Chapter 967 - Ghareeb Hassam
Chapter 967: Ghareeb Hassam
Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
While the war drums were thundering and the Arab army marched forward, in a place away from the battlefield, people were busy at work.
The massive bodies of the Skyquaking Giants were gathered here, working on what appeared to be eight bronze catapults of enormous size. Each one of them was fifty to sixty meters tall, heavy and sturdy, each one weighing around sixty thousand jin.
“Release!”
“Release!”
“Release!”
An officer of the Skyquaking Army was standing in front of these eight bronze catapults, furiously bellowing orders. The air boomed as one mighty Skyquaking Giant after another was launched from the catapults.
“Damn it! You useless things, can you not even do something as simple as this?”
With a heaven-shaking roar, an enormous palm, so covered in muscle that it appeared like the gnarled roots of an ancient tree, shot in from the side, pushing aside the Skyquaking Giant officer. In front of this gigantic palm, the formidable officer appeared as light as a feather. The working Skyquaking Giants suddenly fell silent, lowering their heads and standing to the side like children who had made a mistake.
Boom! A similarly gigantic foot stomped down, sending rocks flying and causing the ground to tremble and crack.
“Leader!”
The surrounding giants lowered their heads all the way down to their waists, appearing both respectful and fearful.
Bang!
There was yet another earthshaking stomp as the owner of that huge palm finally appeared before everyone. This was a giant twenty-seven to twenty-eight meters tall, so bulky and muscular that his arms were as thick as the legs of the other giants. The strength surging through his body surpassed that of all other giants, making the rest of them seem like children.
Ghareeb Hassam!
The leader of the Skyquaking Army!
In Arabic, this name meant ‘victory’ and ‘invincible’. He was the invincible giant, the one the Caliph of Arabia declared as the ‘Wrath of God’.
Ghareeb Hassam was different from the other giants. Despite his enormous girth, he was extremely intelligent. More importantly, before taking part in the Giant Army experiment, Ghareeb Hassam had already been an outstanding Arab general. He was devoted to the Caliph and a formidable warrior, factors which caused him to be deeply respected in the Arabian Empire. The Caliph had even cast a golden belt for him to serve as a symbol of his status as commander of the Skyquaking Army.
But at this moment, Ghareeb Hassam was enraged.
“Useless things! Trash! Trash! Trash!!”
Ghareeb Hassam’s mouth was spewing rage. He and the Arab soldiers at the front had agreed that if the giants of the Skyquaking Army succeeded in their objective of disturbing the Tang defense line and destroying the two giant ballistae, the Arab soldiers would send a signal. But even though two hundred Skyquaking Giants had been sent over by the bronze catapults, there had still been no signal. It was clear that the two giant ballistae had still not been destroyed.
To the proud Ghareeb Hassam, this was an enormous disgrace!
“Hussein, Tarik, just what are you two bastards doing! So many men have been launched, so why haven’t those two giant ballistae been smashed yet? Can you not even do something as simple as this?”
Ghareeb Hassam was extremely large, his height of twenty-seven meters enabling him to see very far, even the area the giant ballistae were located. He found it simply unacceptable that the two giant ballistae had still not been destroyed.
“Leader! The bronze catapults are very inaccurate. That we can launch the giants between the two defense lines is already the best we can do. Accurately striking the two giant ballistae is basically impossible,” argued the twenty-two-meter giant captain that Ghareeb Hassam had called ‘Hussein’.
Bang! The giant had barely spoken when a weighty fist sent him flying backward.
“Useless thing, get out of my way! I’ll tell all of you right here, there is nothing in this world that can’t be done! Pile of trash!”
Ghareeb Hassam pushed aside his two officers and seated himself on one of the bronze catapults. His eyes looked forward as he began to adjust the trajectory and angle.
“Load another two giants and increase the strength. I want the catapult at maximum tension!
“This time, none of you are permitted to do anything! I’ll do the adjustments myself!”
Ghareeb Hassam bellowed as he personally took command. Three zhang, five zhang… Ghareeb Hassam commanded the Skyquaking Giants to pull the catapult ropes farther and farther back. The two tough and flexible ropes creaked as they began to tighten.
After some time, the ropes of the bronze catapult were finally pulled to their maximum extent by the ten-some giants, and Ghareeb Hassam immediately gave the order to launch.
“Release!”
Boom! Ghareeb Hassam shot into the air like a cannonball, the winds howling around him as he soared into the sky. In the blink of an eye, he was gone, and it was only now that a deafening sonic boom resounded through the air.
……
As the Skyquaking Army was slowly being pushed into a stalemate, another ‘meteor’ came plummeting down from the sky. This meteor was far louder than any of the others, the shrieking from the friction in the air so sharp that almost everyone on the battlefield felt deafened.
Wang Chong’s heart thumped as he suddenly felt an extreme danger. He could tell that a meteor was currently descending onto the battlefield with an unprecedented speed. The impact speed of the other Skyquaking Giants was tiny in comparison, like comparing a turtle to a hare.
Buzz! Wang Chong’s eyes began to scan the skies, and immediately locked onto the source of that sharp whistle. This was a golden-red meteor, almost three times larger than the other meteors and falling at a much faster speed. Only a few seconds had elapsed from the time Wang Chong had heard the sound to the moment he had raised his head, but in this period, the meteor was now not even one hundred zhang from landing.
At this distance, everyone felt an intense pressure, and more importantly, they could sense a vast destructive energy raging within the meteor.
“Not good!”
When he saw where the golden-red meteor was going to land, Wang Chong trembled in shock, his face paling.
“Lord Protector-General, I leave this place to you!” Wang Chong roared, and immediately began to rush toward the two giant ballistae.
“Milord!”
Just after Wang Chong turned around, an extremely worried voice came from behind him. Xue Qianjun was looking at Wang Chong in absolute panic, and at this same moment, Cheng Qianli’s call of warning exploded in his ears.
“Everyone, get ready!”
Wang Chong was still frozen in surprise when he began to hear the thumping of heavy footsteps suddenly increasing in tempo. Fiercely turning his head, he saw that the mountainous Behemoths had suddenly picked up the pace.
They were now less than two hundred zhang from the defense line!
Wang Chong grimaced, finally understanding why Xue Qianjun had called out to him and why Cheng Qianli’s voice had seemed so frantic. The Arabs had chosen this moment to launch their all-out assault. At this moment, the Tang were beset by the dreadful Behemoths and Arab soldiers from the front while the King of Giants and the Skyquaking Army attacked them from the rear. This was a crisis of most dire proportions!
Wang Chong suddenly stopped as he was forced into a dilemma.
“Banahan!”
Wang Chong only had time to shout a single name. But this tiny delay was enough for that golden-red meteor to accomplish its mission.
Boooom! With an earth-shaking explosion, the meteor smashed into one of the giant ballistae, the force of the impact blowing the giant ballista into innumerable pieces of shrapnel and sending the ballista soldiers flying through the air like they were made of paper.
“Hahaha, burn for me!”
The air howled as a crazed laugh that hungered for destruction came from the center of the explosion. Boom! Yet another explosion of Stellar Energy blasted ballista parts, rocks, dirt, and the surrounding ballista soldiers even farther back.
Amidst the thick smoke and the shockwave from the explosion, everyone could clearly see an enormous Skyquaking Giant rising up from the location of the giant ballista like a demonic god who had come to bring down the apocalypse. Its height of twenty-seven meters left everyone deeply astonished.
“All of you burn to ash!”
Ghareeb Hassam did not pause while everyone stared at him in shock. With a wave of his palm, a group of Tang cavalry charging at him was struck by red Stellar Energy. It seemed to have a life of its own, working into the bodies of the cavalry through the chinks in their armor. They burst into intense flames, the fire emerging from even their ears, eyes, and noses.
“Aaaah!” With a terrible scream, the cavalry were burned to ash, leaving behind only their armor, twisted and contorted from the heat of the flames.
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