Chapter 262 – The Battle Begins

Translated by ALy

Edited by Canis, Cien, Dray

Fatty’s instinct told him that this townlet must be kept safe, or else his quest for Sky City would become much more troublesome.

The Recall Scroll returned the user to the nearest city, while respawning after death would be at a location set in advance by the players. Currently, both were useless for Fatty. While this small town was small, it had everything and was a forcible respawn point no less. This meant that any player who died in its vicinity would respawn in the town no matter what their set location was.

Watching Luo Kun leading people to restrain the Mutated Fire Kite so his soldiers could leave for the Imperial Capital, Fatty quickly brainstormed for an alternative.

Otherwise, it would take too long for their report to reach the Imperial Capital. Even if all of the NPCs could come out alive, the townlet might still have been destroyed by the bird.

By then, it’d be multiple times harder to rebuild the townlet.

As Fatty pondered, Luo Kun already had people lower the protection barrier and killed his way out. He fought the firebird alone while troop after troop charged out.

It looked bustling from above the wall. Tens of thousands of soldiers properly lined up, all kinds of skills soaring across the sky. The scene was incredible.

The likes of such a Mutated Fire Kite was no less intelligent than a human. Seeing the NPCs mount a large-scale attack, it wasn’t intimidated or excited at all. The bird only let out a loud screech and urged its underlings to surround the soldiers while it fought Luo Kun by itself.

Blade lights abruptly shot up from the ground and illuminated the entire region. Every attack from Luo Kun could shave off a huge patch of the bird’s feathers, but the beast seemed like it couldn’t care less. It only kept spitting fire and tangled with Luo Kun.

Puff! Several high-rank Yao bosses came hand in hand. One frog-lookalike with a tumor on its head opened its mouth, and a clump of venom was sprayed on the soldiers. Even with a priest healing instantly, over a dozen soldiers died.

Whoosh! An arrow streaked out like lightning, aiming right at the frog’s head. However, the frog’s tongue rolled out and swatted it to the ground.

The sounds of battle cries shook the sky. Several officers led their own team out to massacre. While they killed a great deal of monsters, they were still unable to break out. It was as if the enemy party had an endless supply of monsters. No matter how many were killed, there would be as many of the exact same types to block the soldiers.

RUMBLE!

All of a sudden, the entire town wall shook. At a spot, the earth ruptured with several deep cracks.

“Not good!” Luo Kun’s face sharply changed. He was about to order a retreat when the firebird let out a long shriek and quickened its attacks, stopping him from going anywhere.

From underground, a monster several dozen meters long crawled out from the cracks. Its appearance was that of an earthworm, completely made of circular muscles. Its huge body wiggle a little, however, the monster quickly crawled back into the cracks right after.

Boom! A series of collapsing sounds resounded. The worm had actually nudged the wall up.

Appraisal.

Fatty tossed out the skill and got the monster’s details–

Underground Worm

High-rank Yao Boss

Attack: 100

Defense: 280

HP: 33000

Notes: An inhabitant of the underground. Timid as a mouse with a low attack, but it’s the bane of city walls. When attacking a wall, its attacks multiply fivefold.

A monster born for sieges! Fatty’s eyes lit up. If a person had an Underground Worm coupled with the Plenilune Ballista, they’d be golden when attacking a base.

“Hah! Don’t run! Let Lord Fatty see your face!” Fatty operated the Zephyr Wings and jumped off the wall.

Rumble! The Underground Worm lived up to its reputation of being as timid as a mouse. Seeing Fatty charging at it, the monster's first reaction wasn’t to fight, but to turn around and flee.

“Wheat, pounce! That fellow comes from the same place as you.” Fatty summoned Wheat.

After a brief glance, Wheat shrieked and... moved back. F*cking hell! What makes you think Lord Wheat can fight such a big thing?

“Damn it! Just pounce! Can’t you see it’s as timid as a mouse?” Fatty kicked Wheat. The latter involuntarily rushed forth.

Bam!

A Howling Bullet struck the worm. The monster suddenly shivered and fled even faster.

“Squeak squeak!” Wheat’s despondent heart suddenly became courageous. The rodent scurried on all four to give chase and attack at the same time.

Since the Underground Worm was huge, the tunnel below the cracks it made was very wide. Fatty followed the boss inside and found that he could walk freely in there.

Bam! Bam! Each strike from Wheat could deal up to several hundreds of damage. However, the opponent boasted a high defense and high HP, plus the ability to regen quickly. If this went on, Wheat would die of exhaustion before it could kill the worm.

“For a high-rank Yao boss, it’s worth it.”

Fatty took out the Plenilune Ballista. The object landed with a boom.

Upfront, the Underground Worm seemed to sense the danger as a yellow light flashed. Along with a series of “kah...kah...” sounds, the boss’s body was covered with a yellow armor.

“Roaaaah!”

The Plenilune Ballista roared. A bolt shot out and viciously impaled the Underground Worm. A huge number indicator rose up.

–5500

“Awesome, five more bolts will do it.” Fatty felt reassured in his heart. He quickly adjusted the ballista and loaded the second bolt.

Rumble...!

At this moment, the distant town wall swayed again. Another monster was coming out from underground.

“Damn it!” Luo Kun was infuriated. A cyan light flashed from his body, then a wide blade light sliced through the air towards the Mutated Fire Kite.

“Screeech!”

Remaining still in its spot, the firebird let out a long screech. Fire swirled around its body before taking the shape of a miniature version of it several dozen meters long that hurled towards the blade light.

Boom!

The fire was smashed to bits. The Mutated Fire Kite wailed and glided backward, the fire on its body grew fainter. As for Luo Kun, he repeatedly stepped back, leaving two lines of deep footprints on the ground.

“Retreat!” Luo Kun shouted the order to retreat. The enemy was too cunning. It lured them out so the earth monsters could attack the wall from underground.

The NPC army withdrew methodically. While they were able to kill quite an amount of monsters, their casualties weren’t any better. Neither side had gained the upper hand in this battle.

“Be a good boy, don’t run.” Another bolt lodged into the Underground Worm’s body. The boss was on its last breath as it struggled to flee to the surface.

Fatty originally planned to return the Dark Unicorn into its mount egg state, then use the Brutal Saddle to control the worm. However, the monster was already half out above the ground. If he used the Saddle, the worm would be completely out before he could subdue it. When that happened, Fatty would be exposed in the middle of a monster herd and become the subject of a gang beating.

With his back against the wall, Fatty loaded the last bolt and shot it at the worm.

Boom! As the sixth bolt struck, the Underground Worm trembled. Then, its yellow armor softened and dispersed into yellow gas. At the same time, the worm limply fell on the ground, no longer moving.

Harvest.

Fatty tossed the skill. A ball-sized orb appeared on his palm.

Underground Worm Inner Core – Earth

“Hahaha, nice!” Fatty laughed in satisfaction. He placed the core in his inventory and continued to Harvest.

Whoosh. It was still a ball this time, but only the size of a goose egg.

“This is... a pet egg?” Fatty couldn’t be happier. The tiny bit of regret for being unable to subdue the Underground Worm as his mount was resolved by this egg.

“Screeech!”

Suddenly, an ear-piercing scream resounded above. With a rumble, the tunnel where Fatty stood collapsed.

“Fudge!” Fatty cursed angrily. Having no time to pick up the drops, he vanished with Earthwalk and reappeared at the foot of the town wall.

The fact that Fatty had just killed a powerful underling of itself greatly angered the Mutated Kite Fire. The bird opened its mouth to spit, and a huge flame shot out screaming.

“General, help!” Fatty screamed miserably as he flew up with the Zephyr Wings.

“Hah!” A blade light swept out from the wall. The flame was sliced in half and slowly dispersed.

“That scared me to death!” Fatty landed on the wall and patted his chest in relief.

“Squeak squeak...” Only now did Wheat pop out from underground. The rodent sneakily glanced around before scurrying towards the wall.

“Not bad, you actually killed a high-rank Yao boss.” Luo Kun nodded approvingly.

“It’s just luck.” Fatty wanted to be humble, but his face abruptly changed. “Ahhh! My bolts! Wuwuwuuu, my sixty thousand gold coins is gone!”

After Fatty slew the Underground Worm, he was so preoccupied with Harvest that he forgot the drops as well as the six bolts in the monster’s body.

“Heh, it’s only sixty thousand gold coins. After this crisis is solved, I’ll compensate you for everything you’ve lost.” Luo Kun laughed.

“Ahh? Then thank you, General.” Fatty was overjoyed.

“General, if we set out to battle, there will be monsters coming to destroy the wall. But if we don’t, the monsters will tightly lock us in here. At this rate, the town will fall sooner or later. What are we going to do?” An officer worriedly remarked.

“What a bummer. If we still have enough magic stones to operate the Magical Crystal Cannon, we can blow up this damn Mutated Fire Kite with one shot,” said another officer resentfully.

Hearing this, Fatty finally understood. No wonder this town only had a high-ranked general stationed here. Of course, in such a remote place from the Imperial Capital where the number of high-rank Yao monsters couldn’t be counted, a mere townlet wouldn’t last long without such a powerful weapon.

“Don’t think too much.” Luo Kun swung his arm. “Tomorrow, I’ll restrain the firebird. You guys split into two groups, one will defend the city, the other must break out from the monsters’ encirclement at all costs and report to the Imperial Capital.”

“General, is there really no way to fix the Teleportation Portal?” Fatty suddenly thought of this.

“It’s not about whether it can be fixed. Basically, we don’t know what the problem is at all.” Answering Fatty was a mage; from the looks of it, a space mage.

“You don’t know what the problem is?” Fatty knitted his brows.

“That’s right. From what we can see, the Portal isn’t damaged at all. It’s completely fine, just that we can’t get it to operate.” The mage furrowed even harder than Fatty.

“So, we suspect that someone is using a spatial tool to cut off our connection to the Imperial Capital,” Luo Kun said with a solemn expression.

Spatial tool! This reminded Fatty of something Lucas had said.

Lucas said that if Fatty wanted him to set up a Teleportation Portal that could teleport other people as well in Sky City, he would need a spatial tool, and a Divine one at that.