I had to admit that I was overjoyed to hear that sonuvabitch’s voice. Xinran had finally arrived!

I looked up just in time to see a ray of bloody light piercing through the clouds, and Xinran descending from the sky. Blood-red cape fluttering behind her back and her signature Dragonbone Spear in hand, the beautiful girl landed right in front of me and shot me a small smile. "You look terrible, big bro…"

A bit embarrassed, I pointed at the Sword Saint to distract her. "Sophie’s about to kill Sword Saint Carrance, Xinran! Please stop her!"

But Xinran curled her lips and complained, "I don’t want to. The guy’s someone who carries himself arrogantly just because he has the merits to show for it!"

Karinshan limped toward us and begged her, "Lady Wind Singer, I know that the nobles of Sky City haven’t given you the best impression, but please, I beg you to save Master Carrance! He’s the last martial symbol of the empire, he cannot be allowed to die like this…"

Xinran looked at me. "Do you really want me to save Carrance, big bro?"

I nodded. "More importantly, we need to defeat Sophie. Sky City will fall very soon if she’s allowed to keep summoning her hurricanes. This is our home, Xinran. I can’t possibly allow it to fall to the undead…"

"Understood…"

Xinran abruptly turned around to face Sophie. "Are you done, my dear sister? Do you truly intend to wipe out every living being there is on this continent?"

Still smiling a malevolent smile, Sophie punched Carrance in the arm—specifically the wound where it was cut off—and elicited a painful scream from him before looking at Xinran. "Nothing can extinguish my flames of anger and vengeance, Xinran. Do you really think you can stop me?"

Xinran raised her Dragonbone Spear and declared, "You’ve brought over 25% of the undead in the Purgatory to the human world, haven’t you? Do you think Lin Na’s opinion of you will drop if I slay all of them?"

"Pooh!"

Enraged, Sophie turned around completely to face Xinran, but she didn’t forget to kick Carrance one last time in the heart, crushing it completely. In the end, the Sword Saint wasn’t able to avoid his death. Launching herself off his body, she shot toward Xinran like a black cannonball.

Chiang!

Sophie swung her sword at Xinran, and Xinran blocked it with her Dragonbone Spear. Since Sophie’s strike had too much force behind it, Xinran was pushed all the way to the back, feet drawing a pair of deep lines across the brick floor until they slammed into the wall behind her. The girl kicked out at the wall to steady herself, pushed Sophie’s sword away from her and retaliated with a quick thrust!

Bang bang bang...

Xinran landed three solid hits, but they all failed to penetrate Sophie’s protective aura.

Sophie kicked the spear out of the way and brought her sword down onto Xinran’s shoulder. Thankfully, Xinran had been restoring her former strength through continuous training all this time. The strike hurt, but didn’t affect her combat capabilities in the slightest.

"Hmph!"

Sophie suddenly slid backward and waved her arm. Bloody runes appeared beneath her feet, and a great number of vortexes appeared around her person as she growled, "I, Sophie, offer a contract to the evil spirits slumbering beneath the depths of hell. Awaken and devour everything—Roar of the Hellhound!"

Whoosh whoosh whoosh…

A hole that connects to the Purgatory appeared, and a dozen or so crimson Hellhounds rushed out of it, charging toward Xinran. They were souls, so the skill counted as an energy attack. The gigantic creatures’ also had burning feet that left deep, burning holes on the ground. Despite their size, they moved extraordinarily quickly. It looked like they would run over the Wind Singer like a train.

Pa pa!

Xinran took two steps backward, planted her feet firmly on the ground and raised her Dragonbone Spear. She chanted, "I, Wind Singer Xinran, offer a contract to the infinite souls slumbering beneath the depths of hell. Grab your weapons, recall your loyalty, and withstand everything—Protection of the Loyal Knights!"

Wind surged around Xinran, and a bunch of crimson souls took on the form of mounted knights before charging toward the Hellhounds!

Boom boom boom!

The resulting explosion nearly turned the entire eastern entrance of Sky City into rubble. The gate straight up exploded into smithereens, and the walls crumbled like a landslide. At the current stage of the game, no player was strong enough to fight an enemy who could cast a forbidden spell at this level, let alone use a forbidden skill themselves.

A ton of players were killed by the collapse of the walls. Standing next to the ruins, Roaming Dragon murmured in shock, "Heavens, what the hell is this? Thousands of people died just like that… Who are those women?"

Coldmoon Rose stared at her guild leader in exasperation. "Haven’t you been listening? She’s Sophie, the Goddess of Death! Anyway, let’s withdraw to the Holy Temple already. The eastern gate is already lost…"

In the end, Mad Dragon couldn’t hold the line any longer and retreated. It was never Roaming Dragon’s style to fight fearlessly to the end anyway.

……

Since Xinran herself was fighting, her pet, the Winged Silver Dragon, wasn’t idle as a matter of course. It took it a swipe or two to the neck at most to incapacitate a Bone Dragon and send them tumbling to the ground. We would then surround the fallen Bone Dragon with a hundred players or so and kill it. Everyone’s event points were rising like crazy, and I had no doubt that most of our players would rank at the top of the point leaderboard when the event was over. After all, every guild in Sky City except ours had withdrawn into the city to defend.

Pa!

Xinran leaped into the air with a sonic boom. Sophie followed suit while shouting, "Today will be the day we settle our grudge once and for all, Xinran!"

The two beautiful figures disappeared into the clouds and clashed repeatedly, their powers causing lightning bolts to fall to the ground. Sophie had the initiative, and it was a fact that she was slightly stronger than Xinran. That being said, Xinran had the Winged Silver Dragon to help her, so they were probably even.

Boom!

Another Bone Dragon dropped to the ground, and there were barely any left in the sky. All in all, Sophie’s "filthy insect" attack had failed to deal a fatal blow to our city. It had cost us many players—too many even—but no amount of sacrifice was too much to defend our King of Cities. Sky City was the Great Wall that protected the east side of the Center. As long as Sky City remained standing, Cyan Earth City, Elephant City and Purple Grape City wouldn’t be able to invade!

"Winged Silver Dragon, it’s fine now! Go help Xinran!" I shouted at the dragon.

It raised its head and replied affirmatively, "Yes, my dear master’s big brother…"

He Yi broke into a smile. "This dragon is pretty human-like, huh?"

I smiled back. "Of course! It’s Xinran’s pet after all!"

Suddenly, Beiming Xue pointed to the front and said, "Look, a new mob called Purgatory Ghost Lamp is floating up from the rocks…"

"Fuck!"

I rode to the frontline and looked over the edge. It was as she said. Countless hordes of mobs that looked like green lanterns were floating toward us from the floating rocks that bridged Sky City and the ground. I activated Dark Pupils immediately and captured its stats. It was a high-level magic-type mob with great Magic Attack—

Purgatory Ghost Lamp (Dread)

Level: 215

Magic Attack: 9500~11500

Defense: 8000

HP: 800,000

Property: Magic Affinity. Magic damage is increased by 50%

Skills: Fireball, Purgatory Firewall, Dance of Death

Introduction: The Purgatory Ghost Lamp is a resentful spirit that roams the lands of the dead. Originally, they were just a concentration of mental energy filled with a violent aura of death. The undead cursed them and turned them into their pawns. The Purgatory Ghost Lamp dances, unleashing flurry of formless attacks with its deadly magical energy. It makes them one of the scarier units of the Hell Legion.

……

"Watch out, people! The Purgatory Ghost Lamp is a magic-type mob!" I moved back to the city while shouting, "Dragonlight Cavalry, assume battle formations immediately! The Ghost Purgatory Lamps can’t fly, so we’re going to stop them outside the walls! Dragonlight Archers, mages, you’re the DPS! Priests, move a bit closer to the tanks and prepare to heal them at a moment’s notice! Purgatory Ghost Lamp has a property called Magic Affinity that increases their damage by a certain percent, so it’s going to hit like a truck!"

Everyone rushed into action right away. While the two Divine Rank NPCs, Xinran and Sophie, were doing battle above the city, we were fighting our own war. Our efforts would directly decide the fate of our cities!

Chiang chiang chiang…

The tanks pulled out their weapons and waited for the Purgatory Ghost Lamps to show up. It wasn’t long before the mobs floated up to the ground and rushed us at high speed. When they were 25 yards away from the Dragonlight Cavalry, they let out shrill howls and spun like fiery tops. Fireballs appeared from their octagonal bodies and hit our players!

Bang bang bang…

The Fireballs we were used to being used by players weren’t powerful, but these? These were positively obscene. They dealt around 50k damage to our players and 20k damage to me.

"Fuck, what a disgusting range! They can hit us, but we can’t hit them! What should we do?" Gui Guzi asked.

I immediately ordered, "Archers, use Far Shot and pull them under our frontliners!"

The archers immediately let loose a rain of arrows into the mobs. Aggroed by the attack, the Ghost Lamps floated closer in an attempt to attack our archers, but they were stopped by our line of fighters. Li Chengfeng raised his Dark Blade and declared with a smile, "Fire at will, people!"

Boom boom boom...

A ton of AoE skills splashed across the battlefield instantly—Burning Blade Slash, Reverse Scale Slash, Rock Crush, Aurora Thrust, Mountain Stagger Slash, Xiezhi Howl and more. The Purgatory Ghost Lamps lost their HP in no time. In the end, our cavalry was still our greatest force!