Chapter Eighty-Nine: The Accumulating Advantage

"Rapid assault!"

With a sharp whistle, the freshly reloaded rocket shell streaked away. The hyena kept charging, only to be blasted backward again and again by Huang Yunshuo. By now, its health had already fallen to half.

"Charged strike!"

The emptied launcher turned into a club, lashing blindly through the air. In the end, Huang Yunshuo slammed headfirst into the hyena and sent it flying. He switched to his iron sword and rushed after it, just as the beast hit the ground.

A combo, a dragon's sweep, then two more exchanges of blows with the hyena. At last, it let out a miserable cry and collapsed.

"My God, that thing has way too much health."

Huang Yunshuo wiped the cold sweat from his brow. He did not touch the materials and copper coins that had dropped on the ground, but instead watched the battle on the infantry side.

Under the wild onslaught of dozens of archers, the hyenas could hardly sit still and take it. Wave after wave they hurled themselves at the infantry line like a siege against a fortress. Though the infantry repeatedly charged to knock them back, the damage they dealt also kept mounting, and several soldiers with very little health were already on the verge of death.

Huang Yunshuo repelled a pack of hyenas and threw himself back into the fight.

Aside from the knockback from the launcher itself, the rocket explosions also carried a pushing effect. With the hyenas now generally having a great deal of health, Huang Yunshuo took on the role of controller.

With his help and that of Morning Dew Frost, who had just arrived, the hyenas suffered not much damage, but they had far fewer chances to get in the infantry's faces, greatly reducing the damage the troops had to endure.

It was time to harvest.

After estimating the archers' firing intervals, Huang Yunshuo used a knockback shot, then fired two shells at two open patches of ground, corralling a group of hyenas with only a sliver of health left. Then he activated his rage skill.

"Suppressive fire!"

Ten rockets rained down in a tight radius. The hyenas howled in agony, one after another collapsing with pitiful cries, while white light flashed again and again over Huang Yunshuo's body.

"Ten stacks of agility buff, hahahaha!"

Huang Yunshuo laughed. The remaining hyenas were also running low on health. Under his patient waiting, attrition, and control, they too eventually fell one by one beneath his launcher.

None of the thirty hyenas escaped. All of them turned into agility buffs.

With the launcher equipped, Huang Yunshuo's agility stood at 58. At that moment, it shot all the way up to 76. With the iron sword equipped, his agility was 68, and now it reached a terrifying 89.

Huang Yunshuo put away the launcher and ran a few steps. Though his speed had not increased by much, he felt as though he might take flight. It was an intoxicating sensation.

Morning Dew Frost, having picked up all the materials and copper coins, was in an excellent mood. She looked toward the rear, her eyes lighting up. "The second wave of soldiers has arrived!"

Huang Yunshuo turned to look. Sure enough, the second batch of six hundred NPC soldiers in bright helmets and shining armor was already a hundred meters away. His spirits rose at once.

The general led more than a hundred and fifty men over to meet them, and they were arranged in the rear ranks. The archers concentrated their fire, while the infantry took responsibility for shielding them.

"Seven hundred and fifty versus six hundred. This wave is secure!" Huang Yunshuo laughed loudly as he watched the blue-side NPC force swell in number. He had made a great contribution.

"Come on, let's go cut some people down. Those idiots have probably farmed a lot of materials from the monsters!" Huang Yunshuo said to Morning Dew Frost, then glanced at Jing Xu, who had been standing idly nearby. "You coming?"

"Coming, I'm coming!" Jing Xu seemed to have been waiting for Huang Yunshuo to ask him. He immediately perked up and answered at once.

As Jing Xu walked, he slipped into stealth. As an ally, Huang Yunshuo could see only a faint shadow moving swiftly forward. So this guy even gained around fifteen to twenty percent movement speed while stealthed? That was way too unbalanced.

Taking advantage of the time while the NPC forces were gathering, Huang Yunshuo and Morning Dew Frost ferociously pounced on a group of more than ten players.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The launcher roared, joined by the cold bolts of Morning Dew Frost. Caught off guard by the sudden assault, the red-side players, already half-dead from farming monsters, were cut down by Huang Yunshuo in the blink of an eye, several of them falling immediately.

"Someone help! Where are our people?"

"This demon is tired of killing NPCs and has turned his blade on us players."

"Damn it, stop farming monsters and come help, you idiots!"

A stir broke out among the nearby red-side players. Some turned and ran, some hesitated and came over to help, while more simply chose to stand by and watch.

With Huang Yunshuo's current attack power, players with a little over twenty defense were brought to nearly half health by a single shell. Yet most of these players were already wounded or barely clinging to life, which created the visual effect of being one-shotted by every blast. It was positively gutting.

Bolstered by his greatly increased agility, Huang Yunshuo chased people down all the way.

At first, Morning Dew Frost could still keep up and contribute a few shots, but in the end she simply put away her crossbow, followed behind to scoop up the various drops, and abandoned offense altogether.

Jing Xu kept appearing behind players. With one flurry of thrusts, or a backstab followed by one or two basic attacks, he could unleash heavy damage and copious bleeding, essentially killing one target after another in a single strike.

A small patch of the neutral map was instantly cleared out by the three of them. The red-side players either fled or died, and Morning Dew Frost's hands were sore from picking up drops. She was in such a good mood she could hardly contain it.

The blue-side players surged forward en masse, pinning the monsters left behind by the red-side players in their nests and hammering them there. Now and then, a few white lights rose into the air as monsters killed players.

"I'm really convinced now."

Huang Yunshuo suddenly understood why everyone took so long to finish a match in Time-Traveling Expedition.

With the intelligence of these players, there was no way a battle could end quickly.

The monsters did not hit that hard, yes, but that was only true for Huang Yunshuo. For the average player, especially in the neutral zone, hyenas and wild donkeys had fifty attack. One hit took away a quarter of their health, and they had a full five thousand hit points.

Damn it, the potions from the supply point, and these bastards were wasting them like this?

Not to mention the elite monster in the neutral map, the two-headed hound. According to Ye Piaoxue, its attack reached sixty, as high as the NPCs'. Its health was five times that of an NPC. What were they doing, risking their lives to waste consumables there?

"It'd be great if we could kill players on our own side too."

Huang Yunshuo felt an itch of restlessness inside. Just looking at these fools put him in a foul mood.

The few of them hurried through their player-versus-player fights and, after taking nearly fifty heads, returned to link up with the NPCs. Huang Yunshuo led Morning Dew Frost past the infantry and squeezed into the formation of a hundred and fifty archers, while Jing Xu continued to wander around the perimeter, occasionally remaining in stealth.

Because the blue-side NPC force had wasted time assembling, the red-side NPC troops had already advanced to the front. The archers were the first to draw their bows.

The hundred and fifty archers around Huang Yunshuo all raised their weapons in unison, while the NPC infantry in front lifted their shields high.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh...

The exchange of arrows began again. At the same time, the infantry on both sides rushed to close the distance, and when they were ten meters apart, all of them charged at once.

Huang Yunshuo was busy without pause. The timing of the knockback shot was crucial; used well, it could pull back several wounded blue-side infantrymen. As the battle had only just begun, some unlucky soldiers from both sides were caught in concentrated fire. Huang Yunshuo seized the opportunity to claim two finishing blows, and another stack was added to his attack buff.