LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 161: Good Things Come In Pairs
The brilliant moon hung high in the night sky, but what was illuminated under its pale moonlight was not a tranquil landscape but a brutal massacre.
“How long have we been running for?” the Lizard Queen asked hoarsely.
Her eyes were bloodshot, and her lips had turned white. Her throat was also hurting from constantly blowing her bone flute to command her sand monitors.
This was a fun hunting game for Shu Yichao but a death game for the Lizard Queen, who was desperately doing everything she could to escape. The terracotta soldiers just kept attacking nonstop, knowing not of fatigue.
The Lizard Queen felt as if she was trapped inside a narrow alley, and the walls were slowly closing in on her. She struggled with all her might but it wasn’t making a difference. If anything, any misstep might cause the walls to close faster on her.
All she could do was to desperately run forward.
Her famous army, which had evoked respect and fear from nobles, was slowly being picked off. They were either zapped to death by lightning or buried by the terracotta soldiers. She only had a third of her army left now.
Most of her servants and maids had died by now.
Yet, Shu Yichao’s undead army relentlessly pursued them. It didn’t look like the undead army had thinned at all.
Can we get away?
“…” The Lizard Queen’s only surviving maid looked back at the Lizard Queen with a pale, tearful face, not daring to answer.
“We’re reaching!” the Antlion Whisperer shouted with a hint of relief. “My servants have reported that the river is right ahead of us. Khotan is on the other side of the river! We’re saved!”
“…Is that true?” The Lizard Queen raised her head to look in the distance.
Ahead of her, not too far away, was a glistening river.
“…We have finally escaped!” The Lizard Queen cried tears of joy.
The last few hours had felt as long as eons. With each passing second, she saw Death creeping closer to her. Fortunately, they had pulled it through.
Their troops, be it the antlions or the sand monitors, were adept swimmers, whereas the terracotta soldiers…
Everything will be fine once we cross the river.
The Lizard Queen quickly tallied her casualties and nearly blacked out. To her horror, she only had thirty sand monitors left. That was as good as an annilhilation!
“That darned necromancer!” the Lizard Queen spat through gritted teeth. “I’ll have my eyes on you now! Just you wait! Cross the river!”
The sand monitors and antlions looked no different from ravenous dogs that had been starved for days. They charged forward with reddened eyes while howling in excitement.
Psh! Psh!
The sensation of the icy-cold river water against her cheeks made the Lizard Queen tear up. The rush of relief from having survived the ordeal made her want to put down her pride and cry her eyes out.
Noises could be heard from the opposite shore. Khotan’s garrison troops appeared to have discovered them.
“We are the Antlion Whisperer and the Lizard Queen,” the Antlion Whisperer shouted aloud. “Report our presence to your king and have him welcome us, or else…”
“FIRE!!!”
Who could have expected that Khotan’s garrison troops would warmly welcome the two mages with their arrows?
The enchanted arrows gleamed coldly as they flew across the sky and rained down on the swimming sand monitors and antlions.
“You bastards! What are you doing?” The Lizard Queen was infuriated.
They must be out of their minds! It’s one thing for the Tang army to challenge me, but how dare these little Khotan soldiers pull their weights before me?!
“How dare you?!” the Antlion Whisperer roared. “Even your king wouldn’t dare to pull his weight in front of me, yet you dare to…”
“Isn’t it beneath mages like you to vent your anger on a couple of soldiers?” a middle-aged man’s voice echoed from the opposite shore. “I am right here.”
“You…”
Both the Lizard Queen and the Antlion Whisperer were stunned.
Standing on the opposite side of the shore was a man emanating a faint glow, who was accompanied by a huge entourage. Who else could it be other than the Khotan king?
It didn’t take long for the Lizard Queen and Antlion Whisperer to realize what was going on.
“How dare you betray the Tibetan Empire?” the Lizard Queen roared.
“Hah!” The Khotan king looked at them as if they were fools.
You must be joking with me!
Khotan’s Viśa' royal family has always been loyal citizens of Great Tang! We only chose to lie low for the time being because we aren’t able to beat you.
Betraying the Tibetan Empire? We were never one of you!
“You barbarians, how laughable. You’re still as arrogant as ever even when you’re already knocking on death’s door. Men, fire the cannons!”
“You!!!”
It was only now that the two mages, to their horror, realized that they had miscalculated.
The Khotans had always been stalwart allies of Great Tang!
When Great Tang was reeling from An Lushan’s rebellion, the Khotan king went as far as to relinquish his throne before bringing his troops to the Central Plains to help quell the rebellion!
Khotan was now a vassal state offering annual tribute to the Tibetan Empire, but it remained highly autonomous. Up to this date, the Tibetan Empire hadn’t been able to stretch its hands into them.
When Khotan learned that two Tibetan mages were being surrounded by the Anxi army, and they were at risk of being annihilated if reinforcements didn’t arrive soon, they chose to deploy their army without any hesitation.
It was just that the outcome was slightly different from what the two mages were thinking.
There has always been rumors that the Khotans appear to submit to the Tibetan Empire on the surface, but they are yearning for Great Tang’s return.
Let me clarify the rumors up right now. That isn’t just a rumor.
A few hours ago, there had been an intense debate in Khotan’s royal court.
Shu Yichao’s terracotta soldiers had been going around cleaning up nearby towns and cities, which was a sign that the Anxi army was taking back Tang soil in the Western Region. Those who refused to surrender were annihilated.
Wherever the terracotta soldiers went, blood flowed like a river.
At the same time, nomads and merchants had been spreading rumors that the ‘Gatling Buddha’s’ incarnation had descended upon the world.
He revived the ancestors of the Anxi army to bring salvation to the world. He brought enlightenment to the world through his black lotuses. He paved a path of white bones so that his followers could take down his enemies.
With the aid of a transcendent being, the Anxi’s heavenly army was undefeatable!
Upon hearing the rumors, Khotan’s officials were split into two factions.
The hawk faction believed that they should make a move right away. They should kill all the Tibetan soldiers inside the city, swap their seals, identification cards, and accounting records to Great Tang’s, and welcome the return of the Anxi army.
The conservative faction thought that the hawk faction was being too conservative.
They spent hours in debate, only to suddenly realize…
“Eh? Where’s our king?”
“Our king has gone off the kill the Tibetans!”
“…” There was a brief silence on the royal court before total outrage burst forth.
Damn it, how can someone like that become king? He’s going to steal all the credit at this rate! Let’s make sure to report him to the Anxi Protectorate General later on!
For now… let’s get as many kills as possible!
So, they went ahead to crush the Tibetan army stationed in Khotan. However, they weren’t contented with just that, so they decided to chase the Tibetan soldiers dispatched to reinforce the Lizard Queen and Antlion Whisperer too.
Right now, those dispatched Tibetan soldiers had already bumped into Shu Yichao’s terracotta army and was being forced back…
It couldn’t be helped. There were far too many terracotta soldiers.
Even after devoting 300,000 terracotta soldiers to encircle the two mages, Shu Yichao still had room to dispatch 200,000 terracotta soldiers to attack Khotan.
The Tibetan soldiers were initially overjoyed to see that reinforcements had arrived, only to notice a second later that their ‘reinforcements’ were waving the ‘Tang’ flag and slaughtering their people…
Attacked from both sides at once, it didn’t take long before the Tibetan soldiers were decimated.
Shu Yichao was surprised when he saw a huge group of green dots swiftly approaching him on the minimap.
“Hm? Why are there allied troops here?” he murmured.
“Khotan’s Viśa' Jing pays repsect to Great Tang’s Anxi Protectorate General!”
The Khotan king had brought with him his jade seal, a record of his citizens, and a myriad of other stuff to greet Shu Yichao. His body as trembling with excitement, as the heavenly army he had been waiting for all this while had finally arrived..
He proudly took out a special citizenship record and said, “Listed in this book are our Great Tang citizens living in other towns. They came here to seek refuge after suffering under the barbarians’ tyranny. I have compiled their names into a book, and I have been awaiting your arrival to collect it.”
The Khotan king had taken in quite a few Tang refugees over the years.
The Tibetan Empire knew about it, but their hands were full dealing with Great Tang in the east, the Uyghur in the north, Lhasa in the west, and Sindhu in the south. It didn’t help that the slaves would rebel every now and then.
The last thing they wanted to do was for an internal conflict to break out with Khotan right now.
As long as Khotan didn’t outright rebel against them, they would close an eye about them.
“Unyielding loyalty even amidst danger!” Shu Yichao remarked.
The Khotan king’s face glowed in delight as if it was a huge honor to receive Shu Yichao’s compliment.
He watched as Shu Yichao handed the governance seal and records to a ghost horseman behind him, and somehow, the ghost hroseman looked familiar…
“…” Miazova was at a loss for words.
This grandson of mine, is he not interested in governance at all?
With Khotan defecting to Great Tang, the Lizard Queen and Antlion Whisperer fell in dire straits.
If they fled eastward, they would be faced with a bombardment of arrows and cannonballs. Westward, an endless army of terracotta soldiers was awaiting them. So, they ended up staying inside the water, watching in despair as the enemies closed in on them.
Just then, Shu Yichao appeared by the rapidly flowing river with lightning crackling in his hand. Clearly, they would soon experience the joys of being electrofishing.
“…”
“…”
“We surrender!”
No one knew who succumbed first, but both the Lizard Queen and Antlion Whisperer raised white flags.
“Heavenly soldiers of Great Tang, please spare us! We surrender!”
The Lizard Queen and the Antlion Whisperer knew that the enemy wouldn’t hesitate to chop them down if they obstinately fought back.
“I bet you never expected such a day,” the Khotan king gloated.
After being extorted by them mages countless times, it filled him with glee to see these two arrogant mages lowering themselves and humbly surrendering.
“Bring her up first!” Shu Yichao ordered.
The Lizard Queen breathed a sigh of relief.
All right. My luck is still not bad. I did achieve my goal even though it is different from how I imagined it to be.
She feebly lay on her sand monitor as it transported her to shore, looking completely fatigued. She weakly raised her hand and pitifully murmured, “Lord Protectorate General, I…”
A blast of wind gushed at the Lizard Queen. She watched in confusion as Shu Yichao charged at her with a blinding silver light crackling from his modao.
Bzt!
His modao pierced through her.
“…”
Staring at the modao lodged in her body, the Lizard Queen’s mind went blank.
She couldn’t understand why Shu Yichao was doing this. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Powerful mages like her were usually captured alive because of how valuable they were. The only times when they were killed were when it was too difficult to capture them alive.
I have surrendered. I followed your orders and obediently came to shore… Why are you still slicing me down?! A tyrannical person who doesn’t hold his promise… who will dare surrender to you in the future?!
And I am a top-notch beauty! I thought you were moved by my looks. You even ordered your men to capture me alive!
Why would you…
In her daze, the Lizard Queen noticed Shu Yichao’s eyes. There was no sympathy in them. It was as if her sand monitor mount was even more important than her.
“Hah…” The Lizard Queen laughed in self-mockery. “I am a fool.”
Boom!
Lightning gushed into the Lizard Queen, blasting her into bits.
“AHHHH!!!” the Antlion Whisperer screamed in despair.
He had thought that the Lizard Queen would at least survive this ordeal, considering how she was not just a powerful mage but a gorgeous woman too. Someone like her shouldn’t have died in such a ridiculous manner.
Yet…
If Great Tang’s Protectorate General wouldn’t spare even the Lizard Queen, there’s no way he would spare me.
As if a self-fulfilling prophecy, he heard a cold declaration right after.
“Kill them all. Those who dare defy Great Tang’s authority don’t deserve to live.”