Starting from Zero

Chapter 160: My Personal Army [Vol 5 Chapter 11]

Translator: blackberrry Editor: blackberrry

Just as I was about to get struck by the lightning bolt, a gigantic black figure suddenly appeared above me, Epidemic had actually rushed to me and took the attack for me. The lightning bolt struck Epidemic's back. Fortunately, Epidemic was a Dark Dragon and was extremely resistant towards Magic Spells. Epidemic trembled slightly and recovered his movements once more.

Epidemic suddenly lowered his head and bit onto the predatory bird that had caught me, while the Flying Wolf that had chased after Epidemic had chomped down on his hind legs. Lucky instantly rushed forward and bit onto the Flying Wolf's body. The Bird that had been bitten by Epidemic extended its neck and bit onto Lucky's back. The four Companions had their teeth sunk into each other, forming a circle of bites, none of them willing to let go, but under this strange posture, only Epidemic could flap his wings, and although Epidemic was able to barely sustain all of their weights, he was also bitten, thus his flight capability was restricted. With the other three clinging to him, one being another Dragon, the four started to fall towards the ground.

Of course, I did not fall with them as I still had my own pair of Wings! I quickly summoned Crystal and Phiona for reinforcements, and Phiona swooped down to strike the Flying Wolf out of the ring of locked bites. Crystal's Ultimate Spell seemed almost instantaneous as a large yellow screen of light suddenly appeared beneath the two dragons and bird. This spell created a platform that caught the three Companions, while the unfortunate Flying Wolf had died due to suffering from the immense damage even before hitting the ground. On the platform, Lucky turned and bit at the vulture's neck to which brought about a loud screech that even I could hear from a distance; the weak vulture's neck had been broken by Lucky. Lucky held the bird's head in his mouth while Epidemic bit on half of its body and pulled in the opposite direction. This pitiful predatory bird had died without a complete body, it was ripped apart by the two Dragons!

After killing the two Companions, I could not locate their masters but quickly understood why. These two Companions were not high level enough and thus did not have the ability to allow their Masters to mount them, and that was why they had arrived along with the foot soldiers, their Masters had no way to mount them and had no choice but to walk! Upon noticing the difference, I realized how aggressive the Griffin Riders from the Game System's Three Great Cities were! They were all actually able to carry their Masters and a Mage along!

After getting rid of the two aerial monsters, there were no longer any attacks from below that was a threat, their spells could not reach me, their arrows were too weak and had actually killed some of their own men! Right when I was about to fly down to launch an attack, I received a System Prompt.

"The League of Qin has officially engaged in an all-out war with Hundred Flower Valley, you are currently in the region of the war, please choose a side of either Attack or Defense, and if you do not wish to participate, please choose to be a Neutral. If a choice is not selected within 30 seconds, you will be viewed as a harasser and will be attacked by both sides."

This prompt meant that the real battle had officially begun, and most probably because of me. For the sake of making the game more lifelike, [Zero] had made a few updates. As to sieges, the attacker could start an undisclosed war, or could also announce the engagement and then start the siege, while the defender had no authority or power to reject the announcement. Furthermore, there were differences in the circumstances as to announcing or not announcing the war.

In a situation where the attacker initiates an undisclosed war, the attacker only needs to apply for it in the system and the system will not, in any way, govern the battle. The manner in which the battle would be conducted would be similar to a large scale team PK, where the killers would receive red names and increase in EVIL values, and to win, they had to kill all the enemy Players residing in the targeted City. Under the undisclosed war PK format, the killing was the same as PK'ing, and the winner would only take 0.1% of the enemy's present EXP.

As for an announced war, the attacker had to report it 20 minutes before, the system would then inform the targeted City for preparation and the 20 minutes was for them to prepare their defenses. Since the Game had its Teleport Stations, directly returning to the City and running to the City Walls would not take much time, and as for offline Players, even if they were informed 3 hours earlier, they might not be able to get online, thus 20 minutes was the designated sufficient time. Under an announced war, the attacker will be tasked to break through the city walls and enter the City's governance hall and to destroy the Protection Beast Statue located inside. Under this format, killing an enemy would not result in red names, and when killing the enemy, one would receive 15% of their current EXP. This additional 10% cannot be looked down on, as the EXP that a Player requires to level is far more than the EXP that a same level monster could provide, thus this 10% of EXP would be far more than any Monsters! If one killed 10 similar level Players, one could already gain a level. Thus sieging cities became an ideal way to gain levels.

It was a pity the Nation Wars had not begun yet, killing foreign Players would only provide a mean EXP of same level monsters of the Player, otherwise I would have struck it rich when I had gone to Japan if the Nation Wars had begun, the amount of EXP would definitely be adjusted in the same way as Guild Power Battles to encourage everyone to fight.

If one decides to choose a Neutral Position in the siege and watch the excitement, the person would not be able to attack anyone, until departing the battle zone or if the battle ends. Being a harasser was the most pitiful state, both parties would be able to attack you, and everyone would view you as the enemy. Due to the fact that the number of Players would be higher on the attacking side most of the time, the Defenders would have a green light dot above them, while the attacker has a red light dot above all of them. In an undisclosed war, only the attackers have red lights about them while the Defenders have none. But if one chose to be a harasser, the defenders would view you as a red light while the attackers would view you as a green light, this way, everyone would see you as the enemy!

In an announced war, one only needed to apply for it and it will begin, the City Teleport Station would automatically allow Defending Players to Teleport in while other members would be forced out of the City. Of course, in an undisclosed war, such a thing would not occur.

Due to the information mentioned, attackers would usually choose to siege in an announced war for the sake of more EXP, but to prevent the Defenders from having too much preparation time, the attackers would usually apply for the war only upon reaching the Defender's City, and if the Attacking side did not complete their mission within 48 hours after the announcement of the war, the entire guild will drop a Level. This punishment was extremely heavy! As to the Defenders, if they succeed, they would gain 1 City Prosper Point, which directly influences the EXP and loot from the Monsters around the City, the monsters around Prosperous Cities would drop a lot of good loot, and as for City with no Prosper Points, the monsters around would not drop much loot.

The League of Qin had decided to announce the war at such a time because majority of their troops had arrived, and as I had already started attacking them, they wanted to kill me to gain more EXP, since they all believe that my Level was extremely high and would provide with plenty of EXP!

Of course, I myself would not give up on such a good opportunity to gain EXP, although Players were much more difficult to handle than monsters, think about it, it was a level for every 10 Players killed! This was far faster than killing Monsters! Furthermore, my current Level was too low while they were all higher Level than me, I believed that 4 to 5 Players would gain me a level!

After choosing to help Defend the City, a green light dot immediately appeared above my head like a light bulb, the same went for my Companions and Servants! As for the people below me, all of them instantly turned red!

I first flew back to the City, EXP could only be gained after 20 minutes from the announcement of battle, killing them prior to it would not help. Red Cloud saw me destroy the bridge from the side and ran to me upon my arrival.

"Are you alright?"

"How can anything happen to me, I can fly so high and avoid the arrows and spells. Oh right, when the battle beings, I hope that you can control your Crystal Cannon. My profession is more of a Close Combatant, I can't do much standing on the City walls, so when the war begins, I will go down and fight them."

"What? You alone?"

"It'll be fine!" I flapped my wings and continued: "If I can't hold on, I'll come back. Now that I have already joined the Defending Position, you can all launch attacks without a worry, even if I get hit by one of your attacks, I will not suffer from any damage, but please watch out for your Crystal Cannon, that thing will kill anything that stands in its way! Just don't aim at me, and it'll be fine!"

"Alright, I will personally take control of the Cannon, but you have to be careful too! On behalf of our Hundred Flowers Valley, I thank you for your help!"

"Don't mention it, I am just pissed that they lied to me, you can even say that it is a lie that I'm helping all of you, it's more like taking it out on them!"

"Haha! You're really funny!"

________________________________________________________________________________________

I stood on the City walls and calmed myself down, then summoned all of my Servants and Companions, along with the Four Gems. Currently, at Level 322, I could summon 644 Silver Wasps, 31 Snow Demoness, 322 Bewitching Butterflies and 3220 War Skeletons. This large formation shocked all the ladies around me, but even more towards the idiots who were preparing to attack the City, although they did not know much about Companions, the 3000 odd Skeletons had scared them silly. In truth, the least worrisome summons were the skeletons, they were only scary in numbers but were honestly weak. How much harm can Level 200 skeletons do to Players over Level 500? But the enemies did not understand the strength of my Summons, and thus viewed the 3000 black skeletons as the biggest threat.

The short yet seemingly long 20 minutes passed slowly. 20 minutes was not long, but both parties waited impatiently as though their youth were being sapped away. Everyone watched as the System prompted that the war was about to begin.

"Attention to all Participants, 3 Minutes till the start of battle!"

The enemy cavalries had summoned all of their fully rested mounts. As they did not move much after arrival, their formations were quickly reestablished, and the standard offensive formations were revealed. This was a last minute change of formations, obviously, the initial main force for siege was most probably the foot soldiers that were placed at the back. But after the bridge was destroyed, the speed of them crossing the river had slowed down substantially. They had brought ropes across the river, and the foot soldiers started swimming across the river while holding onto the river. This was extremely slow, and about three-quarters of the Players were still at the opposite bank. This situation forced them to swap their positions for the cavalries to be the main force to attack. The other reason for the cavalries to take point was also because of the 3000 odd skeletons, this large number of force forced them to have no choice but to use the cavalries that had strong penetrative powers to engage with the skeleton army first, otherwise it would become even more difficult for them to engage if the foot soldiers were to mix with the skeletons. Their forces would be so scattered that they would not be able to form a sufficient power to breach the City.

Of course, I did not idle away in the last three minutes. The enemies were preparing their offensive formation, thus I had to retaliate, I could not allow them to shatter my 3000 odd Skeletons! The Bewitching Butterflies became a crucial part of my plan, I got them to deploy their large poisonous fog, although every Bewitching Butterfly could only cover a circular area of 10 meter radius, the 300 odd Bewitching Butterflies were able to cover a large area altogether, and a large portion of the front became covered with my Fog. As we were on the same team, the fog did not influence the Defenders' sight, while the enemies could only see a large patch of black smoke and nothing else.

All of them were my summoned monsters and were connected to my thoughts, thus the changes to my formations were much faster than the enemies. The 3000 odd skeletons quickly formed up 20 columns and got the Phantom Knights, who were on their Heavy Armored Dragons, to stand at the front of the Skeletons. One Heavy Armored Dragon perfectly blocked the sight of two column of skeletons, thus the 10 Phantom Knights were able to protect the front of the 20 columns.

At that moment, the average Levels of Players were about 470 to 510, where Players above Level 510 belonged to the High Rankers. I did not believe that these Level 400 to 500 Cavalries could win in a clash against my Level 850 Phantom Knights, who were mounted on Level 750 Heavy Armored Dragons, these immense monsters were definitely far more powerful than all of their level 100 to 200 warhorses!

After the Heavy Armored Dragons, the Silver Wasps quickly formed up above the Skeletons, the Cavalries could not do anything to them. The Snow Demoness was placed at the flanks of my units, they had no tangible bodies, P.ATK could not do anything to them, so placing them by the flanks was extremely effective in ensuring that the cavalries would not be able to flank my troops. I would consider the Snow Demoness to be the bane of the Cavalries.

With the protection of the fog, the enemies did not know what was going on at my side, but they had decided to stick with their original plan - the cavalry being the lead.

By the time I had finished the formation, the countdown was at a minute. The Bewitching Butterflies started to buff all of us with their buff spell - [The Hymn of Plague]. This was a low-level Spell mainly used to supplement the user with poison attacks. The Snow Demoness also started to chant incantations, which buffed all of us with [Frost Armor] and [Cold Aura]. [Frost Armor] formed a thin layer of Ice around us and could absorb a fixed amount of M.ATK and other forms of damage. [Cold Aura] was an offensive and defensive aura, it created an area of aura around us that had a dip in temperature, any enemies that entered this area would suffer from a drop in speed due to the aura, the closer they were to the buffed unit, the slower they got, the further away they were, the less nerf they received.

Aldeina also started buffing us, but she could only provide an AOE spell for the summoned creatures, which helped to raise HP and MP regeneration. Aldeina was alone, and could not use her high-level buffs onto the skeletons, thus only provided this large AOE spell. But she gave me, the Companions, and Servants additional Buffs. We received a raise in defense due to [Water Blessing], and a stronger buff that greatly increased HP and MP regeneration.

Lastly, it was Ling. Upon her appearance, she immediately gave the 4000 odd summons an additional [Darkness Realm] state. But because of this, she used up all of her MP! This Ultimate Darkness Buff spell actually increases the Darkness aura around the summons, and in the description, it stated that it was a spell that would continuously absorb the dead spirits to strengthen itself. My immediate understanding of this was that the Spell could absorb spirits to transform into EXP, which also means that the killers would receive additional EXP.

As expected of the Dark Goddess, she even had a spell to increase the amount of EXP gained! It was a pity the amount of additional EXP receive was unknown! Additionally, this buff greatly increased ATK and gave a corrosive attack modifier. It was a truly powerful spell and not a surprise that it could deplete the Goddess large pool of MP!

After Ling's buff, I quickly transformed into my Werewolf Form in preparation for the battle. Although Crystal was a Faerie Dragon, there were no buffs on her, her resistance to Spells was too strong, thus buffing Dragons would be ineffective, thus there were practically no buff spells in the Dragon Language! Since even the high-Level Faerie Dragon rarely had support spells, the current Crystal was greatly limited due to my current level, thus she could not use the majority of her spells, so I did not actually think of using her temporarily!

After everything, we were prepared for battle. The System's last countdown began.

"Attention to all Participants, 10 seconds remaining! 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1! The Siege on Hovering Flower City will now begin, and the countdown will start. If the attack does not finish within 48 Hours, the Attacking Guild will drop a level! All the Best!"

"KILL!" The cavalries roared for the sake of raising morale. The warhorses neighed, and the ten thousand cavalry troops started moving in small steps due to them starting from a halt and in formation. As they distanced themselves, their footwork started becoming faster and faster, gradually, they moved from a jog to a slow run, from a slow run to a sprint, and when they were about 300 meters ahead of us, they were already at their top speed.

The Bewitching Butterflies' fog was extended 200 meters ahead of us, in which the cavalries had already started to enter. Right when they entered the fog, the Phantom Knights began moving. The Heavy Armored Dragons' explosive power was extremely powerful, they did not require the momentum charge like the warhorses. When the Phantom Knights charged out, all the Skeletons and other summons followed along.

The Phantom Knights formed a black line, similar to a wall, and charged into the cavalries. The Heavy Armored Dragons lowered their heads and rushed in, the crown of their heads were extremely durable, and like bulldozers, they started to push the cavalries in the opposite direction. The cavalries that were quicker to react dodged the bulldozers, but were still trampled into the mud by the large hind legs. A few of the luckier Players who managed to get past the Phantom Knights were instantly killed by the Skeletons and Silver Wasps. Of course, the majority of the Players were unable to avoid the Heavy Armored Dragons' heads, all of these brave Players actually held onto their lances against the Heavy Armored Dragons, but were shocked to realize that their lances were being pushed and compressed into springs, followed by them and their warhorses being flung out.

Many people suddenly appeared at the League of Qin's Resurrection Hall in their camp. Majority of them had no idea how they had died!

Due to the fog that prevented them from being able to even see their hands, the sudden collision in the middle prevented the flanks to close in. The cavalries that were in darkness were cut down by the Phantom Knights like paper, while my summons and I got through this gap and arrived in the enemy's backline. Right when the last person of the enemy troops entered the black fog, the Phantom Knights actually rushed out of the fog with the Heavy Armored Dragons, followed by my Skeleton Army.

The Cavalries that entered the black fog were instantly poisoned, and what welcomed me was a sight of green HP dropping. The Bewitching Butterflies' poisonous fog was extremely toxic, basically, it led to a poison that dropped 7 HP per second, which could be equaled to 70 thousand HP per second for the 10 thousand odd Cavalries. If they die, my EXP bar would instantly explode! With so much EXP to consider and not waste, I brought my army to enter the black fog again.

Under my command, my summons started to move freely. The Skeleton Army started to charge up from our limited position, they were not High level enough and were using their advantage in numbers to overwhelm the enemies. The Silver wasps were the same, they chose to attack the enemies who flanked the skeletons. The Snow Demoness worked together to unleash a large AOE of Ice Hail, a specialized offensive area targeted Spell. The ground beneath the cavalry instantly froze, causing their mounts to skid on the reflective ice surface. In time, the entire division of cavalry was falling over, and the Skeletons took the opportunity to kill over a dozen Players.

Lucky and Epidemic simultaneously used the Dragon Race's most proficient AOE killing spell - Dragon Fire. Lucky flew over the enemies and spewed flames down below, all of the Players started to be torched on fire, in which Epidemic followed up with another wave. It was a pity they were too low level, the two waves of Dragon Fire were not enough to kill anyone. But this forced all the mounted Players to be dismounted, the level 100 to 200 mounts could not tank the Dragon Fire, Lucky's Dragon Fire had already wiped out most of the mounts, adding Epidemic's second wave, even the tanky Camels were killed!

Without their mounts, the Players tried their best to climb up on the slippery ice surface. Although the two Dragons did not burn any Players to death, most of them were left with a third of their HP. Right when they were screaming all around, my third dragon, Crystal, arrived. Faerie Dragons that were not proficient in direct attacks did not usually use Dragon Fire. Crystal suddenly had a Spell Vortex appearing in front of her, and with a flash…..