Dark Sand: My Players Are All Actors

Seeing Gonggong's reaction, Chu Ge couldn't help but smile slightly.

Indeed, the script wouldn't develop entirely as he had imagined.

This Gonggong wasn't so easily baited after all!

The most ideal script would have seen Gonggong, enraged, charging headlong, using a vast amount of Demonic Qi to ram Chu Ge to death and collapsing a majority of the Reorderer's siege defenses in the process. In such a case, players would still have a chance to resurrect, but the great demon's expended demonic power would have been wasted.

With the impact significantly reduced, the subsequent battle would have been much simpler.

But unexpectedly, Gonggong had actually restrained himself.

However, that didn't matter because players had already prepared contingency plans for both outcomes. It was fine if they didn't take the bait this time; the cost would be repaid, with interest, when they fell for it later.

The escape of the Flying Liann was a foreshadowing.

Chu Ge shouted commands, "Prepare to send people!"

Following his order, one of the players began to enlarge.

He was a Ranger player, with the secondary identity of a commoner.

At this moment, though he had enlarged, he didn't jump down from the city wall to tangle with the attacking demonic soldiers. Instead, he climbed onto the Huihui Cannon inside the Reorderer's fortification.

This large-scale catapult was originally designed to launch massive stones, but now, it hosted an enlarged player.

Chu Ge pointed towards the few gigantic demonic soldiers in the distance, "Ready! Release!"

At this moment, he felt a bit of regret, it was a pity Li Hongyun wasn't in the Reorderer's fortification.

If Li Hongyun operated the Huihui Cannon, he might have been able to launch players directly onto the heads of the giant demonic soldiers, achieving a soft landing.

However, letting Li Hongyun waste a life to die and come back just for that seemed somewhat inappropriate. Moreover, managing to precisely land on the demonic soldiers to achieve a soft landing wasn't the most important element of this combat stage.

With a heavy thud, the wooden lever of the Huihui Cannon struck hard against the base, and the enlarged player was flung into the air toward the area where the demonic soldiers were!

Obviously, if demonic soldiers could use their massive bows to shoot Demonic Qi directly onto the walls of the Reorderer's fortification, then naturally, players could also fling themselves over!

The player plummeted from the air, adjusting his posture toward the densest area of the demon army, then with both hands gripping the Longsword, he stabbed down fiercely!

"Boom!"

With a loud explosion, the player detonated like a heavyweight bomb among the ranks of demons.

The massive shockwave created by the fall scattered the surrounding demonic soldiers before they could even react, their Demonic Qi dissipating.

Where the player's Longsword penetrated, a huge hole was created, and a surge of righteous Qi spread out, heavily damaging the surrounding demons.

With such a massive impact, his Longsword also instantly became unusable, bent and misshapen beyond recognition.

But this player clearly had a plan; he tossed aside the Longsword and took a Mo Dao from his back.

Then, he charged straight towards the gigantic demonic soldiers ahead!

Before now, players could not use such tactics, simply because no one could survive such a fall.

Cavalry players could share the damage with their horses, but such a high fall meant only mutual destruction.

As for Divine Machine players, they hadn't yet devised parachutes big enough, and without adequate momentum upon impact, their lethality would be insufficient.

Besides, if Divine Machine players ended up surrounded by demons, having to assemble firearms or cannons from their Divine Machine boxes would be too late.

But the commoner player's characteristics fit this tactic perfectly.

The Ranger player's exclusive talent, "Bravery of the Commoner," had a special effect; it completely ignored the first three instances of damage for a certain time, maintaining peak condition!

This talent might seem useless because just three instances of damage—if one isn't careful in the middle of an army, getting hit three times can lead to a quick end. There's also a time limit; even if no additional damage was taken after the first injury, the time running out would still result in injury.

For an unarmored commoner player, the first damage count typically equated to a death sentence.

But this talent could also be extremely useful when applied properly, giving near invincibility for a period of time.

Like now, Chu Ge had used the giant Huihui Cannon to launch the commoner player.

This player used the powerful shock of landing to deal the first blow to the demons. If he were of another profession, he would've perished upon impact, only usable as a human missile, but the commoner player just activated the effects of "Bravery of the Commoner," totally unaffected.

This meant the player didn't have to take two more hits in that time and could wreak havoc, slaughtering demons—it was all profit!

A number of demonic soldiers had already taken notice of his presence, gathering around.

But the player, swinging his Mo Dao, cut through the demonic soldiers as if chopping vegetables, clearing them out!

The commoner player inherently had an incredibly strong solo fighting capability, especially now as no demonic soldier could get close.

After enlarging, the Mo Dao had also grown large, and under the absolute dominance of attack range, the player wasn't really fighting but simply sweeping.

And the player's target was clearly more ambitious—he headed straight for the gigantic demon archer.

Clearly, trading one for one was a net gain!

The gigantic demon archer, engaged in shooting arrows, had also noticed him and slowly turned his body, aiming the massive bow directly.

While the player was also enlarged, he was still somewhat smaller in stature, standing only as high as the waist of the gigantic demonic soldier.

If hit by that arrow, it could blast a large hole in the player's chest, even possibly being carried dozens of meters away, pinned to the ground.

By then, even possessing the Ranger Talent would be useless, for with their movement restricted, any random soldier could simply come up and finish them off.

But this player was confident, he didn't believe he would be hit.

The flexibility granted to him by the Ranger Talent, coupled with the keen reactions honed in trials of bullet and arrow storms, allowed him to calmly face this arrow.

"Wu!"

The giant arrow made a terrifying sound as it tore through the air, yet the player forcefully rolled to the side and evaded it!

The large arrow buried itself deep into the ground, and the Demonic Qi attached to it spawned a large number of demonic soldiers.

But obviously, for the player, this was a very cost-effective scenario. Had these demonic soldiers spawned on the city walls, the pressure to defend would have significantly increased.

"Wu!"

"Wu! Wu!"

The massive demonic soldier kept firing arrows, but not a single one could hit the target!

The player dodged and weaved, miraculously escaping by the skin of his teeth every single time.

The most dangerous arrow grazed his left arm as it flew by, slightly brushing against it, causing his figure to stagger and his left arm to become instantly numb.

But it didn't matter. The Ranger Talent allowed him to ignore the pain once again, and his left arm quickly returned to normal. He had one last chance.

After sprinting forward, the player finally reached the massive demonic soldier's front. He brandished his Longsword with both hands and leapt high!

At the same time, the demonic soldier drew its bow to the full once again, at this distance, evasion was impossible.

"Boom!"

The huge arrow pierced the player at close range and nailed him onto the ground.

Three rounds of damage were instantly calculated, and the player was reduced to ashes in an instant.

However, after firing that arrow, the gigantic demonic soldier made no further moves. Its body had been cleaved in two from shoulder to waist by the Longsword and crashed down mightily!

...

Scenes like this were unfolding everywhere on the battlefield.

Gonggong had thought that keeping a batch of enlarged demonic soldiers until the end was an infallible strategy.

Because there was a gap in strength between the two sides, if the Restorers also enlarged some natives to counter the demons, the stronger demonic side would surely win the war of attrition.

And the Restorers could neither find a way to defend against these giant arrows imbued with Demonic Qi nor could they break through the encirclement to kill these arrow-firing demonic soldiers.

But it hadn't expected the Restorers to still have this trick up their sleeve!

Everything happening before its eyes clearly surpassed the intelligence limit of Gonggong, the great demon. As its CPU-like brain overheated trying to understand what was happening, nearly all the great demons it had infused with Demonic Qi were being slaughtered to near extinction.

In a rage, it even tried to have close-combat demonic soldiers enlarged to block the way, only to have them swapped two for one.

The combat prowess of these phantom natives turned out to be completely beyond its expectations!

Of course, not every player was this overwhelmingly powerful. Some performed flawlessly, slaying two giant demonic soldiers in succession, while others only managed to exchange blows with a demonic soldier one for one.

But the problem was, Gonggong couldn't tell which ones were strong and which ones were weak. After the first failed attempt that cost it dearly, it was naturally reluctant to try again.

The Restorers' city fortress had already been on the brink of collapse, but this miraculous maneuver by the players had temporarily stabilized the situation.

In the sky, Gonggong's shadow kept expanding and contracting, clearly it was fuming with anger.

It couldn't understand why it couldn't take down the other side when its own power was clearly superior.

Its initial probes seemed to have been a bit too conservative. It had thought that applying continuous pressure with its fuel-adding tactics would quickly break through the Restorers' defenses, but it didn't expect its assault to be foiled at every turn, which further incensed Gonggong.

So, it began to spray even more Demonic Qi over the battlefield below.

No holding back, just charge through with an increased dose!

However, it was at this moment that the rear of the demonic soldiers suddenly became chaotic.

A large force of Restorers had attacked from behind, especially the Cavalry unit at the forefront which had charged irrationally forward, tearing a long gash instantly!

Though the demonic soldiers were fervent and fearless in combat, once their formation was broken, they still fell into disarray.

Gonggong's brain crashed once again.

"Where did this come from?"

Obviously, this large force hadn't sprung out of cracks in the rocks.

And from the direction they came from... it seemed highly likely that they had come from Anshi City.

Anshi City?

Gonggong froze.

Wasn't that the place Feilian was responsible for? Could it be that these phantom natives didn't bother with Anshi City at all and came straight back to the rescue?

But that wasn't right. If that were the case, wouldn't Feilian also be bringing demonic soldiers in pursuit?

Why were there no signs of chasing demonic soldiers at all?

Or could it be... Anshi City had truly fallen?