#7514 - Cat and Mouse War
After being stunned, the raccoon cat king laughed out loud: "You really don't know how to live or die. This is just like a mouse licking a cat's nose for no reason!"
"What are these damned rats doing? Are you dissatisfied with the fact that their own race is overpopulated?"
The other ministers also laughed at him.
"Your Majesty, these damn rats must have something wrong with their brains."
"Yes, I heard that the Rat Tribe had a prince named Xiang Chen, who was touted by them as the savior who would lead the Rat Tribe to rise. This was too much for them!"
The raccoon king said: "Send a message to General Treading Snow to lead 10,000 cat soldiers to support Maoyaguan, and General Lifeng to kill the rat army for me!"
"yes!"
Cat's teeth outside.
An army of 150,000 rats stood in neat rows outside the pass.
On the wall of Maoyaguan City, General Lifeng licked his paws lazily.
He glanced at the dense army of rats outside the pass and sneered, "Did these rats take the wrong medicine?"
"General, do you want to release a wave of arrows first?" suggested the deputy general.
"What's the hurry?" Li Feng yawned. "There's a forbidden flying formation, and they can't fly. Let them climb the wall first, and then shoot arrows when they are halfway up. That's what's fun."
The 150,000-strong rat army was silent as iron, their metal armor glowing coldly in the morning light.
Xiang Chen stood on the bronze chariot, stroking the Lihuo Cover with his claws, and the red lines moved under his fur like a living thing.
General Li Feng on the city wall narrowed his pupils and looked at the neat and orderly formation of rats outside the pass. A sneer appeared on the corner of his mouth: "Are armored rats worthy of being called an army?"
However, the next moment, his pupils suddenly contracted.
"Prepare the siege crossbow—"
Xiang Chen suddenly waved his flag. Three hundred three-foot-high metal crossbows were pushed out from the army formation. Each crossbow cart was operated by twelve rat soldiers. The winches made a tooth-grinding metallic friction sound when they turned.
The cat guards on the city wall burst into laughter; they had never seen the rat tribe use any equipment.
But when the first wave of crossbow arrows left the string, the whole cat's jaws were trembling.
Those three-meter-long metal crossbow arrows suddenly disintegrated in mid-air and turned into a sky full of poisoned iron caltrops, covering an area that covered half of the city wall.
"Raise your shield! Raise your shield quickly!" Li Feng roared and pulled the guard beside him to block in front of him.
The dull sound of caltrops piercing through wooden shields mixed with the screams of the cats, and more than a hundred defenders fell to the ground on the wall in an instant.
A caltrop brushed past the tip of Li Feng's ear, and the poisonous wind it brought with it instantly paralyzed half of his face.
Suddenly the ground pulse trembled.
"Earth Dragon Group, break the wall!" Xiang Chen chopped down the second flag.
Five thousand heavily-armored rat soldiers suddenly crouched down collectively, digging their claws into the ground. The metal tanks on their backs spewed out dark blue flames, which turned out to be the Earth Core Flame that Xiang Chen had refined with the Fire Separation Cover.
The rock layers at the base of the city wall began to wriggle strangely, as if countless metal earthworms were gnawing at the foundation.
Li Feng on the tower suddenly staggered—the entire section of the east wall actually sank three feet! Cracks spread like spider webs, and thirty cat archers had no time to escape, falling into the abyss along with the collapsed wall bricks.
"This... is this still the Gold-Eating Rat Tribe?" The deputy general looked at the liquid metal flowing between the rat soldiers' claws, which was continuously seeping into the earth veins. They finally remembered that this despised race was born with the innate ability to control metal veins.
Hundreds of metal catapults suddenly rose from the Rat Clan's army formation, each of which was operated by ten Rat Soldiers. What was even more terrifying was that those "stones" were actually made of condensed metal, and the surface was glowing with a strange purple light.
"Release!" With Xiang Chen's order, metal stones whizzed in from the sky. Li Feng then discovered that those stones would split by themselves in mid-air, turning into countless tiny metal fragments!
"Get out of the way!" he screamed, but it was too late.
Metal fragments rained down, runes lit up on them, the speed of the stones was as fast as divine light, and the weight suddenly increased, the impact was terrifying, and the cat soldiers' leather armor could not withstand it at all. Amid screams, the defenders on the city wall fell down one after another.
"Damn it!" Li Feng drew out his long sword: "Archers, fight back!"
However, a huge metal shield was suddenly erected in front of the rat army, and all the arrows were bounced away with a clang.
What shocked the cats even more was that those huge shields could move on their own, creating a safe passage leading directly to the city wall for the rat army.
"This...is this still the rat tribe we know?" The deputy general's voice trembled.
Li Feng gritted his teeth and said, "Don't panic. Even if they can get close to the city wall, they can't climb up!"
Before he finished speaking, thousands of heavily armored rat soldiers suddenly rushed out of the Rat Tribe. They had special metal claws on their claws that could easily penetrate the cracks in the city wall.
What’s even more terrifying is that these rat soldiers climbed extremely fast and reached one-third of the height in the blink of an eye.
"Pour kerosene!" Li Feng roared.
The boiling kerosene poured down, but the metal armor on the rat soldiers could withstand the high temperature. A few rat soldiers who were drenched in kerosene would detonate the metal bombs on their bodies before falling, opening up more climbing points for the follow-up troops.
When the first rat soldier jumped onto the battlement, the cats finally realized that this was no joke. The double-edged sword in the rat soldier's claws was as fast as lightning, instantly piercing the throats of the three cat guards.
Behind it, a steady stream of rats surged onto the city wall. Every ten of them formed a small Sky Rat battle formation that was like a meat grinder - the front row blocked with shields, the middle row thrust with spears, and the back row kept throwing explosive metal balls.
"General, the east side of the city wall has been lost!" The messenger came running in panic.
Li Feng turned his head and saw that the eastern wall was already full of rat soldiers. They were holding special metal spears and advancing in a neat battle formation.
"Damn it!" Li Feng drew out his long knife: "Follow me, drive these rats away!"
He rushed towards the gap in the city wall with his guards, but soon realized that the situation was not good.
Not only were the rat soldiers well-equipped, their combat skills were also beyond imagination. They would use their size advantage to get into the defensive blind spots of the cat soldiers and accurately stab them in the vital points with their specially made metal daggers.
What was even more terrifying was that the Rat Clan would occasionally shoot out metal crossbow arrows, which could split in the air and form a small-scale metal storm.
The agility that the cat soldiers were proud of was useless under such intensive attacks.
"General! The granary on the west side is on fire!" The messenger, covered in blood, fell to his knees.
Li Feng turned his head and saw seven plumes of black smoke rising thirty miles away - that was the "digging army" deployed by Xiang Chen three months ago, which was now melting all the supply lines of Maoyaguan from underground.
"Retreat! Retreat to the inner city!" Seeing that the situation was hopeless, Li Feng had to order a retreat.
However, at this moment, the sound of deafening war drums suddenly rang out from the rat army.
Xiang Chen personally led the elite troops to launch a general attack. He was holding a spear made of fragments of divine iron from outer space, and was invincible.
"For the glory of the Gold-Eating Rat Clan!" Xiang Chen shouted the charge slogan.
"For the race!" 150,000 rat soldiers responded in unison, and the sound waves shook the city walls.
Li Feng looked at the rat army that was coming like a tide, and finally realized that he had made a fatal mistake - he had underestimated the determination and strength of these "rats".
Xiang Chen stood on the city wall, looking at the fleeing cat tribe remnants, a sneer appeared on the corner of his mouth: "This has just begun..."
When General Texue's reinforcements arrived, Maoyaguan had already fallen. But the entire Maoyaguan was completely silent without any movement.
As the setting sun dyed the city walls bloody, the smell of blood rose to the sky, and the corpses of cats and rats piled up like mountains in front of the city gate.
Xiang Chen stood at the highest point, holding Li Feng's head corroded by venom in his claws, and the Lihuo Cover behind him turned into a Burning Sky Wheel.
