“All right, go!” Jin ordered as he enabled the mass portal via his Dungeon Maker interface. With the newly increased processing capabilities from assimilating the Dungeon Core crown, the System was able to teleport a massive number of minions in for a fight.
That’s to say, it was one of the most unconventional teleportation moves that Jin had made up to now.
After the enemies realised that bashing through the shield was not an option, they were reassembling their troops and had requested siege weapons from the floating fortress. With no retaliation from the defensive side, most of the rats were taking it easy.
That gave Jin’s minions the upper edge when the portal appeared a few metres right above the rats, and all of them got surprised to see Veteran Orcs and Goblins diving out of their portals to hit them where it hurts.
“This is what I call an ambush! We still have the element of surprise! Keep at it!” Qiu Yue shouted as she drove her katana into the crevices of a rat with a large steampunk suit. Blood mixed with other fluid was spilt throughout the floor while the Red Panda Cultivator started her rampage.
When her katana was not in some poor rat’s body, her uzi was blazing bullets out of the barrel, distracting and wounding the rats. The short bursts from her sub machine gun in a crowded area made her equipment amazing for close combat.
It didn’t take long for the rats to notice that Qiu Yue was unlike those normal soldiers that had been dispatched. Instead, she was akin to an officer in command despite her ‘status’ as a human. Amidst her slaughtering, she still found the time to order the fighting Orcs around and telling the goblins to move to corner certain groups of rats deemed dangerous.
Unlike the normal Orcs who needed more time to get through the rats’ powered up steampunk suits, Qiu Yue was slicing the large mechanical rats with ease. The only strange thing was, that whenever she faced the standard rank and file rats, it took her a bit of time to dispatch them. Whereas whenever a Giant Rat entered her range, they would die almost instantly as if she had some mysterious technique that will kill those large Demon Rats.
The Rats had already reported back to the higher-ups, dubbing her the ‘Giant’ Killer, and the numbers of her casualties started to pile up. They did not know that her Sub System allowed her to use money to strengthen her blade temporarily. Naturally, she wouldn’t choose to use it for the regular ones, so she only resorted to abusing it to slice down her larger size opponents quickly.
“Mdm, looks like the rats are very attracted to you!” An Orc praised her as he covered Qiu Yue’s back with a large swing, cutting a Demon Rat’s body into two before transforming his weapon into a rifle to help cover Goblin who was about to be attacked.
Even with the ambush tactic, the Orcs and Goblins were still outnumbered 1 to 300. And yet, none of them succumbed at these odds. Each and every monster on the field was fiercely fighting to bring down as many rats as they could. They knew that every kill would award them with precious System points which would ensure them a better quality of life.
Since they knew that they had nothing to lose thanks to the System, most stopped being afraid of death. They simply tried to postpone the inevitable for the chance of getting more points. Not to mention, the constant fights along cultivators had ignited something within them.
Jin also noticed a phenomenon which was something similar to the Goblin Trio. Even without formal training, the Orcs and Goblins were slowly gaining some form of chi as if a partial dantian nucleus had formed upon constant exposure to his cultivator customer base.
He was unsure if they had noticed it themselves since the System had been the one to point it out to him, but the majority of the monsters were able to unleash a faint amount of chi while fighting, making them tougher than the rats had expected. Some even had applied chi unknowingly when transforming their weapons, strengthening them to provide it with some extra boom.
“Heh! They do not know their place! Sorry but I think I need you to cover me a little more! Got a good surprise for all of them in store.” Qiu Yue said as she tapped on the Orc’s shoulder. He acknowledged it by turning his back, and with the chi he accidentally inserted, the rifle was shooting continuously, stopping the rats in their tracks momentarily.
“Red Panda Arts, Icy Wind of the Umbral Winter.” Qiu Yue shouted, and her katana immediately glittered with a transparent look, as if she was holding on to a beautifully lit icy stalactite. A swing of her blade caused the air in the area to drop below zero degrees Celsius, and the steampunk rats were unable to move their suits at all as their primary source of power, steam, had been frozen into ice.
Unfortunately, as this was a dense battlefield, the icy winds could not differentiate between friend and foe. Qiu Yue did not seem to care and continued to slaughter those rats entrapped in their deactivated steam suits.
The Orcs and Goblins, especially the ones who prayed to Shiva, they just sneered at this level of ice. All of them had undergone specialised training from King Frost Echo as a guest invited by General Nubwort to suffer and survive in terrible cold conditions during their camp sessions.
Naturally, as a tactician Qiu Yue had been, was aware of that special training course, so she did not waste a moment to apologise, nor did she take any particular precautions to limit her skill. Each and every one of those battle-hardened monsters shook the cold off and mercilessly preyed on the helpless rats stuck in their suits.
“That was a brilliant strategy, Qiu Yue!” Jin exclaimed as he watched the events unfold and released the second wave of his minions down to fight against them.
“Heh, Weslie did tell me about the weakness of her steam technology. They might be strong against weak and powerless humans, but they are awfully fragile against mages and cultivators like us.” Qiu Yue was happy about the praise.
“Too bad, they make up that shortcoming by being cunning… Shit.” Jin cursed as he noticed something albeit a little too late. A large fountain at the centre of Wecha suddenly cracked and later exploded, causing pieces of stone and wood to fly all over the place. What came after that was shocking for the militia defending at the walls.
They were already fighting a sheer endless number of rats, but their reinforcement didn’t look any less numerous. They were coming out of the aftermath and began filling the streets with their verminous bodies.
“AMBUSH!!!” Silver shouted as he witnessed the whole thing from one of the watchtowers. One of the trademark skills of their vermin type enemies was that they could create tunnels. Most, if not all of the militia had been stationed at the walls, leaving the inner cities nearly defenceless.
“Good thing we have the knowledge to manage such cunning foes,” Jin smirked as he quickly opened a folder on the Dungeon Maker interface marked with a crossed out rat symbol.