Chapter 158: Success

In the depression, it was already filled with the foul stench and howls emanating from the wild monsters.

Iron Blood Great Wall and the Silent Council together have nearly fifty players, blocked by the enemy's defenses, neither side can do anything to the other, and it has become a pure True Essence consumption battle.

However, the Silent Council side has the Divine Shrine as a backup, making things much easier for them.

On the Iron Blood Great Wall side, the experts, to conserve True Essence, didn't even bother killing the wild monsters outside the formation; otherwise they'd likely have boredly dragged a plump-looking one into the formation to roast and eat.

In this unusually boring stalemate, everyone's attention drifted a bit, as they surveyed the myriad strange wild monsters around them.

So when someone charged out from the snow slope, everyone noticed them immediately.

More than forty pairs of eyes, while maintaining the formation and barrier, all glanced toward the outermost wild monsters.

Twenty players were wildly swinging their weapons, attacking the outermost monsters with tremendous noise—like gongs and drums blaring, firecrackers exploding—but the damage they inflicted was pitifully small, as if they were merely putting on a show.

At first the white-robed people frowned slightly, thinking reinforcements had arrived from the opposite side and would change the situation, but they soon smirked at the Iron Blood Great Wall members.

It looks like these reinforcements were scared witless by the tens of thousands of wild monsters before them, unwilling to sacrifice themselves pointlessly, so they were just putting on a show on the periphery; otherwise, if they truly charged in, they wouldn't be able to drain the enemy.

If we let the Iron Blood Great Wall people free up their hands to recover True Essence, after exhausting themselves to the end, they—having no retreat—could very well fail at the last moment.

The Iron Blood Great Wall people thought the same—that the supporters were frightened—so they all just sighed, without any complaints.

Actually, after staying here for so long, everyone more or less had begun to think of retreating.

However, because the consequences of retreating are too severe, and everyone else is giving their all, still appearing somewhat hopeful, no one wanted to be the first to speak up.

But now, although reinforcements have arrived, everyone knows these people are merely the tallest among the short—just players above level 10—and they simply cannot break through the tens of thousands of wild monsters.

Even if someone went out to meet them, only a few would survive in the end, so they can understand these people's actions.

"Hey, prepare to break through and retreat."

Diao Yu Lao, one of the leaders of Iron Blood Great Wall, was the first to speak.

The others had no objections; instead they breathed a sigh of relief—everyone present was a top-tier player, still possessing the basic ability to assess the situation, and it was clearly impossible to proceed under these circumstances.

However, doing so would likely bring misfortune to C City next; if today's operation fails, any future attempt to destroy the Divine Shrine will become even harder.

Under the Silent Council's control, more and more wild monsters will pour out through the spatial passage, stationing large numbers of troops and players at the city center; of course this affects livelihoods, and the state has contingency plans for the worst outcome—at worst, letting C City transform into a holy ground for players to level up, which, although painful, will inevitably yield a good result.

Meanwhile, while they were still discussing how to retreat, Chen Shicheng had already slipped in invisibly and approached beside the defensive formation.

He reached out and touched the formation rippling from the wild monsters' attacks, then carefully unfurled the Slay Immortal Grand Formation, shrinking it to a one-meter radius around himself to avoid detection.

Formations repel each other: higher-ranked formations dispel lower-ranked ones, and higher cultivation dispels lower cultivation. Chen Shicheng's realm is not higher than that of the person maintaining the defensive formation, but his formation's rank is exceedingly high, and its attribute is not much different.

Thus, at the moment the formation unfolded, a breach opened in the defensive formation, and he slipped through it.

Although the breach lasted only an instant, the formation's controller immediately sensed something, snapped his gaze toward Chen Shicheng's direction, but saw nothing.

However, combining this with the support troops feigning attack on the periphery to draw attention, he quickly formed a guess, his face instantly lighting up as he secretly gave Diao Yu Lao a meaningful look.

As longtime comrades-in-arms, when the other party shifted his weight, Diao Yu Lao knew what was coming; even without knowing the exact situation, he readied himself to act and quietly notified the others.

On the other side, Chen Shicheng, having entered the formation, did not linger but used the same method to break the magical seal, rushing in a flash to the Divine Shrine's gate.

Unlike players with defensive formation skills, this seal's main body is the Divine Shrine; the Silent Council members only have usage rights, not autonomy, so Chen Shicheng's entry attracted no notice, allowing him to silently reach the shrine's interior.

Outside, the Silent Council members also saw Iron Blood Great Wall's intention to retreat, each feeling assured and about to mock them, when suddenly the surroundings underwent an abnormal change.

The wild monsters around suddenly became agitated, abandoning their siege of the formation, each going mad as they surged toward the Divine Shrine; unable to breach the formation's defense, they could only howl wildly at the shrine.

This situation left everyone present stunned, all looking toward the shrine, where they discovered that a masked figure had appeared at the shrine's gate at some point, frantically attacking the divine statue inside.

"Oh no, someone has sneaked in!"

The Silent Council members immediately sensed something wrong and quickly dispatched some people to stop him.

But they underestimated Chen Shicheng's attack power; under the relentless blade aura, even a divine statue protected by godly power could not last more than a second, quickly turning into a pile of rubble, and the magical seal began to vanish from top to bottom.

"Beautiful!"

After the initial shock, the Iron Blood Great Wall members also came to their senses—this was their true support!

Moreover, this support's method was formidable, silently infiltrating the seal's interior and resolving the problem at its root.

Although we don't know how they did it, these people's strategic vision is still good; at the moment the seal disappeared, they immediately moved to entangle the white-robed people trying to fall back.

Without the seal's obstruction, their twenty-plus members easily outnumbered the dozen or so white-robed people, giving them a decisive advantage.

Chen Shicheng glanced back at the two groups fighting fiercely not far behind, gave a hehe laugh, and charged straight into the Divine Shrine to begin searching for that divine artifact.

The Silent Council members were not fools either; seeing the situation was hopeless, they immediately abandoned entanglement, drove back the Iron Blood Great Wall people, then coordinated a fighting retreat, vanishing into the depression before long.

(End of Chapter)