Chapter 366 Armored Catapults

As the three armored catapults slowly approached, Nie Yan grew anxious. Siege weapons like armored catapults were the natural enemies of pets and flying mounts.

The armored catapults posed a significant threat to both the Gold Dragon and the Darkwing Dragon.

Nie Yan completed a chant and recalled the Gold Dragon. By this time, the Darkwing Dragon had already entered the armored catapults’ attack range.

At Kuang Fa’s command, fifteen iron projectiles soared into the sky, arcing through the air as they rained down towards the Darkwing Dragon.

Nie Yan nervously maneuvered the Darkwing Dragon, dodging the incoming projectiles. The Darkwing Dragon flapped its wings, swerving to the side.

The iron projectiles howled as they descended from the sky, crashing down with a series of deafening booms. Five or six of them struck nearby buildings, erupting in flames and reducing them to rubble. Others landed on the streets, creating a series of horrifying craters.

Three red-hot iron projectiles struck the Darkwing Dragon’s chest and shoulder. The Darkwing Dragon screeched in pain as patches of its skin were scorched black. The tremendous impact of the projectiles forced it to stumble backward. Having sustained minor damage, the Darkwing Dragon seemed wary of the powerful armored catapults.

As the armored catapults advanced, the Mages Guild players around the Darkwing Dragon quickly scattered into nearby alleys, hoping to avoid getting caught in the crossfire. However, many were still killed by the catapults’ bombardment.

"Armored catapults, keep advancing and blow that Darkwing Dragon to bits! Everyone, charge!" Seeing the iron projectiles were effective against the Darkwing Dragon, Kuang Fa clenched his fist and shouted, his spirits lifted.

If they could take down Mad Rogue Nie Yan's Darkwing Dragon, they'd be in the black!

The armored catapults advanced, launching iron projectiles and unleashing a barrage of overwhelming firepower.

Seeing the Darkwing Dragon about to be hit by more than a dozen iron projectiles, Nie Yan leaped onto the rooftop of a relatively stable building. Closing the distance between them, he issued a command to the Darkwing Dragon, which flapped its wings, took to the air, and ascended rapidly.

With a deafening roar, the fifteen iron projectiles slammed into the spot where the Darkwing Dragon had been standing, instantly turning it into a thirty-yard-wide crater.

This was the terrifying power of the armored catapults. If the Darkwing Dragon had taken that many hits at once, it would have lost at least half its health, if not died outright.

The Darkwing Dragon was an aerial combat unit. When diving down from the sky, few combat units could withstand its attacks. But on land, when completely suppressed by armored catapults, the Darkwing Dragon was unable to unleash its full combat potential and was easily destroyed by the barrage.

The Mages Guild had even brought out armored catapults. He needed to leave as soon as possible, Nie Yan thought. It would be a huge loss if something happened to the Darkwing Dragon.

As the Darkwing Dragon took to the air, Nie Yan jumped onto its back, taking control and guiding it upwards at high speed.

As the Darkwing Dragon soared into the sky, the nearby arrow towers targeted it, unleashing a dense barrage of arrows. Many of the arrows, due to the great distance, lost momentum halfway and were deflected by the Darkwing Dragon's wings.

Dozens of arrows struck the Darkwing Dragon, their tips hitting its iron-hard skin with a crisp, metallic clang, like nails being hammered into steel plates. They fell uselessly from the sky.

The distance was too great; the crossbow bolts were unable to unleash their full penetrating power.

Nie Yan looked back to see Kuang Fa and the others growing smaller and smaller. Once the Darkwing Dragon was in the sky, there were few units that could pose a threat to it.

"Sorry, I'll take my leave first!" Nie Yan revealed a playful smile. The Mages Guild had suffered a great loss this time. Hit and run, that was Nie Yan's style.

Seeing the Darkwing Dragon fly beyond the range of the catapults and arrow towers, carrying Nie Yan further and further away until it finally disappeared into the horizon, Kuang Fa was so angry he wanted to kill someone. He hadn't expected Mad Rogue Nie Yan to escape again.

"Sun, Wang Zhe, come back," Nie Yan said in voice chat. It was time to withdraw from Aegerton Fortress.

Sun, Wang Zhe Tian Xia, and the others took down a few more Mages Guild players before using random teleport scrolls and leaving Aegerton Fortress.

They all left safely, leaving behind a scene of broken walls and rubble.

The news of Nie Yan, Sun, and the others safely leaving Aegerton Fortress was immediately posted in the Niu Ren Tribe guild chat, and the players breathed a sigh of relief. Their boss had finally returned safely.

Soon, the news of Nie Yan and the others' rampage in Aegerton Fortress, and their subsequent safe departure, spread like wildfire throughout the entire Grelin Empire. The forums were filled with headlines in bright red. Titles like "The God of War Returns - Mad Rogue Nie Yan Massacres the City!", "The Lost Mages Guild!", "The Shame of the Mages Guild - The Massacre of Aegerton Fortress!"...

Posts of this nature flooded the internet. This incident was an indelible stain on the Mages Guild. The videos circulating online made it difficult for all Mages Guild players to face others. In this incident, the Mages Guild suffered 1,300 casualties. The guild leader, Kuang Fa, was killed twice in a row, and the leader of Sacred Guardians, Holy Flame, was killed once. If such an incident had occurred in the wild, it wouldn't have been so surprising, but Aegerton Fortress was the Mages Guild's base of operations, the most heavily defended place in the Mages Guild. Yet Mad Rogue Nie Yan had entered it as if it were his own home, and so many people had been killed. They had lost face big time.

The video evidence was irrefutable, leaving the Mages Guild with no room for argument.

Players could see that although the Mages Guild had a large number of players, many were mediocre. On the other hand, the Niu Ren Tribe was almost entirely composed of elite individuals, one in a thousand. Not to mention Brilliant Blade, Shui Se Yan Tou, Undying Scoundrel, and the like, just the five people who had appeared today, could the Mages Guild and Sacred Guardians find even one rogue who could match them?

This was a real difference. A skilled player could easily wipe out thousands of opponents if they played well. Just like Wang Zhe Tian Xia back then, who single-handedly ambushed and killed more than a thousand members of the Bloodlust Blades. How much combat power the Niu Ren Tribe's 60,000 members actually possessed required careful consideration. And how much inflated numbers the Mages Guild and Sacred Guardians' 700,000 troops had was hard to say.

Players couldn't help but ponder the fact that a guild's strength wasn't measured by the number of people in it.

The Mages Guild had been branded with the mark of shame. Aegerton Fortress had become a stain they couldn't erase, to the point that players were beginning to doubt the strength of the Mages Guild and Sacred Guardians. The Mages Guild players were also feeling pessimistic and their morale was low.

Kuang Fa was extremely anxious when he learned of this situation, but he had no way to solve it.

Taking advantage of the situation, the Niu Ren Tribe's Frost Armored Catapults arrived outside the Mages Guild's Dannel Fortress a day later. 60,000 troops advanced upon the city, constantly bombarding the city walls with Frost Armored Catapults. The 100,000 Mages Guild troops inside the fortress didn't dare to charge out, trapped inside the walls. The power of the Frost Armored Catapults terrified the Mages Guild players. Fifteen Frost Armored Catapults, this was simply a destructive force. They could hear the walls trembling and groaning under the intense bombardment inside the city.

The Mages Guild was incredibly pathetic, being suppressed by the Niu Ren Tribe and cowering in the city, unwilling to come out, losing all their prestige.

On the Niu Ren Tribe's side, Cavalry's Requiem was in command. He was adept at commanding troops. Under his command, after nearly two hours of intense bombardment, the walls of Dannel Fortress collapsed with a roar.

Seeing the large breach in the wall, the Niu Ren Tribe could have charged into the city, but Shui Se Yan Tou wasn't in a hurry. He had the fifteen Frost Armored Catapults advance little by little, spending several hours completely flattening the city walls and arrow towers, then the troops advanced little by little, giving the Mages Guild players no chance to fight back.

This type of positional warfare, relying on powerful ranged firepower, was the most difficult to counter. The Mages Guild suffered terribly.

After seven hours, the Mages Guild's Dannel Fortress was razed to the ground. All that remained inside the city was a pile of rubble. No shops or other buildings were left standing. Nearly a quarter of the city walls had collapsed. After abandoning nearly 10,000 corpses, all the Mages Guild members retreated from the teleportation array.

This was a glorious victory. The Niu Ren Tribe suffered virtually no damage, with only a few unlucky players being shot to death by crossbow bolts from the arrow towers. Casualties were kept to double digits.

After capturing Dannel Fortress, the Niu Ren Tribe's morale soared even higher. The fifteen Frost Armored Catapults rushed non-stop towards the Mages Guild's other cities.

The Niu Ren Tribe's forces were like an unstoppable flood, capturing fortresses and taking territory, invincible. They encountered blockades from the Mages Guild and Sacred Guardians troops along the way, but those people quickly crumbled under the dense bombardment of the Frost Armored Catapults.

Everything was developing in a positive direction. Nie Yan kept an eye on the battles while directing the overall situation, mobilizing the forces of the Sacred Roman Empire, the War God Tribe, and other guilds to put pressure on the Mages Guild's other fortresses.

The Mages Guild had a total of twenty-one fortresses, five of which had fallen into the hands of the Niu Ren Tribe, one had been destroyed, and another three had been dragged into a chaotic battle. The entire City of Light had become a chaotic battlefield.

The Mages Guild was in full retreat. The situation was looking good. Although the Niu Ren Tribe didn't have as many people as the Mages Guild and Sacred Guardians, they were united from top to bottom and their morale was high. In such a large-scale war, morale was very important.

"Any movements on the Mages Guild's side?" Nie Yan asked Guo Huai. The Niu Ren Tribe had already pushed to their doorstep. The Mages Guild couldn't just passively take a beating; they would definitely launch a counterattack.

"The Mages Guild is contracting its defenses and reinforcing the walls of Aegerton Fortress. They're probably planning to fight us to the death under the walls of Aegerton Fortress!" Guo Huai said, looking at the data reported from various locations. His mood had also lightened a lot.