Chapter 141: The Battle of Shaolin Defense and Offense

After gazing strangely at the crow for several seconds, Linghu Chong immediately abandoned his previous plan. He then commanded the heroes of the martial arts world to immediately capture Shaolin Temple, while the crow perched itself upon his shoulder.

Bolstered by Linghu Chong's iron-fisted deterrence, the assembled heroes displayed a certain elite bearing, effortlessly taking over the deserted Shaolin Temple.

Once the temple was secured, Linghu Chong immediately ordered the Five Elements Banners to deploy their defenses on the spot, dividing the banners into four equally sized waves that rotated every three hours, signaling a clear intention to make a desperate and unyielding stand at Shaolin.

"Big Brother Linghu, what is the meaning of this?" Blue Phoenix asked, her face filled with puzzlement.

Old Man Zu and Grandpa Huanghe of the Yellow River, Ji Wushi, and the commanders and deputy commanders of the Five Elements Banners also gathered around Linghu Chong, forming the leadership tier of the alliance. Puzzled by his orders, they all perused him closely and pricked up their ears to listen.

"Nothing much. This is Shaolin's stratagem of luring the enemy into the trap! Right at this moment, Shaolin's warrior monks and a large number of secular disciples have sealed off Mount Shaoshi, and we have become turtles trapped in a jar," Linghu Chong replied calmly.

Ji Wushi and the others were momentarily stunned, and immediately dispatched experts skilled in lightness kung fu to scout the situation. Sure enough, the moment these scouts attempted to descend the mountain, they were met with a barrage of arrows and were forced to retreat back up.

"Is this the reason why Big Brother Linghu gathered provisions beforehand?" Blue Phoenix asked, her large eyes blinking.

"Of course. As the saying goes, 'marching troops must have their provisions precede them.' No matter how this battle is fought, supplies will always be the key."

"But Big Brother Linghu, if you knew it was a trap, why did you walk right into it?" The Miao girl Blue Phoenix clearly failed to follow his line of reasoning and asked bluntly.

"It is only by placing oneself in a position of death that one can find survival," Linghu Chong said calmly, wearing an expression of absolute mastery. If someone were to hand him a feathered fan right now, he could well be dubbed Zhuge Chong.

"Even with the provisions in hand, there will eventually come a day when the food runs out. Moreover, the Holy Maiden is still held hostage in Shaolin's hands. Aren't you worried at all, Big Brother Linghu?"

"Worried?!" Linghu Chong let out a disdainful, cold snort. Utilizing his Byakugan vision, he easily spotted Ren Yingying standing right beside Ren Woxing, while Ren Woxing stood leisurely among a group of monks. Linghu Chong understood instantly that Ren Woxing had already joined forces with Shaolin.

A sudden sense of betrayal washed over him!

Linghu Chong stood up, gazed far into the distance toward the foot of the mountain, and said with a ruthless expression, "They are the ones who should be worried."

"Ji Wushi, Old Man Zu, Zu Qianqiu!" Linghu Chong suddenly shouted.

"Present!"

"Smash every single Buddha statue in Shaolin to pieces, then use them as rolling boulders and hurl them down the mountain."

"Understood!" Ji Wushi and the ancestors of the Yellow River gritted their teeth and replied in deep voices.

They understood that this time they had completely and thoroughly offended Shaolin. Since the offense was already irreconcilable, and to prevent Shaolin from settling scores later, they might as well strike with ruthless severity and eradicate Shaolin entirely. Even if they could not completely destroy it, they would cripple Shaolin to the point where it could not recover its vitality for a century. Receiving their orders, the three immediately organized men to dismantle the Buddha statues.

"Commanders of the Five Elements Banners!"

"Present!"

"Each banner will dispatch a hundred elite soldiers to my command. As for the rest, defense is left entirely in your hands. Discuss among yourselves how to execute that defense. I have only one objective: to inflict maximum casualties on the enemy with minimal cost, and do not hold back!"

"Orders received!"

Each of the Five Elements Banners detached one hundred elite soldiers and placed them under Linghu Chong's command. Activating his Byakugan, Linghu Chong thoroughly searched every corner of Shaolin Temple. Upon discovering a secret passage, he immediately led these five hundred elite soldiers to guard its entrance, preventing any surprise attack by the Shaolin monk army through the tunnel.

The reason behind Linghu Chong's actions was the crow upon his shoulder. That crow represented the will of Yang Xin. Linghu Chong raised his head to the sky and, through his Byakugan, looked up at that massive cluster of clouds, where he spotted the disciples of the Xianyue Sect, and even saw Yang Xin smiling and nodding down at him.

Encouraged by Yang Xin, Linghu Chong felt as if he had been pumped full of adrenaline, patrolling everywhere to mend any flaws and reinforce their positions.

Ji Wushi led a crew to begin demolishing the Buddha statues. While this group lacked the structured combat proficiency of the Five Elements Banners, they were absolute masters at destruction. They split into three teams: the first team was responsible for scraping the gold leaf off the Buddha statues—yes, the actual gold leaf; the second team smashed the statues into chunks; and the final team hurled these stone chunks down the mountain toward the foothills.

"Rumble~" Rock after rock was sent hurtling down the slopes. This drove all the monks in Shaolin Temple into a furious rage, and they vied with one another to request permission to charge up the mountain and tear those who had desecrated the Buddha limb from limb.

"Amitabha!" Abbot Fangzheng wore a face of sorrow and chanted a long Buddhist invocation. He had not anticipated that Linghu Chong would be so ruthless as to directly smash the Buddha statues to pieces. Fangzheng knew very well that while his prestige as abbot could suppress the passionate monk-soldiers temporarily, he could not suppress them forever. He also realized that his stratagem of "luring the enemy into the jar" had completely failed, prompting a long sigh from the depths of his heart. At the same time, his anger toward Linghu Chong and the Xianyue Sect intensified to the extreme.

"Ha, I underestimated this brat Linghu Chong. He suits my taste—unscrupulous in achieving his goals," Ren Woxing said with a smile, standing beside Fangzheng. Ren Woxing had long despised these bald donkeys, but the Xianyue Sect was overwhelmingly powerful and the martial arts world commotions they stirred up were simply too vast. For the sake of self-preservation and to fulfill his own ambitions, Ren Woxing had no choice but to join forces with Shaolin.

"Why hasn't anyone from the Xianyue Sect arrived yet?" Fang Sheng, Fangzheng's junior brother, said with hatred in his voice.

"Even if they arrive, they probably won't show themselves. The Xianyue Sect is more than eager for Linghu Chong to consume Shaolin's strength," Ren Woxing said indifferently, his eyes fixed intently on Fangzheng to see how he would break this deadlock.

"Amitabha." Fangzheng chanted another long Buddhist invocation. Gazing at his disciples, whose righteous indignation was boiling over, Fangzheng could only close his eyes in agony and wave his hand.

Fangsheng immediately roared at the top of his lungs, "The abbot has given the order: attack the mountain with full force, and capture all those who have desecrated the Buddha!"

Receiving their orders, the Shaolin disciples surged wildly up the mountain like angry Vajra warriors.

Ren Woxing shook his head inwardly. This was the difference between righteous sects and the Sun Moon Holy Cult. If Cult members faced such a situation, Ren Woxing could rely entirely on his personal prestige to suppress them. If that failed, he could wield the terror of the Three-Corpse Brain Divine Pill or roll a few heads to restore order. But Shaolin, even knowing it was a trap, had no choice but to jump in.

The Shaolin monk army and numerous secular disciples flooded toward the mountain like a tide. Having walked this mountain path thousands of times before, they were thoroughly familiar with it, yet ascending the mountain this time felt utterly suffocating and humiliating.

The first to make a move was not the Sharp Metal Banner, but the Thick Earth Banner. Ji Wushi and his men had dismembered the Buddha statues, providing the Thick Earth Banner with an abundant supply of rolling boulders. Besides, there was no shortage of stones on the mountain, and since the Thick Earth Banner specialized in earthworks, shaping mountain rocks into rolling boulders was an effortless task.

"Rumble!"

Occupying absolute topographical superiority, the Five Elements Banners unleashed wave after wave of boulders roaring down the mountain. Against ordinary soldiers, this barrage of boulders would have been devastatingly effective, but the attackers were pugilists and martial arts experts who easily employed their lightness kung fu to dodge them. Aside from injuring a few unfortunate souls, this wave of boulders achieved virtually no major strategic success.

It was the Sharp Metal Banner that truly dealt damage. Every member of the Sharp Metal Banner was equipped with a set of bows and arrows, a long javelin, and a short throwing axe, achieving a hundred-percent accuracy rate. Although the Thick Earth Banner's boulders failed to inflict massive casualties, they forced the advancing enemy troops to bunch up into tight clusters.

Dense, relentless waves of arrow rain whistled down through the air.