Chapter 532

"A lament rose—even though they had specially strengthened for the new environment, the power of light weapons was still far too weak, utterly unable to keep up with this version's sudden spike in difficulty."

Check: we used "new environment". No named entities.

"All the players who witnessed this scene stared at each other, unable to help but sigh."

'"Ah, if only we had missiles! We could definitely blast them all into the sky!"'

"But if the players were feeling regret, the mages on the other side were truly terrified to death."

"Especially those who thought highly of themselves, who had only put on a single layer of shield earlier, wanting to elegantly watch the situation unfold."

"Those in the know said their shields had been blown apart; those unaware thought they'd slipped into a fanservice fighting game, where their clothes got blown apart."

"Clearly trembling like a sieve, faces ashen as gold paper, yet they still waved their staves, frantically slapping revenge shields onto themselves."

"Actually, it's not fair to blame their fragile minds—after all, no matter the attribute, this is a third‑ring defensive spell!"

"Never mind opponents of the same level; even letting a thirtieth‑level professional step in, they'd at least need to exchange two moves before they could break the shield."

"And to shatter it in one blow, you'd at least need to be halfway to the forty‑level great perfection!"

"As it turns out, the enemy is far away—at least over a kilometer—and with just a pop, my life‑saving shield shatters."

"Yangyue World designer!!!" (voice hoarse from shouting)

"Moreover, these white fox elite mages are the Fox King's greatest reliance for earning the title "Fox King"; saying they are among the highest‑rank troops on the plains is no exaggeration."

"From the medicinal bath nurture of childhood, to the teaching practice after enrollment, to this very gear they wear now— which of these wasn't cultivated at great expense?"

"They had just thrown two rounds of fireballs, hadn't even recovered to start the third, when the enemy's ultra‑long‑range gunned down a dozen or so of them!"

"She, in agonizing pain, could only hurriedly summon Axibao, urging her capable nephew to quickly lead the troops in assaulting the city— Auntie truly can't hold out!"

"Axibao. jpg, seen with one's own eyes sniping down a swath of mages by the Pioneers."

"Axibao: Aminosu!"

"But who made him the commander‑in‑chief appointed by the Father King? One rank higher and he can crush anyone."

"He could only muster the elite warriors from this thirty‑thousand‑strong army, and under the cover of ranged fire, charge toward Fierce City bearing large shields."

"However, once the mage squad's artillery suppression ceased, the players who finally got a breather would spring into action."

"Thus the gun barrels were turned, supplies were hauled, and the hitherto ragged city defense forces hastily organized a defense."

"They lit the fuses, pulled the triggers, and poured fire onto the beastmen army below the city."

"Under such intense counterfire, even fine‑steel shields and third‑ring magic shields could barely hold on, and casualties from delayed support units naturally kept occurring."

"Especially those few field cannons placed on the city walls— not every werewolf is Axibao— under the cannonfire they'd be grazed and wounded, or struck and broken."

So these artillerymen were as if they held a ledger of life and death; wherever the cannon muzzle pointed, the pen tip would smear there—no matter who you were, you had to drag your broken arms and legs to go report to King Yama.

Damn it, why do they have such weapons!

They hadn't even touched the city wall yet when a batch of vanguards were knocked down with a crackling; Axi Bao, whose PTSD was triggered, instantly flew into a rage.

No longer caring about caution or vigilance, he stomped his foot and turned into a pale silhouette, charging straight at the stubborn city.

Moreover, he didn't need any damn ladders; a few powerful stomps were enough to launch him onto the city wall, landing on the artillerymen's heads like a demonic eagle swooping for prey.

Death (broken tone)!

In an instant armor shattered, flesh and blood flew everywhere; even the heavy cannons were seized by Axi Bao, who grabbed the scorching barrels and swung them like throwing weapons, hurling them out to smash a bunch of unlucky fellows.

In this fantastical world, level is ultimately an unbridgeable chasm.

It was like a shameless adult parachuting into a children's war; the players' originally somewhat tragic death‑defying resistance turned into his personal slaughter performance.

And even now he still worries about the Pioneers having a level‑70 expert, fearing again being hit hard by some unknown iron turtle that pops out of nowhere.

So Axi Bao didn't even dare let his feet touch the ground, moving at high speed the whole time, blasting and smashing like a steamroller as he laterally pushed along the wall, scattering human soldiers and weapon cover everywhere.

Your Highness the Prince! Your Highness the Prince has gone mad!

By the Beast God above, what just flew past my head?

Someone, he really shredded it, Your Highness is mighty!

But aside from the astonishment, beastmen are naturally an impulsive race.

Seeing their prince fight and kill, charging so valiantly, they naturally refused to lag behind humans, each getting excited as if injected with chicken blood.

Many bolder, climbing‑skilled players didn't even bother with ladders, they clung to the cracks in the wall and scrambled up.

Under such enemy pincer attacks, the walls of Stubborn City naturally fell quickly, and the speed of its collapse was even faster than Gaul's surrender.

In the dire situation, players who had lost control of the last wall segment chose to preserve their strength, gradually contracting their defense line toward the interior of Stubborn City.

Thus the battle for Stubborn City entered its second phase—street fighting.

Did Axi Bao win?

Meanwhile, the Fox King overseeing the rear, seeing his valiant grandnephew, seized the wall in one go; though surprised, he no longer held back.

After adding a dozen or so layers of shields to himself, he used a light-body technique to fly to the air above Stubborn City and activated the airborne gunboat form.

Good grief, I really don't know how the mages of Yangyue World train; when they unleash magic, the barrage is like playing a Touhou game.

Now it's gotten bad: barbarians are forcibly dismantling, and there's a Kirov bombardment; the players' defenses naturally collapsed in a flash, and in no time the line was breached.

But even when faced with a pincer attack from two level‑70 experts, the player bearing the 【True Stubborn Fearless Death】 buff did not give up.

Ah well, we can't escape anyway; it's just a level drop—we simply can't lose face again!

They launched a counterattack across the whole city with all kinds of weapons, relying on their home‑field advantage and also inflicting heavy losses on the steppe people.

Moreover, because Silla had from the outset set the national strategy of 'All‑out Yangyue', once registration for Double Moon Struggle was fully opened, the nation required at least one‑tenth of its population to log into Yangyue World each day.

One‑tenth—that's at least five million players—so this main city was built to the standard of a major metropolis, its occupied area can be said to be extraordinarily lavish.

Thus the headquarters directly adopted a space‑for‑time strategy, mustering almost all forces to solidify this third line of defense, hoping to fight a decisive battle against the beastmen here.

However, if you can't even hold the walls, can this hastily assembled new line really be reliable?

Thus, no matter how they resisted, the districts they could control kept dwindling one by one under the beastmen's encirclement.

The third line of defense also collapsed after the Fox King unleashed a seven‑ring spell 【Thunder Magic Flash】, burning the city's main defensive force and everything within a kilometer radius to charcoal.

In the end, only the city hall at the City Center was still trying to resist.

But under the pressure of the beastmen's great army, it had also become a pitiful, isolated island.

"Haha, good!"

The Fox King never expected such an ugly start to lead to such a smooth process.

Seeing victory within reach, she stopped hovering in the air and slowly landed back on the ground.

Just as he was about to use a fourth-ring Raging Flame Blast to blow open the tightly shut doors of the city hall, he was stopped by the hastily arriving A Xibao.

"Auntie, their earlier resistance was so fierce, yet now that we've reached the heart of the place, it's strangely quiet—there must be a trick, be careful!"

"Ah?"

"We've already fought our way to the enemy's main base, and yet you're still worried about messing up?"

The Fox King was dumbfounded, thinking, "You two really are father and son—your caution is exactly the same."

"Eh, it's not necessarily a bad thing—thinking things over when faced with trouble is better than acting like the burly black brute next door, Uncle Niu!"

So she adopted A Xibao's suggestion, playing it safe by having him send someone ahead to scout the route.

"Of course, we definitely can't let our own people be cannon fodder, so those A Xibao picked out are all warriors from the small tribes."

"Of course, in his telling, this is because the prince, moved by everyone's unmatched loyalty, wishes to grant the great merit of 'vanguard assault' to the ordinary tribes willing to believe in their three great kingdoms."

This truly moved everyone deeply, and they all thumped their chests, promising not to disappoint the prince.

"Wolf Prince, you're virtuous!"

"If it weren't for the fact that they've basically all fought under this Wolf Prince, even losing relatives to his blades, they might have truly knelt to thank the ruler's grace."

Then events proved A Xibao's caution was correct, for as they pushed the siege engine, painstakingly smashing open the gate, what guarded inside were a full four magic-powered tanks.

The gun turrets were pitch black, the cannon fire booming, as if saying——

"Surprise, motherf**ker!"

Moreover, a month had passed since the last battle, and to cope with this war, the players had invented many new clever tools.

For example, this time they fired magic-imbued high-explosive shells that, like the anti-magic shells, carried magical sigils and triggered a powerful explosion upon impact.

Upon landing, they instantly released a powerful surge of magical turbulence, throwing the surrounding beastmen into disarray like candles in the wind.

Moreover, they were so excited they completely forgot to keep their distance, so a single volley from these thousands of vanguard troops lost over a hundred men.

But that wasn't all; including the four tanks, the players also set up several machine-gun emplacements behind the gate.

"Rat-a-tat" rain of bullets poured down, in an instant tearing apart a large group of unlucky souls.

Combined, they instantly killed half of them on the spot, naturally shattering the morale of these Grassland Warriors.

The players might not fear death, but the grassland folk—at least these grassland people before them—find this terrifying to the point of being lethal; otherwise they wouldn't submit to the kingdom.

"Run, run!"

Thus, after leaving hundreds of corpses behind, these 'warriors' who had set out brimming with confidence retreated in panic.

By rights, such an unauthorized retreat would be disobeying orders, and in normal times they'd surely lose a lot of heads.

But with victory within sight, finding a perfectly reasonable excuse to kick these little tribes off the cake-sharing table is exactly what A Xibao wants, isn't it?

Thus the magnanimous Wolf Prince didn't make things difficult for them, merely offering kind words of reassurance; after expressing the idea that 'there are no traitors, only loyal subjects,' he forgave their failure.

But forgiveness doesn't win wars; although those hundreds died miserably, their loss was meaningless, while those four tanks and several machine-gun emplacements are still there.

So after some discussion, A Xibao decided not to go in; since we outnumber them, we might as well strike at the root—have the Fox King gather his mages and directly demolish the enemy's stronghold!

This tactic proved effective, for the players hadn't expected these beastmen to be so tenacious, only realizing it after their outer brick walls were blown apart.

But it's too late now; there's no turning back, and all their struggles for the final showdown are utterly futile, leaving them to be crushed layer by layer like an onion.

In the end, only four tanks remained, trapped amidst the ruins, like fish stranded in a puddle, unable to escape death no matter how they flop.

"Heh, I won."

The long-awaited day of revenge has finally arrived; seeing this scene, A Xibao is ecstatic.

Wearing several layers of shields begged from the Fox King, he swaggered forward and shouted.

"Is there no one here who can catch their breath? Why don't you come out and reminisce with this prince?"

A few seconds later, the tank's hatch was flung open, and a man wearing an army-green peaked cap climbed out.

"Yes, of course there is."

Probably also knowing he couldn't escape death today, he smilingly sat right on the turret.

"I am Lieutenant General Zheng Zhiyuan, Commander of the Silla Yangyue Front Army; are you Wolf Prince A Xibao?"

"Uh, what what... sauce?"

But this is a crucial moment with the two armies' commanders facing off, and A Xibao will absolutely not reveal that he actually understood nothing—he's just a pure piggy.

So although he really couldn't find a proper place to sit, to save face he still raised his chin and let out a cold snort.

"Oh? So... you could barely count as someone who can handle things, right?"

"Hehe."

However, General Zheng laughed even happier, as if he'd been waiting for exactly that line!

Moreover, relying on the fact that he's at least a level-40 mage, before speaking he even shoved a 【Voice Amplification】 spell onto his own throat.

"Of course! You might not know, but the last time you came back to get beaten, it was me who received you!"

"Including those super-powered beings chasing and hitting you!! (suddenly excited), Ah Xi ba, they're all summoned by me, you bastard!"

Fox King. jpg

All the officers and soldiers. jpg

A Xibao carrying everyone's faces. jpg

"Shh! Mute the world, listen to the sound of the first hardman of the wasteland's mental defenses breaking."