Volume 4: The Fall of the Dragon Chapter 232: Battle of Astrana
The night elves are on high alert, and their army is ready to take action.
The first wave of attack was launched by thousands of 'Centaur Forerunners', which are low-level wild monsters with levels between 12 and 14, and are also the most common low-level combat unit in the Centaur tribe.
They had no decent armor and their weapons were just simple battle axes. They swarmed forward in groups of thirty or fifty, charging towards Astranaar from all directions.
It would be more accurate to call it a suicide mission rather than a charge. Astranaar was surrounded by rivers on two sides, and the other two sides were raised high ground covered with towering trees and densely packed with archers.
Although there is no city wall in the strict sense, its defensive capability is no weaker than that of an ordinary city.
This blind charge has almost no chance of success.
What was waiting for them was a dense rain of arrows. More than 70% of the night elf sentinel troops were archers, and the arrows they shot were as fierce as a storm.
These Centaur Forerunners, who lacked armor and had low health points, were wiped out almost instantly, leaving behind corpses littered all over the ground with their bodies pierced by sharp arrows.
However, the Emperor Shenwu did not care about these casualties at all. These low-level wild monsters were used as cannon fodder, and they were all spawned for free by the system. He would not feel sorry no matter how many of them died. Moreover, their death could free up some population to breed more advanced units, so it would be a waste if they did not die.
A horn sounded, and thousands of Centaur pioneers rushed out of the position, followed by thousands of Centaur hunters following behind, shooting sparse rain of arrows at the night elves on the other side of the river.
This attack has almost no effect. The level of the Centaur Hunter is also not high, only level 15-16, which is not much stronger than cannon fodder.
Sure enough, these attacking troops were once again met with a fierce counterattack. The night elf archers, who were in a dominant position and had the advantage of range, easily shot and killed these centaur hunters on the river bank.
In just over ten minutes, thousands of Centaur corpses were left around the city. Finally, the retreat horn sounded, and the remaining Centaur troops retreated as if they had been pardoned.
The night elves in the city suddenly cheered.
Twin-tailed cute rabbit (Sentinel General): "Haha, these savage beasts are really vulnerable."
Tyrande shook her head, her expression solemn. "No, it's not that simple. They are testing our troop deployment."
really--
"Your Majesty, the enemy's troop deployment has been explored." Next to the map, several Centaur Khans quickly sorted out the layout of the night elves. The map was filled with small flags representing corpses. It was obvious that there were significantly fewer corpses at the city entrances on the north and south sides.
"The firepower on the east and west sides of Astranaar is the most intense. Due to the terrain, we cannot deploy a large number of troops to the north. However, in the open area near the river mouth in the south, the enemy's troops do not seem to be very strong. The density of arrows is obviously lower. Many centaur hunters have escaped. This may become our breakthrough point, but perhaps..."
"Maybe it's a trap?" said another Centaur Khan.
The third Centaur Khan, an assistant in the Human Resources Department, also agreed with this guess, "Yes, if the other party really prepared a pocket formation as Lin Meng said , it must be here."
The Emperor Shenwu smiled and said, "No need to guess, it is a trap, but it doesn't matter, now we have the help of the black dragon, we are not afraid even if there is a trap, since the other party has left a loophole for us, let's take advantage of it.
Concentrate elite troops to attack this gap. As long as this gap is opened, my army can pour in and completely destroy the city with absolute numerical advantage.
As long as the night elves' army in Astranaar is completely wiped out, they will not be able to gather a second army of this size in a short period of time. We can get at least half a month of strong period. With half a month, we may be able to take down the World Tree.
At least we can capture Felwood."
The Great Emperor Shenwu already had some experience with this war.
The decision was made immediately.
“Have all tribes send out their main forces, archers, and catapults to launch a feint attack around us to attract the enemy’s attention. The attack must be fierce. Then when I blow the second horn, the Iron Horse Clan will launch a strong attack from the front to break the gap.
Go, Mother Earth will protect you!"
"For the Empire!"
"For the Empire!"
Upon receiving the order, several Centaur Khans immediately went to their respective clans to prepare to command the attack.
Soon, when the first horn sounded, each tribe immediately sent out its troops at the same time.
More than 100,000 Centaur Archers (level 22 wild monsters), Centaur Wind Shooters (level 35 wild monsters), and Centaur Wind Hunters (level 38 wild monsters) rushed to the border of Astranaar, shooting arrows as they ran quickly, just like mounted archers.
The night elves immediately retaliated, with arrows raining back and forth from both sides, filling the sky and almost blocking out the sunlight. The density of the arrow rain was so great that they often collided in mid-air.
Both the night elves and the centaurs are good at archery, but the centaurs are mounted archers while the night elves are foot archers. The advantage of mounted archers is that they can shoot and dodge at the same time, while foot archers have a longer range and stronger power. At first glance, they seem to be equally good, but in such a large-scale battle, it is almost impossible to dodge. No matter where you run, you will be shot by the rain of arrows. In this kind of stand-and-shoot firefight, the night elves are obviously more advantageous.
However, the Centaurs also have their own magic. Once they are hit by too many arrows while running and their health drops below half, they will immediately run backwards and retreat, quickly leaving the battle area. In each camp, there are already a large number of boar witch doctors who are planting healing totems on the ground to restore the health of the wounded.
Teams of Centaur archers rushed forward and surrounded the mercenaries, shooting arrows. If a centaur's health was low, they would immediately pull him back to recover his health. When his health was full, they would rush forward and shoot arrows again.
Of course, the night elves also have their own methods of healing. The priests of Elune can use various divine arts for healing, and the druids can even directly release the Rain of Tranquility.
The two sides fought fiercely, but there were not many casualties.
Immediately afterwards, the Centaurs pushed up one catapult after another, and huge burning stones were smashed madly towards the city, which made the night elves feel tremendous pressure.
The night elves immediately retaliated with their glaive throwers. The huge flying blades they threw out easily tore apart the bodies of the centaurs and destroyed the catapults.
The two sides fought back and forth, neither side giving in, and there were more and more night elves on the city's outer defense line.
Seeing that there were more and more night elves around and the enemies had been mobilized in large numbers, the second horn finally sounded.
The Iron Horse Clan is one of the core clans of the Centaur Empire. At this time, they sent out more than three thousand 'Centaur Armored Marauders (level 44 wild monsters)', arranged them in a neat formation, and launched a charge towards the river mouth. Behind them were a large number of Centaur Gale Archers, and the Centaur Witches were responsible for cover.
The sound of horse hooves was deafening and the earth was shaking. Each of these Centaur leather-armored plunderers was wearing heavy armor and holding heavy battle axes. Thousands of Centaurs charged together, and their might was quite similar to the charge of human heavy knights.
Seeing that the enemy finally sent out its elite troops, Tyrande breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed that her plan had succeeded and the enemy had been fooled.
These armored raiders clad in iron armor are enhanced versions of Centaur raiders, high-level wild monsters up to level 44, with three powerful skills: Iron Armor Defense, Savage Charge, and Trample Attack.
Faced with the sparse rain of arrows, the armored raider with special skills in iron armor defense rushed in fearlessly.
One charge defeated the night elf troops at the river mouth. Without stopping, they rushed directly into the city. More Centaur raiders poured in, as if they were going to use this broken gap to achieve a breakthrough.
However, when the troops rushed into the river mouth, they found that what was waiting for them was a sparse and strange forest.
The trees in this forest are extremely thick. Although there are not many of them, they clearly form a line of defense. Behind this thin line of defense are thousands of night elf archers ready for battle.
Although they felt something strange, the momentum of the charge showed no sign of stopping. In order for the forest to stop the Centaurs' charge, a certain density was required.
Kill! The leading warlord roared and rushed forward without hesitation.
However, suddenly, those giant trees began to move. They pulled out roots from the ground, grew limbs, and their huge bodies began to move like human figures, taking slow and firm steps, forming neat lines, and began to surround and close in from all directions.
The Ancient Tree of War is a level 60 war weapon with a health value of over 10,000. It has the skill of "crushing strike" and has a certain probability of killing medium-sized units with a health value of less than 1,000 with one blow.
The only drawback is its slow speed, but now they are lined up in a row, like a moving city wall.
The Centaur Marshal charged but was stopped by an ancient war tree.
Brutal charge! Boom! The blow hit the ancient tree of war hard. The tree trembled, but did not retreat at all. Instead, the Centaur General was shocked and retreated again and again.
Even the BOSS has to respect human rights. In front of the "weapons of war", charging will not be effective.
This Centaur Warlord was relatively lucky. Those Centaur Armored Raiders were not even BOSSes. They were stuck on trees and fell to the ground one by one, making it impossible to rush through.
The night elf archers took the opportunity to attack crazily from behind.
The Centaurs tried to bypass the ancient war trees again, but the narrow space between the ancient war trees made it impossible for them to pass through in large numbers. As soon as they got close, they were often beaten into meat paste by the ancient war trees.
Occasionally, a few escaped fish would rush over to be blocked by the big tree, but they would immediately encounter the concentrated fire of a large number of archers with a range of hedgehogs.
Seeing that more and more Centaur troops were blocked in the estuary plain, the night elves fired all their arrows towards this side, with a completely killing effect.
Murphy took one look and knew it was time to take action.
He was not going to be lazy and hide his abilities. With four guardian dragons joining the battle, he had no room to hold back.
Although he wanted to stop the Divine Emperor from unifying Kalimdor, he had no grudge against the Divine Emperor and there was no need to harm him too much, so he still had to take action when necessary.
Roar! Following Murphy's dragon roar, the black dragon army in the sky immediately moved.
And Tyrande was immediately shocked.
"Damn those black dragons! The Horned Eagle Knights, attack! Don't let those black dragons ruin our operation."
Hundreds of horned eagle knights and thousands of armed horned eagles immediately flew out of their nests and attacked the black dragon.
Although hippogryphs are not extraordinary creatures, their air combat capabilities are not inferior to those of ordinary black dragonets. Although they do not have dragon breath, their sword-like beaks are extremely deadly weapons, and their razor-sharp claws can easily tear apart the dragonet's nascent skin.
Even for adult dragons, these horned hippogryphs pose a certain threat. The scales of adult dragons are too hard and their health is too thick. Even with just scratching and pecking, a single horned hippogryph can hardly deal much damage.
But once they attack in large numbers, even an adult dragon will be unable to withstand it.
Seeing the black dragon being tightly entangled by the horned eagle, Murphy hurriedly gave orders.
Neltharion (Black Dragon King): "Nefarian, Agnes, use dragon language magic to beat these things down."
Nefarian (Prince of the Black Dragon): "Yes, father."
Agnes (Black Dragon Lord): "As you command, Lord Neltharion!"
Dragon language magic——Burning Cloud!
Dragon language magic——Thunder storm!
The sky was filled with fire clouds and raging thunder. The powerful dragon language magic immediately caused the horned hippogryphs to be knocked down in large numbers.
Suddenly, a huge hole was blasted out in the chaotic sky.
Neltharion (Black Dragon King): "Morpheus, you lead the attack and destroy those ancient war trees."
Morpheus (Ancient Black Dragon): "As you command, Lord Neltharion."
Morpheus did not dare to refuse. With a roar, dozens of young black dragons immediately swooped down from the opened gap following him.
"Quick, stop those black dragons!"
The night elves on the ground shot arrows into the air, but the black dragon's powerful defense allowed them to withstand the rain of arrows and attack the ground.
Ancient dragon flame!
Shadow Flame!
Black dragon flame!
Whoosh, streaks of dragon flames swept across the battlefield, spewing wildly at the ancient war trees below.
When it comes to breathing fire, Morpheus is absolutely professional.
Every breath of dragon can burn an ancient war tree into a huge torch.
These seemingly indestructible ancient war trees had an incredibly low resistance to fire and moved very slowly, so they took all the damage from the dragon's breath. They burned into huge torches and turned into ashes under the burning of the dragon's flames.
Success! The centaurs who had been badly shot before cheered and rushed towards the night elves who had lost their cover behind the ancient tree of war.
The centaurs' axes chopped through the night elves' limbs, and their iron hooves trampled their bodies. These elven archers were completely unable to withstand the frontal impact of the centaurs in full iron armor. Some were trampled underfoot, some were knocked away, and some were chopped to death by axes . The bloody killing made these centaurs completely frenzied.
Tyrande looked at this with anger in her eyes.
"Let the sisters retreat, Chief Timbermaw, and take your furbolg warriors!"
Thousands of bear monsters joined the battle under the leadership of Chief Timbermaw.
Finally stopped the Centaur's charge.
The two sides began hand-to-hand combat in this narrow area of less than 500 meters.
The bear monsters were standard 'monster infantry', best at this kind of close-range combat, and for a moment the battle came to a stalemate.
But the Emperor Shenwu immediately sent new reinforcements.
