The Bloody Fortress had sighted the intruders.
A huge protective barrier immediately enveloped the entirety of the fortress.
Li Tianyan exclaimed in surprise, "They actually managed to fix the barrier!"
The three leaders of the Hero guilds had all seen with their own eyes the spectacle in which the "Demon King" breached the fortress's defenses.
At that time, the "Demon King" transformed into a golden diamond earth drake and completely shattered the barrier with overwhelming force, and then it proceeded to break through the fortress walls.
It was reasonable to assume that the fortress barrier would be severely damaged.
But how did the Demon King already repair the fortress barrier in less than ten days?
Not only the fortress barrier, but even the damaged wall now looked restored, this was not supposed to be a small task.
It seemed that the Demon King valued the Bloody Fortress with great importance.
This might not necessarily be bad news.
It was precisely due to how much the Demon King valued the fortress, as long as they captured it, there would be a good chance that the Demon King would personally appear in an attempt to retake the fortress. Thus, providing an opportunity for them to entrap and take down the Dragon Demon King.
"Charge!"
The mercenary groups on both wings were the first to advance forward.
Their primary task was to provide cover for the rest.
The Kolo knight order was the main force of this assault.
Presently, the knights were gathering their Qi and formed a storming formation, following closely behind the mercenaries at a steady pace, seeming to be building up their momentum, readying to strike.
The several hundreds of Heroes were not idling either.
They were free to attack under the command of the three guild leaders.
The combat prowess of the Heroes was quite formidable, generally reaching the level of a lord of the same level, but their abilities and talents were far too varied and myriad. Hence, they simply could not be easily coordinated in battle.
Instead of forcing the Heroes to fight in a rigid formation, they could better make use of their abilities and unleash their full potential through free combat.
2000 meters, 1000 meters, the fortress did not react.
1000 meters, 500 meters, the fortress did not react.
400 meters, 200 meters, and there was still no retaliatory response from the Bloody Fortress.
"Hahaha!"
"Not even one bit of decent resistance can be seen!"
"It seems like the Demon King isn't prepared at all!"
"Well, who can blame him? After all, we arrived too quickly. He must be dumbfounded right now!"
The Heroes were very excited.
The army was already right at the doorstep of the fortress.
Yet, not a single arrow or fireball was launched their way.
It was clear that they were being handed an easy victory.
The leader of the Kolo knight order held up his long sword, gathering his Qi and focusing it into a ten-meter sword wave that he swung towards the defensive barrier that surrounded the fortress.
During the process of the sword energy's descent, every knight in the Kolo knight order contributed a bit of their Qi, allowing the sword wave to instantly surge into twenty meters in length.
The commander of the Kolo knight order shouted, "Break!"
With a loud shattering sound, the barrier above the Bloody Fortress was severed like a cracked mirror, creating a huge gap.
The three Hero guild leaders were stunned.
"Amazing!" they exclaimed in unison.
'So this is the strength of a commander type powerhouse?'
They were confident that they could defeat Kolo knight commander in a one-on-one fight.
But under the circumstances where he had an army under his command, it would be impossible for them to win.
The level 4 lord Kolo knight commander, his strength was now infinitely close to the rank of an overlord!
With such a powerhouse!
With such a knight platoon!
Along with the experienced mercenaries.
They could easily take over this Bloody Fortress.
However, just when everyone breathed a sigh of relief and thought the battle was doubtlessly a sure victory.
The Bloody Fortress suddenly erupted in a burst of light, and thousands of beams of light were shot out in a frenzy, faster and more precise than arrows and magic, like heavy machine guns sweeping across the battlefield and falling upon the Heroes and mercenaries.
"Ahhhh!!!!"
"What the hell is that!"
"Help me! M..my leg! My leg is gone!!"
A wave of beholder beams swept through, causing hundreds or even thousands of casualties in an instant.
At the same time, elven arrows and magic followed suit.
The peaceful battlefield of a moment ago was now shrouded in a rain of blood and violence.
The Kolo knight commander was shocked and terrified, his vast experience told him that the situation had taken a turn for the worse!
The enemy was not unprepared or defenseless!
The sole reason they waited for the Kolo army to get so close to the fortress before launching a counterattack was purely to lure them deeper in order to annihilate more of their enemies.
This indicates that from the very beginning, the Bloody Fortress did not take them seriously.
The dense barrage of arrows, magic, and terrifying beam attacks all demonstrated the fortress's formidable defense.
Just then, a deafening thunderclap echoed through the battlefield.
A bolt of lightning, as thick as a bucket, roared as it descended upon the knight commander.
Quickly condensing his Qi, the knight commander countered with a powerful strike, but the clash of their attacks resulted in a violent explosion that shredded more than ten knights in the vicinity.
"What a terrifying attack!"
Despite successfully blocking the attack, the knight commander's body was burned and smoking, obviously indicating significant injuries.
If not for his commanding skill enhancement, this knight commander would be fatally wounded or even dead.
Evidently, it was the Thunderfall Tower that he was facing.
A Level 3 offensive building placed deliberately by the Demon Lord within the fortress.
The tower's demonstrated power was even capable of taking down Level 4 lord units!
"Retreat!" shouted the Knight Commander.
"Everyone, fall back!"
"Retreat!"
Knowing the dire situation and the urgent need to retreat, the knight commander and his platoon immediately turned around, their once imposing force now reduced to a hasty and chaotic retreat.
As for the mercenaries?
They were quicker to react.
These seasoned veterans had already begun to flee the moment the first wave of beholder attack landed.
"Kill them all!"
"For our lord! For the Demon King!"
"Slaughter all these filthy humans!"
The gates of the Bloody Fortress opened, and a horde of massive armored ogres, fierce orc wolf riders, and agile and ferocious draconian soldiers poured out of the fortress.
Meanwhile, elven archers, mages, and beholders continued to rain down arrows, spells, and beams on the fleeing enemy.
When the Kolo army finally broke free from the hellish battlefield, their once 15,000 strong force had dwindled to a mere 6,000 to 7,000 survivors.
"How could this happen?"
"How can the Demon King's army be so powerful?"
"And why does he have so many troops stationed in the Blood Fortress?"
"He should be preoccupied with the Magi Mojo City, the Ironheart City of the dwarves, and the giant's Thunder City. Why can he still amass such a formidable army here?"
"..."
The knights of the Kolo family and the Heroes of the three major Hero guilds were all left in shock and despair, their morale crushed by the devastating defeat.
Li Tianyan's face turned grim, "We underestimated the size of the Demon King's army. The troops he sent to attack the fortress were not his full strength, and far from it!"
"Damn it!"
"We fell for it!"
"This is a devastating loss!"
"It's not safe here. We just barely shook off our pursuers. We cannot get stuck again. Let's hurry back to Count Kolo's territory!"
"You're right!"
"Let's go!"
...
The Heroes, knights, and mercenaries dared not linger.
The orc wolf riders were fast, and the draconian forces included flying super soldiers. Even among the elves, there were dragonhawk mages and archers.
Every second of delay could mean an increased risk of danger.
Now was not the time to rest.
After a brief adjustment, the group immediately headed north.
As long as they returned to Count Kolo's territory, they would be safe within the empire garrison's protection.
Soon, they passed through a mountainous area.
This was a necessary route to and from the Chaos Forest.
If they took a detour, their journey would be extended several times.
Fortunately, the terrain was not steep, so it would not impede the army's marching speed.
Upon seeing the mountains ahead, the Kolo knight commander suddenly had a bad feeling.
He sensed that this place was particularly ominous.
But it was too late.
The enemy forces appeared from all sides.
Zhang San appeared in front of the remaining soldiers, accompanied by two Dragon Marshals and a High Priest, with a sinister grin on his face.
"Oh no!"
"It's the Demon King!"
"We've been ambushed!"
"But how can the Demon King be here?"
"... "
Zhang San heard several leaders of the Heroes exclaim in horror, one after another.
He could not help feeling exasperated at the repeated misidentification-why did these guys always mistake him for the Demon King?
To these soldiers, he was seemingly an unstoppable, overwhelming presence that only a Demon King could possess.
Zhang San revealed a mocking smile.
These ants had such a limited imagination.
Only those who had never seen the vastness of the ocean would believe that the world was small, and only those who had never seen the starry sky would think the earth was vast.
"You pitiful creatures," Zhang San mocked.
"Your miserable lives end here."
Zhang San leaped into the air, his body ballooning hundreds of times its original size in an instant, transforming into a dozens of meters long unicorn diamond earth drake.
"Die!"
Zhang San slammed into the commander of the Kolo knights directly.
The human commander, who was strong, experienced, and had fought in many battles, had no strength left to resist at this moment and was instantly reduced into minced meat.
Not to mention that his Qi was almost depleted.
Even in his prime, the knight commander would have been no match for Zhang San. Although both were commanders, the difference in power was simply too great.
"Kill them all!"
Both draconian marshals, Wang Er and Zhao Wu, as well as high priest Sun Liu, all joined in the slaughter.
With hundreds of draconian super soldiers with flying abilities amongst thousands of draconian troops, escape was all but impossible for the remaining Kolo forces.
...
In Giantree City.
Under the Tree of Miracle.
Zhang Nu opened his player log and scanned through it, only to find that in just one day, he had received a large amount of reward information.
[You've slain a Troll. Gold +9!]
[You've slain a Troll. Gold +9!]
[You've slain a Troll Warrior. Gold +20!]
[You've slain an Elite Troll Warrior. Gold +90!]
[...]
[You've conquered "Magi Mojo City"!]
[You gained "Shining Mithril Chest" x1!]
Just by looking at the log, Zhang Nu knew that the draconian legion had gone on a killing spree in the Magi Mojo City.
After the massacre of about 100,000 trolls, Zhang Nu earned a total of 1.92 million gold.
The city was almost completely wiped out in the process.
Compared to Ironheart City, the Magi Mojo City's strength was far weaker, with a lower proportion of elite units, with only one elite unit for every ten or twenty normal units.
However, this was normal.
As armies with an elite unit per capita were rare, and even rarer were races with such a high proportion of elite units.
The trolls were on par with orcs and elves in terms of their combat abilities, and in places like Berserk Beast City and Giantree City, most of the residents were still regular units.
The situation in Ironheart City was quite special.
On the one hand, the dwarves were indeed strong, and on the other hand, the effect of daemon blood created tens of thousands of daemonized dwarven warriors, and all of these corrupted dwarven warriors were all elites.
Among the 100,000 trolls killed, there were 372 troll Heroes.
204 Level 1 fodders, 147 Level 2 elite Heroes, and 21 Level 3 powerhouses.
Still, the legion had gone a bit too far in their killing spree and needed to be more careful in the future.
Zhang Nu continued to scroll down.
He came across the latest battle logs.
[You've slain a Human Mercenary. Gold +20!]
[You've slain a Kolo Knight. Gold +100!]
[You've slain a Kolo Knight. Gold +100!]
[You've slain a Human Mercenary. Gold +20!]
[You've slain an Elite Human Mercenary. Gold +90!]
[...]
[You've slain a Level 3 Hero. Hero's soul +1! Skill stone +1!]
[You've slain a Level 2 Hero. Hero's soul +1!]
[You've slain a Level 3 Hero. Hero's soul +1!]
[You've slain a Level 4 Hero. Hero's soul +1! Skill stone +1!]
The entries indicated that the battles took place in the Bloody Fortress.
To his surprise, among the defeated warriors were three Level 4 Heroes, and the others were of equally impressive quality.
With just these two battles, Zhang Nu had amassed an incredible seven to eight hundred souls, with over a hundred of them being Level 3 or higher.
This was truly remarkable!
His soul collection was now more than enough to activate a Level 4 talent, leaving Zhang Nu feeling ecstatic.