Up in the sky, the moon had risen high!
Although it was only a half-moon, with the help of things like the luminous pearls (miniature solar lamps) they exchanged from the City of Humans, there was enough light for the Twin Dragon Mount to fight at night.
“Charge!”
“We’ll annihilate the Metal Men once and for all!”
Led by the Extraordinary Rank-5 Yang Zhi, when the team from the Twin Dragon Mount entered the Metal Men’s territory again, their number grew to around 50.
Apart from the 30 Rank-7-and-above settlement soldiers who were holding shields, the rest of them all had long-range weapons, around which black soul power intertwined under the moonlight.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
After they entered the Metal Men’s territory, seven or eight Metal Men glowing in blue crawled out of the holes in the ground again, moved quickly, and started attacking and hindering the humans.
Clunk! Buzz!
However, when the sound of the pipa and the mental attack enveloped them, the blue light on a Metal Man immediately disappeared, and it tumbled again, interrupting its high-speed movement. The sparks created when the metal scraped against the ground was even brighter and more dazzling than in the day time.
Roar!
In the darkness of the night, the Soul Alpha Wolf with blood-red eyes like flames bellowed silently. Wrapped in the rolling soul power, it pounced at the Metal Man. In an instant, it killed the first Metal Man after the battle started!
Dum! Dum! Dum…
The metal blades shot at them by the Metal Men had almost all been blocked.
Although the moonlight wasn’t enough for the ordinary settlement soldiers to see the trajectory of the metal blades, the 30 thick shields taller than men made from a redwood tree they cut down in a hurry before sunset today were enough to shield the entire formation of the humans when they advanced!
Buzz, buzz, buzz…
Seeing this, like their peers that afternoon, the Metal Men that were glowing blue immediately chose to retreat.
“Don’t chase them yet!”
Seeing this, the humans didn’t go after them. Instead, they circled around the dead Metal Men, as if they were waiting for the spoils to drop before they would march again.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Their behaviors seemed to infuriate the Metal Men. They were already retreating, but they turned back and were shooting metal blades at the humans again.
“We can chase them now!”
Seeing this, Ji Ye and Gongsun Sheng exchanged looks before they gave instructions to let the troop of the Twin Dragon Mount resume their march!
Buzz, buzz, buzz…
Seeing that the humans were charging at them, the Metal Men chose to retreat once more.
However, they seemed to have indeed been agitated by the behaviors of the humans earlier. They didn’t quickly fly off but kept turning around as they retreated and harassed them with metal blades.
Moreover, halfway, a few more Metal Men with blue lights came out and joined the attack. There were now as many as 10 Metal Men!
With the impenetrable shields, the Metal Men’s attack couldn’t get through at all.
Instead, a Metal Man got a little too close and fell under the attack of Chu Yin’s Topaz Pipa and Nie Xiaoqian’s mental attack. The Soul Alpha Wolf killed it, obtaining the third Extraordinary-level Soul of Civilization and the Silver Liquid ball.
With the advancement and harassment, the human troop marched into the Metal Men’s settlement.
“Hey, look ahead!”
When they walked around a small metal hill that blocked their view, everyone’s eyes lit up.
Because what came into their sight were some splendid buildings that were as marvelous as pieces of art in an auction. It was about a meter or two over the ground and was made from very pure gold, silver, copper, and other metals.
The moonlight shone on the buildings, creating colorful reflections of various colors and shades, giving them a feeling of the lights of busy cities on earth.
Apparently, the Metal Men had already developed some form of civilization!
However, to the humans, the first thing that caught their attention was the center of the buildings, where the silver light of the power of providence shone.
Needless to say, that was the Metal Men’s settlement core.
Sizzle! Sizzle…
By then, the Metal Men had nowhere to fall back to, but they also couldn’t let the humans advance any further. Over a dozen Metal Men stopped a short distance away in front of the building and made a beeline toward the humans from both flanks in order to attack them!
“Chief Wu, you, Chu Yin, and Mr. Gongsun take 20 people and make a detour from the right. Commander Yang, you, Ninth Uncle, and Commander Lin take 20 people and march from the left side.
“The rest of you, follow me. Stay where you are and be prepared to support the others!”
The Metal Men’s settlement core was right in front of them. They only needed to advance for about 200m more, and they would be able to charge at the enemy.
Ji Ye and Gongsun Sheng exchanged another look. By then, the Human race troop had been advancing slowly within tight formations.
All of a sudden, they split into three teams and picked up their paces!
Buzz, buzz, buzz…
Seeing the sudden split of the human army, the blue lights on the Metal Men, which were very eye-catching in the night when they moved at a high speed, chose to retreat like they did in the afternoon. After that, their attack became a little confused.
After all, there were only 10 of them. Although they were all of Extraordinary level, the battle earlier had almost exhausted their Extraordinary powers and the metal “bullets”. There was no way they could stop all three teams of humans!
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Under such circumstances, the rest of the Metal Men had to come out.
Along the course of the human army’s movement, holes appeared on the metal ground, which didn’t show anything abnormal before. After that, over 20 Metal Men with blue lights climbed out of them.
The positions of these holes had obviously been calculated. If the humans moved according to their original course, they would be attacked by the Metal Men from all sides as soon as they entered this area.
However, Ji Ye’s splitting of the troop had rendered the Metal Men’s ambush useless, and they were forced to show themselves. The great battle between the two races started with them slightly surrounded by the humans.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Unlike what happened before, this time, the metal pieces that were shot out at high speed were also covered with the similar blue lights that were on the Metal Men. They looked like blue flying daggers and moved much faster than the normal metal pieces!
Hum!
When Ji Ye raised his red wood shield to block a “blue flying dagger” that came at him, the blue metal piece changed its direction right before it hit the shield. It flew past the shield and hit Ji Ye directly.
After that, a strong electric current exploded on Ji Ye, and tiny metal shards with blue lights flew everywhere like little bullets!
That was no “flying dagger”; that was a “blue light bomb dagger”!
Pa!
However, Ji Ye wasn’t injured, because the hazy yellow light of the Earth’s Boon blocked all the tiny shards.
“Ah!”
But a native guard who was following him with a shield grunted.
Because another blue “bomb dagger” hit his raised shield. The higher speed and stronger power pierced through the ordinary shield before it hit him on the belly. The exploding energy even slightly melted the armor of the Elite Rank-8 guard!
Luckily, Ji Ye had made everyone wear double armor. Although the native guard was injured, it wasn’t life-threatening.
“Finally, they’ve shown their cards. Elder Meng was right!”
Seeing the “blue light bomb daggers” flying around the battlefield, Ji Ye seemed to be brooding, but he wasn’t too surprised.
Because all the actions the humans had taken so far after entering the Metal Men’s territory had been proposed by Elder Meng, who was in the settlement at the moment.
Because although Ji Ye didn’t obtain much information on the Metal Men when he went offline earlier, one thing, in particular, was pointed out to him.
“Metal Men can use the electromagnetic field, and they can shoot out metal pieces faster than cannonballs, so fast that even Extraordinary people won’t be able to withstand them!”
However, when they tested the metal blades that afternoon, their speed was even slower than the Bronze Bulldozer Crossbow, nor could they penetrate ordinary red wood shields!
Had the Confederation Office given him the wrong information?
Ji Ye didn’t think so. After all, a lot of the information had been obtained at the cost of lives of other settlements.
There was only one other reason—the Metal Men had been deliberately showing their weaknesses!
And that point was proved after the humans made their official assault that night.
Based on the level of civilization of the Metal Men, they obviously wouldn’t have recommitted the same error by blocking the road with only a few members when they knew perfectly well that the humans couldn’t be stopped that way. After all, they had failed several times in a row that afternoon.
Everything the Metal Men did had been a trap.
They had shown their weaknesses on purpose to lure the enemy in.
“Wait. That’s not right. These aren’t the Metal ‘Men’.”
Behind Ji Ye, Mister Bug hastily activated the green light shield, and he suddenly spoke in surprise.
Because these new Metal Men had completely different appearances than the original ones.
They came in all sizes and shapes. Some looked like motorcycles, some resembled jet skateboard or fish… When Ji Ye turned around to look at the Metal Man who had attacked him, he saw that it had four arms and looked a lot like the Forest Monsters, who had already been destroyed.
“It seems that they should really be called ‘Metal race’.”
Li Qing realized something.
It was obvious that these Metal “Men” weren’t humanoids. They had turned into that form probably for the same reason as when they showed their weaknesses. They wanted to take advantage of the humans’ habit of thinking.
For instance, when attacking a humanoid, great shooters like Ling Zhen and Qin Yueyu were all used to hitting the head and chest out of habit.
However, such attacks were, in fact, futile to the Metal Men. Instead, it was only a waste of humans’ ammunition and weapons, and it could also create opportunities for the Metal Men to make counter attacks!
Right from the beginning when they started using the human form, they had been showing their weaknesses in the battle before luring their enemies in and ambushing them from all sides.
The Metal race had set out a big plan right from the very beginning, and they had been waiting for the humans to take the bait.
However, the Metal Men were probably the only living creature in some metal planet or dimension. They had mastered an impressive power, but they were very inexperienced in a war against outsiders.
The humans had mastered the strategy of luring the enemies in by showing weaknesses for thousands of years. In modern society, anyone who read novels would know them.
