Chapter 273: The Rain of Fire Descending from the Sky

The dense rain of fire, like meteors falling from the firmament, fell toward the front of the Sacred Armor Dragon Kingdom's army formation at high speed!

"What the hell is that?!" Kuchar couldn't react at all; he had just let out a scream when the burning rain of fire had already fallen near him.

A burning rocket exploded rapidly, and dozens of Armored Dragon soldiers were sent flying like sticks hit by a ball, the huge shockwave raging in the army formation, almost knocking him over!

Before Kuchar could figure out the situation, dense explosions sounded like rapid drumbeats behind him, followed by flickering firelight and burning iron rain!

That was a rocket designed by the "I Think So" group. Its structure was very simple, with the front warhead filled with picric acid explosives, and the rear propulsion part being ordinary single-base smokeless nitrocellulose. Except for the fuse being a piece of ceramic sheet engraved with underworld script, almost everything used was chemically synthesized.

The technical content of this thing was quite low, and the mass production cost was far lower than that of a Steel-level magic scroll that required a professional to make by hand, but the lethality was not inferior to the latter at all!

In specific situations, it was even better!

As for the only drawback, it was probably that it had no accuracy; the players who invented this thing could only guarantee it would fire, but couldn't guarantee where it would fire.

However, in the face of a sufficient quantity, this limited drawback became insignificant.

After all, the cost of producing an "I Think So Big Rocket" was even less than ten thousand underworld coins!

"Boom boom boom——!"

Whistling rockets fell one after another, and the sound of explosions was continuous!

Faced with the Demon King's army's carpet bombing, the originally orderly army formation of the Sacred Armor Dragon Kingdom instantly fell apart, like ants washed away by a flood, falling into chaos in the thick smoke and flames!

In the face of the flames splashing everywhere, the vine armor on the Armored Dragon soldiers completely lost its effect, and even accelerated their death.

"Ah ah ah——!"

"Damn it! My armor is on fire!"

"Save—"

Miserable wails rose one after another, and like ice crystals melting rapidly under the scorching sun, they were quickly drowned in the roaring sound that kept exploding.

In order to improve the defense of the armor, these vine-woven armors had been blessed with the power of imprints by the priests of the Sacred Armor Dragon Kingdom, and had been repeatedly soaked and boiled in animal fat and blood.

Although this enhanced the defense of these vine armors to a certain extent, it also weakened their resistance to fire.

It was precisely because of this that when facing the flames descending from the sky, these Armored Dragon soldiers were almost ignited at a touch, instantly turning into balls of fire!

They rolled on the ground, ran wildly in the woods, and tried to call for help from their companions... but everything was just in vain. Their struggle not only had no effect but accelerated their death!

The air was filled with a strong scorched smell, black dust blocked the view, and flames were everywhere!

Kuchar was furious and panicked, hurriedly retreating to avoid it, but faced with the overwhelming roar, he was finally knocked to the ground by the aftermath of an explosion.

He struggled to stand up, looking at the scorched corpses everywhere and the scene that was like a doomsday prophecy, losing his speech for a time.

In just a few breaths, the Armored Dragon Legion he was proud of had been shattered by this terrifying rain of fire.

He swallowed hard, his claws trembling.

This—

It was simply hell!

Okto still stood steadily on the back of the dragon turtle, overlooking the burning forest in front of him and the lizardmen struggling to die in purgatory, with no emotion in his cold vertical pupils.

"... Now do you understand who is the ant?"

Kuchar trembled and gripped the obsidian short sword, suppressing the fear in his heart, his voice roaring hoarsely: "Reorganize the formation! Charge over! Kill him!"

What followed him was only the vanguard!

Even if these Armored Dragon soldiers died, it didn't matter; there were as many warriors of the Armored Dragon clan as one wanted!

Want the descendants of the Dragon God to surrender at the feet of a dead man?

Dream on!

Hearing the general's order, the remaining Armored Dragon soldiers forcibly overcame the panic in their hearts, lined up to charge again, and let out a roar that shook the sky and earth.

However, they had just taken a step forward when the sky sounded a harsh hiss again, followed by another rain of fire!

The roaring flames were like the dragon roar echoing in the mountains, and the exploding firelight once again scattered the gathered Armored Dragon soldiers into the raging shrapnel!

Okto still stood on the back of the dead dragon turtle, unscathed, like a god of death overlooking all living beings, looking down at the purgatory in front of him.

The Armored Dragon Legion, which the Sacred Armor Dragon Kingdom was proud of, appeared ridiculous and fragile in the face of this overwhelming power.

Kuchar's vision began to blur, the arrogance and anger in his eyes completely replaced by panic, and gradually turned into despair.

Traker was right.

These guys are indeed not easy to deal with!

Not just him, including the Holy King, everyone... they all underestimated the terror of this group of outsiders, and also underestimated the world outside the Great Barrier.

The funny thing is, he didn't even see the "monster that can walk on land without feet and wheels" that Traker mentioned.

If they keep fighting like this, let alone the two thousand people behind him, even twenty thousand, or even two hundred thousand... it's probably a total annihilation ending!

"Retreat! Retreat quickly!" Kuchar issued the order in a sorry state, but at this very moment, it was already too late.

Under the rain of fire filling the sky, no one could be spared.

And what was even more terrifying was yet to come—

The rain of fire dancing in the sky had just stopped for a few breaths when a thick dark cloud floated over their heads at some point.

Black raindrops suddenly fell from the sky, shattering into the burning flames, and were roasted by the heat into wisps of black mist.

Under the entanglement of that black mist, the dead corpses suddenly twitched their bodies, swaying and standing up from the ground, low hissing sounds coming from their mouths.

"Uh—"

Watching the corpses of his subordinates being desecrated, Kuchar widened his eyes, his pupils full of rage.

He raised his head suddenly, a pair of eyes shooting straight at the lizardman ghoul standing on the dragon turtle, and a roar came from his mouth.

"What did you do?!"

Okto looked at Kuchar, who was both shocked and angry, calmly, his low, hoarse voice slightly mocking.

"Serving my lord with the body of the dead... isn't this what you chose yourself?"

"Ah ah ah!!! I'm going to kill you!"

The fire of rage burned in Kuchar's pupils, finally turning into a roar of suppression, his legs bent like a bow, the short sword held in his hand!

Running away had lost its meaning!

Such a heavy defeat, the Holy King would not let him go... even if the Holy King forgave him, he couldn't tolerate such shame!

At this very moment, only one thought remained

At least—

He had to die meaningfully!

However, just as Kuchaer intended to fight to the death, the rustling of light leaves suddenly drifted over from the side. Before he could detect that subtle movement, a flash of cold light swept across his throat like lightning.

Kuchaer's vertical pupils dilated suddenly; just as he was about to make a sound, scalding blood surged out of his throat before the cold that had flashed away!

The speed was so fast that he hadn't even seen clearly what had happened before his consciousness was swallowed by boundless darkness, and he fell heavily into the pool of blood beneath him.

Compared to being blown to death by a rocket, this was a merciful way to die, without even any pain.

"... Why waste so much breath on him." Sarah shook the blood off her dagger and glanced at the corpse on the ground.

The amber pupils had already lost their luster, and Kuchaer, who was trying to cover his neck, finally stopped moving and turned into a corpse.

About half a minute passed, and he, who had stopped moving, suddenly twitched all over and slowly stood up from the ground as an undead.

Just at this moment, a fat Cave Spider emerged from beside the slowly burning firelight, waving its eight legs as it arrived beside him.

Looking up at that handsome and majestic face, Kuchaer lowered his head and knelt on one knee before the Cave Spider.

"Greetings, Your Majesty the Demon King..."

The throbbing from the depths of his soul told him that the man sitting on the back of the large spider in front of him was the master who had awakened him.

Luo Yan, sitting on the back of Arakdo, glanced at the Lizardman in front of him, extended his right hand, and a dark green light sank into the latter's brow.

Hearing You You floated beside him and whispered softly.

"His soul level is only Bronze tier... as for the other Lizardmen, they are all 'Common' and have not awakened any transcendent power."

Luo Yan nodded to show he understood, then withdrew his extended right hand and said with an indifferent expression.

"It seems to be as I speculated... because of the thousand-year-long blockade, the transcendent power here has become quite thin."

Not only that.

Their soul quality has also undergone a severe decline.

A legion commander is actually only at the Bronze tier level; let alone comparing him to the bosses in the labyrinth, this guy is not even as good as the players under his command...

"But... why is this?" Hearing You You's voice was full of confusion.

It was obvious that these guys were not completely ignorant of transcendent power, including the vine armor that had been almost burned to ashes, which contained faint magic power... clearly, they had put in a lot of effort to craft it.

Luo Yan pondered slightly, looked up at the sky where the dark clouds had dispersed, and a moment later stated the conjecture in his heart.

"Just a speculation... some kind of power isolated this continent, allowing them to exist independently of the main world, far away from the cataclysm that happened a thousand years ago. However, this gift is not without a price."

Although these Lizardmen escaped the baptism of war, allowing ancient traditions and bloodlines to continue, it simultaneously isolated them from a certain substance universally present in the universe that can respond to wishes—which is the "Mi-particles" that Miranda has been researching.

As for why the soul level declined, Luo Yan could only roughly guess; perhaps it was because souls from the outside could not be reincarnated here, and souls inside could not be reincarnated again. As the Dragon God's power continued to decline, the vast majority of Lizardmen's souls were living their first lives as humans.

Although similar situations exist in the outside world, Saint Xisi and the Demon God still dominate the reincarnation of a portion of living beings after all.

Besides.

Excluding macroscopic factors, on a microscopic level, the Lizardmen living here have also experienced stagnation or even regression of civilization due to long-term isolation.

What this forest was like a thousand years ago, it remains the same today. Even they themselves are gradually turning into living stones, or rather, wall murals.

As the waves of the Vast Ocean become more and more turbulent, the collapse of this fragile tranquility is almost a destined event...

"In other words... this is a place similar to a subspace?" Hearing You You looked at Luo Yan in surprise, her voice carrying a hint of disbelief.

Luo Yan nodded slowly.

"You can understand it that way... and I suppose this is also one of the reasons why the local monsters here have not condensed magic crystals, and why our magic power as outsiders recovers slowly here."

The entrance to this subspace should be somewhere on the Vast Ocean, and it is even highly likely the reason why Lumier's ship encountered the storm.

But having said that, what kind of powerful greatness could make an entire continent disappear directly from a planet?

Wouldn't this have an impact on the planet's ecology and even celestial movements?

Luo Yan couldn't help but ponder these questions unrelated to the current situation.

After all, the current battle situation was a completely one-sided slaughter, and there was no need for him to worry about it at all.

The Lizardman ghouls awakened from the ground had already joined forces with the army formed by the players and killed their way toward the direction of the Sacred Armored Dragon Kingdom's army.

After the baptism of the previous two rounds of rockets, although the Sacred Armored Dragon Kingdom's army still had more than twenty thousand left, their morale had already fallen to the bottom.

Especially now that their commander had been turned into an undead by him, the remaining Armored Dragon soldiers had no heart to fight and fled one after another toward the depths of the forest.

The only pity is that killing these guys doesn't absorb much soul energy, and for players, the experience gain is probably not even as good as the Mushroom Men on Planet Kao.

However—

Looking at their excited appearance, I suppose they don't necessarily care.

Since the server opened, the Great Tomb has experienced countless wars, large and small, but due to the "game" itself's intensity, the roles players played were always mainly cannon fodder.

Opportunities like this to mow down enemies are truly too rare.

"Then if we can unlock the seal placed on this land, wouldn't we be able to return this land to its original position?" Hearing You You, floating beside Luo Yan, said excitedly, floating around him once.

Luo Yan nodded, pondered for a moment, and then spoke.

"Perhaps."

He had heard of the existence of the Great Barrier from the captives, but obviously, those captives could not possibly know the principles of the Great Barrier or where the devices maintaining the barrier were.

However, those captives also mentioned that the stability of the Great Barrier was usually the responsibility of the High Priest of the Sacred Armored Dragon Kingdom, and that High Priest was in the capital of the Sacred Armored Dragon Kingdom—Assam City.

It seems necessary to take a trip there...

Just as Luo Yan was thinking this, the battle in the distance had already come to an end.

The players who had previously been chasing after the Armored Dragon soldiers were now returning to the battlefield one after another from afar, picking up the loot on the ground.

Although those Armored Dragon vine armors had been burned out of shape and most of the obsidian weapons were cracked and damaged, there were still many things that looked valuable.

Such as some gold ornaments.

And some amulets engraved with unknown marks.

Those amulets seemed to have the local Lizardmen's spells remaining on them; although the energy was very weak, it was better than nothing.

And besides these scattered items, many players also set their sights on the skin and scales on these Lizardmen.

Although these guys had poor equipment and no transcendent power, their natural scales had unexpectedly good defensive power, and after tanning, they could be used to make equipment.

Although the skinning process was a bit bloody, for the veteran players who had already killed who knows how many monsters, they were long used to it.

Anyway, these guys weren't human, so they didn't feel there was any problem.

Some players also set their sights on the "giant turtle" under Okto's feet, but as soon as they approached with knives drawn, they were warned off by a system alert.

That was the Demon King's loot.

It was obvious that the Demon King still had use for it.

In a corner of the battlefield, under a burned giant tree, several skeleton soldiers gathered together, looking at the experience bar after it refreshed, and couldn't help but complain.

Six Emperors Play: "Damn it, this experience gain is too low!"

Leather Knight: "I've killed at least twenty of them, how come it only adds up to 20,000 experience points?!"

Bitter Tea Thief Group: "Maybe the level gap is too high."

Instant Noodle Mage: "It's already not bad; I'm level thirty, I've killed more than the two of you combined, and I've only gained a total of six hundred experience points."

The skeletons heard this and looked at the level thirty big shot beside them, exclaiming.

"Damn, you're already level thirty?!"

"6666!"

【Instant Noodle Mage】 smiled shyly and said embarrassedly.

"Hehe, grinded on Planet Kao..."

Being level thirty-something could still be something to brag about a few months ago, but now it's a bit of a stretch to squeeze into the T3 tier.

Currently, there are nearly two thousand players in the server who have reached the Steel tier, accounting for about one-third of the current total number of players in the server.

Level thirty is just the peak of the Bronze tier; you have to level up one more time to reach the Steel tier.

However, even so, for a group of newbies still muddling through the Bronze or even Iron tier, level thirty is quite awesome.

Bathed in the envious, jealous, and hateful gazes of the crowd, 【Instant Noodle Mage】 felt a bit carried away for a moment, and his vanity was greatly satisfied.

At the request of the crowd, he immediately decided to show everyone a special skill, but he didn't pay attention to his mana, and fainted halfway through casting.

This map seems to come with a debuff that reduces mana regeneration, and the game's UI is made quite sloppily; you have to open the attribute panel to see the mana bar, which is very unfriendly to mages.

It seems this new map is prepared for the tough guys who engage in close-quarters combat.

Cleaning up the battlefield ended quickly.

The victorious players sang songs of triumph and returned toward the direction of Deadwood Port; as for the raging forest fire... let it continue to burn.

The rainforest here is too dense, and the magic crystal tanks simply can't drive in; if they can burn out some open space, it will be convenient for them to build roads here.

Just as the Demon King's army was heading home, at this very moment, above the battlefield, a figure was quickly passing beneath the clouds.

That Wind Lizardman circling in the air was none other than the leader of the Wind Roar tribe—"Great Wind Chief" Urga.

At this moment, his eyes were filled with disbelief and astonishment, and there was even a hint of fear deep in his bones hidden in the depths of his eyes.

Until an hour ago, he had firmly believed that the Sacred Armored Dragon Kingdom would crush those arrogant and rude outsiders on the beach like crushing a bug.

As a result, in the blink of an eye, that Armored Dragon general riding on the back of the dragon turtle became the bug that was crushed, and that mighty army of thirty thousand Armored Dragon soldiers was even more like a broken dam, collapsing in defeat.

The entire war had no suspense, and it couldn't even be called a war... it was a completely one-sided slaughter!

Whether it was the rain of fire falling from the sky or those strange monsters, everything completely exceeded Urga's cognition.

And even when the two sides engaged in close-quarters combat, those Armored Dragon soldiers were no match for those seemingly frail skeleton soldiers at all.

Those skeleton soldiers were not only well-equipped, but their moves were also strange and varied! Some charged on spiders, some cast evil spells, and some could drive corpses to fight.

What was troublesome wasn't just the skeleton soldiers; the races in the Demon King's army could be described as diverse!

Among them were little dwarves with wings, spiders with huge mouthparts, golems suspected to be made of stone... and even some Lizardmen he had never seen before!

Urga could not imagine how the Armored Dragon soldiers, who once ran rampant on the Gana Continent and were arrogant, could be easily defeated by this group of rabble!

The only thing to be thankful for is that there are not many flying monsters in the Demon King's army, and they cannot threaten the survival of the Wind Roar tribe for the time being.

However, Urga had no idea how long this brief peace could last.

After all, that guy who called himself the Demon King had already issued a declaration of "submit or die" to them, and the disastrous defeat of the Sacred Armored Dragon Kingdom was enough to prove that the Great Tomb indeed had the ability to fulfill this declaration.

They were not joking!

Urga stared fixedly at the direction where the group of undead and demons had left, and fear crawled through his whole body like poison along his blood vessels.

Although the Wind Roar tribe are children of the sky, they must live on the ground after all.

And once they set foot on the ground, they are no match for this group of guys at all, and their situation will be no better than prey.

At this moment, Urga finally understood why Ai Sa Ke had a desperate expression on his face when reporting the situation of those outsiders to him.

His mood at this moment was probably even worse than Ai Sa Ke's...

Looking at the Great Wind Chief with a complex expression, the captain of the personal guard, Kadar, flapped his wings and flew to Urga's side.

His face was full of solemnity, and he said in a hoarse voice.

"No wonder this group of guys dared to be so arrogant... with the power they displayed, let alone the Sacred Armored Dragon Kingdom, I'm afraid that even if all the descendants of the Dragon Gods on the entire Gana Continent joined forces, they would not be their match!"

When he said this, he swallowed hard and cast a desperate gaze at his silent leader.

"... What should we do?"

Urga did not answer, just quietly looked at the burning forest and the coastline dyed red by the setting sun, and finally, all his emotions turned into a sigh.

"Perhaps, we need to re-examine the mission entrusted to us by the great God of the Sky, Lord Uranus..."

Having dropped this thought-provoking remark, Urga turned his direction and returned to the mountain range where the Wind Roar tribe resided.

He had already made a decision in his heart.

Even if this decision is not easy for him and his clansmen, at least it can allow their bloodline to continue.

Kadar and the personal guards looked at each other, failing to grasp the leader's meaning, but still flapped their wings and turned around, chasing after the leader and leaving with him.

Not just Urga.

Pairs of eyes lurking in the rainforest were also harboring their own thoughts, returning toward the nests in the depths of the rainforest.

Night fell silently.

For the Lizardmen on the Gana Continent, this was destined to be a long and bitter night.

Regarding the future of themselves and their tribe, they had too many things to consider...

(End of chapter)