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Bang!

The ground shook suddenly. A massive fireball had struck a group of Dragonlight Cavalrymen and shattered them into pieces. The air was thick with the stench of blood.

High Fighting Spirits pointed his axe toward the Dragon Cannon and shouted, "Don’t be afraid! It is just one level. We need to destroy this Dragon Cannon before it kills more of our men!"

Close to the Dragon Cannon, Cyan Frost the Ice Knight raised her sword and ordered, "Shield formation! Don’t let the enemy get close to the Dragon Cannon no matter what! Yes, Red Maple is dead, but so what? He’ll rejoin the battlefield in less than five minutes!"

"Bitch!"

High Fighting Spirits roared as he led a cavalry charge against the shield formation. Barrier Breaks rose and fell again and again, but they weren’t able to break through the shield formation immediately. In fact, it was the Dragon Cannon that was wreaking havoc every time it fired a shot. Hundreds died every time a fireball impacted them. At this rate, we would lose nearly all of our 100,000 Dragonlight Cavalrymen in less than an hour.

……

Swhoosh!

I swooped down from an odd angle before unleashing Burning Blade Slash + Thousand Ice Slash combo that froze a bunch of low-health enemies. At the same time, I shouted, "Fighting Spirits, Chaos Moon, faster! The Dragon Cannon is too powerful!"

"Mn!"

Suddenly, the Dragon Cannon swiveled around and aimed directly at High Fighting Spirits. One of the Japanese players manning the cannon said with a smirk, "That bastard is annoying. Kill him!"

In response, High Fighting Spirits leaped onto his mount, raised his axe high, and charged straight toward cannon, roaring, "Let’s see how powerful you really are!"

Boom!

High Fighting Spirits was able to execute a Xiezhi Howl that annihilated all of the players inside the cannon. However, the cannon also fired a shot that struck High Fighting Spirits squarely in the chest. At that range, not even god could’ve blocked the shot in time!

Bang!

High Fighting Spirits was thrown back like a rag doll. He was dead before he hit the ground limply. He had taken over 13 million damage because he was standing practically point blank in front of the cannon, and because he was a pure warrior without a shield to protect him. Naturally, his Defense was way lower than Gui Guzi’s or He Yi’s.

Pop!

His battle axe, the Sun, erupted from his body before hitting the ground. I immediately unleashed Coiling Dragon Revolution that killed off the Gold Cavalrymen who were attempting to steal it before grabbing the weapon. I then tossed it into Chaos Moon’s hands and said, "Give it back to Fighting Spirits later!"

I faced toward the Dragon Cannon to attack it once more, but the siege weapon was still aiming in my direction. It fired another two shots!

I gritted my teeth, activated Profound Armor, and tanked the shot with my shield once more. I lost almost 10 million HP from the double hit, but at least I was able to prevent it from killing too many players this time.

Li Chengfeng, Gui Guzi and He Yi swooped down one after another and cleared out the Japanese players around the Dragon Cannon. Beiming Xue was raining Spiraling Arrow Blades and Skypiercers from the sky and killing many Gold Cavalrymen as well. Occasionally, her Xuanming Flame would trigger and deal almost 5 million damage to the enemy. It wasn’t long before the Dragon Cannon’s HP hit zero!

Bang!

There was a series of crumbling noises, and the Dragon Cannon finally collapsed under our combined might.

……

The battlefield was riddled with holes. Player bodies could be seen in nearly every direction. This particular Dragon Cannon had fired almost all 100 of its Dragon Crystals and successfully killed around 10,000 Chinese players as a result. Everyone who attended this war was an elite, so it was a heartbreaking number to say the least. The good news was that we were ultimately able to bring down the siege weapon. Not only that, we had quickly destroyed the other two Dragon Cannons as well. The Japanese server’s loss was definitely bigger than ours.

"What do we do now?" Chaos Moon asked.

I pointed to the eastern canyon and said, "There are 7 more Dragon Cannons in construction over there. It is the Dragon Cannon’s construction base. Once we’ve swept that base, we will have achieved our mission objective!"

"Mn. Let’s go!"

Chaos Moon raised the Dihai Blade and cried, "Ancient Sword, follow me toward the east!"

……

As we made our way toward the eastern canyon, I noticed Cyan Frost glaring at me from afar. Her blade was even trembling visibly in her grip. She was angry that we had crushed their plan so soon, and she was even angrier at my killing of Red Maple. The Japanese server looked up to Red Maple as their god and soul. Although death in a game was hardly consequential, it was surely going to impact their morale either way.

I beckoned Li Chengfeng to my side, and he asked, "Yeah?"

"Cyan Frost will definitely attack us when we attack the construction base. Let’s find an opportunity to gang up on her and make her lose another 10 levels. She’s probably the second best player in the Japanese server besides Red Maple."

"Sure." Li Chengfeng responded affirmatively before smirking. "You didn’t use the Song of Freedom even once when we fought against Candle Dragon and Warsky Alliance. Why the sudden change of mind?"

I smirked back. "They may be enemies, but they’re also our fellow compatriots. It wouldn’t be right to be utterly merciless against them. The wolves are a completely different story though!"

"Good. That line alone qualifies you to become our server’s supreme commander of the next war, Lu Chen!"

"Hmph hmph. I’ve never been the server’s supreme commander, and I probably never will. I’m satisfied with just being the supreme commander of Ancient Sword. With our current strength and reputation, we can probably conquer one or even two tier 1 main cities on our own!"

"Haha. Anyway, let’s catch up to the others already. Chaos Moon will complain if she dies because we were too busy chatting to help her…"

"Yeah…"

……

To the east of Swallow Ear Canton’s inner plain was a lush, green canyon. There, a lot of Japanese players were grinding and doing their own thing. Our army didn’t harass these people unless they attacked us first because our ultimate goal was to conquer the game, not to turn it into a barren wasteland.

Tens of thousands of Dragonlight Cavalrymen led the charge into the canyon. We didn’t face too much resistance because we had breached the strongest defense line formed by the major guilds of the Japanese server earlier. The ones guarding the canyon were only second-rate players and NPC troops.

Alarmed birds took to the sky when they sensed our approach. Before they even flew a hundred meters, a group of sorry-looking cavalrymen rode up to us. They weren’t the enemy, however. They were the players of Snowy Cathaya. Everyone including Purple Marquis had less than 50% HP left, and their bodies and armor were blackened and in tatters. It was obvious that they had been struck by the Dragon Cannon!

A beautiful figure dropped down from the sky at this moment. She was of course Lin Yixin. Her armor looked a bit dusted, and her normally flawless legs were slightly scratched as well. She looked at us and said solemnly, "An NPC cavalry legion of Swallow Ear Canton is guarding the canyon. We did the best we could, but we weren’t able to break through before the Dragon Cannons blasted us to pieces…"

Her expression grew darker. "It is a level of defeat we had never experienced until now…"

I walked up to her and held her shoulders. "What do you mean by that? How many people did you lose?"

"The men you see here is all we had left…"

I was stunned to say the least. "I count only a couple thousand people here… you said you had 100k players attacking the canyon… and they’re all dead? But how?"

Lin Yixin bit her lips and looked like she would burst into tears.

Purple Marquis answered, "The NPC legion in the canyon is Level 330 and Ancient Rank, Lu Chen. They and the Dragon Cannons combined were able to destroy us with almost humiliating ease. How many people have you brought with you? If you don’t think we can breach through the enemy’s defense line immediately, I suggest that we abandon our operation now. Otherwise, I guarantee that the casualties we will incur will be nothing you’ve ever seen."

Chiang!

However, I unsheathed the Xuanyuan Sword and uttered through gritted teeth. "We can all turn into cold dead bodies, but these 7 Dragon Cannons cannot be allowed to exist no matter what! Otherwise, they will absolutely make us regret our decision in the upcoming Nation War! Losing a level is nothing, failing to achieve our strategic objective is everything!"

Zi Chuanyu nodded in agreement. "Lu Chen is right. This is our best chance to destroy these 7 Dragon Cannons. If we allow it to slip through our grasp, Swallow Ear Canton’s players will use them to turn our Skyridge Fortress, Blood Rose Fortress and even Sky City into rubble! They will make a comeback!"

Purple Marquis gritted his teeth. "I know. I’m not afraid to die. I’m just worried that we will fail even after we’ve sacrificed everything!"

"We’ll see. The Dragon Cannon has an attack range of 1,000 yards, so make sure that our forces are at least 1,000 yards away from it. Don’t act carelessly until I’ve returned, okay?" I took to the sky and flew to the center of the canyon after leaving these words behind.

……

While Murong Mingyue, Moon Dew and our priests nursed Snowy Cathaya’s cavalrymen back to full health, Lin Yixin left to meet up with her ranged parties and reorganize another 100k strong army. They then rejoined our forces and continued toward the center of the valley. However, their melee forces were more or less crippled, so they could only provide ranged firepower with their Dragon Punisher Archers now.

As I approached the center of the canyon, I saw that signs of damage riddled the entire map. The mountain ranges, the forest, and even the lakes were marred by explosions caused by the Dragon Cannons. There were a lot of Snowy Cathaya bodies that hadn’t despawned as well. One look was all I needed to know how terrible that battle had been.

An NPC legion was standing at a forest clearing. Their warhorses neighed from time to time, and banners covered the sky.

At the center of the NPC legion was a warrior clad in dark metal armor. The royal symbol adorned his helmet. He stared arrogantly at our forces, unsheathed his sword and shouted, "Halt, invaders. We will destroy you if you dare to advance any further!"

I frowned. According to the lines of text above the NPC’s head, he was a Swallow Ear Canton noble—

Marquis Swiftwind, Wind Armor (Ancient Immortal Rank Boss)

Level: 330

……

Lin Yixin flew up to me and whispered, "According to the database, the royal family of Purple Grape City was exiled to Swallow Ear Canton after the defeat of Purple Grape City. This Wind Armor is famed as one of the three heroes of Swallow Ear Canton, and his position, marquis, is the highest position besides duke. Also, the reason Wind Armor was able to forge the Dragon Cannons here is because an unknown player had completed a quest. If we destroy the Dragon Cannons, the quest will be done for as well."

"Good!"

I clenched my fists. Unfortunately for the marquis, he was going to become the target of our ire today.

Bang!

The ground shook suddenly. A massive fireball had struck a group of Dragonlight Cavalrymen and shattered them into pieces. The air was thick with the stench of blood.

High Fighting Spirits pointed his axe toward the Dragon Cannon and shouted, "Don’t be afraid! It is just one level. We need to destroy this Dragon Cannon before it kills more of our men!"

Close to the Dragon Cannon, Cyan Frost the Ice Knight raised her sword and ordered, "Shield formation! Don’t let the enemy get close to the Dragon Cannon no matter what! Yes, Red Maple is dead, but so what? He’ll rejoin the battlefield in less than five minutes!"

"Bitch!"

High Fighting Spirits roared as he led a cavalry charge against the shield formation. Barrier Breaks rose and fell again and again, but they weren’t able to break through the shield formation immediately. In fact, it was the Dragon Cannon that was wreaking havoc every time it fired a shot. Hundreds died every time a fireball impacted them. At this rate, we would lose nearly all of our 100,000 Dragonlight Cavalrymen in less than an hour.

……

Swhoosh!

I swooped down from an odd angle before unleashing Burning Blade Slash + Thousand Ice Slash combo that froze a bunch of low-health enemies. At the same time, I shouted, "Fighting Spirits, Chaos Moon, faster! The Dragon Cannon is too powerful!"

"Mn!"

Suddenly, the Dragon Cannon swiveled around and aimed directly at High Fighting Spirits. One of the Japanese players manning the cannon said with a smirk, "That bastard is annoying. Kill him!"

In response, High Fighting Spirits leaped onto his mount, raised his axe high, and charged straight toward cannon, roaring, "Let’s see how powerful you really are!"

Boom!

High Fighting Spirits was able to execute a Xiezhi Howl that annihilated all of the players inside the cannon. However, the cannon also fired a shot that struck High Fighting Spirits squarely in the chest. At that range, not even god could’ve blocked the shot in time!

Bang!

High Fighting Spirits was thrown back like a rag doll. He was dead before he hit the ground limply. He had taken over 13 million damage because he was standing practically point blank in front of the cannon, and because he was a pure warrior without a shield to protect him. Naturally, his Defense was way lower than Gui Guzi’s or He Yi’s.

Pop!

His battle axe, the Sun, erupted from his body before hitting the ground. I immediately unleashed Coiling Dragon Revolution that killed off the Gold Cavalrymen who were attempting to steal it before grabbing the weapon. I then tossed it into Chaos Moon’s hands and said, "Give it back to Fighting Spirits later!"

I faced toward the Dragon Cannon to attack it once more, but the siege weapon was still aiming in my direction. It fired another two shots!

I gritted my teeth, activated Profound Armor, and tanked the shot with my shield once more. I lost almost 10 million HP from the double hit, but at least I was able to prevent it from killing too many players this time.

Li Chengfeng, Gui Guzi and He Yi swooped down one after another and cleared out the Japanese players around the Dragon Cannon. Beiming Xue was raining Spiraling Arrow Blades and Skypiercers from the sky and killing many Gold Cavalrymen as well. Occasionally, her Xuanming Flame would trigger and deal almost 5 million damage to the enemy. It wasn’t long before the Dragon Cannon’s HP hit zero!

Bang!

There was a series of crumbling noises, and the Dragon Cannon finally collapsed under our combined might.

……

The battlefield was riddled with holes. Player bodies could be seen in nearly every direction. This particular Dragon Cannon had fired almost all 100 of its Dragon Crystals and successfully killed around 10,000 Chinese players as a result. Everyone who attended this war was an elite, so it was a heartbreaking number to say the least. The good news was that we were ultimately able to bring down the siege weapon. Not only that, we had quickly destroyed the other two Dragon Cannons as well. The Japanese server’s loss was definitely bigger than ours.

"What do we do now?" Chaos Moon asked.

I pointed to the eastern canyon and said, "There are 7 more Dragon Cannons in construction over there. It is the Dragon Cannon’s construction base. Once we’ve swept that base, we will have achieved our mission objective!"

"Mn. Let’s go!"

Chaos Moon raised the Dihai Blade and cried, "Ancient Sword, follow me toward the east!"

……

As we made our way toward the eastern canyon, I noticed Cyan Frost glaring at me from afar. Her blade was even trembling visibly in her grip. She was angry that we had crushed their plan so soon, and she was even angrier at my killing of Red Maple. The Japanese server looked up to Red Maple as their god and soul. Although death in a game was hardly consequential, it was surely going to impact their morale either way.

I beckoned Li Chengfeng to my side, and he asked, "Yeah?"

"Cyan Frost will definitely attack us when we attack the construction base. Let’s find an opportunity to gang up on her and make her lose another 10 levels. She’s probably the second best player in the Japanese server besides Red Maple."

"Sure." Li Chengfeng responded affirmatively before smirking. "You didn’t use the Song of Freedom even once when we fought against Candle Dragon and Warsky Alliance. Why the sudden change of mind?"

I smirked back. "They may be enemies, but they’re also our fellow compatriots. It wouldn’t be right to be utterly merciless against them. The wolves are a completely different story though!"

"Good. That line alone qualifies you to become our server’s supreme commander of the next war, Lu Chen!"

"Hmph hmph. I’ve never been the server’s supreme commander, and I probably never will. I’m satisfied with just being the supreme commander of Ancient Sword. With our current strength and reputation, we can probably conquer one or even two tier 1 main cities on our own!"

"Haha. Anyway, let’s catch up to the others already. Chaos Moon will complain if she dies because we were too busy chatting to help her…"

"Yeah…"

……

To the east of Swallow Ear Canton’s inner plain was a lush, green canyon. There, a lot of Japanese players were grinding and doing their own thing. Our army didn’t harass these people unless they attacked us first because our ultimate goal was to conquer the game, not to turn it into a barren wasteland.

Tens of thousands of Dragonlight Cavalrymen led the charge into the canyon. We didn’t face too much resistance because we had breached the strongest defense line formed by the major guilds of the Japanese server earlier. The ones guarding the canyon were only second-rate players and NPC troops.

Alarmed birds took to the sky when they sensed our approach. Before they even flew a hundred meters, a group of sorry-looking cavalrymen rode up to us. They weren’t the enemy, however. They were the players of Snowy Cathaya. Everyone including Purple Marquis had less than 50% HP left, and their bodies and armor were blackened and in tatters. It was obvious that they had been struck by the Dragon Cannon!

A beautiful figure dropped down from the sky at this moment. She was of course Lin Yixin. Her armor looked a bit dusted, and her normally flawless legs were slightly scratched as well. She looked at us and said solemnly, "An NPC cavalry legion of Swallow Ear Canton is guarding the canyon. We did the best we could, but we weren’t able to break through before the Dragon Cannons blasted us to pieces…"

Her expression grew darker. "It is a level of defeat we had never experienced until now…"

I walked up to her and held her shoulders. "What do you mean by that? How many people did you lose?"

"The men you see here is all we had left…"

I was stunned to say the least. "I count only a couple thousand people here… you said you had 100k players attacking the canyon… and they’re all dead? But how?"

Lin Yixin bit her lips and looked like she would burst into tears.

Purple Marquis answered, "The NPC legion in the canyon is Level 330 and Ancient Rank, Lu Chen. They and the Dragon Cannons combined were able to destroy us with almost humiliating ease. How many people have you brought with you? If you don’t think we can breach through the enemy’s defense line immediately, I suggest that we abandon our operation now. Otherwise, I guarantee that the casualties we will incur will be nothing you’ve ever seen."

Chiang!

However, I unsheathed the Xuanyuan Sword and uttered through gritted teeth. "We can all turn into cold dead bodies, but these 7 Dragon Cannons cannot be allowed to exist no matter what! Otherwise, they will absolutely make us regret our decision in the upcoming Nation War! Losing a level is nothing, failing to achieve our strategic objective is everything!"

Zi Chuanyu nodded in agreement. "Lu Chen is right. This is our best chance to destroy these 7 Dragon Cannons. If we allow it to slip through our grasp, Swallow Ear Canton’s players will use them to turn our Skyridge Fortress, Blood Rose Fortress and even Sky City into rubble! They will make a comeback!"

Purple Marquis gritted his teeth. "I know. I’m not afraid to die. I’m just worried that we will fail even after we’ve sacrificed everything!"

"We’ll see. The Dragon Cannon has an attack range of 1,000 yards, so make sure that our forces are at least 1,000 yards away from it. Don’t act carelessly until I’ve returned, okay?" I took to the sky and flew to the center of the canyon after leaving these words behind.

……

While Murong Mingyue, Moon Dew and our priests nursed Snowy Cathaya’s cavalrymen back to full health, Lin Yixin left to meet up with her ranged parties and reorganize another 100k strong army. They then rejoined our forces and continued toward the center of the valley. However, their melee forces were more or less crippled, so they could only provide ranged firepower with their Dragon Punisher Archers now.

As I approached the center of the canyon, I saw that signs of damage riddled the entire map. The mountain ranges, the forest, and even the lakes were marred by explosions caused by the Dragon Cannons. There were a lot of Snowy Cathaya bodies that hadn’t despawned as well. One look was all I needed to know how terrible that battle had been.

An NPC legion was standing at a forest clearing. Their warhorses neighed from time to time, and banners covered the sky.

At the center of the NPC legion was a warrior clad in dark metal armor. The royal symbol adorned his helmet. He stared arrogantly at our forces, unsheathed his sword and shouted, "Halt, invaders. We will destroy you if you dare to advance any further!"

I frowned. According to the lines of text above the NPC’s head, he was a Swallow Ear Canton noble—

Marquis Swiftwind, Wind Armor (Ancient Immortal Rank Boss)

Level: 330

……

Lin Yixin flew up to me and whispered, "According to the database, the royal family of Purple Grape City was exiled to Swallow Ear Canton after the defeat of Purple Grape City. This Wind Armor is famed as one of the three heroes of Swallow Ear Canton, and his position, marquis, is the highest position besides duke. Also, the reason Wind Armor was able to forge the Dragon Cannons here is because an unknown player had completed a quest. If we destroy the Dragon Cannons, the quest will be done for as well."

"Good!"

I clenched my fists. Unfortunately for the marquis, he was going to become the target of our ire today.