Chapter 1438: 99.98% Casualty Rate
Chapter 1438: 99.98% Casualty Rate
Three seconds later, all 2,000 Dragonlight Cavalrymen entered the mobs’ attack range and began losing HP at a drastic rate. To say that the Dark Archers nearly shattered everyone’s confidence with their arrows would be an understatement. The Dragonlight Cavalry was easily the tankiest cavalrymen of all the servers, and they still couldn’t endure the attack without aid. Worse, we hadn’t even gotten close enough to be blasted by the miniboss Rank Dark Magi on the walls yet! Speaking of which…
"Here comes the Galaxy Storms! Holy Shield now!" He Yi ordered urgently.
Unless, the order was just a tad too late. Four Galaxy Storms erupted among a group of 100 Dragonlight Cavalrymen and killed them all. Not only that, Galaxy Storm had a pretty big range, so hundreds more Dragonlight Cavalrymen dropped to red health as well.
Without hesitation, Gui Guzi raised his Ghostblade Halberd and activated Shennong Tastes Grass. It healed countless people for 75% HP and pulled them away from the brink of death.
……
However, our short-lived joy didn’t even last longer than the blink of an eye. Another barrage of Galaxy Storms and Skypiercers instantly dropped everyone to low health once more. I hadn’t expected the Dark Archers to know Skypiercer, and this was a threat that could potentially end our march right here. The mobs’ single-target DPS was already sitting at 200k or so, but add AoE skills into the mix and that was almost 500k per second. No one could survive this much HP loss!
"This won’t do. I’m leaving to aggro the enemy!"
I abruptly left my guild’s battle line and zoomed all the way to the walls. Then, I made the Ancient Divine Dragon fly up to the edge, fired 11 Ancient Seals in a row, and froze a ton of archers and mages with Cold of the Nine Provinces. Before I could beat a swift retreat, hundreds of arrows struck me in quick succession!
Bang!
I shuddered violently and lost both my Battle Astral Wind and a ton of HP. These mobs were really hitting a bit too hard, weren’t they?
The Ancient Divine Dragon howled in pain as it rolled off the edge of the wall. Midway, I noticed that practically all of my Dragonlight Cavalrymen were below 50% HP and didn’t hesitate to cast Xuanyuan Art!
Everyone was healed for 50% HP!
Meanwhile, He Yi, Li Chengfeng, Gui Guzi and a couple more players finally made it to the foot of the walls. A bunch of half-health Dragonlight Cavalrymen and engineers had made it as well. A great number of archers immediately bent over the wall to look at them, aimed their arrows and killed a couple of Dragonlight Cavalrymen.
Pissed off, I threw my Chill of the Nine Provinces at them using Coiling Dragon Revolution. Since I was targeting their heads, the skill dealt over one million damage to each Dark Archer and killed dozens.
……
"We reached the walls!"
Another group of low-health Dragonlight Cavalrymen reached the walls, and High Fighting Spirits was standing among them. While gripping the Boneslayer, he boomed with a hearty chuckle, "Finally! Now get the cloud ladders on the walls already! I can’t wait to get up there and kill some undead!"
However, a beautiful engineer rolled her eyes at him and said, "It takes at least 30 seconds of casting to build a cloud ladder, you know? Plus, do I look like I have the arm strength to throw an entire cloud ladder against the wall like a guy?"
High Fighting Spirits scratched his head with an embarrassed smile. "I don’t know about the details because I’ve never played the Engineer class before. Thanks for your hard work…"
He then raised his axe protectively in front of himself and blocked in front of the female engineer. The scene put a wide smile on my face as I said to He Yi, "Look, I think our Fighting Spirits has found a lady!"
He Yi burst into a giggle. "I wonder if Fighting Spirits will be the dominant one if they do get into a relationship?"
Chaos Moon responded, "That’s not a problem. Lu Chen gets bullied by Beautiful Little Pepper all the time, but they’re as close as they could ever be, aren’t they?"
Me: "..."
Not far away, a blushing Lin Yixin was standing in front of a middle-aged engineer and protecting him from the volleys as well.
Xu Yang calculated while gripping his new Omnislash. "OMG, I’ve always thought that we’re OP as fuck, but of the 2,000 brothers and sisters who braved the firing line, less than 500 actually made it alive. If even the Dragonlight Cavalry are sustaining this level of casualties, I cannot imagine how the other guilds are doing…"
I replied smilingly, "Yeah, the first charge is usually the hardest. When we’ve climbed up the cloud ladders and distracted the mobs, it’ll become much, much easier for the rest of our players to get over."
Xu Yang nodded strongly. "Yeah. Let’s set up the cloud ladders as soon as possible!"
……
One by one, the cloud ladders were slowly propped up against the walls. The engineer class was quite the odd class compared to most classes. Normally, it was so unpopular that no one would even ask them to go on a grind. When there was a siege though, engineers immediately became one of the most popular classes in the game. It was why master engineers were normally employed by large guilds and fed a ton of materials to improve their construction skills. In fact, most players simply didn’t possess the strength or the capital to improve their skills without the support of a large guild.
I glanced to my left and right. Warsky Alliance was one of the guilds who were sieging the walls beside us, and I counted around 50 Gold Cavalrymen standing at the bottom of the wall and blocking the Dark Archers’ attacks. Warsky was standing there with this odd expression on his face when he suddenly erupted like a volcano, "Are you kidding me? We were 5,000 strong when we charged the walls, and only 40 or so frontliners and 7 engineers managed to make it to the walls? This is a total scam!"
However, Laughing At The Heavens said with a grin, "That’s pretty good actually…"
"Are you seriously telling me that a casualty rate of 99% is good?"
"Really. Just look at Candle Dragon. Candlelight Shadow was charging the walls with 4,000 + Qiu Beast Cavalry, but only Candlelight Shadow managed to make it back to his people. That’s like a 99.98% casualty ratio. Doesn’t that prove that we’re doing way better than they are?"
Warsky felt a bit better until he looked in our direction and turned purple once more. "I cannot believe it. How did Ancient Sword manage to deliver a thousand players to the foot of the walls?"
Laughing At The Heavens shrugged. "They have the Quasi Immortal Rank Boss mounts, the Dragonscale Beasts, which we don’t have. They have Lu Buyi to buff everyone’s stats by 150%, which we also don’t have. Finally, they have Lu Chen’s Xuanyuan Art to heal them for 50% HP, and Gui Guzi’s Shennong Tastes Grass for 75% HP, which we also don’t have, and…"
Warsky corrected him, "Actually, the Xuanyuan Art and Shennong Tastes Grass healed us too. You didn’t really think we could get 50 men to the walls without them, did you?"
Laughing At The Heavens: "..."
……
Despite the ridiculous casualty rate, Cyan Earth City, Elephant City, Swallow Ear Canton, Iron Horse City and more continued to hurl players at the walls like their lives didn’t matter one bit. For one, it would be plain embarrassing if a top guild couldn’t even scale the walls of an NPC city. Two, this was a race to see who could scale the walls first and potentially make it on the homepage of Heavenblessed official website tomorrow. These days, a good reputation could be traded for RMB and pretty gals…
Thud thud thud…
It wasn’t long before hundreds of cloud ladders were propped against the icy walls. Sainthelm Ruins was a tier one city, meaning that it took about 60 seconds to scale to the top. It would literally be an uphill battle to make it up there, but if we faltered now then we would never be able to suppress their firepower.
"So, how are we going to do this?" Lin Yixin asked.
Purple Marquis answered, "How else? We climb the ladders and show them who’s boss."
I said, "Wait. Tell your players to charge at full speed after we climbed the walls and drew the mobs’ attention. Hopefully, we’ll be able to storm this section of the wall in one go. Also, don’t forget to escort the priests and the bards. Without healing, it is all too easy to die from the mobs’ attacks. We’ll climb the cloud ladders in three minutes, okay?"
Lin Yixin nodded affirmatively.
Very soon, the Dragonlight Cavalry and Kui Dragon Cavalry waiting beyond the firing line were ready. After empowering myself with Fusion Armor, I grabbed a rung and said, "Alright, let’s go! All players who are confident they can survive at least one full volley from the archers, follow me! When we get close enough, don’t hesitate to use your most powerful combos! If we don’t hit the archers hard enough to one-shot them, you and your friends are the one who’ll suffer, get it?"
Everyone nodded. Chaos Moon, High Fighting Spirits, Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun, Heaven’s Rain, Xu Yang and more all went to a cloud ladder of their own.
Swhoosh swhoosh swhoosh…
There was no such thing as a clumsy player if they managed to make it to the top of a major guild, and I was of course the most agile of them all. After I protected myself with Battle Astral Wind and readied myself to activate my invincibility shield at a moment’s notice, I immediately started sprinting up the rungs. When we were about midway up the wall though, Chaos Moon suddenly let out a cry of surprise. A small iron door had suddenly opened on the wall to reveal a beastman warrior. The mob had stabbed her right in her chest armor.
Chiang!
198,277!
Furious at the sudden ambush, she kicked the beastman in the face before climbing out of range.
"Watch out, everyone! There are murder holes on the walls…"
I shouted in warning, but it was too late. A couple of Dragonlight Cavalrymen had been knocked off their cloud ladders and sent screaming to their deaths. They would have to be very lucky to survive the fall.
……
Swhoosh!
When I finally reached the top of the wall, I immediately activated Heavenly River Transformation and dropped Burning Blade Slash + Myriad Swords Obliteration combo on the mobs in front of me. The affected Dark Archers tried to shoot their arrows at me, but I followed up the attack with Thousand Ice Slash that encased the large majority of them in ice.
Thud thud thud…
I took a few quick steps forward and froze yet another group of mobs with Cold of the Nine Provinces. This meant that most of the mobs between 70 to 120 yards from the edge were frozen in ice. When my Battle Astral Wind was shredded, I abruptly raised my sword and summoned the SSS Rank Ancient Divine Skill Xuanyuan Slash. As if on cue, Li Chenfeng cast his own Crimson Firmament Slash and annihilated over half of the frozen Dark Archers in an instant. The Dragonlight Cavalrymen behind us quickly took advantage of the commotion to climb onto the rampart and summon their mounts.
……
"I am here!"
A little warrior from Snowy Cathaya fired an AoE skill at the mobs the moment his feet hit the rampart.
Before he could steady himself though, dozens of arrows struck his body in rapid succession!
Pu pu pu…
Not only was the poor guy turned into a porcupine, the sheer amount of force behind the volley sent him tumbling down the walls like a broken kite. He was dead before he even hit the ground. The Dark Archers’ Attack was seriously OP.
Purple Marquis gritted his teeth and tried to buy as much space as possible for his troops by charging left and right. In the sky, the dragon knights were making their own moves as well. However, the Crimson Crystal Dragon and the Blue Crystal Dragon were wailing in pain due to a bellyful of arrows. They were close to running out of mount tenacity.