Volume 5, Chapter 54 – Prelude

“Archers ready, nock arrows!!”

With his hand raised, Julius gave the first command on the battlefield in a dull yet booming voice.

As soon as Julius finished speaking, the archers present all drew their bows at a slant toward the sky and nocked their arrows.

The reason they were not aiming at the outsider army that was getting closer and closer, but instead angling their bows up toward the sky, was because shooting toward the sky like this could increase their range.

Creak, creak—

Each bow was drawn back to its limit by the soldiers and, on those bows, one sharp arrow after another, glinting with a cold light, was hooked onto the bowstrings.

“Loose!!!”

With a single command.

Almost in the same instant, every archer released the fingers that were gripping their bowstrings. As the strings sprang free from their restraint, the arrows on them shot one after another toward the sky.

Swish—

Swish—

Swish—

Thousands of arrows rose into the sky together, creating a scene like a thin layer of cloud covering the heavens.

With the appearance of these arrows, the outsider army advancing toward the city walls below also made a timely response.

“First rank warriors, raise shields! Mages, cast Repulsion Field! Priests, prepare to heal!”

Rеαd οո KatRеaⅾіոɡСаfе

A player with Legendary strength within the army was calmly and methodically directing the vast player host. As one order after another was issued, the players below each carried out the commands given to them.

Then they saw the players standing at the very front lift the shields they had been carrying on their backs and plant them in front of themselves.

Right after that, Mages in cloth robes began to raise their wands high and cast their spells.

Behind those Mages, Priests dressed in white robes began to summon one profound rune after another that flashed without pause.

Seeing the outsiders below, that is, the player army, responding in such an orderly way, Julius kept his face expressionless, but his hands tightened into fists.

Swish, swish, swish!

As expected, the arrows that fell into the mass of players had very little actual effect. After being weakened by the Mage players’ domain skill, Repulsion Field, the momentum of most of the arrows was almost completely neutralized.

Of the arrows that were not affected by the Repulsion Field, some were blocked by the enormous shields of the front-line warrior players and some, although they struck a few unlucky players, under the healing of the Priest players, those players were practically no different from people who had never been hit at all.

“Long range arrow volleys from that far away are useless.”

The Legendary-tier player commanding the army shook his head with a cold snort and, after the army blocked that wave of arrows, he continued to give the order to advance.

Boom—

As the army began to move out once again, the player host, almost ten times the size of the defending side, started pushing toward the city wall.

With every step the player army took forward, the NPC soldiers standing on the wall could feel the wall trembling slightly under those marching footsteps.

“The outsider commanding this army has a lot of experience.”

In truth, Julius had not held much hope for that earlier round of archery. To be precise, that seemingly imposing arrow rain from before had only been his probe against the commander of the outsider army on the other side.

Rеаⅾ οո ΚαtRеаdіոɡCαfе

The result was obvious. The commander on the opposite side was seasoned and had handled his probing attack perfectly.

If he put himself in the other side’s position and became the attacker, Julius felt that even then he would not be able to come up with a better way to respond than the opposing commander had.

“Phew… very experienced. Then how about this move?”

Murmuring to himself, Julius once again raised his right hand.

And this time…

“Catapults ready!”

As Julius’ order was given, behind the section of city wall where he stood, one wooden catapult after another began to move slowly under the control of the soldiers nearby.

Creak, creak—

Each catapult let out a strained, overloaded groan. After dozens of seconds, the great boulders that had long since been set on the catapults burst into blazing flames.

“General, the catapults are in position!”

“Fire according to the preset direction, loose!”

“Loose!”

Boom, boom, boom!

The catapults began to hurl their payloads. Along with the sound of something huge tearing through the air, the burning boulders suddenly shot out from behind the city wall.

Reαԁ οո ΚatRеаdіngСαfe

The fiercely burning boulders dragged long black tails across the sky and, with the appearance of these boulders overhead, the advancing player army came to a halt once more.

“Archers, aim for the boulders… use arrows with Explosive Enchantment! Mages, cast Explosive Fireball!”

The player commanding the army quickly came up with a way to respond, but after giving the orders, the commander’s expression turned ugly.

“No, we are not going to make it… these boulders are too fast…”

The moment he finished speaking…

Boom boom boom!!!

A string of tremendous crashes rang out.

The flaming boulders smashed into the player formations and, as the boulders came down, every player struck by them turned into white light and vanished.

“Hmph… catapults, huh? We lost a few people, but the problem is not that serious.”

Although his expression did not look good, the Legendary player in charge of command could still accept losses on this level.

After all, while catapult attacks looked terrifying, in reality, apart from the points where the boulders actually landed, where the players underneath were smashed to death, the players in other areas did not suffer much damage at all.

It was just like how, in the real world, a shell explodes after hitting a target. The power of a solid shell on its own is actually not that impressive.

“Keep advancing!”

Even though he felt unhappy inside, the assault still had to continue.

After that order was given, the player army that had been harassed by the catapults once again advanced forward.

Read оո КαtRеαԁinɡСаfе

“Phew… sure enough, these outsiders do not react at all to this kind of attack… infinite resurrection, huh, this really is a power even more disgusting than Legendary strength…”

Although his attacks worked, they did not seem to be having much of an effect.

Just judging with the naked eye, after a wave of catapult barrages, the number of the player army had hardly gone down at all.

Looking out across the field, all he could see was a dense sea of heads.

“Keep the catapults firing!”

Of course, since the outsiders had no way to deal with the catapult strikes, Julius definitely would not let go of this only chance to reduce the number of outsiders laying siege to the city.

After all, every outsider he cut down increased his odds of victory a little.

“Ha, you want to weaken our numbers before the siege even officially begins?”

The player commanding the army also picked up on Julius’ intentions. However, this player looked at Julius’ approach with nothing but contempt.

“A trapped beast still striking out? In the end it is just a dying struggle.”

“Why do you NPCs need to resist? Wouldn’t it be fine to obediently let us kill you? You are just a lump of data.”

After saying this, the player slowly opened his mouth.

“This is as far as it goes!—”