Chapter 152 Establish a Base Tone

Nie Yan established a base tone: don't defend to the death. If they could fight, they would fight, trying to wear down the skeleton legion as much as possible. But if the skeleton legion attacked, they would retreat.

With this in mind, the members of the Ni Ren (Amazing People) Tribe felt less pressure. Looking at the skeletons' plodding steps, their movement speed was so slow. Faced with such a bunch of guys, as long as they weren't surrounded, they wouldn't be afraid of not being able to escape, right?

Swarms of skeletons had already reached a place about three hundred yards from the city walls.

"Ironclad catapults, attack!" Nie Yan ordered. The sixty or seventy ironclad catapults inside the city walls, already loaded and ready, launched iron projectiles one after another.

Countless iron projectiles roared over the city walls, bombarding the distant skeleton army.

*Peng, peng, peng*, ice explosions formed on the ground, and the skeleton legion was immediately smashed into chaos.

After completing one round of attacks, these ironclad catapults immediately reloaded, preparing for the second round.

Within a radius of five hundred yards, only fifty or sixty percent of the skeletons remained, but they still continued to advance, gradually reaching the foot of the city walls.

Once they were within this range, it was the mages' attack zone. The mages standing on the city walls waved their staffs, and magic spells rained down, pouring onto the skeleton legion below the city walls, blasting one skeleton after another into pieces.

The mages took turns releasing area-of-effect magic spells on the skeletons below. On the open space below the city walls, various magic spells crisscrossed, emitting ear-splitting explosions. Patches of skeletons fell to the ground, turning into bones.

Less than a tenth of the skeletons were able to pass through the dense fire and reach the foot of the city walls. After reaching the foot of the city walls, they could only wander around aimlessly. They had no idea how to climb the city walls, and eventually fell under the attacks of magic.

These skeletons' attacks were almost ineffective. In a short while, a large pile of skeleton corpses fell below the city walls, accumulating more and more.

Even with heavy losses, more skeletons surged forward one after another.

Qin Han urged the skeletons to attack almost frantically. He didn't care about any amount of losses. He wanted to destroy all obstacles in front of him. Especially when he knew that Nie Yan was inside Saro Fortress, he was even more unwilling to retreat easily.

As the news spread that Qin Han was the mastermind behind the Undead Resurgence and had betrayed his word by坑杀 (kēng shā - tricked and murdered) more than 500,000 players from the twenty or thirty guilds willing to be acquired, a series of condemnations against Qin Han swept across the forums, and Qin Han's reputation plummeted.

Nie Yan then timely revealed the news that Qin Han was the boss behind Holy Guardians, Divine Sword of Zhushen, and the Guanghe Empire. More and more players began to support the Ni Ren Tribe and denounce the Holy Guardians, Divine Sword of Zhushen, and the Guanghe Empire. Nie Yan understood that although the Ni Ren Tribe stood on the moral high ground and gained the support of most players, it would still depend on strength in the end.

The Ni Ren Tribe and Qin Han's Monet Consortium were destined to have a showdown.

The foot of the city walls of Saro Fortress had already become a land of death, with corpses everywhere. These corpses slowly accumulated, piling higher and higher, five yards, ten yards, fifteen yards... getting closer and closer to the height of the city walls. The skeletons coming up from behind kept climbing towards the city walls on the mountain of bones.

The almost frantic way these skeletons attacked made all the players on the city walls feel a chill in their hearts.

Kalenna, the Guardian Angel on Nie Yan's left shoulder, kept waving her staff, purifying the corpses of the skeletons within the range of her attacks, but still couldn't keep up with the speed at which the skeletons were accumulating.

"Priests, holy knights, use purification!" Nie Yan shouted in the guild chat.

The priests and holy knights on the city walls used purification skills one after another. Beams of white light fell, disintegrating one skeleton corpse after another below. The mountain of bones piled below gradually decreased.

The siege battle entered a white-hot stage. Nie Yan looked towards the distant mountain of bones and saw some huge, pitch-black skeletons appearing in his sight. There were as many as ten thousand of them. Nie Yan's heart tightened. Qin Han had already begun to send out elite-level and lord-level skeletons!

The ordinary skeletons in front gathered below the city walls, piling up more and more. Those elite-level and lord-level skeletons stepped on these ordinary skeletons, braving the dense magic, and climbed all the way towards the city walls.

If these elite-level and lord-level skeletons were to rush onto the city walls, the consequences would be very serious.

"Yaozi, use forbidden spells!" Nie Yan shouted. Tang Yao had a total of five forbidden spells. One was on cooldown, and he could cast four more, two of which were area-of-effect forbidden spells, enough to make the skeletons below suffer.

Tang Yao began to chant magic, and one incantation after another came out of his mouth.

The surrounding players of the Ni Ren Tribe felt the restless magical elements around Tang Yao and retreated a distance.

"Boss Yaozi is using a forbidden spell!"

"What a strong magic surge!" The nearby players changed color in surprise. The raging magical elements seemed to completely tear apart everything nearby.

Their hearts surged. From the restless magical elements around them, they could feel that Tang Yao was casting an area-of-effect forbidden spell. They couldn't help but look forward to it. What level could a forbidden spell reach?

These skeletons were still climbing forward tirelessly. Qin Han, in the middle of the distant skeleton army, saw the abnormality on the city walls of Saro Fortress. A thick black cloud of flames quickly enveloped the sky. A strong magical surge came from the air, causing him to change color. A thought flashed through his mind: It's a forbidden spell!

He had seen the video of Tang Yao casting a forbidden spell last time. The forbidden spell last time was not an area-of-effect attack, but its power was not to be underestimated. This forbidden spell looked even more amazing. The black cloud of flames gathered in the sky above the battlefield, covering an area of about a thousand yards in radius. The surroundings suddenly darkened, like the darkness before a storm.

Qin Han didn't dare to stay in place for long and quickly retreated to thousands of yards away. After confirming a safe place, he stopped. The skeleton army in front definitely couldn't be withdrawn. He looked at the distant city walls and saw Tang Yao floating in mid-air, his robes fluttering in the wind. He waved his staff, and a powerful magical torrent formed a huge vortex around him. At this time, Tang Yao was like a god, and the powerful pressure made the skeletons below dare not move at all.

"Is this the forbidden spell?" Qin Han muttered. He couldn't help but feel jealous of Nie Yan in his heart. According to the latest data, the Ni Ren Tribe already had six top-tier professional players, two of whom were archmages, while they didn't even have one! If he had an archmage, they wouldn't be so passive. He was very depressed. Why did all the top-tier players flock to the Ni Ren Tribe? Before, he had tried to use heavy money to buy off the top-tier players of the Ni Ren Tribe, but only dug up some second-tier nobodies. How did Nie Yan make these people so loyal?

Exploding Thunderflame!

Tang Yao's incantation had reached the end. He uttered the last heavy syllable, and in an instant, lightning flashed and thunder rumbled in the sky. Black lightning accompanied by blazing black flames poured down from the sky, as dense as a torrential rain.

Within a radius of a thousand yards, it was all black fire rain. Such a scene was quite spectacular, truly shocking. When the black flames smashed down, all the skeletons that touched the blazing flames were burned to ashes. Even lord-level skeletons couldn't withstand such a fierce attack and fell into the flames.

It was as if they had come to the 森罗地狱 (Sēn Luó Dì Yù - a hellish place), and countless skeletons struggled and howled in the flames.

After releasing the forbidden spell, beams of white light fell on Tang Yao, leveling him up five times in a row!

The terrifying amount of experience left Tang Yao speechless. The amount of experience required to level up above level 100 was very high, but one forbidden spell allowed him to level up five times in a row. One could imagine how many skeletons had fallen under this one forbidden spell!

Exploding Thunderflame lasted for more than three minutes before slowly subsiding. All the skeletons within a radius of a thousand yards outside the city walls of Saro Fortress were swept away. The ground was like the surface of the moon, covered with deep pits. The ground was scorched black, and the mountain of corpses had disappeared.

A large area was cleared on the entire battlefield, and the skeletons' attack suddenly stopped.

Seeing the scene after the forbidden spell raged, everyone was dumbfounded, and their hearts were strongly shaken. So this was a forbidden spell! Too terrifying!

Everything within a radius of a thousand yards was destroyed, leaving nothing but barren land. No wonder forbidden spells were called the most powerful magic of archmages. They were indeed extraordinary.

"Boss Tang Yao's magic is too terrifying."

"Yeah, it is said that Boss Tang Yao leveled up five times in a row after using this forbidden spell. My God, how many skeletons did he have to kill!"

The players of the Ni Ren Tribe couldn't help but discuss among themselves. The power of forbidden magic was deeply ingrained in their hearts, and advancing to become an archmage became the dream of all mage players.

Qin Han looked ahead, and in front of him was a barren open space. Tang Yao's forbidden spell directly took away tens of thousands of skeletons. Since the start of the siege, Qin Han's side had lost a total of more than 70,000 skeletons, but they hadn't even reached the city walls.

"No matter how strong the forbidden spell is, let's see how many you can cast!" Qin Han said with a distorted expression. Since he had already come here, he would never retreat. If he couldn't even capture Saro Fortress, let alone conquer the entire Ni Ren Tribe.

Soon, another large group of skeletons surged towards Saro Fortress, launching the second wave of attack.

The siege and defense battle of Saro Fortress attracted the attention of all players. Tang Yao's Exploding Thunderflame really shocked the players. The archmage's forbidden spell could truly be described as world-destroying. The players who were originally not very optimistic about the Ni Ren Tribe now also felt that Nie Yan might be able to lead the Ni Ren Tribe to resist the onslaught of the skeleton army.