Chapter 2881: He Lingchuan's New Plan

As long as they can hold out until dawn, Panlongcheng has a very high chance of escaping its tragic fate!

So, the goal of this war has never been to win directly, but to stall!

Stall until dawn, and a turn for the better will naturally present itself.

From this perspective, time is Panlong's greatest enemy.

But right now even Panlongcheng's most solid South Gate can barely withstand the Great Heavenly Demon's assault; where can He Lingchuan go to steal time?

His eyes flickered, and he suddenly asked, "Where is Pi Liti? The front lines or the rear?"

"The front lines." Hong Sun replied, "When I last went back, I still saw its figure on the battlefield. It's leading the Heavenly Demons in attacking Panlongcheng!"

"How long ago was that?"

"Just, um, about half a shichen ago?"

He Lingchuan nodded: "Our side still has other Immortals and Great Demons who haven't returned to Panlongcheng, right?"

"Plenty."

Pi Liti's "Big Dipper Shift" Grand Formation teleported Panlong Camp's mighty figures to distant foreign lands, and their landing points were mostly different, featuring extremely strong randomness. So some people have already rushed back to Panlongcheng, but over half are still on the way.

Of course, there are also some who will never return.

"I will issue an order for them to gather at Mingsha Forest."

As long as they are within several dozen li of Mingsha Forest, the Ear-Hugging Worms in everyone's ears will start working, allowing them to receive signals from each other.

Hong Sun didn't quite understand: "You intend to...?"

"Capture the thief by first capturing the king." He Lingchuan said seriously, "This war is very special; the one who can actually decide whether the Biega army attacks or retreats is not the Heavenly Demons."

"Not the Heavenly Demons?" Hong Sun rarely thought this deeply, "Then who would it be?"

"In this war, who in the Biega camp is more important than the Heavenly Demons?"

Hong Sun gave up directly: "Don't understand."

"Naturally, it's the initiator of this war, which is the Commander-in-Chief Gao Huaiyuan!"

Pi Liti goes to attack Panlongcheng, so He Lingchuan will remove the firewood from under the cauldron.

His eyes flickered: "The Biega army attacks Panlongcheng, all mighty figures must be on the front lines; only Gao Huaiyuan remains in the rear camp."

This isn't a wild guess, but determined by Panlongcheng's special geography. It is the vanguard of the Chipai Plateau, connected to the Panlong Wasteland by only a single natural land bridge. Between the plateau and the wasteland lies a massive chasm, its cross-section exceptionally flat, as if the Creator had hacked a heavy cleaver between them, and this chasm is Panlongcheng's natural moat.

This terrain dictates that once Panlongcheng is attacked by a powerful enemy, although it occupies the advantageous terrain of being easy to defend and hard to attack, the army in the city also has no way to bypass the enemy army and strike their rear.

Gao Huaiyuan is still a civil general, unlike He Lingchuan who personally charges and kills on the front lines of the battlefield. So he only sits in the rear calmly commanding the great army, basically with no risk of being ambushed, and can throw all his elites to the front lines to attack the city.

Panlongcheng's many mighty figures want to rush back to the city from the outside, but the Biega great army still lies in between, making it difficult to act.

"But before that, I must make contact with the King." A battle plan like this naturally requires giving Zhong Shengguang a heads-up first; He Lingchuan is very worried about Panlongcheng.

Under the premise that most mighty figures are absent, he doesn't know how Zhong Shengguang and the Panlong military and civilians have persisted until now. But for him, Panlongcheng not falling is huge good news.

Before entering the Panlong World, he had been worried that Panlong had already been crushed by the enemy, beyond recovery.

But Panlongcheng is still here, so hope remains.

Just as Sun Fuling said before the war, Panlong belongs to everyone, not his responsibility alone. While he was absent, Panlong, relying on the foundation forged in blood and fire, still held out this long under the fierce attacks of Biega and the Great Heavenly Demons.

"Dawn is coming!" He Lingchuan drove the crane forward swiftly, "We must hold on!"

These words were spoken to Panlongcheng, and also to himself.

Must!

Zhong Shengguang stood on the South Gate tower of Panlongcheng, looking down on the battlefield.

His body was also covered in wounds, all from the Battle of Mingsha Forest, currently bandaged properly. But his left clavicle was broken, his arm unable to lift.

From his most familiar position and angle looking down, below the city gate, on the Natural Bridge, and on the wasteland across the moat, it was a sea of people!

The Panlong Army just guards the bridgehead position of the Natural Bridge; this is the throat leading to the South Gate, holding it means choking off the enemy's attack route.

But the sturdy city walls, the roaring moat, and the terrain where one man can hold the pass against ten thousand — all defensive heavyweights of the Qi-scarce era — appear somewhat powerless when facing a sky full of mighty figures.

Under the current Qi density, the enemy has a rich variety of attack methods they can employ, not just thousands of troops rushing a single-log bridge — that's too slow, too inefficient, too many deaths.

For example, Pi Liti has several times used divine power to forcibly erect flying arched bridges at both ends of the Heavenly Moat, attempting to construct more siege channels.

Panlongcheng naturally employed the Terrain-Fixing Formation, not allowing the opponent to reshape the mountains and rivers outside the city.

But the problem is, this formation first consumes extremely high energy, and secondly...

Since it's a formation, it has an upper limit of strength. Pi Liti is a mighty figure who manipulates space divine arts; after wrestling with Panlongcheng's formation a few times, he discovered the latter's flaw:

The Chipai Plateau is guarded by powerful force, hard as an iron plate; He indeed cannot easily deform the mountains and rivers there.

However, the other side of the Heavenly Moat, that is, the Panlong Wasteland end, the extended force is much weaker.

So, building bridges is a good compromise.

Panlongcheng naturally deployed all kinds of means, including but not limited to the Jin Jia Divine Generals, heavy artillery, and the power of the Gate-Guard Beast Black Dragon Stone Carving to knock down these flying arched bridges.

Worth mentioning is that Panlongcheng's Gate-Guard Beast Black Dragon Stone Carving is driven by the Dayan Heavenly Pearl. Before today's decisive battle, Panlongcheng had been peaceful for over twenty years, so the Dayan Heavenly Pearl's stored energy was extremely abundant, which is why it could play a huge role after the Panlong Army retreated to defend the city.

After years of fusion and embedding, the Black Dragon Stone Carving's defense range is actually not limited to Panlongcheng, but expanded to the entire southwestern corner of the Chipai Plateau. So the Great Heavenly Demons building arched bridges on the moat, the Black Dragon Stone Carving is fully capable of intervening.

But Panlongcheng exhausted all means, barely able to stop the Biega army's footsteps, yet unable to prevent the Biega Immortals, Demons, and cultivators from striking the city.

So what Zhong Shengguang saw from his vantage point were the gorgeous fireworks blooming in the sky above Panlongcheng and on the city walls — these are all traces of enemy divine abilities hitting the barrier or city walls.

Panlong's Yuanli has already hit bottom; this is all relying on the Dayan Heavenly Pearl for support.

Zhong Shengguang knows very well that without Yuanli's protection, relying purely on the pearl's own energy and divine abilities to prop up Panlong's defense, it won't last long.