Chapter 15: Going to War

"To actually launch a sneak attack in the middle of the night, when people are at their most exhausted—these monsters are truly cunning."

Meng Yifan felt that he was not facing a pack of wild beasts, but a group of professional soldiers who understood how to reasonably arrange tactics.

People of this era, due to malnutrition, often suffered from night blindness; they were practically blind once night fell. Especially tonight, with the sky covered in thick clouds, nearly half of the able-bodied men could not see clearly into the distance, and their combat effectiveness was greatly reduced.

Wild beasts almost never had issues with night blindness, and many were highly skilled at hunting at night. Fighting at night put humans at a great disadvantage.

"Luckily, I performed tactical simulations in advance and conducted corresponding drills for handling night raids, otherwise, we would really be done for."

Meng Yifan and Meng Dayong held torches and quickly circled the village, lighting piles of firewood soaked in oil, illuminating the entire village.

With the firelight, the villagers could finally see clearly, and their hearts settled down.

"According to the drill, take your positions!" Meng Yifan shouted.

The villagers began to run toward their designated positions. Meng Yifan divided the thirty able-bodied men into ten combat squads. Six combat squads were responsible for the six Elm Cannons, while the remaining four combat squads held spears and guarded the pits in the village. If any wild beast fell in and tried to jump out, they would strike and stab the beast back down.

The dozen or so elderly, weak, sick, and disabled in the village were not idle either. If the village could not be defended, they would all die, so they also actively requested to participate in the battle.

Meng Yifan arranged for them to operate the other Wolf-Tooth Slappers, Falling Rocks, and Rolling Logs in the village. This required no physical exertion; they only needed to watch for the beasts to reach the fixed positions and cut the ropes securing the Wolf-Tooth Slappers, Falling Rocks, and Rolling Logs.

Qinghe Village had eastern and western entrances. Meng Yifan and Meng Dayong each led three combat squads to guard the two entrances respectively.

Countless wild beasts rushed out from the mist. Fortunately, a large number of pits had been dug outside the village, which delayed the beasts' speed of attack; otherwise, the beasts would have already charged into the village before Meng Yifan and the others reached their combat positions.

"Ding! Team hunt of one Level 1 Low-Grade Beast successful, gained 1 Experience Value."

"Ding! Team hunt of one Level 1 Low-Grade Beast successful, gained 1 Experience Value."

"Ding! Team hunt of one Level 1 Low-Grade Beast successful, gained 1 Experience Value."

…………

The Game Panel's notification sounds kept echoing in Meng Yifan's mind, which made him pause for a moment. It turned out that when he fought side-by-side with his old man, if Meng Dayong killed a Level 1 Low-Grade Beast, Meng Yifan could be allocated 4 Experience Value.

Now, leading the entire village to resist the Demon Beast attack, with the pits killing a Level 1 Low-Grade Beast, Meng Yifan could only be allocated 1 Experience Value. This was too little.

"Beauty, can we negotiate? The Experience Value you're allocating to me is too little, isn't it?"

Meng Yifan protested in his mind, but the Game Panel ignored him entirely, or perhaps it just didn't want to respond.

This Game Panel had very low intelligence and seemed to lack the ability to respond to the host's requests at all, which made Meng Yifan very depressed; he could only passively accept this allocation scheme.

"One point is one point, I suppose. I don't need to do it myself; earning Experience Value while lying down is not bad at all."

Meng Yifan consoled himself, watching the Experience Value on the Game Panel rise bit by bit, feeling that it was still quite satisfying.

Meng Yifan led people to guard the west entrance of Qinghe Village. With the death of over a dozen Level 1 Low-Grade Beasts, the pits outside the village were almost filled with the corpses of beasts, and the beasts coming from behind trampled over their companions' corpses and charged over.

Meng Yifan saw that the first to charge out from the mist were thirteen Grey-Haired Wild Wolves. Each of these wild wolves was 1.5 meters tall, their eyes flashing with green light, baring their fangs and snarling, looking ferocious and terrifying.

The wolves Meng Yifan had seen in the zoo in his past life were mere little brothers compared to these massive counterparts. It wasn't just the difference in body size; the most important thing was the bloodthirsty and fierce aura these Grey-Haired Wild Wolves possessed, which made people look on with dread.

"Awoo..." Among these thirteen wild wolves, the leading Wolf King stood nearly two meters tall, with a patch of golden fur on its forehead, looking mighty and imposing. Seeing Meng Yifan and the others, it let out a long howl toward the sky, and the other grey wolves followed with howls.

The pack of wolves howled, the sound shaking the surrounding wilderness.

Some timid villagers were so scared their legs were trembling, losing courage before the fight even began. If they were forced into hand-to-hand combat with the wild wolves, they would definitely be bitten to death. However, Meng Yifan now had Elm Cannons and Bird Guns, so he certainly didn't need to let these ordinary villagers go to their deaths.

The Wolf King led the twelve wild wolves and charged rapidly toward Meng Yifan and the others. They wanted to tear the humans before them to shreds and eat them; this was the price for daring to resist the Flying Tiger Demon.

Of the three Elm Cannons at the village's west entrance, one was loaded with an Iron Ball, and the other two were loaded with Shrapnel Shells. Meng Yifan operated an Elm Cannon loaded with Shrapnel Shells, aimed at the charging wolf pack, and then used an incense stick to light the fuse.

"Boom!" With a loud bang, fire sprayed from the muzzle of the Elm Cannon, and over a hundred large and small fragments of iron and stones swept out in a fan shape, flying toward the wolf pack.

"Puchi! Puchi!" Driven by the explosion of the Black Powder, every piece of iron fragment and small stone contained powerful kinetic energy, comparable to bullets.

The wolf pack had not expected the villagers of Qinghe Village to have such a lethal weapon. The six wild wolves charging in the front were directly riddled with holes and fell on the path of their charge. The wolf at the very front had it the worst, directly blasted into pieces by the dense iron fragments.

"Ding! Team hunt of one Level 1 Low-Grade Beast successful, gained 5 Experience Value."

"Ding! Team hunt of one Level 1 Low-Grade Beast successful, gained 5 Experience Value."

"Ding! Team hunt of one Level 1 Low-Grade Beast successful, gained 5 Experience Value."

…………

"Are you kidding me! The Experience Value dropped by three-quarters directly. Is it because there are too many people in the team, so the Experience Value is split less? This allocation principle is very unreasonable. I clearly took out the beasts with one cannon shot, why embezzle so much of my Experience Value?" Meng Yifan complained, but unfortunately, the Game Panel still ignored him.

By now, Meng Yifan already knew that his current golden finger was only this Game Panel.

It could display his attributes, allow him to gain Experience Value by killing monsters, and use Experience Value to improve attributes, cultivation arts, and skill proficiency—nothing more.

No quests, no lucky draws, no check-ins, no game store, no chat groups, no automatic AFK cultivation, no visible health bars for monsters, and no game sprite.

This golden finger was like an unfinished game that hadn't fully loaded. Meng Yifan's complaints were useless; he could only make do with it.

The Wolf King was shocked by the power of the Elm Cannon. It had been granted intelligence by the Flying Tiger Demon and was now a Level One Mid-Grade Beast. It had seen human Bird Guns before, but it had never seen human cannons.

This was too terrifying; one shot had taken out six of its companions. If two more shots were fired, wouldn't they all be blasted into dust?

The Wolf King wanted to run away, but the order it had received was to charge forward regardless of everything. If it dared to run, it would have to bear the wrath of the Flying Tiger Demon, so even though it was somewhat afraid, it still had to bite the bullet and charge forward.

The Wolf King saw that the humans had three Elm Cannons. Only one had fired, and two were still in a state ready to be fired. If it charged forward recklessly, it and the remaining wolf pack might not even reach the humans before being blasted to death.

Wolves were a very special kind of wild beast. The Barbarian Race on the grasslands who rode horses and shot arrows learned their combat methods from wolf packs. From this, it could be seen that wolves were a very intelligent kind of wild beast, especially that Wolf King which had been granted intelligence; it possessed wisdom not inferior to humans.

The Wolf King stared at the Elm Cannons and suddenly thought of something. It roared, and the wild wolves all lowered their bodies, almost crawling forward.

Meng Yifan was stunned. He hadn't expected the wild wolves to be so smart; after only taking one shot, they had discovered the weakness of the Elm Cannons.

The Elm Cannons Meng Yifan made were loaded with ammunition from the front. The structure inside was very simple, almost just a cannon barrel. They were fixed in sandbags and could fire at an upward angle or horizontally, but they could almost never fire downward.

Because if the muzzle pointed downward, on one hand, it was difficult to fix the cannon body, and on the other hand, the gunpowder and iron pieces loaded inside the Elm Cannon would fall out, making it impossible to exert the power of the cannon.