We stood in the rain and spent the next half an hour waiting to hear from Hot and Sour Noodles’ friends.

Finally, Hot and Sour Noodles let out a long sigh and said, "It’s too late. Li Le and the guild leader of Nether Ring both agreed to continue along their course and march toward Purple Grape City. It’s ‘do or die’, they say. Well, they’re certainly going to get one of their wishes…"

Hot and Sour Noodles added, "Also, I learned that Flower Room alone has lost almost 100k people to Breeze and Rain’s 50k Beast King Cavalrymen. The other guilds probably suffered even worse casualties. They probably don’t even have the strength to break through the blockade even if they want to…"

I glared toward the northeast direction while shaking all over. "Almost 30 million troops, gone just like that!"

Lin Yixin pursed her lips. "Is there truly no way to turn this around, Lu Chen?"

I shook my head. "It’s all up to fate now. The idiots had entered Sunset Basin on a whim to begin with, while Purple Grape City and Cyan Earth City were much more prepared. Also, I’m sure now that Cyan Earth City and Purple Grape City have given each other teleportation access. That was why Cyan Earth City was able to set up such a huge ambush."

Li Chengfeng shrugged. "Well, no point crying over spilled milk."

I looked back at the Impassable Great Wall and smiled a little. "Still, it’s not all bad news. The Impassable Great Wall will fall in 10 hours at most. Once we’re through, it’s flatlands and smooth grounds all the way to Swallow Ear Canton where our Dragonlight Cavalry and Dragonlight Archers can truly shine. Once the satellite city is gone as well, we’ll be able to march across Wildfire Plains and finally make it to Purple Grape City!"

High Fighting Spirits laughed heartily. "Yep. Why worry about a failed alternative when our main course is still set to victory? We never expected Li Le and his bunch of idiots to do anything anyway. In fact, we fully expected them to die one way or another, didn’t we? Also, the driving force of this Nation War has always been the Top 10 guilds on the Guild Ranking, not him."

That was the final straw necessary to smoothen the creases on Hot and Sour Noodles’ forehead and make him smile. "Yes, you’re right. Ancient Sword, Snowy Cathaya, Purple Lily, Blazing Hot Lips and the other Top 10 guilds are the true force of this Nation War, and most of them are here on the main battlefield. This Nation War isn’t lost as long as we remain standing!"

"Yeah!"

……

Suddenly, a lone rider appeared from the distance and dismounted in front of us. He was none other than the vice leader of Gods of Destruction, Dominating Knight God. The man had less than 20% HP left, and his face was pale and shaken. His chest armor was heavily marred by blade wounds, and his shield was covered in some sort of short, narrow steel arrows that didn’t look like your usual player arrow.

"What happened, Knight God?" Hot and Sour Noodles asked while rushing over to his side to support him.

Disheartened and angry, Dominating Knight God lamented, "We were tricked, tricked! That Flowing Cloud woman ambushed us at Lost Forest and killed… many, many of us. Boss wanted to send you a message himself, but in the end he sent me over because he was too ashamed…"

My eyes widened. "What? You were ambushed? I thought you were engaging Natural Flow’s White Horse Cavalry in a direct battle! How did it turn into an ambush?"

Dominating Knight God said, "We engaged them on the plains for about ten minutes, yes, but they withdrew and vanished into the west side of Lost Forest afterward. The terrain there is strange and crooked, and when we reached there we were ambushed by their archers. The attacks were incredibly rapid and unrelenting, and we crumbled and lost more than half our numbers in less than twenty minutes. Our surviving troops are still fighting right now…"

Lin Yixin walked over with clear excitement on her face. "Did you see that Flowing Cloud? Did you?"

Clearly, China’s number one war goddess was interested in challenging Elephant City’s number one war goddess to a fight!

Unfortunately, Dominating Knight God shook his head and said, "No, she didn’t show herself…"

I raised my weapon and said, "Xu Yang, muster 50k Cyan Tiger and 10k Dragonlight Cavalrymen for me. I want to meet this Flowing Cloud myself and check out exactly how her archers are able to wreck our cavalry in open terrain!"

Lin Yixin also gave the same order to her troops, "Purple Marquis, muster 10k Kui Dragon and 50k Purple Dragon Cavalrymen and come with me. We’ll follow Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls to meet Flowing Cloud!"

"Yes ma’am!"

While our forces were gathering, Hot and Sour Noodles walked up to me and gave me a reassuring pat on the shoulder, "Don’t worry about the situation here. I’ll handle everything the enemy might throw at us while you’re gone!"

"Thanks!"

After that, I faced toward my people and declared, "Mount up, people! It’s our time to shine!"

Li Chengfeng, He Yi, Gui Guzi and everyone who had been chosen to go on this mission got up their mounts. Soon, Snowy Cathaya was ready as well. Lin Yixin shot me a smile and said, "Of our two ace cavalries, the Dragonlight Cavalry is the sturdier one, so you lead the way and we cover the rear. Okay?"

"Okay!" The request was perfectly natural. The Dragonlight Cavalry enjoyed a 50% boost to Attack and Defense thanks to Dragon Soul Protection.

Adding Knight God into the mix, that was a whopping 275% boost in total. With their high mobility, they could easily handle an ambush or two and return mostly unscathed.

Besides that, I had 2000 Dragonlight Cavalrymen in my party to share my Martial God, He Yi had 2000 Dragonlight Cavalrymen in her party to share her Royal Road, and our five Famous Generals—Li Chengfeng, Chaos Moon, High Fighting Spirits, Diamond Dust and Heaven’s Rain—had a thousand Dragonlight Cavalrymen each to share their Famous General Skills. Our path to eternal victory was paved by troops of boosted Dragonlight Cavalry!

I raised my hand and declared, "March!"

Gui Guzi took off first, as we and Snowy Cathaya’s 120k-strong cavalry followed behind him. Our quantity might be fewer than the 200k strong cavalry of Gods of Destruction, Hegemon Palace and Mad Dragon, but our quality was obviously higher than theirs. I had confidence that our casualties would be lower than 20% no matter how powerful the White Horse Cavalry was!

……

About ten minutes of galloping later, we arrived at a barren forest. The downpour narrowed our vision so much that we couldn’t really see too far ahead of it. Still, there was no mistaking the corpses on the ground. There were clearly more dead Sky City players than there were Elephant City players.

Most of the bodies were covered in arrows. They had also been cold for quite some time. Their mounts were circling around the area searching for a master who had already been killed.

"Fucking hell!"

Gui Guzi commented while staring at the bodies, "This wasn’t a fight, this was a goddamned massacre! The death ratio between our players and the enemy’s is almost 4 to 1! How are they so freaking weak…"

Li Chengfeng said, "That’s not really fair to them. We all know that those Gods of Destruction, Hegemon Palace and Mad Dragon players are second-rate at best, while Natural Flow is the second-strongest guild of Elephant City. There was just no comparison between the two. Also, Flowing Cloud was famous for being one of the smartest strategists in Elephant City, while those three guilds are lucky if they can make up a single brain between all of them. Dominating Heaven Blade is all brawn and no brain, Wang Dongliang is a selfish prick, Roaming Dragon’s brain cells are fully devoted to Coldmoon Rose’s thighs, and even Little Piglet, the one strong dude in all three guilds, is ultimately just a greedy mofo. The sun will rise from the west before they can beat Natural Flow."

Suddenly, He Yi pointed to the front and said, "We have company!"

A group of players riding white horses suddenly appeared at the edge of the forest. They were all above Level 180, and they carried the emblem of Elephant City and Natural Flow on their shoulders. They were of course the White Horse Cavalry that had been tormenting our allies. A vice leader wielding an axe chuckled at the sight of us and said, "Finally, China is sending some elites to deal with us. Let’s see, I count Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls, Snowy Cathaya, and… isn’t that the champion of the WEL, Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand and the guild leader of Ancient Sword, From Water? It looks like we caught some big fishes this time, people! Hahaha!"

Before any of us could respond, he growled, "Kill them! Show these people the power of Elephant City!"

The White Horse Cavalry kicked off the battle first.

Chiang!

I pulled out my own weapon and shouted, "When two people meet, only one will emerge the victor! Show these fools the might of the greatest cavalry in the world!"

The Dragonlight Cavalry unsheathed their weapons, shouted their battle cries and charged with me. Gui Guzi, Li Chengfeng, High Fighting Spirits and Chaos Moon quickly moved to the forefront and acted as the spearhead of their respective parties. This was the best way to minimize our losses while crushing the enemy; to have our greatest players carving open a path for everyone else.

"Here I come!"

The blade of my Purple Ying Sword burst into flames, and I unleashed three flaming auras directly to the center of the incoming troops. It dealt a shocking amount of damage—

72883!

82399!

102939!

—but I was more shocked by the fact that the skill only one-shot 4 or 5 players. At least 80% of them were clinging onto life with red health. Just how much HP and Defense did they have?

Chaos Moon followed up my attack and fired Rock Crush, but again her skill only dealt around 50k damage or so. Her mouth fell open in shock, "Heavens, what is this Defense?"

Thankfully, we weren’t the only powerful Famous Generals in our party. After Gui Guzi, High Fighting Spirits and Li Chengfeng unleashed their own skills, the White Horse Cavalry started dying in droves. On the other hand, our Dragonlight Cavalry only lost around 50% to 70% HP despite having received a full charge, which they healed away using War God Recovery. It was because they were protected by Dragon Soul Protection. The White Horse Cavalry lost over a hundred players in an instant, while we lost no one at all.

"Shit, these people are the real thing! Retreat!"

The vice leader and the 5000 White Horse Cavalrymen he had brought with him immediately turned around and escaped into the dark forest beside them.

Gui Guzi growled, "No one is leaving without leaving their lives behind!"

The Dragonlight Cavalry quickly followed Gui Guzi into the forest, but I sensed that something was amiss. I opened the world map and confirmed that the terrain was shaped like many S letters, which made it incredibly easy for ambushers to take out an isolated force. I immediately ordered, "I want 5000 riders to follow me to the right, and 10000 riders to follow Eve to the left! Spread out so that the enemy can’t crush you all in one fell swoop! Watch out for any unusual activity, and don’t attack carelessly!"

"Yessir!"

After we split up, I and the 5000 riders behind me barely took a few steps into the forest when a volley of arrows appeared seemingly out of nowhere. To my surprise, the Dragonlight Cavalry who were hit dropped to red health in less than three seconds and were forced to escape back to us.

Chaos Moon swore as she examined the forest around us, "Fuck! There are archers in the forest!"

However, I shook my head while staring at the red dots on the map. "No, there’s no way these enemies are archers…"

Chaos Moon looked at me in surprise. "What? What are they then?"