Chapter 167

Gu Qing summarized: "Earth Puppets have high attack, high defense, high HP, fast attack speed, only slow movement speed, and they'll use the long-range Stone Spike Spiritual Technique. Smash their heads and they die, right?"

"That's right, spot-on summary."

"There's no way to capture these things, is there?"

"You can capture them, but it's very hard for us right now. Just go all-out and kill them."

Gu Qing nodded: "Understood. How do we fight? Split into two groups and attack from both flanks of the Earth Puppet formation? That way we can always outnumber them and hold the advantage."

Zhao Chi nodded:

"Splitting into two groups is fine, but we can't go head-on right now.

"We need to bait out all their skills first, just like we did with the lightning element earlier.

"Gu Qing, Tang Ruan, you take the female soldiers in first and draw the Earth Puppets' attention.

"Each one should only use the Stone Spike about three times or so. Once they're out, they can only fight in melee.

"Female craftsmen, keep some distance. You don't have leather boots, your feet are very vulnerable—don't rush in close yet.

"One Stone Spike could wreck one of your legs.

"First lure out all their skills, then we can kill them. Go!"

"Yes, sir!"

Gu Qing and Tang Ruan each led half the female soldiers, charging left and right toward the two flanks of the Earth Puppet formation.

The remaining female craftsmen followed far behind.

Leaving Zhao Chi standing there alone.

Zhao Chi didn't mind at all.

Without them, Zhao Chi's current score would probably be about the same as Yang Xiong's—he'd have ended at the Wraith stage.

Having reached this seventh stage, with his current strength, he couldn't play much of a major role anymore.

Zhao Chi was now walking the command-and-control path; his skill was Inspire.

But the moment to use it hadn't come yet.

Their morale was all good.

【Zhao Chi's Army Morale】

【Gu Qing】 90%

【Tang Ruan】 96%

【Female Militia】 85%

【Female Craftsmen】 81%

Though morale had dipped slightly, it was still high enough.

The female soldiers split into two groups and quickly closed in on both flanks of the Earth Puppet formation.

Seeing this, the Earth Puppets also split down the middle, forming left and right groups to engage separately.

Their orderly march was finally broken.

The ground's trembling eased a lot.

Gu Qing was charging when she suddenly felt something pushing up from the ground ahead.

Just like when the Taoyu Ren race was born.

Gu Qing dodged immediately.

Whoosh!

In an instant, a cone-shaped stone spike one meter tall and as thick as a thigh burst from the earth, stabbing upward with a sharp point.

It thrust out very fast.

It grazed past Gu Qing's thigh by a hair.

"Thirty meters…" Gu Qing shouted back: "I just got hit by a Stone Spike—about a thirty-meter range, extremely fast. Everyone, watch the ground!"

Her voice was loud; everyone heard it.

Tang Ruan said: "Everyone be careful, we're about to enter the thirty-meter range."

Whoosh!

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

The words had barely fallen.

The female soldiers on both sides saw the ground boiling at the same time.

Like water brought to a boil, it began to bubble.

But what bubbled up weren't bubbles—each was a sharp stone spike bursting from the earth.

The stone spikes appeared so fast that not everyone could dodge them.

"Eek!"

"Not good—"

"Ugh…"

"My foot!"

"Too fast, I got hit."

"Seems like it didn't break through my defense?"

A few female soldiers leapt high into the air.

Not because they wanted to jump, but because the stone spikes had stabbed them up.

Light flared in Gu Qing's hand: "How are you?"

"I'm fine, it didn't pierce through—just the sole of my foot got bumped, a bit of impact pain."

"I'm fine too. With the defense boost from the boots and stockings, the stone spikes didn't pierce our feet."

"Is that so? That's good then." Gu Qing crushed the light in her hand.

Since no one was injured, it was just durability damage to the boots, so naturally there was no need to waste spiritual power on healing.

Gu Qing didn't know how much damage these stone spikes could cause.

But looking at their sharpness, and the upward thrusting speed, the power should be considerable.

However, these female soldiers all had their defense reinforced, and even the lowest Level 2 female soldiers had a 42% reinforcement.

Adding the 37.5% defense reinforcement from the stockings, the total foot defense reached 79.5%, close to 80%!

Those Level 4 female soldiers had their additional defense increased to 91.5%!

The foot defense was extremely strong.

It practically turned their leather boots into iron boots.

Tang Ruan said: "So annoying, almost poked my crotch. Everyone should still use a shield to protect the area between the legs."

Gu Qing was stunned, thought about it, then also lowered her shield.

Zhao Chi watched the sharp spikes appearing ahead, like a shark's teeth, and was very nervous.

But right now he could only trust those women.

He considered retreating and climbing up the defense tower to counterattack.

A large number of stones had been moved up to the defense tower in advance, which could be thrown down.

But this test had modified the rules: failing to eliminate enemies within 30 minutes would result in elimination.

This greatly reduced the usefulness of the hard-built defense tower.

Perhaps this test was mainly to test the students' frontal combat ability, and didn't encourage the use of defense towers and traps.

Then forget it.

There's no use for it in the test now, but it can be used in territory battles later, so it definitely wasn't built in vain.

At the same time, Zhao Chi also felt a bit ashamed that he couldn't do anything right now.

But it didn't matter.

He had already finished understanding this world, so in the future he'd have plenty of time to improve himself.

He believed there would definitely be room for him to perform in the next battle.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

The stone spikes kept thrusting upward as the female soldiers moved.

At the same time, female soldiers kept jumping up, landing, jumping up, landing.

Zhao Chi observed the number of people, and almost one-third of the female soldiers jumped each time.