Book 4, Chapter 32
The Havoc
I turned around. As I feared, aplayer crowd is rushing towards us.
"Stop where you are!" A player running in front cried out.
Ohplease. Of course I"ll not listen to you.
"Coin, Razor, Merciless! Holdthem off for a while!"
"Gotit!"
They went to the path, facing the incoming players. I asked thembecause they"re all fast cla.s.ses. Even if they can"t defeat the players theywon"t be caught at least.
Atleast that was my plan, until I realized I"ve made a really bad decision bysending Razor out.
Someone in the front line yelled when they saw Razor:
"It"sthe j.a.panese! They"re trying to break up our city defense system! We must stopthem!!"
Itripped on my own feet when I heard that. Break the citydefense?? Then why are we taking all the effort to take the cannon all the wayhere, instead of sabotaging it inside the city? Besides that cannon will getrefreshed after 24 hours. If I"m the enemy I"d do it right before a city siegebegins. Why now??
Well I don"t think they"ll give us any chance to explain. Andthey"ll probably break the cannon by accident if they get their hands on it!
Mercilessand the other two have already contacted with the players, the crowd is quicklyshrinking towards them three. Coin is running in front while Razor andMerciless followed behind. Coin is going towards the leading player, because he"seither intentionally trying to throw hate at us, or is just plain dumb. Eitherway, we should take him down.
Theplayer grinned when he saw Coin getting close. Coin is seemingly a fragilecla.s.s with all the cloth she"s wearing, and this high leveled Warrior has allthe confidence in a head-on conflict.
Coinis wearing the same grin as the foolish Warrior. Doubt replaced the smile onthe Warrior"s face, but he no longer needs to worry about it in the next moment.
Coinjumped into the air about 5 meters away from the target, and landed right ontop of the Warrior"s body, submerging her dagger deep into it. She used herself-created skill [Last Resort]. The Warrior died in a white flash beforehe can even see what just happened.
Allthe running players stopped. Their leader just died for no reason!
And thatmoment is enough for us to gain enough distance from the city.
"Zirai,take the cannon away!"
I picked up Yuri and tossed her onto Skyfire"s back."Wait for us in the Lost City. Yuri knows the way!"
Idon"t want to make Zirai feel that she"s the only one escaping. But Ibelieve she can understand that getting the cannon to safety is our top goalnow.
She ordered Skyfire to retreat from the scene without hesitation.
Ican finally put my heart back into my chest when Zirai is gone. A flying dragoncan"t be easily intercepted unless something really powerful shows up.
Ifaced the battleground again. Razor"s group is now surrounded by all theplayers. I don"t really want to fight them, since most players are just trying to protectthe city from "invaders". But I can"t leave my team behind.
"Hawk!Get them out of there, and try to avoid killing if you can."
"I"lldo it!" Hawk nodded hard.
"Finally,some real exercise." I cracked my neck. "Mostcompanions are still down. I"ll go in myself."
I rarely do any fighting onmy own because Lucky is always tanking, with all kinds of support around. Iwon most of my fights while giving orders from safety. Now Lucky, Phiona, Loong"er,Tank and Rosa are all gone for now. Guess no other choice.
"NightShade, Dart. Come out!" That"s my only available companions. As forPhantom, he never left my body.
I hopped onto Night Shade and prepared mydragon lance.
Hawk and Elfy were separated from each other. Of course Elfy can"t be sitting onHawk"s shoulder during a fight. She got a pegasus now!
Pa.s.serbyis causing most of the damage among us all at the moment. Groups of witchesand caster ladies sat on the ground and never stood up when they saw the giganticc.o.c.kroach. Now I know why he seldom uses his companion. He"ll scare every girl(and maybe some guys) away!
Mercilessis locked inside an intense fight on another side with several people.
We don"t have time toset up a formation or any plans now. I summoned the Phantom Knights behind me, pointedmy weapon skywards and gave the order aloud:
"Charge!"
"Leaveno one standing! "
The ten Phantom Knights plus the temporary makeshiftrider (me) produced quite an impressive galloping horse formation. Our mounts are prettybig, all with heavy spike horseshoes, after all.
Thisgreatly affected the players" moral. In a game, players either level up ontheir own or in small groups of four or five at most. You don"t find a dozenriders practicing combat horse charge together. Agame means the guilds manage their players in a casual way. They won"t set up any pre-established units like cavalry regiment or swordsman squad orsomething, nor ask them to constantly train as a group. I always despite those guildscalling themselves like some kind of military units. This is a game! We playgames for fun, not listening to orders. There will be no armies in online games.The biggest fight you can get in here is a street brawl involving thugs and randomhooligans. You only see trained troops in real life.
Ican say that a cavalry team of 11 people charging together is the biggestcombat establishment you can find now in [Zero]. The players are all intimatedbecause they never seen something like this.
"Run!!" Someonecried.
Too late though. Our mounts covered the distance between us quickly.Most of the players are still packed on the city bridge outside the gate. There"sno way they can run easily.
Weswept a good number of the people off the bridge like cleaning autumn leaves. Oncewe"re in, we"ll have to rely on our weapons without the initial charging speed.
Cleaning out a path proved to be an easy task. ThePhantom Knight"s didn"t even use their weapons. I told them not to kill anyoneso now they are simply grabbing and tossing them into the river like throwingtrash bags. More players rushed to the knights trying to defeat them, whichonly means more players get sent down. The river below us is getting filled up quickly.These barbarous guys never learned how to treat ladies, they are hurling girlsinto the water as well!
Ididn"t have enough time to stop them before they rushed into a group of magescomprised full of pretty girls. After some screaming and flying human figures, over30 girls were sent swimming with everyone else.
However,not everything is going smooth for us. Elfy and Rose wereisolated, the other people were pushed several meters away from them, and theycan"t move around in the time like this.
Adozen people noticed the easy targets and moved towards the pair. They"re trying to take the advantage!
Isaw Elfy taking out her homing arrow she used to catch Coin the last time, whichmeans she realized the situation. Elfy is an Archer, and Rose is a healer. Closecombat is never their expertise. Getting surrounded by enemy group is reallybad news.
"Hawk!!"I yelled to Hawk who seems to be the closest one to me. When I caught hisattention I pointed a finger to Elfy.
He immediately noticed what"s going onand moved. Butthe attackers already reached the girls before Hawk can make it.
Being anArcher doesn"t mean Elfy has zero damage up close. She releasedher frost homing arrow she"s been preparing. Poom! The foremost attacker isturned into an ice block, those stayed too close to him are also affected.
One frost arrow can only stop so many people. Someone on the other side stilllunged at the girls. Before one of the attackers can hit Rose, a white figureappeared and slammed him away. I"m relived when I saw the figure stationed itself in front of Rose -- It"s the white alpha wolf I gave Rose a long time ago, Ialmost forgot it. It grew so big.
Thewolf stopped the following a.s.sailants for enough time, allowing Hawk to getinto place and protect the two girls. With Hawk and the wolf tanking in front, thebeauty pair began to show their talent. Rose"s healing skills can pretty muchhelp Hawk fight all the enemies without having to worry about losing HP. Hawkalready has high Defense and quick reflexes.
Elfyis even deadlier -- she"s displaying what I would call "one shot one kill".Though she"s not actually killing people. She only uses low-damage skills, aimedat her targets" eyes. Those attacks don"t kill anyone but of course no one cankeep fighting if they have a freaking arrow locked inside their eye socket.
Sincethose guys are safe, I began to move towards Coin. Hawk blocked most of theplayers on the bridge. There are many of them but only a small portioncan actually attack Hawk. And those still inside the city can"t see what"s goingon out there, they only try to push out of the gate. Now the area around thecity gate is completely locked up by the human wave. No one gets through!
Meand the Phantom Knights are trying to move to Coin (by keep throwing peopleaway) when we saw Coin"s group coming out on their own. Coin is hopping on topof people by using their heads as jumping platforms. And no one can catch her! Hack,with that kind of crowd they can"t even take their hands out.
Razoron the other hand, is using his ninjutsu to move underground. Only some of thesharper players can notice him but they can"t do anything either.
Mercilessis totally the opposite. I thought he"s an a.s.sa.s.sin. a.s.sa.s.sin would be someonewho hides a lot and only jumps out to kill important targets. But...he"sobviously not the case. He attacks like a killer bee -- stabs someone, anddisappear. Anyone hurt by him either dies immediately or becomes seriouslywounded. That leopard of him hasn"t grown up but is also attacking people justlike its master, by shifting here and there among the crowd while scratchingrandom people.
Theirdisplay distracted me too much. A Half-orc Berserker sneaked near me, slammedhis weapon on Night Shade, knocking me off horse.
Iheard news before when people get hurt during a stampede when all the shopperswent crazy inside a mall, now I"m experiencing it -- I can"t get up under allthe feet! Thankfully Night Shade wasn"t hurt much by the attack. He simplybucked at that overconfident Berserker, sending him flying into river below.
Thenhe managed to push the people around away from me, that"s when I can finallystand up. It would be really stupid if I just died like that. Talking about toomany people in China.
But at least this can prove a big advantage when we go ona war against j.a.pan.
Thataside, I still need to get out of here. I climbed on Night Shade to get abetter view of the whole battlefield. The Phantom Knights have completelyblocked the city gate according to my order. Ten level 850 monsters are morethan enough to do that at the current stage.
Coin"sgroup has reached a safe distance. So I came to help them and now I"m the onlyone trapped inside!
Dang it.
Ialso noticed some riders, unable to move an inch just like me. Most of them are NPCcity defenders. They already came to solve the mess but they can"t get aroundthe crowd either. Their job doesn"t allow them to do anything to innocentplayers.
Iwent all the way into the crowd by using the momentum of our charging skills. NowI"m stuck! The good thing is no one is attacking me for now. To be precise, noone CAN attack me.
NightShade tried as hard as he can to squeeze through while I used my lance to pickpeople and throw them behind us. But the tiny s.p.a.ce I clear out each time isinstantly filled up by someone else. We can only advance like a snail!
Inthe end I"m even considering if I should fly away using my wing blade. I"m notsure about that idea, cause that"s will make myself an obvious target. Besides Idon"t really want to show my true abilities in front of so many people.
Ilowered my head and spoke to Night Shade: "Any good idea?"
Helooked around a bit.
"Hold tight."
"Huh?"
He suddenly jumped high into the air before I can understand what he meant. It"sno joke to jump among such a dense crowd, he crushed a good number of peoplewhen he lands, and jumped again before they have the time to scream in pain. Nowwe"re also hopping inside the crowd to move around, kinda like what Coin didjust now. A little bit more violently, though.
We reached the edge of the crowdafter some dozens of jumps. Usually Night Shade would have achieved that by three orfour good jumps, but he can"t do that when he"s using human bodies as steppingstones.
WhenI finally got away, Hawk also called everyone else to retreat. The city gate isno longer blocked, allowing a huge wave of players to rush outside. That lookseven more impressive than last time when we attracted those NPC riders intochasing us.
Butthis time they don"t have horses so we shook them off easily.
We slowed downwhen we no longer have any pursuers in sight.
"Ziri!"Hawk approached me.
"Um?"
"Yousee Big Pot?"
"BigPot?" I looked around. "He"s not here? Didn"t he run with us?"
"Idon"t know, that"s why I"m asking!"
"Violet?"I called her over to us. She was the one fighting along Big Pot.
"What"swrong?"
"Didyou see Big Pot?"
"He"s...not with you guys?" She gave us a blank stare.
"Me?I went inside to help Coin. Isn"t Big Pot outside with the others?"
"Hewasn"t. I saw him charging in behind you on his boar."
"What??Big Pot went after Ziri?" Hawk waved his arms around dramatically. "Whatwas he thinking??"
"Dowe go back for him?" Violet asked.
Ispoke before Hawk: "No. If he can get away he already did, and if he can"t,he should be dead by now. Either killed by someone or stomped to death by the people."
I"mspeaking the truth. I would have ended up like that if Night Shade wasn"t thereto help. Big Pot"s boar isn"t as agile as Night Shade so I"m not sure he canmake it.
"Iagree." Hawk nodded. We shouldn"t risk everyone"s level to save Big Pot."Well, we can always help him get a level back later."
Wewaited for a while longer to leave combat status and teleported to the LostCity.
(Once involved in any kind of conflict, a player can no longer useteleport or city recall skills/items for a while. But this rule only applies toattackers. Pa.s.sive victims can still try to teleport as long as they haveenough time to prepare it.)
Ziraiand Yuri are already waiting for us there. Zirai spoke to Yuri :"See, toldyou they"ll come out of the station. Why did you think they would come inthrough the city gate?"
Then shewalked to us. "How was everything?"
Ichecked our team. Everyone is carrying some injuries.
"Basically all good. Itdidn"t look cool but we made it."
"Ohmy G.o.d my G.o.d my G.o.d! I did it!"
Before I can tell them about the missingBig Pot, he stumbled out of the teleport station and fell in front of our feet.
"Whathappened to you?" I looked down.
"Did you know I went after you?"Hemanaged to stand up, that"s when I saw a lot of footprints coveringhis entire face. "That was too close!"
Hawkspoke: "Violet told us. So where exactly did you go? No one saw you."
"Takea guess. Man that was really unlucky. Those people trapped me on the bridge. Isaw Ziri went past me on his horse and tried to call him, then he knockedpeople into the water, me included!"