Chapter 136: Chapter 133: Encirclement Hunt
The outer city has fallen, and the ratman army can no longer hold back their pillaging, which gives the dwarven troops time to regroup and catch their breath.
The dwarves must make full use of this precious time, with officers of all ranks busy taking roll calls, merging scattered units, and arranging rest periods.
Meanwhile, the Savior Squad takes advantage of the time to rest and recover their strength and magical power.
In the midst of this busy period, a dwarven engineer finds Jima, and they meet on the city wall. Jima holds a branch axe spear, standing atop the wall, which is more or less considered on duty.
The dwarven engineer is not slacking either; he picks up a matchlock gun and aims at a distant ratman who is dragging loot from the gate, pulling the trigger and shooting the ratman dead.
“Demon, I’ve improved two of the crude ratman weapons.”
The smoke wafts past the engineer’s swollen, red eyes, and he looks much older.
“Very good.”
“Demon, does the gunpowder weapon you mentioned really exist?” the engineer asks while pouring gunpowder into the barrel. “What’s it called, a Maxim machine gun?”
The engineer is under a lot of pressure; he is busy improving weapons for Jima, leaving other defensive work aside. The other dwarves think he is cowardly and avoiding responsibility.
So Jima, recalling memories from a past life, creates a poster of what a Maxim machine gun might look like in a dream and hangs it in front of the workshop to encourage him.
“Of course, do you think with my understanding of engineering, I could imagine such a sophisticated killing machine?”
“I’m confident I can create a gunpowder version of the ratling.” The engineer’s cheek is pressed against the gun as he aims. “As long as Duolong City can survive this crisis.”
A talent, indeed; among the conservative and stubborn dwarves, such individuals are rare. By saying this, is he hoping I will take him away with me?
Jima feels a desire to cultivate talent and thinks about how to take this innovative dwarven engineer with her.
“Bang!”
The matchlock gun fires, flames shooting from the muzzle, and a distant ratman attempting to steal his companion’s belongings falls to the ground.
The gunfire resembles the anger in his heart, and Jima’s mind changes.
No, he doesn’t intend to escape; he wants to kill all the ratmen.
Jima asks, “I see ratmen; I really want to use a dimensional stone bomb to blow up the entrance. Are they trying to blast through the tunnel?”
A rumbling sound comes from the distance.
“It’s possible,” the engineer replies. “Since a dimensional stone bomb can collapse a tunnel, with the right amount, it can also blast through.”
“Wouldn’t that be faster than using a pickaxe?”
“I’ve researched using gunpowder to excavate caves and mine,” the engineer says. “That would be quicker than an enchanted pickaxe.”
“So you’re saying the ratmen can dig through the tunnel faster than you can?”
The engineer falls silent for a moment, his hand loading the matchlock gun stops, and reluctantly says, “It’s possible.”
Jima reassures him, “Once you dwarves accept gunpowder, you’ll do better than the ratmen.”
The engineer nods vigorously, and as Jima turns to leave, a gunshot sounds behind her, echoing like thunder.
After a precious four hours of rest.
Jima lies on a red soft bed, eyes closed, indifferent to the noise outside.
Heavy footsteps approach, but Jima doesn’t move her eyelids, as the sound is quite familiar.
A gauntleted hand pushes Jima’s shoulder hard, and only then does she open her eyes.
George’s face comes into view.
“Jima, we’re preparing to break out,” George says. “The clan chief has agreed to draw the ratmen’s attention for our escape.”
Her fatigued nerves have to tighten up again. Jima sits up and says, “Are the ratmen falling into chaos that quickly?”
“They can barely maintain discipline.”
“I need to verify this.” Jima glances at George’s blade, and sure enough, it bears blood — he hasn’t rested properly.
Truly hard to change one’s nature.
Jima snorts lightly, stands up, bending over as she walks out, above her floats a cloud of desire that seems to cover half of Duolong City, as if it could crush the city itself, manifesting in heavy blue.
Blue signifies greed.
The cloud expands and contracts continuously, indicating the ratmen have sensed something amiss and are trying to counter it. Yet the surging greed continually swells the blue cloud, engaged in a tug-of-war with the ratmen.
Jima watches the cloud of desire for a moment and says:
“Truly, the ratmen are greedier than humans. It seems they are trying to suppress the cloud of desire with all their might, yet its scale remains considerable.”
“I thought humans were the greediest beings.”
“That’s because you’re human,” Jima says. “When it comes to greed and cunning, humans are far from qualified.”
“What’s your assessment?”
“We’ll see,” Jima replies. “It could be a scheme of the ratmen.”
Jima unfurls her wings and flies upward to scout.
Duolong City is enormous and difficult to conquer; having given up the outer walls, only two-fifths of the city area has fallen. Inside, there are several more walls and fortifications.
But the two-fifths that have fallen are enough to plunge the ratmen army into chaos. In the streets, ratmen scramble for loot, sweeping up everything of value.
Steel thresholds, signs, beer mugs, even a dwarven corpse. Rat ogres pull large carts, moving around, forcibly collecting loot and tossing it into their carts.
Ratman officers maintain a bare minimum of order with whips while simultaneously seeking to seize loot.
Seeing this makes Jima want to order the defending troops to charge out, if not to drive the ratmen back in one wave, creating chaos is still worthwhile.
She looks to the second wall and sees that stone blocks have blocked the gate, a typical dwarven defensive style; once they prepare to defend, they will try to turn the walls into a locked iron door.
Very sturdy, but they have given up all opportunities to take the initiative; this is akin to a turtle in a shell. This dispels Jima’s thoughts.
“The turtle folks deserve to be where they are now.”
Jima lightly descends and says to George, “It’s indeed a good time to break out.”
Eve Frostleaf and Jenna are coming this way as well.
George says, “We will act according to the plan.”
“Okay… wait a moment.”
Jima’s tail wraps around the glass ball that can predict the future, bringing it before her eyes, hoping it would reveal the mists of the future.
Even if just for a moment.
Images sweep across the smooth surface of the glass ball; after seeing clearly, Jima’s pupils slightly dilate.
George asks, “What do you see?”
The glass ball returns to calm.
Jima lifts her head and says, “I saw something I don’t want to talk about.”
Jenna asks, “What is it?”
Jima shakes her head. “I don’t want to say.”
She is concerned that speaking the prophecy might lead to its fulfillment. Although prophecies are almost impossible to break, Jima still wants to give it a try.
George says, “Alright, let’s trust Jima’s judgment regarding the battle. Let’s set off.”
“Okay.”
As Jima walks, she opens her personal system, reviewing the memo for the plan.
It’s quite simple; everyone will choose a predetermined departure point under the cover of the walls and then rush out at the fastest speed. Jima will try to stay hidden and not join the fight until later.
On the way, George keeps asking Jima about the distribution of the ratmen, finally settling on the pre-planned Route C, aiming to avoid the ratmen’s stronger units.
Thus, twenty minutes later.
They arrive at the departure point. Jima turns invisible and looks down at the chaotic dwarven city below.
She feels pessimistic, sensing the team is rushing into a trap; it wouldn’t be appropriate to call it a trap, but the enemy’s advantage is too great, so much so that any initiation of an attack would feel like stepping into a trap.
However, as Jima’s fingers touch the uneven surface of the “Blood-Stained Songstress” at her waist, her heart brightens. Although failure is possible, at least she can sing beautifully, “singing” away her anxieties and discomfort.
Below, George holds Jenna, takes a few steps to gain momentum, and leaps off the wall, dropping six meters onto a roof. Truly, dwarven craftsmanship; when George lands on the roof, only a ring of cracks appears around him.
Eve Frostleaf’s light silver shadow follows closely behind.
Jima flaps her wings, following suit, while simultaneously keeping an eye on the movements of the ratman army below.
Not a single ratman notices them.
Thus, George, holding Jenna, jumps from one roof to another, easily covering a distance of over ten meters, crossing over the street and above the ratmen busy with looting below.
It isn’t until they approach the fallen outer wall that dozens of ratmen jump down from the wall, proactively closing in on George and throwing darts at him.
George has no choice but to set Jenna down and slash his way through with his sword.
However, those cloaked ratmen do not approach George; they keep throwing projectiles to distract him.
Eve Frostleaf jumps and shoots as she moves; each silver arrow precisely hits a ratman, but for every ratman that falls, three to four others crawl out from the gutters, scampering across rooftops and throwing projectiles to disrupt.
Ordinary projectiles won’t stop them.
Leveraging their speed advantage, George leaps toward the weak point of the fallen wall, engaging the ratmen stationed there. The only contribution those ratmen make is wasting George’s time, no longer than the time it takes him to swing a sword.
But just as George is about to leap down from the wall, Jima appears, her light stick shooting out a red orb that lands about three hundred meters to George’s right.
This signals that the situation has changed, and they need to change their route.
George immediately heads toward the location of the red orb.
Jima looks out toward the city, spotting many small infantry formations, intermixed with fast-moving ratmen elites and groups of rat ogres, with even more further back.
They maintain their distance from each other, not interfering, and are advancing toward George’s breach point as a group.
Such orderly behavior indicates one thing. The ratman army is not as chaotic as imagined; they allow most fodder to loot as bait to lure the Savior Squad out for an attack.
Meanwhile, their elite troops are poised for action, waiting for prey in the most optimal hunting grounds.
But can this encirclement net trap a lion?
George and Jenna are already in position, jumping down from the fallen wall without hesitation, crossing over the lava moat.
The coordination and speed of the main army cannot compare to that of the squad.
Their previous gathering has instead exposed a huge gap, and George and Jenna are making their way through this opening.
Signal flares shoot up into the sky, marking George’s location.
Jima observes as a long line of pursuers follows behind the three on the ground, almost like a train.
Jima continuously adjusts the direction of the bizarre “train” using her light stick, allowing the three below to evade the enemy’s sharp edge and instead attack the weak points of the ratmen.
It becomes increasingly difficult; the speed of the three on the ground gradually slows down, nearing almost a kilometer from the fallen wall.
A foreboding sense of dread blankets Jima’s heart. The next second, Jima realizes it’s the glass ball’s precognitive danger effect. She instinctively lowers herself and scans the area.
Suddenly, a thick, conical lightning bolt rushes in, crashing through the spot where Jima was moments ago. Following the direction of the attack, Jima sees a peculiar device resembling a Tesla apparatus in the distance.
At this moment, the doomsday clock strikes; the sound of the bell spreads, as if a dead hand grips Jima’s heart. She briefly feels paralyzed, dread washing over her as she casts her gaze downward.
From the shadows, a swarm of ratmen ambushes her, the number exceeding a hundred, and George crashes almost headlong into the crowd.
Almost simultaneously, several black hills rise from the ground in the distance.
