Chapter 235 - 145: Cheap Excellent Heroes 2
Wang Peng quickly warned Belara.
"What? More Excellence-tier assassin heroes?" Belara was stunned. His worldview couldn’t accept Excellence-tier assassin heroes being used for something like this.
Excellence-tier heroes were supposed to assassinate important figures like enemy lords, commanders, or other heroes.
’Who would use them to clear out a firing position?’
SHHNK!
Along with the sound of a dagger piercing armor, a sharp pain shot through Belara’s back.
He thrust his longsword behind him, and a figure leaped away.
"Damn it! There really are more assassins!"
"Are Excellence-tier heroes so worthless now? Using them to take out firing positions..."
SHINK!
With another soft sound, Belara was struck in the chest by a dagger.
’Another one?’
Belara was about to attack the figure that had suddenly appeared before him.
SHINK!
SHINK!
SHINK!
...
A series of soft sounds echoed on Belara’s body.
In an instant, six or seven sharp daggers protruded from his body.
"Th-this... this many?"
"What? How many?" Wang Peng, whose link with Belara was still active, asked in confusion.
"My lord... there really... are..."
"Five... six of them..."
Belara didn’t finish his sentence. His signal vanished completely from Wang Peng’s view.
But Wang Peng had already understood his meaning. At least five or six Excellence-tier heroes had attacked Belara simultaneously.
’This is bad!’
Wang Peng’s heart sank. He didn’t know if the Northern Expedition Legion’s lowest-tier heroes were truly all Excellence-tier, but he could at least confirm that the enemy had an incredible number of them.
At this rate, he most likely wouldn’t be able to repel the Northern Expedition Legion. Compared to them, his advantage was the large number of High-Tier Soldiers in his territory, but now that advantage was being nullified by the sheer number of Excellence-tier heroes.
"All outer-city machine gun nests, seal the entrances!"
"Everyone else, retreat to the inner city immediately."
"Engineers, once everyone has retreated, lay mines on all roads leading to the inner city."
"To the members in the outer-city machine gun nests, I need you to do everything you can to slow the enemy’s advance. I’m counting on you!"
Wang Peng quickly came to a conclusion. Since defeat was inevitable, the only thing left to do was to inflict as many casualties on the Northern Expedition Legion’s soldiers as possible.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t considered negotiating for peace. But no matter how he tried to private message Mei Yuan in the chat channel, even promising to give Mei Yuan his entire fortune, Mei Yuan only replied with a single phrase: "Victory in this battle is certain!"
As the first ranked lord the Northern Expedition Legion had encountered, if Mei Yuan accepted his peace treaty and ended the siege prematurely, the legion would betray the very principles of its founding. It would lose its reason for existing, and the entire Northern Expedition Legion would surely fall apart.
’Sigh! Just my luck...’
’Why did I have to be right in the path of their march?’
’What a waste of my talent.’
As a commoner, Wang Peng had been quite lucky to make it onto the ranks. His talent was the ability to upgrade a Recruitment Office, an ability he could use once per lord level.
Thus, he had upgraded his initial Excellence Camp twice, obtaining a Legendary-tier barracks and a powerful unit type, which was how he had successfully made it onto the ranks.
He had been fantasizing about upgrading this barracks to Epic-tier, or even Mythic-tier, in the third phase.
But the appearance of the Northern Expedition Legion had shattered all his fantasies. His path as a lord was about to end here.
...
Wang Peng stood inside the Lord’s Mansion in the inner city, grieving silently.
The territory’s civilians, soldiers, and heroes swiftly prepared the inner city’s defenses according to his orders.
Wang Peng was someone who planned ahead. He had designed his territory with two layers of city walls long ago.
The entire city was divided by the walls into two parts: an outer city and an inner city.
The city’s primary defenses were concentrated on the outer city walls. The inner city initially had few defensive structures, but upon discovering he was in the Northern Expedition Legion’s path, Wang Peng had urgently constructed many fortifications there.
He had even used up his entire stock of Acceleration Scrolls and "Resource Packs."
Unfortunately, it was ultimately not enough to stop an attack from five million soldiers.
The gunfire from the outskirts grew fainter. Atop the inner city walls, the soldiers’ grips on their guns tightened.
They knew their chances of survival were slim, but as members of the territory, they could only fight to the death.
BOOM!
BOOM!
A series of massive explosions erupted from the roads leading to the inner city.
The engineers had set up the triggers deep within the minefield, designed to detonate the section the enemy had already crossed once they reached the halfway point.
The faster-charging soldiers of the Northern Expedition Legion were instantly blown off their feet, and many were caught in the blast.
The defenders on the walls seized the opportunity to fire, taking down many more.
That move alone cost the Northern Expedition Legion nearly ten thousand men. Whether any heroes were among the casualties was unknown.
After that first wave of explosions, the Northern Expedition Legion’s soldiers immediately fell back.
A Mage summoned an Elemental Servant, intending to use it to clear the mines, but it was killed by the defenders on the walls before it could even get close.
After a few more attempts, the forces of the Northern Expedition Legion retreated, surrounding the inner city from a distance.
The two sides were locked in a standoff. Buildings in the outer city were continuously demolished, raising clouds of dust as more and more of the Northern Expedition Legion’s troops gathered around.
Once all the buildings were torn down, the outer city was completely filled with the Northern Expedition Legion. The troops at the very back, unable to squeeze in, began setting up tents.
CRASH!
The buildings near the inner city were also being torn down. The Northern Expedition Legion’s heavy-armored soldiers stood at the base of the structures, where they could demolish them without being attacked by the Archers and gunners on the walls. One by one, the buildings crumbled into ruins under their assault.
Once these buildings adjacent to the inner city were demolished, the Northern Expedition Legion launched another attack. This time, they avoided the main roads, moving across the rubble to avoid stepping on mines.
On the city walls, machine gun nests were positioned every hundred meters, their gunners endlessly strafing the enemy below.
Archers and melee defenders were stationed in the hundred-meter gaps between them.
The advantage of machine guns was that any Human Race unit could equip and use them. Their attack power wouldn’t decrease based on the unit type using them, but it wouldn’t increase either.
The attack power of Archers, however, received a bonus from the soldiers’ stats. The effectiveness of a bow varied depending on the soldier wielding it.
Therefore, Wang Peng’s territory still maintained a number of elite archers. At this moment, the Archers on the wall were also firing with all their might.
Below the walls, Shield Soldiers advanced inch by inch, their shields raised.
They were still covered in numerous buffs and protective shields, making them feel incredibly secure.
However, the defenders on the wall had adopted a new defensive tactic this time. The Archers formed groups of ten to twenty and focused their fire on a single Shield Soldier.
With proper coordination, their attacks could land at the same time, dealing explosive burst damage that could instantly deplete a Shield Soldier’s shield and health.
If this were a battle between evenly matched forces, such an attack would be enough to make the attackers hesitate.
Unfortunately, the Northern Expedition Legion’s numbers were simply too vast. Shield Soldiers, a common unit type, were countless; basically every lord had brought a large number of them.
Thus, the constantly dying Shield Soldiers only slightly slowed the Northern Expedition Legion’s advance.
Once the Shield Soldiers got close enough, the Northern Expedition Legion’s Archers also advanced under their cover, moving into effective range.
In an instant, a rain of arrows flew toward the city wall.
Facing the arrow volley, the firepower from the wall immediately weakened. Aside from the machine gun nests that continued to fire an endless stream of bullets, the density of attacks from the wall dropped significantly.
Although there were also many Shield Soldiers on the wall, they didn’t have many buffs. It wasn’t enough to make them invincible, so they didn’t dare to face the arrow rain directly.
The Northern Expedition Legion’s scaling parties below seized this opening and rushed to the base of the wall.
Rope ladders were thrown onto the ramparts, and siege ladders were propped up against the wall.
Squads of armored melee soldiers began to climb the siege ladders, while lightly-armored assassins scrambled up the rope ladders and onto the wall in just a few movements.
Seeing their own men reach the top of the wall, the Archers below stopped their volley fire and began to suppress the machine gun nests, attempting to pierce them with continuous, heavy attacks.
Seeing this, the defenders on the wall poured out from the hidden sally ports, and the two sides’ melee forces engaged in a fierce battle on the ramparts.