Bang!

19377!

Red Maple’s chest rocked a bit after he took a punch from Gui Guzi. He immediately brought his sword upward, broke Gui Guzi’s stance, then brought it back down to land a basic hit across the chest. A huge damage number rose above the Undying Knight’s head—

68833!

Gui Guzi didn’t retreat despite taking a hit. The Spear of the Knight God glowed the color of undead energy as he unleashed Aurora Thrust + Barrier Break.

Pa pa...

However, instead of dodging backward or sideways, Red Maple took a step forward and closed the distance between them. Gripping his sword with both hands, he yelled, "Who the hell do you think you are to stop me?"

Red Maple swung his sword three times and parried the attacks perfectly. Both his control and choice of angle were sublime. Then, he hit Gui Guzi with his Fire God Flurry and dropped him to half health even with Gui Guzi’s ridiculous damage-absorbing Undying Shield. Skill-wise, Red Maple’s reaction and judgment were clearly a cut above Gui Guzi’s.

"Dammit!"

Gui Guzi swore as he gritted his teeth. While he was enduring the attack, he abruptly grabbed the armor chains around Red Maple’s neck, pulled him in and hit him with a point-blank, triple-hit Death Combo, deleting 30% HP. Let no one say that a Gui Guzi who decided to go all out couldn’t give Red Maple a run for his money.

In response, Red Maple jumped up from his mount and landed a violent kick on his chest, "Fuck off!"

Bang!

It was only then he finally managed to free himself from Gui Guzi. A Thunder God Ball later, the Undying Knight dropped to 25% HP or so.

……

Swhoosh!

Suddenly, a red flash appeared behind Gui Guzi. He was none other than the other vice leader of God’s Domain and the assassin Purple Thunder. He dropped Gui Guzi to around 5% HP with a combo before suddenly splitting into two. I recognized the skill. It was his Divine General Skill Shadow Explosion, a self-detonating skill that dealt an insane amount of damage!

"Little Gui, invincible!"

I hurriedly shouted. As one of the people who personally experienced the skill before, I knew just how powerful it was.

Thankfully, Gui Guzi reacted quickly. Even before I finished my sentence, a golden light enveloped him and made him invulnerable to all damage.

Bang!

The body double caused a small explosion that didn’t harm Gui Guzi, but one-shot the dozens of Dragonlight Cavalrymen around him. Every last one of them took around 200k damage or so. That goddamned Divine General Skill was way too powerful.

Crack!

I continued charging forward after cutting off the head of a Wildfire Rider. In the end, Gui Guzi wasn’t able to stop Red Maple and his cavalry from breaking through our formation. The Dragonlight Cavalry was strong, but the Wildfire Riders were no slouches themselves.

"Cyan Frost, it’s up to you now!"

Red Maple fired another Maple Kill and once again killed a dozen of our elite riders. At the same time, Cyan Frost the Ice Knight broke through with 20000 Wildfire Riders and chased after Beiming Xue’s 5000+ Dragonlight Archers. God’s Domain main forces had suffered huge losses under their arrows, so it was no wonder the Japanese were determined to end them as soon as possible.

……

I abruptly looked back and shouted, "Beiming, I leave these 20000 Wildfire Riders to you!"

I got it, big bro!"

One Skypiercer later, Beiming Xue moved to the back while shouting, "All mounted archers, follow me! Now is our chance to become the star of this battle!"

In response, Cyan Frost cried coldly, "Mounted archers? Pooh! Show them the power of our unstoppable cavalry, men! All Wildfire Riders, lock onto any spot in front of you and close the distance with Charge! Kill these mounted archers who only know how to kite from a distance!"

The ground rumbled like an earthquake as God’s Domain 20000-strong Wildfire Rider regimen chased after our mounted archers like crazy. Ultimately, Charge let them close the distance between the two groups.

Beiming Xue ordered while riding away from the enemy, "Let’s split up into two groups! The first group will be commanded by me. The second group will be commanded by Hymn of the Apocalypse!"

"Yes ma’am!" Hymn of the Apocalypse nodded while carrying his fiery red bow in one hand. Hymn of the Apocalypse had the Bow General as his Famous General Skill. At best, he could buff every archer in his party with 100% physical ranged attack power and 50% attack speed. That was why he was a key player among the Dragonlight Archers, and the supporting figure Beiming Xue chose to rely on.

Observing the enemy as she mounted an organized retreat, Beiming Xue suddenly shouted, "First group, when I stop, do the same and fire your Mountain Stagger Arrows, Shock Arrows, Skypiercers and Spiraling Arrow Blades! Second group, stay on your course!"

Twang twang twang twang...

The Dragonlight Archers obeyed and fired their skills into the enemy Wildfire Riders exactly as Beiming Xue ordered them to, killing most of the Wildfire Riders at the front row immediately. Those who survived lost their mounts and had to run on foot, meaning that they couldn’t catch up to the Dragonlight Archers and were out of the chase anyway.

"Run!"

After Beiming Xue and her 2500 mounted archers resumed running, she shouted, "Hymn of the Apocalypse, it’s your turn now!"

"Aye ma’am!"

Hymn of the Apocalypse stopped in his tracks and shouted, "Brothers and sisters, repeat what Beiming’s group did earlier! Hit them with Mountain Stagger Arrows, Shock Arrows, Skypiercers and Spiraling Arrow Blades!"

The twang of bows began once more, and another chorus of death screams filled the air. This was the first time the mounted archers were deployed in a real battle, and they had proven to be shockingly effective. Even an elite cavalry like the Wildfire Riders was unable to lay a hand on them, much less kill them.

……

The extremely favorable exchange continued for some time, and despite the Wildfire Riders’ best attempts they weren’t able to catch up to the Dragonlight Archers. Face white with fury, Cyan Frost swore, "This is bullshit! You call this kiting? Those despicable shameful mounted archers!"

By now, the 20000+ Wildfire Riders had dwindled to less than 8000. It was at this moment Cyan Frost turned around and ordered, "Enough! We’ll cut a diagonal to the southeast and cut off their retreat instead. Let’s catch their cavalry in a pincer attack!"

The Wildfire Riders immediately turned around.

Unfortunately, Beiming Xue wasn’t one to miss such a golden opportunity. She immediately ordered, "Chase them down! Don’t stop moving, and use CC and freezing arrows to stop them!"

"Hahaha…"

The Dragonlight Archers let out a hearty laughter as they carried out the command. They were archers, and they had never experienced this level of super mobility and range over their enemies until now. The Dragonscale Beasts were pretty fast to begin with, but the Archer class also had a natural movement speed boost. Overall, their movement speed was at least 50% higher than the Wildfire Riders’.

The Dragonlight Archers kept shooting their arrows into the enemies and nailing them to the ground. By the time the elite magic knights finally reached the archers, there were less than a thousand of them left; too few to threaten our archers in any way.

Cyan Frost looked helpless. There was nothing she or the Wildfire Riders could do even though they were losing people by the second. At this stage of the game, the Dragonlight Archers hit-and-run tactic was practically unbeatable.

……

"There are enemies behind us, Lu Chen!" Chaos Moon reported.

I curled my lips. "Is that so? Take some men with you and take Cyan Frost out!"

"Okay!"

As expected of the warlike woman, Chaos Moon looked very eager to face off against Cyan Frost. She had always enjoyed dueling against the best players in our guild, so a famous player who entered the WEL internationals like Cyan Frost only stoked her battle lust higher.

Chaos Moon only brought a dozen or so Dragonlight Cavalry with her when she attacked Cyan Frost. Less than five minutes later, the ice knight dropped dead, and the threat was nullified. Chaos Moon was unhappy though. It was because Beiming Xue had stolen her kill while trying to reduce the ice knight’s Defense with an arrow-breaking armor.

……

Despite the losing battle, God’s Domain didn’t give up the fight. In fact, their retaliation grew fiercer and fiercer until everyone was starting to feel the heat. So far, we had only taken out 50000 of the 150000-strong cavalry God’s Domain possessed, so this battle wasn’t over by any means.

The JGL Hall of Famer, Red Hot Vortex, kept swinging his blade and killing Dragonlight Cavalrymen left and right. His five-hit Furious Flurry especially was a great threat to our players. Few of our Dragonlight Cavalry were a match for him, not to mention that he had countless priests healing him non-stop and keeping him alive.

"Fuck!"

Li Chengfeng swung his sword and declared, "Lu Chen, let’s kill him together! If we cannot break down this defense line, we might lose a battle of attrition!"

"Yeah!"

I locked onto Red Hot Vortex and Charged, hitting him so hard that he saw stars in his eyes.

Then, I pressed a palm to his chest and used God Binding Art to immobilize him. The number one berserker of Purple Grape City glared at me with fury and struggle, but he was a goner the second I landed my CC skill.

I waited for about 3 seconds before thrusting the Purple Ying Sword forward and executing Universe Break + Burning Blade Slash combo. At the same time, Li Chengfeng arrived within 5 yards of Red Hot Vortex, hit him with a well-placed Dragonbone Flurry, and launched a Dragonblade Revolution that caught everyone in the vicinity!

Boom boom boom…

Red Hot Vortex was supported by almost a hundred priests, but the bursts of energy were too much even for them to outheal. They could only watch as Li Chengfeng and I killed their corps commander via brute force.

……

"Break!"

High Fighting Spirits shouted and swept countless magic knight shields into the air again with Xiezhi Howl. Right after that, Chaos Moon’s Rock Crush and He Yi’s Purgatory of Ice and Magma struck and tore apart the enemy’s final shield wall. With that, our 10000+ Dragonlight Cavalrymen were finally able to swoop in unhindered.

Chiang chiang chiang...

The sounds of blades tearing into armor and flesh rang endlessly. The ground of the valley was positively drowning in blood. These invaders probably never imagined that they would one day become the prey they so enjoyed slaughtering when they attacked Floating Ice City.

……

"Retreat! We are retreating to Wild Pheasant Ridge now!" Red Maple suddenly reined in his mount and shouted.

We gave pursuit as the Wildfire Riders withdrew like the tidewater. Many a time I felt a vague tingle, a bad premonition, from the enemy’s frantic yet slow retreat, but we were too engrossed in the fight to see past our lust for battle right now. The thought of retreat never crossed our minds, not until the enemy was thoroughly routed.

Right ahead of us was the tall, foliage-covered ridge that was Wild Pheasant Ridge. The Wildfire Riders were running right toward it.

When we finally exited the canyon, I looked up and saw something that caused my heart to freeze. The enemy had removed the foliage to reveal a ton of black-colored ballistae!

I swore loudly, "Fuck!"

Li Chengfeng’s eyes widened like saucers. "These motherfuckers had siege weapons set up in this place? Fuck! We got tricked!"