Volume 5: Protracted War Chapter 175: Pruning Flowers and Leaves (1)
The situation has developed to this point. Originally it was just a local war, but because of the intention of several major forces of the "Resistance Alliance" to "take advantage of the situation", it has expanded to three continents, which has exceeded our expectations. The success or failure of the action is crucial to both sides of the war, especially our side that took the initiative to challenge. We can't afford the consequences of failure. Otherwise, it will not only be our mercenary group that will be hit, but even the "Resistance Alliance" hidden behind the scenes will be affected to a certain extent, and it may not be possible to curb the increasingly arrogant arrogance of the Church of Light as we wish.
Naturally, we, the Tongxin League, don't have to worry about the situation on the other four battlefields. When the time comes, we can only clean up the snow in front of our own door and concentrate on dealing with Hua Feihua's "Green Leaf" mercenary group. According to the intelligence collected, although "Green Leaf" is only a medium-sized mercenary group with a thousand formal members, it started a little later and is not as strong as our old and powerful mercenary groups. However, with the strong support and help of the two major mercenary groups, Huadu and the Sun Never Sets, it has a good development momentum. The construction of the garrison is quite large, and all kinds of defense facilities are relatively complete, with a very strong position defense capability. It takes a relatively "tough" route. When encountering disputes, it will resort to force to solve them. It has attracted many players who like to be brave and aggressive and make trouble to join. Among them, there are quite a few famous "killers" in "Tianxia". They are also quite powerful. Even the Tongxin League, a large mercenary group with a scale of 10,000 people, dare not slack off and underestimate them.
According to the newly promulgated and implemented "Tianxia" Mercenary Group Challenge Rules (revised version), the party initiating the challenge must pay a "group battle deposit" of varying amounts based on the total value of the attacked party, based on the number of people officially involved in the attack. The so-called "official attack" is officially explained as "entering the target mercenary group's base to participate in the direct attack", that is, the party actively attacking must report to the mercenary guild in advance the number of players who will directly attack the target mercenary group's base. Only authorized players can open the corresponding permissions and attack the opponent's base during the group battle. Otherwise, they can only pass through the door but not enter, and can only eliminate the enemy outside the base. This is also a "restrictive clause" formulated by Tianxia to protect the interests of small and medium-sized forces so that they are not easily swallowed up by super-large-scale forces using "human wave tactics", so that the attacked party can roughly estimate the number of people participating in the attack through the amount of "deposit" paid by the party initiating the challenge, so as to facilitate the formulation of countermeasures.
Taking into account the strength of all official members, all the buildings in the base, and the tangible or intangible asset value of a medium-sized mercenary group, the Mercenary Guild estimated the value of "Green Leaf" at two million gold coins. After careful research and consultation by the top leaders of the United Front, in view of the new rules that "after the start of a team battle, no new reinforcements can enter the base in any form (including using teleportation arrays or rushing in from the periphery) to participate in the defense of the attacked party", it is estimated that the construction layout of the "Green Leaf" base can accommodate a maximum of about three thousand players to deploy defenses. Therefore, it was decided to set the number of people officially involved in the attack at seven thousand. In this case, according to the regulations, the United Front needs to pay 50% of the total value of "Green Leaf", which is a "team battle deposit" of one million gold coins. Because the United Alliance is currently in a period of development and expansion, money is needed in many areas and the expenses are very high. The liquid funds that can be mobilized immediately are insufficient. In order to make up the one million "deposit", we have to borrow part of it from the Mercenary Guild with the base as collateral. If the challenge fails and we fail to capture the "Green Leaf" meeting hall within twelve hours, our United Alliance will lose this one million gold coins, and we will inevitably suffer huge economic losses. In addition, the reputation will be damaged, which will have an extremely serious impact on the development of the United Alliance.
Therefore, the Tongxin Alliance is determined to win this battle and must not afford to lose. Not only does it have nearly 10,000 formal members, but all the small and medium-sized forces that are closely related to and dependent on the Tongxin Alliance have also been mobilized, bringing together a main battle army of more than 20,000 people. Among them, the 7,000 most combat-capable players are carefully selected to shoulder the heavy responsibility of capturing the "Green Leaf" meeting hall, and the remaining 18,000 players are responsible for clearing out the "enemy forces" stationed outside the "Green Leaf" base and ensuring the smooth flow of the attack on the "Green Leaf" base. Another 30,000 players have been incorporated into the "reserve team" and will not be dispatched for the time being, but they must be online when the team battle is taking place, and be ready to attack at any time depending on the development of the situation.
Because the scope of the case is too wide, every target to be attacked may be an object of support from the Church of Light. Therefore, not only the several mercenary groups directly involved in the challenge, but the entire "Resistance Alliance" has taken action. In addition to sending elite combat forces to Longteng and Zhongtian for "free support" in accordance with the resolution of the Council, the intelligence system is operating at full capacity, paying close attention to the movements of "famous figures" such as the Church of Light, Supreme Honor, Holy Heaven, Olympia, and various mercenary groups that have close ties with them, and sending relevant intelligence to us in a timely manner, so that we can estimate the target's combat effectiveness as accurately as possible, and ensure the rationality and effectiveness of the attack.
The twenty-four hours of preparation time after the release of the "Team War Declaration" is almost over. According to the intelligence analysis collected by all parties, the two major mercenary groups, Huadu and Sun Never Sets, which are the most loyal and powerful allies of "Green Leaf", are likely to be forced by the pressure of the Church of Light. In order to obstruct the "Resistance Alliance" from "peacefully seizing power" in Beijing, they have to devote their main forces to assisting "Great Thousand World" and "New Newcomers". The forces related to them have gathered and successively stationed outside the bases of "Great Thousand World" and "New Newcomers" to help them resist the attacks of Longteng and Zhongtian. Even if a part of them is allocated to support "Green Leaf", the number should not be too large, and it has not exceeded our estimates. The light forces in the Western Continent are out of reach. After receiving the news of the "Team War", there is only one day, and it is difficult to rush to support in an organized manner. The scattered Western players who gathered here put the "overall situation" first, and most of them flocked to "Great Thousand World" and "New Newcomers". Few people are interested in "Green Leaf". According to the latest intelligence, the number of reinforcements stationed outside the "Green Leaf" base to participate in the defense is only 10,000 at most. After comprehensive evaluation, our Tongxin Alliance has a high chance of winning.
Under the new rules, the battle outside the garrison is only an auxiliary battlefield to consume the strength of both the attackers and defenders. The success or failure depends on the offensive and defensive battles within the garrison and the battle to siege the council hall. The most important battles are participated by the best players on both sides. The defenders take advantage of the terrain and rely on fortifications and buildings such as "arrow towers" and "magic towers" to fight desperately, supplemented by local counterattacks to slow down the attack rhythm of the invaders. As long as the council hall does not fall after twelve hours, it is considered a victory. The attackers need to invest more people to overcome and remove those "obstacles" one by one, open up a road to the council hall in the center of the garrison, and at the same time guard against harassment from the defenders, so as to facilitate the follow-up troops to continuously launch a strong attack on the council hall until victory.
As the battle approached, most of the troops participating in the battle on both sides had been deployed. According to the rules of the group battle, "unrelated third parties shall not interfere in the group battle, and both sides shall not start the battle without authorization before the group battle officially begins." Therefore, both camps maintained a certain distance, and the players standing in the front row stared at each other, waiting for the moment of the battle to come. The opponent's 10,000 players surrounded the "Green Leaf" station, and our 18,000 attacking troops of the Tongxin League surrounded them on all sides. As the active attacking party, although the advantage in numbers is not too obvious, the overall quality of the players is above the opponent. Whether it is the proportion of level 7 professional players or the category and level of the summoned pets, it is obviously better than "Green Leaf". The 7,000 elite combat forces carefully selected have also been in place, temporarily dispersed and hidden behind the team to avoid the enemy from detecting our main attack direction in advance, focusing on defense, and increasing the difficulty of our attack.
I am naturally one of the 7,000 elite combat forces who are "officially engaged in the attack", but I don't need to conserve my energy like others. I only participate in the direct attack on the "Green Leaf" base. "Fighting to support fighting" is the most suitable tactic for me. On the premise of ensuring physical strength, I will continue to "fight" with those "low-level" players. As the war continues, I will become stronger and stronger. In order to make a greater contribution, I will strive to continue to challenge the holy beast with the support of the Tongxin League to complete the task of removing the seal of the "Dead Scepter". After resting up enough, I went online again four hours before the start of the war, two hours earlier than the normal assembly time. With the "support" of the magician team specially "allocated" to me, I have been constantly summoning the terrifying earth-walking dragon knights to help in the battle, and using the "blood change" ability, I can summon two terrifying earth-walking dragon knights at a time, which is enough to entangle an ordinary level 7 professional player. Unlike other necromancers, I have the "Touch of Death" to absorb the spiritual power of the magicians around me. I don't rely on the supply of the "transformation" magic of the water magician. I only need to arrange two water magicians to replenish the lost health points. Shaman, Taotao, Red Star, Wu Ma, the blood bat couple, Daxiu, Guben, Hader, Xiaobai and other powerful subordinates were summoned first. With the "wartime return" ability of "Control of Death", I don't have to worry too much about them being sacrificed in fierce battles. I can let them devote themselves to some overly dangerous occasions with more confidence and play a greater role. Unfortunately, I don't have enough spiritual power to summon the most powerful Pharaoh Khufu among my subordinates. Otherwise, with its level of a ninth-level lower-level magic beast, no one can compete with it at this stage. It is definitely the best candidate for storming the meeting hall.
The group battle began. The Tongxin Alliance launched an attack from all sides. After a round of probing, they determined the main attack direction. The other three sides continued to launch feint attacks to disperse the enemy's strength. Then they concentrated all their efforts to launch a fierce attack and quickly broke through the enemy's defense line. The 7,000-strong elite corps had already quickly assembled and rushed into the "Green Leaf" base along the opened passage, starting the most crucial battle.
"Arrow Tower" can increase the range and accuracy of archers, and "Magic Tower" can increase the magic damage of magicians. We must kill all the players inside to completely eliminate the threat to us. However, the entrance and the lower floor are defended by melee professional players. Don't expect to do it without paying a considerable price. There are also fortifications of different sizes with defensive formations, which will not only increase the difficulty of our attack, but also reduce our defense and attack power to varying degrees within their range of action, while the opponent will get a certain improvement. Even those ordinary houses used for living, unless we are willing to spend time and use force to forcibly destroy their doors, we cannot break in, while the opponent can hide inside and choose the right time to rush out and attack us. This caused us a lot of trouble. Every step forward requires fierce fighting. Every occupation of an area may require repeated struggles. It took nearly six hours just to open up a relatively safe passage to attack the meeting hall and build a solid line of defense on both wings to prevent the enemy's counterattack to ensure that we are not harassed during the attack on the meeting hall.
