1566

"Heavens!"

He Yi’s eyes widened. "Even… even Warsky has been killed by Flowing Cloud? What is going on over there?"

Li Chengfeng said solemnly, "According to the latest update, Warsky dropped his Immortal Blade. It was taken away by Lui Lok…"

I had to use a few enemy magic knights as punching bags before I managed to calm myself enough to blurt, "What the fuck is going on at Swallow Ear Canton? How is the enemy slaughtering our CGL Hall of Famers like chickens?"

He Yi shook her head. "I don’t know…"

……

BOOM!

Suddenly, there was a loud boom that shook seemingly the entire fortress. My eyes widened in alarm as I asked, "What… just happened?"

"Battering rams!" Li Chengfeng pointed to the ground. "Holy shit, the balls on Hero Alliance’s players! They’re striking the bottom of Sky Ridge Fortress and digging out the rocks! Did they give up on conquering it and want to topple it instead?"

I followed his gaze and exclaimed in shock, "With how high it is, it might actually be doable. Look over there…"

I pointed. A half-meter crack had appeared on the walls before we realized it. Clearly, it was from stress it was enduring after its foundation had begun to crumble. At this rate, the entire Sky Ridge Fortress would collapse under its own weight…

Li Chengfeng raised his Cyan Peak Halberd. "We can’t let them continue like this. I’ll go destroy those battering rams!"

"Wait…"

I hurriedly grabbed his cloak and pulled him back to us. "Calm down, you. Don’t you see that the ground is crawling with Throne of the Wild and Hero Alliance mages and archers? They’ll absolutely wreck us if we go down there now. Sigh, our defenders are so goddamn useless. Let’s wait for our Dragonlight Archers and Holy Mages before we make our move. It’s okay, the walls should hold for a bit longer."

"Okay!"

Li Chengfeng was panicking despite my assurances. In fact, everyone was panicking and urging our troops to march faster in the guild channel. A while later, the first group of 30,000 Dragonlight Archers finally reached the walls. After they had received the buffs of various stratagems such as Purple Dragon, Martial God, Royal Road, Bow God and more, they began shooting at the players on the ground in earnest. The arrow rain and my Xuanyuan Art immediately deleted all enemies within 100 yards of the fortress and drove Tear Stain 200 yards to the back. The shocked woman uttered with a purple complexion, "Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls’ main force is here!"

At the distance, a floating Vienna’s Sorrow said coolly, "Calm down, Tear Stain. Tell our archers to scale the mountains next to the fortress to strike at their flank. Of course, we’re going to continue our frontal assault. Keep sending the siege towers, firing the catapults, and attacking the bottom of the fortress. If all goes well, it will fall in less than half an hour!"

"Mn!"

Tear Stain nodded heavily.

……

There was an old saying "You have Zhang Liangji, but I have a wall ladder". Even if your opponent had an advantage, you were bound to have an advantage of your own. A total of 11 Chiyou Plumes were set up on the walls under He Yi’s orders. Each time they fired, they could instakill a single catapult, but the enemy could do nothing against them due to the height disadvantage. Also, Chaos Moon, Heaven’s Rain, Diamond Dust and He Yi were guarding beside the siege weapons, so there was no chance Vienna’s Sorrow could snipe them. This was without mentioning that Li Chengfeng, Lian Xin and I were standing by to react to anything the Northern Alliance might attempt to pull.

After that, Li Chengeng and I attempted to bait the enemy into rash actions such as killing rows of frontline magic knights before flying back to the fortress. We were able to piss off Tear Stain, but that was it for the moment. On a related note, the enemy archers they had sent up the mountains beside the fortress to harass us were swiftly cleared out by Beiming Xue and Lian Xin. The archers were too cold to even draw their bows properly, but the two girls had no such problems. Lian Xin feared no weather conditions thanks to Unusual Physique, while Beiming Xue rode a Fire Phoenix that kept her wonderfully warm. The battle stagnated, turning into a stalemate for a good while One siege tower after another fell to our attacks, but, for whatever reason, Vienna’s Sorrow didn’t lower the intensity of the assault even a little.

Boom!

After I had hacked another siege tower into pieces, I uttered in frustration, "Has Hero Alliance gone insane? Why are they attacking so relentlessly yet futilely?"

Li Chengfeng said, "They must be scheming something. Could it be…"

Desperate for answers myself, I answered, "Oh? What is it?”

"No clue!"

"Fuck off!"

“Hehe.”

……

I floated up into the sky and took a moment to call Lin Yixin. This was a good time as any to figure out what the hell had happened at Swallow Ear Canton—

"Yiyi?"

"Mn!" I could hear her heavy panting and even the occasional sounds of clashing blades. The battle must be raging hot over there.

"What’s going on at Swallow Ear Canton? How did Warsky and Farewell Song die to the enemy?"

"Mn…" Lin Yixin hummed. "I’m not sure either. We’re currently inside the city and battling against the NPC legions, but Flowing Cloud, God of War and Breeze and Rain are hitting us hard from the outside. From what I heard, Warsky Alliance was on the brink of total annihilation. However, Uncle Zhang Chun demanded that we fight to the bitter end and destroy as many Cyan Earth City, Elephant City and Swallow Ear Canton forces as we can. It’s all to preserve Ancient Sword’s forces!"

I clenched my fists. "How many people does Snowy Cathaya still have, Yiyi?"

"Not much. Our effective force is around 100k strong, I think. Lexi and Shadow Chanel are already dead."

I said, "In that case, I’ll head over and help you, Yiyi!"

"No!" Lin Yixin’s tone turned stubborn. "I can’t always rely on your strength, Little Cheat. Just leave it to me. We will make the siege of Swallow Ear Canton a success no matter how many enemies we face in battle!"

"Fine… Take care, Yiyi!"

"You too. Now let’s both get back to killing some more enemies, shall we?"

"Yeah!"

……

It was at this moment a ball of flames stopped next to me. It was Beiming Xue and her Fire Phoenix. She patted away the snow on her shoulder before putting one arm around my neck and whispering to me, "Big bro, I just discovered something huge at coordinates (38877, 98773) east of Sky Ridge. An army of 1.5 million Hero Alliance players, 3 Dragon Cannons and about 100 Ghost Machines has been assembled there. They’re moving at a slow pace so as not to be discovered by the enemy, but I reckon that they’ll be able to launch a destructive assault against us in 1 hour at most!"

I shuddered from head to toe. "Are you sure, Beiming?"

"Of course, big bro. Unless you think I’m lying to you?"

I immediately opened the map screen. Now I understood why Vienna’s Sorrow kept up the assault despite the futility of it. It was because he was planning to catch us with this surprise attack! Three Dragon Cannons and a hundred Ghost Machines was definitely enough firepower to destroy Sky Ridge Fortress completely. In fact, I didn’t expect him to still have 1.5 million elites so late into the Nation War[1]. It was definitely a force powerful enough to annihilate Sky City if we let it!

"Do you have a plan, big bro?" Beiming asked with a blink.

I clenched my fists and said, "Yeah!"

Li Chengfeng’s eyes widened. "What are our new orders?"

I thought for a moment before ordering, "Chengfeng, Chaos Moon, Cloud and Water, Hickey; give me a tally of your currently available troops!"

"Okay!"

A short while later, Li Chengfeng replied first, "We have almost 70k Dragonlight Cavalrymen, 40k Zephyr Cavalrymen, 120k mixed cavalrymen, 60k Dragonlight Archers, 70k+ Holy Mages and a total of 500k supports plus other ranged units."

Song of Cloud and Water answered, "We have about 30k Iron Cutter Cavalrymen, 150k normal cavalrymen, and 400k of other classes."

Hickey answered, "We have 20k Zephyr Cavalrymen and 300k of the rest!"

I ran the calculations in my head before muttering, "This should be enough…"

Gui Guzi asked in puzzlement, "Enough for what, Boss Broken Halberd? What are you planning?"

I pointed to the east side of Sky Ridge Fortress and said, "We’ve been had. Hero Alliance has slipped under the radar some time during the attack, meaning that the force attacking us right now is really Throne of the Wild and God Breaker’s 500k-strong army. Their true attack, Hero Alliance’s 1.5 million players, is being prepared at a nearby valley. I’m planning to teleport our troops behind their army and hit them from behind. Chengfeng and Little Gui will also be leading a different troop and hit them from the front. Once we’ve eliminated these 1.5 million troops, this Nation War will be as good as won!"

Li Chengfeng turned red with excitement. "God damn, that sounds like it’ll be extremely fun! How many players are you going to give me and Little Gui? Mind you, we need some oomph since we’ll be hitting them from the front…"

I thought for a moment before answering, "You will have 20k fully-buffed Dragonlight Cavalrymen, all of Soul Battle Robes, and Lu Buyi. Do you think you can do it?"

Li Chengfeng nodded with full confidence. "Absolutely!"

I smiled. "Good. All Ancient Sword main guild units besides the 20k Dragonlight Cavalrymen I mentioned, teleport back to Dark Moon City now. The same goes for Protective Umbrella. After that, wait for my signal before you go through the teleportation formation. This is going to be a big battle! We’re beginning our operation in ten minutes because Sky Ridge Fortress doesn’t have much time left. Go go go!"

"Yessir!"

……

Everyone took out their return scrolls and teleported to Dark Moon City. This part of the plan took one minute at most. After that, I shot Profound Puff and Wang Dongliang a look before saying in an indifferent tone, "In the meantime, we need you to defend Sky Ridge Fortress. Don’t allow even a single fly to get past these walls!"

Wang Dongliang nodded. "Got it!"

With that done, I leaped into the air and flew straight into the clouds. One of the points of the Teleportation Divine Crystal was fixed at Dark Moon City, and I had to establish the other one myself. I flew until I was 2,000 meters in the sky or so and plunged into the clouds. This way, most ground units wouldn’t be able to spot me.

……

Right after I passed through a cloud though, a fiery light suddenly flashed in front of me!

I immediately activated Profound Armor and blocked the flaming attack with the Dihai Shield. Despite that, my arm still turned numb from the attack. It was clearly made by a divine expert!

Clad in black armor and wielding a black sword, Vienna’s Sorrow watched me with a cool smile on his face. "I’ve been waiting for you[2], Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand!"

Chiang!

I unsheathed my sword, rushed him and cast God Binding Art immediately!

Vienna’s Sorrow wasn’t expecting me to engage him without any chit-chat at all. In fact, he could sense that I intended to kill him here and now!

MISS!

He dodged the skill. Vienna’s Sorrow wasn’t too slow even compared to me. He responded to my aggression with Berserk Triple Slash!

I didn’t avoid the attack because I wanted to hit him with my own skill. My body shook from the damage he dealt me, but I also managed to engulf him in my Burning Blade Slash. The first hit even dealt septuple damage—

9,950,311!

2,277,739!

2,988,371!

……

Vienna’s Sorrow groaned, "Ugh…"

His HP dropped dangerously low, but he wasn’t dead. I took a moment to scan his equipment. As it turned out, his legguards were a Middle Divine Armament that reduced damage taken by 18%[3]. No wonder he had managed to survive my attack!

Iron Arm Reinforcement!

Penetration of the Deep!

Here comes the combo. Vienna went all out right after he downed a health potion.

"Heh…"

I let out a chuckle and waved my hand at Vienna. The moment a bloody chain appeared around his neck, I immediately summoned the Xuanyuan Slash!

1. T/N: why wouldn’t you? Dude barely took any damage at all. I’m more surprised he failed to steamroll the weaklings in 5 hours ☜

2. E/N: Seems like not only Breeze and Rain can be a step ahead Lu Chen. ☜

3. E/N: 1566 chapters in, and there’s a fucking INSPECT button to see others’ gear? Wtf? I could rewrite it into “On the way here I checked the public info, and found that he had recently gotten a new pair of legguards…” ☜

"Heavens!"

He Yi’s eyes widened. "Even… even Warsky has been killed by Flowing Cloud? What is going on over there?"

Li Chengfeng said solemnly, "According to the latest update, Warsky dropped his Immortal Blade. It was taken away by Lui Lok…"

I had to use a few enemy magic knights as punching bags before I managed to calm myself enough to blurt, "What the fuck is going on at Swallow Ear Canton? How is the enemy slaughtering our CGL Hall of Famers like chickens?"

He Yi shook her head. "I don’t know…"

……

BOOM!

Suddenly, there was a loud boom that shook seemingly the entire fortress. My eyes widened in alarm as I asked, "What… just happened?"

"Battering rams!" Li Chengfeng pointed to the ground. "Holy shit, the balls on Hero Alliance’s players! They’re striking the bottom of Sky Ridge Fortress and digging out the rocks! Did they give up on conquering it and want to topple it instead?"

I followed his gaze and exclaimed in shock, "With how high it is, it might actually be doable. Look over there…"

I pointed. A half-meter crack had appeared on the walls before we realized it. Clearly, it was from stress it was enduring after its foundation had begun to crumble. At this rate, the entire Sky Ridge Fortress would collapse under its own weight…

Li Chengfeng raised his Cyan Peak Halberd. "We can’t let them continue like this. I’ll go destroy those battering rams!"

"Wait…"

I hurriedly grabbed his cloak and pulled him back to us. "Calm down, you. Don’t you see that the ground is crawling with Throne of the Wild and Hero Alliance mages and archers? They’ll absolutely wreck us if we go down there now. Sigh, our defenders are so goddamn useless. Let’s wait for our Dragonlight Archers and Holy Mages before we make our move. It’s okay, the walls should hold for a bit longer."

"Okay!"

Li Chengfeng was panicking despite my assurances. In fact, everyone was panicking and urging our troops to march faster in the guild channel. A while later, the first group of 30,000 Dragonlight Archers finally reached the walls. After they had received the buffs of various stratagems such as Purple Dragon, Martial God, Royal Road, Bow God and more, they began shooting at the players on the ground in earnest. The arrow rain and my Xuanyuan Art immediately deleted all enemies within 100 yards of the fortress and drove Tear Stain 200 yards to the back. The shocked woman uttered with a purple complexion, "Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls’ main force is here!"

At the distance, a floating Vienna’s Sorrow said coolly, "Calm down, Tear Stain. Tell our archers to scale the mountains next to the fortress to strike at their flank. Of course, we’re going to continue our frontal assault. Keep sending the siege towers, firing the catapults, and attacking the bottom of the fortress. If all goes well, it will fall in less than half an hour!"

"Mn!"

Tear Stain nodded heavily.

……

There was an old saying "You have Zhang Liangji, but I have a wall ladder". Even if your opponent had an advantage, you were bound to have an advantage of your own. A total of 11 Chiyou Plumes were set up on the walls under He Yi’s orders. Each time they fired, they could instakill a single catapult, but the enemy could do nothing against them due to the height disadvantage. Also, Chaos Moon, Heaven’s Rain, Diamond Dust and He Yi were guarding beside the siege weapons, so there was no chance Vienna’s Sorrow could snipe them. This was without mentioning that Li Chengfeng, Lian Xin and I were standing by to react to anything the Northern Alliance might attempt to pull.

After that, Li Chengeng and I attempted to bait the enemy into rash actions such as killing rows of frontline magic knights before flying back to the fortress. We were able to piss off Tear Stain, but that was it for the moment. On a related note, the enemy archers they had sent up the mountains beside the fortress to harass us were swiftly cleared out by Beiming Xue and Lian Xin. The archers were too cold to even draw their bows properly, but the two girls had no such problems. Lian Xin feared no weather conditions thanks to Unusual Physique, while Beiming Xue rode a Fire Phoenix that kept her wonderfully warm. The battle stagnated, turning into a stalemate for a good while One siege tower after another fell to our attacks, but, for whatever reason, Vienna’s Sorrow didn’t lower the intensity of the assault even a little.

Boom!

After I had hacked another siege tower into pieces, I uttered in frustration, "Has Hero Alliance gone insane? Why are they attacking so relentlessly yet futilely?"

Li Chengfeng said, "They must be scheming something. Could it be…"

Desperate for answers myself, I answered, "Oh? What is it?”

"No clue!"

"Fuck off!"

“Hehe.”

……

I floated up into the sky and took a moment to call Lin Yixin. This was a good time as any to figure out what the hell had happened at Swallow Ear Canton—

"Yiyi?"

"Mn!" I could hear her heavy panting and even the occasional sounds of clashing blades. The battle must be raging hot over there.

"What’s going on at Swallow Ear Canton? How did Warsky and Farewell Song die to the enemy?"

"Mn…" Lin Yixin hummed. "I’m not sure either. We’re currently inside the city and battling against the NPC legions, but Flowing Cloud, God of War and Breeze and Rain are hitting us hard from the outside. From what I heard, Warsky Alliance was on the brink of total annihilation. However, Uncle Zhang Chun demanded that we fight to the bitter end and destroy as many Cyan Earth City, Elephant City and Swallow Ear Canton forces as we can. It’s all to preserve Ancient Sword’s forces!"

I clenched my fists. "How many people does Snowy Cathaya still have, Yiyi?"

"Not much. Our effective force is around 100k strong, I think. Lexi and Shadow Chanel are already dead."

I said, "In that case, I’ll head over and help you, Yiyi!"

"No!" Lin Yixin’s tone turned stubborn. "I can’t always rely on your strength, Little Cheat. Just leave it to me. We will make the siege of Swallow Ear Canton a success no matter how many enemies we face in battle!"

"Fine… Take care, Yiyi!"

"You too. Now let’s both get back to killing some more enemies, shall we?"

"Yeah!"

……

It was at this moment a ball of flames stopped next to me. It was Beiming Xue and her Fire Phoenix. She patted away the snow on her shoulder before putting one arm around my neck and whispering to me, "Big bro, I just discovered something huge at coordinates (38877, 98773) east of Sky Ridge. An army of 1.5 million Hero Alliance players, 3 Dragon Cannons and about 100 Ghost Machines has been assembled there. They’re moving at a slow pace so as not to be discovered by the enemy, but I reckon that they’ll be able to launch a destructive assault against us in 1 hour at most!"

I shuddered from head to toe. "Are you sure, Beiming?"

"Of course, big bro. Unless you think I’m lying to you?"

I immediately opened the map screen. Now I understood why Vienna’s Sorrow kept up the assault despite the futility of it. It was because he was planning to catch us with this surprise attack! Three Dragon Cannons and a hundred Ghost Machines was definitely enough firepower to destroy Sky Ridge Fortress completely. In fact, I didn’t expect him to still have 1.5 million elites so late into the Nation War[1]. It was definitely a force powerful enough to annihilate Sky City if we let it!

"Do you have a plan, big bro?" Beiming asked with a blink.

I clenched my fists and said, "Yeah!"

Li Chengfeng’s eyes widened. "What are our new orders?"

I thought for a moment before ordering, "Chengfeng, Chaos Moon, Cloud and Water, Hickey; give me a tally of your currently available troops!"

"Okay!"

A short while later, Li Chengfeng replied first, "We have almost 70k Dragonlight Cavalrymen, 40k Zephyr Cavalrymen, 120k mixed cavalrymen, 60k Dragonlight Archers, 70k+ Holy Mages and a total of 500k supports plus other ranged units."

Song of Cloud and Water answered, "We have about 30k Iron Cutter Cavalrymen, 150k normal cavalrymen, and 400k of other classes."

Hickey answered, "We have 20k Zephyr Cavalrymen and 300k of the rest!"

I ran the calculations in my head before muttering, "This should be enough…"

Gui Guzi asked in puzzlement, "Enough for what, Boss Broken Halberd? What are you planning?"

I pointed to the east side of Sky Ridge Fortress and said, "We’ve been had. Hero Alliance has slipped under the radar some time during the attack, meaning that the force attacking us right now is really Throne of the Wild and God Breaker’s 500k-strong army. Their true attack, Hero Alliance’s 1.5 million players, is being prepared at a nearby valley. I’m planning to teleport our troops behind their army and hit them from behind. Chengfeng and Little Gui will also be leading a different troop and hit them from the front. Once we’ve eliminated these 1.5 million troops, this Nation War will be as good as won!"

Li Chengfeng turned red with excitement. "God damn, that sounds like it’ll be extremely fun! How many players are you going to give me and Little Gui? Mind you, we need some oomph since we’ll be hitting them from the front…"

I thought for a moment before answering, "You will have 20k fully-buffed Dragonlight Cavalrymen, all of Soul Battle Robes, and Lu Buyi. Do you think you can do it?"

Li Chengfeng nodded with full confidence. "Absolutely!"

I smiled. "Good. All Ancient Sword main guild units besides the 20k Dragonlight Cavalrymen I mentioned, teleport back to Dark Moon City now. The same goes for Protective Umbrella. After that, wait for my signal before you go through the teleportation formation. This is going to be a big battle! We’re beginning our operation in ten minutes because Sky Ridge Fortress doesn’t have much time left. Go go go!"

"Yessir!"

……

Everyone took out their return scrolls and teleported to Dark Moon City. This part of the plan took one minute at most. After that, I shot Profound Puff and Wang Dongliang a look before saying in an indifferent tone, "In the meantime, we need you to defend Sky Ridge Fortress. Don’t allow even a single fly to get past these walls!"

Wang Dongliang nodded. "Got it!"

With that done, I leaped into the air and flew straight into the clouds. One of the points of the Teleportation Divine Crystal was fixed at Dark Moon City, and I had to establish the other one myself. I flew until I was 2,000 meters in the sky or so and plunged into the clouds. This way, most ground units wouldn’t be able to spot me.

……

Right after I passed through a cloud though, a fiery light suddenly flashed in front of me!

I immediately activated Profound Armor and blocked the flaming attack with the Dihai Shield. Despite that, my arm still turned numb from the attack. It was clearly made by a divine expert!

Clad in black armor and wielding a black sword, Vienna’s Sorrow watched me with a cool smile on his face. "I’ve been waiting for you[2], Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand!"

Chiang!

I unsheathed my sword, rushed him and cast God Binding Art immediately!

Vienna’s Sorrow wasn’t expecting me to engage him without any chit-chat at all. In fact, he could sense that I intended to kill him here and now!

MISS!

He dodged the skill. Vienna’s Sorrow wasn’t too slow even compared to me. He responded to my aggression with Berserk Triple Slash!

I didn’t avoid the attack because I wanted to hit him with my own skill. My body shook from the damage he dealt me, but I also managed to engulf him in my Burning Blade Slash. The first hit even dealt septuple damage—

9,950,311!

2,277,739!

2,988,371!

……

Vienna’s Sorrow groaned, "Ugh…"

His HP dropped dangerously low, but he wasn’t dead. I took a moment to scan his equipment. As it turned out, his legguards were a Middle Divine Armament that reduced damage taken by 18%[3]. No wonder he had managed to survive my attack!

Iron Arm Reinforcement!

Penetration of the Deep!

Here comes the combo. Vienna went all out right after he downed a health potion.

"Heh…"

I let out a chuckle and waved my hand at Vienna. The moment a bloody chain appeared around his neck, I immediately summoned the Xuanyuan Slash!

1. T/N: why wouldn’t you? Dude barely took any damage at all. I’m more surprised he failed to steamroll the weaklings in 5 hours ☜

2. E/N: Seems like not only Breeze and Rain can be a step ahead Lu Chen. ☜

3. E/N: 1566 chapters in, and there’s a fucking INSPECT button to see others’ gear? Wtf? I could rewrite it into “On the way here I checked the public info, and found that he had recently gotten a new pair of legguards…” ☜