"Uncle! You need to be more specific!" I shouted at Mr. Hot and Sour Noodles.

Hot and Sour Noodles laughed apologetically and replied, "I’m afraid I can’t be more specific than that. In short, you guys have thoroughly angered Seven Star City, Titan City and Hero City. Vienna’s Sorrow had no choice but to deploy a large group of troops to annihilate your Dragonlight Cavalry. Lu Chen, you guys are on your own for this battle outside Dawn City. You guys have to survive for the next 24 hours!"

"Understood…"

I ended the chat swiftly without so much as a goodbye. Hot and Sour Noodles had no intentions on deploying any reinforcement to aid us. Dammit! We’re on our own! That useless commander is just leaving us to die!

……

The Mystic Alliance continued to advance slowly, bound in a tight, uniform formation. Their navy blue arm bands formed an ocean of blue, threatening to drown our mere 1300 riders.

"They hold us in such high regard to send eighty thousand mages after our heads…" Gui Guzi rubbed his nose and spoke in a resentful tone, "Should we thank our lucky stars that they value as such?"

Chaos Moon giggled and said, "The Dragonlight Cavalry consists of elite players. We’ve attracted too much attention by slaughtering Hot Sand City’s one million cavalrymen and eliminating 100k Behemoths at Sunset Swamp. The Northern Alliance has been scared out of their wits! They shudder in fear at the mere mention of the Dragonlight Cavalry! Vienna’s Sorrow is absolutely right, by sending elite troops of mages to annihilate us, he kills two birds with one stone. The China server will be dealt a heavy blow while the morale of the Northern Alliance will be greatly boosted!"

I nodded my head in agreement and said, "You’re right. Vienna’s Sorrow must not have seen this coming. He thought that he would flatten Dawn City with ease because the Northern Alliance outnumbered us greatly. He definitely did not think that we would retaliate so fiercely. It has been 48 hours since the start of Nation War and they have not even set foot into the city. Vienna’s Sorrow must have grown impatient and decided to show his hand at this moment."

Vienna’s Sorrow was only doing his duty. He was the lead commander of the Northern Alliance and stood above all the other players. His honor and reputation rested solely on the outcome of this Nation War.

……

"Look over there! That’s the cavalry protecting the Mystic Alliance!"

Xu Yang stretched out his hand and pointed toward the distance. A group of riders on a dark gray mount started to emerge from the deep valley. Their mounts definitely did not look like a horse, but rather some sort of dark gray beast. Each rider had a Hero City insignia on their arm signifying that they were players of the Hero Alliance. This was Vienna’s Sorrow’s guild!

"What sort of cavalry is that…" Heaven’s Rain muttered under her breath.

Chaos Moon did a quick search on the internet before speaking, "Bloodthirsty Beast Cavalry. The Bloodthirsty Beast is a high-level monster that is extremely hard to tame. It is a Spirit Rank Boss mount, with stats 25% inferior to our Dragonlight Armored Horses. However, the Bloodthirsty Beast Cavalry is more than ten times the size of the Dragonlight Cavalry!"

Xu Yang looked into the distance as his eyes turned as wide as saucers. "More than ten times?! There must be at least 30000 Bloodthirsty Beast Cavalrymen then! Goddammit! We’re in deep shit!"

High Fighting Spirits raised his warhammer and shouted, "Hmph! Bloodthirsty Beast Cavalry my ass! It’s probably similar to the Behemoths anyway! Let’s attack and finish them off!"

I growled in a low voice, "High Fighting Spirits, stop! Their battle formation has been carefully arranged and they can easily flank us if we are not careful! Their commander must be well-versed in the gaming world’s military tactics. We must not act rashly! We would surely emerge victorious if we had the same number of riders as our enemy. However, the Dragonlight Cavalry makes up less than 10% of theirs. As the ace of the Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls, we can’t afford the slightest loss due to negligence!"

High Fighting Spirits started to grow anxious and asked, "What shall we do then? We only have five minutes! And this Bloodthirsty Beast Cavalry is starting to draw near!"

I pointed a finger behind me and said, "Everyone! We will retreat down the mountain range and prepare to enter the forest! Dammit! Those mages can’t outrun our mounts.”

"Yessir!"

I glanced toward the distance and saw a bunch of Dragonlight Cavalrymen coming our way. A female rider at the forefront dorned a silver cape drew close and met up with us. That rider was He Yi.

"Our guild leader is back!" a bunch of Dragonlight Cavalrymen exclaimed with joy. He Yi was certainly the heart and soul of our guild.

"Eve!"

"Mn, I’m back!"

I glanced at the traces of blood on her cape and noticed that she had 45% HP left. "How did you get out of the city? Don’t tell me that you had to force your way through…"

"Yeah, that’s exactly what I did. I relied on my Purgatory of Ice and Magma and Firelight Mouse to carve a path out of the city…" He Yi said with a bright smile.

I was rendered speechless. She had actually managed to force her way through the dense crowd of enemies. The He Yi before me had become a powerful and domineering warrior.

We continued to travel north of the mountain range. I looked back and was shocked when I saw 50000 Bloodthirsty Beast Cavalrymen charging toward us. Goddammit! The elites of Hero City had caught up to us!

"Should we test the waters first?" Chaos Moon asked.

He Yi and I looked at each other and laughed. "Alright!"

Five hundred Bloodthirsty Beast riders at the forefront were led by a Heroic Bannerman. The entire Bloodthirsty Beast Cavalry followed closely behind their leader and charged toward us!

"Attack!"

1300 Dragonlight Cavalrymen started to charge forward at my command. I unleashed God Binding Art, Burning Blade Slash and Universe Break at the enemies as we clashed head-on a few seconds later. My eyes widened in disbelief as multiple hits of Burning Blade Slash did not manage to one-shot a single Bloodthirsty Beast Cavalryman. I had to follow up with a Universe Break before the enemy riders collapsed. Their max HP had to be above 70000!

Clang, clang, clang!

The sound of sword piercing through armor was music to my ears. Under the powerful attacks of the Dragonlight Cavalry, the Bloodthirsty Beast Cavalrymen started to fall off their mounts one by one. However, the Dragonlight Cavalrymen were also injured in the process.

The intense battle continued on for seven whole minutes. At last, the opponent’s Heroic Bannerman turned his horse around and shouted, "Head east! Hurry!"

The remaining 100 Bloodthirsty Beast Cavalrymen swiftly left the battlefield at their leader’s command, leaving behind their comrades’ corpses on the borders of the mountain range.

I glanced at the piles of bodies on the ground and left the Cyan Netherworld Sword in my hand turn chilly. Dammit! What an intense and terrible battle that was!

He Yi said, "Twenty-four of us were lost in just seven minutes. Those… those Bloodthirsty Beast Cavalrymen truly are elite players…"

I nodded my head and said, "There are too few of us. We cannot afford to clash with the Bloodthirsty Beast Cavalry head-on anymore. They are advancing toward the east, which means that they intend to flank us as we retreat. Look at the map. The 50000-strong Bloodthirsty Beast Cavalry has us surrounded but has not attacked yet. They are clearly trying to cut off our retreat routes and have the Mystic Alliance annihilate us!"

"How despicable of them…" Heaven’s Rain muttered under her breath.

He Yi let out a gentle laugh and said, "Looks like Vienna’s Sorrow is a military strategist, seeing his patience and understanding of military operations. It seems we’ve met our match. What do we do, Lu Chen?"

I shrugged my shoulders helplessly and said, "There are so few of us left. What else can we do but run. Let’s run to the west! We’ll charge our way out before the Bloodthirsty Beast Cavalry completely surrounds us!"

Mn."

……

The weather started to grow colder and white snowflakes started to fall from the sky. A layer of snow started to form on the ground, burying the corpses of the Bloodthirsty Beast Cavalrymen underneath. The ground looked like a giant strawberry sundae as blood of the fallen riders seeped into the accumulating pile of snow.

He Yi stretched out a hand as a snowflake gently floated on to her palm. A gentle smile broke out on her beautiful face as she said, "It’s snowing…"

Chaos Moon stretched out her snow-covered sword and gently shook it. As the snow slid off her sword, she smiled and said, "So this is the calm before the storm. We have to face a bloodbath later. Let’s get out of here quickly. The Bloodthirsty Beast Cavalry has already begun to tighten the encirclement…"

"Mn."

We had no other choice but to run along the mountain range. As we got to the border of the mountain range, we found thousands of Bloodthirsty Beast Cavalrymen waiting for us in a densely-packed battle formation. I reckon that not many of us would make it out alive if we were to charge out with brute force.

A rider in the distance laughed loudly and said, "Dragonlight Cavalry, it's time to meet your maker! Charge at us if you dare! The Mystic Alliance’s fireballs and icicles are waiting for you! Don’t bother escaping through the mountain trails either! We’ve known for a while that it would snow at Dawn City. Look at the glacier behind you! I highly doubt that you can pass through that!"

He Yi and my gaze met as we turned our heads to look behind. A chill ran down my spine as ice started to cover the Dragonbone Mountain Range at an alarming rate. In the blink of an eye, the entire mountain range had turned into a glacier! Even the forest and narrow trails between mountains had been completely blocked by ice! Even my Ice Qilin Horse wouldn’t be able to scale the mountain range, let alone the Dragonlight Armored Horses!

"We fell into their trap…" Chaos Moon gripped her sword tightly as she turned red with anger.

In a loud voice, I quickly gave out my command, "Charge toward the east immediately! Hurry now! The Mystic Alliance is coming!"

"Yessir!"

We tugged on the reins of our mounts and swiftly made our way eastward. However, we could not go very far as a dense group of mages blocked our way. They had already been expecting us.

We were trapped with no way out. At this point in time, we were staring at death in the face!

……

"What are we going to do…" Gui Guzi trembled as he spoke. Whether it was the cold weather of fear of death, we would never know.

High Fighting Spirits shouted angrily, "These bunch of assholes only know how to ambush us. I bet that we could eliminate these mages if we charged at them head-on!"

For once, he was right. Only decisive brute force could save us now.

I nodded my head and said, "Alright then. We can only face them head-on. Attack!"

We urged our mounts forward and charged toward the Mystic Alliance.

Swhoosh...

The Phantom Wolf King dashed forward at lightning speed. Brandishing its claws, it pounced on a few mages and sunk claws into their flesh. The other mages learnt from the mistakes of their fellow comrades and activated their Magic Shields. The defensive attitude made them harder to kill. A choir of incantations caused Galaxy Storms and icicles to rain down on us!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

In the blink of an eye, the three Dragonlight Cavalrymen that were closest to the enemy were hit by nearly twenty Galaxy Storms! They were instantly hurled off their mounts and killed by that explosion of magic!

Galaxy Storm! Every rider’s worst nightmare!

Even though we managed to slaughter a few hundred mages, a few of our comrades were killed too. My heart ached at the sight of their lifeless bodies on the ground.

However, the worst was yet to come. A dense crowd of mages was right in front of us, making it impossible for us to charge through the crowd!

……

"We’re doomed…" Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun muttered in disappointment.