Bingbing and I followed Jiang Jun upstairs. The stairs were high and steep, but it wasn't very tiring. This time, it wasn't the boots that helped, but simply the lack of exertion.
Reaching the rooftop, I turned to Bingbing, "How's your stamina?"
"I don't feel anything," Bingbing replied, surprised.
"Neither of you is even out of breath, are you?" I chuckled.
"No... Oh my god, I'm not breathing!" Bingbing only noticed this then.
"My lords, please look," Jiang Jun pointed into the distance.
I walked forward a few steps and looked back in the direction we came from, beyond the battlements. About five kilometers away, a yellow haze billowed.
"Is it fog?" I asked, it looked quite similar to the yellow mist I had seen before.
"My lord, that is... the enemy army approaching."
"Oh?" I activated my Qi-observing technique and was surprised to find that my technique could extend much further here. The ghostly aura within the yellow smoke was clearly visible. I could even see the rear of their formation. The entire army advanced in an organized square formation. Based on the area of the square, I roughly estimated there were forty thousand enemies.
"Hmm, quite a lot are coming," I said. I actually wanted to say, "What bad timing." If I had known they were going to fight, I could have visited a secondary city for a tour and inspection.
However, since I was here, I might as well take a look. Going to a secondary city might not guarantee I could avoid them anyway. When I contacted the Young King of Hell before, she mentioned that the Underworld was in a state of war everywhere.
"My lord, can you see the scale of the enemy?" Jiang Jun asked.
"Forty thousand," I said. "What's wrong?"
"F-forty thousand!" Jiang Jun's expression changed slightly.
"Is that too many? How many troops do you have defending the city?" I asked.
"Three... three thousand."
"Three thousand! Are you joking? Don't you have enough manpower here!" I exclaimed in surprise.
"This is just one of Fengdu City's eighty-one gates. We only have three thousand defenders."
"Then quickly dispatch troops from other directions." I said.
"I'm afraid it's too late. The nearest other gate is still two hundred li away."
I was a bit confused. How could these eighty-one gates, with cities inside them, not be connected? Why call them eighty-one gates, why not eighty-one cities? Regardless, from his words, it seemed there would be no reinforcements. Whether reinforcements could be dispatched from two hundred li away was another matter, and even if they could, by the time they arrived, this gate would probably have been breached by the enemy.
"Does Jiang Jun have any strategies to repel the enemy?" I feigned calmness, wanting to gauge his capabilities first. If he had no plan, I would just go back, visit another day, or find a gate without any enemies.
"Your Highness just sent an order, instructing that command be handed over to Lord Wu. How to repel the enemy is entirely up to Lord Wu's discretion." Jiang Jun cupped his hands, and a plaque with the character "Order" appeared in his hand.
"... Can we surrender?" I asked meekly.
Jiang Jun's mouth twitched. "S-surrender? What's the point of surrendering?"
"If we don't surrender, we can't stop them, can we? The disparity in numbers is too great. Victory and defeat are common in warfare," I forced a smile.
"Uh... I heard that Lord Wu came from the living world and might not be familiar with the wars in the Underworld. This group of rebels never accepts surrender. Even if the defenders lay down their arms, they will storm the city and slaughter everyone."
"Including the city's residents?" I frowned.
Jiang Jun nodded. His expression suggested he was about to take back the plaque, not give it to me. He probably hadn't expected that the commander of the city, handpicked by the Young King of Hell, would be so cowardly.
I turned around, looked up, and used my Qi-observing technique to scan the steep city walls. Calculating by unit area, within my line of sight, there were at least one hundred thousand civilians. If we surrendered, it would be too easy for forty thousand enemies to massacre one hundred thousand people.
"My lord, my lord?" Jiang Jun urged.
I turned back, snatched the plaque from his hand, "Have those two fellows down there return, close the city gate, and then pile all the heavy objects you can find in the city into the culverts to prevent the enemy from forcing the gate."