As time pa.s.sed, the numbers of Cyan Tiger Cavalry kept decreasing. Almost an hour later, less than a hundred of us were still alive including me and the Famous Generals. Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls had the greatest number of Famous Generals in the entire world bar none, and most of us were fighting here. We were all injured and tired, but thankfully, no one had died just yet.
"This is bad. We"re about to run out of troops!"
A grim-faced Gui Guzi swore, "f.u.c.k Red Maple and his sister! G.o.d knows how many of our Cyan Tiger Cavalrymen died by his hand!"
Chaos Moon replied while slowly pulling out her sword from a dead Wildfire Rider"s stomach, "Pooh, stop complaining. Did you see how many Wildfire Riders Boss Broken Halberd, Li and Boss Eve killed in return? If anything, we should be praising ourselves for holding out this long with just 10000 Cyan Tiger Cavalry…"
Li Chengfeng pointed to the other side of the Impa.s.sable Great Wall. "Lu Chen look, Red Maple is mustering his forces again. I count another tens of thousands of Wildfire Riders, archers and mages as well…"
I nodded. "Yes, this is the end of the line for us. It"s time for us to withdraw. What the f.u.c.k are our people doing anyway? Why haven"t we breached the gate yet?"
He Yi replied in an equally exasperated tone, "Uncle Zhang Chun"s plan to breach the gate didn"t go as smoothly as we hoped. Purple Grape City"s elite players had climbed down our own cloud ladders and destroyed the siege engines, not to mention that the enemy engineers are repairing the gate and undoing the damage we did the whole time…"
Gui Guzi asked, "How are we going to occupy this fortification like this? Almost all the fighters of Righteousness, Hegemon Palace, G.o.ds of Destruction, Blazing Hot Lips and The Monarch Descends that came up were killed already. Our reinforcements can only reach us via climbing up the destructible, narrow cloud ladders, but the enemy can just run straight up several twenty-meter-wide stone stairs. There"s just no way we can outdo them…"
……
I pointed to the front and said, "Beiming Xue, Lian Xin, sis, Moon Dew and the others are 1000 meters down this direction. We"ll make our way over and protect them as we make our retreat. It"s too bad we won"t be taking the Impa.s.sable Great Wall this time, but hey, there"s always a next time…"
He Yi giggled. "You sound surprisingly light-hearted."
"Sure I am. After all, we made the enemy p.i.s.s their pants with just 10000 Cyan Tiger Cavalrymen. a.s.suming that the enemy doesn"t come up with some new tactic, it"s only a matter of time before we kill off all 100000+ Wildfire Riders. After that, what else do they have that can resist our 14000 Dragonlight Cavalrymen and 5000 Dragonlight Archers? In fact, killing their troops takes priority over taking the fortification. If all their players are dead, how are they going to defend anything?"
Li Chengfeng rubbed his palms in excitement. "Kill, kill, kill some more! That is the kind of strategy I like to hear! It"ll be worth it even if we fail to conquer Purple Grape City at the end of this Nation War!"
"Yep. Now let"s kill our way over to the girls!"
"Kill!"
We ignored Red Maple"s attempts to distract us and charged straight toward the girls. There was practically nothing the enemy could do to stop us with I, Li Chengfeng and He Yi at the lead. Red Maple chased after us while shouting harshly, "f.u.c.k, they"re trying to escape! Chase them down with all you got! Don"t let a single one of these Chinese Famous Generals leave the Impa.s.sable Great Wall alive! Cavalry to my right, use Trapping Net to immobilize them! Mages, hit the mounts with Ice Dragon Howls! Archers, use only Mountain Stagger Arrows and Shock Arrows!"
Cyan Tiger Cavalry kept dying as the enemy shot arrows at them. Even with Gui Guzi"s Knight G.o.d buffing their Defense by 225%, their defenses were still too low. All it took was one stun to seal their fate, and we couldn"t afford to stop to save everyone, not unless they were He Yi, Gui Guzi or another Famous General.
Pa pa!
Shock Arrows kept hitting futilely against my Dragon G.o.d s.h.i.+eld. As the vice leader, I stayed on the periphery of our formation because it was my natural duty to protect my guild members. Gui Guzi and He Yi were acting as meat s.h.i.+elds as well. However, I suddenly froze up and skidded to a sudden stop. I was stunned! With my current level of resistance, the low-level players" chances of stunning me was less than 5%; maybe even as low as 1% to 3%. Unfortunately, a chance was a chance, and it was only a matter of time before this happened!
Behind me, Red Maple laughed loudly. "Chain- CC Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand with Trapping Net now! He"s the WEL MVP and a top CGL Hall of Famer. If he dies, China is sure to suffer a huge blow to escape us! Don"t let this chance escape us!"
Someone immediately landed Trapping Net and immobilized me for another 4.2 seconds. s.h.i.+t! This is really bad!
Countless enemy magic knights locked onto me and Charged!
He Yi hurriedly turned around and shouted, "Save Lu Chen now!"
I shouted back, "No, keep going! I can"t die, I have Resurrection Art!"
It was at this moment a beautiful girl appeared in front of me. She was Lian Xin! The smiling mage raised her scepter slowly and said, "Who dares to harm our Lu Chen!?"
Pa pa pa...
All the magic knights who Charged me faceplanted into 12 Origin Force Fields she had dropped around me instead. Her mastery of her skills had reached the summit already. After planting Ice Spiral Matrix and Dimensional Storm in front of Red Maple and Cyan Frost"s path, she fired an additional Touch of the Dragonkiss at Red Maple.
Red Maple skipped to halt right before he was about to run into the spells. He was aware that Lian Xin was one of the few super mages of China, and that he couldn"t afford to underestimate her in the slightest. If he lost a large majority of his HP due to a moment of carelessness, and the other enemy Famous Generals such as Gui Guzi and Li Chengfeng turned around to attack him, there was a real chance he might be one-shot where he stood, and the Nation War could be lost on the spot.
Beiming Xue appeared next and fired Skypiercer + Spiraling Arrow Blade + Well of the Abyss at the enemy. I knew at that moment that my death was averted.
The moment the Trapping Net"s effects pa.s.sed, I immediately healed myself by 25% HP using Tenacity of the Dead and broke into a run. Once I was close enough to Murong Mingyue, she immediately warmed me with her knock—I mean healed me to full health in less than 3 seconds. When I reached the edge of the wall, I counted around 300 Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls players in total.
"What do we do now? Do we keep fighting, or?" Heaven"s Rain asked.
I looked at the sea of Purple Grape City players in the distance and shook my head. "Nah, everyone"s low on HP and potions. Let"s retreat for now and grab our supplies."
"Okay!"
We began climbing down the cloud ladders. Red Maple and his goons tried to give chase again, but Li Chengfeng, He Yi and I worked together to keep them at bay. Not too far away, Lin Yixin dropped Ice Flame Slash at a group of enemies before shooting us a smile, "You"re withdrawing, Little Cheat?"
I grabbed onto the rope of the cloud ladder and replied, "Yep, we"re done. Snowy Cathaya should retreat too!"
"Okay!"
Lin Yixin barely brought anyone with her to the wall to begin with, so her retreat was much simpler than ours. She simply jumped right off the wall. She spread out her arms with the Seven Star Veluriyam Sword in one hand and the Moonchaser Tiger"s rune on the other arm. The way her cloaked spread out behind her made her look like a beautiful, lithe b.u.t.terfly. It was a landing method heavy b.a.s.t.a.r.ds like Li Chengfeng and I could never pull off.
Pa!
Her beautiful succubi ears raised up, Lin Yixin landed lightly on the ground and ran a dozen or so meters to the front to cus.h.i.+on the impact.
"Holy s.h.i.+t!"
Xu Yang sucked at his teeth. "Lin Yixin"s technique is truly unrivaled in this world…"
I nodded in agreement. "Yeah. Now let"s go!"
And so, our forces withdrew from the fortification and paused our a.s.sault temporarily. Although we hadn"t been able to take down the Impa.s.sable Great Wall, the structure took a lot of damage, and the large majority of the siege weapons Purple Grape City had on the walls had been destroyed. Even if they had more to spare, it would take them a lot of time and energy to push them onto the walls again. It was a volatile period of time we would definitely want to capitalize on later.
……
Hot and Sour Noodles, Luo River G.o.d of the Capital, Indigo Collar, Stranger of Three Lifetimes, Dominating Heaven Blade and I came together. We were currently gathering at a spot a thousand meters away from the Impa.s.sable Great Wall.
"It"s such a shame we didn"t manage to breach the gate. It only has 15% durability left…" Hot and Sour Noodles sighed. "If only our people could hold out just a bit longer…"
Dominating Heaven Blade complained, "C"mon, at least a million of us went up there to buy time for y"all, and only a small amount of us managed to come back alive. Even the monsters of Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls like Li Chengfeng and Lu Chen fought until their weapons got chipped all over the place. It"s completely unreasonable to expect us to hold out much longer…"
Hot and Sour Noodles smiled. "I know. You"ve all surpa.s.sed expectations, to be honest. It"s just that Purple Grape City"s resistance proved to be stronger than expected, and our players had to fight with minimal sustain on the walls. Frankly, it"s almost unbelievable that we managed to do as well as we did."
I said, "Uncle, we need to finish our preparations for the second a.s.sault in 30 minutes at most. Otherwise, the walls will be filled with catapults and ballistae again."
"I know. I"m already on it."
"Good!"
……
Suddenly, I felt something cool splatter against my nose.
When I looked up, I saw that the sky was covered in dark clouds, and more raindrops were starting to fall from the sky. I swore out loud, "f.u.c.k, this is bad…"
"What"s wrong?" Lin Yixin asked me.
I pointed to the north and said, "Around 20 million Chinese players are currently pa.s.sing through Sunset Basin to make it to Purple Grape City. However, this rain could very well turn Sunset Basin into a G.o.dd.a.m.ned sea. How many people do you think will escape alive if that happens?"
He Yi sighed. "It"s all that idiot Li Le"s fault…"
Hot and Sour Noodles looked just as miffed. "Sigh, there"s no point crying over spilled milk. We should focus on taking this Impa.s.sable Great Wall in the most efficient manner possible!"
……
"Bad news!"
Suddenly, a group of tattered magic knights shouted while running toward us. They were all Righteousness players.
"What"s wrong?" Hot and Sour Noodles asked with a frown. "Take a deep breath before you speak. What happened?"
One of the magic knights reported, "We were ambushed by a small force at White Rose Fortress. They managed to kill almost all 5000 of our heavy riders!"