Chapter 383 – Hand-to-hand
It took years to establish a main city. Although Sky City had undergone some transformations under Fatty’s reign, the duration was too short. The fact that only the peripheral defenses had been built left an opening for the Heavenly Hound Corps.
The one million-odd troops of the Heavenly Hound Corps split up to encircle Sky City.
A ma.s.s of ten thousand people already looked endless, let alone a million. Such a huge Sky City was completely surrounded by the Heavenly Hound Corps and the players who followed it, who shouted loudly and attacked all at once.
A huge hound hovered in the sky just east of the city. It was about ten meters long and eight meters high, with a pair of black wings that spanned twenty meters. Currently, the hound was baring its fangs and roaring towards Sky City. On its back sat a man in armor, holding a two-meter long, narrow combat knife. Instead of attacking with the others, he looked towards Sky City as though waiting for something.
“The captain of the Heavenly Hound Corps, Wisteria New.” Iron Eagle slowly stood up, his gaze crossed over the distance of thousands of meters to meet Wisteria New’s.
“Marshal of the Xuanhuang Ancient Country’s Blood Eagle Army, Iron Eagle.” Wisteria New grinned, revealing two rows of white teeth.
Iron Eagle stamped his right foot and leaped up into the air. Wisteria New gave a loud smack, and the hound under him flapped its wings, heading towards Iron Eagle with a roar.
“Soldiers to soldiers, generals to generals, we cannot just stand and watch the show.” Lin Xi smiled faintly and jumped up to intercept the next Divine expert hidden in the Heavenly Hound Corps.
Lei Ao and the rest also shot out one after another to confront some NPCs whose strength was significantly higher than that of the players. With the fight between Iron Eagle and Wisteria New as the center, they gradually pulled their battlefield away from Sky City.
Bolts rained like locusts. The crossbows on the city wall were all the heavy types like ballistae, each shot could skewer three to six enemies. Under their bombardment, numerous Heavenly Hound soldiers fell like dumplings. What was worse was the turrets, which used magic stones as its energy supply, enabling an even more horrendous power. Every time a light shot out in a straight beam over 10 meters wide, those who were hit would simply vanish on the spot.
Asides from that, there was also a special kind of magic tower that released a specific type of magic – offensive, defensive, or various debuffs, causing great damage to the Heavenly Hound Corps.
“Go! Move forth, and their crossbows and turrets are useless!”
“We rush into the city, and they will only be lambs to be slaughtered!”
All the Heavenly Hound commanders shouted loudly. At this moment, it was a head-on compet.i.tion of power and no other means or tricks. With their number of over a million, the Heavenly Hound Corps and Sun Dynasty players outnumbered and could easily outplay those in Sky City, who were sitting ducks in the air with only destruction as their final destination.
Siege warfare was just that cruel. Before approaching the enemy, a large number of soldiers were already lost. When the casualties reached 40%, the Sun Dynasty side finally approached Sky City.
“Long live Sun Dynasty!” A Heavenly Hound soldier on his horse stepped into Sky City. Although he was immediately shot to death by arrows from a nearby player, he was a great encouragement to his comrades.
One after another, soldiers climbed into Sky City, and the battle gradually s.h.i.+fted from long-range to hand-to-hand combat. When a Heavenly Hound soldier successfully landed in Sky City without being killed by the players above, the whole Heavenly Hound Corps burst into cheers.
“Shoot, shoot, shoot them!” bellowed Jiangdong’s LittleOverlord who brandished his Heaven Painted Halberd, poking a Heavenly Hound soldier off his mount. When this soldier fell to the ground, a foot stomped down on his head, and then there was a bang as the head blasted open like a crushed watermelon.
Flicking out their swords and hearing by the melodious metallic hum drifting around them, the four brothers of the Great Four Gates, with faint smiles on their faces, roamed like the wind around the battlefield. Blood splattered everywhere as Heavenly Hound soldiers fell like wheat in harvest.
Suddenly, a 100-meter-long fire dragon appeared in the air. It was magic jointly cast by the mages a.s.sembled by Fierce Dragon TheTalent from his guild. The dragon screamed and meandered, and any living things that came into contact with it were reduced to ashes.
A rumble resounded where Qian Xiaoqian, wrapped in lighting and standing on the back of her lightning bird, murmured something and waved her staff. Lightning bolts as thick as arms struck down at the Heavenly Hound army amidst crackling noises, those soldiers were paralyzed and fell.
A book hovered in front of Purple Bell. As she pointed a finger, the book opened and issued hundreds of small swords that whizzed through the bodies of thousands of soldiers from the Heavenly Hound Corps. In their miserable howls, these soldiers exploded into lumps of meat.
A black stone stele nearly 100 meters high, over 20 meters wide and 30 meters thick appeared from thin air and smashed towards a group of Heavenly soldiers who had just entered Sky City. In the sound of something like an earthquake, this group of soldiers couldn’t even utter a cry when they were smashed into a pool of meat paste.
…
Intense fighting could be seen everywhere in Sky City, and white lights started to appear as the grand Heavenly Hound Corps boarded Sky City. Each white light signified the death of a player, either member of the Sky City or of the Sun Dynasty who followed the Heavenly Hound Corps.
“How tragic, oh.” Sitting inside the Holy Spirit Island, Fatty could observe every spot in Sky City at will. The color of blood dyed the sky red and dense rising white lights could be seen every second, looking like the holiest of lights.
The number of players of the over a dozen guilds pulled into Sky City by Fatty added up to only a few hundred thousand, less than half compared to the nearly one million enemies who successfully rushed into Sky City. What’s worse, the majority of the other party were NPCs. Military operations were on a completely different level from players’ large-scale PK. After the initial contact, many players had died.
“F*ck, this is killing me,” Fatty grunted.
When the other party wasn’t close to Sky City, the plan would play out how Fatty wanted it, but now that the opponents were here inside the city – a flying city couldn’t compare to one on the ground – once a breach was made and someone successfully entered, they basically couldn’t be blocked anymore.
“All long-range weapons, fire together. Guilds, gather around your leader to fight, don’t scatter,” Fatty methodically arranged.
At first, when Fatty had pulled these guilds into his city, he had thought about allowing the NPC troops to station here as well, but then he had disregarded this idea. After they came in, who knew if they’d leave after the battle was over? It was easier to invite the devil in than to send him away.
Gathering around their respective leaders, the Xuanhuang players retreated steadily. The Sun Dynasty soldiers and players inside Sky City were hot on their heels shouting loudly, their eyes glowed with excitement like a s.e.x maniac who hadn’t seen a woman for several years suddenly seeing a beautiful naked woman in front of him.
The Xuanhuang players retreated quickly, faster than the Heavenly Hound Corps flying on their mounts. Just after they pulled a distance from the enemy, a strange thing appeared between the two sides.
“While Sky City has yet to be fully constructed, or to be exact, not even half of it has been finished, it’s still Sky City, ahh. Not something those small cities could hope to compare,” sighed a listless Fatty.
Being a wasteland for thousands of years, Sky City was almost a barren stretch, one that was suitable for monsters to survive. Aside from the group of Holy Unicorns at the beginning, later, Reck, during his medicine researches, occasionally threw some strange monsters in for breeding but without tagging them. Architect Lin had once warned Reck sternly to manage those nasty things because more than 100 construction workers had fallen for no reason on the first day of his arrival. Fortunately, they didn’t die.
A group of over a thousand fist-sized venomous striped bees buzzed out and ran into a group of Sun Dynasty players. For a moment, in no more than five minutes, this group of about a hundred players turned into white lights and flew back to the embrace of His Majesty the Great Emperor.
“What the h.e.l.l?!” Some of Heavenly Hound Corps gasped. In front of them was a group of monsters with tiger heads, scorpion bodies, and bird wings. Not only did these things emit sonic attacks, but they also spat spider silk with toxins. In just a confrontation, several teams of soldiers died in the monsters’ mouths.
The six-legged toads, two-headed mice with teeth on their backs, six-winged python… all sorts of strange species – no one knew where Reck even got them – suddenly appeared and frightened even Fatty. The dense, sky-blotting canopy of monsters flooded over and shrouded the soldiers of the Heavenly Hound Corps who were rus.h.i.+ng at the very front.
The players who withdrew regrouped at the magic towers, which were the second line of defense (the first line was the ballistae, turrets and other large equipment).
As mages instilled mana, thousands of magic towers started to glow. The glows linked together in a magic formation that covered the whole Sky City, keeping it firmly under guard.
This was Architect Lin’s greatest effort these last few days. At least one-third of the resources consumed in building Sky City was spent on this. When the magic formation was completely lit up, in the s.p.a.ce above the city instantly emerged countless thunderbolts as thick as buckets, brightening the heaven and earth.
Thunderstorm, large-scale magic formation. Fatty had once gotten a Thunderstorm Magic Formation Drawing from the Lightning Beasts near the entrance of Heavens Scar, which had later been used in Hero City. The formation then covered an area of only a few hundred meters, nothing compared to this one that covered an entire main city.
Boom!
A thunderbolt fell obliquely, and tens of thousands of charging Heavenly Hound soldiers instantly turned to dust.