The wind roared beside my ears, and my cloak flapped wildly behind me as Lin Yixin and I fell toward the ground. Before we landed, I unleashed Burning Blade Slash to largely cancel our momentum. It wasn't the coolest landing I could've done since the skill kicked up a huge amount of dust, but all things considered it wasn't too bad.

I wasn't done yet though. With Lin Yixin still in my arms, I turned around in one swift motion, ran and jumped into the air, catching He Yi. Her falling force was almost too much for me to bear, but I just barely stayed on my feet after staggering for a bit. Suddenly, I realized I was holding Lin Yixin with one hand and He Yi with the other while surrounded by corpses, snow and an ancient fortress's wall in the background. The image was surprisingly picturesque.

……

"You look like you're having fun. How much longer are you going to carry them both?"

Murong Mingyue's voice suddenly came from behind me. As it turned out, a magic knight had escorted her close to the walls. She waved her scepter a couple of times and healed Lin Yixin, He Yi and me to full health very quickly. Tsk tsk, this was one sensation I could never get tired of. We might've been able to hang on if we had dozens of super priests like Murong Mingyue on the wall earlier. Ultimately, no one could fight a prolonged fight without healing.

"Let's move away from here…"

He Yi looked up to the walls. "Those rocks and rolling logs just won't stop coming. I don't want to get hit by them any more than necessary!"

"Yeah!"

While Lin Yixin and He Yi escorted Murong Mingyue away from the frontline, Gui Guzi, Li Chengfeng, Chaos Moon and I stayed behind to cover their retreat. Thanks to the efforts of our 100000+ Cloudpiercing Claw players, a large number of allied engineers had made it to the foot of the wall and a.s.sembled all sorts of siege equipment such as the cloud ladders. Of course, the players of other cla.s.ses—the large majority of them were Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls, The Monarch Descends, Blazing Hot Lips, Purple Lily and Peach Garden—were present as well. The Impa.s.sable Great Wall had only one entrance, so of course we had to attack it with the strongest force we could muster.

I looked back and saw many flaming rocks flying over my heads and falling toward our battle line. Many of them were launched by Black Marsh Catapults as well. Every time a flaming rock made contact with the ground, an explosion about 10 yards in diameter would kill a ton of players. Even so, our forces continued to charge toward the wall. Once the cloud ladders were a.s.sembled, we would finally be able to attack the fortification directly. The b.l.o.o.d.y truth of war had always been murder and bloodshed.

Above our heads, Red Maple kept unleas.h.i.+ng Maple Kill, Thunder G.o.d Ball, Fire G.o.d Flurry and more skills to kill the remaining Chinese players on the wall while shouting, "Ballistae, fire in a line and focus down the s.h.i.+elders! Catapults, don't take too long to launch your next attack! The suppressive fire cannot fall below a certain threshold! You, order the second, third, fourth, and fifth subguilds to send their elite cavalry up the walls to protect the siege weapons and provide support! Don't try to charge the stronger enemies! Just Net those above Level 185 and let our ranged players kill them!"

Red Maple's orders were as clear and cool-headed as his judgment. His ability to command the defense of a fortification alone proved that he deserved to be called the number one player of Purple Grape City. If he didn't exist, it would've taken us less than half of our current efforts to take over the Wall. It was Purple Grape City's fortune to have a powerful leader like him.

……

About 100 yards away from the Impa.s.sable Great Wall, the White Marsh Catapults, basic Catapults and more were already in position. A ton of s.h.i.+elded magic knights were guarding them while the production players loaded the payload into the catapults. Once the loading was complete, Hot and Sour Noodles abruptly pointed his weapon at the Impa.s.sable Great Wall and shouted, "Aim at the section three-fourths above the ground and launch the payload at full power! Don't stop attacking, and don't try to conserve the basic and white marsh payloads! I will declare the cost to the VR department and do my best to compensate you all!"

Clang clang clang….

The clanging of metals resounded across the air, and the next moment the sky was blotted out by an unimaginable amount of rocks. A few seconds later, they exploded against the Impa.s.sable Great Wall like gigantic fireb.a.l.l.s. On a related note, the white marsh payloads were able to leave a meter-deep pit in the wall. Although the first salvo wasn't able to penetrate the Impa.s.sable Great Wall's fortified armor, it was only a matter of time.

Boom!

One of the white marsh payloads soared up the walls and killed every player that happened along its way. After it skidded dozens of meters across the wallwalk (T/N: it's mentioned a couple of chapters ago it's a hundred meters wide I think), it exploded amid a group of archers and mages, claiming countless lives. The sea of flames and charred bodies would be a horrific sight if it wasn't a game.

"Hold! Hold! Keep your s.h.i.+elds up and protect our ranged weapons with your life!" an axe fighter shouted.

However, just a few seconds later, a second white marsh payload hit the wallwalk again, crus.h.i.+ng countless players along its destructive path before coming to a stop against that particular s.h.i.+eld formation. The magic knights at the forefront exchanged horrified glances with one another before swearing, "f.u.c.k!"

BOOM!

Both them and the Black Marsh Catapults they were protecting exploded into pieces. The White Marsh Catapult's unique ammo was just too powerful.

……

At the edge of the wall, Red Maple ignored the explosions happening next to him, flicked away a piece of burning debris on his shoulder and ordered coldly, "We need to take back the initiative. Tell the Black Marsh Catapults to aim 75 degrees above ground at 45% strength! We'll destroy their siege weapons first and deal with the ants beneath our feet later!"

A few minutes later, Purple Grape City launched their counterattack. Hate him all you want, but Red Maple's calculation ability could only be described as terrifying. The payload flew straight toward our siege weapons almost like homing missiles. A series of devastating explosions occurred, and at least a hundred Chinese siege weapons were blown into splinters just like that. Many of the cavalrymen responsible for protecting were killed and dissolved into sparks of white light as well. It wasn't the kind of casualties we could take for long.

Hot and Sour Noodles frowned, but his head was as cool as ice. He raised his arm without hesitation and ordered again, "All catapults, back 30 yards away and aim 85 degrees above ground at 92% strength!"

Creak, creak, creak! After the catapults had moved back 30 yards, they immediately launched their second a.s.sault. Countless enemy players died to the attack, and more cracks appeared on the wall. Despite the support players' best attempts to repair the fortification, there was no way they could catch up to the speed at which it was taking damage.

As we stared at the exchange of flying rocks above our heads, all of us gradually came to the realization that the battle had reached a point where it wasn't just about player versus player anymore. The ability to wage positional warfare was equally important as the ability to put one's blade through an enemy's flesh.

Xu Yang swallowed once before saying, "We're really lucky we have Hot and Sour Noodles, aren't we? Who else would know their catapult angles and range this well?"

I nodded in agreement. "Yeah, I've read about Hot and Sour Noodles' study on catapults on the forums before. Not only did he research catapults' range, angle and force of impact intensively, he had run the relevant tests and simulations at least ten thousand times. Today, he can come up with an effective solution against any situation with just a single glance. Tsk tsk, it's a most impressive ability."

"What do we do now? Should we try scaling the walls again?" Gui Guzi said excitedly.

I nodded. "Yes. Once the cloud ladders are built, we'll act as the vanguard and hopefully deliver more people up the walls. It would be fun delivering a million troops up the walls and beating down on the j.a.panese from their own fortification, hehe!"

……

While we were idling, the engineers were busy raising the cloud ladders to the walls. Unlike the olden days in real life, it wasn't as simple as just propping the ladders up against the wall. In Heavenblessed, the engineers had to stack 2 to 4 ladders together to increase the overall length of the ladder. In the case of the Impa.s.sable Great Wall, it took 6 ladders at least to reach the top, which meant that the lengthening process took between 2 to 3 engineers to complete. It was a long and arduous process to say the least.

On the wall, the JGL Hall of Famer, Cyan Frost the Ice Knight, looked down to the ground and snorted. "Hmph, the Chinese are starting to a.s.semble their cloud ladders. I want a group of archers and mages dedicated to sniping all those engineers who dare to expose their heads from beneath their s.h.i.+elds. Once the engineers are dead, the cloud ladders are as good as useless!"

A group of ranged players immediately moved to the edge of the wall and attacked as she commanded. Hundreds of engineers were killed immediately. Production players dropped all their stats into Intelligence, so their HP and Defense were ridiculously low. They didn't have a Magic s.h.i.+eld to protect them, so it was a one-shot-one-kill most of the time. Our magic knights were doing their best to protect them, but some attacks had to slip through once in a while.

Pa pa pa...

Still, several hundred cloud ladders were successfully a.s.sembled and hooked tightly to the walls. It would take considerable effort for the enemy to destroy them. Standing at the foot of the wall, Dominating Heaven Blade pointed his sword upward and declared, "Let's climb! Every body counts, so don't worry about dying and just get up there! We'll bury them with sheer numbers!"

Dominating Warrior G.o.d, Dominating Knight G.o.d and more quickly sheathed their weapons and climbed up the cloud ladders. It was way faster to scale the walls using the ladders than it was using the Cloudpiercing Claw. It would take even the slowest players 30 seconds at most to reach the top.

Red Maple yelled from the edge of the wallwalk, "Ready your Barrier Breaks and one-shot anyone who climbs to the top! Mages, burn the cloud ladders with Fire Dragon Spell! It only has a durability of 120; it'll become unusable once it's destroyed!"

The mages acted as he ordered and started setting the cloud ladders on fire. The structures our engineers spent so much effort to a.s.semble were burning down at an incredible rate.

Gui Guzi and Li Chengfeng looked at me at nearly the same time and asked, "Let's go?"

I nodded strongly and declared, "Let's go!"

We immediately ran toward the closest cloud ladders to us and climbed upward. Even Beiming Xue, Lian Xin and Murong Mingyue were following us. They couldn't use the Cloudpiercing Claw because they lacked the Strength stat, but the cloud ladder was a different story.

Pa pa pa...

I ran up a burning cloud ladder at high speed and reached the top of the wall in no time. A group of ashen-faced magic knights who were knocked back by my Burning Blade Slash + Ancient Seal combo swore, "f.u.c.k, the MVP of the WEL is back! Focus him down now!"

I smiled. "But this time I'm not alone, you know?"