavy.
The Three Great Training Camps were established to select and groom the nation’s elites.
This was a completely unprecedented initiative. As a potential opponent of the Great Tang, it was impossible for the Eastern and Western Turkic Khaganate to be oblivious to this matter.
Wang Chong knew that he was negligent in this matter.
What he was the most worried about now was whether or not Ü-Tsang and Goguryeo would be alarmed into action as well.
“Instructor Zhao, how many master archers are there in Kunwu Training Camp?”
Numerous thoughts flashed through Wang Chong’s mind, and he suddenly turned his head around to ask.
“There are around a dozen archers, but of them, less than five are master archers! Furthermore, they are scattered amongst the four barracks.”
Zhao Qianqiu said bitterly.
He understood Wang Chong’s intentions—the only ones who could deal with master archers were master archers themselves. However, this was only the first day since the establishment of Kunwu Training Camp. Other than some of the instructors specializing in archery, there were no other master archers stationed here.
Kunwu Training Camp wasn’t prepared for such an assault.
From the very start, the training camps only focused on preventing those with malicious intentions from sneaking into the premises. Who could have known that the Turks would send out troops on the level of the master archers?
Zhao Qianqiu’s cultivation was exceptional but he possessed no talent whatsoever in archery. There was nothing he could do about master archers several li away.
Xiu xiu xiu!
In the darkness, the sound of arrows echoed ceaselessly in the surroundings. Other than that, only the screams of agony here and there could be heard. It was hard to estimate how many master archers had been dispatched for this mission.
A single archer could shoot fifty to sixty arrows in a second from several li away. If there were ten of them, that would be five hundred to six hundred. And if there were twenty of them, that would be more than a thousand! That was more than sufficient to wipe out the entire White Tiger Peak.
The aura of death seemed to slowly encroach, and at that moment, everyone’s faces were incredibly awful.
“Wei Hao, you can only depend on yourself now!”
Wang Chong thought anxiously.
Of the entire Kunwu Training Camp, aside from Zhao Jingdian, the other person he was the most concerned about was Wei Hao.
There were four barracks on four different peaks in Kunwu Training Camp—Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Black Tortoise.
Wang Chong wasn’t sure which peak Wei Hao was on, but in any case, it was unlikely that the Turks would limit their attack to only the White Tiger Peak.
Wang Chong could only hope for Wei Hao to notice the threat early and go into hiding. This was the best course of action he could make before the barrage of arrows.
“Aoooooooooo! ——”
As Wang Chong was harboring such thoughts, a wild and high-pitched howl suddenly echoed amidst the darkness, rattling the entire mountain forest. Hearing the wild howls, his face immediately warped.
That was the call of the wolves!
And from the sound of it, it wasn’t just a single one. There were hundreds, or perhaps even more than a thousand of them!
These bastards weren’t satisfied with just shooting arrows at them. They wanted to slaughter everyone here!