Chapter 344 – Dragon Knights

Translated by ALy

Edited by Canis, Cien, Dray

The fierce defense battle was less than halfway through. Although Bai Xiaosheng had promised generous returns, some players began to plan to withdraw. Winning Hero City would yield benefits for the All-Knowing Sect and the guilds involved, but the same couldn’t be said for individual players down the ranks. Those of the All-Knowing Sect would of course pull out all the stops to defend the city to own it in the future, while the normal members of the other guilds had other ideas.

The city’s yours once taken down. If there’s any benefit, that’s going to the guild higher-ups. Why should we sweat our guts out for your sake?

Since the little promised compensation didn’t feel enough to make up for the levels lost, these players were naturally dissatisfied in their hearts, and when they had grievances in their hearts, deserters were born.

As the siege wasn’t for their own guilds, the guild masters couldn’t say anything about the members’ decision, it wasn’t like they could forcefully order people to stay. Therefore, the number of players on the battlefield plummeted from not only dying but also leaving. By now more than twenty thousand people had disappeared.

Bai Xiaosheng, who had spent over 10 million gold coins on the Thunderstorm Magic Formation, didn’t falter one bit to see it blown up by Eagle Rise’s self-destruction. He had already spent a lot on Hero City, and he didn’t mind spending a little more.

“The next wave of Demons is coming at any moment. I urge the leaders of the major guilds to restrain your members and keep your arranged positions well guarded,” Bai Xiaosheng said.

A black line gradually appeared on the distant horizon, getting closer and closer. This was a herd of Demonic monsters carrying Demon soldiers on their backs.

“Prepare for attack!” Bai Xiaosheng ordered.

The dozens of siege equipment helped improve the players’ situation by quite a little. After the enemy party entered the attack range, catapults and cannons fired in a frenzy, dealing enormous damage and causing substantial casualties to the Demon army.

Wuuuuu... The sound of horns echoed, and the Demon troops abruptly sped up. At the same time, two soldiers flew out from the rear on dragonback towards Hero City.

“Damn it! Dragon Riders of the 8th class enhancement. Anyone can stop them?!” Bai Xiaosheng shouted.

Not even a crow squawk or sparrow chirp could be heard from the players.

Are you kidding? Level 80 is on an entirely different level from 70 alright? At 70, the current players can barely resist. But 80? If nothing else, just look at how they’re flying around in the sky. How the hell do you even attack that?

“Wait! They’re not 8th class Dragon Riders, they’re only riding dragons.” Someone with sharp eyes noticed.

Everyone was relieved. If there had been really two 8th-class experts coming, the losses inflicted upon the players would be immeasurable even if the enemies were to be defeated.

On second thought, this made sense. Except for the Demon Eagle clan, who specialized in aiding battles, would have a powerful master like Eagle Rise to oversee it, the other demons were only so-so, and they shouldn’t have too many strong experts.

Even so, the two dragon-riding knights still posed a great threat to their defense. Bai Xiaosheng had to order all artillery to fire at them and contain their aerial raid, forcing them to descend and fly low above the ground.

The players and the demons clashed once again, neck and neck. At the moment, even those players who had thoughts of withdrawing couldn’t think of anything besides fighting with their lives on the line and keeping themselves from being killed.

Bai Xiaosheng and some guild masters stood on high ground to direct the fighting below. Their faces didn’t look too good, because the casualties were high.

“Given our losses so far, the compensation you promised earlier isn’t enough,” a guild master said. The rest instantly chimed in approval.

It was out of Bai Xiaosheng’s expectations that there would be so many Demon troops nearby. Originally, he had planned to somehow persevere through this period of time until the human troops came to their support, and then the siege would be a success. Who could have thought the enemy was so strong? At this rate, the city wouldn’t be able to last until the human troops arrived.

Bai Xiaosheng quickly calculated the appropriate price he should pay for this battle.

“Kill!” Fatty was currently deep into the Demon army, weaving his way like a fish in water. Disregarding the damage he dealt, he only attacked each enemy once and immediately backed off, and then went on to the next one.

In this way, although he didn’t kill many demons, he gained quite a lot of experience. There were more than a hundred thousand demons, each yielding to the players tens of thousands of experience points. With such an amount, the sounds of players leveling up were heard quite often.

After several hours of being active in defending the city, and moreover having killed Eagle Rise who could be considered Half-Celestial (although he wasn’t the one mainly accredited and gained a tenth of the total experience), Fatty had now reached level 58, not very far away from the 6th class enhancement.

Fatty had long been eyeing the two dragon-riding knights in the air. There was nothing he could do if they were high up, but now that they were forced to fly low because of the artillery, it opened a window of opportunity for him.

The Demon dragons, each about 10 meters tall with a wingspan of over 10 meters, had triangular heads and dense fangs in their mouths. They could also heavily injure a player each time they spewed out hot draconic breath.

“Come, come, this way!” Fatty waved at the dragon-riding knights.

“An arrogant human, kill him!” A dragon-riding knight flicked the reins against his mount. The dragon roared loudly and charged at Fatty.

Fatty laughed and suddenly vanished on the spot.

“Dirty thief!” Pouncing on empty air, the knight viciously cursed. He urged the dragon to fly up.

At this moment, a small bullet of sorts flew into the dragon's mouth without anyone noticing.

This finger-sized bullet was negligible compared to the dragon's huge mouth, so even the dragon itself didn't notice that its mouth had just gained one small thing.

The tiny bullet – or to be exact, the pellet – quickly melted and gradually penetrated the dragon’s body through its breath.

The Hundred Poison Pill could kill a mid-rank Yao but didn’t have such an effect on high-rank ones. However, it didn’t mean that there was no effect at all. Even someone like Eagle Rise had suffered a setback from these little pills. Had he not been fast to self-detonate, Zhang Feihu would have been able to seize the chance to kill him without being injured by the explosion.

After the Demon dragon swallowed the Hundred Poison Pill, the effect gradually showed. The creature started to grow a little shaky as it flew.

“Kashgar?” The knight looked at his mount in confusion, unable to understand why it was suddenly unstable.

Whoo! The dragon exhaled a breath, its body twitching all over as it staggered and plunged towards the ground.

“Come out, Violent Ox King.” Fatty summoned his mount. In order to make this possible, he especially climbed out of the city to temporarily exit combat mode.

“Damn it! It was you?!” Seeing Fatty suddenly appear, the knight instantly understood the cause of the problem. He roared in fury and stabbed his dragon spear at Fatty’s chest.

The Violent Ox King tossed its head and knocked the spear away with its horns. At the same time, its mouth opened, sending out a burst of flame that struck the knight.

A scorched patch appeared on the knight’s glossy black armor. At this moment, Inky appeared beside the knight and threw out Electric Bolt, briefly paralyzing him.

Seizing the chance, Fatty gave the Violent Ox King an order; the ox’s two horns pierced right at the dragon’s neck. With a wretched scream, the latter fell uncontrollably.

Boom! The knight and his dragon heavily crashed onto the ground as a whole, smashing a group of Demon soldiers to death. The knight angrily stood upon the dragon's back. The Demon dragon trembled as it also struggled to stand up and looked viciously at the Violent Ox King in the sky. Having certain resistance to poison, the Demon dragon recovered after a while.

“Elemental Sword Diagram, rise!” Fatty didn’t intend to give the dragon a chance at retaliation. Seeing several players rushing to this side, he sent out of the Elemental Sword Diagram which enveloped both the knight and mount in it.

“The Elemental Sword Diagram of the Elementalist? Damnable thing!“ The knight lost his composure the instant he recognized the diagram, he even seemed a little nervous.

From the looks of things, Wu Junxiao must have been quite famous, thought Fatty as he operated the diagram at full force to separate the dragon from the knight.

“Kashgar, come here,” the knight shouted. A knight without his mount would have his power cut by at least half. Forcefully separated from his dragon, the knight could only wave his spear and cry out mournfully.

“Good boy, let Lord Fatty love ya.” Fatty laughed sinisterly as he looked at the dragon trapped in the Metal Forest in the diagram.

Seeing Fatty, the dragon roared and spat out a mass of draconic miasma. Sizzling sounds rang out as the miasma ate away at the light swords around.

The Demon dragon belonged to the dark attribute, and all dark spells had certain negative effects. This kind of corrosive effect was the most common amongst them. However, the swords in the Elemental Sword Diagram were manifestations of pure elemental energy. No matter how many draconic breaths were spat out, a new sword would immediately appear after one was destroyed. The dragon would never be able to escape the Metal Forest.

“Surrender or die?” Fatty asked the dragon in an imposing manner.

Bah! The dragon responded with a spurt of dragon breath.

However, draconic breath wasn’t spittle, not to mention even spittle would run dry at some point. After spitting for half an hour, the dragon was out of energy and deflated.

“Heh, Metal Forest, turn.” Fatty began to operate the Metal Forest. Elemental energy gushed in without end, birthing countless long swords into the Metal Forest that slashed the dragon amidst sonorous metallic hums.

Dragon scales were one of the most solid things in the world. When the light swords struck, sparks flew but no real damage was done to the dragon. This was also because Fatty was currently too weak to exert the full power of the Elemental Sword Diagram.

The Demon dragon sprawled on the ground without struggling, only looking at Fatty with big eyes full of mockery. Seeing as the dragon’s health bar only dropped by a small chunk after over ten minutes, Fatty stopped the slashing. With a wave of his hand, the Metal Forest of swords clanged and firmly locked the dragon inside.

“I'll handle you very slowly when I have time.” Keeping the dragon suppressed, Fatty circled to where the knight was held inside the diagram. The fellow was attacking the surrounding space with all his might, but without the cooperation of his mount, his damage was pitifully low.

“Brat, do you dare to release me for a one-on-one?” The knight pointed his spear at Fatty and shouted angrily.

“One-on-one?” Fatty smiled amiably. “It’s exactly to prevent others from disturbing us that I took you in here. Come, youngster, let's begin our one-on-one fight.“