Chapter 555: The Battle of Bone-Burial Shanfeng!

On the other side, at the southern foothills of the Ten Thousand Swords Mountain, lay Bone-Burial Shanfeng, controlled by the Shi Shi Laike Warlord.

The so-called "Bone-Burial Shanfeng" was not an isolated mountain, but a rugged range formed by five undulating, staggered peaks.

Viewed from high above, the orientation of these five peaks was eerie and unpredictable, resembling the skeletal remains of a giant lying across the earth.

The exposed grey-white rock was the giant's withered bone, while the twisted vegetation covering it was the rotting flesh... and thus, the name "Bone-Burial Shanfeng" was born.

At this moment, this "corpse" was a scene of clamor.

The rat-man army under the Shi Shi Laike Warlord, like maggots parasitic on a carcass, swarmed densely across every inch of the mountainside.

They cursed the damned human trinkets in shrill voices while brandishing crude tools, frantically digging defensive works.

One had to admit, though these rats were filthy, their ability to learn was top-tier.

They had stolen the dwarf mining techniques and innovatively improved upon them, digging a series of chaotic yet intricate trenches along the edges of the mountain ridges.

Those trenches looked like scars on the giant's corpse.

The rat-men mounted stolen rune heavy crossbows behind dirt mounds, their hands gripping spears of varying lengths, rusted iron swords, and even agricultural pitchforks.

Beyond that, there were magic stone guns snatched from the Hell Dwarves, as well as magic scrolls and magic devices "discarded" in the Ten Thousand Swords Mountain by magic apprentices.

Looking out, in this army of tens of thousands, one could not find a single uniform squad, nor even two identical pieces of equipment.

Yet, even so, the combat effectiveness of this force was not to be underestimated.

Because while the quantity of equipment was limited, the number of rat-men was endless; the dwarves of the Ten Thousand Swords Mountain had stumbled more than once due to underestimating the rat-men's combat power.

They were not as easy to deal with as imagined.

Of course, it also depended on who they were up against.

"Get your spirits up, all of you! That bunch of hairless monkeys is about to come up!"

"Must not let the human trinkets charge up!"

"Let them witness the power of Lord Lord Geluo!"

"Die! Die!"

The noisy clamor rose and fell.

The unified shouting of the rats truly dispelled the fear permeating the position, making them briefly forget the pain of being beaten black and blue by the cave spiders a few days ago.

However, while the little fools of the Shi Shi Laike Warlord were quick to forget pain, the front-line commander, the rat-man Myriad-Man Commander Liechi Jiajiaer, was a rat who understood the situation.

At this moment, he stood on a protruding rock, his turbid little eyes scanning the surroundings uneasily, especially staring toward the rear, his heart pounding incessantly.

The cunning Shi Shi Laike Warlord had not shown his face for several days.

Although he claimed to be in seclusion practicing the secret arts taught by Lord Lord Geluo, the rats below were all whispering that the boss had long since run away through a secret passage with the treasure and the female rats.

To stabilize the army's morale, Jiajiaer had been forced to hang a dozen rumor-mongers, displaying their corpses on flagpoles as a warning to others.

Yet, while the army's morale was stabilized and the little rats were acting tough again, Jiajiaer's own mood could not settle down.

According to intelligence brought back by scouts who risked their lives, the number of human troops gathered at the foot of the mountain was shockingly high, and it wasn't just humans; there were large numbers of dwarves in heavy armor, as well as those lizard-men from the southern swamps who were said to eat rats as snacks.

Lord Lord Geluo above...

Jiajiaer couldn't help but groan in his heart; what kind of thing had their boss Master Moke offended?!

A few days ago, they had just blocked the attack of those terrifying cave spiders and thought they could catch their breath, only for a group of even more formidable things to appear in the blink of an eye.

Poor Jiajiaer did not know that it wasn't them who had blocked the cave spiders' attack; it was simply because Alakduo had let them go.

The Demon King Army's vanguard had already achieved the first phase of their war objective—weakening the defensive strength of Bone-Burial Shanfeng, controlling it before the experimental facilities were transferred, muddying the waters before the regular army arrived, and hiding their merit while taking the "loot."

Although Alakduo was only the Demon King's pet, the tasks were completed quite efficiently, and not one of the four strategic objectives was missed.

As for now—

It was the second phase.

Just as Jiajiaer was lost in thought, strange sounds suddenly came from the distant sky.

"Woo—!"

It was a shrill whistle the rat-men in the Ten Thousand Swords Mountain had never heard before, dense and piercing, like thousands of killer bees roaring toward them!

Jiajiaer froze slightly, his two tattered ears twitching; before he could react to what was happening, the whistling sound was already overhead.

"Boom, boom, boom—!"

The forward position one kilometer ahead was instantly engulfed by countless orange-red fireballs, turning into a boiling sea of fire!

The violent explosions were deafening, and the shockwaves, mixed with gravel and the severed limbs of rat-men, flew into mid-air. The rat-men crouching in the trenches hadn't even seen who the enemy was before more than half were sent away by the rocket shells that plowed through the ground.

The rat-men crouching in the rear trenches were scared silly by this sudden strike.

They watched in terror as the rain of destruction descended from the sky, their faces twisted in extreme fear, just like the rats outside the City of Dusk who witnessed the arrival of angels.

"Fire meteors! It's fire meteors—!"

"Damn it! The opponent has a Diamond-tier Archmage!"

"No... at this scale... it might be Amethyst-tier!"

The rat-men screamed, scurrying about in the position, and only managed to return to the trenches thanks to the coercion and inducements of the supervising officers.

Yet at this very moment, the supervising officers were also panicked. If not for their families being held in the hands of Lord Shi Shi Laike, they would likely have run faster than these slave rats.

In the rat-men's barren cognition, only legendary high-tier mages could create such a terrifying scene.

However, the truth was not so.

That was not magic at all, but the crystallization of industry and alchemy—the Pipe Organ Rocket Artillery of the Gutafu Kingdom!

In the forest at the foot of the mountain, at the temporarily deployed artillery position, rows of honeycomb-shaped wooden crates pointed toward the sky, the muzzles emitting wisps of blue smoke.

In just the last three minutes, the Gutafu United Kingdom's artillery position had poured a full three hundred heavy incendiary rocket shells onto the rat-men's first peak.

In terms of lethality alone, the power was not inferior to the magic of a High-Tier Transcendent, and in some cases, even exceeded it!

After all, magic damage would be attenuated by magic resistance, but damage caused by physics and chemistry would not, and could only be resisted by Transcendent power itself.

And most rat-men did not have that stuff.

"Awesome!!"

"Haha! I'm satisfied!"

"Put some effort into reloading, don't stop!"

A lizard-man artillery officer wearing bizarre equipment waved the command flag in his hand excitedly, shouting at his companions beside him.

"Try to get another volley off before the charge!"

"Oooooh!"

The players put all their strength into reloading, and in less than half an hour, the erected rocket nests were filled again.

Following the order of the player commanding the artillery, the whistling rocket shells spat out long, thick tongues of fire again, tearing through the sky!

Those arm-thick warheads were not ordinary gunpowder weapons; the surface of every warhead was inscribed with "Nether-Script" from the Great Graveyard.

At the moment of impact with the ground, what was triggered was not just the warhead's charge, but the magic crystal powder smeared on the inside of the shell!

As the Nether-Script activated, a cold energy surged through the burning flames, gnawing at the fragile nerves of the rat-men.

That terrifying power was a tier higher than ordinary incendiary shells; the once-sturdy trenches became fragile in the sea of fire, and the flames mixed with Nether-power burned the rat-men until they howled and fled in panic.

Seeing that the time was ripe, the "Gutafu Officer" standing on the front line drew his command sword and swung it forcefully toward the distant position!

"Attack!!!"

Following the whistling of the rocket shells, a loud military bugle sounded, and the allied forces of various races, long since ready, launched their charge together!

On the left flank was the lizard-man hand-cannon unit of the Gutafu Kingdom's First Regiment, First Battalion; wagging their tails as they sprinted forward, they looked like cavalry charging on the mountain ridge!

Marching on the right flank was the Ryan Battalion of the Campbell First Mountain Regiment, holding "Prince Luo Ke-Sai 1054 Rifles" in their hands.

Although their physiques were not as robust as the lizard-men, no one could ignore their combat power and their determination to fight to save their compatriots.

"Charge—!"

"Kill—!"

Amidst the tidal roar of battle, Sir Dikebin mixed into the crowd, like a husky mixed into a pack of wolves.

This once-arrogant envoy was now covered in mud, his hands tightly gripping the rifle drenched in sweat and rain, and any trace of decent composure was no longer visible on his face.

Watching the companions around him roaring as they charged, and listening to the roar of artillery ahead, he felt his legs go soft like noodles.

Yet he dared not stop.

Because he always felt that once he stopped, he would be bitten by the man-eating beast behind him and swallowed into its belly.

This bunch of barbarians from downstream of the Running River—

The cowardly Sir Dikebin cursed in his heart, but ultimately opened his mouth wide and let out a hysterical roar, venting half a lifetime of fear.

"Ahhh—!"

He buried his head and followed the people beside him, charging toward the burning hillside, finally recalling a little bit of what he had discarded.

Bullets and arrows danced in the air with a swish; he and his comrades fired toward the mountain while using cover to dodge, subsequently advancing up the mountain under the cover of field mages and artillery.

Meanwhile, on the north side of the mountains outside Bone-Burial Shanfeng, this was the northern border of the Rotten Meat Clan, and also an area repeatedly contested by rat-men and dwarves.

Both sides had left their own marks on the rock walls here, to the point where the hard granite looked as jagged as if it had been chewed by a dog.

Every time the rat-men occupied this place, they would destroy the dwarf lord's relief carvings, and when the dwarves took it back, they would carve them again.

Now, this area was under the control of the rat-men, who had used dwarf explosives to completely destroy several passages leading to the Gaoshan Kingdom, relying on the hard granite to build an impregnable rat nest.

All the little rats thought they could finally sleep soundly, because ever since they destroyed the mine tunnels, the dwarves had truly not returned here.

Yet at this moment, the rat-man Myriad-Man Commander "Broken-Tail," responsible for guarding this place, felt something was wrong.

His sensitive whiskers were trembling frantically, capturing a low and rhythmic humming sound coming from the air.

What... what sound was that?

He searched carefully for a while, finding that the sound seemed to come from the rock wall, and it was becoming clearer.

"Hum... hum..."

The hard rock wall began to vibrate, and gravel from overhead fell with a rustle, as if a giant beast lurking deep in the mountain range was waking up.

"Broken-Tail" pressed against the rock wall in horror, trying to hear more clearly.

But in the next second, a deafening roar blew him directly away, just as he had leaned against the rock wall!

"Boom—!"

The entire mountain seemed to tremble in that roaring sound!

The Clan Rat Myriad-Man Commander "Broken-Tail," who had Silver-tier strength, died on the spot, not even having time to let out a scream.

The power of "Yellow Explosive" was terrifying!

What the Dragon God's people brought to their dwarf friends was not just a verbal promise, but also many novel things the dwarves had never seen.

And everything was just the beginning—

Amidst the sky-filling gravel and smoke, a giant steel drill spitting white steam crashed through the obstruction and smashed fiercely into the rat-men's tunnel!

The dwarf runes inscribed on the drill flashed with blinding orange light, and the high-speed rotating drill tip easily shredded all the rock and flesh that tried to block it.

"Squeak, squeak, squeak—!!"

A dozen unlucky Clan Rats didn't even let out a scream before they were rolled into the drill and turned into meat paste. And the few who were lucky enough to escape were chopped into meat filling by the blades and axes on both sides of the drill.

"Shield wall!"

"Ha!"

Before the rats could react, a heavy hiss came from behind the steel monster, and behind the rolling steam and dust, a "wall" appeared out of thin air!

A wall made of steel and whiskers.

Led by a dwarf lord holding a warhammer, bowl-sized firelocks were mounted on that shield wall.

"For the Gaoshan! For the King!"

"Fire!"

Bang, bang—!

The successive bursts of white smoke tore apart the formation the rat-men had just gathered, and the volley of buckshot rained down in the narrow cave!

In just one round, the rat-man thousand-man team stationed here suffered more than half casualties, leaving behind a ground full of twisted corpses.

Expressions of fear were printed on the faces of the rat-men; their morale collapsed again, and they screamed as they turned and fled toward the depths of the cave.

The dwarf musketeers retreated to reload.

Following them were the rune warriors holding blades and axes.

Black runes were carved on their knotted muscles; under the blessing of the dwarf priests, they smeared black beast blood on their faces, and their pupils and axe handles emitted golden light together.

"For the King—"

"Charge!!"

"Kill!!"

The rugged war cries echoed in the narrow tunnel, making the rat-men's eardrums ache!

The rune warriors holding war axes leaped out, and in a few breaths, they chopped down a large area of rat-men who couldn't escape in time, like a hurricane cutting down wheat! ===== CHAPTER 556 =====