1541

Olympus’ cavalrymen galloped toward us in full force. In fact, they were raising their weapon and charging their energy long before they hit us in a full gallop. Were they planning to penetrate the Dragonlight Cavalry’s defense formation with Ultimate Strength Break? Hilarious! The most that skill could do was 1,000 basic damage!

"Prepare to receive the enemy charge!"

I bent down slightly and activated Cold of the Nine Provinces before the first wave could hit us. An entire swathe of cavalrymen were immediately frozen in their tracks, causing the ones at the back to slam into them or trample over each other.

On the walls, Stranger of Three Lifetimes waved her scepter while crying, "Hit them with everything you've got!"

The mages immediately unleashed their Touch of the Dragonkiss, Galaxy Storms and more, laying down suppressive fire between 100 to 150 yards from the walls!

Not only had Grief of the Dark lost his head, he also underestimated our ranged firepower too much. As a result, his men had to pay the price for his mistake. Our 50k Holy Mages killed his Steel Rhinoceros Cavalrymen in droves, and Beiming Xue’s Dragonlight Archers stunned most of them to keep them in the line of fire until they died. The player counter on the Nation War UI—specifically the one pertaining to the battle of the Fortress of the Iron Halberd—was dropping at a drastic rate!

……

Barely anyone managed to make it through the line of suppressive fire. No one knew exactly how many players had been sent straight to kingdom come by the Holy Mages’ bombardment, only that Lian Xin had suddenly become the runner-up on the Nation War contribution point ranking. The only reason she hadn’t surpassed me to become the champion was because my Xuanyuan Art was too OP for even a world-class mage to overcome!

"Either you die, or we die!" shouted a small group of low-health Olympus cavalrymen. They were right, and cut into pieces by our Dragonlight Cavalry.

Time passed little by little. When 9 minutes had passed, and the enemy’s Fire Catapults had come so close that our Dragonlight Cavalrymen were constantly bathing in inferno, and their archers came close enough to the walls to shoot their Shock Arrows and put some pressure on our ranged players, the battle finally looked a little less one-sided.

"Hold the line!!" Gui Guzi shouted while expanding his bloody wings and casting a Shennong Tastes Grass to heal everyone for 75% of their HP. It was a move the low-health players on the frontline definitely needed.

I summoned the Phantom Wolf King, wrecked the enemy for a bit with my pet, and cast the Xuanyuan Art again the moment the cooldown was up. The ones who didn’t have over 70% HP died and turned into contribution points, and those who had had more HP no longer had nearly enough HP to survive the Holy Mages’ bombardment even in the best-case scenario. Already, it looked like Olympus’ final charge would end in failure at any moment.

That being said, their commander, Grief of the Dark was doing his damndest to make sure that that wouldn’t happen. He kept shooting icicles at our low-health Dragonlight Cavalrymen and were able to kill hundreds in less than half an hour. Worse, he was always able to position himself just right and dodge Li Chengfeng, Lian Xin and even my attempts to get rid of him.

……

"We cannot allow Grief of the Dark to continue killing our Dragonlight Cavalrymen like this!" He Yi said in the guild channel.

I nodded and suggested, "Mn. Let’s work together, everyone. Chengfeng, I want you to heal yourself to full before rushing into the enemy lines. Hit Grief of the Dark from behind and force him to use his Blink. If you succeed, I’ll be able to Charge him and break his shield with a combo. Beiming, make sure you land your Shock Arrow on him when that happens. Eve, you’re the one who will land the final blow. Does everyone get the plan?"

"Understood! We’ll get it done right away!"

As Li Chengfeng flew right into the fray, he activated Battle Soul Possession and shone like a god. After cutting down a swathe of enemies, he abruptly shook his halberd and made it snake toward Grief of the Dark’s back like a living creature. I couldn’t help but cry in admiration when I saw this. There were only a handful of players in the entire world who could use both a sword-type weapon and a pole arm–type weapon to this extent, and Li Chengfeng was one of them!

"Oh shit!"

Grief of the Dark was manifesting another icicle when Li Chengfeng had attacked him from behind. Without hesitation, he activated Heavenly River Transformation and Blinked away to safety!

Swhoosh!

Lightning surrounded me as I used Thunderous Charge toward Grief of the Dark’s new location. My Burning Blade Slash easily shattered his Magic Shield, but he was able to parry the last hit and allow himself to be knocked dozens of meters away from me. Not only that, the sly bastard proceeded to roll on the ground and into the crowd in search of an opportunity to escape.

Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t just facing me and Li Chengfeng only. A beautiful huntress had been watching him from afar and waiting for the best moment to attack! Before he could slip completely into the crowd, a Shock Arrow abruptly froze him in his tracks and stunned him for 2.1 seconds!

"Quick! Protect the boss!" The players of Olympus panicked.

Unfortunately for them, He Yi’s Snow Crystal Dragon roared as she swooped down from above. The Suppressing Fire Sword shone a dazzling light as she summoned a bunch of mini cyclones in front of her before executing a 4-hit Stormwind Slash + Stormwind Break combo. It was enough to delete all of Grief of the Dark’s HP and caused him to drop a helmet and a pair of boots.

Ding!

System Announcement: Attention all players, player "From Water" (China) killed the Heroic Bannerman "Grief of the Dark" (USA) and obtained 10% of their contribution points, 52,871 points!

The Olympus players standing next to Grief of the Dark’s body looked like they might faint. No one had seen this coming[1].

……

I raised the Xuanyuan Sword high and shouted, "The time to counterattack is now! Annihilate them all but don’t go beyond 300 yards from the walls! All remaining Dragonlight Cavalrymen in the fortress, come out and fight as well!"

Stranger of Three Lifetimes jumped off the rampart and flashed her pretty white legs for a bit before landing. She made a spitting noise at the Dragonlight Cavalrymen who were dazzled by her display before ordering, "All Blazing Hot Lips cavalrymen, follow me! We’re going to crush Olympus’ remnants before they escape!"

The gate opened again, and the players cooped up inside the fortress flooded out like a tidal wave. The battle cries shaking the sky instantly became far louder than before.

Li Chengfeng, Gui Guzi and He Yi led a cavalry troop each to cut off the enemy’s retreat. Only a couple of small guilds were assisting Olympus, so they were of no real threat to us.

Grief of the Dark’s death left Olympus without a leader once more. In fact, many of their players took out their return scrolls and teleported back to the city immediately. Of course, even more players were trampled by the Dragonlight Cavalry or blasted into smithereens by the Holy Mages and Dragonlight Archers. High Fighting Spirits, Chaos Moon, Xu Yang, Du Thirteen, Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun and more were absolutely going to town against these people. Only an idiot would let an opportunity to earn contribution points by the bucketful slip through their grasp.

Less than two hours had passed since the battle began, and Olympus had already suffered a massive defeat!

The ground was littered with bodies, equipment, potions and all sorts of items. There was no time to loot them properly though. It was because another super guild of the Northern Alliance was beginning to march toward us. I hurriedly raised my sword and yelled, "All units, there’s no time to loot the battlefield! Return to the walls now!"

And so we picked up only a few pieces of equipment each before rushing back to the fortress.

……

After I flew up to the rampart, I looked at the sea of bodies on the ground and lamented Olympus’ fate for a bit. Olympus was the number one guild of Titan City, and it almost felt like a shame that they were annihilated so early into the Nation War.

"2.24 million players gone just like that…" Stranger of Three Lifetimes chuckled. "Normally, I would be congratulating everyone already, but it’s clear that the Northern Alliance is planning to fight a war of attrition. Olympus is but the first pawn they sacrificed to chip away at our strength. Still, they couldn’t possibly have predicted us to defeat Olympus so easily!"

"Who said it was easy?" I curled my lips. "Casualty report please, Chaos Moon."

Chaos Moon nodded before starting, "We’ve lost 54k Profound Wolf Cavalrymen, 4k Dragonlight Cavalrymen, and around 2,000 Holy Mages and Dragonlight Archers. With all profession-based players and ground troops, we’ve lost around 100k players. It’s not a significant loss."

"What about you, Momo?" I asked.

Stranger of Three Lifetimes sighed. "Our casualties are around 200k and probably twice yours. Overall, we lost 300k players but defeated 2.24 million enemies in total. Truly, being the defender of a siege is so awesome... Also, we destroyed a good number of Magic Crystal Cannons and Fire Catapults, and never allowed their siege weapons to come close to our fortress. This is definitely a great victory for us."

I gazed to the horizon before saying, "One of the major reasons we did so well is because Olympus had underestimated us. I highly doubt that our next opponent will make the same mistakes."

"Who is our next opponent?"

"They’re right there." I pointed with a finger.

A new tidal wave of players marched toward us, and their guild emblems marked them as Blood Soul, the second strongest guild in the England server.

The leader of the army was an axe wielder riding a green dragon; a dragon knight. He was also the guild leader of Blood Soul, Soul Slayer. A legendary expert and the owner of the SSS Rank Ancient Divine Skill, Odin Slash, Soul Slayer was certainly going to be another difficult opponent.

"Blood Soul is here…"

Stranger of Three Lifetimes clenched her scepter. "Fucking wars of attrition, man. No matter how well we perform, they’re going to break through eventually…"

He Yi frowned. "But why are they sending their guilds to attack us one by one? Had they sent 3 to 5 guilds at once or gave us no breathing room at all, the siege would’ve gone a bit better, wouldn’t it?"

I sucked in a deep breath. "Clearly, they’re plotting something."

"What should we do?"

"Dispatch some parties to patrol the key locations around Dragonbone Mountain Range and keep an eye out for everything. This battle would be completely pointless if they managed to slip across Dragonbone Mountain Range and raid Sky City," I said.

He Yi chuckled. "This, you don’t have to worry about. Many of our subguild players are patrolling the maps right now. It is nearly impossible for the enemy to launch a sneak attack without us noticing."

"Good…"

……

"Wait a second… what is that?" Suddenly, Beiming Xue exclaimed in surprise from her Fire Phoenix.

The rest of us were stunned as well.

The distant horizon was shrouded in fog because it was almost nighttime. However, we spotted many humongous shadows behind the fog and with footsteps so loud that we could hear them all the way from here. Were those giants?

I rubbed my eyes to confirm that I wasn’t seeing things before saying, "I’m going to fly over and take a look!"

I took to the sky and quickly arrived above Blood Soul. The humongous shadows were definitely giants, and they were all carrying heavy stone clubs. They were obviously not pets but NPCs. In fact, they were all Ancient Immortal Rank bosses called Mountain Giants!

But why were the NPCs helping the Northern Alliance to siege our fortress?

I was utterly confused.

It was at this moment I heard a tiny voice from among the Mountain Giants. "Destroy the fortress before you, my precious little babies! We will take revenge for our regent!"

The speaker was a short and ugly dwarf. In fact, he belonged to the main city we had conquered, Hot Sand City—

Dwarven Tamer Lochdan (Quasi-Divine Rank Boss)

Level: 330

1. T/N: yeah right, he was one man versus 3 divine players and none of you saw this coming, sure ☜

Olympus’ cavalrymen galloped toward us in full force. In fact, they were raising their weapon and charging their energy long before they hit us in a full gallop. Were they planning to penetrate the Dragonlight Cavalry’s defense formation with Ultimate Strength Break? Hilarious! The most that skill could do was 1,000 basic damage!

"Prepare to receive the enemy charge!"

I bent down slightly and activated Cold of the Nine Provinces before the first wave could hit us. An entire swathe of cavalrymen were immediately frozen in their tracks, causing the ones at the back to slam into them or trample over each other.

On the walls, Stranger of Three Lifetimes waved her scepter while crying, "Hit them with everything you've got!"

The mages immediately unleashed their Touch of the Dragonkiss, Galaxy Storms and more, laying down suppressive fire between 100 to 150 yards from the walls!

Not only had Grief of the Dark lost his head, he also underestimated our ranged firepower too much. As a result, his men had to pay the price for his mistake. Our 50k Holy Mages killed his Steel Rhinoceros Cavalrymen in droves, and Beiming Xue’s Dragonlight Archers stunned most of them to keep them in the line of fire until they died. The player counter on the Nation War UI—specifically the one pertaining to the battle of the Fortress of the Iron Halberd—was dropping at a drastic rate!

……

Barely anyone managed to make it through the line of suppressive fire. No one knew exactly how many players had been sent straight to kingdom come by the Holy Mages’ bombardment, only that Lian Xin had suddenly become the runner-up on the Nation War contribution point ranking. The only reason she hadn’t surpassed me to become the champion was because my Xuanyuan Art was too OP for even a world-class mage to overcome!

"Either you die, or we die!" shouted a small group of low-health Olympus cavalrymen. They were right, and cut into pieces by our Dragonlight Cavalry.

Time passed little by little. When 9 minutes had passed, and the enemy’s Fire Catapults had come so close that our Dragonlight Cavalrymen were constantly bathing in inferno, and their archers came close enough to the walls to shoot their Shock Arrows and put some pressure on our ranged players, the battle finally looked a little less one-sided.

"Hold the line!!" Gui Guzi shouted while expanding his bloody wings and casting a Shennong Tastes Grass to heal everyone for 75% of their HP. It was a move the low-health players on the frontline definitely needed.

I summoned the Phantom Wolf King, wrecked the enemy for a bit with my pet, and cast the Xuanyuan Art again the moment the cooldown was up. The ones who didn’t have over 70% HP died and turned into contribution points, and those who had had more HP no longer had nearly enough HP to survive the Holy Mages’ bombardment even in the best-case scenario. Already, it looked like Olympus’ final charge would end in failure at any moment.

That being said, their commander, Grief of the Dark was doing his damndest to make sure that that wouldn’t happen. He kept shooting icicles at our low-health Dragonlight Cavalrymen and were able to kill hundreds in less than half an hour. Worse, he was always able to position himself just right and dodge Li Chengfeng, Lian Xin and even my attempts to get rid of him.

……

"We cannot allow Grief of the Dark to continue killing our Dragonlight Cavalrymen like this!" He Yi said in the guild channel.

I nodded and suggested, "Mn. Let’s work together, everyone. Chengfeng, I want you to heal yourself to full before rushing into the enemy lines. Hit Grief of the Dark from behind and force him to use his Blink. If you succeed, I’ll be able to Charge him and break his shield with a combo. Beiming, make sure you land your Shock Arrow on him when that happens. Eve, you’re the one who will land the final blow. Does everyone get the plan?"

"Understood! We’ll get it done right away!"

As Li Chengfeng flew right into the fray, he activated Battle Soul Possession and shone like a god. After cutting down a swathe of enemies, he abruptly shook his halberd and made it snake toward Grief of the Dark’s back like a living creature. I couldn’t help but cry in admiration when I saw this. There were only a handful of players in the entire world who could use both a sword-type weapon and a pole arm–type weapon to this extent, and Li Chengfeng was one of them!

"Oh shit!"

Grief of the Dark was manifesting another icicle when Li Chengfeng had attacked him from behind. Without hesitation, he activated Heavenly River Transformation and Blinked away to safety!

Swhoosh!

Lightning surrounded me as I used Thunderous Charge toward Grief of the Dark’s new location. My Burning Blade Slash easily shattered his Magic Shield, but he was able to parry the last hit and allow himself to be knocked dozens of meters away from me. Not only that, the sly bastard proceeded to roll on the ground and into the crowd in search of an opportunity to escape.

Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t just facing me and Li Chengfeng only. A beautiful huntress had been watching him from afar and waiting for the best moment to attack! Before he could slip completely into the crowd, a Shock Arrow abruptly froze him in his tracks and stunned him for 2.1 seconds!

"Quick! Protect the boss!" The players of Olympus panicked.

Unfortunately for them, He Yi’s Snow Crystal Dragon roared as she swooped down from above. The Suppressing Fire Sword shone a dazzling light as she summoned a bunch of mini cyclones in front of her before executing a 4-hit Stormwind Slash + Stormwind Break combo. It was enough to delete all of Grief of the Dark’s HP and caused him to drop a helmet and a pair of boots.

Ding!

System Announcement: Attention all players, player "From Water" (China) killed the Heroic Bannerman "Grief of the Dark" (USA) and obtained 10% of their contribution points, 52,871 points!

The Olympus players standing next to Grief of the Dark’s body looked like they might faint. No one had seen this coming[1].

……

I raised the Xuanyuan Sword high and shouted, "The time to counterattack is now! Annihilate them all but don’t go beyond 300 yards from the walls! All remaining Dragonlight Cavalrymen in the fortress, come out and fight as well!"

Stranger of Three Lifetimes jumped off the rampart and flashed her pretty white legs for a bit before landing. She made a spitting noise at the Dragonlight Cavalrymen who were dazzled by her display before ordering, "All Blazing Hot Lips cavalrymen, follow me! We’re going to crush Olympus’ remnants before they escape!"

The gate opened again, and the players cooped up inside the fortress flooded out like a tidal wave. The battle cries shaking the sky instantly became far louder than before.

Li Chengfeng, Gui Guzi and He Yi led a cavalry troop each to cut off the enemy’s retreat. Only a couple of small guilds were assisting Olympus, so they were of no real threat to us.

Grief of the Dark’s death left Olympus without a leader once more. In fact, many of their players took out their return scrolls and teleported back to the city immediately. Of course, even more players were trampled by the Dragonlight Cavalry or blasted into smithereens by the Holy Mages and Dragonlight Archers. High Fighting Spirits, Chaos Moon, Xu Yang, Du Thirteen, Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun and more were absolutely going to town against these people. Only an idiot would let an opportunity to earn contribution points by the bucketful slip through their grasp.

Less than two hours had passed since the battle began, and Olympus had already suffered a massive defeat!

The ground was littered with bodies, equipment, potions and all sorts of items. There was no time to loot them properly though. It was because another super guild of the Northern Alliance was beginning to march toward us. I hurriedly raised my sword and yelled, "All units, there’s no time to loot the battlefield! Return to the walls now!"

And so we picked up only a few pieces of equipment each before rushing back to the fortress.

……

After I flew up to the rampart, I looked at the sea of bodies on the ground and lamented Olympus’ fate for a bit. Olympus was the number one guild of Titan City, and it almost felt like a shame that they were annihilated so early into the Nation War.

"2.24 million players gone just like that…" Stranger of Three Lifetimes chuckled. "Normally, I would be congratulating everyone already, but it’s clear that the Northern Alliance is planning to fight a war of attrition. Olympus is but the first pawn they sacrificed to chip away at our strength. Still, they couldn’t possibly have predicted us to defeat Olympus so easily!"

"Who said it was easy?" I curled my lips. "Casualty report please, Chaos Moon."

Chaos Moon nodded before starting, "We’ve lost 54k Profound Wolf Cavalrymen, 4k Dragonlight Cavalrymen, and around 2,000 Holy Mages and Dragonlight Archers. With all profession-based players and ground troops, we’ve lost around 100k players. It’s not a significant loss."

"What about you, Momo?" I asked.

Stranger of Three Lifetimes sighed. "Our casualties are around 200k and probably twice yours. Overall, we lost 300k players but defeated 2.24 million enemies in total. Truly, being the defender of a siege is so awesome... Also, we destroyed a good number of Magic Crystal Cannons and Fire Catapults, and never allowed their siege weapons to come close to our fortress. This is definitely a great victory for us."

I gazed to the horizon before saying, "One of the major reasons we did so well is because Olympus had underestimated us. I highly doubt that our next opponent will make the same mistakes."

"Who is our next opponent?"

"They’re right there." I pointed with a finger.

A new tidal wave of players marched toward us, and their guild emblems marked them as Blood Soul, the second strongest guild in the England server.

The leader of the army was an axe wielder riding a green dragon; a dragon knight. He was also the guild leader of Blood Soul, Soul Slayer. A legendary expert and the owner of the SSS Rank Ancient Divine Skill, Odin Slash, Soul Slayer was certainly going to be another difficult opponent.

"Blood Soul is here…"

Stranger of Three Lifetimes clenched her scepter. "Fucking wars of attrition, man. No matter how well we perform, they’re going to break through eventually…"

He Yi frowned. "But why are they sending their guilds to attack us one by one? Had they sent 3 to 5 guilds at once or gave us no breathing room at all, the siege would’ve gone a bit better, wouldn’t it?"

I sucked in a deep breath. "Clearly, they’re plotting something."

"What should we do?"

"Dispatch some parties to patrol the key locations around Dragonbone Mountain Range and keep an eye out for everything. This battle would be completely pointless if they managed to slip across Dragonbone Mountain Range and raid Sky City," I said.

He Yi chuckled. "This, you don’t have to worry about. Many of our subguild players are patrolling the maps right now. It is nearly impossible for the enemy to launch a sneak attack without us noticing."

"Good…"

……

"Wait a second… what is that?" Suddenly, Beiming Xue exclaimed in surprise from her Fire Phoenix.

The rest of us were stunned as well.

The distant horizon was shrouded in fog because it was almost nighttime. However, we spotted many humongous shadows behind the fog and with footsteps so loud that we could hear them all the way from here. Were those giants?

I rubbed my eyes to confirm that I wasn’t seeing things before saying, "I’m going to fly over and take a look!"

I took to the sky and quickly arrived above Blood Soul. The humongous shadows were definitely giants, and they were all carrying heavy stone clubs. They were obviously not pets but NPCs. In fact, they were all Ancient Immortal Rank bosses called Mountain Giants!

But why were the NPCs helping the Northern Alliance to siege our fortress?

I was utterly confused.

It was at this moment I heard a tiny voice from among the Mountain Giants. "Destroy the fortress before you, my precious little babies! We will take revenge for our regent!"

The speaker was a short and ugly dwarf. In fact, he belonged to the main city we had conquered, Hot Sand City—

Dwarven Tamer Lochdan (Quasi-Divine Rank Boss)

Level: 330

1. T/N: yeah right, he was one man versus 3 divine players and none of you saw this coming, sure ☜