1530

I brought up my map screen and confirmed the coordinates of the 7 Dragon Cannons. Then, I drew a 1,000-yard radius circle around each coordinate. After confirming that I hadn’t missed anything, I turned around and said to Lin Yixin, Stranger of Three Lifetimes, and Luo River God of the Capital, "Give me permission to share stuff with your guild, you all!"

"Why?" Stranger of Three Lifetimes asked.

"You’ll know once you give me the permission."

"Shameless…"

After I obtained all the necessary permissions, I opened the system tools and shared the image I had created with everyone. Seven towering red circles immediately appeared around the vast canyon in front of us.

I said with a smile, "The red zones represent the Dragon Cannons’ attack range. When we launch our attack later, simply bait the NPC soldiers out of the zone and kill them. After that, we will slip into the red zones and destroy the Dragon Cannons one by one. Our losses will be a lot smaller this way…"

Purple Marquis’s eyes widened. "What the fuck… How did we not think about this earlier?"

Lin Yixin curled her lips. "I forgot because I was too hasty[1]…"

Nangong Lexi: "..."

……

I pointed the Xuanyuan Sword toward the front and declared, "Alright, we can begin our assault now. First things first, let’s take out the NPC army. That Ancient Immortal Rank Wind Armor is going to be a problem, but that’s fine. We can kill him with sheer numbers!"

Xu Yang asked, "Lu Chen, a lot of Swallow Ear Canton players are trying to enter the canyon. They’re probably here to save the Dragon Cannons. What should we do? Red Maple is with them as well…"

"Who wants to stall Red Maple?" I asked.

"Most people won’t be able to do it…" He Yi hit the nail on the head.

Li Chengfeng hesitated for a moment before raising his Cyan Peak Halberd. "I’ll go. I know Red Maple’s style well, and his equipment is still warm inside my bag. I will need Lu Buyi to support me with Purple Dragon though. Otherwise, I don’t think I can challenge Red Maple, Cyan Frost and Purple Thunder alone."

"Alright, Chengfeng and Lu Buyi will guard the canyon entrance with 50k players. Whatever you do, keep them busy for 2 to 3 hours. The battle should be over by then."

"Mn!"

Li Chengfeng turned away and left.

Suddenly, Luo River God of the Capital spoke up, "By the way…"

"Yes, Sister Wang Luo?" He Yi asked.

The divine mage pursed her lips before continuing, "I just want to say it’s really ungenerous and unusual that Candle Dragon, Warsky Alliance, Pop Culture, Flower Room, Hall of Immortality and more haven’t made a peep even though it had been a while since we engaged Swallow Ear Canton. There’s no way they haven’t heard about our war by now, right?"

I gritted my teeth. "Forget them. This war started from our quest after all. Perhaps Candle Dragon and Warsky Alliance think that it’s more appropriate if they stay out of our business. It doesn’t matter anyway. We can’t always rely on others to help us, and why should we when we can win this war by ourselves?"

Wang Luo nodded. "I’m not saying that we need their strength to win this war. I just think that it’s really ungenerous of them to not even ask how we’re doing. If they were the ones fighting this war, I’m sure Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls would’ve ridden to their rescue, right?"

"Stop troubling yourself with such trifles and focus on the NPCs in front of you. These ones give experience, you know…"

"Fine, you simple-minded boy. If nothing else, you lead a freer life than most…"

Me: "..."

……

He Yi pointed her sword forward and declared, "Kill!"

The Dragonlight Cavalry immediately dashed forward and engaged the NPC cavalrymen. An instant later, the archers and mages’ attacks landed and dealt massive damage to the enemy. Lin Yixin’s Dragon Punisher Archers especially managed to stun most of the NPCs they were targeting thanks to their incredible stun rate.

Right behind the first battle line was Lian Xin and Beiming Xue. Standing side-by-side with each other, they single-handedly created one of the strongest offensive walls of firepower on the battlefield. Not even the ancient NPCs could withstand their combined might and died in droves. It was unfortunate that there weren’t enough to bump their experience bars into the next level though…

"You are courting death!"

Wind Armor leaped into a group of Dragonlight Cavalrymen and whipped his blade left and right three times in a row. He did 12 million damage in total and one-shot 5 Dragonlight Cavalrymen instantly. The level disparity was just too huge, and their equipment wasn't particularly powerful. Naturally, they were unable to survive the attack of the Level 330 Ancient Immortal Rank boss!

"Damn, as expected of a Level 330 boss…" Purple Marquis commented with a laugh.

I tossed my sword at the boss and dealt over 2 million damage to him with Coiling Dragon Revolution, seizing the aggro. Then, I yelled, "Yiyi, Beiming, Eve, Little Xin, let’s take out the NPC commander first. Sis and Moon Dew, I’m tanking the boss, so keep me healed…"

Thunderous Charge!

Swhoosh!

The basic skill was able to stun Wind Armor because he wasn’t a Divine Rank boss. A Burning Blade Slash and War Crush combo later, Wind Armor roared in fury and attempted to retaliate. However, Beiming Xue’s Shock Arrow stunned him just in time to cancel the attack. Lin Yixin also cast Thundercloud Storm that darkened the skies and ravaged the boss and the NPCs around him.

"Dragon Punisher Archers, focus-fire the boss! Let’s see how quickly we can kill this fucker!" Lin Yixin ordered while dishing out Triple Slash.

Lian Xin also said, "Holy Mages, give the Japan server NPCs a taste of your Touch of the Dragonkiss, will you?"

There was only one possible outcome that could come from being attacked by the two ace legions: a swift death.

Not only was poor Wind Armor bogged down by me, I even managed to immobilize him once with the God Binding Art. As a result, he ate a ton of Armor Breaking Arrows and Touches of the Dragonkiss and lost HP like crazy—

82,736!

47,599!

56,298!

……

Everyone could pierce the boss's Defense after I had reduced it with Purple Frost Concentration. The weaker attacks dealt tens of thousands of damage, and the stronger ones dealt hundreds of thousands or even millions of damage. As a result, Wind Armor’s HP went from a hundred to zero in less than a minute!

"Damn you! My regent will take revenge from me! My distant brothers will kill you and wipe this shame from my history! Just you wait!"

Wind Armor dropped dead after making his threat. While I was pulling out my sword, I thanked Lady Luck for allowing me to score the last hit and net a sizable amount of experience…

For an enemy NPC, Wind Armor generously dropped us 3 pieces of Ancient Immortal-grade equipment that I split among my and Snowy Cathaya’s players. The NPC wasn’t our focus, however. As we marched forward like an unstoppable tidal wave, we saw plenty of Japanese players flooding in from the mountains to protect the Dragon Cannons. I had no doubt that the upcoming battle would be a bloody one.

……

Half an hour later, we took out all the NPCs beyond the range of the Dragon Cannons. Wind Armor and his hundreds of thousands of NPC soldiers had become our experience as well. Wind Armor himself hadn’t managed to survive a minute, so his subordinates could only do worse.

"How should we fight this?" Lin Yixin asked.

I pointed to the left and said, "Yiyi, take your men and take out the Dragon Cannon over there. Sister Wang Luo, you get the one after that. Momo will go for that Dragon Cannon over there, and Ling Xueshang that one. Ancient Sword will handle the remaining three. Oh, but remember to avoid the areas where the Dragon Cannons’ attack range overlap with one another, okay? You WILL die a horrible death!"

"We know…" the girls responded palely. They had all witnessed the power of the Dragon Cannon.

……

The guilds broke up, leaving only 200k Ancient Sword players at the center of the canyon. I shot them a glance before raising my hand and shouting, "Spread out and push toward the first Dragon Canyon like a pincer! Frontliners, try not to stay too close to each other! Our ranged players will kill the enemies blocking your way, so just focus on staying alive and pushing forward. High-level tacticians, buff our Dragonlight Archers with the Range stratagem. It should give them a basic attack range of 500 yards, and with Far Shot that is over 800 yards! Again, we’ll push forward slowly, safely and methodically! Understand?"

"Understood! Let’s go!" Gui Guzi responded excitedly.

Du Thirteen asked me from atop his Dragonscale Beast, "Should we ride with you, Lu Chen?"

I thought for a moment but shook my head. "No, no. You see my CGL Hall of Fame and WEL MVP emblems? I stand out like a sore thumb, so they’ll definitely focus me with the Dragon Cannon. In other words, you guys should swarm them from the other directions while I distract them…"

He Yi giggled. "You’re like a walking warning sign, Lu Chen."

"Pretty much, yeah. Alright, let’s begin the assault! Remember, don’t stay too close to each other! I will laugh at you later if the enemy manages to catch you all in one group!"

We departed toward the first coordinate amid a chorus of hearty laughter. Not long after we entered the red zone, we saw the Dragon Cannon just 800 meters away from us. The Dragon Cannon couldn’t move because its wheels were still being built, but it could swivel around and attack. It was also surrounded by a ton of players and NPCs. I couldn’t help but miss Lin Yixin’s presence at that moment. If she was here, we could’ve cast Thundercloud Storm + Xuanyuan Art combo. We could’ve easily deleted 10,000 players from the surface of the map!

……

I flew up until I was several hundred meters in the sky. Then, after He Yi, Gui Guzi, Du Thirteen, Xu Yang and more began their charge, I dove straight toward Dragon Cannon!

Swhoosh!

I moved so fast that no one was able to react in time when my sword struck the Dragon Cannon. Without pause, I cast Xuanyuan Art and removed 70% of everyone’s HP within 1,000 yards of me. The enemy priests looked at the impossible homework I gave them and nearly burst into tears.

Next, I executed Summon the Storm + Myriad Swords Obliteration combo and dropped a ton of Ancient Seals all around me. Over a thousand of players were dead just like that, and no one close to the Dragon Cannon was alive.

Meanwhile, Gui Guzi was clearing out an area with Hundred Ghosts Descent, and He Yi was using her Stormwind Slash to clear out large swathes of enemies as well. It was common sense to beat your enemy when they were down, and these NPCs and players only had 30% HP left. There was no chance they were ever going to survive this!

……

Creak…

The Dragon Cannon slowly turned toward a group of Dragonlight Cavalrymen and blasted at least dozens of them into smithereens. The more I saw the damned siege weapon in action, the more terrified of it I became. We absolutely couldn’t allow this siege weapon to leave this canyon, or it would only take two shots at most for it to destroy the iron gates of Sky City!

1. E/N: While it is a cardinal sin to not think of just luring mobs out of the effective range of the cannons, the other sound strategy would be to rush them while Ancient Sword is fighting the elites. But they should have scrapped that idea the second they realized NPC legions were even stronger than the players ☜

I brought up my map screen and confirmed the coordinates of the 7 Dragon Cannons. Then, I drew a 1,000-yard radius circle around each coordinate. After confirming that I hadn’t missed anything, I turned around and said to Lin Yixin, Stranger of Three Lifetimes, and Luo River God of the Capital, "Give me permission to share stuff with your guild, you all!"

"Why?" Stranger of Three Lifetimes asked.

"You’ll know once you give me the permission."

"Shameless…"

After I obtained all the necessary permissions, I opened the system tools and shared the image I had created with everyone. Seven towering red circles immediately appeared around the vast canyon in front of us.

I said with a smile, "The red zones represent the Dragon Cannons’ attack range. When we launch our attack later, simply bait the NPC soldiers out of the zone and kill them. After that, we will slip into the red zones and destroy the Dragon Cannons one by one. Our losses will be a lot smaller this way…"

Purple Marquis’s eyes widened. "What the fuck… How did we not think about this earlier?"

Lin Yixin curled her lips. "I forgot because I was too hasty[1]…"

Nangong Lexi: "..."

……

I pointed the Xuanyuan Sword toward the front and declared, "Alright, we can begin our assault now. First things first, let’s take out the NPC army. That Ancient Immortal Rank Wind Armor is going to be a problem, but that’s fine. We can kill him with sheer numbers!"

Xu Yang asked, "Lu Chen, a lot of Swallow Ear Canton players are trying to enter the canyon. They’re probably here to save the Dragon Cannons. What should we do? Red Maple is with them as well…"

"Who wants to stall Red Maple?" I asked.

"Most people won’t be able to do it…" He Yi hit the nail on the head.

Li Chengfeng hesitated for a moment before raising his Cyan Peak Halberd. "I’ll go. I know Red Maple’s style well, and his equipment is still warm inside my bag. I will need Lu Buyi to support me with Purple Dragon though. Otherwise, I don’t think I can challenge Red Maple, Cyan Frost and Purple Thunder alone."

"Alright, Chengfeng and Lu Buyi will guard the canyon entrance with 50k players. Whatever you do, keep them busy for 2 to 3 hours. The battle should be over by then."

"Mn!"

Li Chengfeng turned away and left.

Suddenly, Luo River God of the Capital spoke up, "By the way…"

"Yes, Sister Wang Luo?" He Yi asked.

The divine mage pursed her lips before continuing, "I just want to say it’s really ungenerous and unusual that Candle Dragon, Warsky Alliance, Pop Culture, Flower Room, Hall of Immortality and more haven’t made a peep even though it had been a while since we engaged Swallow Ear Canton. There’s no way they haven’t heard about our war by now, right?"

I gritted my teeth. "Forget them. This war started from our quest after all. Perhaps Candle Dragon and Warsky Alliance think that it’s more appropriate if they stay out of our business. It doesn’t matter anyway. We can’t always rely on others to help us, and why should we when we can win this war by ourselves?"

Wang Luo nodded. "I’m not saying that we need their strength to win this war. I just think that it’s really ungenerous of them to not even ask how we’re doing. If they were the ones fighting this war, I’m sure Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls would’ve ridden to their rescue, right?"

"Stop troubling yourself with such trifles and focus on the NPCs in front of you. These ones give experience, you know…"

"Fine, you simple-minded boy. If nothing else, you lead a freer life than most…"

Me: "..."

……

He Yi pointed her sword forward and declared, "Kill!"

The Dragonlight Cavalry immediately dashed forward and engaged the NPC cavalrymen. An instant later, the archers and mages’ attacks landed and dealt massive damage to the enemy. Lin Yixin’s Dragon Punisher Archers especially managed to stun most of the NPCs they were targeting thanks to their incredible stun rate.

Right behind the first battle line was Lian Xin and Beiming Xue. Standing side-by-side with each other, they single-handedly created one of the strongest offensive walls of firepower on the battlefield. Not even the ancient NPCs could withstand their combined might and died in droves. It was unfortunate that there weren’t enough to bump their experience bars into the next level though…

"You are courting death!"

Wind Armor leaped into a group of Dragonlight Cavalrymen and whipped his blade left and right three times in a row. He did 12 million damage in total and one-shot 5 Dragonlight Cavalrymen instantly. The level disparity was just too huge, and their equipment wasn't particularly powerful. Naturally, they were unable to survive the attack of the Level 330 Ancient Immortal Rank boss!

"Damn, as expected of a Level 330 boss…" Purple Marquis commented with a laugh.

I tossed my sword at the boss and dealt over 2 million damage to him with Coiling Dragon Revolution, seizing the aggro. Then, I yelled, "Yiyi, Beiming, Eve, Little Xin, let’s take out the NPC commander first. Sis and Moon Dew, I’m tanking the boss, so keep me healed…"

Thunderous Charge!

Swhoosh!

The basic skill was able to stun Wind Armor because he wasn’t a Divine Rank boss. A Burning Blade Slash and War Crush combo later, Wind Armor roared in fury and attempted to retaliate. However, Beiming Xue’s Shock Arrow stunned him just in time to cancel the attack. Lin Yixin also cast Thundercloud Storm that darkened the skies and ravaged the boss and the NPCs around him.

"Dragon Punisher Archers, focus-fire the boss! Let’s see how quickly we can kill this fucker!" Lin Yixin ordered while dishing out Triple Slash.

Lian Xin also said, "Holy Mages, give the Japan server NPCs a taste of your Touch of the Dragonkiss, will you?"

There was only one possible outcome that could come from being attacked by the two ace legions: a swift death.

Not only was poor Wind Armor bogged down by me, I even managed to immobilize him once with the God Binding Art. As a result, he ate a ton of Armor Breaking Arrows and Touches of the Dragonkiss and lost HP like crazy—

82,736!

47,599!

56,298!

……

Everyone could pierce the boss's Defense after I had reduced it with Purple Frost Concentration. The weaker attacks dealt tens of thousands of damage, and the stronger ones dealt hundreds of thousands or even millions of damage. As a result, Wind Armor’s HP went from a hundred to zero in less than a minute!

"Damn you! My regent will take revenge from me! My distant brothers will kill you and wipe this shame from my history! Just you wait!"

Wind Armor dropped dead after making his threat. While I was pulling out my sword, I thanked Lady Luck for allowing me to score the last hit and net a sizable amount of experience…

For an enemy NPC, Wind Armor generously dropped us 3 pieces of Ancient Immortal-grade equipment that I split among my and Snowy Cathaya’s players. The NPC wasn’t our focus, however. As we marched forward like an unstoppable tidal wave, we saw plenty of Japanese players flooding in from the mountains to protect the Dragon Cannons. I had no doubt that the upcoming battle would be a bloody one.

……

Half an hour later, we took out all the NPCs beyond the range of the Dragon Cannons. Wind Armor and his hundreds of thousands of NPC soldiers had become our experience as well. Wind Armor himself hadn’t managed to survive a minute, so his subordinates could only do worse.

"How should we fight this?" Lin Yixin asked.

I pointed to the left and said, "Yiyi, take your men and take out the Dragon Cannon over there. Sister Wang Luo, you get the one after that. Momo will go for that Dragon Cannon over there, and Ling Xueshang that one. Ancient Sword will handle the remaining three. Oh, but remember to avoid the areas where the Dragon Cannons’ attack range overlap with one another, okay? You WILL die a horrible death!"

"We know…" the girls responded palely. They had all witnessed the power of the Dragon Cannon.

……

The guilds broke up, leaving only 200k Ancient Sword players at the center of the canyon. I shot them a glance before raising my hand and shouting, "Spread out and push toward the first Dragon Canyon like a pincer! Frontliners, try not to stay too close to each other! Our ranged players will kill the enemies blocking your way, so just focus on staying alive and pushing forward. High-level tacticians, buff our Dragonlight Archers with the Range stratagem. It should give them a basic attack range of 500 yards, and with Far Shot that is over 800 yards! Again, we’ll push forward slowly, safely and methodically! Understand?"

"Understood! Let’s go!" Gui Guzi responded excitedly.

Du Thirteen asked me from atop his Dragonscale Beast, "Should we ride with you, Lu Chen?"

I thought for a moment but shook my head. "No, no. You see my CGL Hall of Fame and WEL MVP emblems? I stand out like a sore thumb, so they’ll definitely focus me with the Dragon Cannon. In other words, you guys should swarm them from the other directions while I distract them…"

He Yi giggled. "You’re like a walking warning sign, Lu Chen."

"Pretty much, yeah. Alright, let’s begin the assault! Remember, don’t stay too close to each other! I will laugh at you later if the enemy manages to catch you all in one group!"

We departed toward the first coordinate amid a chorus of hearty laughter. Not long after we entered the red zone, we saw the Dragon Cannon just 800 meters away from us. The Dragon Cannon couldn’t move because its wheels were still being built, but it could swivel around and attack. It was also surrounded by a ton of players and NPCs. I couldn’t help but miss Lin Yixin’s presence at that moment. If she was here, we could’ve cast Thundercloud Storm + Xuanyuan Art combo. We could’ve easily deleted 10,000 players from the surface of the map!

……

I flew up until I was several hundred meters in the sky. Then, after He Yi, Gui Guzi, Du Thirteen, Xu Yang and more began their charge, I dove straight toward Dragon Cannon!

Swhoosh!

I moved so fast that no one was able to react in time when my sword struck the Dragon Cannon. Without pause, I cast Xuanyuan Art and removed 70% of everyone’s HP within 1,000 yards of me. The enemy priests looked at the impossible homework I gave them and nearly burst into tears.

Next, I executed Summon the Storm + Myriad Swords Obliteration combo and dropped a ton of Ancient Seals all around me. Over a thousand of players were dead just like that, and no one close to the Dragon Cannon was alive.

Meanwhile, Gui Guzi was clearing out an area with Hundred Ghosts Descent, and He Yi was using her Stormwind Slash to clear out large swathes of enemies as well. It was common sense to beat your enemy when they were down, and these NPCs and players only had 30% HP left. There was no chance they were ever going to survive this!

……

Creak…

The Dragon Cannon slowly turned toward a group of Dragonlight Cavalrymen and blasted at least dozens of them into smithereens. The more I saw the damned siege weapon in action, the more terrified of it I became. We absolutely couldn’t allow this siege weapon to leave this canyon, or it would only take two shots at most for it to destroy the iron gates of Sky City!

1. E/N: While it is a cardinal sin to not think of just luring mobs out of the effective range of the cannons, the other sound strategy would be to rush them while Ancient Sword is fighting the elites. But they should have scrapped that idea the second they realized NPC legions were even stronger than the players ☜