Boom boom boom!
I could feel a scorching heat approaching me as the flaming rock flew toward my direction, so I steered my mount to the side to dodge it. The maneuver was ridiculously simple to pull off because the Armored Ice Qilin Horse had a high turn rate, and I glided out of harm"s way like I was drifting.
However, the flaming rocks exploded in the middle of the Dragonlight Cavalry behind me and caused a ton of direct and splash damage. Practically every damage number rising above their heads was above 10k; a deadly number for the Dragonlight Cavalry because their average HP was between 50k to 90k only. There was no way they could hold out for long if this continued!
I swung my sword and fired Thousand Ice Slash in front of me. At the same time, I shouted, "Speed up! Speed up! We"ll reach the Fire Catapults in just half a minute! Be sure to destroy them as a group for maximum efficiency! The Fire Catapults must be destroyed no matter the cost!"
……
Boom!
This time, a flaming rock launched in my direction moved too swiftly to dodge. Burning with anger, I swung the Cyan Netherworld Sword right as it was about to make contact!
Bang!
To my surprise, my swing actually split the rock in half. However, the burning oil still spilled across my body and deleted over 30k HP in an instant. How deadly!
Not far away, Vienna"s Sorrow shouted, "Intercept them, riders! Don"t let them get close to the catapults! Archers, stun them with your Shock Arrows and Mountain Stagger Arrows! Dammit, where the h.e.l.l did the Chinese find these elite mounts? Who even are these people?? I"ve never heard of them before!!"
The elite cavalry of the Northern Alliance charged us from the sides in an attempt to surround us. We paid them no heed and continued charging forward.
Bang bang bang!
Three cavalries slammed into each other at once. The sound of horse meat smas.h.i.+ng against horse meat was unpleasant to say the least.
Suddenly, Li Chengfeng raised his sword and shouted, "It is time! Hoof Trample!"
Every Dragonlight Cavalryman activated their mount skill once and injected the fear of death into the enemies. The next moment, every magic knight who was too close was one-shot where they stood. This one engagement had reaped almost a thousand lives in one go!
"Keep charging! Magic knights, keep your s.h.i.+elds up and use your Holy s.h.i.+elds to resist the enemy"s Mountain Stagger Arrows!"
After I gave the order, He Yi, Gui Guzi, Heaven"s Rain, Diamond Dust and every other magic knight rushed to the forefront and raised their s.h.i.+elds in front of their chests. The golden light surrounding the equipment signified the usage of Holy s.h.i.+eld!
And not a moment too soon, because a rain of arrows composed of all kinds of skills—Mountain Stagger Arrow, Shock Arrow, Volley, Spiraling Arrow Blade and more—hit them an instant later. However, physical attacks weren"t very effective against the Dragonlight Cavalry because their stat allocation was either Defense-oriented, Defense and HP–oriented, or Attack-oriented.
Bang bang...
After tearing down the enemy"s defense line like paper, I became the first player to launch Burning Blade Slash at a Fire Catapult!
Chiang chiang chiang!
19838!
26376!
31043!
One more swing and two swipes from the Phantom Wolf King later, the Fire Catapult"s 100k HP dropped all the way to zero!
He Yi, Gui Guzi, Li Chengfeng and the others had also begun attacking the Fire Catapults. The Dragonlight Cavalry were able to tear down the Fire Catapults one by one, but it wasn"t without losses. Countless people died to the enemy"s arrows, magic and flaming rocks, but not a single person had run away in fear. To us, this was a do-or-die battle we would never regret committing to till the end of time!
……
Bang bang bang!
By now, practically every Dragonlight Cavalryman had been hit by at least a dozen of Mountain Stagger Arrows and Shock Arrows. Their stats were high, but it was only a matter of time before they were stunned and gave the Northern Alliance cavalry the chance to use their Barrier Breaks and kill them. Barrier Break was a skill that ignored a huge percentage of Defense, and even with stratagems like Knight G.o.d boosting that stat to obscene numbers, and it was also the main skill that killed our Dragonlight Cavalry.
Thud!
A shot deleted the final sliver of mount tenacity of a Dragonlight Cavalryman fighting next to Gui Guzi and caused him to drop to the ground. But instead of waiting for death to claim him, he bravely rushed into a group of archers and killed seven or eight people before more arrows finally claimed his life.
"f.u.c.k!"
Xu Yang"s eyes turned red when he saw this. Charging left and right like an unstoppable truck, he shouted, "Tighten our formation and don"t get separated! Don"t let the enemy divide and conquer us!"
It was at this moment my avatar activated its Purple Dragon Howl and fired its draconic energy. After tearing three Fire Catapults in one go and entering the three-second period of weakness, it was killed by a hail of arrows. It was simply too fragile without Ghost Deity Armor.
I saw a thick swath of enemy archers and mages in front of us. The few Dragonlight Cavalrymen who tried to charge them were torn to shreds by their arrows and magic. Worse, I saw at least 5 mages carrying a red banner behind their backs, meaning that they were Heroic Bannermen. Almost all of them wore more than two Earth-grade items on their person, and they were the bane of all mounted players, even those as strong as the Dragonlight Cavalry.
I cursed inside my head, "s.h.i.+t, the enemy mages have caught up to us…"
He Yi looked at me worriedly, "What do we do, Lu Chen? We might be routed if we try to brute-force this!"
I nodded in agreement. I couldn"t knowingly steer my comrades toward a dead end. Although we had destroyed over 30 Fire Catapults—and the original plan was to destroy every last one of them—this should be enough to buy China some time.
So, I raised my sword and shouted, "Dragonlight Cavalry, tighten formation and retreat along the path we came from! The rear is now the vanguard, and the vanguard is now the rear! Charge!"
We started riding back to our battle line. Vienna"s Sorrow was no idiot, so he made the sensible decision and chased after us with his men!
It was exactly what I hoped they would do. When the closest enemy got near enough, I hit him with Burning Blade Slash and killed him where he stood. Then, I followed up with a Sword Boomerang!
Boom!
The spinning blade wreaked havoc among the enemy ranks before returning to my hand. Pointing my sword downward and staring at them coolly, I said, "Come on. I"ll kill everyone you throw at me!"
I saw a muscle twitch in Vienna"s face, but he didn"t fall for my taunt. Eyebrows raised, he shouted, "Hero City, continue the a.s.sault! Protect our remaining Fire Catapults and advance steadily! We will breach their defenses and set their Dawn City on fire with our Fire Catapults, hahaha!"
I shot him a dark look. The f.u.c.ker was more patient than I thought, and both his courage and wits were excellent. With an opponent like this, my hopes that this Nation War would end in a boring manner was as good as dead.
……
Du Thirteen had come to our aid with several thousand Cyan Tiger Cavalry as we made our escape. They helped block the enemy"s advance and gave the Dragonlight Cavalry the room to retreat and reorganize.
"How was it? How many Fire Catapults did you destroy?" Hot and Sour Noodles asked hopefully.
I counted for a moment before answering, "We took out 37 Fire Catapults in total. It was all we could do since their mage party showed up before we could destroy everything. They would"ve wiped out our ace cavalry had we continued on our course!"
Hot and Sour Noodles nodded strongly. "I understand. Thank you for your hard work, Lu Chen. Every player in China will remember you and your Dragonlight Cavalry. You are all the pride of our server!"
"What is there to be proud of? So many people died…" I thought to myself as I turned around to shoot Xu Yang a question, "Xu Yang, can you make a tally and tell me how many Dragonlight Cavalrymen we"ve lost?"
He grinned at me and said, "No need, I have the results already. We lost 197 Dragonlight Cavalrymen in total, so we still have over 1800 remaining. Honestly, we can"t keep doing this. A few more fights like this and we"re going to lose everyone…"
I gave him a rea.s.suring smile and said, "Don"t worry, not all battles are going to be this hard. We destroyed 37 of their Fire Catapults, and that has to have at least put a lid on their arrogance. We would have all died otherwise."
"Yeah. Let"s get back to the fight then. The Fire Catapults are about to go for another round again…"
"Yeah. Fuuuuuuck…"
……
Nighttime officially arrived inside the game, but the fight was still continuing. The canyon was alight with light of skills, magic and flaming rocks.
Bang!
A dozen or so magic knights ate a chestful of arrows and magic before being crushed by a flaming rock. A big gap appeared in between Candle Dragon"s defense line because of it.
Tempest Shadow raised his spear and ordered, "Plug the gap, men!"
But there was no one left to plug the gap except a couple of a.s.sa.s.sins and archers left. The task he asked of them was impossible to fulfill.
Who would"ve thought that Candle Dragon"s defense line would diminish to this extent!?
The Northern Alliance riders at the front saw the opportunity and shouted, "This is our chance! Rush inside and tear apart their defenses!"
A group of riders immediately rushed into the gap and widened it more and more. The iron hooves of war horses trampled over the leather-armor and cloth-armor cla.s.ses as if they didn"t even exist. A series of slashes, stabs, smashes and stomps later, Candle Dragon"s entire formation collapsed almost instantly.
At the battle line, Vienna"s Sorrow raised his sword and laughed, "The historic moment is now, brothers and sisters! Charge! Once we conquer Dawn Valley, Dawn City will be ours to take!"
It was a disaster. Candle Dragon was the last guild everyone expected to crumble under the enemy"s a.s.sault!
Candlelight Shadow cut down a couple of players coming his way, but he was incapable of reverting the situation in front of him. Left with no choice, he shouted, "Retreat! Retreat to the second defense line where Hall of Immortality, Rose of the Holy Domain and Throne Seeker"s cavalry troops are waiting! We can continue halting the enemy"s progress there!"
However, that was exactly what Vienna wanted to happen. He pointed his sword forward, and entire mountains quaked to the Northern Alliance"s hooves. The true invasion had finally begun!