Chapter 115: The Slow Sparrow

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Chapter 115: Sluo Sparrows

At Li Zhong’s command, the archers on the eastern wall fired first. Their opening volley consisted of ordinary arrows—a test in itself.

The results were immediately apparent. When the mundane arrows flew from the wall and struck the savage birds, they merely knocked loose a few feathers. Only a handful managed to score direct hits to the head, causing any real losses among the flock.

Li Zhong was not surprised. Any creature capable of surviving in the Inner Domain, let alone flying freely through the sky in great flocks, was bound to be a predator.

And as predators, their basic combat strength was at least Tier Two. There were no shortage of Tier Three beasts mixed among them as well. Ordinary bows and arrows had only ever been intended as a preliminary test; Li Zhong had never expected them to achieve much.

“Replace the arrows. Prepare the spirit-bamboo arrows!”

At his order, the archers immediately drew arrows made from spirit bamboo from the quivers beside them, nocked them to their powerful bows, and once again took aim at the savage birds.

“Fire!”

Another curtain of arrows rose from the city wall. But unlike the previous volley, these were far from ordinary. They had been crafted from iron spirit bamboo—so hard that even the round, supposedly panda-like iron-eating beasts would find them painful to chew.

After the iron spirit bamboo had been painstakingly worked by the craftsmen under Li Hongshen, it had become what was now known as spirit-bamboo arrows. They naturally possessed exceptional toughness, and even a light sharpening of their points could make them incomparably keen.

As they flew, the arrows dragged behind them a faint blue-gray radiance: the spiritual glow inherent to iron spirit bamboo, which remained even after the material had been fashioned into arrows.

This volley soon produced remarkable results. The arrowheads pierced directly into the bodies of the savage birds, provoking frantic reactions as the creatures beat their wings desperately. Their struggles served only to accelerate the tearing of their internal organs before they finally plunged from the sky.

The losses drove the Sluo sparrows into a frenzy. Their shrill cries rang through the air, and some began diving toward the city.

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In the end, they either smashed into the city wall or crashed against the protective shield, sending ripples across its surface. Yet neither the wall nor the shield moved an inch, and neither appeared to have suffered any damage.

Standing in the lord’s residence, Li Hongshen watched through a spyglass as the Sluo sparrows repeatedly hurled themselves against the city. He could not help feeling that they were rather foolish. Those that struck the shield or the wall burst into clouds of feathers, and some fell straight to the ground, where the warriors Li Hongshen had stationed there quickly gathered them up.

This pleased Li Hongshen somewhat. Had the savage birds been shot down in midair, there was a high chance their bodies would have fallen from the floating island. They might have landed on one of the resource islands below, becoming food for other beasts.

Or they might have fallen onto the protective layer established by some great power at the lowest level, where they would have been transformed into energy and added to the endless wilderness.

Now, however, the savage birds were being collected by Li Hongshen’s warriors. That meant profit. They had willingly sacrificed themselves, becoming resources that contributed to the development of his territory.

Although Li Hongshen was delighted to watch the savage birds test the limits of their thick skulls, he still ordered Li Zhong to complete the tests as quickly as possible, lest the protective shield’s energy consumption increase further.

After receiving Li Hongshen’s command, Li Zhong again ordered the archers to change their ammunition.

“Prepare the rune arrows!”

At his command, the archers once more drew arrows from the quivers beside them. Each arrow radiated a faint spiritual fluctuation. They were not to be underestimated.

These slender arrows embodied the most advanced technology currently available within Li Hongshen’s territory. To reduce production costs, Li Hongshen and the others had used the most common ironwood for the shafts.

Several grooves were cut along the shafts, into which threads of spirit bamboo were embedded to serve as energy channels. The outermost layer was then inscribed with runes of toughness and acceleration.

The arrowheads were made using a technique that encased stone in iron. A layer of iron was wrapped around the sharpened edges of the stone heads to create keen cutting surfaces. Sharpness runes were then carved into the interior of each head, with energy circuits extending outward to connect with the spirit-bamboo threads.

The simplest part of the rune arrows was the fletching. It was made from the feathers of phoenix chickens, one of the three principal sources of meat in Li Hongshen’s territory. An astonishing quantity of feathers could be collected from them every day, and they were easy to process. After some treatment, they could be fitted perfectly onto the rune arrows.

Whenever the warriors wished to fire one, they merely had to channel their own energy into the arrow, activating the runes of sharpness, toughness, and acceleration before releasing it.

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Fifteen seconds after Li Zhong issued the order, every archer had activated the rune arrow in hand. At Li Zhong’s shout, they released their arrows once more.

This time, the arrows tore swiftly through the air, leaving ripples in their wake. In the blink of an eye, they vanished into the flock of savage birds.

A single rune arrow did not merely kill one bird. It pierced through two, three, even four bodies in succession, only finally coming to a stop after the energy within it had been exhausted.

After the volley, a large gap could clearly be seen in the Sluo sparrow flock. The savage birds still flying in the sky were instantly terrified.

Their previously dense formation quickly scattered. Many of the birds, panicking and fleeing without direction, crashed into their companions. The two creatures would then tumble to the ground together, where the warriors finished them off.

Looking at the now-sparse flock in the sky, Li Zhong smiled with delight. Events were unfolding exactly as he had anticipated. With the flock scattered, the Tier Three mutated birds hidden among the group were now exposed.

The sight made Li Zhong even more excited.

“Prepare the ballistae! Target the Tier Three mutants. Fire!”

The ballistae that had long been prepared were brought to bear under the control of their operators. Their bowstrings, made from beast sinew, snapped forward and launched bolts as long as spears.

The bolts’ entire heads were forged from spiritual metal. Their shafts, like those of the rune arrows, were made from a mixture of ironwood and spirit bamboo. The fletching consisted of feathers collected from storm eagles, which could increase the bolts’ speed by another ten to twenty percent beyond the acceleration rune and allow them to travel farther through the air.

Like the rune arrows, the bolts tore through the air, leaving two slender trails behind them and radiating a faint silvery-white glow. Amid the shriek of the wind, they struck the mutant birds before the creatures could evade. Clouds of feathers burst in the sky, and the bird carcasses, bolts still embedded in them, crashed to the ground together.

After a volley from the ballistae, the Sluo sparrow flock grew even more frantic. Some flew away at once, while others continued pursuing the floating island relentlessly.

Li Zhong ordered the ballista crews and gunners to remain on alert. He also instructed the archers to resume firing ordinary arrows—not to kill the birds, but merely to prevent them from drawing any closer.

End of Chapter.