Chapter 354
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Chapter 354: Apprehension
Early the next morning, the heavy footsteps echoing from afar startled Zhao Pan, who was personally stationed on Shangyuan City’s wall.
“They’re here! Quick, sound the alarm!”
Hearing the alarm bells ringing, Luo Ji, currently in the military camp, wasn’t overly surprised.
He had almost certainly anticipated their arrival.
Today was the 7th day.
In other words, the invading player could obtain retreat authorization today.
A single battle would decide everything.
If they could achieve a great victory, they would continue to conquer cities and storm the enemy’s main city.
Conversely, if they couldn’t win, they would know when to quit and quickly retreat.
Under normal circumstances, players would do this, as the invading player’s initiative advantage would significantly weaken once the invasion period exceeded 7 days.
Originally, Luo Ji had no intention of letting Li Yuanjie off if he could defeat him.
This was a special civilization, a delicious feast for him, much more savory than ordinary civilizations.
However, the enemy’s act of returning Liu Zheng’s and the others’ corpses 2 days prior also showed a certain degree of honor and grace, making Luo Ji inexplicably uncertain.
“Forget it, let’s defeat them first. At worst, we’ll capture him alive! It’s rare to encounter a special civilization, and once this opportunity is gone, it’s gone for good.”
Without further hesitation, as a decisive thought flashed, Luo Ji rode Liaoyuan Huo directly to the city wall.
By the time he ascended the wall, Li Yuanjie’s beastmen army was still a great distance away.
It wasn’t because the beastman army’s advance speed was too slow, but because they revealed themselves too early.
The sheer mass of those 3 Elephant man slingers meant that the booming sound of their footsteps alone was impossible to conceal.
However, the enemy probably didn’t mind.
After all, Li Yuanjie’s beastmen army was inherently a force that excelled at frontal assaults.
With formidable giant troop types like Elephant men, there was no need to be cowardly from the start.
“Your Majesty.”
Zhao Pan, Luo Yong, Zhou Ming, and the others bowed upon seeing Luo Ji ascend.
Luo Ji waved his hand, then called Zhao Pan over and instructed.
“Drag the battle out until the 8th day.”
Zhao Pan’s pupils immediately constricted upon hearing this.
Having fought so many battles against these otherworldly invaders, they naturally knew that these outsiders could retreat on the 7th day.
Luo Ji now clearly didn’t want the enemy to withdraw unscathed.
It seemed their Majesty wanted to truly clash with this beastman army.
Understanding this implication, Zhao Pan immediately cupped his fist.
“Your humble general understands!”
After giving instructions to Zhao Pan, Luo Ji felt that for the upcoming defensive battle, he primarily just needed to serve as a human-shaped buff here.
After all, Zhao Pan, having long guarded Iron Wall City, had probably surpassed him in defensive battle experience.
As thoughts raced, Luo Ji quickly raised his binoculars and looked into the distance.
As the distance closed, the figures of the 3 enormous Elephant men gradually became clearer.
Luo Ji had imagined the appearance of Elephant men many times before, but when he actually saw these creatures, which only existed in fantasy, he couldn’t help but feel a surge of intense emotions.
The soldiers on Shangyuan City’s wall were stirred, and even Zhou Ming, as Shangyuan City’s defending general, was wide-eyed at this moment.
While shocked by the existence of these monsters, he also marveled at the wonders of this world.
It was indeed just as their Majesty had said, the world is vast and full of wonders!
Luo Ji’s earlier precautionary measure had clearly worked.
After changing the label of these beastmen from ‘monsters’ to ‘creatures,’ the fear in everyone’s hearts undoubtedly significantly decreased.
Coupled with Luo Ji personally overseeing the front line and Zhao Pan’s ‘Immovable as a Mountain’ talent stabilizing morale, for a time, Shangyuan City’s defending soldiers managed to remain composed.
The command of this defensive battle had clearly been decided long ago to be entrusted to Zhao Pan, who had some experience in countering the enemy.
Luo Ji’s main purpose today was observation.
He wanted to personally observe the strength of this beastman army.
After all, from the moment he confirmed the enemy was a special civilization, Luo Ji had conceived the idea of annexing their civilization.
However, under this premise, there was one thing he couldn’t quite figure out.
That was whether the deficiencies of the beastman civilization would affect his own civilization after annexation, most directly, by lowering his civilization’s productivity and development speed.
Since there was no precedent for this, Luo Ji simply prepared for the worst-case scenario, whether annexing the beastman civilization and gaining beastman troop types would be worth it, given the potential negative impact!
Li Yuanjie, after commanding his beastman army to advance a certain distance, rested for a while.
Then, he evidently launched a direct assault on the city.
3 Elephantman slingers led the charge.
However, unlike last time, this time, Li Yuanjie directly ordered Minotaurs, Kobolds, and Wolfman warriors to advance behind the Elephant man slingers.
Even his ‘favorite sons’ were directly deployed.
The posture clearly indicated a desire for a forceful, direct assault to capture Shangyuan City.
Facing this formation, Luo Ji glanced at Zhao Pan.
Zhao Pan remained calm, quickly directing the triple-bow crossbows on the city wall to adjust their positions.
They adopted a strategy of focusing fire to defeat them one by one, concentrating their attacks on a single Elephant man.
By the way, according to Zhao Pan, there were actually 7 triple-bow crossbows positioned on Shangyuan City’s wall!
Originally, there were only 5.
The other 2 were temporarily pushed up after he learned of Luo Ji’s intention to drag the battle out until the 8th day.
Similar to the deployment of defending troops, in a defensive battle, large military equipment like triple-bow crossbows were not necessarily better in greater numbers, because triple-bow crossbows were bulky and would occupy space on the city wall.
Also, each time a triple-bow crossbow’s heavy crossbow bolts were reloaded, it took a considerable amount of time.
During this interval, they needed to suppress the enemy’s siege army with slingers and archers.
If the number of these two troop types was insufficient and they couldn’t form enough suppressive power, then the two to three intervals during which the triple-bow crossbows reloaded heavy crossbow bolts would be enough for the enemy’s siege army to push all the way to their doorstep.
Zhao Pan was taking a calculated risk this time.
Luo Ji could probably guess what he intended to do.
Since today was not the time for a decisive battle against these monsters, it was wiser to temporarily forgo suppressing the main enemy force.
Instead, while striving to heavily damage the Elephant man slingers, they would feign weakness, preserve their strength, and quickly end today’s siege battle.
