As Xu Jun had thought, most of the attacking beastmen belonged to the tribes of larger-sized beastmen. The army was a mixed rabble of tiger beastmen, bear beastmen, giant python beastmen, and so forth. Every one of them was st.u.r.dily built and could weigh as much as four to five humans. Their terrifying and ferocious frames, covered in scars, rode upon robust and burly war-beasts. The war-beasts also appeared to be veterans of a hundred of battles; they had cautiously tucked away their sharp fangs and razor-like claws out of sight. Only occasionally did a war-beast lick its lips, grunting and snorting.

Occasionally a few smaller beastmen, such as fire fox1 and rabbit beastmen, could be seen hopping around amidst the ranks of the larger beastmen.

The hammering of the city gates reverberated through the city, accompanied by the nervous shouts of the munic.i.p.al soldiers. Other than a few laughs and curses, the beastmen were completely silent. Their minds were filled with the thought of plundering—plundering the City of Wilderness, plundering the wealthier human race, and being able to live more comfortably through future winters.

–Perhaps it is because of the Demon King's birth that the winters were now harsher than they had ever been before. Even the southern regions of the continent were gradually becoming chillier. The beastmen who lived in the surrounding lands weren't adept at business, nor were they able to maintain pastures or crop fields. In the end, some learned how to trade with humans while others became bandits.

Nearly all the beastmen who traded with humans inhabited the areas around the Gloomy Marshes, living out their days while protecting the treasured, death reeking lands of the Marshes. The beastmen who became bandits, however, roamed the lands in search of unlucky merchants to rob. Once it came close to winter, these bandits would divide into two groups. One group would go off to plunder from human settlements, while others would head to their friends in the Gloomy Marshes and… beat the autumn wind.2

They were a group of detestable, ravenous wolves.

Nevertheless, this group of rough and violent bandits also had some connections within the human race.

The beastmen had arrived earlier than usual this year because an important figure in Wilderness City had informed them that a part of the munic.i.p.al army would be away. They would be serving as an armed escort to said important figure, taking him to the Snow Blade Kingdom…that's right, this old aristocrat was heading towards the Snow Blade Kindom so that he could accept the t.i.tle of earl.

This old aristocrat seemed to be dissatisfied with the current City Lord of Wilderness City, and so left this gap for the beastmen to exploit after his departure.

The beastmen approached, hollering upon their war-beasts. In order to prevent any information from leaking, they had been killing many businessmen on their path to the city—actually, most of the beastmen didn't understand why they were murdering people, they just thought that they were killing for the sake of killing. However, the beastmen shamans always have a pile of great ideas. The shaman in this group of beastmen bandits was a snowy white, rabbit beastman. The rabbit beastman was short and skinny; a pair of ridiculously large buckteeth protruded from this shaman's mouth. However, this rabbit beastman had the highest intelligence among all the beastmen bandits.

The air was filled with the scent of rust. Businessmen led caravans of people, horses, and livestock with broken necks and sliced open bodies. The nauseating sweetness of blood made the beastmen even more exhilarated.

Humans really live good lives, they thought. They live in stone and wooden houses, can eat meat every day, and don't go hungry in the winter. They thought in such a simple manner, yet their actions were extremely cruel.

If the city gates went down, then they could enter and steal all of mankind's food supplies and treasures—

The sky was beginning to turn dark. This was beneficial to the beastmen as most humans couldn't see clearly at night.

While the beastmen have yet to break open the city gates, a sole beastmen had successfully jumped onto the city wall. The beastman smashed down onto the ramparts like a hammer and crushed a guard beneath into a b.l.o.o.d.y paste. Flesh and blood splattered everywhere. Another soldier stabbed at the beastman bandit with a long spear, but it was painfully clear that the thrust lacked sufficient force. The beastman grabbed hold of the spear's shaft and threw the soldier away towards the wall.

The beastmen and war-beasts who had observed the entire fight waited below with their mouths stretched open, almost as if they were waiting for fresh meat to fall in.

It was at this time, when morale was unusually high, and the beastmen were feeling inexplicably confident, a man riding a white horse suddenly leaped onto the city walls.

The man silently drew a sword from his back. Pointing at the beastman going crazy with bloodl.u.s.t, his sword glowed with a silver brilliance. Then his sword slowly and smoothly traced out an arc, cutting down the bearded, s.h.a.ggy beastman who had been committing wanton slaughter on the city walls.

A round and s.h.a.ggy head fell, landing directly into the mouth of the leading war-beast. This war-beast fiercely gnawed on the head before spitting it out. It thought to itself, why is this human's flesh so tough, it's so hard to chew! -Then this tiger war-beast, which had eaten countless humans, saw clearly: this wasn't the head of a human, but rather the head of his former master.

"Ao–!!!" It led out a fierce roar.

Human blood made beastmen excited, while the blood of their own kind drove them to insanity.

The poor soldier who had half his body hanging off the wall, in the end, didn't fall down. The person who suddenly appeared had saved him. That person had grabbed the soldier's spear and pulled him back onto the wall.

Then, all the beastmen saw this man face a powerful beastman and give a small, mocking smile.

"If you dare, keep trying to jump up here."

All the human soldiers on the wall let out a small sigh—although they had no idea of what just happened, they knew that they were saved.

From the wall, the City Lord's team could be seen rus.h.i.+ng over. These were the City Lord's personal guards, the best of the best!

Xu Jun looked at the soldiers surrounding him, As soon as these soldiers began to feel safe, they began to let down their guard. He felt extremely helpless. "Quiet! Tighten up your belts! Hey, you there, don't throw away your sword!"

— So what exactly is happening?! Who allowed these b.a.s.t.a.r.d, new recruits to defend the city?

He didn't know that because the beastmen raids had already settled into a definitive pattern, it was usually safe around this time of year. Furthermore, because most of the munic.i.p.al army was guarding a certain n.o.ble, the quality of the soldiers currently defending the wall was quite low.

Xu Jun believed… that he was the most unfortunate one ever! Although he had decided on this course of action, he still didn't really want to come up the wall and immediately kill someone. Even beastmen are still people… he was a good youth, born into a good family, raised under the Chinese flag, and someone who had spent most of his life indoors! He wasn't even able to kill a chicken before!

However, once the deed was done, he discovered that he didn't have time to grieve for the deceased. There was no end to his work! If he slacked off at this time, then all these weak, chicken soldiers would die!

At the rear, Holy Son Daeniste had finally decided not to ride his horse up. Instead, he quickly ran up the city wall. On the way up, he placed a divine spell of calming over the panicking foot soldiers, stabilizing the situation. With his hands gripping around a magic staff, he had a sacred appearance, as if he were the Bright G.o.d's descendant. He opened his mouth and said, "Xu Jun, should we kill our way down?"

Xu Jun shook his head, "We can't. Now that the beastmen are alarmed, it's possible that they will break through the city gates if we go down. It would be bad if they were to enter the city."

Daeniste thought to himself, if you don't go down, then they won't break down the city gate? What kind of logic is this?

Then he saw the beastmen, under Xu Jun's sincere gaze, raucously accept Xu Jun's challenge. "Jump, jump, jump!" "Ahhhh, I will kill you!" "d.a.m.n humans! Yours truly is coming up the wall to kill you all!!!"

After that, they all started a new round of… trying to jump the wall.

Xu Jun: "Look, because I goaded them just now, they're only trying to hop onto the wall now."

Holy Son Daeniste: "…"

What level… has their lack of intelligence reached…

The author has something to say:

Actually, beastmen aren't extremely dumb (they're just very dumb), it's just that they don't use their brains. The larger the beastman, the less they use their brains…

This afternoon, I went out with a few friends and came back at nine. I got stomachaches from eating too much hotpot and didn't want to write anything.

However, Erji's father… severely reprimanded Erji for trying to be lazy, so in the end, I was able to finish this chapter.

Translator's niche:

[1] Don't know if this intentional or not, but this literally is Firefox, as in the web browser… so for now, I'll just leave it as fire fox.

⏎

[2] Beating the autumn wind is basically taking advantage of others for being wealthy. So they're basically going to the Gloomy Marshes to ask for charity… XD⏎

Also, this chapter was a lot darker than I expected… especially certain parts of it.

On another note, I had just looked back on my past translations and discovered that some of the chapters had atrocious grammar. I'm going to go back and fix them later when I have more time. If you find any obvious grammar mistakes, please let me know! ?