Chapter 435 - 29: Encirclement and Annihilation (2)

Chapter 435: Chapter 29: Encirclement and Annihilation (2)

Until they figured out how the Civilian Lords had withstood Dailuo Ke’s Gravity Cannon, they were unwilling to send their armies to their deaths.

After barely escaping with his life, Dailuo Ke took his men to the territory of his friend, Sankrug.

With Sankrug’s help, he found temporary refuge under his command.

[Titan Race Chat Channel]

Dailuo Ke: "Damn you commoners! You gutter rats! You ambushed me when I wasn’t ready! Give me my territory back right now, or I’ll make you regret it!"

Kazaria: "Well, well, if it isn’t the homeless cur? What’s this? The stray dog found a new master to take him in?"

Dailuo Ke: "Just wait until I take my territory back! Don’t you dare run, you little punks! I’ll find people to come and crush you!!"

Kazaria: "Hahaha, Lord Dailuo Ke, we’re having a wonderful time at your place. Your territory’s technology is so well-developed. It’s working out great for us!"

Dailuo Ke: "You @#$%!..."

Dailuo Ke and Kazaria had a flame war in the chat. Onlookers also chimed in, and the two sides argued themselves into a frenzy.

Having finally captured the territory of a top Noble Lord—a rare feat—the Civilian Lords were exhilarated and eagerly engaged in the flame war with their aristocratic rivals.

In the past, they weren’t even in a position to trade insults with the Noble Lords, because they had nothing to boast about.

While everyone was "happily" flaming each other in the main Titan Race channel, the atmosphere in the top-tier Noble Lords’ private channel was far more serious.

[Titan Race Internal Affairs]

Diados: "Dailuo Ke, report. How did those Civilian Lords breach your territory’s defenses?"

Diados: "Do you realize that your failure has given those commoners the opportunity to manufacture Gravity Cannons?"

Diados: "This will pose a massive obstacle to our future offensives against them!"

Dailuo Ke: "Your Highness, Prince Diados, and my fellow lords, I am truly sorry. This was my mistake."

Dailuo Ke: "However, I truly did my best. I’ve reviewed my command decisions during the battle, and I can find no obvious errors."

Sankrug: "Then explain this: how did those Civilian Lords break through your line of defense?"

Dailuo Ke: "Their armies had a new type of unit clad in full golden armor. Judging by their height, they weren’t soldiers of our Titan Race. They must have been units of another race, drawn at random."

Dailuo Ke: "These golden soldiers are very powerful. They can generate a golden shield that blocked my gravity distortion shells, allowing the Civilian Lords’ armies to advance completely unaffected."

Dailuo Ke: "I never expected them to be able to nullify my Gravity Cannon. They used that advantage to storm the walls."

Dailuo Ke: "My soldiers fought desperately, but they were simply too numerous. My army couldn’t hold them back."

Diados: "So, you believe those golden soldiers are the reason you were defeated?"

Dailuo Ke: "Yes, Your Highness. The crucial point is that there were a large number of them. They provided shields for practically every charging army from the Civilian Lords."

Dailuo Ke: "Under those shields, their armies’ combat strength was also enhanced. My own troops couldn’t gain a significant advantage in a head-on fight."

Dailuo Ke: "So..."

Diados: "Very well. If that’s the case, have the lords laying siege launch a probing attack. We need to gather detailed intelligence on these golden soldiers."

...

「A few days later.」

Fierce battle cries once again echoed across Dailuo Ke’s former domain, Bear Peak Territory.

The ground below the city walls of Bear Peak Territory was littered with the corpses of the Titan Race’s noble armies, yet their assault continued unabated. Numerous Noble Lords had mobilized their forces to help encircle and destroy these Civilian Lords who had finally revealed themselves.

Normally, the nobles never knew where to find them. Now that the Civilian Lords had exposed themselves, the nobles finally had their chance.

The armies swarming the field paid no mind to the corpses on the ground, focusing only on the charge.

From atop the walls, a barrage of ranged attacks rained down. Every so often, a soldier’s defenses would be broken by the onslaught, and they would collapse, wounded.

Having constructed a large number of random buildings, the Civilian Lords possessed many units with ranged capabilities. This was one of the reasons they could contend with the Noble Lords.

Mixed in with the sky-darkening volleys of arrows and javelins were black spheres. Whenever one of these spheres struck a soldier or the ground, it would erupt with a powerful gravitational force.

Like miniature black holes, they pulled all objects within their gravitational field toward their center.

After a brief gravitational burst, the effect would vanish, leaving behind a tangled mass of debris and twisted corpses.

These rank-and-file Noble Lords had no means of defending against such attacks, so they could only press the assault by relying on their superior numbers.

Thanks to the death-defying charges of their armies, the defenses of Bear Peak Territory were slowly being breached.

As the Noble Lords’ soldiers stormed the ramparts, the frequency of the Civilian Lords’ ranged attacks decreased, allowing more of the charging nobles’ troops to reach the top of the wall.

Seeing more and more enemies cresting the wall, the Civilian Lord commanders adjusted their formation. Ranged units fell back, and melee soldiers moved forward to engage.

Since the Titan Race’s native soldiers possessed high combat strength, most of the Civilian Lords’ melee troops were also Warriors from their own race, with very few randomly acquired soldiers from other races.

However, a massive gap in equipment compared to the Noble Lords’ forces resulted in a significant disparity in combat effectiveness.

In any melee engagement, the Civilian Lords’ armies were invariably routed.

This time, however, was different.

Among the melee soldiers dispatched by the Civilian Lords were several tall, golden warriors. These were the Temple Guards, recruited from the Temple of the Goddess of Wisdom and War.

The Temple Guards didn’t engage in melee directly. Instead, they stood amidst the crowd, holding their greatswords and praying. The light of Divine Arts flashed continuously as they applied one buff after another to their allies.

Empowered by the Divine Arts, the Civilian Lords’ "Excellent" rank soldiers, who formed the bulk of their forces, saw their combat effectiveness boosted to the "Exceptional" rank. When clashing with the Noble Lords’ melee troops, they were no longer routed on contact but were able to trade blows evenly.

Both sides were keen to test the actual combat capabilities of the Temple Guards. The narrow terrain of the city wall was the perfect stage for them to line up and face off.

Thus, by tacit agreement, the battle commenced on the ramparts.

During the melee, a courageous Heavy Armor Warrior from the Noble Lords’ side managed to cut his way to a Temple Guard. But after just a few exchanges, the Temple Guard swung its greatsword and cleaved him into pieces. The custom-made heavy armor he wore might as well have been made of tofu; it offered no protection whatsoever.

The intense melee raged for over ten minutes. The nobles’ army, which in the past could have steamrolled the Civilian Lords’ forces, could only fight them to a standstill this time.

Ultimately, satisfied with the results, the Civilian Lords left a rearguard and withdrew the remainder of their army to the city’s center.

After the Noble Lords slaughtered the rearguard on the walls and rushed to the city center, they arrived just in time to see the Civilian Lords’ army vanishing amidst waves of spatial distortion.

All that remained was a battlefield littered with corpses and a city reduced to ruins, its buildings demolished.

After the battle, Bear Peak Territory was once again in Dailuo Ke’s hands. But seeing the city reduced to a wasteland—with only the walls and the Lord’s Mansion left standing—and all its resources plundered, he was beyond tears.

He had promised a great deal to get this city back.

If he couldn’t redevelop the city, acquire more territory, and successfully advance before the end of this stage, his losses would be catastrophic.

To restore the city to its former state quickly, he would have to seek help again and borrow a significant amount of resources.

Alternatively, he could convert all the points he had painstakingly accumulated into resources—points he had been saving to redeem for tech data to strengthen his family’s foundations.

A heartbroken Dailuo Ke once again stormed into the Titan Race chat channel to rail against the Civilian Lords.

Meanwhile, in the top-tier nobles’ chat group, a post-battle conference had begun.