Smoke began rising from the fire beacons around Ice River Canton.

At first, the players inside the city had no idea what to do at all. Unfortunately, the confusion didn’t even last ten minutes. The powerful guilds of Ice River Canton quickly gathered at the temple, armories, stables and other buildings before forming a square formation that was almost ten thousand players strong.

"Their cavalry charge is extremely powerful!"

A guild leader wielding a longbow commanded loudly, "Don’t even think of trying to play the hero! All mounted players, raise your shields and block the entrance! Mages and archers, attack from range and slow them as much as you can! These Chinese riders are trying to destroy Ice River Canton! Don’t let them succeed no matter what!

Arrows and magic peppered our Dragonlight Cavalry from both sides of the street. The good news was that their Attack wasn’t high enough to really threaten us.

Gui Guzi shouted, "If your HP falls below 50%, move to the center, swap positions with those with full health, and use War God Recovery to restore your HP! Try not to die as much as you can!"

As we continued to travel toward the palace, a group of foot soldiers carrying shields suddenly blocked in front of us. They had enough levels to ride a mount, but they remained on foot to take advantage of their commander’s Soul of the Foot. The Famous General wielding a green broadsword and a shield growled, "Frontliners, hold the line with everything you’ve got! Backliners, concentrate your shots and wear the enemy down! Will you disappoint God’s Domain and the other guilds who are fighting at White Rose Fortress right now and lose Ice River Canton? No! They may be strong, but they are few in numbers! We absolutely possess the power to kill them all here!"

Chiang chiang chiang…

Over 900 foot soldiers slammed their shields into the ground and poked out their swords and spears in between the gaps, hoping that it would be enough to stop our charge.

"Hah, what an interesting group!"

Li Chengfeng shot me a look while laughing, "I didn’t know we were this weak in the eyes of Ice River Canton, Lu Chen. Not only do they think that they can stop our charge, they think they can kill us with less than 3000 players!"

I spurred my mount to go faster before shouting, "All players with AoE skills, ride to the front and hit the enemy’s shield formation with all your might! Don’t let them slow us for even a second!"

Gui Guzi, Xu Yang, Chaos Moon, Li Chengfeng and other players who fit the bill immediately pulled out their weapons and rode to the front as I commanded. Obviously, we were our cavalry’s best chance to tear through the enemy’s defense in the shortest period of time.

"Little Gui, let’s penetrate their so-called shield formation together!" High Fighting Spirits roared.

Gui Guzi laughed loudly. "I’m right behind you, brother!"

High Fighting Spirits spurred his mount to max speed before ramming into the enemy’s shields head-on. He was a warrior who dumped all his points into Strength, and his equipment could only be described as outstanding. As a result, he was able to knock back three enemy players in one hit and penetrate as deep as five layers before he finally came to a stop. For a moment, the Ice River Canton players could only stare at him in shock.

"The fuck are you guys waiting for? Barrier Break him already!" a commander-level player of Ice River Canton shouted.

That broke them out of their daydream and caused them to summon fiery cones around their weapons. Not even High Fighting Spirits could survive dozens of Barrier Breaks that dealt 30k damage at least if they landed.

Luckily, the berserker was way faster than these people. Before they could even thrust their weapons forward, the ground was already shaking with the power of Xiezhi Howl. A red cyclone shaped like a giant beast roared, and all the players surrounding him were either sent flying to the distance or killed outright. No one was able to land a hit on him.

After dashing forward a couple more steps and killing another Ice River Canton player with a Quadruple Slash, High Fighting Spirits let out a laugh and moved to the side, roaring, "Little Gui, I leave the rest to you!"

Screaming like a maniac, Gui Guzi took over High Fighting Spirits’ previous position and swept his Spear of the Knight God horizontally. He roared, "Have a taste of my new skill, grandchildren!"

Swhoosh!

As promised, a red flame erupted from the spearhead before engulfing almost everyone within 4 yards of Gui Guzi. The new skill was called Crescent Moon Blaze. It increased the user’s damage by 100%, and was therefore an equivalent of a critical basic attack. The skill dealt damage to all players within 4 yards of the user, and realistically speaking, it could hit up to a maximum of 25 players per use. It was a great skill in a group battle like this.

The Ice River Canton players fell to his attack like flies. The damage numbers that popped above their heads were obscene to say the least—

218384!

231828!

240990!

……

Gui Guzi’s Attack wasn’t really that high, but his stratagem boosted it by a whopping 225%. Moreover, Ice River Canton’s players were at best second-rate in the Japan server, not to mention that their HP was only 180k or so because they weren’t riding mounts. As a result, Gui Guzi was able to one-shot all of them!

That wasn’t the end of Gui Guzi’s assault, of course. He followed up with Aurora Thrust and killed all the players in front of him.

Beside him, Li Chengfeng swooped in like a hawk and cut down every player he struck like he was playing Dynasty Warriors. Chaos Moon, Xu Yang, Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun and Du Thirteen were tearing apart the enemy’s shield formation with incredible speed as well.

Out of everyone, I was the player deepest into the enemy formation and with the most kills. It was because these players were second-rate or even third-rate at best, meaning that my Burning Blade Slash and even my Thousand Ice Slash were one-shots most of the time. My Ancient Seals notwithstanding, the Phantom Wolf King itself was killing people like crazy as well. All in all, I was almost regaining Divine Energy Points almost as quickly as I was using them. I made sure that it didn’t fall below the 100 mark though. This Nation War was far from over, and no one could say what else was waiting for us.

……

"Skypiercer, max range!"

The enemy crumbled the second Beiming Xue and the Dragonlight Archers arrived. One round of Skypiercer was all it took to kill almost everything within a hundred meters; the arrows piercing armor and flesh with equal ease. Beiming Xue’s Bow God already increased her Attack by 150%, but Ice Soul Feather boosted that even further. Suffice it to say, Skypiercer was absolutely lethal in Beiming’s hands!

Rumble rumble rumble...

The enemies dropped a ton of equipment, potions and food, but nobody tried to pick them up because the mission was to destroy Ice River Canton in the shortest amount of time possible. I have to admit that I was very proud of the level of unity and bravery that drove my people forward! Right now, the only thing that could make our blood bubble with passion was the head of the king of Ice River Canton!

"The palace is just five minutes away from us now. Full speed ahead!" Li Chengfeng shouted.

Chaos Moon added, "There’s no need to put on a brave front and push yourself! If you die here, you won’t be able to enter Purple Grape City’s domain later and participate in the rest of the war, so protecting your own life is your topmost priority! If you’re really about to die, activate invincibility skill and teleport back to the city! It’s all part of the plan, so don’t feel ashamed about it!"

I nodded in agreement. "She’s right, no need to feel ashamed—"

Suddenly, a message interrupted me. It was sent by Cute Little Naughty. "I’ve got important news to share, vice leader big bro…"

"Yes, Little Naughty?"

"My assassins just detected a 50k cavalry belonging to God’s Domain riding to Ice River Canton’s aid. They’ve already crossed the border, and they are expected to arrive in 20 minutes tops."

She added, "Not only that, about 40k Cyan Beast riders have rode past Soaring Flame Desert and entered Ice River Canton. Further behind them are another 10k+ wolf riders, but at the speed they’re moving we expect that to fully pass through Soaring Flame Desert and enter Ice River Canton very soon. You must destroy Ice River Canton before they reach you."

"Got it, thanks!"

……

After I hung up the call, I marked the three forces on the map and sent the coordinates to Beiming Xue.

"What’s this, big bro?"

"These two belong to Cyan Earth City. The other one is God’s Domain’s 50000 cavalry. All of them are elites, so they cannot be allowed to reach the city before we complete our objective."

"What do you want me to do, big bro?" Beiming Xue asked directly.

I shot her a smile and said, "Take all 5000 Dragonlight Archers with you and ambush all three forces. Try to delay them as much as possible with as little losses as possible."

"Got it. I’m leaving right away!"

……

I looked back and watched Beiming Xue for a moment as she and the five thousand Dragonlight Archers raced out of the city. I had full confidence they would succeed because the Dragonlight Archers possessed superior AoE firepower, and their ability to penetrate heavy armor exceeded even the Dragonlight Cavalry’s. Besides that, their incredible movement speed and hit-and-run tactics would also make up for their lack of HP and Defense, not to mention that archers had many CC skills to cripple a cavalry such as Shock Arrows and Mountain Stagger Arrows.

A while later, the entrance of Ice River Canton finally appeared in front of us. Its entrance was a hundred meters wide, and it was chock-full of NPCs and players right now. They were clearly ready to battle us to the death!

"Hit them directly! There’s nothing to be afraid of!"

I kept the verbal encouragement short. It wasn’t like it would change anything now that we had come this far. I shouted, "Chengfeng, Chaos Moon, cover me! I’m going to tear through the enemy with Purple Dragon Howl!"

"Okay!"

Li Chengfeng tried hitting the enemy with his Dragonblade Revolution. Unfortunately, the entire entrance was jam-packed with the Golden Guards of Ice River Canton, Level 200 NPC minibosses with around 3 million HP. The players were a different story, but these NPCs were practically impossible to one-shot!

I fired Burning Blade Slash and Thousand Ice Slash at a dozen or so Golden Guards first before backing away. While the Dragonlight Cavalry were covering for me, I drank Saint Spirit Potion to heal my HP and MP to full before firing Purple Dragon Howl myself. A gigantic, purple draconic blast surged toward the enemy!

Roar roar roar...

It was devastating. Unlike the inferior Purple Dragon Howl that was unleashed by my apparition, this one dealt far, far more damage because it had the full weight of my stats behind it. A lot of enemies also ate 5 times more damage than normal thanks to the Purple Ying Sword’s property, and adding splash effect to the mix, it was enough to one-shot more than half of the Golden Guards in one go. Forget Ice River Canton’s players, even my own people were staring at me slack-jawed.