Chapter 106: The Scourge's Tactics
Wagner pulled the reins to stop the horse, took off his helmet, and let out a long breath.
His hair was wet with sweat, and the lining of his armor felt a little sticky.
When the soldiers saw Wagner take off his helmet, they also pushed up their visors and untied their helmet straps, revealing their steaming heads.
Wagner looked at the soldiers. Except for a few guys who cheated during training and were breathing heavily, everyone else was in pretty good shape.
But... the people are fine, but the horses are.
The August sun was too scorching, and the frequent charges without adequate rest were too much for even the endurance-rich ground lizards that could adapt to the southern climate to withstand.
Patting the horse's neck and calming the somewhat anxious mount, Wagner frowned and looked not far away.
Less than a hundred meters away, on the road towards Westham, about a hundred undead were scattered in the farmlands on both sides of the road, staring at them intently.
Wagner frowned.
This batch of undead blocking the road was more cunning than the previous two batches, and the results of each charge were quite limited.
Not only that, but skeleton wizards also appeared among these evil undead, blending in with the undead and secretly casting dark magic - just now, a soldier's horse was hit by a slow spell and he almost fell behind. If Wagner hadn't noticed something was wrong and turned around quickly to rescue him, the soldier would have been almost dragged away by the swarming undead.
The attack of the undead did not pose much of a threat to the heavy cavalry whose horses were even covered in iron armor. It was the appearance of the skeleton wizard that really made Wagner fearful.
"Charlie Rex sent these undeads to keep us out of Westram?" Wagner pondered the strange situation. "Does this illegitimate child really want to go against the Bartles family... or does Westram have some secret that cannot be discovered?"
Considering this, Wagner began to back down.
Given the captain's cold attitude towards him, there was no chance that an easy task just to show off would fall on him.
It would be fine to deal with these vulnerable undead, but Wagner has no interest in getting himself into more trouble.
After taking a deep look at the remaining undead, Wagner put on his helmet, gestured to the soldiers, and ordered the entire team to retreat.
The retreat of the heavy cavalry was seen by the players...
"I'm going to run away from the monster? I haven't fought for too long and I'm out of it?"
"Don't go~"
"Leave the equipment behind, ahh ...
The players who retreated to the farmland on both sides of the road screamed and chased after him...
Wagner was furious. He turned his horse's head and charged towards the undead again.
A group of players rushing to the front were killed in an instant, and the players behind them hurriedly fled in all directions.
"This monster is going to come back and attack me!"
"Are you kidding me? The monster's AI is so high, it must be poisonous!"
This group of undead fled too fast. The heavy cavalry charged back and forth several times but failed to kill many of them. Wagner stared breathlessly at the undead who were broken into pieces and fled everywhere, feeling extremely angry.
After being delayed for a while, Wagner was shocked to find that... a large group of undead were coming from the direction of Westram...
"Has Westram become a den of the undead?!" Wagner was puzzled. From the information they had received, no one from Westram had ever said that there were so many undead hiding in their town!
"Retreat!" Without thinking too much, Wagner quickly turned his horse's head.
The undead that had just fled everywhere came sticking to us again, screaming “YAWAKAKAKA”…
A big advantage that cavalry has over infantry is that two legs cannot outrun four legs, but this advantage is obviously of no use to players - the total weight of a skeleton plus its equipment is only more than 30 kilograms, which is lighter than a large dog. As long as it doesn't fall down and fall apart, it is basically not difficult to catch up with a four-legged dog.
The lagging soldiers were entangled by the undead, and Wagner had to turn around again to rescue them...
While the battle was going on here, the "fourth batch" of undead arrived at the battlefield, and the number of undead that had been reduced to double digits increased to triple digits again...
Neither side could do anything to the other, and after a brief entanglement, the two sides once again maintained a safe distance and confronted each other.
Wagner felt a splitting headache when he saw the dark army of undead that could not be driven away, killed or gotten rid of. The players' experience was also very bad.
"Running for half an hour, fighting for thirty seconds, is this game playable?!"
"The weapon I just bought was broken in two strikes. It's so hard for me!"
"Is there any awesome knight who can take on the monster? I can't handle it at all!"
"What the hell! If you go up there, you'll be gone!"
Amid the complaints of a bunch of players, Miaobishenghua opened his voice and shouted: "Qingyue, Qingyue is here!"
Entropy died in the last round of battle. He had worked hard to blend in with the other players and run back to the battlefield. Now he had just reconnected with his friends and heard Miaobishenghua's voice. He quickly responded, "I'm here!"
Miaobishenghua pulled Woduyao over to the small team of Entropy Buzeng and greeted familiar faces such as Yang Ying and Tang Jia: "Where is Ji Tang? Ji Tang is not with you?"
"No, Ji Tang is busy." Enbuteng said.
"Okay." Miaobishenghua didn't care whether Ji Tang was there or not, "Qingyue, do you have any idea about this group of elite monsters?"
"They are all cavalry, we can't fight them head-on. If we want to fight them, we have to get them off their horses first." Entropy said, "I tried it last round. These elite monsters are not immune to the slow spell. If we slow down the horses, we can pull the monsters off their horses with manpower... Unfortunately, it didn't work."
"I saw that, too." Miaobishenghua nodded vigorously, his eyes sparkling as he said, "The Slow spell can only work on one target at a time. If we only slow down one target, other elite monsters will come to the rescue. If we can slow down several monsters at the same time, those elite monsters won't be able to come to the rescue, right? This way, we'll have a chance to reduce the number of these elite monsters."
The monsters in this game are different from those in traditional games. The monsters that are killed don’t “refresh” so quickly. It’s impossible to deal with this group of elite monsters when they gather in groups, so finding ways to gradually reduce the number of monsters is also a routine - the same as clearing the small monsters first when defeating the BOSS in the PC game.
Entropy extended the claws of friendship without any hesitation.
After getting a reliable teammate named En Bu Zeng, Miao Bi Sheng Hua went to look for Ai Pin Cai Hui Ying with great enthusiasm; after getting five mages (including Miao Bi Sheng Hua himself and the newly transferred nurse player in their team), Miao Bi Sheng Hua went to look for Brother La Hong...
The training of a magic apprentice is the most difficult of all professions. It is difficult to gain reputation, the materials required by Lord Yang are expensive, and it is difficult to change jobs. It has been almost a month since the launch of "Another World", and the number of magic players in the entire game can still be counted on two hands.
There are less than two dozen wizard players, and one of them is a cultivator like Big Boss Ou Yan who is determined not to give any attention to group tasks...
In short, Miaobishenghua managed to recruit all the mages that could be hired among the individual players (entropy does not increase & only hard work can win), and Brother Lahong, who only had two mages on hand, had no reason to refuse; when the two sides met, they quickly formed an elite group.
"When the vanguard engages in battle, the seven of us mages will blend into the crowd and join them, claiming targets one by one from left to right, and cast Slow at the same time. Remember, don't cast your skills at the same time, so that two people don't cast their skills on the same target."
The elite group was pulled out, and Miaobi Shenghua took the command and arranged the tactics. "Then it's Brother Lahong's knights . Try to get close to the monsters that have been slowed and find an opportunity to attack them."
"Don't worry!" Brother Lahong patted his chest proudly.
Because Brother Lahong spent a lot of money to buy the undead horse early on, his side has the most knight players and the best equipment. The knight players on their side can take turns riding undead horses into the poisonous fog swamp to pull monsters, and specifically pick out monsters that produce a lot of materials to swipe. Whether it is income or efficiency, they are second to none, and other monster-clearing groups cannot compare to them. It is Brother Lahong's responsibility to lead the knight team.
"Finally, it's Sister Ying and your team of warriors." Miaobishenghua looked at Yang Ying and said, "The commander of the elite monster is now in your hands. Is there any problem?"
Wagner Pitt was scanned by the player's identification technique, and the information displayed was "City Defense Army Sergeant" in red font...
Yang Ying didn't dare to take on too much responsibility: "Just do your best. That monster is quite fierce and its AI is quite high. I can't guarantee how long we can hold out."
"Just buy some more time for LaHong's Cavaliers. If they can kidnap a few people, we will have less pressure in the next round." Miaobi Shenghua said, "No problem, let's get ready."
After experiencing the "destruction" of the Heart Demon Book, being killed three times by a group of elite monsters is nothing to these players... Anyway, there is no death penalty and you don't have to go offline and stare blankly. The monsters look pretty good and their attack methods are not strange at all, so it is impossible to have any psychological trauma.
Not only do players have no psychological trauma, they also use their own personal experiences and eyewitness accounts of their companions' deaths to understand the "attack modes" of these elite monsters - the greatest burst of lethality of these heavily armored cavalrymen is in group charges, and while they are indeed powerful and can kill anyone who touches them, they can only run in a straight line.
As long as you don't use your face to get hit by the horse's hoof, move more gracefully and escape more flexibly, you won't be killed easily.
The vanguard consisting of a group of walker players such as Give Me Medicine and Addicted to Studying went first. Halfway through the run, the elite monsters launched a charge, so they quickly dispersed and jumped left and right into the harvested wheat fields, flexibly went around the rear of the enemy from the side, stabbed into the enemy's interior and hacked wildly.
Seven wizard players mixed in with the largest group of walker players. When the walker players reached the enemy's waist, they quickly raised their thick wooden staffs and cast Slow spells towards the agreed targets.
The knight players deliberately slowed down a step, opened their eyes wide, and rushed towards the target that was hit by the slow spell...
"It's our turn!"
Yang Ying waited until the first wave of charge launched by the elite monsters sprinted dozens of meters and opened up a distance from the rear that was being held back by the large group of walker players. Then he shouted and launched a charge, crashing into the most difficult elite monster commander.
The charge in the warrior player's skill panel can only hit targets within a distance of 85 meters. It is completely different from the charge of a regular cavalry, and the power and destructive power are not on the same level.
However, this simplified version of the charge plagiarized from the runes of the Alchemy Golem is not without its advantages - as long as there is rage (mental power) to activate the rune, there is no need for charging or sprinting preparation, and the charge can be used regardless of the original action or posture...
When players discussed tactics and deployed troops, they did so openly and honestly in front of the heavy cavalry.
Even brainy players like Entropy and Brilliant Writing didn't feel anything was wrong with this kind of arrogant behavior of deploying troops directly in front of the enemy... How rare it is! Who hasn't discussed tactics in front of the BOSS when playing a game?
When the heavy cavalry saw this scene, they were almost furious - even if they did not understand the language of the undead, just by looking at the undead moving around in formation and pointing at them unscrupulously, they could tell what they were doing.
Originally, Wagner Peter had no intention of continuing to tangle with this group of undead, in order to avoid attracting the hatred of the noble illegitimate son who was strongly supported by the black magician (the endless supply of so many undead was enough for Wagner to conclude that the black magician himself was in Westram). Seeing this situation, he was in no hurry to retreat and had to kill these undead who looked down on them.
As soon as the players moved, Wagner also launched a charge with great momentum.
Later, he discovered that this group of undead was even more difficult to deal with than the previous three groups (a huge misunderstanding)! They actually knew how to divide the battlefield, split up the troops, and stab them in the back!
Under inertia, he rushed out for dozens of meters and knocked a dozen undead who had no time to dodge into ashes. Wagner then stopped his mount and shouted at the soldiers to return to the rear for support.
When Wagner turned his horse around, he saw less than ten undead who seemed to be a beat slower and lagging behind, running towards him.
Wagner didn't care about these guys who were out of touch with the undead army, and it was even less likely that he would feel any danger - the attacks of these undead were not worth mentioning. He believed that even if he faced more than ten undead alone, he would be able to escape unscathed, not to mention that he had his soldiers by his side.
Just as Wagner was about to turn around with this thought in mind... out of the corner of his eye, he saw an undead charging towards him without any warning, without any visible accumulation of power, and in a way that was completely contrary to common sense in combat.
Wagner had seen charging moves before, but compared to the charging moves Wagner had experienced in previous fights with other professional-level fighters, the power of this undead's charging move was quite poor... It hit the side of his horse and his right calf, but the horse remained motionless and he himself only shook slightly.
Before Wagner could understand how this undead had charged at him with such a messy attack, other undead that were running loosely and didn't seem to have any fighting skills also charged at him one after another without any warning or proper attack...
The combat effectiveness of players who rely on runes for quick success is indeed very poor. It takes ten of them together to have the strength of a real professional level.
But players have their own advantages, such as having no sense of pain and not caring at all about exchanging injuries for injuries.
Yang Ying, who was leading the charge, knocked Wagner Peter to a stop, and at the same time, Wagner's sword mercilessly pierced Yang Ying's right clavicle; the modern industrial product iron leaf fish scale armor that Yang Ying was wearing could not block this casual backhand sword, which shows how strong Wagner is.
But... this was useless. Skeletons were least afraid of puncture wounds. Yang Ying didn't care whether the enemy's sword was still stuck in his shoulder. He raised his weapon and used a sword dance move, chopping the skirt armor on Wagner's left thigh with a clang...
Tang Jia, who bumped into Yang Ying one step slower, created a sword storm on the spot in a very tacit manner. The whole person spun wildly on the spot like a gyroscope, and the weapon held in both hands spun out a circular blade light. No matter how high the damage was, it temporarily intimidated the soldiers who wanted to come up to rescue Wagner.
Qin Guan, Sang Yeluoluo and several other warrior players also charged and bumped into Wagner's mount. Regardless of their level, these warrior players were able to use their skills one by one. For a moment, swords danced around Wagner, and even his loyal attendant couldn't get close to him...
Wagner Pitt was temporarily delayed and without on-the-spot command, most of the team that was tied down by the large group of Walker players fell into uncontrollable chaos.
The combat effectiveness of the soldiers raised by the Bartles family was not bad, but they had consumed three waves of physical strength and horsepower in succession before the formal battle. In addition, the difference in the number of people between the two sides was more than five times, and the undead fought desperately. They were torn into pieces after a short time and it was difficult for them to form an effective battle formation.
The heavy cavalry was thrown into disarray, and the players did not gain any advantage - these iron turtles were too tough, and even ten hits might not cause any wounds. Instead, they were hit accurately with a single strike, and the white light of the dead flashed one after another.
Such a brutal battle would have caused the armed groups nearby to collapse long ago, but players are more receptive to it... After all, it's a BOSS, especially an elite BOSS in a town defense mission, so isn't it normal to have heavy casualties?
Not only did they not care about the casualties, but after successfully dragging the elite heavy cavalry into a large-scale melee with no technical content, they also very cleverly did their old job...
A soldier struggled to stab his spear at the undead that were rushing towards him with bared fangs and claws, but once he had stabbed it out, he couldn't pull it back - at least three undead held on to his spear tightly, shouting slogans and pulling hard.
The soldier was afraid of being pulled off his horse and had to let go, so he drew the sword from his waist to defend himself with sweat on his forehead.
The eyes of the undead who was hacking at his leg armor suddenly lit up, and he made a "WAKAKAKA" sound, and his two bony arms hung on the soldier's arms, trying to snatch his sword.
When the soldier tried to shake off the undead in a daze, the undead in front, behind, and on both sides rushed over. Some used a knife to cut the straps of his leg armor, some tried to take off his shoes, and some climbed onto his horse's back to take off his helmet...
The soldier covered with the dead was shocked, angry, frightened and terrified, and howled miserably out of control...
Brother Lahong led the knight players to take advantage of the chaos to drag four soldiers who were hit by the slow spell off their horses, and then they snatched their equipment, put them in woven bags and ran away. When they found that the walker players were only concerned with grabbing equipment and not catching people, they pinched their thigh bones in anger: "Take the people too! Don't forget the horses!"
By the time Wagner had killed Yang Ying, Tang Jia and other warrior players who were holding him back, and rushed back to regroup, more than half of the soldiers had lost their weapons or shoes, leg armor, helmets and other parts...
The undead fled in all directions, carrying away his six soldiers and five lizard horses.
Wagner Pitt: "..."
He lost about one-tenth of his combat power, and the undead suffered at least 70% casualties.
Logically, they should have won.
But not only was Wagner completely unable to be happy, he was so angry that smoke started coming out of his head.
Gnashing his teeth, the commander, who still had some sanity left, waved his hand in hatred, ready to take the opportunity to retreat.
When the players who had fled deep into the farmland saw that the BOSS was about to escape, they hurriedly abandoned their captives and ran after him screaming.
The scene of being stuck by a small group of undead whose speed was not much slower than that of heavy cavalry, and being dragged until a large group of undead came to help, was staged again...
After paying the price of losing several men to repel the undead again, the young attendant who had to serve as a soldier to take over Wagner's position finally collapsed and shouted, "We have killed at least a thousand undead, why are there always more undead coming? What exactly are we facing?!"
No one answered him. The exhausted Wagner and the tired and hungry soldiers all stared vigilantly at the undead not far away, taking the time to stuff dry food into their mouths to restore their strength.
As long as they don't retreat, these undead will not bother them... Although they will still end up being entangled by a large number of undead if they delay for too long, it is better than not having even a little rest time.
They were repairing on the town road and could even see people who had been kidnapped by the undead - their comrades who had unfortunately fallen into the hands of the enemy were tied up in the woods two or three hundred meters away from the road.
What's even more infuriating is that some of the undead would even wear the armor parts that were stolen from them, holding the weapons that originally belonged to them, and rush up to attack them while howling...
The young squire was filled with grief and indignation. He was a distant relative of the commander of the Innadri City Defense Corps. His parents had used almost all their belongings to bribe the commander to get this opportunity to succeed the Bartles family knight. How could he be willing to ruin his bright future here!
"I must escape! I must escape!" The young attendant sat down, took out dry food from his bag, and stuffed it into his mouth viciously, with thoughts surging in his mind, "Losing an entire team of soldiers... is Wagner's responsibility! It has nothing to do with me! I must find a chance to escape!"
This guy suddenly became quiet, and was too lazy to hide his resentment and wandering eyes; Wagner only took a glance and almost guessed that this guy wanted to let others take the blame and he would be a deserter.
Although he saw through it, Wagner, exhausted both physically and mentally, didn't bother to care.
Having lost so many soldiers, he would not be able to escape the punishment of the captain even if he could escape back to Innadri...not to mention that the undead had revealed their intention to capture all of them in one fell swoop.
Ten minutes later, a large group of undead appeared on the road in the direction of Westram.
The soldiers, who were already numb to this scene, had no energy to show surprise and silently mounted their horses and lined up.
This time, the tactics of these undead, who were who knew which batch (big mistake) they were dealing with were even more sinister than before. Even the young servant who had been avoiding fighting with the undead and always hiding behind the crowd was hit by the undead and dragged away...
It was 9:30 in the morning on Earth , 6:00 in the afternoon in the other world. After running around the countryside all day (in the other world), Rex and Ji Tang returned to Westram before it got dark.
As soon as Rex entered the town hall, he was shocked.
Under the west wall of the courtyard... dozens of strong men tied up were neatly stacked.
This group of people are extremely strong. Rex can confirm with just a glance that they are all at the professional level or above.
With professional-level combat power of this scale, they can even rob the manors of nobles.
Rex stared at these strong men who looked uninjured but were all dying for a long time, then turned his head stiffly to look at Ji Tang.
"It seems that it has been solved." Ji Tang seemed to have known that he would see this scene. He just glanced casually and urged Rex, "Go in. Before it gets dark, hurry up and summarize the progress of today's work."
Rex: “…”
Seeing Ji Tang's reaction, he could roughly confirm the identity of these new prisoners and why they were in such a mess - none of them were wearing shoes! They were all barefoot!
