Origin Paradise!

Whenever soldiers carried a corpse past, Jiang He would seize the opportunity to slap it and suck out his heart's blood.

Some soldiers were aware of this, as they had heard of similar martial arts techniques from the martial arts world, but no one chose to question or raise any objections when facing the commander-in-chief, the Duke of Pingluan. The scene of the enemy's wanton killing during the daytime defense of the city was still vivid in their minds.

The progress of blood poisoning continues to improve.

[Note: Your Blood Poison quality has been upgraded; Rare-grade bonus damage has been converted into Excellent-grade base damage]

At the Common level, an average person can provide 1% progress, but this drops to 0.4% at the Rare level.

Having successfully broken through to the Excellent level, the progress provided by an ordinary person has now become 0.04%.

The proportion has dropped significantly, but there is simply too much material.

After 2,500 blood draws, the blood poison progress is full again.

[Note: Your Blood Poison quality has been improved; the extra damage from Excellent-grade Blood Poison is now converted into base damage from Perfect-grade Blood Poison.]

[Note: The blood poison quality is too high; ordinary creatures can no longer provide progress.]

[Hint: Blood Poison gives rise to a derivative ability: Hellish Smallpox]

[Name: Blood Poison]

[Category: Energy Trait]

[Quality: Perfect]

[Effect: A bizarre and powerful poison; in sufficient doses, it can be lethal even to Silver-level beings. It can also release a highly contagious hellish smallpox disease.]

[Note: Its user is a peerless poison master]

Jiang He pondered for a moment, and Blood Poison stood out among his various abilities and tools, surpassing all others to reach the perfect quality above excellent.

Generally speaking, origin entries such as common, rare, low-level, and mid-level correspond to the Bronze Age.

Exquisite craftsmanship and advanced performance correspond to the Silver Age.

Perfect Blood Poison can pose a deadly threat to Silver-level beings, but there are two prerequisites: first, the dosage must be sufficient, and second, the attack must break through their defenses before the Blood Poison can be infused.

"It seems there are two hidden benefits."

Jiang He thought to himself, with his abilities evolved to this point, the power of his combined skills with Zhuang Ya would be greatly enhanced, and his resistance to poison would become unreasonable, making him virtually immune to various poisons in the Bronze Age level world.

"My lord, what about these barbarian corpses?"

When the deputy general Du Chang saw that the lord had stopped what he was doing, he asked cautiously.

"We don't have enough defensive equipment, so we'll just throw it down like logs when the battle starts," Jiang He said nonchalantly.

“Ah, this…” Deputy General Du Chang’s scalp tingled.

"Don't forget to light it before throwing it in."

Deputy General Du Chang: "..."

What a cruel and inhuman scheme!

Chapter 153 Fierce Battle

On the morning of the second day of the siege, dark clouds filled the sky.

The wind and sand rolled in, crashing against the north city wall like surging waves.

Thirty thousand Yi people marched out of their camp, pushing the cloud towers on the Wutai Mountain and the city walls closer. These siege weapons had internal staircases, allowing the Yi people to directly engage the soldiers on the city walls in close combat.

At the same time, dozens of fleshy lumps, several meters tall, were led by barbarians with iron chains and gradually approached the city wall.

“My lord, that is the Tai Sui, a strange beast kept in the sacrificial temple of the Great Snow Mountain of the Northern Barbarians. Its texture is very flexible and it is extremely easy to reproduce. Ordinary defensive weapons and arrows cannot cause any real damage. It is usually used by the Northern Barbarians to cover their advance.”

Jiang He looked solemnly at the Tai Sui in the distance. He had seen this strange beast before at the stone pillar water source of the Lan clan. Its body fluids could maintain the activity of organs and probably also had the function of healing.

"Release the arrows," ordered Vice General Du Chang.

The two thousand Beihun soldiers who had been replenished on the city wall all drew their bows and nocked their arrows, and five rounds of arrows rose into the air, raining down on the heads of the barbarian troops at the forefront of the attacking force.

The rudimentary round shields offered little effective defense, and thousands were shot dead during the advance.

The barbarians stopped in their tracks, and the hundreds of northern barbarian cavalry who served as the supervisors immediately charged through, killing dozens of them with their swords and spears.

Jiang He pulled out the Crimson Baptism, loaded and aimed, and activated three shooting skills simultaneously: Rapid Fire, Shockwave, and Deadly Strike. Combined with the sniper rifle's enhanced bullet velocity and armor-piercing effect, it unleashed a streak of dark red light like lightning.

The upper body of the barbarian centurion in the supervisory team was smashed to pieces along with his iron armor, and his mutilated corpse fell from his horse, kicking up a layer of dust.

call!

Cheers erupted from the soldiers atop the city wall.

Jiang He fired repeatedly, specifically targeting the barbarians who were wearing armor.

Gunshots rang out, and corpses fell to the ground one after another.

As the alchemical piercing shells neared depletion, the barbarian ranks began to retreat. Some acting centurions, unwilling to accept death, incited their troops to flee, further disorganizing the already cannon fodder-like ranks.

The Northern Barbarian army was in formation, and the Lan clan's commander roared in fury.

"You barbarians, you pigs and dogs, be the first to storm the camp!"

At the same time, another commander made the same choice.

Two elite units of a thousand men each from the northern barbarians stepped forward. They were rare infantrymen in armor on the grasslands, each wielding a formidable battle sword.

These elite armored soldiers squeezed into the Tai Sui, and two rounds of arrows turned the Tai Sui into hedgehogs, but failed to cause any casualties. The addition of the Northern Barbarian soldiers also stabilized the Yi people's camp.

As the army approached, Deputy General Du Chang hurriedly transferred another thousand men from other city walls to defend the front.

Ladders were erected against the walls, and the empty city walls and towers were used to block the battlements. The barbarians, as dense as ants, launched their fierce attack.

"Pour the water!" Deputy General Du Chang shouted hoarsely.

Iron buckets were passed from the city to the city walls by soldiers, then poured onto the ladders. Immediately, the barbarians cried out in agony and screams, but the sound ceased once the buckets hit the ground.

The stagnant water seemed endless, and combined with the defensive siege equipment, it caused heavy casualties to the attacking soldiers on the siege ladders.

Four elite centurions guarded the city walls, fighting against the barbarians pouring out of the cloud tower. Soldiers from both sides fell from the sky and died instantly upon hitting the ground. Meanwhile, small catapults made from ballistae on the city walls continuously launched humanoid projectiles engulfed in flames. The barbarians who witnessed this scene were filled with shock, anger and horror.

Jiang He and fifteen vicious guards held a cloud tower. He stood behind the wall and swung his spear left and right. The three thousand catties of the Long Hatred Spear, combined with the tiger's strength, was unstoppable. The killing gradually turned into a boring repetition.

However, the number of merits is rising steadily. The Evil Army uses the swords and knives stolen from the Treasure Pavilion to harass the enemy by continuously throwing them. Every time an enemy soldier is killed, the merit is credited to the master.

After a fierce battle lasting half an hour, corpses piled up like mountains and blood flowed like rivers beneath the city walls, creating a muddy mess of putrid water. The elite Northern Barbarian warriors joined the siege and immediately posed a serious threat to the defending soldiers once they climbed the cloud tower. At the same time, Tai Sui caught the falling soldiers of his own side, his flexible body slowing down the impact and significantly reducing casualties.

Faced with the stagnant water, the Northern Barbarian warriors on the cloud ladders would rather fall to their deaths than affect their comrades below. At the cloud tower, some warriors even rolled into the enemy ranks, risking being hacked to death, just to secure a foothold for their comrades.

These vanguard soldiers were highly skilled in combat and fearless in the face of death.

Seeing the change in the situation from afar, the Lan clan leader and the commander of ten thousand immediately committed their main force, and two battle formations of ten thousand men each advanced.

The main force of the Northern Barbarians approached the city walls, and the other three sides of the city walls also came under attack.

Behind the dark Great Wall, which stretched for two or three miles behind, reinforcements arrived. General Hao, who was watching from afar, ordered forty catapults to launch simultaneously. One after another, fiery projectiles shot through the air. The mountain city and the fire city were built at the very end of the catapult's range, but their weakness was that they could not distinguish between friend and foe.

After several rounds of attacks, fireworks burst forth, and the densely packed siege force suffered heavy casualties, with thousands lying dead on the ground.

Jiang He beckoned, and a puppet handed him a longsword and a strip of cloth, bound with ten black gems, and then threw it straight out.

The chaotic bombs detonated, destroying the leftmost cloud tower on the city wall. Hundreds of people were torn apart by the impact, and hundreds more fell. The collapse of the cloud tower not only struck two hundred-man squads but also severely damaged morale.

Merit +408

Three more black gem swords shot through the air, and the three cloud towers collapsed one after another. The battlefield seemed to be silent for a moment, with only the cloud tower in front still standing on the battlefield. The expected explosion did not occur, and a large number of elite barbarians climbed the tower to attack.

Jiang He held the front of the city wall, his body splattered with bits of flesh and blood, and pools of blood pooling at his feet.

A Tantric protector was hidden among the armored soldiers. His robe-clad demon-subduing steps were unpredictable and on par with the Nine Provinces Misty Rain Steps. Having learned from the lessons of their previous head-on battle, this protector had no intention of fighting head-on but was preparing to launch a sneak attack.

The Vajra Pestle attacked from a blind spot, its angle extremely tricky. The Tantric protector delivered a powerful blow, aiming for the enemy's cheek acupoint. Before this, the opponent had displayed a powerful protective technique, so a direct strike to the weak point was necessary to kill him instantly.

The unique footwork combined with superior martial arts makes the Vajra Pestle resemble a giant crossbow firing an arrow, with extraordinary power.

In an instant, Jiang He swept across and killed several Northern Barbarian warriors in front of him, their armor and bodies shattered. Then, he suddenly stomped the ground several times, activating a degraded version of the Zhenbu technique he had learned from Gun King San.

The vajra brushed past the hair, and Jiang He pushed the spear tail to the left, but the spiraling force of light and dark only cut a thumb-length wound on the enemy's chest.

At the critical moment, the Tantric protector once again used the Kasaya Step, his figure as ethereal as a dream. When his attack missed, he knew he had lost all hope of killing the Martial Earl before him.

But in the next second, the Tantric protector's expression changed drastically, his body suddenly stopped, and then he vomited several mouthfuls of black blood. His entire body became dull and lifeless, with black veins spreading out and his skin ulcerating.

Before even a breath had passed since the perfect-grade blood poison was injected, this master, a high-level martial artist, collapsed and died.

Jiang He stepped forward and drew blood from his heart.

[Bloodbath Progress Bar: 0% → 1%]

[Perfect-grade Blood Poison: Deals 1% additional poison damage]

Chapter 154 The Third Day

Under a sky thick with dark clouds.

The two sides fought fiercely for two hours.

From the direction of the dark Great Wall, fiery stones continued to rise into the air.

Thousands of northern barbarian soldiers and Yi people died as a result.

Occasionally, fiery stones would fall into the city, causing the loss of hundreds of Beihun soldiers.

At noon, the two commanders ordered a retreat. The mountain city and the fire city were expendable pawns and bait laid by the Anbei Governor's Office.

Jiang He sat back down in front of the pavilion. Seeing this, the soldiers mustered their courage to clean up the battlefield.

Deputy General Du Chang reported: "My lord, the Beihun Camp has suffered 1,500 casualties. If we include the friendly fire at the Ink Great Wall and the losses from yesterday, the number is approaching 2,000. Today, the Northern Barbarians left behind more than 4,000 elite corpses and tens of thousands of barbarians. The bad news is that the city's defensive equipment has been completely exhausted, and only 20% of the stagnant water remains."

"I'll replenish the stagnant water later."

Jiang He put away the Changhen Spear, looking slightly tired. He had more than one piece of equipment to speed up his physical recovery, but he couldn't withstand using the Ming and An Spiral Force for two consecutive hours. At first, he would be exhausted after unleashing the Ming Force dozens of times a day, and now it was time for him to rest as well.

"Of the four thousand soldiers in the Northern Hun Camp, send out a thousand-household squad to ride horses. When the Northern Barbarians were about to withdraw, they should have realized that we had no defensive equipment left, or rather, they waited until they were exhausted before choosing to retreat. Tomorrow is likely to be the final offensive, so be prepared," Jiang He said, waving his hand.

Deputy General Du Chang felt a chill run down his spine, clenched his fists, and took his leave.

The soldiers gathered up the corpses on the city wall, and Jiang He opened his exclusive shop to make exchanges.

The merit points are 3452, a small portion of which came from the Chaos Bomb. In fact, acquiring a common-grade doll at the cost of rare-grade explosive consumables is a losing proposition, but considering other rewards and side quests, it is not a loss overall.

A superior Rubik's Cube doll alchemy recipe, worth 1000 merit points.

Three rare Hunter Directional Skill Scrolls related to the Eye, 450 Merit Points.

Jiang He used all the skill scrolls and successively obtained Eagle Eye, which can see thousands of meters away and has excellent dynamic capture capabilities; Snake Eye, which provides night vision and thermal imaging; and True Eye, which can see through all kinds of disguises.

As for the Rubik's Cube alchemy recipe, it relates to how to create dolls. Because the dolls are of a low level, the process and material requirements are relatively simple. The main material is a corpse with a well-preserved brain, requiring an intelligence of over 90 in life. The second material is ten kilograms of gold, as gold, to a certain extent, symbolizes wealth in the field of occultism.

The most crucial element is the alchemical pattern.

Jiang He explored the meaning of the formula's patterns. Essentially, it was a kind of writing system, with dozens of parts corresponding to different symbols. When combined, they resembled a strangely beautiful scribbling. The patterns simplified the material consumption required for the symbols, essentially trading convenience for a reduction in the quality of the finished product.

"Unfortunately, the cost is too high."

Ten kilograms of gold alone eliminated any possibility of him cooperating with the Anbei Governor's Office in production. The main advantage of the Rubik's Cube dolls was their constant loyalty to their maker, and the gold used as a cost could easily support an army far exceeding that number.

The exchange is complete, and two hundred Rubik's Cubes have been distributed.

Jiang He went into the attic and activated all the dolls, placing them under the command of Magic Cube No. 1.

……

The third day of defending the city.

As if not giving the defending soldiers any chance to rest and recuperate, the barbarian servants who had suffered 20,000 casualties were replaced, and four northern barbarian 10,000-strong armies simultaneously launched their advance at dawn, attacking the east, west, and north walls at the same time.

Faced with a tenfold difference in troop strength, the entire mountain town was immersed in an atmosphere of sorrow and deathly silence.

Since late autumn, the Northern Barbarians have been building siege equipment. Now they are launching a large-scale offensive, with more than thirty Cloud Towers, hundreds of Tai Sui beasts, and a gathering of experts.

On the city wall, Deputy General Du Chang looked solemn but showed no fear. He had come for wealth and honor, and was naturally prepared to die for it.

"My lord, I'm afraid we're going to die on the battlefield."

As a veteran general, he was certain that this battle was hopeless. If the enemy were a mixed rebel army in the south of the Great Qian Dynasty, they might have a chance to wear them down or even defeat them. However, the Northern Barbarians were at the height of their power, with well-trained soldiers, numerous armored warriors, and a surging tide of iron cavalry. It would take them less than an hour to submerge the mountain city.

“We definitely can’t hold it. You lead two thousand men to defend the city walls, and I’ll take the rest of the cavalry with me.”

Deputy General Du Chang hesitated to speak, but his two thousand cavalrymen charged into the elite army's formation without causing the slightest disturbance.