Four Split Personalities

Bellia gently bit her lip, seeming to sigh with relief as she nodded, "If Lord Hei Fan believes it’s feasible, then there should be no issues, I suppose."

Though she was hardly a seasoned soldier, over time, Bellia had come to deeply trust Lord Hei Fan, so if he sanctioned a retreat, missing their assigned goals probably wouldn’t be too significant, especially since...

Even as the Rangers strained to unleash a downpour of arrows and the two newly positioned Old Trees ceaselessly bombarded the Mutants, the actual outcomes were disheartening, bearing no comparison to the results of previous assaults.

A shipment of "Blast Crystals" was said to have annihilated thirteen hundred enemies.

The recent thunderstorm had, in one fell swoop, reaped over fifteen hundred Mutants.

As for the initial strike by the Howling Guerrillas, despite falling short of expectations, it still managed to eliminate nearly a thousand foes.

With this in mind, Bellia, whose vision was already quite sharp and further enhanced by the Eye of the Mage, observed that roughly nine thousand monsters lured to Hodir’s Mountain Path by Princess Morning Forgotten Language remained. Although this figure was bound to include some margin of error, it likely wasn’t far off.

However, in the minutes that followed, despite the Guerrillas, dozens of Elemental Spirits, and both Old Trees having done everything within their power to attack those monsters mired in the marsh, practically defenseless, they had dispatched less than three hundred Mutants...

Seeing it this way, even if the combined spellcasters, utterly exhausted, forced one or two more "Marsh Techniques", it would hardly make a significant dent in the enemy numbers.

["Indeed, we can’t keep hoping to wipe out those creatures by the thousands as we did before."]

Bellia smiled wryly, shaking her head, cooling down the inflated expectations that had crept into her head.

Although they had reduced the numbers of nearly thirteen thousand Mutants to nine thousand in just under half an hour, with virtually no losses on their own side, eliminating nearly a third of the enemy, this did not mean that another two thirty-minute periods would suffice to annihilate all the monsters. In fact, the real war hadn’t even begun!

In the words of Lord Hei Fan, clever certainty could only outplay the mindless for a few rounds. No matter how strategically cunning or well-prepared they were, the potential for decisive victory without a fight was limited to just a few instances.

The "Blast Crystals" that annihilated a vast number of Mutants were prepared by Luna even before the joint force had fully deployed in the Southern Territory. After intense effort and considerable resources had been invested, barely over two thousand pounds had been accumulated by yesterday, and these precious explosives, alongside several days of arduous effort by the engineering team, were now exhausted.

The second bout of heavy casualties among the Mutants was similar: disregarding the laborious building and finicky calibration of the three Resonance Towers, just the meticulous planning and trials the Shaman Independent Group underwent to perfectly cover the mouth of Hodir’s Mountain Path with totems, minimizing waste while maximizing effect, took three and a half days. The precise movements of the Howling Guerrillas and the assembly drills for the one-time-use heavy crossbows also consumed vast amounts of time. The awakening of the two Old Trees had begun hastily as soon as the main forces arrived at Disk Tree City...

All these efforts had culminated in the previous flawless execution of the rapid reaping through the combined assault of torrential rain, thunderstorm, and arrow storm, with countless critical details underlying such seemingly simple, brutal onslaughts.

The first to mention is the self-explanatory Earth-binding Totem Array, its sole purpose being to restrain and slow the enemy, requiring all shamans involved in the ’Triple Rain’ strategy to hold back the lead Mutants and firmly suppress them at the mountain’s entrance, buying time for the following series of actions.

As for conventional traps, Motan hadn’t even considered it, for no matter how many pits were dug, they would be virtually useless against hordes of mindless Mutants numbering in the tens of thousands, which could effortlessly fill them in.

Then came the first downpour of their attack, the ’Torrential Rain’, made possible through the Resonance Towers and the collective casting of hundreds of low-rank spellcasters from the combined force. They directly altered the weather, summoning an enormous scale of rain that lacked direct attack power to thoroughly soak the enemy, simultaneously softening and moistening the ground. As soon as the goal was achieved, the mages stationed near Towers Two and Three ceased their efforts and cooperatively cast a lower-tier "Marsh Technique" from the Earth Element School, turning the ground under the leading pack of Mutants into a quagmire. While further restraining the monsters in place, it also freed the shamans for new tasks.

Next, the Shamans, having been forcefully disconnected from the Earth-binding Totems due to the violent fluctuations of the earth elements, drained their last bits of magic power and physical strength, casting with all their might the most common, versatile, and diverse attacking technique of the Shaman Priest system—Thunder Force—bombarding the enemies trapped in the marsh.

The reason they could achieve such massive success despite having reached the end of their tether lay in two specific factors.

Firstly, the Mutants, utterly drenched by the downpour, were in a perfect state for thunder spells to be highly effective.

Secondly, and most crucially, while those mages at Towers Two and Three were repeatedly using the "Marsh Technique" to restrain the Mutants, the group at Resonance Tower One continued to maintain the "Torrential Rain Spell", or more accurately, the weather pattern it had generated.

Thus, those Mutants, under a canopy of dark clouds, met their doom, blasted by an immensely amplified ’thunderstorm’ to obliteration, followed by a barrage from the well-rehearsed Howling Guerrillas who expertly mounted their crossbows, tuned, and reloaded... knocking down a slew of them.

Each link in the chain was tightly woven and utterly seamless, worthy of celebration indeed.

But after that, it wasn’t so simple.

All possible calculations had been made, all devious tricks had been played, and it had become very difficult to catch the more than nine thousand mutants off guard anymore.

The final Marsh Technique turned the ground beneath the mutants into a quagmire, but some monsters had already charged out of the affected area by stepping on their kindred.

"Immediate retreat!"

The elf Zhengtai who looked no older than thirteen or fourteen abruptly stood up and shouted to Bellia and the surrounding magicians, "This is an order from Lord Hei Fan, everyone retreat to the first defensive line as fast as... Ahhh?"

The ’junior Gandalf’ hadn’t finished speaking when Bellia scooped him up under her arm and ran like the wind toward the first defensive line.

"Hey, hey! Put me down, I can walk on my own!"

The elf Zhengtai, who was already sixteen years old outside the game, protested loudly.

"Less nonsense, your little legs can’t run fast, shut your mouth and let sister carry you properly!"

Bellia, with her big wavy hair, gave a firm slap on Gandalf’s buttocks and continued to sprint headlong.

The elf Zhengtai shivered from the smack, then hung his head in red-faced embarrassment, "Oh..."

[You have unlocked the growable talent: General M]

"I’m really..."

...

Meanwhile

’Notify all members, mutants will break free from their constraints in fifteen seconds, guerrilla team members to start evasive maneuvers immediately, engage in restraining attacks.’

A message popped up abruptly before Robin Weld’s eyes.

The girl instantly packed up her long bow without hesitation, leapt toward the mountain wall beside her with a backward jump, and shouted at the top of her lungs, "Time’s up for playing target practice, Boss Hei Fan says let’s annoy them from now on!"

...

Meanwhile

"Only nine thousand left, huh..."

Motan gently massaged his temples, stretched his stiff neck, then turned around and spread his hands to the more than six hundred heavily armed figures in front of him...

"The appetizer is over, let’s go, fellows."

Chapter Four Hundred and Thirty-Four: The End