Chapter 21: Casualties

Meng Yifan arranged for six young, strong men to stay behind to operate the Elm Cannons, ready at any moment to fire shells and bombard the Flying Tiger Demon, while the other twenty-four young men were divided into two rows, twelve in each row, preparing to fight the large rats.

"Squeak! Squeak!" Over five hundred large rats swarmed forward, their eyes blood-red and filled with a craving for flesh and blood; as long as they devoured the humans before them, they would welcome an opportunity to advance in rank, so even if there were mountains of blades and seas of fire ahead, the large rats still charged over regardless of their own safety.

To cope with the large rats' attack, Meng Yifan adjusted the tactics in time; the young men in the first row held large Shields to block the front, while the young men in the second row held modified flails, reaching over the Shields to strike the large rats.

The young men of Qinghe Village, during the busy farming season, would use flails to thresh grain, and they were very familiar with how to use them.

The flails that Meng Yifan and the others modified involved replacing the bamboo strips at the front of the flail with a one-foot-long thick wooden board, adding long nails to it; after being swung over, the thick wooden board acted like a meteor hammer, striking downward, and each blow could crush two or three large rats to death.

However, the large rats were completely fearless, stepping on the bloody, mangled corpses of their companions to continue charging forward; from the very beginning, the battle entered a white-hot stage.

The large rats wanted to eat people, and the Flying Tiger Demon was watching covetously from behind with a large number of Wild Beasts; facing a life-and-death crisis, the young men also erupted, using all their strength to swing their flails again and again, and large swaths of large rats were beaten into meat patties.

Taking advantage of the interval between the rising and falling of the flails, a gray-furred large rat rushed over; it extended its claws with barbs, grabbed the large Shield, jumped a few times, vaulted over the large Shield, and then began to bite the young man holding the Shield.

The gray-furred large rat's teeth were very sharp; it bit off a large chunk of skin and flesh in one go, tilted its neck and swallowed it, and then the large rat lowered its head to continue biting.

"Ah!" This young man was named Wang Erchui; a large chunk of meat had been bitten off his left arm, blood was flowing incessantly, and the pain made him howl.

Wang Erchui grabbed the gray-furred large rat with his right hand, wanting to throw the large rat away, but the large rat's teeth were biting fiercely into his arm and simply would not let go; the sharp rat teeth even bit into the bone, and to pull the large rat off, one would have to tear off another large chunk of his flesh first.

Just as Wang Erchui was in a dilemma, Meng Yifan thrust his long spear out, piercing through along the large rat's mouth, and then with a shake of the long spear, the spearhead rebounded slightly, flicking the large rat's mouth upward, making its teeth unable to bite Wang Erchui's arm any longer.

Meng Yifan's strength had now broken through to a Second Grade Lower Tier Martial Artist, and his control over his body had greatly improved; the spear thrust just now had the spearhead pass almost against Wang Erchui's arm, but it did not wound him.

The rebound of the spearhead was also very exquisite, and the force was controlled very well, just enough to flick the large rat's teeth up without causing further injury to Wang Erchui's arm.

When Wang Erchui was being bitten by the large rat, the large Shield he was controlling fell, and a large gap appeared in the Shield defensive line.

"Squeak..." The Rat King was extremely excited and hurriedly directed the rat tide to rush in through this gap to attack the other young men holding large Shields; as long as the Shield defensive line was broken, the young men in the second row would also face the large rats' attack, and the entire second line of defense would be considered breached.

The Flying Tiger Demon watched covetously, staring at the situation on the battlefield; seeing that a breach had been opened in the humans' defensive line, it was also very excited, ready at any time to let other Wild Beasts rush up and eat all the villagers of Qinghe Village.

A large number of rats rushed toward this gap; Meng Yifan held his long spear and stood at the gap, the long spear like a dragon, and with one sweep, he blasted eight or nine large rats to pieces.

"Swish! Swish!" The one-zhang-long long spear was swung back and forth as if sweeping the floor; as long as the large rats touched Meng Yifan's long spear, they would be directly blasted to pieces.

Meng Yifan was now a Second Grade Lower Tier Martial Artist; although he was only a ten-year-old boy, his strength attribute was already 21 points, more than twice that of an ordinary adult male, and these watermelon-sized rats were all just Unranked Wild Beasts, so naturally, they could not block his long spear.

"Ding! Team hunted one Unranked large rat, gained 0.5 Experience Value."

"Ding! Team hunted one Unranked large rat, gained 0.5 Experience Value."

…………

When Meng Yifan killed a large rat himself, he could gain 0.5 Experience Value; when other young men hunted a rat, Meng Yifan could gain 0.1 Experience Value; from the start of the battle, his Experience Value had been continuously rising.

On the Game Panel, he now had 212 points of Experience Value; as long as he could finish off all these large rats, his Experience Value would be enough to break through to a Second Grade Middle Stage Martial Artist.

"Squeak! Squeak!" Seeing that Meng Yifan was too powerful, the Rat King screamed again, notifying the rat army to bypass Meng Yifan and attack the young men from other places.

The rats obeyed the order and climbed up by grabbing the Shields with their claws; the young men holding the Shields were continuously bitten, some on their arms, some on their thighs.

There was also a young man named Zhao Qilang who was bitten on the neck by a large rat that had jumped over.

The large rat's teeth were incomparably sharp, capable of biting through even steel bars; biting into Zhao Qilang's neck, it directly bit out a fist-sized hole, and even the carotid artery and trachea in his neck were bitten through.

Zhao Qilang was in unbearable pain; he grabbed the large rat and twisted with all his might, directly snapping the large rat's neck, then threw the large rat onto the ground and trampled it fiercely into meat paste.

"Hah..." Zhao Qilang pressed his neck hard, but the fresh blood still gushed out and could not be stopped; he looked at Meng Yifan, longing for Meng Yifan to save him.

"No saving him." Meng Yifan shook his head; the carotid artery and the trachea in the neck had both been bitten through; if it were in modern society and he were sent to the hospital in time, there might still be hope, but here, there was simply no way to save him.

"Hah..." Zhao Qilang bled more and more, and soon he collapsed to the ground, limp and powerless, and died not long after; his eyes were wide open, filled with a longing for life.

War is like this; casualties are an unavoidable matter.

The other young men could not spare the time for grief, because more large rats were rushing over from the place where Zhao Qilang had fallen.

Meng Dayong swung his Mountain Opening Blade and blocked this gap; he was a First Grade High-Level Martial Artist with thick True Qi and sharp blade techniques; every time the Mountain Opening Blade was swung, it could hack five or six large rats in half.

Seeing that Meng Yifan and Meng Dayong were both powerful Martial Artists, the Rat King ordered the rat army to bypass the Meng father and son and attack the other ordinary young men.

The Meng father and son were only two people and could only guard two gaps; they could not guard other places, and the entire second line of defense was tottering, with casualties continuously appearing among the young men.

"Number One Cannon, fire, use Shrapnel Shells to blast them." Meng Yifan shouted loudly.

Meng Yifan and the others had a total of six Elm Cannons, four of which were loaded with Iron Balls, ready at any time to bombard the Flying Tiger Demon, while the other two Elm Cannons were loaded with Shrapnel Shells, used to deal with the attacks of large numbers of Wild Beasts.

The reason Meng Yifan did not use the Elm Cannons from the beginning was that the Elm Cannons had a drawback: after firing once, the cannon barrel would heat up, and one had to clean out the residue and then use a wet towel to cool down the barrel; it had to cool for at least three minutes before it could be reloaded with ammunition and fired again.

If one did not let it cool and added gunpowder directly inside, it was very likely to cause the barrel to explode.

Calculated this way, an Elm Cannon could only be fired about once every five minutes.

On the battlefield, the situation changed in an instant; in five minutes, the battle might already be over, so unless it was a last resort, Meng Yifan was not prepared to use the Elm Cannons.

But now that the young men were almost unable to hold on, Meng Yifan did not want to use them, but he had to.

"Sizzle! Sizzle!" The fuse of the Number One Elm Cannon was lit by an incense stick; its muzzle was almost pressed against the ground, aimed at the rat army.

"Boom!" From the muzzle of the Number One Elm Cannon, a large amount of iron fragments and stone fragments sprayed out, and fifty or sixty large rats were directly blasted into smithereens.