Dark Sand: My Players Are All Actors
Chapter 153 - 148 Are We Being Too Bullying?

Chapter 153: Chapter 148 Are We Being Too Bullying?

Hu Yunying, as the captain of the Ranger’s thousand-man team, was also in the reserve formation.

At that time, he led his men through prearranged secret passages and exits, secretly leaving the city.

When the terrain of the Orderer’s fortress had just been remodeled, Li Weiyi and other players had conducted a detailed survey of the surrounding terrain and planned many secret paths.

Some of these paths were originally existing trails in the mountain, concealed by lush vegetation and difficult to detect; others were tunnels excavated in strategic locations, even more hidden than the ordinary paths.

Of course, this was not originally invented by Li Weiyi and the others, as the real historical Linyuan City had been designed in this way.

These secret pathways, hidden in dense forests, were hard for the enemy to discover; even if discovered, the narrow passages that only allowed one person to pass through were practically impossible to attack. But the defenders could use these pathways to secretly move deep into the enemy’s rear at the right moment, striking the retreating enemies hard.

Soon, players started leaving the city through multiple secret paths, each advancing toward the direction of the bandits under the cover of dense forests.

This was essentially a "divide and conquer" strategy, breaking the large troop into many small squads, which moved independently to the predetermined locations and then launched a joint attack.

This mode of operation would definitely not work with ordinary soldiers, especially those with lower quality from ancient times.

Because it was a strategy that was theoretically perfect, but practically fraught with difficulties.

The advantage of "divide and conquer" was that it maximized the avoidance of the enemy’s line of sight, making the military actions of one’s own side much more secret. However, the downside was that while splitting up was easy for an average team, regrouping proved difficult.

In ancient times, with inconvenient communication and uneven quality among soldiers, just ensuring different branches of troops arrived at the same location on time was nearly an impossible task, let alone handling potential issues like desertion or collapsing morale along the way.

Throughout the long history of Huaxia, only an elite team known as the "pinnacle of light infantry" had managed to achieve this.

However, for players, none of this was a problem.

Firstly, players all had a mini-map in their field of view, marking the positions of other players and allowing communication through various channels at any time.

Secondly, players didn’t face issues such as collapsing morale or desertion. Even if they got separated for various reasons, they would actively seek out other players and head toward the battles.

Thus, the "divide and conquer" tactic was as simple as everyday routine for the players.

As long as the meeting points were marked on the map beforehand, each team could autonomously move toward them and stealthily reach the enemies’ rear.

Soon, the number of players at the rally points increased.

Hu Yunying issued an order, "Form arrays every two squads, with the squad leader in charge. We need to match General Deng’s spirit in defeating bandits and strive to achieve a casualty ratio just like General Deng’s!"

The players were very active, immediately forming arrays as per Hu Yunying’s command.

These players had all cleared the "Trial Illusion" and were thus familiar with General Deng’s array.

Shield bearers lead the way, Wolf Whisker lures the enemy, and long spears and matchlock guns wait for the opportune moment to strike.

Using this tactic, General Deng achieved an impressive casualty ratio against bandits, often annihilating hundreds while suffering only single-digit losses.

Having died many times in the Trial Illusion, the players were quite familiar with the formation.

Of course, the players’ squad configurations were different from General Deng’s standard setup, so they couldn’t copy it exactly, but it was more or less the same idea.

Currently, each player squad consisted of five members, with a standard arrangement of two to three warriors, one scholar, complemented by an assassin or a ranger.

Assassins and rangers had special thousand-man teams for specific missions, so the main combat forces in regular squads were warrior players.

However, assassin and ranger players weren’t necessarily restricted to using daggers or longswords; they could also use weapons like matchlock guns.

Therefore, after two teams merged, there were warrior players using shields to fight bandits, players using long spears, Wolf Whisker, or matchlock guns for finishing moves, and even two scholar players hiding within the formation, ready to buff teammates or share damage.

This arrangement was quite reasonable.

As for the specifically organized ranger teams, they played a role in raiding. With the talent enhancement from not leaving trails, they could continuously harass from the dense forest, tirelessly troubling the enemy.

With the exclusive talent upgrade "no trace," ranger players could foresee the danger of being encircled earlier and react in advance, further enhancing their survivability.

If it were on wide plains, facing the enemy’s cavalry, rangers’ mobility might be hard to utilize, but in the complex terrains of the hills, it was the rangers’ home ground.

With the players’ roles assigned, they began advancing toward the rear of the bandits.

...

At this moment, a fierce battle was raging at the East City Gate.

Although there were gates in all four cardinal directions, the actual size of these gates varied significantly.

The West City Gate was the largest and most imposing since it faced directly toward the plains and served as the primary passage whether the enemy was attacking or the players were pursuing bandits from the city.

If it were built smaller, although safer in times of defense, it would be inconvenient to pursue enemies.

But the gates to the east, south, and north were different. Due to the strategic terrain, there was no need for large gates. The East Gate was slightly larger than the other two but was only about five to six meters wide and led to a steep slope just outside the gate.

At that moment, the Eastern Barbarian thieves controlled by demons were besieging the city.

Compared to the barbarians at the West Gate, their siege methods were much more primitive, consisting only of bamboo ladders and grappling hooks.

Grappling hooks, previously used by the Sheng Army during the attack on Puning Port, were thrown onto the city walls to latch on, and then the attackers would climb up the ropes to ascend the walls. Among the Eastern Barbarian thieves, especially the assassin and Wandering Warrior-led ones, this method of scaling walls was particularly favored.

However, for the well-prepared players, these attacks were also futile.

Even though these thieves did not know fear under the control of demons, they were continuously struck down by arrows and matchlock guns.

The leader of the thieves was commanding the ascent when he suddenly heard a commotion from behind.

A thief came to report, "The Sheng Army is attacking from behind!"

Dark energy swirled in the leader’s eyes, reflecting an expression of disbelief.

Attacking from behind?

How is that possible?

These thieves had come from the east, crossing mountains and ridges, and had not seen any sign of the Sheng Army along the way.

How could there be an ambush?

Logically, these indigenous Illusion Realm beings, being numerically inferior, should ideally defend within the city. Why would they think of launching a counterattack?

And even if they did launch an attack, how could they have reached their rear without notice?

But no matter how perplexed they were, it was pointless because the despised Illusion Realm indigenous forces had indeed appeared behind them as a surprise force, brandishing sabers and spears as they charged!

The leader of the thieves snorted coldly, "Utterly reckless, not defending within the strong walls but daring to battle us? Kill them!"

However, the thief who had come to report shook his head, "We... can’t defeat them!"

In fact, the thieves in the rear, upon seeing the players, had similar thoughts to their leader.

Daring to leave the city and battle us?

No matter how these people came, just cut them down!

The thieves immediately charged confidently, brandishing their broadswords.

However, as soon as the battle commenced, they realized their grave mistake.

Because this mysteriously appearing Sheng Army had formed an Array that they dreaded!

Although not every team was equipped with Wolf Whiskers, specialized weapons against broadswords, with the cooperation of rattan shields, sabers, long spears, matchlock guns, bows, and the scholars’ overwhelming righteousness, this Array caused more damage to the thieves compared to General Deng’s original formation!

These thieves, fearless under the control of demons, quickly learned humility due to the brutal casualties.

Those Wandering Warriors and assassins who were confident in their swordsmanship charged forward, only to find that the players wielding rattan shields were equally familiar with the technique of the broadsword, effectively protecting themselves. No matter how skilled the thieves were with their swords, they could not defend against the thrusting long spears.

Moreover, there were the scholars using overwhelming righteousness to harm the demons, along with occasional surprise attacks from matchlock guns.

Despite the thieves’ ferociousness and high battle spirit under demonic control, they were continuously flattened by the players’ battle formation.

Furthermore, many rangers flanked the team, continuously attacking those thieves trying to bypass the front of the Array and launch side attacks, herding them like sheepdogs towards the soldiers’ spears.

In the midst of the Array, the players advanced slowly like a combined harvester, reaping heads.

"Charge!"

The demon-controlled thieves immediately abandoned the siege and turned to deal with the players in the rear.

Though these thieves were but historical slices of illusions summoned by the demons as cannon fodder, and the demons had no concern for their lives, they surely couldn’t die meaninglessly.

For the demons, using these thieves to besiege the city was no longer feasible. If so, trying to kill more of the Illusion Realm natives in the rear was also a favorable outcome.

But soon, they found this to be wishful thinking.

Because when the thieves turned to attack players like Yun Ying, the players on the city walls weren’t idle either.

They immediately delivered a parting gift to the thieves: a rain of arrows.

Even seeing that the situation was under control, the players directly opened the East Gate for a pincer attack with the players outside.

Very soon, these thieves were annihilated, dying confused and humiliated.

Even many players, while cleaning up the battlefield, felt somewhat unsatisfied.

"Are we being a bit too cruel in this fight?"