Enemy troops appeared from the far end of a canyon with blood-red soil. There were knights clad in metal armor, mages wielding staves or scepters, and long-eared archers watching their surroundings with cool and observant eyes.

At the back of the stretch of troops were countless black siege weapons that were being pushed by countless fighters. Everyone’s head had the flag of India above it, and their shoulders had an elephant, the symbol of Elephant’s City king.

……

Everyone fell silent as we watched the live feed that was shared with us.

Swhoosh!

A while later, Hot and Sour Noodles canceled the video share and said, "This is the live feed I got from the assassins I planted at the location. Although we managed to defeat the united army of Dark Clouds and Natural Flow, Elephant City still has a reserve army of at least 40 million players. The good news is that our ally, Frostsword City, has taken out all of Elephant City’s teleportation formations, so this reserve army must pass through Lost Forest and a valley before they can reach us. The bad news is that it’s still going to take them less than 5 hours to reach us. Once they arrive, we’ll be caught between a rock and a hard place."

I stabbed the Purple Ying Sword into the black ground before asking in a helpless tone, "What are you planning to do then?"

Hot and Sour Noodles gritted his teeth before declaring, "We need someone to head to Final Duel Valley and stop them there. The valley entrance is less than 200 yards wide, so if we send a small army of one-man armies there to guard it, it’s theoretically possible to hold it for 15 hours, or until our main army conquers Purple Grape City."

"You want to hold it with a small army of peak elites?"

I looked at him in astonishment. "The cliffs surrounding Final Duel Valley can’t be too high. If the enemy archers and mages successfully scale the cliffs and control the flanks, the army defending the valley would be in for a hell of a time."

Hot and Sour Noodles nodded. "All victories come with a price."

I bent down, pulled out the Purple Ying Sword and said, "It’s not a mission anyone can perform. Very well. Eve, give me 5000 Dragonlight Cavalrymen, 25k Cyan Tiger Cavalrymen, 20k archers, mages and bards. I’ll stop Elephant City’s 40 million cavalry myself."

However, He Yi surprised me by shaking her head resolutely and saying, "Absolutely not!"

Li Chengfeng also walked up to me and implored, "Lu Chen, you’re the commander-in-chief of our invasion army, and you’re better than even Zhang Chun at dealing with the dynamics of war. The frontline cannot do without you. I will stop Elephant City at Final Duel Valley!"

I rejected him. "No can do, brother. It has to be me!"

Li Chengfeng raised his eyebrows threateningly. "Are you doubting my abilities, brother? Do you really think I can’t do what you can? Sure, the battle at Final Duel Valley will be a dangerous one, but it’s the same for the battle at Purple Grape City! If you really think of me as your brother, you wouldn’t fuss over a minor issue like this, okay?"

There was no changing the man’s mind. In the end, I had no choice but to relent and say, "Fine…"

Li Chengfeng broke into a grin before making his demands, "Very good. Now then, I would like to have 5000 Dragonlight Cavalrymen and, oh, I want our two Knight General babes, Heaven’s Rain and Diamond Dust as well. With them buffing 2000 Dragonlight Cavalry with Knight General, it will be easy peasy guarding Final Duel Valley for just a couple hours..."

Xu Yang immediately said, "Come with me, Li! I’ll give you our best cavalry!"

"Haha! Thanks, Brother Xu Yang!"

……

A while later, Li Chengfeng left with 50k Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls elites including the 5000 Dragonlight Cavalrymen. Their mission was to hold Final Duel Valley and delay Elephant City for as long as humanly possible. It was because it was realistically impossible to siege Purple Grape City if Elephant City’s reinforcements were threatening our rear.

We couldn’t rely on our international ally and Russia’s strongest main city, Frostsword City, either. While they shared a strong relationship with Sky City, only a foolish person would expect them to lend us a hand at this conjuncture. The only way they would help us was if we somehow wiped out all of Elephant City’s elites for them so that they would have a free pass to occupy Elephant City. After all, ours was a bond of allies and profit, not the bond of brotherhood where one brother could willingly sacrifice themselves for another, no matter the cost.

Li Chengfeng’s 50k Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls players weren’t the only ones who would be holding the valley, of course. Snowy Cathaya donated a 10k-strong cavalry, and Blazing Hot Lips lent 100k troops even. Unlike the 50k troops we dispatched however, none of them could really be considered an elite. The elites were needed to conquer Purple Grape City, the true reason we had come all the way here.

"Dragonlight Cavalry, full speed ahead! We’re going to hit the enemy’s vanguard first before they make it to Final Duel Valley!"

The Dragonlight Cavalry responded affirmatively to the order before riding after Chengfeng.

……

We tallied our troop count after the intercept troops had left. Roughly speaking, we still had over 12 million troops or 400 guilds in total. Of course, the pivot of this army was still Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls, Purple Lily, Snowy Cathaya, Blazing Hot Lips, The Monarch Descends, Baidicheng, Peach Garden, Righteousness and more.

"Alright…"

I said while staring at the horizon, "The good news is that we still have enough people to conquer Purple Grape City. It’s because we haven’t suffered any major losses despite all the fierce battles we’ve fought up until this point. Let’s keep this up, shall we? Protect the siege weapons and maintain this marching speed. We should finally reach Purple Grape City in an hour at most!"

Everyone nodded in agreement. Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls still had 5000 Dragonlight Cavalrymen and over 4000 Dragonlight Archers, but they were also our final trump cards. Starting now, I would only deploy them if the situation was absolutely critical or necessary.

We didn’t bother marching at full speed because Red Maple had had more than enough time to organize the defense of the city. It could be disastrous if we tried to rush things and got ambushed by Cyan Earth City as a result.[1]

……

After we left Wildfire Plains, a purple city gradually emerged from the horizon. It was none other than our ultimate objective of this Nation War, Purple Grape City!

Purple Grape City was located at the easternmost area of the continent. It possessed a wealthy amount of resources, and its main city was surrounded by all kinds of maps. Moreover, they had their own unique material production such as minerals and herbs that were completely different from ours. That was why they could produce the Black Marsh Catapults, and we couldn’t.

The bricks of the city were made up of some sort of unknown composite. Its walls were about 70 yards tall. While it was no Impassable Great Wall, it certainly was a lot stronger than your normal tier 2 city, not to mention that it was overflowing with Japanese players right now. I even spotted Black Marsh Catapults and arrow towers set up on top of the roofs of the taller buildings inside the city. As expected, Red Maple had finished setting up the city’s defense a while ago, and he was just waiting for us to attack the city!

Chiang!

Xu Yang unsheathed his sword and ordered, "This is it, people. We’ll push forward slowly and stop exactly 500 yards away!"

"Wait!"

However, I raised an arm and said, "Purple Grape City is a big castle, and its defenses are very well done. I would bet they have an attack range of 1000 yards. My suggestion would be that we stop at least a kilometer away from the city so that they can’t score any free hits on us. Why do you think the USA is able to look down on our naval army with impunity? It’s because they have the Aegis Combat System. They can lock onto our ships from at least a hundred kilometers away and shoot them however they like. At that point, it's just a slaughter, not a battle…"

Xu Yang nodded. "Mn. As you command!"

……

And so, we marched slowly toward Purple Grape City until we were about a kilometer away from them. He Yi ordered the engineers to build at least a hundred Blood Fiend War Drums across the battlefield so that our siege parties would be able to enjoy its buffs.

Suddenly, Red Maple appeared on the city walls and planted one foot on the edge. He let out a loud laugh and said, "Welcome to Purple Grape City, Chinamen! Too bad this is where your invasion will end, in failure! By the way, I heard that a lion represents authority and royal power? In that case, watch! This is what I do to anyone who offends me!"

He abruptly swung his blade, and...

Chiang!

The head of the stone lion statue next to him was cut off completely. The head rolled off the wall before shattering into a million pieces on the ground!

"Holy fuck, how arrogant can a person get!?"

Gui Guzi flew into a rage immediately. "Let’s attack the city and fuck up the little shits already, Boss Broken Halberd! C’mon!"

I held back my own anger and shook my head. "Not yet. We need to wait until our siege weapons have caught up, and we need to spread our troops to all four directions to find out the best way to breach the enemy’s walls. We have to fight smart, or there’s no chance we’ll be able to conquer Purple Grape City in 20 hours."

"Mn."

It was at this moment Lin Yixin rode up to me on the Moonchaser Tiger and offered with a smile, "Do you want us to attack the southern gate with you, Little Cheat?"

I nodded. "I was just about to ask you that. I want to focus our greatest forces at the southern gate and shatter it first, but be ready to change positions at a moment’s notice. They don’t have enough troops to defend everywhere at full strength. If a wall weakens, we’ll attack it and catch them off-guard!"

"Oh oh, okay…"

After that, Lin Yixin summoned Snowy Cathaya and merged them with our players. No one had too big a reserve force left after that costly battle at Wildfire Plains. We must combine our armies if we were to do anything.

……

It was at this moment He Yi suddenly shivered and exclaimed in shock, "Ah?!"

"What’s wrong, Eve?" I asked concernedly.

He Yi looked at me with eyes filled with shock and mixed emotions. "Lu Chen, that map, Final Duel Valley…"

"Yes…?"

"It has a ‘Final Duel’ mode that… that…"

"What?!"

Her reaction gave me a very bad feeling, so I immediately brought up the database to check on Final Duel Valley. What I saw sickened me to my stomach. When a player entered the Final Duel Valley, they would immediately trigger a PK mode called "Final Duel”. Whoever fought in the valley and lost would lose all their levels and drop all their equipment. 10% of all the victim’s experience would go to their killer!

……

My head turned pure as a rush of sorrow and anger overwhelmed me. I immediately rode to Righteousness’ camp and pushed my way through the crowd until I reached Hot and Sour Noodles. I then grabbed him by the collar, pulled him off his mount and pressed the Purple Ying Sword’s again his neck, shouting, "Zhang Chun, you knew about that Final Duel mode, and you still sent my brothers and sisters to their deaths, didn’t you?!!"

1. (Author’s Note: I posted a map of the War of Purple Grape City at Weibo earlier, and I may have mixed up the position of Cyan Earth City and Elephant City. Therefore, I’ve changed Cyan Earth City’s location to the north of Purple Grape City and Soaring Flame Desert, and Elephant City to the south of Purple Grape City and Final Duel Valley. I won’t be changing the stuff I’ve already written in the novel because frankly, I won’t even know where to start. Sorry for the inconvenience, yeah? Also, this novel is posted first at 17k. Please support me and don’t encourage piracy!