Chapter 176 - Contribution Points Equally Divided? (I)
The Saint Spiritual Stove’s might became undoubtedly visible at that time. Together with the Beta Flying Demon, this dark black blade of light was pulled by the Saint Spiritual Stove, forcefully turning around, aiming straight at Long Haochen. At this moment, the distance separating it from Zhang Hairong was less than five meters already.
Using his Holy Spirit Shield, he blocked it with a loud bang. As a result, Long Haochen’s body was forcibly sent flying.
Having put himself in such a situation so suddenly, he was unable to use Divine Obstruction. Fortunately, it was only an ordinary Beta Flying Demon, so Long Haochen didn’t sustain any major injury while falling on the ground.
Having suffered the Saint Spiritual Stove’s influence, the Beta Flying Demon dove down in a flash, a dozen of sparkling greenish black blades of wind bombarding Long Haochen.
The Beta Flying Demon’s greatest strong point lied in its attack speed, the wind attribute providing it with the ability of flight in addition to incomparably rapid attacks and speed. Moreover, what it used could be considered an innate skill, both strong and incredibly rapid, and furthermore, all its attacks were dual-elemental. They would frequently mount sneak attacks from the air.
A fiery red radiance glowed on Long Haochen’s body, symbol of Lin Xin’s elementary shield. His defensive magic did not only have great defensive power, but furthermore, because he was relying on his fire cloud crystal, his casting speed was also extremely fast.
With an ear-piercing sound continuously sounding in the air, the Beta Flying Demon’s wind blade was blocked by the fire elemental shield.
This Beta Flying Demon was however not stupid, possessing such innate capabilities meant that its intelligence was in no way low. Seeing that the situation didn’t look good, the Beta Flying Demon unfolded its wings, planning on rising to the sky to escape.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t able to.
When it dove down fast towards Long Haochen to unleash its attack, it had already entered within a distance of 25 meters from Long Haochen. And thus, the ability Pull of the Saint Spiritual Stove was launched.
Having similarly reached the fifth step, Long Haochen’s Saint Spiritual Stove was unable to pull the Beta Flying Demon completely, but the delay it produced was enough.
A glinting radiance covered the approaching enormous shield, while a hammer burst down from the other side.
The Beta Flying Demon’s body burst forth with a dark green halo of light,
However, Wang Yuanyuan and Sima Xian used in the next instant their full strength to attack.
With a loud rumble, the Beta Flying Demon let out a mournful shriek, his left wing already half snapped.
The Sacred Light Hammer originally brought great harm to demons, and this time, it directly cancelled out the Beta Flying Demon’s defense. Further adding the strike of Wang Yuanyuan’s Gigantic Divine Soul Shield, how could their attack be blocked lightly? It was already fortunate that because of its particularly tough body, this Beta Flying Demon only had half a wing snapped. But this fact implied that it was already unable to maintain its balance anymore. Its body immediately felt down on the ground.
A dim golden radiance arouse suddenly. Zhang Hairong, who just came back to his senses, simply saw the delicate girl behind Long Haochen tapping her cane on the ground, and a split second later, she was already 20 meters high in the air. Immediately following, seven or eight phantomatic dark golden afterimages flickered in the air before falling above the Beta Flying Demon.
Not letting this Beta Flying Demon fall down, Lin Xin waved his fire cloud crystal, and a ring of brilliant flames immediately enveloped the corpse of this Beta Demon. As he hauled it back, it disappeared in the next instant, entering his storing ring.
Making this large backward motion, he attracted the simultaneous gaze of these elite soldier clad in full-body armor that had just arrived. Looking at this Beta Flying Demon falling down like that, they were in great shock.
_Are they really from an ordinary battalion? Since when could a battalion contain mages and assassins?_
Long Haochen’s group followed Zhang Hairong together with the 1st Soldier Battalion in their retreat. At that time, the looks these soldiers gave them had already changed completely, clearly carrying some reverence.
For the precise reason that they had Long Haochen’s group by their side, the 1st battalion’s casualties were this time exceedingly low: the dead were below a dozen, and the injured below fifty. This was something they had never accomplished in any another battle in the past. In fact, they were actually the ones that were generally perishing the fastest in the battlefield.
“Thank you brother!” Zhang Hairong patted Long Haochen’s shoulder, revealing a straightforward smile.
Long Haochen said, “We are your soldiers, to protect you is our duty.”
Zhang Hairong gave him a glance before doing a thumbs up, leading once again the whole battalion to retreat back to the city. At the same time they were retreating, a golden lump could be seen in the air. At least a hundred knights were flying on their mounts, ready to join the battlefield. The target they were aiming at was precisely the Maxilias Clan’s Beta Flying Demon that Long Haochen’s group had just slained.
But Long Haochen’s group didn’t notice that at the time they were withdrawing, a pair of beautiful eyes containing a complex expression were looking at their direction, until the time they finally disappeared from her path of view.
In the city gate tower, Sheng Lingxin was fully clad in martial armor and had an awe-inspiring look. The whole Exorcist Mountain Range now looked just like a sort of machine, operating at very fast pace, acting against the main demon forces’ series of uninterrupted deployments.
A total of no less than a thousand mages, divided into ten groups a hundred, was now taking turns in releasing spells, under Lan Yanyu’s directions. As soon as it was done, they immediately stepped back to store magic power. And twenty specialized Guardian Knight were standing there, using the same Spiritual Gathering Halo as Long Haochen to assist them.
Assaulted by these mages and magic cannons’ heavy bombardment, the losses on the side of demons were simply disastrous.
As for the elite soldiers who arrived to the Exorcist Mountain Pass, there was a total of 3000 soldiers ready to provide them with backup at anytime. They were clad in simple leather armor, and each of them carried a pair of dagger, heading towards the rear of their group. In case a formidable demon gained the advantage, they would immediately launch an attack to assist the elite warriors.
This was the real power of the Assassin Temple. They actually managed to transfer such massive amount of middle and high ranked Assassin. These assassin were all at least at the fourth step, and formed the cornerstone of Exorcist City.
COMMENTReturning from the battlefield, Zhang Hairong quickly led the soldiers back to their living quarters, while the injured were sent to the infirmary and the dead were registered to the specialists in charge before being incinerated.
“Go back and grab some rest. Heaven knows when these demon spawns will come back to attack. We may have to head to the battlefield once again soon later. Disband.”
The soldiers dispersed neatly and tidily, returning respectively to their own living quarters. The overwhelming majority of these soldiers could not help but take a last look at the little team of seven beside Zhang Hairong, many of them doing thumbs up. They were particularly grateful towards Han Yu and Lin Xin who helped greatly in protecting these soldiers.
Long Haochen straightened his back; at that time, it seemed as if a flame was being ignited in his heart. _That’s right! Only through real war experience can one truly experience the cruelty of war and understand the feelings of these fellow soldiers._ The soldiers didn’t use words to express their gratefulness, but their gesture and expressions already expressed a lot. Long Haochen knew that in this battle, their 1st soldier grade Demon Hunt Squad got the acknowledgement of the soldiers of the 1st Battalion.
Zhang Hairong turned around, looking at Long Haochen’s group, and laughed out loudly, “You were very brave. Hurry up to return, take a shower and get some rest. The battlefield’s businesses are hard to predict; it’s hard to say how long you’ll get to rest before going up there again. The fiercest battle I can think of had lasted seven days and seven nights, reducing our troops by a ten thousand, but in the end, we repelled the main forces of the demon armies. And this time, the losses on the demon side were also disastrous, to the extent that they hadn’t come to attack us for a whole three months. Reportedly, a total of twenty powerhouses of the eighth step from both sides died that time. ”
COMMENT“Yes, battalion commander!” The military salute Long Haochen performed to him was quite more standard than before.
Zhang Hairong let out a light sigh, “It would be so great if you could remain in my 1st Battalion forever. However, I’m afraid that we’ll not be associate with each other for so long.” Having said so, he turned around, his eyes filled with deep regret. Even he knew that the elites from Demon Hunt Squads wouldn’t remain there.
Every living quarters had a little bathroom. Actually, the ones who really need to wash themselves were only the three who went to the front to battle: Long Haochen, Sima Xian and Wang Yuanyuan. As for the other four, they were not dirty in the slightest.
As the saying goes, ‘Ladies first’; the one who went the first was naturally Wang Yuanyuan, followed by Sima Xian. In his capacity of captain, Long Haochen was the last one to go to bathroom. He told everyone not to go to rest first, because he had something to tell them first.
Quickly, the three of them finished to wash. After closing the door, Long Haochen declared, “In the battle we had today near the city walls, everyone’s tacit understanding was already quite better. I have two matters to discuss with you now. The first thing is about obeying orders. In the end, we now belong to the army, and as soldiers, obeying orders is our most important duty. In case we violate this rule, even if we manage to kill more enemies, I’m afraid that the other side will be discontented with us. So I have to ask everyone to show more restraint in the future.”
After all was said and done, Long Haochen had still not been captain for so long, and although his capabilities only convinced everyone more and more as time went on, he didn’t really have much authority. Thus, he was being careful with his words, trying to act as tactfully as possible.
Sima Xian stroked his bald head, and replied, “Just now, I have gotten a bit carried away. I will reflect on my actions.”
Wang Yuanyuan shot him a glance, “I don’t really care about the army stuff, but I will listen to you, Haochen.”
Everyone had seen Long Haochen’s performances in the battlefield with their own eyes. For the sake of the team, he refrained from using his abilities of Retribution Knight to focus on maintaining his Spiritual Gathering Halo from beginning to end, so as to help the others in recovering their spiritual energies. He showed particular consideration to the general situation, having only greater impact as the heart of the team. The atmosphere within the team was very good, and although Wang Yuanyuan’s character was naturally stubborn, she still acknowledge this boy a lot younger than her.
Chen Ying’er stuck out her tongue and remarked, “Hey, with my own capability, it’s out of question for me to disobey orders, you know!”
These three declared their position in succession, and as for Cai’er, Han Yu and Lin Xin, they naturally didn’t press on the topic any further.
Long Haochen smiled, “Thank you everyone. Actually, I’ve been putting serious thoughts on this matter: this time, we will be training in the Exorcist Mountain Pass for a total duration of three months. And our newly formed Demon Hunt Squad is gradually going to be sharpened. Then, when it will be time for us to leave, the Exorcist Mountain Pass’ military should give us an evaluation.
No matter how good our performance is, in case we don’t listen to the orders, the military’s evaluation of us will very possibly be lowered, which can only be unfavorable to our ranking in this team contest.”