"Here they come!"

Gui Guzi abruptly pointed to the distance and said, "Holy shit, there’s so many of them…"

"Yeah!" Chaos Moon’s eyes widened.

At the distance, a constant rumbling shattered the silence of Sky Forest and alarmed countless birds into taking off to the sky. Then, a sea of red-named cavalrymen slowly but surely flooded everything within our view. This time, it wasn’t just the Northern Alliance. Every powerful enemy Sky City had ever made—Cyan Earth City, Elephant City, Purple Grape City and more—had arrived at the King of Cities. Their reaction was understandable. The China server was already plenty powerful. If they allowed us to continue developing ourselves unhindered, it was only a matter of time we threatened the entire continent.

……

Vienna’s Sorrow pushed the back of his dragon’s head to make it descend and glide along the ground. Then, he said to the distant God of War with a guffaw, "Do you see that, king of Cyan Earth City? Our dreams and conquest are right before our eyes! Finally, Sky City will fall to our feet!"

God of War cackled ambitiously. "You’re right, and it is all thanks to Breeze and Rain’s strategy too. We wouldn’t have been able to enter Sky Forest as easily otherwise!"

Breeze and Rain also looked at Vienna’s Sorrow and said, "Don’t forget your promise, Vienna. Wind City is the USA server’s, Dawn City is Hot Sand City’s, all the tier 2 cities in Wind City go to the Chaotic 27, and Sky City is ours! This is our one immutable condition!"

Vienna’s Sorrow chuckled. "Of course I remember. Don’t worry, Sky City will go to Cyan Earth City… provided that you are capable of devouring this huge pie alone, of course!"

Breeze and Rain smiled coldly. "Oh, don’t you worry about it. With the full weight of the Northern Alliance behind this assault, I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t succeed. And even if the enemy somehow performs the impossible, we have around ten thousand elites resting about 5 kilometers away from Wind City right now. They will assist us at first notice the moment we show any signs of faltering!"

Vienna’s Sorrow shuddered but sneered back, "Understood…"

……

Obviously, the attackers were trying to outwit each other as well. If the Northern Alliance refused to attack Sky City seriously, Breeze and Rain would immediately mobilize the thousands and thousands of elites he posted outside Wind City and take it for himself. From the beginning, Breeze and Rain had set himself up to win no matter what. He truly was a shrewd person.

I turned back to look at my people and said, "Little Gui, split up the Dragonlight Cavalry and Zephyr Cavalry and have our bards buff all of them. After we hold off the first assault, we’re going to countercharge the enemy’s strongest formation. This is the final battle, so there’s no need to hold back any longer!"

Gui Guzi nodded. "Understood, Boss Broken Halberd. We’ll give it our all!"

"Mn!"

……

There was a temporary lull where the enemy took their time to reorganize themselves on the plains. After they were ready, they began charging toward us at top speed. To reach Sky City, they must first go through Sky Forest. However, not only was Sky Forest guarded by over 20 million Chinese players, they were all elites. Anyone who managed to survive up until this point had to have some level of skill after all.

"Prepare to defend!"

I raised my sword and resummoned the apparition and the Phantom Wolf King. As the enemy cavalry rode toward us, one of my players shivered so strongly that his sword kept clanging against his own shield. I rolled my eyes and kicked his leg lightly. "Calm yourself, man…"

He shot me an embarrassed smile. "I know, boss. It’s just that there’s so many of them…"

"Don’t worry. They may be numerous, but they’re still human. Every enemy you cut down is one less enemy to face later!"

"Mn!"

The enemy’s cavalry entered our ranged players’ attack range. Beiming Xue immediately raised her Ice Soul Feather and ordered, "Dragonlight Archers, fire your Shock Arrows and Mountain Stagger Arrows with Far Shot!"

Thud thud thud...

The arrows flew to the sky and rained down on the area in front of us. Some enemies got stunned by the Shock Arrows and skidded to a sudden stop, causing a massive collision between themselves and the riders behind them. Even more players were straight up killed or gravely wounded by the spells and arrows flying their way.

That wasn’t all. We managed to set up our siege weapons before the enemy launched their all-out assault, and the payloads killed countless every time they hit the ground. The war was already bloody, and their existences easily made it ten times worse.

"Here they come!"

When the first wave was about to hit us, I fired Burning Blade Slash and cut down the riders directly in front of me. My apparition also did the same thing to reduce the others’ pressure as much as possible!

Bang bang bang...

The enemy cavalry slammed hard against the Dragonlight Cavalry’s shields, but they held their formation and retaliated calmly against the enemy. The healers at the back also made sure to keep them alive.

However, Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls might be strong enough to hold the line, but the same couldn’t be said for guilds such as Mad Dragon, Flower Room, Pop Culture and more. The only good news was that there were still a ton of players in the forest, so them being breached wasn’t the end of the world.

……

The endless charge was too much, and even our shielders were beginning to die. The only ones who remained as solid as a rock was the Dragonlight Cavalry commanded by Gui Guzi. Noting that our defense line was crumbling quickly, Xu Yang immediately shouted, "Second line, move up and reform the shield formation!"

The flashes and sounds of blades striking against shields seemed like they would never end. The frontline quickly turned into a sea of flames—in some cases, literally—where both sides vied to outdo the other.

Almost half an hour later, the Northern Alliance finally decided that they were taking too much damage and withdrew to reorganize. This was our chance.

"Now!"

I growled out, "All Dragonlight and Zephyr Cavalrymen, as well as Dragonlight Archers, follow me to hunt them down! Don’t even give them the chance to breathe! Defenders, continue plugging the holes and stay alert!"

Our 50k cavalrymen and 15k mounted archers took off. With me, Gui Guzi, Li Chengfeng, He Yi and more generals acting as the point, we launched a counterattack against the withdrawing enemies. At the distance, we saw that Snowy Cathaya, Blazing Hot Lips, Warsky Alliance, Candle Dragon and more were doing the same thing even though we hadn’t informed them about our plan. As the saying goes, great minds think alike.

A thousand meters away, both Northern Alliance and Cyan Earth City players flashed out their shields and formed a hasty shield formation. This time, it was their turn to defend against us.

Chiang chiang chiang!

As blades clashed against shields, He Yi used Ultimate Strength Break on a group of enemies, bringing them all to low health. No one was expecting the guild leader to possess this much Strength. Panicked by their disappearing health bars, they couldn't pose a threat to Eve with Royal Road boosting all her stats.

The flames of war sliced into every inch of our skin as we punched through the enemy’s defense line and stabbed them right in the art. For half an hour, we ravaged their archers, mages, priests and other critical classes without mercy until they regained their footing. I ordered a retreat immediately after I noticed the signs. It was one thing to exploit the enemy’s weakness, and another to shoot oneself in the foot.

……

When we withdrew, the enemy did the same thing to us and launched their own counterattack. The player counts on the Nation War interface rose and fell sharply as we fought. The system was probably screaming from the sheer load; the sheer speed at which people were dying right now.

Well, it was the final war. Here in this vast forest, we either hold off the enemy for 24 hours until the timer runs out, or we lose. There were no two ways about it.

Half an hour later, Elephant City unleashed their first trump card. Their number one guild, Dark Clouds, rode all the way to the forest edge before dropping down tens of thousands of Ivory Towers. The effect was immediate and gruesome.

We did our best to destroy them as quickly as possible, but it still cost us millions and millions of players. Not only did we lose most of our initiative, the already huge gap between our player count grew even wider.

……

Suddenly, a new set of horse hooves appeared from inside the forest. They were an army of NPC riders in black armor. More and more NPC carrying all sorts of colorful banners showed up, and even the Griffin Legion had descended from the sky. Under the royal banner was an extraordinarily beautiful warrioress, none other than the reigning sovereign of Sky City, Karinshan!

"The invaders are numerous beyond imagination, Your Majesty!" Commander Ziyan said in a soft voice.

Karinshan smiled a little before replying, "Wind City has fallen to the wolves, and its duke was beheaded in public. Will you swallow the shame just because the enemy is endless? Have the Black Cavalry and Frost Army work together with the Griffin Legion to charge the enemy, and our royal magi to exterminate them!"

"Yes, Your Majesty!"

The sounds of war drums filled the air, and all seven great legions of Sky City attacked at once. Not only that, their hidden stats were boosted because they were the NPC legions of the King of Cities.

At the distance, Vienna’s Sorrow turned serious and raised an arm. "Don’t stop! Doesn’t matter how many players or NPCs stand in our way, no one can stop us from taking Sky City!"

The earth trembled. Now that the NPCs had joined the battle as well, nearly a hundred million units were fighting each other at once.

Suddenly, a couple of enemy players rushed toward the royal banner. It was a couple of Heroic Bannermen cackling like villains and saying, "Kill the pretty princess of Sky City, and the main city will be ours!"

Angry that the invaders would shame her regent so, Ziyan pulled out her sword only to be stopped by Karinshan herself. "Stop, Ziyan."

"Your Majesty? You can’t possibly wish to spare them?" Ziyan exclaimed in astonishment.

"Of course not. I just want to kill them myself!"

Karinshan abruptly vanished from her mount and appeared dozens of meters away. A lightning fast slash later, every single Heroic Bannerman who tried to run her down saw their heads flying unceremoniously across the air. They were some of the strongest players within the Northern Alliance, and they still couldn’t take one hit from Karinshan!

……

I watched the scene unfold calmly from the edge of the forest. The NPCs’ arrival could only be described as timely and gave us the breather we severely needed. Things weren’t looking good, however. It had been ten hours since the final battle began, and the numbers on the Nation War interface were disheartening to say the least—

Attacker: 72993211

Defender: 4099231

……

Each and every guild in the China server had lost the large majority of their men, and even the greatest Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls had dwindled to less than 150k players. If the NPC legions hadn’t joined the battle, we might not have been able to hold on for even two hours, much less the full 14 hours left on the clock.

"Can we win this, big brother?" Beiming Xue looked on in despair.

I gritted my teeth as I answered, “I don’t know…"

The NPC legions were powerful, but they weren’t invincible. More importantly, they couldn’t deal with the war of attrition Breeze and Rain and Vienna’s Sorrow had been plotting for a very long time.