Chapter 301 - 274: Bombarding the Building with Crossbows

"Damn it, no one told me their ship was this big." A deep sense of dread flashed in Li Zecheng’s eyes. ’Good thing I’m on the twenty-fourth floor. If they want to get up here, they’ll have to fight through the twenty-three floors below.’

At that thought, Li Zecheng relaxed a little.

But his heart immediately leaped into his throat. ’What if they actually manage to fight their way up?’

The thought made him anxious all over again.

He pulled open the door and stepped out into the corridor.

Looking down into the atrium, he saw many people in the stairways and corridors below, moving makeshift cover and setting up obstacles.

The layout of Hongding Mansion, with its staggered floors and staircases, made it easy to defend and difficult to attack.

Fighting their way up would be a bloody affair.

’Everyone’s just trying to survive. There’s no blood feud between us. They can’t be crazy enough to insist on fighting all the way up here, right?’ Li Zecheng muttered, trying to reassure himself.

After repeating this to himself several times, Li Zecheng felt a little calmer.

’The enemy force is also made up of many people. They can’t be completely united. Once they take enough losses, they’ll retreat on their own.’

’In ancient times, a military unit was considered severely crippled if casualties exceeded fifteen percent.’

’If casualties went over twenty percent, the vast majority of armies would begin to rout.’

’Only the most famous legions in history could endure over thirty percent casualties without collapsing.’

’We have over two thousand people in our building, plus the geographical advantage. Even if they attack, there’s no way they’ll make it to the twenty-fourth floor.’

Footsteps approached from the hallway outside.

Several floor leaders from the lower levels arrived together. "Li Zecheng, the twenty-fourth floor can’t just sit back and watch. You need to send people down to help us fight."

Li Zecheng said, "Why?"

The leader of the fourth floor said, "We’re all on the same side."

"That’s not enough."

The leader of the third floor sneered, "Then we’ll just surrender. We’ll hide in our rooms and give them a clear path straight up. Let’s see how you folks on the upper floors handle that."

Li Zecheng fell silent. He looked at the four resolute leaders before him and finally nodded. "Fine. I can send ten people down to support you, but only as support. If you try to send them to their deaths, they are free to leave on their own."

"Of course." The four lower-floor leaders smiled.

Having achieved their goal, they continued upstairs, ready to persuade the other floor leaders to send more reinforcements downstairs.

Without reinforcements, the bottom few floors were completely indefensible.

BANG!

Several massive bangs echoed through the atrium.

Followed by the sound of shattering glass.

Li Zecheng stumbled, quickly grabbing the nearby railing.

The atrium filled with panicked shouts.

"What’s going on?" Li Zecheng’s expression changed drastically.

Then came the second, the third... all the way to the fourteenth!

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!!!

Each impact felt like a heavy hammer slamming into his chest.

The latest one was barely a wall’s breadth away from him.

Li Zecheng whipped his head around to look behind him.

He hesitated for a moment, then opened the door to his room.

The room behind him was in complete disarray.

The window facing the balcony had a large hole blown through it. The wooden boards covering it had been blasted apart, leaving a gaping hole.

The room was a mess.

A thick Crossbow Arrow was embedded in the wall next to the door, sunk several inches deep. A large web of cracks spread out from the point of impact.

’That must have been the source of the sound just now.’

"Crossbow Arrows? A Giant Crossbow?" Li Zecheng’s expression turned ugly.

He had heard at least a dozen bangs just now. If he wasn’t mistaken, this must have been fired from the ship offshore. ’Are they treating us like primitives?’

...

On deck, Qin Ziwen gazed at the fourteen large holes blasted into the facade of the distant Hongding Mansion, his expression unchanging.

The Car-Mounted Crossbows that were originally in their Home had all been moved onto the ship.

Heavy Crossbows on board, opening a second battlefield.

Qin Ziwu shouted, "Keep firing! They dared to launch a sneak attack on us. Teach these sons of bitches a lesson!"

Du Yu stood beside Qin Ziwen and said, "My Lord, Car-Mounted Crossbows aren’t ideal for attacking buildings. It would be better if we had Catapults."

"Mm, we’ll have to make a batch of Catapults later," Qin Ziwen nodded. ’Building them shouldn’t be too difficult. In fact, it should be even easier than making the Car-Mounted Crossbows.’

The only problem was that a Catapult’s accuracy was hard to control. For long-range attacks, it was pretty much all up to luck.

On the sea, the Car-Mounted Crossbows fired one after another.

The huge Crossbow Arrows became blurry black shadows, crossing several hundred meters in the blink of an eye to accurately strike Hongding Mansion.

In the areas that were hit, the glass curtain walls exploded, showering down like waterfalls.

Fourteen sinister black holes now scarred the exterior walls of the mansion.

Under the thunderous impacts,

the entire island fell silent.

Birds took flight in alarm, and not another sound could be heard.

Even in the nearby Urban Village, some groups that had organized to resist fell silent after seeing the bolts from those "Heavy Crossbows" fly overhead.

"Brother Long, what do we do?" someone asked, looking at Yang Long in the center of the group.

Yang Long was silent for a moment before saying, "If we bring out those two superweapons, can we sink their ship?"

These two superweapons were Bed Crossbows they had painstakingly built. However, due to limitations in technology, manpower, and building Level, they had only managed to build three so far, and one had been destroyed in a fire not long ago.

Someone said, "Two against fourteen? That might be tough. And we’d probably only get one shot. After we fire, their Heavy Crossbows will likely focus fire on us."

Yang Long’s eyes flickered as he calculated the potential gains and losses.

’If they won, what would they gain?’

’And if they lost, what would be the consequences?’

After thinking it over and over, Yang Long just couldn’t see how a fight to the death with the enemy was worth it.

’He wasn’t one of those madmen from the mansion; he was a rational person.’

’At worst, they’d just have to stay on this island.’

’At least they’d still be alive.’

’If they died, they’d have nothing.’

At a time like this, the people in the mansion still hadn’t come out. That meant they weren’t planning on fighting in the open field, intending to keep holding out inside the building. In other words, they had been "sold out," since their Urban Village was closer to the beach.

"Tell the brothers below not to make a move. Have everyone hide in their houses. We’ll wait for the enemy to come to us. If they really don’t give us a way out, it won’t be too late to fight them then." Yang Long finally made his decision.

Hearing that they didn’t have to fight, many of them secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

Outside, the sound of Crossbow Arrows bombarding the mansion was incessant.

When the sounds finally died down, someone mustered up the courage to peek outside.

They saw that the once-sturdy mansion was now riddled with holes.

It looked like a hornet’s nest.

Its surface was densely packed with black holes.

Someone flinched, pulling their head back in.

’If that thing started bombarding their Urban Village, their houses definitely aren’t as sturdy as the mansion. A few volleys and the buildings might just collapse.’

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