Chapter 765: Unexpected Loss
Bluemoon clenched her teeth and pulled on the trigger, tearing the corpse apart with a stream of metal and fire. This angry attack was a waste of good bullets, but she had nowhere else to vent otherwise.
Qianye instinctively concealed himself after ducking behind the wall. At this moment, his thoughts weren’t on the battlefield but rather, that woman. Every time, she would only appear for a brief moment, and her figure was fairly blurry. If it wasn’t for Qianye’s astonishing eyesight, there was simply no way to discover her existence.
The silhouette of her back gave Qianye a sense of familiarity, but she was otherwise a stranger to him. Qianye had a feeling that, under her calm exterior, was an indifferent disdain for all life—it was as if this person was a powerful entity from a different world.
When had such a powerful woman appeared in Port City? Qianye had thought of Nighteye at first but soon ruled-out this possibility. This person had a different temperament, and that godly marksmanship was also far above Nighteye’s, capable of suppressing anyone Qianye had ever seen. Even Zhao Jundu hadn’t reached this level.
Regardless, it was good news that such a person was willing to stand on their side. Qianye pushed away all distracting thoughts and locked onto a nearby armored warrior.
This warrior was surrounded by a dozen or so city-guard corpses. Without the restriction of those guards, the creature had started to turn its attention toward the surrounding citizens. It rampaged through the street block, smashing the frail buildings with its gigantic body. The civilians within quickly lost their hiding places and appeared in his vision.
The steel-armored soldier emitted a bloodthirsty roar as its axe danced about, cutting down all the civilians in its wake. The warrior seemed particularly fond of slaughter and would continue to butcher the corpses even after cutting down its targets.
Qianye’s expression turned gloomy. These monsters only revealed their slaughtering instincts after leaving the battlefield. If they were allowed to rampage through the city, one could very well imagine the fate of those residents after the city had fallen. Mobilizing such a weapon meant that the three powers had—contrary to the norms in the neutral lands—no intention of taking in the civilians of Port City.
Qianye arrived on the armored soldier’s back with a flicker and thrust East Peak into its neck, all the way to its hilt. The warrior erupted in a short roar but soon collapsed to the ground, never to move again.
This time, Qianye had decided to not hold back anymore.
It was at this moment that Su Dingqian’s voice echoed in the air, “Everyone, this matter is related to the continued existence of Port City. The enemy has no intention of leaving the civilians a path of survival. I implore you to assist me in a fight to the death. If only we can hold Port City, I will not hesitate to empty our coffers to reward everyone’s contributions.”
These words caused the eyes of many experts in the city to turn red. As the city lord, Su Dingqian must have accumulated a large amount of wealth over the decades. Even a small part of it was enough to help all these experts advance by a level, to speak nothing of the entire treasury. How could a divine champion go back on his words?
Qianye was also moved. The Dreameater Bug was something he needed urgently—Su Dingqian’s willingness to offer it to him meant that it wasn’t the most valuable item in his treasury. There might be better spirit-healing treasures among the products related to the Earth Dragon.
Despite knowing the dangers, Qianye decided to let loose and fight for the Dreameater Bug and other potential spirit-healing treasures.
There were quite a few people with the same thoughts. It could be said that there were some things for an independent expert that could only be chanced upon and not sought. Many were at their cultivation bottlenecks and required certain treasures to take the next step. The only way for them to obtain such resources was to look for them in a divine champion’s treasury.
Hence, many independent experts decided to go all out and fight this bloody war despite knowing the perils.
Qianye stopped a small unit of city guards who had just charged out of a street.
“Follow me.” Qianye pointed toward the side before proceeding to move out. The soldiers hesitated briefly before following suit—it was naturally best for them if they could follow an expert in this chaotic battle.
Two armored warriors appeared before Qianye after passing through the street block. He pounced forward without stopping and cut them down on the spot. The soldiers crowded over from behind and, under Qianye’s instructions, stabbed at the wound with their long spears, completely annihilating the enemy soldier’s vitality.
A fair number of scattered city guards began to follow him during the long raid, and soon, there was a hundred-man team behind him. At this point, Qianye would critically injure the armored soldiers with one slash and allow the soldiers behind him to finish them off.
Under the assault of dozens of spears, the steel-armored creatures quickly turned into corpses despite their powerful vitality.
This method was effective in preserving Qianye’s origin power. As more and more soldiers gathered behind him, they became the main fighting force of that city block. With enough followers to guard his flanks and clean up the battlefield, his assault became even more efficient. He would usually leave individual foot soldiers to the troops behind him and only took action to scatter the well-organized units in their way. The duty of hunting down survivors after that was delegated to others.
Within a short period, dozens more armored soldiers had fallen to Qianye’s blade.
On the Spider Emperor’s ship, the masked man stood up all of a sudden. “Why are the puppet warrior casualty rates so high!?”
In front of him, a vampire officer was lying on the ground after concluding the latest battle report. The furious masked man’s suppressive might had pressed the viscount to the floor, his bones creaking and groaning, unable to utter a single word.
Just the invisible pressure alone had rendered a vampire viscount entirely helpless. All of the Spider Emperor’s generals were filled with dread upon seeing the masked man’s strength.
The latter eventually withdrew his aura after realizing that his target could no longer speak.
The viscount didn’t dare to activate his blood energy and heal his injury. “This lowly one doesn’t dare to lie. A large number of connection signals have indeed disappeared, over three hundred and eighty during the last count. Now… now…”
He didn’t continue speaking, but the meaning in his words was clear. More puppet warriors had died during this period.
The command room was deathly silent. Everyone here knew that the puppet soldier was a secret weapon of the Moonlight Demons, and their power was already evident during the assault on the city. They had first estimated a loss of about two hundred of these soldiers in total, but now, they had actually lost twice the amount when the battle had just begun. The outcome of the battle was far from decided, so how could the masked man be in a good mood?
The commander seemed to have realized that being angry was useless. He returned to his seat and sat down with his eyes closed. Moments later, he said, “Where is the Wolf King’s representative? It’s time for them to attack.”
The werewolf’s expression changed drastically. “Sire, this isn’t what we planned? Your puppet soldiers have charged deep into the city, and they have no distinction between friend and foe. Sending our troops in at this time will result in grave casualties.”
Those steel-armored warriors would massacre all living things apart from their own kind. Hence, there were no other troops near their formation. Ordinary soldiers were transported by airship and only entered the city after the creatures had gone in.
The lips on the commander’s mask actually curved upward into a cold smile. He said slowly, “The old spider has lost a warbeast, and my puppet warriors are suffering heavy casualties. So what if some of your troops die? Your tribesmen aren’t worth much anyway. You can use the dead as fertilizer.”
The werewolf general’s lips moved somewhat, hoping to argue his case. But the masked man turned about at this moment. His cold gaze fell onto the wolf’s body as he said in a cold voice, “If you move out now, I can ignore whether the soldiers you send are humans or werewolves, but if you must wait until the agreed moment, your Second Werewolf Corps can forget about resting. All of them will have to enter the city.”
The werewolf general’s words were stuck in his throat. He could only bow, saying, “I’ll go and arrange the assault."
The second werewolf corps was one of the best legions under the Wolf King, and its officers were all werewolves. It could be considered a private army of his tribe. The Wolf King wouldn’t feel very pained at losing other troops, but the casualties inflicted on the first and second werewolf corps would consist only of the Wolf King’s tribesmen.
No matter how well-trained the corps were, they were still made of flesh and would suffer all the same around those puppet warriors. Hence, despite the unwillingness, that werewolf general had no choice but to leave the cabin and issue the command to attack.
The heavy transports roaming around the battlefield started to land, pouring tens of thousands of soldiers into the battlefield. These troops all surged into Port City like the raging tides.
Within the city, Qianye felt a sudden increase in pressure as a constant stream of enemy soldiers appeared around him. Fortunately, he had rounded up a sizeable band of city guards and civilians, forming a stable battlefront under the cover of the complicated landscape.
However, the enemy numbers were simply too great—a new wave would appear after killing one off. The defensive line Qianye had built up with great difficulty was soon tottering on the verge of collapse. On several occasions, Qianye had to personally kill the enemy officer in order to stabilize the situation.
Just as Qianye was hesitating whether or not to massacre these ordinary soldiers, one of the nearby buildings burst apart and the heavily armored Bluemoon charged out like a god of death.
Qianye’s eyes lit up—Highbeards were the best killing weapons on the battlefield, most suitable for mowing down large numbers of cannon fodder.
“This way!” Qianye shouted.
Bluemoon also noticed Qianye and the defensive line behind him. She rushed over toward him, crying, “I have some trouble behind me, I’ll leave them to you.”
Soon, a dozen or so steel-armored warriors came into view.