Lord of the Myriad Worlds

Chapter 300: Breaching the Fortress

But Li Wei quickly discovered what it meant to be dominated by crossfire.

Over a thousand mutant creatures — thirty or forty of them Level 4 — crashed against the fortress walls and collected nothing but corpses.

Inside Scar Glenn's fortified keep, a handful of players and dozens of freeman archers were sheltered behind the solid star-fort walls, chatting casually while shooting down the mutant creatures below.

Quite leisurely.

Killing off this thousand-plus horde was only a matter of time.

And time was exactly what Li Wei had the least of.

'Even with a fortress this solid, Scar Glenn and Chu Wushuang are still this cautious. Good thing he never got the chance to fully develop — if he had taken down the Flame Duke himself, I'd have been squeezed out long ago.'

He watched from a distance, carefully. The wave of mutant creatures he had drawn in numbered well over a thousand — mindlessly charging, drawn by the scent of human blood and by the frenzy of their companions.

The arrows pouring out from every direction didn't concern them at all.

In a short time, one or two hundred of the thousand-plus mutant creatures had already been killed. The fortress's firepower was formidable.The star-fort design was genuinely impressive.

But it also meant that the area around the fortress was filling with rising radiation black-mist. Level 4 mutant creature corpses didn't dissolve quickly — they could be eaten by their companions.

Also — mutant creatures not killed by Li Wei's faction wouldn't drop Universal Gold Cards.

Otherwise, he would have already been exposed.

He used the opportunity to close silently to within 500 meters, reaching cover behind a section of outer wall.

At this point, the players inside the fortress hadn't noticed anything unusual. And even if they had, there was nothing they could do about it.

Li Wei first had Adai circle the fortress in the chaos, peering through the narrow firing slits to observe the interior layout.

Once he had a clear picture of the angles, positions, and personnel deployment inside, he ate a Two-Star Blood Resistance Potion, then switched to the Tracker title to push his Perception to the maximum of +5 for a brief window — confirming the combat capabilities of those inside.

Three seconds later, he switched back to the Flame Baron title, drew the Four-Star Enchanted War Bow, and selected five Three-Star Sniper Armor-Piercing Arrows.

He needed to fire all five in under three seconds — and would also use Adai to create a micro-adjustable, guided Ice Arrow.

All of this for a single target: the backbone of the fortress — the commander, a Four-Star player. Combat capability unknown. Equipment unknown. But as long as this person lived, the fortress would not fall into chaos.

He took a long, slow breath, closed his eyes — and his vision shifted to Adai, using its bird's-eye view from hundreds of meters above to establish targeting.

Simultaneously, wind speed, wind direction, the concentration of radiation fog from recently killed mutant creatures — streams of data flowed through his mind. The entire battlefield dynamic was within his grasp.

Now.

In an instant — Full-Grid Resonance. The Farmer phantom, Hunter phantom, Woodcutter phantom, Scout phantom — four streams of light poured into the Enchanted War Bow. Almost simultaneously, the bow's Destiny Resonance attribute activated. Countless streams of light converged, then compressed to a single point with explosive speed.

In that moment, it seemed as if the surrounding space itself had been drawn inward—

And only when the Sniper Armor-Piercing Arrow left the string did a strange, sharp crack finally arrive. A sonic boom.

In an instant, the Three-Star Sniper Armor-Piercing Arrow crossed 400 to 500 meters — and in that same moment, Adai merged with it.

The arrow had barely any arc. Its power loss was only 10 to 20 percent. But it was a killing shot carrying 700% additional damage.

Adai barely needed to adjust at all. The arrow struck the man's temple dead-on.

But in that instant, a magical shield materialized around him. Mysterious runes flickered and surged — and the arrow was stopped.

The cost: a strange crest on his chest ignited and burned away in moments.

"Enemy attack—"

He shouted and instinctively dove for cover — but at that exact moment, an Ice Armor spell erupted, encasing him completely. Adai had followed up with an ice spell before Li Wei recalled it into the Pet Card. Otherwise, getting out through those narrow firing slits would have been nearly impossible.

The man was clearly formidable, though. A radiance similar to Thomas's code-name ability flickered around him, and the next second he broke free — but Li Wei's second Three-Star Sniper Armor-Piercing Arrow was already there, striking him in the chest.

Strangely, the same radiance flickered again, deflecting the arrow entirely.

Impressive.

Fortunately, Li Wei had prepared for exactly this.

Because there was a third arrow — which blasted through the now-dimmed radiance and struck his throat, tearing open nearly half his neck.

But it wasn't over. Fourth arrow. Fifth arrow.

One to the torso. One to the skull.

Li Wei's intent was clear: kill him. Kill him. Kill him again.

Within three seconds, the man's body swayed back and forth in slow motion — the impact of armor-piercing arrows carrying tremendous force.

When he finally fell, collapsing behind cover out of sight, Li Wei received the kill notification.

[You have successfully killed Four-Star player — Fortress Defender Howard!]

What.

Li Wei was genuinely surprised. That was clearly a code name — this man had been a Defense specialist. Ignoring the first two arrows, he must have had at least 300 Life and 40 base Defense.

But there was no time to dwell on it. Li Wei grabbed the Enchanted War Bow and sprinted to another concrete wall.

Not just to reposition — the firing slits in the fortress were extremely narrow, and at over 500 meters, the difficulty of hitting through them was considerable.

Li Wei wasn't in a rush. He recovered Stamina while chewing a bit of food — not much, but it helped.

He released Adai again. One key difference between a Three-Star and Five-Star Hunting Pet was the dramatically reduced cooldown on summoning. And the Five-Star Pet Card was genuinely impressive — Adai had been inside for only one second and was already at full condition, consuming just 1 point of enchantment durability in the process.

Whether Adai was in high spirits from its new home or simply feeling invincible, it was cawing excitedly, weaving low through the mutant creatures at high speed, agile as a swift. Clearly taunting. Showing off. Trying to draw the attention of the people inside the fortress — and every time a crossbow bolt came screaming at it, it dodged with a flourish that could only be described as operatic.

"You absolute maniac. But I have to say, Adai — you've got guts."

Li Wei applauded silently and kept moving forward. Meanwhile, the death of Fortress Defender Howard had indeed thrown the fortress into significant chaos. The freeman crossbowmen might not understand what it meant — but the remaining four players knew exactly what it meant. They were shouting at each other, and without an authority figure to unify them, precious seconds were lost to bickering.

The mutant creatures below the fortress, which had been whittled down to around 700 or 800 by the defenders' relentless fire, finally had their chance to eat the fallen. All they needed was those precious few seconds.

Of course, some of the freeman crossbowmen were still dutifully doing their jobs — methodically targeting the mutant creatures that were consuming the fallen. Disciplined and trained.

Then I'm sorry.

The mutant creatures can't do anything to you. I can.

Li Wei's arrows flew like shooting stars — over a dozen in rapid succession, effortlessly headshoting fourteen veteran freeman crossbowmen.

That sent the fortress into a genuine uproar. Freeman lives mattered too — and mutant creatures didn't shoot arrows. What was happening?

No one had an answer. No one was suppressing the mutant creatures outside anymore. Their moment had arrived.

In a short time, over fifty Level 3 mutant creatures had advanced to Level 4 — and several had advanced into stone-giant-type creatures.

The original Level 4 mutant creatures had been heavily targeted in the first wave. Intimidated by the fortress's heavy crossbows, unable to break through the walls, they had suffered significant losses. Only three remained.

But those three were now in their element. Why eat processed material when you could eat the raw stuff?

Of course, a key reason for all of this was that Li Wei had scattered the last of the natural human blood directly onto the mutant creatures, triggering a frenzy of mutual killing and devouring among them.

In just over ten seconds, three Level 5 mutant creatures had emerged.

The remaining players inside the fortress finally seemed to reach a decision — but wait. Something was wrong. This wasn't right.

Li Wei had a vague feeling these players weren't this incompetent. So what were they actually doing?

"Adai — I need your speed. Full coverage!"

Li Wei issued the command and immediately began sprinting forward himself, closing distance to minimize the blind spot as much as possible. Then he drew the bow at full force and loosed — while Adai merged with the arrow as a stream of light.

But the arrow flew wide. Several degrees off. It might as well have been aimed at the moon.

Li Wei's gamble, however, was that Adai could make nine micro-adjustments.

So the moment the arrow left the string, Adai was already correcting — once, twice — subtle, almost imperceptible, yet miraculous. The arrow's trajectory was bent into a gentler arc. Nothing as dramatic as a bullet curving mid-flight, but enough.

By the final adjustment, the arrow had lost nearly all its kinetic energy.

But the arrow's power had never been the point. What Li Wei needed was to deliver Adai — the ice assassin — to the target.

You have sharpshooters who can track and lead Adai's flight path. But you can't intercept a sniper arrow traveling at 1.5 times the speed of sound.

Over 500 meters. Enough for Adai to die three times over under normal circumstances.

But now, through Adai's Vision Sharing, Li Wei could clearly see: in a blind spot, two freemen in protective suits were opening a sealed lead-alloy crate, preparing to throw its contents — explosives — out through a firing slit.

I'm sorry.

Li Wei's arrow had lost all momentum and struck the fortress wall with no threat whatsoever. All that talk about trick shooting was nonsense.

But Adai played for real.

With a soft hiss, it glided past — leaving not a trace — and froze both freemen solid with Ice Armor.

Boom.

The earth shook. Smoke billowed.

The fortress itself was probably undamaged — it was built to withstand this. The stone-giant creatures weren't killed either. If anything, the explosion seemed to excite them further.

Adai was recalled immediately into the Five-Star Pet Card. Worth every coin spent on that upgrade.

Two freemen dead. And possibly no more explosives.

Li Wei was still thinking this through when a much larger detonation rang out. What — a delayed fuse?

He circled around to look. A massive hole had been blown in the third level of the fortress. Smoke and dust obscured everything — but already, one agility-specialized Level 5 mutant creature had charged through. Then a second. A third.

More would follow.

But that was no longer Li Wei's concern. He turned and walked away. Once two Pioneering Cards came within 25 kilometers of each other, the invader's position would be revealed.

Not worth it.

Besides — this was a battlefield triage strategy.

He knew this handful of mutant creatures couldn't wipe out everyone in the fortress. The point was to force the other side to make choices.

As for the spectacle that would unfold here next — that was Adai's job. The official cameraman.