Our mounts’ hooves kicked up clouds of dust as we raced across the plains. Lin Yixin, He Yi, Gui Guzi, Eyes Like Water, Indigo Collar and I formed the first line of the charge. From the point of view of the players fighting on Purple Grape City’s walls, we probably looked like an arrow heading toward the body that was the bulk of Cyan Beast. The battle of sword and fire was sure to be epic. It felt like the making of a record of all the blood and emotions that were spilled in this war.

……

The enemy and our cavalry slammed into each other in no time. Blade tore into flesh and blood and caused innards to spill out of one’s stomach. Mounts screeched in pain as the Beast King Cavalry, Dagonlight Cavalry, Kui Dragon Cavalry and more slammed into one another while their riders traded Barrier Breaks, Triple Slashes and many, many more other skills. People were screaming in anger or falling off their mounts in death. The once yellow sand was dyed red in an instant. Countless souls had been killed in a foreign land in mere seconds.

Breeze and Rain’s fighting style was ruthlessly efficient. Almost no one survived a hit or skill for him, and countless corpses trailed behind him wherever he went. Even High Fighting Spirits and Chaos Moon were forced to recognize his prowess and move out of his way.

Growling, Gui Guzi asked me, "Should we kill Breeze and Rain, Boss Broken Halberd?"

I shook my head. "No, we need to focus on killing the Beast King Cavalry first. Breeze and Rain is just one person, and he doesn’t have many AoE skills, so just ignore him for now. One person cannot change the tide of war, and it’s the war we are aiming to win, not just this battle. Once the Beast King Cavalrymen are all dead, Cyan Beast won’t have anything left that can stop us!"

"Mn, got it!"

The Dragonlight Cavalry carved their way into the heart of the Beast King Cavalry very quickly with me, He Yi, Gui Guzi, Chaos Moon and the Famous Generals acting as the spearhead. However, even we had to heal ourselves constantly with health potions and HP recovery skills because the Beast King Cavalry possessed amazing Attack and good Defense. In fact, they were equal, no, stronger than even the Divine Elephant Cavalry we had fought just moments earlier. This wasn’t an easy battle by any means.

Boom boom boom!

After engulfing a group of Beast King Cavalry with War Crush, I adjusted my POV to look down on the battlefield from above. I quickly discovered that Cyan Beast’s cavalry were moving closer or splitting up in an orderly fashion until a dozen or so mini "swords" were formed. After cutting down an expert Kui Dragon Cavalryman, Breeze and Rain ordered with a growl, "Sword formation, go! Split the enemy and cut them down to size!’

I shivered. It was your classic battle formation. I knew that Breeze and Rain would be different from most of the commanders we had fought up until this point.

Lin Yixin and I looked at each other and nodded almost as if our minds shared a link with each other. We quickly ordered the Dragonlight Cavalry and Kui Dragon Cavalry to form four blade-shaped formations with Lin Yixin, He Yi, Purple Marquis and I acting as the points and charged toward the enemy’s sword formations head-on. How deep we would be able to penetrate the enemy’s formations would depend on the "sharpness" of the points.

The first opponent I faced was a Level 192 berserker wielding an axe. The guy screamed like an actual berserker while saying, "Kaka, eat my Ice Flame Slash, boy!"

Whoosh!

His battle axe abruptly glowed with the light of Ice Flame Slash. This fucker knows Beauty Lin’s signature move too? In that case, he must die!

I let out a chuckle and fired God Binding Art at the space he would run into. Caught off-guard, the dark-skinned warrior was immobilized immediately. However, since he was charging at full speed, instead of being immobilized in place, he dragged the four divine arms together with him instead. He was a lot slower than before though.

I let out a cry and abruptly activated Great Earth Transformation, surrounding myself with three cyan blades. After that, I fired Dragon Slaying Slash at the guy’s head, followed by Coiling Dragon Revolution that pierced through his chest!

Boom!

The Purple Ying Sword easily pierced through the man like a hot knife would through butter before sweeping the riders behind him, dealing a ton of damage. Coiling Dragon Revolution had a hidden effect that ignored Defense due to its magical properties, so it was one of the best murder tools in my arsenal. Add splash effect and critical hit to the mix, and that was one sword formation crumbling into nothing before they could even do anything!

"Kill!"

Next to me, Gui Guzi and Chaos Moon immediately engaged the remaining enemies in melee. Once more, mounts slammed into mounts as their riders went to town with one another.

It didn’t take long for bloodlust to overtake everyone’s mind. Speaking of which, everyone’s Ghost Chariots had died countless times throughout this war, but thankfully their attack power wasn’t weakened too much despite the loss of levels. This was especially true in the case of Lin Yixin’s ice dragon. Kris kept spitting flames at the Beast King Cavalry from above Lin Yixin’s head and annoying the fuck out of them. Since everyone at the frontline was cavalry, this meant that they had no real way of killing the ice dragon.

At the periphery of the battlefield, Beiming Xue was running interference for us by having the Dragonlight Archers shoot Skypiercers at the enemy from time to time. It was the main reason she was still a Top 10 ranker on the Nation War leaderboard, and why we were still holding out against the enemy. Frankly, our disorganized cavalry would’ve lost against the enemy’s 250k-strong Beast King Cavalry already without her!

So lost in the battle we were that all we knew was swinging our weapons mechanically and killing the red names before our eyes. Even the Phantom Wolf King had died almost 20 times and lost 20 levels throughout this whole war, although its sacrifice allowed me to stay at the top of the leaderboard!

I shot a glance at the Ancient Divine Dragon coiled around my arm and noted that it was still sleeping. It would’ve been nice if it was at a level where I could mount it. A single divine dragon rider might not be enough to turn the tides of war, but it would certainly strike fear into the enemy’s hearts!

……

Before we knew it, three hours had passed by in the blink of an eye. Unfortunately, we were still going about even with the enemy and were nowhere close to reaching the finishing line despite sustaining heavy losses.

"Hah, hah, hah…"

Gui Guzi was so tired that he was panting with his mouth open like a dog. He kept fighting even though his Spear of the Knight God was drenched in blood, and his battle robes were torn in many different places. Exhausted, he called out to me,"Boss Broken Halberd, we’re going to lose everyone out if this continues!"

The Purple Ying Sword shivered a bit in my grip as I stared at the distance. It almost felt like it was soaking in all the blood and death around it. "It’s fine. Breeze and Rain and all of Cyan Beast’s main forces will die with us!"

I looked around me and saw He Yi and Lin Yixin leaning against one another and resting for a moment. Their bloodstained faces—it would be unrealistic to expect anyone to maintain a perfect appearance in a terrible war where blood and murder ruled supreme—were tired, and both their sister weapons were cracked in many places. There was no avoiding weapon damage in a battle like this.

Not far away, battered and exhausted, Stranger of Three Lifetimes asked dazedly, "Where’s Eyes?"

A Blazing Hot Lips player answered, "The vice leader was killed by Breeze and Rain just a moment ago. Didn’t you say you were going to take revenge for her? Did you forget already?"

"Oh yeah!" Her face turned cold. "I’m so going to fuck up that motherfucker for Eyes!"

"Yeah!"

Indigo Collar wasn’t even with us anymore. After 3 whole hours of fierce fighting, Peach Garden had been reduced to less than a hundred players. They would have surely been annihilated had they not chosen to withdraw!

It was the same thing for Gods of Destruction, Mad Dragon and Hegemon Palace. Dominating Heaven Blade, Dominating Knight God, Dominating Warrior God, Roaming Dragon, Coldmoon Rose, and Pillar of the Nation were all dead. Of the three guilds, Little Piglet and a tiny group of players were the only ones left who were still kicking and fighting.

The other guilds weren’t doing much better as well.

I looked behind me and asked, "How… how many players do we have left?"

Xu Yang answered in a solemn tone, "Too few to count. There are only 300+ Dragonlight Cavalry left, and they are literally the last cavalry troops we have. The Cyan Tiger Cavalry are all dead. The archers and mages are mostly dead. All in all, there are less than ten thousand of us still standing on the battlefield!"

I nodded. "Yeah, even I can see that…"

"Hehe!" High Fighting Spirits said cheerfully, "Man, that was such an exhilarating battle! Don’t worry, Cyan Beast is more or less GG as well! Just look at Breeze and Rain’s face!"

……

Corpses stacked on top of one another on the battlefield, and equipment and potions were everywhere. No one bothered to pick them up though. Directly ahead of us, Breeze and Rain and less than 20k Cyan Earth City players were looking just as sorry as we were. Their war flag was covered in holes, and Breeze and Rain’s armor looked like it was about to fall off. He kept shooting us wary looks so as not to be caught unawares.

No one imagined that this war would become this terrible. So many people were killed that even the battle cries from Purple Grape City had become much quieter than before. Small forces of Chinese players were currently engaging the NPCs and fighting their way to the palace hall. Once we killed the king, victory would be ours. And even if they failed, we still had 10 whole hours to muster new forces and finish the job. Right now, our foremost priority was to take out Breeze and Rain. As long as someone as scary as him remained alive, there was still a chance this war could go awry.

……

Suddenly, the unbroken eastern gate of Purple Grape City creaked open. When we turned around, we saw Red Maple emerging from the city with less than ten thousand cavalry. He wasn’t heading toward us though. He was leaving for Lost Forest for some reason.

"What the fuck is Red Maple doing?" Hot and Sour Noodles couldn’t understand what was going on.

I curled my lips. "Whatever. Let’s just kill Breeze and Rain, kill the king and take the city over already!"

"Mn!"