Clang! Clang! Clang!
A striking of iron that didn’t sound very crisp suddenly rang out, smashing the serenity of this early morning.
Zhang Yang jolted up from his sleep, and at the same time, Wu Yuan’s thunderous roar sounded in his ears.
“Ambush! Westward—3 miles away. 39 elite bowmen, 12 captain bowmen, 40 elite shield soldiers, 55 captain shield soldiers, and 12 heavy deer cavalry. Bowmen on the walls, erect the boards. The rest of you, hold onto your spears!”
In a series of chaotic footsteps, Zhang Yang rushed up the wall in the blink of an eye. After taking several deep breaths, he calmed down.
He had guessed both accurately and inaccurately.
Yesterday, he had guessed that the mysterious enemy would acquire the deer lord’s heritage. There was no doubt about that, otherwise, it would be impossible for the heavy deer cavalry to show up as its troops.
Not only that, but at least one-fifth of the captains had received the heritage of the deer lord and were rapidly promoted.
This was no joke at all.
And what Zhang Yang guessed incorrectly was the time the enemy would arrive; he thought that the mysterious enemy would show up in the afternoon or the next day after acquiring the deer lord’s heritage. But now, it actually arrived overnight.
Was it provoked by the battle from the day before?
“Activate the War Fog! Order all recruits in the training ground to enter the fortress to take shelter, including that instructor, Qin-something; give him a weapon and tell him to join the battle as well,” Zhang Yang said in a deep voice.
Then, a message instantly mapped out before him.
[Confirm to hire training ground instructor, Qin Ge, to temporarily participate in this battle?
Required: Initial payment of 100 energy points. Costs an additional 100 energy points for each enemy soldier killed.]
What the hell? With that guy’s weak physique, isn’t this asking for too much?
Zhang Yang expressed great doubt. However, he lacked soldiers now, so he chose to pay 100 energy points at once. He reckoned that it would be good enough if that instructor could kill at least one enemy soldier in the entire battle.
At that moment, the War Fog exuded and spread throughout the air, enveloping the entirety of the newly-expanded fortress. The consumption of 100 energy points per minute was very worthwhile. In the War Fog, one looking out of it wouldn’t be affected, while if one were to look inside it, one’s vision would be impeded by at least two-thirds.
This time, the enemy troops sped up their march. As they drew closer, Zhang Yang and his men finally witnessed the true identities of their enemies. They were jackals with human bodies. Most of them were around 1.8 meters in height with slightly hunched backs. Despite that, they moved really quickly.
The weapons they used were basically similar to the weapons wielded by the soldiers on Zhang Yang’s side.
“Qin Yidao, test fire! Liu Dali, Sun Goudan, Xu Erhe—get ready. Once the enemy releases the Level 3 Protection, immediately fire at it!”
When the jackal soldiers rushed into a distance of 500 meters, Zhang Yang gave an order from the high ground. With the total height of the hillock and fortress, there was a drop in elevation close to 50 meters, which would lead to a completely different result for the bowmen.
With Zhang Yang’s order, Qin Yidao took the lead and pulled the bowstring of his captain-grade bow. In a sharp creak that left one uncomfortable, that captain-grade bow was arched into a full moon. Qin Yidao remained calm and composed, revealing the powerful strength of his red eagle battle mark. The other captain bowmen weren’t able to pull their bowstrings with such strength.
After a full second of aiming, Qin Yidao let go of the bowstring. At the same time, a brilliance emanated from the golden eagle armor-breaking arrow as he released the Armor-piercing Arrow skill.
A sound wave exploded. 500 meters away, a jackal bowman tried to dodge the arrow, but was a step too late. Without even seeing the golden eagle armor-breaking arrow, its whole arm and half of its shoulder suddenly burst into a cloud of blood mist.
The power of this arrow seemed to be as strong as a bullet shot out of one of Earth’s sniper rifles.
But before Zhang Yang and the others praised him, they heard a string of explosions. The jackal bowmen counterattacked in the direction the arrows were shot from.
Of course, their counterattack was meaningless because after yesterday’s construction, the fortress wall was reinforced with two-meter-high wooden battlements. Although the jackal bowmen were powerful, without releasing skills at such a distance, their arrows simply couldn’t penetrate the 50-centimeter-thick defense.
As though realizing this point, the jackal bowmen trotted ahead after firing a wave of arrows. The jackal shield soldiers in front of them also picked up speed. Their agility and nimbleness were perhaps on a higher level than Song Dachui and the rest.
Zhang Yang even felt that they could effortlessly jump up the fortress walls.
“They specialize in agility, huh? That’s why I hate mad dogs!” Zhang Yang cursed and gave his command.
“Everyone, be careful. Bowmen, form squads and focus your fire! Our priority is to take out the captain bowmen. Wu Yuan, pay attention to any lords or heroes among the jackals. Also watch the other directions; we don’t want to be ambushed.”
Boom!
Boom! Boom! Boom!
At that moment, the other captain bowmen also began to lock on targets, one after another. They were in groups of four. Qin Yidao and Liu Dali formed a duo. This was a previously-determined strategy because feather arrows were limited, so the priority was to wipe out the enemy’s long-range firepower.
Specifically, one of them would fire an arrow and see if it hit. It didn’t matter even if it didn’t hit because the other three bowmen in the group would follow up with supporting arrows and ensure that they killed the target.
This tactic worked very well, especially with the fortress’s location and cover from the War Fog.
By the time the jackal soldiers rushed 400 meters forward, the three captain jackal bowmen had already been taken out!
A white brilliance emanating from the Village Building Order expanded across the land. Right now, Zhang Yang’s priority wasn’t to harvest demon souls, energy, Wish Fragments, or whatever. The most crucial thing for him was to retrieve limited golden eagle armor-breaking arrows.
Zhang Yang immediately received the arrows from the Village Building Order and distributed them to the bowmen. He had to admit that this function of the Village Building Order was simply perfect in replenishing resources.
The jackals were truly vicious. Even at a moment like this, they didn’t activate the Level 3 Protection yet, but chose to charge ahead in the face of whistling, deadly arrows. It was apparent that they were experienced in war. They knew that even if the Level 3 Protection was activated, it would self-explode and cause a stun effect after being taken out by the powerful arrows of the captain bowmen.
But then again, they were like living targets.
In just a few seconds, when they rushed another 300 meters forward, four more captain jackal bowmen had been shot.
Seven of them had died, while one was seriously wounded. There were only four of them left.
But at that moment, a cloud of black smoke suddenly rose from all directions and pounced on the War Fog. Before Zhang Yang could react, the War Fog had been devoured entirely. In the next second, the black smoke that was transformed by the imps blew up on the spot near the captain bowmen. The jackals’ purpose had been achieved.
This incident was so sudden that when everyone reacted, they were already facing a rain of arrows.
After all, there were 39 elite bowmen among the jackals.
This unexpected wave of arrows instantly punctured the heads of three captain bowmen on Zhang Yang’s side, killing them on the spot. Another captain bowman was also severely injured. Even though the remaining four captain jackal bowmen were killed by the mighty Qin Yidao and others in a flash, they were still a step too late.
Outside the fortress, all the jackal shield soldiers let out creepy howls and accelerated all of a sudden. It was especially so for the captain jackal shield soldiers as they scampered over in a few breaths, leaving trails of afterimages for over 300 meters. Despite Wu Yuan and the ‘Four Tyrannical Bears’ ferociously snarling and hurling wooden spears, they were only five captains, after all, and the rest on their side were elites. They had already lost in numbers. The two waves of wooden spears they threw achieved no effective results. Wu Yuan killed two jackals with two throws and Zhou Datou managed one, while the rest all fell short!
Seeing that more than 50 captain jackal shield soldiers were about to rush up to the wall, Song Dachui, Wang Mumu, Duan Kuan, and Zhou Datou wildly roared and jumped out to stop the enemy head-on.
“Go to hell!”
Song Dachui swung the hammer in his hand, striking a leading jackal shield soldier a few dozen meters away with its shield. Its shield shattered and it instantly died!
This result wasn’t unexpected. Even though the jackals were also captains, their specialty was agility, after all. That was why they would be overpowered by the ‘Four Tyrannical Bears’.
Bang!
A captain jackal suddenly appeared at Song Dachui’s side, but before it could make a move, a towering shield slammed onto it and sent it flying. It was Wang Mumu who attacked.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
Snowy blade lights flashed like layers of sea waves. In a moment, beads of blood splashed into the sky. Duan Kuan held two swords in his hands and nimbly swung them to the right of Song Dachui, slicing open the enemy shields and killing three jackals at the same time.
Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!
Three iron spears swept through the air. No matter how agile a captain jackal was, in the end, they couldn’t be faster than the iron spears hurled by Zhou Datou.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The three iron spears had been blocked by a shield, but this stopped the momentum of the three captain jackals. Before they could make another push, they saw Song Dachui’s sardonic smile, and a huge iron hammer swept across their vision. The three captain jackals were blown away yet again, and this time, they weren’t going to live.
Before Song Dachui followed up with his attack, Wang Mumu on his left set up his shield, covering all of Song Dachui’s openings. On the right wing, Duan Kuan took advantage of the situation and followed through like a poisonous snake slithering out of its hole. He leaped with razor-sharp blades in hands and used Song Dachui’s violent ramming to wipe out the remaining enemies.
Lastly, Zhou Datou held a shield in his left hand and an iron spear in the other, catching an opening for Song Dachui to attack.
The camaraderie between the four men was simply outrageous!
They were the ‘Four Tyrannical Bears’. Everything happened in the blink of an eye. The four of them were strengthened by the black hill demon soul at the same time and achieved a compatibility of over 50 percent. And after Zhang Yang invested 5,000 energy points in them, they gained a high level of tacit cooperation.
To be honest, if any one of them were to take on a captain jackal individually, they would only stand a 50/50 chance of winning.
But with the four of them fighting together, they showed results that neither Zhang Yang nor Wu Yuan anticipated.