Zheng Daniu was the man Yi Dao had chosen to attack.
Unfortunately for the bandit, Zheng Daniu knew absolutely nothing about martial arts. When the blade came swinging toward him, he barely had time to register the attack before it slammed into his chest.
Fortunately, he was wearing the Liang Dang Jia armor Gao Yiyi had given him. A solid iron plate covered his entire chest.
So when a pudao struck that slab of iron, the result was rather underwhelming.
CLANG!
"WHOA! YOU SCARED THE HELL OUT OF ME!"
Zheng Daniu nearly jumped out of his skin. Then he looked down, realized he hadn't even been scratched, and broke into a wide, slightly foolish grin.
Yi Dao's expression darkened. He raised his blade again, this time aiming straight for Zheng Daniu's neck.
Let's see you grin after I chop your head off, you bastard!
The blade descended.
Except it never reached its target.
Halfway through the swing, it suddenly stopped dead in midair, as though an invisible giant had grabbed it.
Yi Dao blinked.
Eh?
He pulled.
Nothing happened.
He pulled harder.
Still nothing.
What the hell? There's nothing here! Who's holding my blade?!
The culprit was, naturally, Li Daoxuan.
As a divine being, Tianzun had certain priorities. And protecting his own little people ranked considerably higher than showing mercy to some random bandit. Besides, Zheng Daniu had been contributing handsomely to Li Daoxuan's micro-sculpture business lately. The fellow had chopped down enough timber to keep the sculptors busy for days.
In other words, he was a valuable employee.
And no decent boss lets a valuable employee get his neck chopped off on company time.
Seeing Yi Dao's blade halted just inches from Zheng Daniu's throat, Li Daoxuan pinched it between two fingers and held it firmly in place.
Yi Dao strained until the veins on his forehead bulged. He pulled with both hands, twisted his wrists, and practically threw his entire body weight into the effort.
The blade refused to budge.
From the other side of the wall, Gao Yiye spotted what was happening and immediately shouted, "Zheng Daniu! Tianzun is holding his blade for you! What are you standing there grinning at? Hit him!"
"Eh? Oh! OH!"
Zheng Daniu finally snapped out of his daze.
He raised his axe and swung.
Now, he might have been a complete novice when it came to fighting people, but swinging an axe was another matter entirely. For the past several days, he'd been chopping trees on the hillside and hauling the timber back for the two sculptors to carve into statues.
It was honest, exhausting work. Fortunately, Tianzun had rewarded his efforts with a huge basin of Happy Water.
Ten days of drinking that much cola had done wonders for his weight. Zheng Daniu was looking considerably more substantial these days.
And judging by the force behind his swing, a century-old tree would have seriously considered uprooting itself and running away.
Yi Dao's thick cowhide armor stood no chance.
THWACK!
The axe bit straight through the hide.
Pain exploded across Yi Dao's chest and abdomen. He stared down in disbelief as blood poured from the gaping wound, staining the very armor he'd trusted to make him invincible.
For a moment, he seemed unable to comprehend what had happened.
Then he looked up at the sky, his expression full of disbelief, before collapsing backward.
Zheng Daniu raised his axe triumphantly.
"Tianzun protects us!"
The surrounding villagers immediately joined his shout.
"Tianzun protects us!"
"Tianzun protects us!"
The cheer rolled across the wall. Moments ago, Yi Dao had been the terrifying bandit who could shrug off their weapons. Now he was lying on the ground, defeated by a farmer who couldn't have explained the first thing about martial arts.
Sometimes, all the combat experience in the world wasn't enough to compensate for the wrong equipment matchup.
Meanwhile, the bandit chief Wushang Mingwang was beginning to suspect that something had gone horribly wrong.
As the leader, he had naturally charged at the front with his toughest men. That put him ahead of the main formation, conveniently allowing the catapult stones to sail over his head and land among the troops behind him.
The boulders hadn't hit him.
Therefore, he wasn't afraid.
When they reached the foot of the wall, he wisely left the climbing to his subordinates and concentrated on waving his saber and shouting orders. This also kept him out of the path of the rocks and boiling oil raining down from above.
Once again, nothing had hit him.
Once again, he wasn't afraid.
So he continued standing at the front, waving his ghost-head saber and bellowing at his men to climb the ladders, break through the defenses, and butcher everyone on the wall.
There was only one small problem.
The longer he shouted, the fewer people seemed to be listening.
At first, he hadn't paid much attention. In the middle of a siege, people were always running around. Some climbed ladders, some carried weapons, and others presumably had important things to do.
But eventually, even Wushang Mingwang noticed that the crowd around him had become suspiciously thin.
He turned around.
Then he froze.
"Eh? Where the hell is my army of twelve hundred?!"
Behind him stood a few dozen scattered survivors.
That was it.
His twelve hundred men had apparently decided that the siege was no longer a worthwhile career choice.
The catapults had been pounding the rear ranks without pause. The first volley alone had sent twenty enormous stones crashing into the formation. After watching comrades get flattened into the dirt, the surviving bandits had quickly reconsidered their enthusiasm for charging a fortified village.
The men at the back began retreating. Then they retreated farther. Before long, the entire rear formation had scattered in every direction.
Meanwhile, the first wave at the wall had been left to fend for itself.
Every man crushed by a boulder was one fewer.
Every man scalded by boiling oil was one fewer.
Every man skewered by a spear or knocked off a ladder was one fewer.
And because Wushang Mingwang had positioned himself at the very front, he had somehow managed to miss the complete collapse of his own army.
Until now.
He stared at the empty field, then at the handful of men still standing beside him. His expression slowly changed as the situation finally sank in.
So this was the famous advantage of the defender.
Before today, Wushang Mingwang had never actually besieged a fortified position. His knowledge of siege warfare came largely from storytellers, who made the whole business sound wonderfully simple. You brought a ladder, leaned it against the wall, climbed up, and won.
Apparently, the storytellers had neglected a few details.
Like flying boulders.
Boiling oil.
And the small inconvenience of having your army's courage evaporate before it even reached the gate.
Worse still, a bandit chief could shout himself hoarse without magically making his subordinates brave.
Wushang Mingwang finally understood that this battle was lost.
"RETREAT! EVERYONE, RETREAT!"
He spun around and ran for his life.
The few dozen elite bandits still beside him immediately followed. Their earlier bloodlust had vanished, replaced by the urgent desire to put as much distance as possible between themselves and Gaojia Village.
Master Bai watched them flee and stretched out a hand.
"Bring me a bow!"
A nearby guard promptly handed him a hunting bow. Judging by the eager look on the man's face, he was already preparing to praise his master's archery.
Master Bai nocked an arrow, drew the string, and carefully aimed at the vital spot on Wushang Mingwang's back.
He released.
The bowstring twanged.
The arrow shot forward like a startled swan.
SWISH!
It sailed past Wushang Mingwang, missing him by a comfortable half-zhang.
The guard's mouth remained open, but the words Magnificent shot! never came out.
Everyone nearby fell silent.
Master Bai coughed.
His old face reddened slightly as he returned the bow to the guard, clasped his hands behind his back, and assumed the dignified expression of a man who had never attempted archery in his life.
"Ahem. Enough. I shall concentrate on commanding."
The Six Arts of a Gentleman included archery.
Master Bai had just decided that particular art was no longer relevant to his career.
Fortunately, his embarrassing shot changed nothing. The bandits were already fleeing, and the pressure on the village walls had eased considerably.
The villagers erupted in cheers.
"We won!"
"We drove them off!"
"Gaojia Village is safe!"
"WE'RE SAFE!"
"Tianzun protects us!"
"Tianzun protects us!"
The celebration spread from one end of the wall to the other. People hugged each other, raised their weapons, and shouted until their throats hurt. After spending the entire battle convinced they were about to die, discovering that they were still alive felt almost miraculous.
Master Bai, however, wasn't quite ready to join the party.
He swept his gaze across the cheering villagers and barked, "What are you celebrating for?! The bandit chief escaped!"
The cheers faltered.
"Wushang Mingwang knows where we live now. He'll remember this defeat, and sooner or later he'll come back to settle the score. What happens then? You think he'll politely announce his arrival before stabbing you in the back?"
The villagers fell quiet.
The more they thought about it, the less pleasant the situation became.
There was an old saying that it was better to fear a thief who stole your belongings than a thief who remembered your face.
The people of Gaojia Village were simple farmers. They wanted nothing more than to tend their fields, raise their families, and live out their days without anyone bothering them.
But what if they needed to go into the mountains to gather herbs? What if they had to visit the county town for supplies, or travel to a neighboring village?
Wushang Mingwang could be waiting around any bend in the road.
And if he ambushed them there, their magnificent wall wouldn't be much help.
The villagers exchanged uneasy glances. Their victory suddenly felt a lot less secure.
Just then, Gao Yiye's voice rang out.
She pointed toward the fleeing bandits and shouted, "Everyone, look! Tianzun is about to perform an immortal miracle and eliminate this threat once and for all!"
The villagers' eyes lit up.
Master Bai turned toward her.
"Eh?"
Before he could ask what she meant, the sky began to rumble.
Wind howled across the fields. Thunder rolled overhead as something enormous seemed to tear through the clouds and descend from the heavens.
An invisible pressure swept across the ground outside the village, whipping up a violent cyclone of dust. The whirlwind spread outward in a vast ring, swallowing the fleeing bandits in its path.
Wushang Mingwang looked up.
He had just enough time to realize that something was very, very wrong.
Then...
BOOOOOOM!
The earth shuddered. The mountains trembled.
Wushang Mingwang and every bandit within three zhang of him were flattened in an instant, crushed beneath an incomprehensible force.
When the dust finally settled, a gigantic crater had appeared in the ground.
Its shape was unmistakable.
A colossal palm print.
Right in the center lay Wushang Mingwang, reduced to a bloody pancake.
The bandit chief who had arrived with twelve hundred men, threatened to slaughter every living creature in Gaojia Village, and confidently declared that a thousand against a hundred could never lose had finally discovered the true meaning of overwhelming force.
Unfortunately, he hadn't lived long enough to appreciate the lesson.