The Era of Gods

Chapter 493: Chapter 493 Powerless

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“Yun Ge, there’s a group of people hiding over there.”

A player, with a flicker of curiosity in his eyes, pointed at Lin Xiao and his companions hidden on the other side of the scout post.

The one called Yun Ge was a silver-haired human beauty, his gaze glancing at the army hidden beneath the high ground of the post, then turning to his own subordinates with a look of puzzlement:

“What are you trying to say?”

His subordinate, with a hint of danger in his eyes, spoke in a low voice:

“All those taking the Fortress Regiment route like us are competitors. Should we screw them over?”

Yun Ge glanced at his subordinate and then turned his head away without indicating yes or no.

His subordinate smiled, gestured to someone nearby, and whispered a private conversation in a low voice.

Soon, about a dozen NPC soldiers on the guard tower wall consciously started to lure some Demons toward the other side, attacking a small group of Demons to incite their wrath, while leading them around the corner of the post. The small group of Demons, being enticed, rounded a bend and saw two Scouts hiding on the other side of the corner.

Just then, the soldiers on the high ground who attracted the Demons had already disappeared, and the Demons, having lost their opponents, roared and charged at the NPC Scouts at the corner.

Lin Xiao, who was behind the Scouts, noticed the Demons and the soldiers on the wall luring them as soon as they appeared. He also recognized which players these NPC soldiers belonged to. One could clearly distinguish between regular NPCs and player-recruited NPCs.

He squinted his eyes and said with a cold sneer:

“No matter when, no matter where, the worst in people never disappears, Yun Xin, right? I’ll remember you.”

“Prepare for battle!”

There was no way to run, and nowhere to run to. They had to face the battle, and by the side of the post, they could still receive support from the NPCs inside.

At his command, many NPC soldiers promptly took their positions—warriors with Shields at the front, Shooters at the back, Mages and Priests ready.

Soon, nearly a thousand Demons led by a Level 75 Enhanced Elite Demon Centurion charged at them from behind. Lin Xiao looked into the distance. Most were standard template Demons, with dozens of elite Level 70 Demon warriors, and several Demon captains and braves of Level 72 or 73.

The Level 75 Enhanced Elite Demon with over three hundred thousand Life points was a boss that usually required a team to kill. Accompanied by so many Demonic underlings, Lin Xiao swung his Magic Wand, and a bolt of Lightning struck the warriors in the front row, enchanting their weapons with extra Lightning damage.

At that moment, Lin Xiao felt the limitations of pure Thunder Laws. As explosive as they were, he realized they could not compare to Ice Magic or Earth specialization in terms of control and limitation.

If it was just for personal play, or to mix it up in dungeons, it was very powerful, but for someone like him who had become the Leader of a Fortress Regiment, commanding hundreds to thousands of NPC subordinates, this specialization was somewhat lacking.

“Maybe look for an opportunity to change specialization? Or take up a secondary specialization?”

He remembered that after Outland opened, template upgrades and secondary specialization cross-training were made available, but the conditions were very stringent.

First, one must reach the racial level cap. For him, it meant reaching Level 70, whereas for a Fishman or the like, reaching Level 45 would suffice.

This wasn’t difficult. Having been in Outland for so long, he was about to reach Level 69, and Level 70 was just a matter of time.

Second, one needed to achieve Worship status with a major faction, such as Humans, Elves, or the Expeditionary Army.

Third, one needed to achieve Worship status with a faction specializing in a certain magic, such as Fire Spells, if they wished to cross-train in that magic specialization.

After fulfilling these three conditions, one then needed to complete an extremely complicated and demanding series of quests.

Before Outland opened, some players had met the prerequisite conditions and undertook these quests, even completing most of the quest chain, but got stuck at the final stage. Back then, a player posted the last few steps of the quest chain in the world chat, which Lin Xiao had seen and indeed, it was extremely demanding.

It involved preparing several extremely rare items, killing several super bosses in a large team mode with a time limit—naturally including super bosses like Dragons.

Defeating the boss wasn’t difficult. The challenge was the timed mode, which required a very strong team to kill the boss without a single wipe and within the time limit, which was very tough.

Anyway, after Lin Xiao reviewed those tasks, he decided to wait until he had enough strength before attempting them, or to find another way around.

According to the system, after Outland opened, there would be other ways to upgrade templates or cross-train, the simplest of which was through merit exchange. The Expeditionary Army reputation system would allocate a few spots annually.

While he was lost in thought, the Demons and his subordinates had already clashed head-on. The soldiers charged fearlessly at the Demons.

In an instant, the densely packed green health bars at the front began to turn yellow, then red, with the myriad of healing Spells from the many Priests in the rear failing to pull them back up.

Just as the frontline was about to fall, Shen Yuexin cast a wide-area healing prayer, raising the health of the surrounding soldiers substantially.

“Crackle…”

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A thundercloud with a coverage radius of sixty yards enveloped the battlefield, and dense lightning rained down, causing over a thousand damage with each strike, thanks to the Talent bonus. The numbers indicating damage kept flickering before his eyes.

Ordinary Demons had about six thousand health points, and after two rounds, a large number of wounded Demons lay dead. After four rounds, a wide swath of the front line had been cleared.

However, compared to the thousands of Demons, such casualties barely mattered, especially since they were now fighting in the open, where human NPC soldiers were inherently weaker than the Demons.

NPC warriors recruited through regular means were at Level 55, while standard Demon foot soldiers were at Level 60. Given the ordinary templates, the Demons not only had racial bonuses to health and attack but also had a five-level advantage, making them unbeatable.

By the thirteenth second, the warriors who were first engaged in combat began to die one after another, and not even the Priests’ healing could save them.

Luckily, the battle here had caught the attention of those on the watchtower. The previous Demon division had been noted, and most players on the guard tower wall remained indifferent, with two competitors even feeling schadenfreude. However, the NPCs were fairly just, and with the pressure on the other side reduced, they immediately sent over a team of soldiers to this side, including several powerful Ice series mages, who cast Blizzard from the high vantage of the guard tower wall to slow down the Demons.

Lin Xiao immediately seized the opportunity, ordering his men to fight and retreat simultaneously, maintaining a certain distance around Eagle Tower while kiting the Demons. He, meanwhile, continued to alternately cast Thundercloud and Blizzard.

Slowing on one hand and bursting on the other, they soon cleared wave after wave of Demons.

“I need to level up my Mage NPCs!”

Ice Magic was just too good, but the recently recruited Ice mages didn’t have a wide-ranging slow skill like Blizzard. They had to reach Level 60 before they could use it, even the elite Mages.

NPCs and players are different.

With the support from a few Ice mages on the city wall, they just managed to hold off the Demon attack. Wave after wave of ordinary Demons fell to the combined damage of Blizzard and Thundercloud, including several elite Demons.

Once about two hundred ordinary Demons died, the Demon Centurion Military Governor couldn’t sit still any longer. He took up his several-meter-long greatsword and personally led the charge.

In such a situation, Lin Xiao had no option to retreat. If he ran, he would move away from Eagle Tower and lose the support of the Mages and Shooters on the city wall, which would only lead to a quicker death. His only option was to fight.

Leaving his girlfriend in temporary command of his forces, Lin Xiao cast a Lightning Shield on himself and charged into the main force of Demons head-on.

Boosted by his Talent, the Level 68 Lin Xiao had an additional 340 points of Intelligence. Combined with normal leveling and equipment bonuses, he now had nearly 700 Intelligence points. The Lightning Shield dealt caster’s Intelligence * 0.6 lightning damage to melee attackers, which amounted to 420, plus over 400 in spell damage bonuses, totaling 870 spell damage.

Diving into the mass of Demons, he released a sixty-yard radius Lightning field, stunning enemies within range for two seconds, then paralyzing them for another four seconds, followed by chain cast Lightning Strike – learned at Level 60 – detonated another wave, and then a Thundercloud bombardment razed all ordinary Demons within range to the ground in a mere couple of seconds.

The remaining elite Demons were left paralyzed, able to attack but unable to move, and were gradually ground down by the continuing Thundercloud and Blizzard.

By this time, the Demon Centurion had already charged towards him, aiming from afar with a charge. His towering five to six-meter tall form, accompanied by a terrifying aura of oppression, flashed forward in an instant. The sheer force of the impact sent him flying over ten yards, and he crashed to the ground, stunned.

One yard is approximately 0.9 meters, so ten yards are nine meters.

Fortunately, the Demons nearby were just cleared out. Otherwise, had he fallen amidst the swarm, he would have been chopped to death within minutes.

A group of warriors rushed forward to protect him, but the Demon Centurion followed and decimated the soldiers with his four-meter long greatsword.

The Level 73 Enhanced Elite Centurion’s attack was already incredibly high, completely overwhelming the Level 55 ordinary NPC soldiers, guaranteeing crushing blows that could kill in one hit.

But with a few seconds to buffer, Lin Xiao recovered from the stun and immediately hit the Centurion with a Lightning Strike, stunning him on the spot and turning to run. Two elite warriors charged forward with their shields up, only to be swept away the next second, their health points dropping by two-thirds in an instant, though fortunately, they didn’t die.

“I can’t hold it!”

Lin Xiao lamented. The level difference was too much; most of the ranged Shooters and Mages’ fireballs and frost arrows were outright immune, and even if they did damage, it was just tens of points against the Centurion’s nearly three hundred thousand health points — mere drizzle.

Surrounding him could grind him down a bit, but there were still more Demons than them.

On top of that, there were only so many supportive Mages on the city wall, unable to control so many Demons. Once the Demon Centurion broke through the front line, the remaining Demons surged forward.

Three minutes later, Lin Xiao resurrected from the Eagle Tower resurrection altar looking disheveled; his girlfriend stood beside the altar, took his hand in hers, and encouraged him, “Don’t be disheartened – it’s just a temporary setback.”

His girlfriend could fly, so when she realized the situation was hopeless, she promptly flew up to the high platform of the guard tower to take refuge. Unable to fly, Lin Xiao had no choice but to die in battle.

Holding his girlfriend’s soft hand made him feel much better, and he replied while holding her hand, “Don’t worry, this loss means nothing to me; I can handle it.”

Looking up, he saw Yun Xin walking towards him, surrounded by several subordinates. With an apologetic expression, he said to Lin Xiao, “I’m really sorry; my men were meant to lead the Demons away to relieve the pressure on the main gate of the guard post. I didn’t expect you to be there.”