Chapter 88

"Trouble." Seeing the reactions of those players, Zhou Tian couldn't help but inwardly lament. Although he had anticipated that if he wanted to withdraw, the players would not let him go, it wasn't until his command caused significant casualties that he realized how much more difficult it would be to extricate himself from the battle than he had imagined.

"Retreat!" The order to retreat brought Zhou Tian significant losses, but this did not deter his desire to withdraw. On the contrary, after seeing the results, Zhou Tian did not hesitate and immediately decided to retreat with his entire army.

Following Zhou Tian's command, the orc army ignored the attacks from the players and, dispersing into numerous groups, directly retreated to the heart of their territory.

Zhou Tian's decision was something the players could not have predicted. It wasn't until the orcs began a full-scale retreat that they realized what was happening.

Once they realized, the players did not hesitate to pursue and attack Zhou Tian.

In the end, although Zhou Tian successfully escaped with the protection of his orcs, by the time he truly shook off the players, the number of orcs under his command had been reduced to a fraction of what it was.

One could say that regardless of the outcome of this operation, Zhou Tian's losses far exceeded his calculations. He had underestimated the number of players in the game and did not anticipate how sensitive they would be to his actions. If he hadn't had a few trump cards and if the top players hadn't joined in, he might have really been in trouble.

However, although the operation resulted in heavy losses, Zhou Tian himself did not seem to regret it.

"Fortunately, we retreated quickly; otherwise, this time it would have been over." After understanding the losses from this operation, Zhou Tian did not get angry because of the heavy losses. On the contrary, he was actually relieved that he had chosen to retreat quickly.

"Those players are really tough. They don't care about their lives when they fight. If I continue to fight with them, my forces will eventually be exhausted, while their numbers will only grow. It seems that in the future, I should be better prepared and avoid doing things like this."

Regardless of whether this operation was considered a success, the fact that Zhou Tian had killed a large number of players in a war was undeniable. Although Zhou Tian himself also suffered significant losses, he also gained a lot from this operation.

First, although the orcs under Zhou Tian's command suffered heavy casualties, the surviving orcs all had significant gains. For example, the number of orc guards under Zhou Tian's command increased from a few dozen to nearly two hundred. Moreover, even without evolving, the surviving orc warriors had mostly become elite, a change that Zhou Tian could not fail to notice.

In short, although Zhou Tian's current forces had suffered heavy losses, if he were to reorganize his 'wounded troops,' his overall strength would not weaken. In small-scale battles, he might even perform better.

At the same time, while the orcs under Zhou Tian's command had gained a lot, Zhou Tian himself, though he did not personally earn credit, still benefited from the credit earned by his orcs. When the orcs who earned credit died or when Zhou Tian controlled their choices, he did not forget to strengthen his own forces as his orcs' strength improved.

If the credit earned by Zhou Tian for dealing with the players were divided into ten parts, two parts were wasted, two parts were used by the orcs for evolution, and the remaining six parts were all used by Zhou Tian to recruit new troops.

As a result, as soon as Zhou Tian returned to his territory, he received the relevant news. The Blood Moon Sect Leader, due to Zhou Tian's significant contributions, allocated a large number of new troops to him.

One hundred orc guards, three thousand orc archers, and over twenty thousand orc warriors.

When Zhou Tian learned of his gains, he was naturally delighted.

With these gains, Zhou Tian's forces now numbered nearly fifty thousand. Among them, the number of guards and archers accounted for one-third of the total, significantly enhancing Zhou Tian's overall strength.

Monsters with tens of thousands of troops are common, even in the beginner area, where monsters generally have tens of thousands of troops. Otherwise, the monsters would not be able to consistently suppress the NPCs, who are generally much stronger.

However, while tens of thousands of troops are not unusual among monsters, Zhou Tian's situation, combined with this number, was quite remarkable.

First, Zhou Tian was in the beginner area, where the total number of monsters was usually in the tens of thousands. Monsters with hundreds of thousands or even millions of troops simply did not exist. Therefore, in terms of numbers, Zhou Tian's forces were already at the top.

Moreover, the monsters in the entire beginner area had just recently engaged in a major battle. After fighting the undead monsters, the number of monsters in the beginner area had been drastically reduced, from nearly a million to only two or three hundred thousand.

The difference between one-tenth and a few-tenths is significant. If before, Zhou Tian's tens of thousands of orcs only made up a small part of the beginner area's population, now, after replenishing his forces, he had become the monster with the largest number of troops in the beginner area.

Furthermore, the most important point was that the proportion of high-level troops under Zhou Tian's command was quite large. In terms of overall strength, Zhou Tian, excluding the dollhouse represented by the dollmaker, already had the power to crush any other monster in the beginner area.

Given Zhou Tian's consistent style of action, once he had some strength, he would naturally not sit idly by and expand his influence.

In the beginner area, Zhou Tian only cared about the dollmaker. If she didn't exist, Zhou Tian would have likely unified all the territories in the beginner area long ago. Even now, with the dollmaker present, while Zhou Tian couldn't take overly aggressive actions, he could still take some less risky actions. As long as he acted quickly, by the time the dollmaker received the news, it would be too late for her to confront Zhou Tian over a fait accompli.

Thus, having taken such great risks, Zhou Tian would not simply sit on his territory because of a warning from the dollmaker, especially when he now had a good chance of success.

Due to the existence of the undead monsters, even without the dollmaker's warning, Zhou Tian would not have attacked the monsters he still needed to use. However, the few groups of monsters whose leaders had been killed in battle were not spared by Zhou Tian.

If not absorbed, giving a group of monsters time to recover, even if they were just defeated, they would eventually regain their strength.

Therefore, given the current situation, if those few groups of monsters were given enough time, they would soon recover their strength and once again become major players in the beginner area.

However, for any group of monsters to recover their strength, it would take more than just a day or two. After all, there were no other monsters like Zhou Tian who would take such risks and provoke a large number of players. Thus, all the monsters in the beginner area needed time to recover their strength, and the groups that had lost their leaders would naturally need even more time.

The other monsters would give those groups time to recover, as they had just fought together. Even if they knew those groups were currently weak, they would not have any bad intentions.

Only Zhou Tian, who had been weak before but now had recovered most of his strength, directly targeted those groups of monsters, planning to absorb them before they could select a new leader or before the new leader could fully control the group.