0102 Countdown to Heaven

Xiaomo could only stand there and watch as the people around her rushed past in a blur. With her magical reserves exhausted, her ability in close combat had fallen to virtually nothing; put bluntly, she was dead weight, someone who could only stay at the very back of the crowd and seek protection.

Fortunately, the human soldiers understood how important, and how fragile, a mage could be. No one urged Xiaomo to charge forward blindly. In fact, one kindly even patted her on the shoulder and reminded her, “Stand farther back. Don’t get hurt.”

That person, of course, was none other than Li Yi, who had been directing the battle from the rear. The moment Xiaomo recognized him, she was startled and quickly caught hold of his arm.

“What are you doing? Aren’t you the commander?”

“At this point, let’s fight first and talk later,” Li Yi said, glancing back at her with a helpless look. “An army of twenty thousand that no one knows when will show up, and it’s nearly dusk. Right now, every enemy we kill is one fewer.” With that, he shook off Xiaomo’s hand and charged forward with the main force.

Xiaomo stood there, staring blankly at the scene before her.

What does it look like when a hundred thousand human soldiers and fifty thousand magical beasts clash in a patch of forest? The answer was obvious: fight it like street warfare.

The cramped battlefield forced every close-combat fighter to truly understand what hand-to-hand fighting meant. The brave magical beasts roared their earthshaking cries of vengeance as they hurled the “beast corpses” that had originally been used to block arrows straight at the human soldiers. Then, howling, they reverted to their true forms and lunged in.

As for obedience to orders, the beasts never hesitated. The instant they heard the command, they tried to break out of the human encirclement with reckless abandon. The humans, naturally, were not about to let prey already in hand slip away. They threw themselves into a fierce blockade, and the groups that had originally been divided with clear roles immediately changed tactics, surrounding the beasts in a perfect three-hundred-and-sixty-degree net, leaving no gap for escape.

That only fueled the rage on both sides. The shield-bearing beast was the first to seize its shield, abandoning any chance of counterattack. It gritted its teeth, stamped its foot, and gave a deafening roar before bursting straight through the human siege. The force of its charge sent the soldier trying to stop it crashing hard to the ground. Before that soldier could even rise, the shield beast had already trampled across his chest and skull. The crisp crack of breaking bones and the spray of blood and gore smeared the ground red. The sticky, filthy sensation could not stop the shield beast from racing toward the designated rally point, but it did succeed in driving the already half-mad human soldiers completely insane.

The human soldiers roared in answer. Their hoarse, desolate cries were filled with despair and fury. On every young face, smeared with ash and blood, twisted expressions contorted beneath the grime. Their weapons, slick with blood, hacked wildly at the enemy again and again. The thick calluses on their palms had already split from the force of the blows, but the pain did nothing to clear their minds. Instead, it only awakened the bloodlust within them. Their eyes were bloodshot, and all around them rang with screams and howls.

They would not return home until every last beast was cut down. They would grind every beast to minced flesh and ash!

Li Yi naturally saw through the beasts’ intentions as well. He quickly looked up at the sky and silently calculated how much time remained until dusk, then bellowed his order: “Hold them! If we can finish off most of the enemy within forty minutes, we win!”

Huanluo, Xia Kui, and Sang Qing immediately understood what Li Yi meant. They all redoubled their efforts, throwing everything they had into destroying the beasts before them. So long as they could control the battle before dusk, even if the twenty-thousand-strong force returned, the humans would not be driven into such a passive position!

Huanluo needed no explanation. By now, her entire body was drenched in blood. The newly forged sword was not as handy as her Bloodthirst Sword or Dragon Fang, but she still killed with shocking ferocity—so ferocious that she no longer cared about her own safety. She forcibly took a side-on charge from a giant lizard-type beast, then used the momentum of its impact to retreat rapidly to the trees behind her. Swallowing the surge of blood that welled up in her throat from the collision, she used the angle of the trees to rebound, landing on the beast’s back. In a few flying steps she reached its neck and delivered a heavy blow, slicing off half its head.

At this moment, there were still thirty-five minutes until dusk.

Sang Qing was no less formidable. Leading soldiers familiar with his tactics, he used one scheme after another to trap a charging tiger-type beast until it had no strength left to break free and finally bled to death. Xia Kui was gentler by comparison. Under the protection of the soldiers, she summoned two wind dragons that continuously stalled the beasts and forced them to expose their openings, whereupon they could do nothing but meet their end.

At this moment, there were still thirty minutes until dusk.

As for Lance, he kept harassing and paralyzing the beasts with powerful bolts of lightning. His clearly well-trained movement and respectable close-quarters combat skills let him evade many lethal attacks. His face, which had worn an almost carefree expression the entire time, gave no hint that he was in the middle of a battle; anyone who did not know better might have thought he was simply taking a stroll.

At this moment, there were still twenty-five minutes until dusk.

And so, when the beasts finally managed, under the pressure of frenzied attacks, to re-form their ranks, they were already wounded, crippled, and badly reduced in fighting power. But the human army had not fared much better. They too had suffered heavy losses. Li Yi did not hesitate for even a moment. Glancing at the tightly shut city gates of Aikacia ahead, he said with unshakable resolve, “Charge!”