"How did they lose?" I asked while cutting down a magic knight.

Hot and Sour Noodles performed a sweeping slash while panting, "At first, Candle Dragon and Warsky Alliance suffered a three-sided ambush that Candlelight Shadow was able to nullify via smart pulling of the battle line. Then, God of War dispatched an incredibly powerful archer corps that was able to wipe out an entire thousand-man magic knight party belonging to Rose of the Holy Domain in one volley. I even heard that they were all using the same bow. Candlelight Shadow decided to make a risky gamble and launch a flank attack with 100000 elite cavalry, but that was exactly what God of War wanted him to do. They were ambushed again on the other side of Fallen Moon Ridge, and this time, they lost almost 70000 cavalry out of 100000 they had, including 8000 Qiu Beast Cavalrymen. In fact, they would’ve lost everything if Warsky hadn’t covered for them from the flanks."

A pause later, Hot and Sour Noodles continued, "Later on, in her capacity as the strategist of the northern route army, October Rain devised a series of strategies that took down Fallen Moon Ridge and drove Cyan Beast and Nation Guardian almost all the way to Soaring Flame Desert. Unfortunately, Cyan Earth City’s main corps appeared just in time to aid their allies and dealt huge damage to the army."

"Okay, how are they doing now?"

I asked urgently, "We’ve already begun sieging Purple Grape City. Can they afford to send anyone to help us at all? Frankly, it’s unlikely we’ll be able to conquer Purple Grape City with just us."

Hot and Sour Noodles replied, "The main forces of Cyan Beast, Nation Guardian and Flames of War are still alive and present, and Candle Dragon and his allied guilds are holding them back right now. Warsky Alliance chased Cyan Earth City’s main corps deep into Soaring Flame Desert, so it’s unlikely they’ll show up anytime soon either…"

I spat on the ground, "In short, we can only rely on ourselves. Shit! Candlelight Shadow better succeed in holding back Cyan Earth City’s three great guilds somehow. If God of War and Breeze and Rain manage to make it here, we’ll be in for one hell of a time!"

"We must trust in Candlelight Shadow this once."

"Mn! It’s not like we got another choice!"

……

Boom!

God’s Tear erupted among the enemy players as Lin Yixin, Purple Marquis, and a 200-man-strong Kui Dragon Cavalry party they had gathered on the wallwalk mounted a charge. As usual, cavalry charges were absolutely amazing in direct clashes like this. No Purple Grape City player was able to stop them.

I turned around and said, "Gui Guzi, muster our remaining Dragonlight Cavalrymen on the wallwalk! We’re going to charge the enemy as well! This is the final battle, so there’s no need to fight conservatively any longer!"

"Got it, Boss Broken Halberd!"

At the same time, Beiming Xue asked, "Big bro, do you want me to bring the Dragonlight Archers over too and provide covering fire for your charge?"

"Sure. Go!"

I charged horizontally and cut down a group of enemy players who were dropping rocks and rolling logs at our army. Given enough suppressive fire, escorting our Dragonlight Cavalry and Dragonlight Archers up the walls was hardly an impossible task. Once the men were assembled, we would finally be able to seize the initiative of this battle.

Swhoosh! Lian Xin Blinked toward the enemy and hit the enemy with Dimensional Storms, killing and wounding many. Her Ice Spiral Matrix was especially deadly. Just to make things easier for Lian Xin, I threw a couple of Icy Cyclone Domains that slowed the enemies down and dealt a sizable amount of damage.

Some distance away, Indigo Collar was charging the enemy and killing enemies left and right in unstoppable fashion. However, his dominance only lasted a moment before he was forced to escape from an arrow volley that killed hundreds of cavalrymen around him. Thankfully, he wasn’t alone. Stranger of Three Lifetimes and Luo River God of the Capital appeared from behind and drowned the walls in a sea of ice and fire magic. Eventually, Blazing Hot Lips, Purple Lily and Peach Garden gained a foothold of their own.

……

Red Maple was screaming in rage, but there was nothing he could do about this. He could hardly control the super guilds attacking his city all by himself, and the Japan server only had one main city. They were also far inferior compared to China be it in terms of player quantity or quality. If India hadn’t interfered with this war, Purple Grape City would’ve gone down a long time ago.

Currently, China and Japan were at war with each other, India was reinforcing Japan, and Russia was sitting on the fence and enjoying the show. So far, the only thing they did in this war was harassing India’s Elephant City. The Northern Alliance’s inclination toward China was pretty unclear as well, which led to the Chaotic 27 throwing off their restraints and attacking Seven Star City and Titan City like crazy. As a result, they were unable to provide any meaningful assistance to Japan as well. This was literally our best opportunity to take out the Japan server.

……

Very soon, Gui Guzi commanded almost 1000 Dragonlight Cavalrymen with Knight God, He Yi commanded 2000 Dragonlight Cavalrymen with Royal Road, and I commanded the remaining 2000 with Martial God. Beiming Xue had also appeared on the wallwalk with several thousand Dragonlight Archers. Almost all of our guild’s elites were gathered here.

"Kill them! Sweep them!"

Gui Guzi shouted, and everyone charged toward the enemy in unison. Many Purple Grape City players had never fought a war like this and ran away in cowardice almost immediately. Even those who remained turned into a broken pile of flesh and blood beneath the powerful hooves of our Dragonscale Beasts.

Crack! Crack!

The sound of my blade sinking into the enemy’s armor and flesh felt incredibly melodious. While I was dragging my blade through a player’s torso, I abruptly activated Thousand Ice Slash and froze an entire group of mounted knights to the side. Thanks to the splash effect, many of them dissolved into white light and left behind cold, dead bodies.

At first, Beiming Xue and the Dragonlight Archers focused on providing us with covering fire. Once she realized that we had seized the initiative though, she decided to go on the offensive and ordered a volley of Skypiercers to be loosed into the city. Thanks to the height advantage, their attack power was increased by 25% at least, so it was no surprise that countless enemies screamed when the arrows pierced their bodies mercilessly. I loved it. There were only so many Purple Grape City players anyway. The more we killed, the smaller the burden on all of us.

Suddenly, a chorus of bird cries cut through the night sky. When we looked up, we saw a flock of huge, white birds flying toward us!

"What is that?" Chaos Moon exclaimed in astonishment.

Gui Guzi said in an annoyed tone, "Fuck, I knew that it was only a matter of time before the NPC armies join the battle. That is the White Bird Legion of Purple Grape City, the so-called number one NPC legion of this city. They number at least a hundred thousand, and they are all Level 210 dread-rank NPCs. This won’t be an easy fight. What do we do, Boss Broken Halberd?"

"Do you even need to ask?"

I ordered immediately, "All magic knights, move to the inner areas of the walls and cover our backliners with your shields! Archers, use Shock Arrows. Mages, use Ice Dragon Howls. They’ll fall from the sky and become easy prey once we’ve deleted their mount tenacity! Also, magic knights should use Trapping Nets to drop the NPCs from the sky!"

"Yessir!"

Everyone nodded and did as I said. Since we were able to occupy almost an entire kilometer of the wall, setting up an adequate defense wasn’t a problem.

……

"Jie jie…"

The so-called White Birds were really closer to Griffins in terms of appearance, and it was a creature unique to the Japan server. They had sharp talons and a dagger-like beak capable of piercing even a shield. Their riders attacked by throwing their spears at their enemies, which normally would be a great thing for us, except… they couldn’t run out of spears! How imbalanced was it, really?!

"Here they come!" Hot and Sour Noodles roared. "Eyes up, people! We’ll focus on the NPC legions first!"

In an instant, countless White Bird Riders swooped down from above and hit the magic knights’ shields with their beaks. Even more magic knights were seized by their talons and hauled into the air. NPC attacks could be so bullshit sometimes. The White Bird Legion’s first run alone dropped many of our Dragonlight Cavalry to half health. The good news was that Murong Mingyue and many of our priests had gotten up the wallwalk. For now, the AoE heals were keeping everyone relatively healthy.

Hitting shields with their beaks and hauling players into the air weren’t the only attacks the White Bird Legion possessed. Their riders also tossed their spears at us and dealt over 100k damage to the archers, mages, assassins and more fragile classes who were unlucky enough to get hit. This was some of the deadliest spear throws I had ever seen for sure!

"Net them!"

When the time was right, He Yi raised her arm and ordered the magic knights to use Trapping Nets. The magic knights nodded and did as she said, causing hundreds of White Bird Riders to fall from the sky immediately. Once the NPCs hit the ground, our warriors immediately ganged up on them and killed them in just a moment. As expected, flying knights were trash once they lost their air superiority!

……

The White Bird Legion kept performing fly-bys above our heads and reducing our numbers. We, including Beiming Xue and the Dragonlight Archers, retaliated with whatever weapons we possessed as well. For a while, we waged a terrible war of attrition against the NPCs, but we had healers and reinforcements, and the White Bird Legion didn’t. An hour later, almost all the NPCs had been killed. All this time, it’s worth mentioning that Red Maple’s main forces had been held down by The Monarch Descends, Baidicheng and Hegemon Palace. Thanks to their efforts, Ancient Sword, Snowy Cathaya, Blazing Hot Lips and more were able to reap a ton of contribution points easy-peasy.

At this point, the wallwalk was completely covered in equipment and potions, but everyone was too busy to pick them up right now. At the same time, we received news from Final Duel Valley that Li Chengfeng had beaten back Elephant City’s assault 7 times in a row. The victories came at a great cost, but the enemy’s losses were at least ten times theirs. Li Chengfeng had always been an expert in narrow terrain combat, not to mention that he had two Knight Generals, Heaven’s Rain and Diamond Dust, to support him.

……

While we were fighting, Hot and Sour Noodles suddenly skidded to a halt and pointed to the northeast, "What the fuck is that?"

He was pointing at an unnatural formation of dust clouds in the distance. It was obviously some sort of cavalry, and they were moving very, very quickly.

"Are they allies?" Gui Guzi asked.

"Of course not!" I felt my facial muscles twitching at the inane question as I activated Dark Pupils to widen my vision. A second later, I shivered from head to toe. "They’re all red names. Shit, it’s Nation Guardian’s Divine Elephant Cavalry! I count at least a hundred thousand of them, and they’re approaching us at high speed!"