Chapter 1039: Chapter 982: History of the Conquest of the Eastern Region of Black Snake Bay (Part 2)

The blades of green grass shook violently.

The 12‑pound iron ball howled as it tore through the night sky, like a shooting star smashing into the outer wall of the Snake-man camp ahead.

The 80‑centimeter‑thick mud-brick-and-wood wall was pierced through in an instant, and behind it fragments of stone and wood and a bloodied severed tail were flung into the night sky.

Dirt pattered down; under the concentrated bombardment, and under the despairing gazes of the Snake-man Warriors, a gap collapsed in the camp’s stockade wall.

Outside the V‑shaped breach, Beastman Servant Army warriors, now clad in chainmail and armed with iron spears, roared as they charged in this direction.

Amid hissing sounds, wave after wave of Snake-men fled crazily along the ground.

"This is the last camp, right?" Dass lowered his telescope and asked Tivana beside him.

The Beastman lady city lord didn’t even dare raise her head to look at Dass. "The last one."

Dass stared at the camp wreathed in flames, his face flickering red and black in the firelight. "This lesson should be enough to make them see reality."

Dass turned his head and asked Dong Pia beside him, "Well? Has that chieftain bowed his head yet?"

Dong Pia bowed respectfully and shook his head. "My subordinates tell me, no. They even shot arrows at our envoy and said there is no way they will ever make the noble Snake-men bow."

This made Dass freeze for a moment in surprise. Was the lord of Jade Bud City really this determined?

Ever since they set out from Kabakulu State, riding the momentum of their previous string of victories, the Holy Alliance Army had barely arrived at Nanbola State when they surrendered and submitted.

After that, the Holy Alliance Army, acting with a preference for peace, would send people from their own allied city-states to negotiate after an initial show of force.

This method was far faster than conquest.

As long as they put on a token siege and then had the surrendered troops show off the terrifying Three‑Headed Lion of Huo, they could quickly induce a city-state stronghold to capitulate.

Only this set of tactics worked only intermittently on the Snake-men, because they didn’t seem to believe in the Three‑Faced God, so things often had to be settled by fighting.

This seemed to have thoroughly misled the surrounding Beastman city-states.

Some Beastman city-states that weren’t even along the river would come running to swear fealty, even bringing their own rations and spontaneously forming Servant Armies of tens of thousands.

It left Dass and Modie completely baffled—what the hell did any of this have to do with you?

Still, as long as they didn’t eat the Holy Alliance’s supplies, the two of them were fine with letting them do as they pleased.

These Servant Armies were even willing to trade all kinds of gems and fruit with the soldiers in exchange for salt and ironware.

When coming from the last city-state, Dass had heard there was a fairly large town beside the great waterfall, called Jade Bud City.

He had even thought: I’ve got goods, you’ve got raw materials, we can trade peacefully.

He hadn’t expected this band of Snake-man bandits to refuse the toast only to drink the forfeit, forcing Dass to get serious.

He was absolutely going to let them know what "a black hand from the shadows" really meant.

In the blink of an eye, within a week, the five outer camps around Jade Bud City had been taken.

But because Jade Bud City itself had the lake as a defense, Dass did not rashly launch an assault; he still hoped to use war to promote peace, preferring a peaceful resolution.

So the Holy Alliance Army continued to besiege Jade Bud City without storming it.

Besides, news had come from the rear that several towns that had been coaxed into submission seemed unsteady in their attitude, with faint signs of rebellion.

The higher‑ups gave the order to halt the offensive for now and first secure the integrity of the regions already taken.

Yet as the attack progressed to this point, Dass had begun to vaguely sense that this Jade Bud City might be a political center in this region.

If they withdrew now, and allowed them to gather their strength, then dealing with them later might become much more troublesome.

So should they deal with it now or not?

When Dass raised this question in council, if nothing else, the city-state coalition was exuberantly enthusiastic.

The chieftains went up one after another, declaring that as long as he gave the nod, they had nine different ways to kill that Lelaka—nine!

Of course, the precondition they put to Dass was: don’t let reinforcements arrive.

Lelaka had not expected the Holy Alliance Army to arrive so fast, nor the upstream city-states to collapse so miserably.

So there were simply no heavy forces massed around the capital; what these city-state coalition forces wanted was to take advantage of the vacuum.

This was no great difficulty for Dass. As long as they set up cannons on the basis of the original Snake-man camps and held the key routes, reinforcements would find it very hard to break through.

Since these city-state coalition forces were so eager, Dass had no objection and let them give it a try.

Once the city-state coalition was armed by the Holy Alliance and allowed to participate in the war, the situation changed.

On December 9, 1453, the city-state coalition first went to several tributaries near the Musk River and destroyed several hidden sluice gates, blocking a few downstream channels.

By December 13, 1453, in just four days, Lake Coco’s water had risen to the edge of the flood-control levee.

From December 14 to 19, 1453, a large number of clockwork cannons bombarded the levee, and on the 20th they blasted a breach.

The lake water rapidly flooded Jade Bud City on Lake Heart Island; only the temple area on the central high ground was spared.

The city-state coalition, now clad in chainmail and armed with long spears, took the lead; under the cover of the Holy Alliance’s great ships, they paddled dugout canoes to launch an amphibious assault.

From the 20th to the 23rd, in three days, the outer towns fell in quick succession; only the pyramid temple still held out in a cornered resistance.

Lelaka stood on the wall, watching the city-state coalition retreat like a receding tide, and the bitterness in his heart was more astringent than raw cacao.

This once‑mighty Snake-man ruler now looked utterly haggard; even his once crimson forked tongue had turned dark red.

Not to mention the filthy fragments of old snakeskin on his scales that he had not even had time to wash off.

As for the Snake-man Warriors around him, they were in even worse shape, with blood seeping from between their scales.

They didn’t understand what on earth had happened.

Why were the bodies that Obsidian spears used to pierce now stopped by those silver armors?

Why was the once sturdy rattan armor being punched through by those short, stubby arrows?

At this moment Lelaka was even more lost.

He had ascended the throne at thirteen, spent five years struggling against his uncles, his mother, and the powerful ministers, and by eighteen had seized absolute power.

Over the next twenty years he first built docks and relay stations to link the various lords and unified all the Snake-man city-states along the Musk River.

Then he launched a war of vengeance: not only did he slay the old Emperor of the Beastman Empire in one stroke, he even reclaimed Snake-man lands that had fallen into Beastman hands.

Now he was forty, at the very peak of his powers.

The Beastman Empire was clearly in the throes of internal strife; even their Empress had been sidelined for her youth. He was on the verge of unifying Snake-men and Beastmen...

And then a third green‑skinned, tusked god descended from the heavens and shattered the Snake-man realm with meteors and black mists.

Could it be that the Feathered Serpent God was truly destined to be pinned beneath the Green-skin God, never to rise again?

"Your Highness, look over there..." Beside him, Duke Will, whose arm had been severed, suddenly pointed at the distant sunset and shouted.

On the lake, a ship flying the Holy Alliance banner was slowly sailing in, and the Beastman Warriors rowing dugout canoes let out cheers.

Over these ten days, besides attacking the city, the city-state coalition had also used rolling logs to drag the Holy Alliance’s ships over the sandbar and into Lake Coco.

Lelaka watched the great ship slowly approach.

To build a ship so terrifyingly huge—what colossal trees must have been needed?

As he stood there in a daze, that shriek from the palace a few days ago rang again in his ears.

Huge iron balls smashed into the water, throwing up plumes several meters high, rolling among the Snake-man Warriors and flinging the warriors in leopard skins and coarse linen into the air.

"The time has come." Seeing black‑clad Holy Alliance soldiers appear in the dugout canoes, Lelaka drew a deep breath.

He turned his head, looked at his six children, and left them with only a single word before leaping down from the wall: "Vengeance!"

With lake water up to his ankles, Lelaka knew the High Priest and the lords would send his children away.

Where they were sent didn’t matter. As long as the bloodline endured, the dynasty was bound to rise again one day!

With clanging sounds, Obsidian and bone arrows bounced off the bodies of the black‑clad, silver‑armored soldiers.

These soldiers of the Eighth Corps of the Divine Punishment Army, clad in Mithril steel armor, were the fiercest troops in the entire corps.

Before them, standing in the water stained red—whether with blood or the glow of sunset was hard to tell—were the last Forbidden Army of the Snake-man Dynasty.

"You should surrender." The leading Corps Commander looked at the warriors before him with a kind of reluctant admiration.

No one answered the Corps Commander. Under Lelaka’s personal lead, they raised their man‑tall, serrated Obsidian swords.

"Hissss—"

Lelaka charged out first.

"Hissss—"

"Praise Holy Wind!"