Chapter 42: Meeting the Enemy in Battle (for the Alliance Leader, five updates)

Swiftly pouring all his unallocated attribute points into Spirit, Wang Liang felt his mind clear at once. With seventeen points in Spirit, plus the boost from breakfast that morning, his Spirit attribute leapt straight to twenty.

He had the strange sensation that he could now perceive his own Golden Core, and through it magnify his awareness outward, using spiritual force to see many distant things that had been invisible to him before.

After equipping the Mystic Light Ruler, Wang Liang raised the Life-Severing Blade. “The enemy is about to arrive. Prepare to engage.”

At that command, every player took up their weapon.

The players always claimed they feared neither this nor that, but in truth, before coming here they had already studied the boss thoroughly.

This game was unlike other games. So long as one was not inside an instance, and there was no companion nearby who had mastered resurrection, then one had only a single chance.

Once dead, one could no longer enter this storyline again.

That meant years of effort would be wasted, and afterward one could only begin anew on a different story route.

And players who had mastered resurrection were exceedingly rare. In Niu Xuanguang’s party before, all five members had been above level forty, and there had even been a dedicated support specialist among them, yet even they had never claimed they could revive fallen teammates.

There was even less need to speak of the players before them now, who were barely above level twenty.

So before the battle, they could only analyze every circumstance with utmost care and make arrangements for every possible development.

The instant they heard Wang Liang’s order to prepare for battle, the players sprang into action. The four who had already been designated to remain behind as logistical support and auxiliaries immediately began casting buffs on everyone.

Of course, these players were not especially strong, and what they had mastered was limited. They could not, like Niu Xuanguang’s team, set up a grand formation or devote themselves wholly to strengthening a single attribute.

Wang Liang only felt seven or eight halos of different colors settle over him, while his strength improved by no more than a sliver.

Still, that sliver was enough.

The moment the aquatic ghost soldiers of the vanguard clashed with the rushing enemy specters, Wang Liang lifted the Life-Severing Blade and fixed upon his target. “Assault squad, with me!”

His bronze warhorse lunged forward at full speed, smashing apart a saber-wielding skeleton soldier that tried to pounce on him.

Two players and two NPCs followed close behind Wang Liang as they drove straight toward Commandant Yin Xun.

To defeat the boss, the players had discussed a host of methods to deal with every conceivable problem, but in broad strokes their plan had only three steps.

First, fight their way to Commandant Yin Xun. Second, lure him out of the battlefield. Third, kill him at the designated location.

So from the very beginning, it had never been realistic for a whole crowd of players to charge up to Commandant Yin Xun at once.

The four accompanying Wang Liang this time had all been carefully chosen by the others.

In addition to having fairly good movement speed, each possessed a particular specialty.

The two players claimed they had taunt abilities. As long as they made contact with Commandant Yin Xun, they could seize the boss’s aggro. After that, they would only need to run in the predetermined direction.

The two NPCs were retainers brought by the players. One had strong defensive capability and could help block most ranged attacks; the other possessed short-term explosive power and was their means of breaking through if they became trapped in an encirclement.

Wang Liang, however, gave no thought to any of this. He had only one goal now: cut his way to Commandant Yin Xun.

Riding his bronze warhorse in a headlong charge, Wang Liang did not look at the four behind him. He slashed forward with the Life-Severing Blade, and the air before him actually began to tremble. Then something like a blade aura swept outward, cleaving through most of the ghost soldiers in front of him.

That single strike instantly drew the eyes of all the ghost soldiers.

They were all men who had died once already; instead of intimidating them, Wang Liang’s attack only stirred their savagery. A wave of skeleton soldiers brandishing weapons rushed him at once.

But a faint smile appeared on Wang Liang’s face. With a backhand slash, the air shook again, and a bolt of lightning flashed along the Life-Severing Blade. The charging ghost soldiers before him were shattered all over again.

Those two strikes made the smile on Wang Liang’s face deepen.

This was the move he had only just grasped: Thunder Shaking for a Hundred Leagues, within the scope of the second form of the Innate Cosmos Art.

Thunder as Thunder: calm in the face of danger. Thunder layered upon thunder, echoes magnified a hundredfold.

And this was Thunder Shaking for a Hundred Leagues; its force was even greater. Wang Liang understood, in truth, that the essence of the move was not lightning, but thunderous shock.

Originally, he had never learned how to attack through vibration, and in ordinary times he could only employ it when striking with his fists.

But over the past few days, he had studied it with special care and discovered that his Life-Severing Blade could in fact be fused with the technique.

The greatest trait of Thunder Shaking for a Hundred Leagues was vibration itself. And if the Life-Severing Blade began to vibrate as it slashed forward, it seemed capable of stirring the surrounding air into vibration as well.

The effect was as though a flash first sprang from the blade, and then the thunderstorm arrived, blasting everything apart.

Although Wang Liang had only executed it once, he believed this was a viable path.

So he meant to test the effect more on the battlefield, using common soldiers for practice. Once the true boss fight began, he would fight in earnest and stop fooling around.

Even Wang Liang himself had not expected this move to be so effective against fodder enemies.

All those ghost soldiers were skeleton troops pieced together from dead bones. When this attack swept across them, not only were their bones blasted away, even their souls were scattered.

After Wang Liang cut loose with three broad, forceful strikes, he had already cleared a path before him.

The four following him immediately pressed after him and charged toward Commandant Yin Xun.

But after they had advanced only a few hundred meters, they met interception.

Wang Liang glanced at the dozen or so ghost soldiers rushing toward them in iron armor, and a trace of disdain appeared on his face.

“I knew it. No matter the age, personal guards are always the strongest.”

As he spoke, Wang Liang split one ghost soldier apart with the Life-Severing Blade, then said over his shoulder, “I’ll open the way. You get ready.”

This time, however, Wang Liang could no longer kill every enemy with a single cut. The ghost soldiers he split open rolled upon the ground and reassembled themselves. It was clear that even if cut in half, they could rejoin the fight in roughly five minutes.

That meant the time left to Wang Liang and the others was not much.

For that reason, Wang Liang could no longer push all the way to Commandant Yin Xun himself. At most he could clear away the bodyguards blocking the path, and then he had to prepare a route of retreat.

Otherwise, if they were surrounded by these guards, and in the end the other players could not make it over while the boss also failed to be lured away, then it would truly be a disaster.

At Wang Liang’s command, the two players made their moves. Both drew out shields, and one of them produced a lump of something black and foul-looking, hurling it from afar toward Commandant Yin Xun.

The black object struck Commandant Yin Xun square in the face and caught his attention.

When Commandant Yin Xun turned to look over, the player who had thrown it shouted at him, “If I call you my grandson, do you dare answer?”