Chapter 338 – Defending the City
Zhang Feihu, one of the leading generals of Xuanhuang Ancient Country in the last grand war between humans and demons, was at the peak of the 9th class enhancement and one step away from the Celestial rank. According to military history records, he had died several thousand years ago. No one knew why he was inside the Tower of Heroes.
His weapon was called the Flying Tiger Execution Blade, a superb Violet weapon that had better stats than even ordinary Celestial items.
After saluting Bai Xiaosheng, Zhang Feihu dragged his blade to sweep through the City Lord Manor, cutting all enemies in half with ease. Soon, the manor was completely cleared out.
The guild masters gawked with mouths agape at Zhang Feihu who had returned to Bai Xiaosheng’s side, their hearts beating like a drum out of fear. If Bai Xiaosheng ordered this guy to clear them out as well, they weren’t sure how much chance they’d have at winning, or to be exact, how many of them could come out of it alive.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Hero City is a main city of our Human race that was seized by the Demon realm thousands of years ago. Today, we are finally able to recover it, but we shall be under the attack of all the Demon armies around here. Will you guys help me defend the city, or do you still want to fight for the position of City Lord?” Bai Xiaosheng asked casually with a smiling face.
The guild masters snuck glances at each other before hanging their heads in dejection. What other choice did they have now? If they said the wrong word and triggered Bai Xiaosheng, causing him to move against them, it would undoubtedly be a disaster.
Bai Xiaosheng softly heaved a sigh of relief. The other party still had many players, so his group would inevitably suffer if they really decided to fight. What the others didn’t know was that, although generals like Zhang Feihu followed Bai Xiaosheng’s command, it didn’t include attacking humans; they would only fight against demons.
After the guild masters and Bai Xiaosheng reached an agreement, they dispatched players to clean up the Demon soldiers still in Hero City. According to Bai Xiaosheng, when the demon troops in the vicinity started the siege, NPC human soldiers would come over to support. What the players didn’t know was that they’d have to wait for the 10 full hours before those NPCs arrived.
Indeed, scouts reported that there were only a few scattered teams of NPC troops rushing towards the city.
“Damn it, ughh!” Fierce Bull instantly knew the situation was settled with the emergence of Zhang Feihu, which meant its only choice was to leave; it knew much more about the Tower of Heroes than Bai Xiaosheng. It randomly threw an attack at the Weapon of the Barbaric God before fleeing without a trace.
“Get yourselves ready everyone, the Demon siege is coming any moment!” Bai Xiaosheng roared. After Fierce Bull left, it’d definitely assemble the Demon troops to attack the Tower of Heroes. If Bai Xiaosheng successfully defended, his mission would be complete.
After Fierce Bull ran off, the massive mace moved about in the sky a little before fading away. Just like that, the scroll Bai Xiaosheng had sweated blood to acquire was gone.
Leaning against the Tower of Heroes, Bai Xiaosheng felt very pleased with himself. Even at his age of over half of a hundred, he couldn’t suppress the excitement and gloated to himself a little. To upgrade a player base to city-level, other people had to pour in enormous time and resources, while Bai Xiaosheng only needed to withstand the next siege and this entire major city was as good as his.
‘However, it still can’t compare to the Sky City that can rival the current four main cities,’ Bai Xiaosheng thought as he looked at Fatty, who was commanding his two pets to attack the Demon soldiers. Then, Bai Xiaosheng immediately laughed mockingly at himself. ‘Can’t believe I can still be jealous at this age.’
After Fierce Bull fled, the Demon soldiers in Hero City started to retreat out of the city. After clearing them out to the last one, Bai Xiaosheng gathered the remaining players and found that there were only less than 3000.
In the beginning, Bai Xiaosheng arranged for about 20,000 players, the guild masters each brought several hundred to a thousand, which amounted to over 10,000 in total. Yet, there was currently less than one-tenth remaining. One could imagine how fierce the battle had been.
Fortunately, those who died could respawn at the Death Altar and run back to help defend the city. Otherwise, they could just stop struggling, because a force less than 3000 versus the Demon army equaled a definite loss.
However, Zhang Feihu was obviously displeased with the dark-attribute players. Before Bai Xiaosheng could say anything, he swung his blade and cut several of them in half, killing them all over again.
“General Zhang, they were all forced to be converted. They are still outstanding citizens of our Xuanhuang Ancient Country. Without them, we couldn’t have reclaimed Hero City,” Bai Xiaosheng hurriedly explained.
Hearing this, Zhang Feihu’s eyes flickered a little before he retreated behind without a word.
When the dead players resurrected and returned, Bai Xiaosheng began to assign them to defensive positions. After assembling over 20,000 players as well as several units of NPC troops, they barely covered the four walls.
As for the damaged or collapsed gates and walls, they were temporarily fixed with the earth mages’ magic.
“Attention, here they come!” Just when they were still hoping for more players to arrive, the rogue scouts everywhere sent messages informing of the arrival of the Demon army.
The first wave was a group of skeletons. It was curious how these short-armed short-legged wobbly fellows ran so fast, the players simply stood still waiting for them to arrive.
“Watch out, they are level 60 demonized skeletons.” A rogue cast Rogue’s Eye and quickly reported the skeletons’ details.
“Whoever died here, whether from the human or demon army, weren’t weaklings. In a group, even the lowest rank of soldiers can be a headache. Gather all the mages and try to kill them all from a distance,” Bai Xiaosheng said.
Luckily, the players had several hundred mages who survived since they had been the priority targets for protection in any team. Bai Xiaosheng sent all of the mages to the eastern wall which was the main side of the city and also the focus of the siege.
Spells fell like rain, reaping the lives of the demonized skeletons like sickle reaping wheat. The mages’ AoE attacks were the most suitable against these low defense and low HP creatures, but the number of mages was too few. Despite everyone attacking with all their might, two-thirds of the skeletons arrived at the wall.
“Go, kill with your lives on the line!” Bai Xiaosheng ordered.
The gates opened and the players rushed out. Some directly jumped off the wall into the skeleton herd.
These skeletons were just perfect grinding targets for the current players. Everyone had no scruples about putting their skills into practice.
Whoosh! A golden halo descended. Fatty rose another level and was now 57, one step closer to the 6th enhancement.
Golden halos fell one after another. After fighting so many days in Heavens Scar, most players had reached the point where they only needed a bit more experience to level. However, many also had already lost one or two levels already, so this one level was only a little consolation.
Over a hundred thousand skeletons was an easy source of experience for the players. However, as the saying went, when there were enough ants, they could kill an elephant. This many skeletons posed a certain threat to the players. Often, there were players being swept into a bunch of skeletons where they were ganged up on and killed. Moreover, unlike the warrior skeletons at the front, the mage and archer skeletons appearing at the rear were much more dangerous. After roughly a hundred players died, everyone retreated into the city and let the long-range classes bombard the skeletons.
This defense battle was on an entirely different level compared to a newly-established base siege where a wave only came after the previous one was annihilated. This time, the players had to defend the city for ten full hours against demonic creatures who kept coming. If they didn’t hurry and finish off this wave, it would add a burden to the next one.
After throwing in their best for nearly an hour, when the second wave started to appear on the horizon, the players finally wiped out the majority of demonized skeletons, leaving only a few fish who had slipped through the net, but it didn’t matter.
“Only nine hours to go. Persevere, everyone!” Bai Xiaosheng encouraged.
The second wave was made up of a kind of Demonic tiger with strange and complicated magic patterns on their skin and black miasma flowing out from their bodies. It was quite an eerie sight to behold when tens of thousands of Demonic tigers bubbled up from within a soundlessly advancing, big, black, smoky mass.
“The Demon race are all these kinds of Demonic creatures? No humanoids?” Fatty asked.
“In the Demon realm, humanoid demons belong to the high-class races. At the beginning of every battle, they always send out creatures like these tigers to be cannon fodder.” It was surprisingly Zhang Feihu who answered Fatty’s question.
Since they had been too pressed for time to remember to setup traps outside the city, the tigers smoothly approached the wall and paused outside the attack range.
Woooo… A long horn sounded. The Demonic Tigers roared unison and raced towards the wall.
“Prepare to attack!” Bai Xiaosheng shouted.
The players on the wall were a bit nervous. Anyone would be when facing so many Demonic tigers coming at them all at once. Compared to the demonized skeletons, the tigers looked much more intimidating.
“Kill!” Once the tigers entered the attack range, the archers were the first to fire, then the mages with their spells, and lastly the other classes with their limited long-range skills.
“Graaawgh!” When the players attacked them, the Demonic tigers also retaliated. Their method was direct and simple, that was, they spat out bowl-sized black fireballs at the wall.
Being bombarded by tens of thousands of Demonic tigers at once, the wall shook, but just a little. If anything, it was still a main city wall. The wall only lost a layer, which peeled off after being burned to a crisp without further damage, making the players’ hearts skip a beat in terror.
Compared to the demonized skeletons, the Demonic tigers possessed much higher defense and attack. The players held no advantage over them attacking from a distance, especially when they were so pressed for time. After an impromptu discussion, everyone decided upon opening the gate and sending out the melee players, which inevitably led to a vicious fight. A thousand players died before the second wave ended.
The third wave was actually maneater flowers, a magic flower that relied on their sharp teeth and venom. Upon arriving at the wall, they spewed thick masses of corrosive mucus. And then sizzles were heard as smoke rose, and big holes appeared on the wall.
“What a shame I have no fire magic.” Fatty glanced at the Elemental Skill Book. He had pretty much all water magic thanks to the Water God’s Mystery Codex, but fire was still the most effective when dealing with wood monsters like these flowers.
