"Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls is about to make a move…"

October Rain’s long eyelashes trembled a little as she gazed toward the distance. "Right now they have three Famous Generals: Lu Chen’s Martial God, From Water’s Royal Road, and Beiming Xue’s Bow God. It’s bad enough that all three skills are one-man-army skills, but He Yi’s Royal Road especially can reduce all stats of all enemies within 1000 yards of her by 25% or more. It’s so disgusting…"

Warsky followed her gaze and let out a snort. "It’s fine, my Hegemon increases my allies’ crit rate by 30.3%, so you currently have 50% crit rate. With your Heartpiercer, there’s no reason we can’t hold back Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls…"

The corner of October Rain’s lips turned upward a little. "I see. Well, prepare for battle!"

"What’s wrong, Little Rain? Did you lose your patience and confidence somewhere?" Warsky turned to look at her.

October Rain leaned against the wooden pillar of an arrow tower and stared at the Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls players moving purposefully across the battlefield. In that moment, she actually looked less like a fearless CGL Hall of Famer and more like a helpless girl. Shaking her head at Warsky’s question, she answered, "No, I haven’t lost my patience. It’s just… Warsky, you need to understand that Falling Dust is the one leading Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls; and if that wasn’t bad enough, he’s rapidly returning to his peak form. Do you understand how terrifying this is? He… he wasn’t called the Little Heavenly King for nothing, you know? In a world where both Lin Fan and Frivolous Scholar are retired, there’s no greater player than him. If I had a choice, I would never stand on the opposite side of Falling Dust."

"Is that so? Would you like to cross over then?" Warsky smiled.

"You know I can't do that…" October Rain smiled a little. "If you haven’t helped Rich October back then, I couldn’t imagine what would have happened to my guild back then. So I’ll do my best to help you and conquer half the world for Warsky Alliance. Of course, whether your ambition will come true depends entirely on heaven’s will…"

"Hehe!"

Warsky chuckled before pulling out his sword without warning. He then walked to the edge of the wall and shouted to the players on the ground, "Stay alert and prepare for battle, brothers! Players of Warsky Alliance, I want you to head to the eastern and western gate respectively and defend against Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls and Snowy Cathaya! Friends of Warsky Alliance, please stand guard at the other two gates and stop all non-allied forces from invading our territory, thank you!"

……

The battle could break out at any moment. An all-out war was finally about to start.

My sword pointed to the ground, I looked behind me and smiled at my allies. "Come on, let’s go check out how much Warsky Alliance has grown, and how tough that city gate is!"

"Yeah!"

I took point as Li Chengfeng, Chaos Moon, Xu Yang, Du Thirteen, Gui Guzi, He Yi, and many more followed behind me. Everyone who joined me on the assault was a frontline veteran. Those who were too weak didn’t follow us because they would only be one-shot by the undead archers on the watchtowers.

I raised my arm to cover myself as the enemy archers used Far Shot. However, they dealt very limited damage because Royal Road had reduced their stats and buffed our own at the same time. They were incapable of piercing our defenses at all.

When we got close to the entrance, we realized that the iron gate was even tougher than we imagined. It had 3500 Defense—so high that the average player wouldn’t be able to pierce it at all—and a hundred thousand HP in total. How long do we have to attack it before it finally falls?

Inside the territory, a high-level archer shouted, "Use Shock Arrows and stun Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand and From Water! Quickly!"

The incessant twang of bowstrings prompted me to swing my sword in front of me and parry away some of the shots. My current stats were so high that not a single Shock Arrow managed to stun me, so the moment I got close I raised the Heaven-stealing Sword and fired a Thousand Ice Slash to the edge of the territory!

Boom!

The fighters of Warsky Alliance were standing behind a line of wooden fences, and many of those who were caught by my skill were frozen in ice. Moreover, I had 15% critical rate right now, so critical attacks were no longer a rare occurrence to me. At least a dozen or so people were one-shot by the crit Thousand Ice Slash, and even more dropped to red health!

"Chirp chirp…"

He Yi’s Firelight Mouse had fully matured by now. Shaking its tail and throwing a sea of fire into the enemy players, it confirmed kills on all the players I had managed to bring to low health. This was just the first exchange, but Warsky Alliance had suffered huge casualties already. Still, when I ordered the Sky Obsidian Greedy Wolf to attack the gate, it failed to do too much damage. The problem was that the gate had insane Defense, and my pet barely had any defense-piercing ability!

I ran up to the gate and used Pardon. Then, I followed up with a basic attack!

MISS!

4894!

Not bad considering the circumstances. Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun was the next player to test their mettle against on the gate, but even his new Ardent Thunder Blade dealt measly 1452 damage only. Xu Yang let out a bark of laughter when he saw this. "Eighteen, how are you doing so little damage when you have a 2-star Spirit-grade blade? Watch me!"

One strike later, it was Xu Yang’s turn to be embarrassed—674!

Li Chengfeng did 1429 damage, He Yi did 1984 damage, and Gui Guzi did 1845 damage respectively to the gate. It was one seriously tough gate. However, I was pretty sure that it would go down in no time if our mages and archers were here to assist us.

Currently, elite high-level archers had an average Attack of 1400 or so. If we factored Beiming Xue’s Bow God into the equation, they could deal as much damage as an archer with 2800+ Attack. Against a target with 3500 Defense, they could do over 500 damage per hit. It was definitely doable.

As discussed earlier, Li Chengfeng approached the fences, launched a Reverse Scale Slash on the players on the other side, and withdrew immediately. He gave them no chance to get close to him and retaliate. Eighteen Steeds and You and Yun also worked together with Gui Guzi to take out dozens of players by combining his Rock Smash with the latter’s Aurora Thrust.

A series of powerful fake engages later, we left behind a hundred bodies or so while suffering no casualties of our own. Warsky was furious. "Fuck! They’re not invading, they’re just shaving away at our army with probing attacks little by little! This tactic is shameless…"

October Rain smiled calmly. "This is probably one of Lu Chen’s tricks; a ploy to weaken the enemy until it’s too late. I love it. He’s such a smart guy…"

Warsky: "Little Rain, whose side are you on…"

October Rain laughed. "I’m on your side until the very end, of course. An intelligent woman will know to keep a clear line between business and love."

Warsky: "Lu Chen can’t possibly be in love with you."

"That doesn’t stop me from liking him, does it?" October Rain replied magnanimously.

……

A while later, we withdrew from the frontlines with a bit of new insight regarding the city. For starters, we found out that the shadow-rank NPC archers in the arrow towers were extremely powerful, so a tanky frontliner must bait them into wasting their firepower onto a Holy Shield before the rest could attack. Otherwise, they would one-shot any low-rank player who entered their range.

I glanced at the walls for a moment, then ordered, "Let’s launch an assault every three minutes and chase Warsky Alliance’s players away from the walls. Once the path is open, I want Beiming Xue and her archers to take out all the NPC archers inside the watchtowers. Understand?"

"Yessir!" Everyone nodded in agreement.

Not far away, a battle had begun at the northern gate and southern gate. Since Mad Dragon had joined forces with Warsky Alliance, Roaming Dragon and his men were charging the invaders and annihilating everyone who stood in their way. The Gemini Stars were especially outstanding as they ran next to their guild leader and absolutely wrecked the smaller guilds.

The good time didn’t last forever though. The crowd suddenly split up to admit a powerful-looking guild, and at the forefront of the new group a beautiful archer raised an arm and ordered, "Far Shot!"

Thud thud thud...

Countless arrows landed into the main bulk of Mad Dragon’s forces and penetrated flesh. In just a moment, over half of their frontliners had been killed by the sudden assault. Roaming Dragon’s eyes grew round with fury as he shouted, "Fuck, it’s The Monarch Descends! Ling Xueshang, you’re fucking dead you little bitch! Men, penetrate The Monarch Descends’ defense line!"

Iron Pardon and Inconstant rallied a group of fighters and charged The Monarch Descends’ frontlines. As Ling Xueshang dashed behind her frontliners, her fighters stepped forward while her archers backed away, still firing Far Shots with every step they took. Mad Dragon was nearly annihilated as thousands died without ever reaching their attackers. Only the Gemini Stars, Roaming Dragon and a small group of players managed to survive the assault long enough to flee into the city.

Li Le laughed at Mad Dragon’s ugly defeat without any restraint, enraging Roaming Dragon even more than he already was. Not far away, Dominating Heaven Blade sneered, "Can’t hold in his disdain for even a second. How pathetic!"

"What did you say?" Li Le turned and glared.

Dominating Heaven Blade turned his back on Li Le as if finding it beneath him to speak with the young master. At the same time, Dominating Warrior God and Dominating Knight God stepped forward and pressed their hands to their weapons, looking like they might attack at the slightest provocation.

Li Le sneered, but he finally fell silent.

……

It was at this moment someone shouted, "Bad news, Hegemon Palace has arrived! Little Piglet is attacking our gate with a dozen or so metal armor players! We can’t break through their players’ Defense at all because of Little Piglet’s Vajra…"

"What?" Warsky gritted his teeth. "That foolish Wang Dongliang dares to challenge us still? Men, follow me! We will kick Hegemon Palace’s teeth in by one-shotting Little Piglet!"

A bunch of players followed Warsky as their leader activated his Famous General Skill, Hegemon. A moment later, everyone gained almost 30% increased critical rate immediately. It was an incredibly powerful skill, and after the bards buffed the warriors and archers with Encourage, Hegemon’s only flaw—its lack of Attack boost—was fixed as well.

Outside the city, Little Piglet and dozens of metal armor players were whaling at the gate like madmen. Vajra was a Famous General Skill that buffed everyone’s Defense by 40%, and after Tactics that number was almost 80%. It was no wonder that this party was giving Warsky Alliance as much trouble as they did. Anyone who had to face a party where everyone had over 3000+ Defense would feel the same.

……

It was at this moment October Rain aimed at Little Piglet’s belly and fired an Explosion Arrow!

Swhoosh!

478!

The arrow hit the area below Little Piglet’s underbelly and shivered for a moment. Little Piglet looked down at his body and angrily swore, "Warsky Alliance, you shameless fuck! What kind of person greets others by hitting their weak spot?"

October Rain pursed her lips. "What are you talking about? I aimed a little higher than your weak spot…"