novelraw Chapter 391: Ambush Ring
Chapter 391: Ambush Ring
Under Li Wei's mandatory command, everyone who had activated and bound a Cavalry Card was forcefully emptied of their personal cavalry experience. Fortunately, the large group was emotionally stable and had no unspoken criticisms; and even if they did, Li Wei wouldn't be able to hear them anyway.
As for the many guys who didn't have Cavalry Cards, although they were unwilling, they were also forcibly executed by Li Wei.
Fuck, do you not want to live anymore?
In any case, ultimately under Li Wei's powerful pressure, all remaining personnel, including those twenty new recruits, activated and bound a One-Star Cavalry Card. Of course, this once again required Li Wei to consume thirty-nine Black Iron Tokens, as well as 39,000 Standard Gold Coins, plus massive amounts of experience. He even brought out his own Hunter experience and Woodcutter experience.
All purely for the sake of pulling up seedlings to help them grow.
Fortunately, fortunately, the pulling up seedlings to help them grow was ultimately successful.
All newbies who bound a Cavalry Card equivalently harvested 10 Free Attribute Points simultaneously. Thus, what followed next was yet another gluttonous feast with unsightly table manners.
Everyone's mood was complex; not a single person was happy, including Zhao Xuanxuan. Her experience had been entirely plundered clean. How could there be such a thing! You idiot Li Wei! You bastard Li Wei!
You're exactly like Zhu Bajie looking in a mirror; neither a human on the inside nor the outside.
How could you come up with such a bastard idea? This was simply the worst idea possible.But this wasn't the end of it, because while Li Wei ordered those soldiers who had newly bound Cavalry Cards to practice riding horses around the vicinity to familiarize and master their new strength, he began taking out wooden logs and began whittling them.
He himself was in no rush to leave anymore. The original plan was to rest for two hours, but now they would instead rest until tomorrow morning. Fine, fine!
You're the boss, I support you unconditionally.
Yeah, Li Wei was whittling wooden shields.
Although those lightly armored soldiers had all bound Cavalry Cards and obtained a 30% control bonus, 30% riding speed bonus, and 30% mounted melee damage bonus, they were ultimately still only wearing some Two-Star or even One-Star armor. Although their weapons were not bad, their Defense was truly very poor.
The key point was because these guys' skills weren't exquisite enough previously, they hadn't been equipped with shields. Only those forty-two heavy armored cavalrymen possessed fine steel cavalry shields.
Therefore, Li Wei directly took Four-Star wooden logs and whittled out cavalry shields one by one. The defensive effect definitely wouldn't be as good as fine steel cavalry shields, but using them to guard against the concentrated volleys of dense feather arrows would also be extremely helpful.
Whittling out forty heavy wooden shields in a single breath, Li Wei immediately had Zhao Xuanxuan distribute them down, urging those guys to seize the time to practice and adapt.
And then what? He wasn't done yet. Li Wei began whittling wooden horse armor again.
This sight made even Zhao Xuanxuan burst out laughing.
It was too funny.
The others simply rolled their eyes and didn't take it seriously.
Only Li Wei was extremely serious.
Moreover, his whittling technique was exquisitely masterful. He only needed to chisel out a few holes and bind them with leather straps to provide some vital protection for the warhorses.
Perhaps the warhorses would feel a bit uncomfortable—it would be weird if they were comfortable. But it's always better than losing their lives, right?
Anyway, Li Wei kept busy the entire night. After finishing whittling the wooden horse armor, he began whittling wooden half-body armor for those lightly armored cavalrymen.
But this time around, the large group was already too powerless to grumble. Whatever floats his boat.
We have already grown numb to it.
In brief, Li Wei kept whittling straight until noon the next day. After whittling out a set of wooden half-body armor for all the lightly armored cavalrymen, he finally let out a long breath.
This time, there was finally a tiny bit of a reassuring feeling.
"Li Wei, do you want to rest?"
"No resting, we set off immediately. We need to continue advancing forward." Li Wei shook his head, time waits for no man. This was already his fifth day venturing north, and he had no idea how things were going at Riverside Fortress, or whether the flood peak had passed through?
If he returned without achieving any merits on this risky expedition north, that would truly be a massive blunder.
Because among the numerous conditions for upgrading a Level 4 Territory to a Level 5 Territory, overall, it wasn't considered too difficult.
Currently, the Southern Fortress had already been built, and the main body construction of the Black Mountain Fortress had also been poured and completed. There wouldn't be any overly massive engineering projects left moving forward, so he could pull out manpower to construct the Level 4 City Wall. And this matter might require the use of at least two spellcasters, and no less than one thousand able-bodied laborers.
Now it was almost August, and there were only three months left before the arrival of the severe winter. No matter what, it couldn't be built in time.
However, preparations could be made in advance—digging the foundations, hoarding materials, and so on. When the snow melts next spring, they would commence construction once again. Theoretically, by June or July of next year, this Level 4 City Wall could absolutely be handled and settled.
Next was the One-Star Mage Tower, the two Temple Priests, and even the construction of the internal administration system and civilian residences. These were all things that only required a certain amount of time to be resolved. There was a foundation, and there were methods for all of them.
But solely in the aspect of population, it seemingly appeared simple, but actually possessed the possibility of turning into a bomb, blowing him to death before achieving victory, falling flat right on the 99% progress bar.
Yes, don't look at how he was only lacking less than eight hundred in population right now. He must understand that with Zhao Kewu to the east and Ron + Socrates to the west, they had actually already scoured this four to five thousand kilometer region completely clean.
He didn't know what the situation was toward the south?
But that was the Frost Duke's main base camp.
He didn't know what the situation was toward the north, but the Frost Duke was currently frantically plundering population in this direction. This was a fucking terrible thing.
Therefore, this competition over population was highly likely to kick off amidst this sudden turn of events.
Thus, even knowing clearly that there was highly likely an ambush ring ahead, that enemies were ahead, while those in the rear were conducting large-scale maneuvers and currently flanking his retreat route, he still had to grit his teeth and tightly charge over, destroying the enemy!
This required absolute bloody, absolutely cruel battles one after another.
This would very likely form into a region-level strategic decisive battle by sheer fluke and accident!
A few days ago, Li Wei didn't even have this kind of cognitive realization!
Truly, he hadn't even thought of it a few days ago.
So this was the reason why he had to stubbornly insist on pulling up seedlings to help them grow, and stubbornly insist on whittling wooden shields and wooden armor like a clown.
Preparing a bit more right now meant having a few more trump cards during crucial moments.
Rumble rumble!
The sound of horse hooves transmitted very far on the open plains. Li Wei was at the very front. The bright afternoon sunlight shone down, refracting streaks of bright halos upon his set of Five-Star heavy armor, making his imposing figure appear even broader and sturdier, resembling a mountain peak.
Zhao Xuanxuan trailed fifty meters behind, and then ten meters behind her were Benjamin, Javier, Santiago, Seth, Grant, Xavier, Paul, Jocelyn, and Zhao Bowen—these nine Riverside Knights. They were the most significant core of this cavalry unit.
Following closely behind at ten-meter intervals were the heavy armored cavalrymen marching five to a row, and trailing at the very end were the guys jokingly referred to as wooden cavalrymen.
Of course, joking was just joking. Once the rest was over, everyone would enter a state of being ready for combat at any time.
This was what elites should look like.
Furthermore, everybody actually had some understanding in their hearts right now. For their Lord to go to the lengths of pulling up seedlings to help them grow, it was likely that there would truly be consecutive fierce battles to be fought moving forward.
This was the battlefield, the winner takes all.
It was very quiet ahead, and very quiet behind as well. Li Wei led the team marching for an entire afternoon, galloping out for seventy-five kilometers. The terrain ahead once again turned mountainous. However, it wasn't steep, rugged mountains, but massive undulating hills. Even the temperature slightly declined. It seemed they had entered another country.
Because up to this point, Li Wei and the group had pushed north for roughly seven hundred and fifty kilometers, and moved west roughly three hundred kilometers.
Yes, even the architectural styles of the small towns and villages along the roadside were completely different.
When the afterglow of the sunset directly shot over from the west, Li Wei was just about to order a rest when his heart suddenly stirred. He saw two white flying birds circling and dancing in the sky under the illumination of the sunset.
They're here!
Has the enemy's ambush ring finally been deployed and settled?
Li Wei missed his Adai, and continued galloping forward without a change in expression.
He knew it, he had jumped into an ambush ring without a mistake.
But his biggest trump card had also taken form. The buffs brought by everyone possessing a Cavalry Card truly held far too great an advantage.
This meant that even Three-Star warhorses could be continuously ridden for two hundred and fifty kilometers under the buff of a One-Star Cavalry Card.
Oh, except for his warhorse. His Rare Scout Card could only grant him Mounted Archery Mastery and proficiency in bow and horse, but it couldn't provide extra buffs.
However, the issue lay in the fact that he had two Four-Star warhorses, allowing him to swap at any time. Moreover, it only took ten minutes for an exhausted warhorse to recover to its original state.
So he wanted to try out and see, just what could the ambush ring contrived by those Neanderthals do to him?
The terrain ahead gradually widened, but the sun was also blocked by the massive hills to the west. Some cold water vapor rushed against their faces, feeling very refreshing.
It felt just like the depths of the northern grasslands back on Earth.
Yes, at least the latitude was similar.
At the end of his line of sight ahead, a massive city began to appear. Hmm, quite a massive city. Pitch black, at least matching the scale of an Earthly Tier-3 city, probably.
Furthermore, it was obvious that people were residing in this city, because there were quite a few traces in its vicinity.
"Wooooo-wooooo-wooooo!"
An eerie and desolate ox horn bugle blast rang out from within that city; it could be heard even from ten or fifteen kilometers away.
Li Wei stopped, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, seemingly differentiating the subtle intelligence carried within the air.
Not bad, not bad.
Behind that massive hill several kilometers to the west, an ambushing force should be hiding.
And roughly fifteen kilometers out to the east, there should be a large lake that would block his path forward.
Then they would only need to arrange a few hundred ambushing troops at his rear, and wouldn't this perfectly form a highly inescapable net?
"Rest for a bit, eat some food, and drink some water."
Li Wei hollered loudly, flying off his horse, and even performed a set of stretching exercises.
The others also followed suit and imitated him. Nervousness was nervousness, relaxation was relaxation. A fierce battle was unavoidable, so naturally, they had to strive to recover their status.
However, the enemy didn't seem willing to grant them this bit of opportunity to relax. A massive fireball boomed as it flew out from the giant city ahead, smashing toward them at a speed no less than Mach 2.
Yet Li Wei didn't even spare it a direct glance, continuing to perform his chest expansion and stretching exercises right there.
"Boom!"
A fireball the size of a water vat crashed into the ground with a boom. Ferocious flames roared, sweeping across a hundred-meter radius. But it perfectly reached its limit right beside Li Wei's position, completely fucking useless.
Hmm, there's actually a Magic Well inside this city. Furthermore, there's also a true, stable spellcaster.
Interesting.
Those Neanderthals couldn't have placed the bridgehead needed for their Cross-Border Mission... right here?
Li Wei smiled soundlessly. He bet right.
(End of this chapter)