Chapter 1417: I May Die, But My Soul Will Survive

"Protect Her Majesty! Protect Her Majesty!"

It was at this moment a troop of golden-armored cavalry rushed out from deeper within the fortress. Their leader was none other than the Black Cavalry commander, Stark. The moment he saw Karinshan’s heartbreaking appearance, his own heart broke as he charged toward Thunder, roaring, "Thunder, you devil! How many more lives will you take before you’re satisfied!?"

……

Floating in midair, Thunder let out an "oh" before saying, "Is this… the legendary templar legion? Hahahaha, I see, I see! So this is one of humanity’s hidden trump cards! You worship the gods of God's Domain, use that faith to empower your armor and weapons, and choose the strongest warriors among you to become templars! Very well, show me your strength!"

Thunder disappeared and reappeared on the ground. Then, he fired a lightning sword aura straight into the legion of templars. These templars were only as strong as the aerial experts in the sky, so there was no chance they could withstand the might of a divine expert. Bloodcurdling screams instantly filled the air, and many were dead or injured in the blink of an eye.

𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

Swhoosh!

Stark’s warhorse was as fast as it was strong. He became the first person to reach Thunder and bring his sword down on the devil!

Chiang!

There was a metallic clang as Thunder easily blocked the attack. His lips curled disdainfully as he said, "What do you think you can do when not even Karinshan is a match for me, boy? Do you really think loyalty can grant you absolute strength? No, self-improvement is the only way to gain absolute strength!" [1]

Thunder’s arm muscles bulged, and lightning surged through their blades and into Stark’s body!

Crackle! Crackle!

Stark shuddered like a leaf, but he didn’t attempt to draw away. He knew he must buy enough time for Karinshan to recover, or the supreme commander of the Silver Moon Alliance would be torn to shreds by Thunder. His body started smoking, and his complexion started to turn black from being electrified. The power gap between the two of them was just too huge. It was all Stark could do to hold on and glare at Thunder with infinite hatred.

"Just die already. You don’t deserve to be my opponent at all!"

Thunder’s blade abruptly cut through Stark’s sword. The next thing we knew, the Blade of Thunder plunged into Stark’s heart!

"Ugh…"

The man let out a painful groan, but he actually moved closer to Thunder and swung his own half-broken sword at Thunder’s neck. He was able to stab deep into the Purgatory Sovereign’s neck, draw a flood of black blood and elicit a painful groan from Thunder.

"You bastard!"

Thunder glared at Stark with indignance while pouring more energy into his Blade of Thunder.

Stark’s pupils slowly dilated. He was clearly on the verge of death, and yet there was a satisfied smile on his face as he said, "This is all you are, Thunder, haha…"

Pu!

After Thunder pulled out the broken sword in his neck, he said harshly, "Hmph! You think this tiny injury is going to cripple me? Or worse, do you actually think you can kill me? Hilarious! You know what, I’ve decided to grant you a reward. Let’s see how else you can speak of your ridiculous loyalty when all that is left of you is ashes!!"

Stark was shaking all over and crying literal tears of blood. He looked at the earth beneath his feet, then at the banner of Sky City flapping at the distance before saying shakingly, "I may die, but I will never forget everything that has happened to me. I will never regret giving my life away to protect everything. I may die, but my soul will survive. The soul of I, Stark, will forever protect her and the homeland I love…"

Whoosh!

Flames abruptly poured out of the Blade of Thunder and into Stark’s body. Slowly but surely, Stark was being cremated alive. Usually, people were exaggerating when they said that they were going to ground someone into dust or something similar, but Thunder wasn’t joking around at all. Not one speck of Stark could be found when Thunder was finally done with him. The only proof of his loyalty was the broken, blackened sword on the ground.

……

"Ugh…"

Meanwhile, Karinshan had pushed herself to her feet just in time to catch Stark’s horrific death. Tears burst out of her eyes as she held back a sob, "Stark… no, no…"

Thud!

Shadow Dancer Xue Wei landed next to Karinshan and helped her to stand. She then said, "Don’t force yourself, princess. You have just entered the realm of the divine, and there was never a real chance that you were ever going to best a powerful monster like Thunder. Just leave the rest to us. Violet Empire and the Silver Moon Alliance are together on this. If you perish, we will perish alongside you. Don’t worry though, we will survive no matter what…"

As she said this, countless undead cavalrymen rode out from the inner grounds. They were all wearing the Violet Empire’s symbol on their shoulder, and they were all elites. At a watchtower, Sophia unsheathed her sword and commanded in a low tone, "Violet Empire, attack! Your mission is to kill Thunder!"

Arrows rained endlessly in the direction of Thunder. It was the succubi archer legion commanded by Xue Wei herself. Although they weren’t able to do much damage, they were slowly but surely chipping away at the boss's HP. Thunder only had 25% HP left after the damage he suffered from Karinshan and Stark. It was only a matter of time before he died.

How many people would he take with to his grave, though? Thunderous sword auras ripped across both human and undead. Thunder was alone, but he was like the Grim Reaper himself. He had come personally to announce death to this Silver Moon encampment.

……

Meanwhile, us players continued to watch the battle from a safe distance.

I was gripping the Chill of the Nine Provinces tightly. My mind was not in a good place to say the least. Lin Yixin had to hold my arm and say, "Calm down, Little Cheat. It’s still not the right time for us to rejoin the battle. Both our guilds have already lost too many players already, we need to wait until Thunder has 5% HP left before we act. For now, leave the NPC armies to carry out their jobs…"

I nodded, but I couldn’t shake off a bad premonition. I said, "Did you notice that it’s been almost two hours since Thunder joined the battle? However… the seventh wave still hasn’t appeared yet…"

"I did…"

Not far away, Stranger of Three Lifetimes suddenly shivered. "OMG, speak of the devil and he doth appear. I think that’s the seventh wave…"

……

In the distance, a furious thunder tore through the sky and revealed a bunch of gigantic beasts on the hills. They moved with the grace of cheetahs, but the crimson flames exiting their mouth with every breath spoke of great power. They had lion-like heads and whiskers, but they had deer-like horns on top of their heads. Their body was even bigger than a Kui’s.

"What… what are they?" Gui Guzi couldn’t see what they were. It was nighttime now, and the only source of illumination we got was the tiny flames the mobs breathed and the occasional lightning in the sky.

High Fighting Spirits commented, "They look very dangerous…"

I nodded. "Yes they are. They’re Level 310 minibosses, and they’re even stronger than the deity-rank mobs we just fought earlier, not to mention that they’re being spawned in groups. The most critical moment of this monster attack is upon us…"

"Do you know their names?" He Yi asked.

I fell quiet for a moment before answering, "Undead Qilin. They are undead-type beasts that share some of the characteristics of a qilin. That’s all I can see for now… Anyway, we should reorganize the defense line now. We can’t let the eastern defense line be breached in the final moment…"

"Yeah!"

Li Chengfeng, Gui Guzi and everyone else nodded before commanding our last couple thousand Dragonlight Cavalrymen to reform the defense line. We had to borrow a group of mages and priests from Blazing Hot Lips because we almost had no Holy Mages or priests left. Warsky Alliance was in the same boat as us. Warsky and less than 2000 Gold Cavalrymen were the only ones left after their great battle against Thunder, and they had to borrow some priests, bards and mages from other guilds as well. Truly, we had been brought low by the continuous waves of bosses. I hoped to the heavens that the final boss, Coldblade wouldn’t spawn in the eastern direction as well…

……

Thunder roared again and again above the mountains. Then, the main character of this event, Coldblade the Infinite Storm, finally appeared to the west of Crossroads Valley Fortress. He pointed his sword forward and ordered, "Go, my precious babies! Show these hypocritical humans the power of divine beasts!"

"Wonderful…"

I chuckled shamelessly. "Coldblade has spawned in the direction of the Northern Alliance…"

Li Chengfeng was grinning as well. "Thank goodness! All we need to do is to hold back the Undead Qilins!"

"Mn!"

Although the China server had suffered devastating losses in this monster attack, there were still almost a million players on the eastern defense line. About 40000 of them were Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls players, and we had 5000 Dragonlight and 20000 Zephyr Cavalrymen. It was worth noting that the Zephyr Cavalry was mostly fresh because it hadn’t participated in our battle against Thunder. Technically speaking, Protective Umbrella was one of ours. However, I didn’t involve Hickey or Warscar in our battles. After all, the players of outerlands preferred to act independently, and just because they were loyal to me didn’t mean that they must serve Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls’ interests. Warscar and Hickey both agreed.

……

As usual, I stood a short distance away from the battle line. I checked my bag and noted that I had used up much of my Health Potions and Magic Consumables. We had been defending the fortress for over 10 hours, so most people were about to run out of consumables. I highly doubted that this seventh and final wave was going to be a piece of cake as well.

The Undead Qilin took off and surged toward us like a tidal wave. The moment they got close enough, I captured their stats screen with Dark Pupils and shared them in the guild channel. Information is power. The more my guild members knew about the mob, the better the countermeasures they would be able to come up with to reduce their losses—

Undead Fire Qilin (Ancient Immortal Rank Miniboss) [2]

Level: 310

Attack: 65,000~77,000

Defense: 82,000

HP: 45,000,000

Skills: Flame Spit, Ancient Divine Flame Shield, Nirvana Rebirth

Introduction: Devilized undead creatures. The Undead Fire Qilins were originally strange beasts that lived in the wilderness. Once upon a time, they were even worshiped as divine beasts by humans because they were one of the races closest to holy spirits. They absorbed natural spirit energy to replenish their strength and possessed the ability to spit flames. Thousands of years ago, Coldblade the Infinite Storm laid his tainted hands on this race of nature and was ultimately able to tame all of them. He used the undead plague to make them more violent than normal before deploying them as one of the terrifying undead legions.

When an Undead Fire Qilin is killed, it has a 10% chance to revive on the spot with 100% HP and MP.

1. T/N: holy shit, the boss is actually right

E/N: HE DID NOT JUST IMPLY NAKAMA POWER ISN’T REAL, DID HE?! ☜

2. T/N: holy shit, moneeeeeeeeey ☜