Chapter 392: Imperial Sky Assault (2)
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Right on top of the territory walls and door, the Lone Desert Smoke had arranged some surprises for them! Spellcasters, hunters of the Lone Desert Smokes were stationed at the top of the walls, showering their AOE attacks onto the members of the Imperial Sky all around the walls and door on the outside, trying to weaken their assaults on the castle door.
Rains of hailstones, flames, and arrows were descending onto the members of the Imperial Sky. It did not matter if they were the regular members or the elite members of the Imperial Sky, Rolling Rocks and Storm Riders, they could only take everything coming down on them and suffer great damage. The bloodshed was extreme, and many had fallen!
But, it seemed that One Sword Stroke had already predicted this situation. These players that he had sent up front were all mounted on Gray-Silver grade [Battle Mounts]. The purpose, was to boost the health points of the players on the front line. Plus, he had also arranged a large number of healers by the back of the front line to heal who constantly casted {Holy Shields} onto the players on the front line, no matter what the costs were!
This was indeed a good strategy. As their health points were boosted high enough to sustain high damage and survive, the healers can heal them in time and lower down the death rate!
After all, the number of players that can fit on the castle wall and on top of the Territory Door was limited, and the AOE skill attacks dealt lower damages. So if the attacks were not concentrated enough, or the interval of the assault waves were not stacked quickly enough, then their enemies would not be instantly killed, and they will have the chance to heal again!
"They really came well prepared!" Zhang Yang smiled.
But Han Ying Xue began to show some worry on her face, "3 guilds joining together to challenge us. If we compare the combat power of the players, they might be even better than us now! And if they manage to break through our door, then the battle will become hell for us, right?"
Mountain Mover came up and explained, "But the main objective of a Territory Conquest is not to slay your enemies, it’s to make sure the guild flag that is installed right in the Territory Hall remains standing! As long as the flag is still standing after 3 hours, even if we’re all slain, we will still be victors! Buying time! That’s the key!"
"So, we must be more focused on preventing their thieves from stealing our flag!" Zhang Yang nodded.
"Oh! So that’s why you sent sister Sun over to the Territory Hall!" Wei Yan Er suddenly understood.
This was because Sun Xin Yu was unmatched in ‘stealth’!
Zhang Yang laughed, "Wow, little girl, it’s really a marvelous thing to see that you’re actually becoming clever! Good for you!"
"Humph! I’m going to make you look bad one day for underestimating me all the time!" Wei Yan Er crunched her teeth together while speaking in a low voice.
The assault squad of the Imperial Sky did not give up on taking down the door even though they were bombarded heavily by Lone Desert Smoke. And under their selfless effort on attacking the door, the strong and sturdy Level 3 Territory Door was eventually taken down in about 10 minutes, blown to bits! For that, the Imperial Sky had sacrificed about 300 players as the cost of bringing the door down!
So the battle went on, and it was still 2 hours and 31 minutes away from the end of the conquest!
"Tankers to the front line, healers to the back, and heal the front lines! Assault teams, give it your best!" Mountain Mover commanded the Lone Desert Smoke members, while at the same time, he was waving his hands around, stationing all the members to places they should be.
Mountain Mover had made a decision, to station all the defensive forces at the front entrance of the castle, forming a shape of a bag. Tankers were lining up at the front-most positions, while right behind them, where the assault teams of the Lone Desert Smoke! When the enemies clashed into them, the tankers blocked them, while the assault teams unleashed hell on the enemies with their highest damage output! The situation was like Leonidas and his 300 Spartans going against the massive army! They easily took down all the enemy squads that were sent up to test out their formation and defenses!
This was undoubtedly a very impressive tactic, and the effects were outstanding! It was that moment when the members of Imperial Sky that rushed in blindly, were welcomed with ‘hell of fire’, and the rate of death on Imperial Sky increased greatly!
"Zhan Yu, come and let’s have a good ‘chat’!" a loud cry came up, and it was One Sword Stroke, riding on his [White-Boned Sabretooth] coming in through the entrance of the castle. As the assault teams of the Lone Desert Smoke launched their assaults on him, he was inflicted with ‘-0!’, and this value kept on popping up whenever an attack landed on him! That was a damage absorption effect going on!
Well, nothing could be done on that. Other than Berserker’s {Tornado Cleave}, most of the AOE attacks were lower in damage, so when they are up against a tanker with good equipment, it’s just tragic!
For example, the {Barrage} of the hunter can only inflict 200% range attack damage over 10 seconds. So at every second, it’s just 20% of the range attack damage. Even if the player acquired a Level 80 Violet-Platinum range weapon with an interval attack of 3.8 seconds, and also a full set of Violet-Platinum armor equipped, the basic ranged attack of the player would only be approximately 9,500. So 20% of that amount of attack would only be about 2,000 or maybe less!
So, how do you break through his defense?
Seeing their guild master One Sword Stroke appeared right in front of them, the members of the Imperial Sky were agitated with excitement. They began to cheer and cry out loud! Everyone could see that One Sword Stroke is a favorable man in Imperial Sky, with high prestige!
Meanwhile, at beside of One Sword Stroke, there came Liu Wei - ‘Heaven's Pride’. He was riding a gray-silver Gray Silver, looking like a Prince Charming.
Zhang Yang laughed out loud and said, "One Sword Stroke, we have crossed path many times in the Professional League Championship. So, you! Are! Unworthy! To! Be! My! Opponent!" He spelled out his words one by one to make it clear to One Sword Stroke.
As the Professional League Championship was held, the Silky Soft Battle Team and the Sky and Ocean Electronics Battle Team had crossed blades for 14 times in total. The results of the battles were 12:2; Zhang Yang and his guild won the matches single-sided! And Zhang Yang had engaged in battle with One Sword Stroke 5 times in total. Zhang Yang had won over 5 times, totally being overpowering One Sword Stroke.
After hearing Zhang Yang’s words, One Sword Stroke did not burst into anger, he laughed instead, "Well, that was the past, and the past shall remain in the past. The present is now! The tides in the ocean can change, and now it’s about time we Imperial Sky sing the song of victory!"
Meanwhile, Liu Wei was feeling annoyed, "Why are we wasting time speaking to him! Time is slipping away and we have a time limit on this conquest! Take down Thunderstorm Castle now!"
One Sword Stroke glanced at Liu Wei with disdain --- this idiot doesn’t get it at all, does he? Zhang Yang is a godly existence in the Lone Desert Smoke. So by defeating him, surely his defeat will crush the morale and the will of Lone Desert Smoke. And honestly speaking, Zhang Yang himself was already like almost half of the battle power of the entire Lone Desert Smoke!
The army should go into war with tactics and strategies. Those who only know how to shout and charge are idiots!
So by having such an idiot by his side, he could not help but to sigh quietly in his heart, "Come, let us unleash hell upon them with our {Starfall} and {Meteor Crash}!"
After saying it out loud, One Sword Stroke reached his hand towards Liu Wei. And before the eyes of Zhang Yang and the Lone Desert Smoke, including his own members of Imperial Sky, the two of them held hands like lovers, fingers crossed!
What the heck! That scene was so blinding that even dogs with sunglasses will be blinded as well! Nothing can be unseen!
Zhang Yang frowned at what he just witnessed, and then he quickly recovered and informed through the party channel, "Little girl, witchy snow, you two should stand back a little, this is definitely a Paired Skill!"
The best way to deal with Paired Skills is to stay out of the skill’s effective area. Because the players who activate Paired Skills would have to stay in a spot and let the skill unleash its potential, so they cannot pursue anyone running away. But this situation was very different, Lone Desert Smoke had to stand their ground to make sure that their enemies do not pass through the entrance of their territory! Once they move out of the way, the members of Imperial Sky will gush into the castle like a strong current of wave, and what comes next would be a slaughterhouse!
"Tankers to the front! Assault teams and healers to the back!" Zhang Yang shouted as loudly as he could.
Boom!
A thunderous burst of sound followed by a vague burning sky appeared, everyone was looking up into the sky to see it.
Countless stars were falling from the sky and crashing down upon the location of Zhang Yang and his members of Lone Desert Smoke. Streams of falling stars, the size of houses came crashing down. When they entered the atmosphere of the earth, they flew through the air vigorously and ignited into balls of flames, gigantic balls of flames! They were like balls of flames bursting out from a volcano, it was a very daunting sight!
Boom! Boom! Boom!
As the meteors crashed onto them, the position of the entrance of the castle was instantly turned into a land of flames. The members of Lone Desert Smoke were suffering intense waves of damage, and everyone was inflicted with damages ranging from 2,000 to 3,000 in every second! Every second!
It is just like the paired skill of {Blizzard Sky} and {Luna's Dew}, these paired skills of {Starfall} and {Meteor Crash} that One Sword Stroke and Liu Wei just unleashed could deal 5,000 damage in every second! But the damage value is a little lower because the {Starfall,} and {Meteor Crash} inflict fire type damages, so players who have fire resistance would be able to resist the fire damage and lower the damage values. On the other hand, the paired skill, {Blizzard Sky} and {Luna’s Dew} inflict chaos damage that ignores all defense and all resistance! Of course, the damage output would be higher!
The duration of this paired skills were also very long. Zhang Yang tried to launch a {Spear of Obliteration} at Liu Wei, and all he got was the word ‘Immune’. Obviously, all the paired skills are alike, players that are activating paired skills will be come invincible until the skills end!
"Heal up! Everybody, hold on tight!" Zhang Yang shouted with his loudest voice, because they cannot afford to lose the defense line by this entrance! At the very least, they must not lose their defense line by the entrance at such early stage of the conquest!
However, Zhang Yang and his guild did not just encounter with the {Starfall} and {Meteor Crash}, they were also encountering the assaults from the Imperial Sky army, consisting of spellcasters and hunters that bombard waves of AOE attacks at them! As for Lone Desert Smoke, all of their spellcasters and hunters had backed away to the back of the battle line, as they were attempting to avoid getting caught in the rain of the paired skills! So, the front line was left with only tankers and warriors, and they had no way of retaliating when under such heavy fire, not at the moment.
If it was just the paired skills, Zhang Yang and his guild members wouldn’t have any problem standing their ground against it. But with the aid of hundreds of hunters and spellcasters from the Imperial Sky supporting from behind, with waves of AOE attacks, Lone Desert Smoke could not heal before the next wave came onto them!
As mentioned earlier, AOE attacks weren’t really causing high damages to the targets. The damages inflicted on top tier tankers are even lower! Basically, normal tankers with average equipment were inflicted with about 100 damage in every wave of the AOE attack. But when there were about 100 of them bombarding over, that will become a total of 10,000 damages, which clearly exceeded the limit of the average healer!
The number of Tankers on the front line was decreasing rapidly as the battle continued!
"Should we use our paired skills as well?" Han Ying Xue asked Zhang Yang.
"Let’s not be hasty, it’s not the right time yet. Let’s wait for more of them to gather at this spot first!" Zhang Yang began to laugh.
The skill {Starfall} and {Meteor Crash} was indeed impressive, especially when Zhang Yang and his guild members had no choice but to stand their ground and take on the full effect of their paired skills! The damage done on the Lone Desert Smoke was tremendous! But it was fortunate for the Lone Desert Smoke, that the paired skills only lasted for 30 seconds, and Lone Desert Smoke lost about 300 players as the cost of surviving that wave of attack!
"Hahaha! Aren’t our paired skills marvelous, Zhan Yu? One Sword Stroke spoke with a sense of pride in his tone.
"Not really. Just like that. Meh." Zhang Yang spoke calmly. Well, it was actually true, because that wave only took out about 300 members of the Lone Desert Smoke, and Imperial Sky did not break the defensive line by the castle entrance as well. It wasn’t much.
"Zhang Yang, did you really think that we have only one set of paired skills?" Liu Wei revealed a sinister smile on his face, "Come, let’s continue!"
The two of them, Liu Wei and One Sword Stroke were still holding their hands like they were never going to let go. At first, Zhang Yang really thought that these two were burning in the flame of gayness, having the passion not to let go of each other, to the point where they did not give a sh*t to how everyone would view them! But from Liu Wei’s words, he sensed that they seemed to be having a second set of paired skills!
One Sword Stroke let out a breath of sigh, once again the loose-lipped had ruined another part of his plans. The element of surprise! Elements of surprise should only be used at the most crucial moment for it to work their wonders! That is why there’s a word ‘surprise’ there! So, what good is shouting out loud, telling the world you have a ‘surprise’ for your enemy! So much for keeping secrets!
"{Absolute Decade},{Frost Prison}!"
Liu Wei let out a loud roar, and immediately, layers of frost began to form on the ground surface that was already destroyed by the meteors, and countless ice blades shot right out from the ground, towards the players of Lone Desert Smoke!
As they had suffered a large hit from the previous assaults of the paired skills, the Lone Desert Smoke needed to heal themselves, and they needed a substantial amount of mana points to cast the healing skills. Although there were many healers on the scene and they could take turns and heal the wounded, it takes time for them to do so! And now, their opponents had already begun their next assault wave! So they had no time at all to take turns and switch to heal the wounded!
Zhang Yang made a defining decision, there he shouted, "Witchy Snow! Let’s do it!"
"Alright!"
"Everyone stand back!" Zhang Yang said in the guild channel.
Seeing the Lone Desert Smoke were retreating back and the entrance of the castle was opened up, One Sword Stroke revealed a smile and said, "Charge! At all costs!"
He already knew that Zhang Yang and Han Ying Xue had the super paired skills {Blizzard Sky} and {Lunar’s Dew}, but they had to charge! Because they are the invaders, and to win, they must make some sacrifices!
{Blizzard Sky}, {Lunar’s Dew} activated!
In an instant, the sky began to turn white, hail began to fall, followed by a large moon that appeared right in the sky, and there they began! Terrifying values of damages were inflicted upon the army of Imperial Sky!
It looked like the Imperial Sky was sending men to die in vain, but the fact was, it wasn’t! They were actually using their advantage in numbers, sacrificing their guild members to open up a path!
From this point of view, One Sword Stroke is indeed, not a simple man, he is willing to make the necessary sacrifices to win when the time is right! And he will not hesitate at all when he needs to make such sacrifices! He indeed has what it takes to make resolute decisions!
30 seconds passed before they knew it, and the paired skills from both sides had ended. The member on two sides clashed on and began to understand the true meaning of ‘cut and thrust’! It means, melee combat!
Judging purely by the strength of the players, the combination of the three guilds is obviously much higher than the force of Lone Desert Smoke alone. However, the members of Lone Desert Smoke all had their very own Gray-Silver [Mounts], which greatly increase their attack and health points. The battle was more evenly fought than expected.
The battle progressed unusually intensely, as there would be players dying at every ticking second! Blood was shed at every single corner at the entrance of the castle! In the game, non-environmental objects such as blood and dead bodies would only exist in the surroundings for a short while, then everything of such sort will disappear.
But, the location of the entrance was filled with a river of blood, and everyone was stained with blood, splashing over in the air. The battle was really dramatic!
The Lone Desert Smoke only needed to stand their ground for 3 hours in order to win. So, they were willing to sacrifice themselves, buying as much time as they could!
Shoof!
A stream of {Flaming Tongue} suddenly shot right out at Zhang Yang. Although Zhang Yang was very focused in the intense battle, part of his focus was still on One Sword Stroke. And he witnessed it, that stream of {Flaming Tongue} came fresh out from the palm of One Sword Stroke!
At that instant, the members of Imperial Sky around Zhang Yang turned their focus onto Zhang Yang and began to launch their all-out attacks in him!
Zhang Yang was still left with about 40,000 health points at the moment. So, theoretically he was not at the danger level yet, he was still far from it! But he could feel a sense of danger that made him activated his {Shield Wall}!
That attack from One Sword Stroke was obviously a signal, a signal that triggered every single member of Imperial Sky around Zhang Yang to focus their assault fully on Zhang Yang!
Because the moment when they slay Zhang Yang, would be the moment they break the undefeatable record of Zhang Yang. That would give a fatal blow to the morale of Lone Desert Smoke and make them vulnerable!
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Streams of {Flaming Tongue} were fired, one after another onto Zhang Yang. Even though Zhang Yang had already activated {Shield Wall}, he would still be inflicted with 170 damage! So, it seemed that this {Flaming Tongue} was a similar skill to {Dance of the Heaven and Earth}, and its basic attack reached up to 10,000!
"So do you think you’re the one with super skill?" Zhang Yang said.
He then let out a gentle breath and activated his {Dance of Heaven and Earth} on One Sword Stroke!
One Sword Stroke too, came straight up and activated his {Shield Wall} to counter.
10 seconds later, One Sword Stroke’s {Shield Wall} was down, but Zhang Yang’s {Shield Wall} was still active thanks to the special effect of [Titan Wall]. The skill went on for another 5 seconds before it ended! Zhang Yang laughed out loud and activated the special effect of the [Ring of Beastman's Ancestor]!
Since {Shield Wall} only had 7 minutes of cool down, even without adding the skill points, it could be activated multiple times in one large-scale battle! Since Zhang Yang had already activated his super skill, he had to make sure that his opponent dies by the end of the battle! Or else, it would be a humiliation towards his action in activating the skill - {Dance of the Heaven and Earth}!
The old beastman appeared, floating in the middle of the air, waving its staff at One Sword Stroke and launched multiple streams of an electrical surge right onto One Sword Stroke!