“Roar!”

The shadow of a cyan dragon burst out of the ground with a draconic roar and devoured a Hall of Immortality warrior standing in front of Du Thirteen. The poor warrior was completely caught off-guard when a huge damage number popped above his head—15092!

It was the Dragon Vein Art, the signature move of our miraculous tactician, Lu Buyi! His attack power increased drastically ever since he obtained the Burning Fan, and now he hit harder than even most mages. The warrior felt like dying when he realized that it was a tactician who deleted a huge chunk of his HP.

“Fuck! You’re just a puny tactician…”

The angered warrior pounced toward Lu Buyi in an attempt to kill him, but Du Thirteen hit him with Barrier Break first and one-shot him where he stood. In the city, a group of lovely ladies immediately cheered in excitement, “Wah, the guild leader is so cool!”

Du Thirteen gladly accepted the shower of compliments while I watched silently from the sidelines. As the saying went, it is much easier to change rivers and mountains than a man's character. At this rate, it was only a matter of time before Bloody Mercenaries turned into his fan club completely. The only question left for me now was whether Mamate battled for the other side. If he did then, phew, Du Thirteen’s predicament was hardcore to say the least.

Li Chengfeng walked up to me with a serious look on his face. Gazing to the distance, he said, “To think that this single Galaxy Breaker Mage could drive us to the sorry state we’re in… ahhh. It looks like Beiming Xue is the only ranged ace we have. Everyone else is…”

I nodded. “Yeah. Candle Dragon has God’s Dance, Snowy Cathaya has Shadow Chanel, Purple Lily has Luo River God of the Capital, and even Hall of Immortality has Galaxy Breaker Mage. But we… Moonlight Stone still has a long way to go. It’s not something that can be rushed though. Top-tier mages have always been an ultra rare commodity. Let’s just wait and see what the future has in store for us.”

Li Chengfeng grinned. “Hall of Immortality and Rose of the Holy Domain’s main forces are still alive, and they are attacking the west wall with everything they have. We stalled them for so long that both sides have suffered huge casualties, so I’m expecting them to launch a do-or-die assault any time now. If they don’t, time will run out, and the ultimate victory will belong to us!”

“That’s right. That is why we must protect our city for the last 4 hours with everything we got!”

“Yeah!”

Beneath the city walls, thousands of our fighters kept the enemy tide at bay while our ranged players provided support from above. Some distance away, Hall of Immortality and Rose of the Holy Domain’s main guilds and subguilds had spent almost twenty minutes reorganizing their assault formations. It looked just as powerful as the last one we thwarted. There were over 200000 players waiting to deal us the final blow on the west wall alone.

Our situation was as bad as ever. Our army was fully composed of our main guild, Bloody Mercenaries, and our eight subguilds, and after several hours of intense battle we had lost over 50% of our army. Right now, we had 30000 or so able bodies left to defend the city, and a large number of them—over 8000 fighters beneath the walls and over 5000 ranged players on the walls—were concentrated on the west wall. They were the biggest numbers we could muster under these circumstances, but it was 13k versus 200k. The disadvantage was all ours even with a wall keeping us and the enemy separate.

“Here they come again…”

Holding his Rainbow Spear by his side, Gui Guzi spat once on the ground before asking, “Do or die indeed. It’s another big army, and they’re charging us all at once. What do we do, boss? We continue defending to the death, or?”

I thought for a moment before answering, “I don’t think we can hold out like this for much longer. Their city buster, Wing Breaker, is dead, their Thunder Chariots and catapults have been destroyed, and the only siege weapons they have left are harmless things like ladders and siege towers. Let’s do it this way: I will continue defending the city with 6000+ fighters. You, Heaven’s Rain and You and Yun will lead 1000 Cyan Tiger Cavalrymen to ambush the enemy from the flank. Don’t try to stick to them, just kill a bunch of their mages and archers every time you go in and out of their formation. Let’s give Rose of the Holy Domain and Hall of Immortality a taste of the Cyan Tiger Cavalry’s superior mobility.”

Gui Guzi replied with a smile, “Sure. The boss is wise!”

Heaven’s Rain also replied with a cheerful smile, “Why do I feel that big brother Lu Chen is so much smarter, reliable, and manlier than big brother Little Gui…”

A helpless look immediately overrode Gui Guzi’s expression. “I’m pretty manly, alright? You wouldn’t say this if you saw me in a brick fight.”

Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun laughed. “Yes, he’s so manly that he took a brick to the head and slept for an entire hour that day he got into a fight for Xue Lu. If Lu Chen wasn’t as tanky and courageous as he was, our Little Gui would be working at a brothel as a prostitute right now…”

Gui Guzi bared his teeth at him. “Fuck, anyone who brings that up again will have to fight me, okay?! Cyan Tiger Cavalry, follow me! It’s time to run outside and open a path to victory for our guild!”

Raising his Rainbow Spear like a banner and leading a huge group of Cyan Tiger Cavalrymen behind him, Gui Guzi charged into the weakest spot of Rose of the Holy Domain’s right flank where there were only 2000 players or so. Buffed by Gui Guzi and Heaven’s Rain’s Famous General Skill, the cavalry troops easily cut a bloody path through the enemy’s formation before disappearing from view.

Clang!

I pulled out the Cyan Netherworld Sword and pointed toward the front with a smile. “Brothers and sisters, the climax of our battle has arrived, so gather your courage and defend the pride and honor of Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls! Hall of Immortality and Rose of the Holy Domain are targeting our home, so let us bury them beneath our city along with our blades and blood!”

Everyone pulled out their weapons and roared in agreement. Then, they waited with bated breaths for the inevitable to come.

A gloomy-looking Rose Thorn and Bloodthirsty Battle Monarch were walking side by side directly in front of us. When Rose Thorn raised her weapon, her players immediately let out a chorus of battle cry and charged toward us. The high-spirited troops broke through our line of arrows and magical storms in no time.

“Kill them!”

I charged toward the enemy after barking the command and intercepted them about 30 yards away from the city walls. Faster than anyone, I froze a bunch of fighters with Thousand Ice Slash before wiping them from the surface of the earth with Burning Blade Slash!

After the successful assault, I assumed a Guard stance to block a bunch of arrows, then stabbed a fighter who attempted to use Crushing Blow on me with a Universe Break. Sword imbued with the energy of a dragon’s soul, I slashed horizontally and killed everyone who was within my attack range.

The Purple Thunder Cavalry and the Ghost Riders were Rose of the Holy Domain and Hall of Immortality’s trump cards, but we had already taken them out of the fight. Therefore, the enemies we were facing were less powerful and easier to handle. However, they still drastically outnumbered us, and the sheer number of arrows and Galaxy Storms chewing at my body were uncomfortable to say the least.

Countering aggression with aggression, I spun like a top and attacked anyone and everyone around me like crazy. Every time I hit an opponent, I was healing myself for 10% of the damage I dealt, not to mention the splash effect. My DPS for this battle was 20k or higher, meaning that I was healing 2000 HP per second at least. Naturally, this was an awesome way to regain health.

On the other side, Li Chengfeng was also spinning like a top and cutting down all the enemies around him like a hurricane. The Whirlwind Slash was both visually gorgeous and super effective in battle. When he skidded to a stop in the middle of a group and unleashed Reverse Scale Slash, the physiological and psychological trauma were devastating if I do say so myself.

Chaos Moon, Xu Yang, High Fighting Spirits, and everyone else were giving it their all too. Rock Crush, Mountain Stagger Slash, Xiezhi Howl; all sorts of AoE skills were exploding in the middle of the enemies and dealing a ridiculous amount of destruction. Like heroes, their presence terrified their opponents and invigorated their allies. As long as we remained standing, our people would know that there was still hope, and that we were still defending the honor of Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls with our blood and sweat.

Boom boom boom...

The downpour of magic and arrows was growing by the minute. Knowing that they had the superior numbers, the enemy players ignored the bombardment coming from above the city walls and did everything in their power to wipe out our frontliners instead. Worse, Rose Thorn ordered some archers to attack our backliners with Far Shot, forcing Beiming Xue and Moonlight Stone to move constantly or risk dying. We were drastically outnumbered, our firepower was limited, and even our priest count was steadily declining. A direct exchange like this was incredibly destructive for us.

It was at this moment a chorus of thunderous battle cries came from afar. It was Gui Guzi and Heaven’s Rain leading our Cyan Tiger Cavalry and slamming into the enemy’s backline like a truck. The mages and archers couldn’t kill our cavalry troops before they were hit, and not even guarding could save them from being trampled like pancakes. All they could do was wait for death to claim them as our cavalry troops reaped through them like a lawnmower.

It took only a moment for our elite cavalry to sweep through the enemy like a whirlwind using Barrier Breaks. Three-thousand-strong ranged party of Hall of Immortality was annihilated just like that!

Absolutely furious, Bloodthirsty Battle Monarch raised his sword and shouted, “Someone, chase that Cyan Tiger Cavalry and kill them all! These motherfucking sons of bitches!”

A subguild of Hall of Immortality immediately heeded the order and chased after our elite cavalry with an army of five thousand, but Gui Guzi wisely retreated and lured them all the way to the edge of a forest. When the timing was right, he immediately turned around and clashed against the enemy, slaughtering them left and right as if their formation and numbers meant nothing to him. In fact, that was the case. The elite cavalry of 1000 easily punched through the enemy formation like an unstoppable train, and four of five charges later the subguild was all but wiped out!

Clearly, our Cyan Tiger Cavalry held the absolute advantage on an open terrain as long as the enemy didn’t outnumber them too much. This was especially true after they were buffed by Knight God and Knight General, a 150% and 100% buff to Attack, Defense, Magic Resist and HP. To put these horrifying buffs into perspective, an elite player of the same caliber as them couldn’t even penetrate their defenses after the buff was activated.

Bloodthirsty Battle Monarch’s facial muscles twitched violently as he screamed, “Fuck that gangster cavalry of Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls! Someone, take the 14th to 19th subguilds with you and kill those fuckers! Surely six subguilds and 34000 troops are enough to flood those fuckers, eh?!”