Chapter 85

Not long ago, the Yangwei had received a large number of sailors from the damaged and sunken escort ship Chaoyong. Currently, the ship carried over six hundred people, making it unusually well-staffed. With so many candidates, after multiple rounds of screening, only about forty sailors were selected to become grenadiers, with a selection ratio of roughly one in ten, which indeed gave them the right to call themselves the elite assault team.

At this moment, seeing the boatswain raise his curved saber high, the grenadiers lined up on the deck inside the ship's side, eager to try their hand. As Zola Hegel pointed to the location of the drow elves and shouted loudly:

"Light the fuses! Throw!"

Upon hearing the command, the grenadiers lit the fuses in unison, and then, like athletes in the old world throwing the hammer, they used the strength of their waists and legs to assist in the throw. In an instant, these grenade-sized objects, about the size of coconuts, were thrown with all their might, drawing beautiful parabolic arcs in the air before landing in the shallow waters below, where the murky water reached chest level.

"Boom! Bang! Boom! Boom—"

The first round of throwing ended, and the restless pirate musketeers, taking advantage of the grenadiers' retreat, rushed to the side of the bulwark facing the shore and used intense volleys to suppress the enemy's continued advance. The dense gunfire and the successive explosions of the grenades in the distance intertwined, creating a spectacular scene, though not as grand as the artillery wars of the old world. The onlookers all believed that no one could pass through the web of fire unscathed. Of course, on a battlefield where anything could happen, the only thing that wouldn't surprise anyone was another unexpected event.

A male drow had quietly approached the bottom of the Yangwei, and with the help of enchanted spider-walking boots, he climbed up the warship, which was over ten meters above the water. Once he locked his gaze on Luo Zhengdao, the main target, the agile drow swordmaster immediately tore open a scroll and charged forward with his sword drawn.

"Cloud of Darkness!"

The moment the magic took effect, Zola Hegel, who had spent his youth in the Underdark, was exceptionally alert and immediately recognized the spell. He shouted loudly:

"Quick, take him down!"

"Whoosh!"

Hearing a sharp whistling sound coming from behind, Luo Zhengdao's body, trained in swordsmanship for many years, instinctively leaned back at a large angle before he even realized the danger. Then, Luo Zhengdao, who had not previously sensed the threat, truly experienced the chilling sensation of a cold blade grazing his nose.

Such a near-death experience made his heart tremble uncontrollably. Luo Zhengdao cursed inwardly: Damn it! I almost wet my pants. Where did this bastard come from? At this point, saying more was futile, and even sharp sarcasm couldn't solve the practical problem. The drow swordmaster, hidden in the rolling black clouds, wielded his sword like the wind. His first precise throat cut failed, and the second strike aimed at Luo Zhengdao's chest. Luo Zhengdao knew that his previous dodge was a stroke of luck, and now, with his body completely off balance, he couldn't move to avoid the second strike. Instead of passively taking the hit, he decided to seize the opportunity to counterattack.

With this thought, Luo Zhengdao steeled himself and used his left arm as a meat shield to block the chest, while his right hand, holding a magic card between his index and middle fingers, shouted:

"Summon, Howling Moon Wolf!"

"Awooo—"

A roar filled with wild energy sounded in front of Luo Zhengdao, and the massive silver wolf reappeared. As is well known, canines generally have poor eyesight but a sense of smell that is hundreds of thousands of times better than humans. The Cloud of Darkness could block human vision, but it had little effect on the Howling Moon Wolf. It quickly used its sense of smell to determine the position of the rapidly approaching enemy and pounced on the skilled drow swordmaster with a low growl. Faced with a fatal attack, the male drow had to choose to protect himself first, swinging a fierce sword wind, and the flashing long sword clashed with the sharp claws, sending sparks flying.

Before Luo Zhengdao could catch his breath, another green beam shot from the direction of the bulwark. Seeing this, the boatswain shouted to warn him:

"Be careful, that's a venomous ray!"

"Damn, are there more than one drow approaching?"

As he dodged the attack, a sense of frustration flashed through Luo Zhengdao's mind. With his abilities, if he weren't trapped in this shallow water, these drow elves would be nothing!

Successfully penetrating the Yangwei's fierce firepower, this male drow was clearly not the only lucky one. Besides this unidentified drow swordmaster, there was at least one more drow spider handler supporting him nearby. Facing an invisible and mysterious enemy, Luo Zhengdao felt his situation becoming increasingly perilous.

In the old world of Huaxia, there is an ancient saying: "When the ruler is in distress, the minister is disgraced; when the ruler is disgraced, the minister dies." The master-servant relationship under a clear feudal system is undoubtedly a very strong bond. To be fair, the pseudo-feudal system of ancient Huaxia was still lacking. In the true feudal systems of Western Europe and Japan, the relationship between vassals and lords could last for dozens, even hundreds of generations, and the loyalty of vassals to their lords far exceeded their responsibilities and obligations to the state. Often, vassals couldn't even remember which country they belonged to; their life and death were closely tied to their lords, truly sharing weal and woe.

Seeing his lord Luo Zhengdao in repeated danger, with his life hanging by a thread, the one-eyed captain, Faul Chopin, was extremely anxious. He stepped forward, waving his shield and one-handed axe in front of Luo Zhengdao, ready to die to protect him.

This alone still didn't seem enough to Faul, and he shouted hoarsely:

"Men, protect the Earl!"

At the sound of his voice, dozens of sailors from Qiongzhou Island rushed over, surrounding Luo Zhengdao so tightly that not even a few assassins could get close. With so many human shields in front, even a cannon blast might not hurt Luo Zhengdao.

Seeing this, Luo Zhengdao felt both moved and amused by their behavior. This was too absurd; he wasn't that bad off!

Given the situation, Luo Zhengdao could only passively accept the goodwill of these loyal supporters, but he believed he could continue fighting. He pointed at the silver wolf and whispered:

"Transform—Wolfman Incarnation!"

In response, the originally four-legged giant wolf's body quickly transformed into a humanoid form, presenting a beastly human shape. Compared to the pure ferocity of the wild beast, this nearly three-meter-tall, muscular wolfman standing on two legs exuded even more bloodthirsty and fierce aura.

The means of defense for a magic card master are more varied and bizarre than those of an arcanist, the darling of the magic world. The reason is simple: no matter how powerful and wise arcanists are, they always consume their own resources when casting spells. That means, as a mage, you can only use as much power as you have. A magic card master, on the other hand, uses the power of the rules by holding cards, and as long as the points in the elemental pool are not exhausted and their mental strength can support the battle, the power they can use is infinite.

In a sense, mages are like bottled water, the amount of water they can store depends on their mental strength, while magic card masters are like large reservoirs that intercept the immense power generated by the world's operation. The strength of the two is naturally incomparable.

If it weren't for the curse of the荒神 (wild god), Luo Zhengdao could easily sweep away this drow army with his own strength. Unfortunately, assumptions are not possible. Since he was in a difficult situation, he could only grit his teeth and play his trump cards to ease the crisis, hoping that the curse of the wild god wouldn't be too severe afterward.

"Chirp... Click... Cackle..."

To concentrate their firepower on the drow elites who had breached the ship, the pirates on the upper deck unconsciously relaxed their fire suppression on the periphery. Even though the cannon fire on the two lower decks never stopped, the intensity of the blockade was much weaker than before.

At this moment, a strange sound came from below the ship, and a half-elf beauty, still recovering from her illness, appeared, exclaiming in a delicate voice:

"That sound, it's a displacer beast."

Drow elves are skilled at taming top predators from the Underdark, the displacer beasts, and use them as assault forces. In the food-scarce underground world, it's not easy to feed these large creatures with big appetites, so the drow didn't waste them in the first wave of attacks. Now, at a critical moment, even the drow had to fight bare-handed, and these displacer beasts would not stay behind the front lines as spectators.

"Summon, Hyena Pack!"

More fleas don't make one itchy, and more debts don't make one worried. Since he had already used so many magic cards, Luo Zhengdao didn't care about one more or one less. He immediately activated a new magic card.

With a flash of eerie red light, hundreds of hyenas appeared on the shallow beach below. They collectively let out a series of strange cries and rushed toward the displacer beasts. Despite their ugly and bizarre appearance, hyenas are excellent pack hunters, not inferior to cold-blooded killers like wolves. The bite force of an ordinary hyena's mouth can crush a tin can, and these magic card materialized hyenas could easily take on a bear one-on-one. Although the displacer beasts have exceptionally deadly hook-like arms, their large size makes them less agile, and defeating these agile predators in the shallow water is not an easy task.

Although summoning these fierce hyenas temporarily held off the drow's all-out attack, it didn't guarantee Luo Zhengdao a great victory. However, their appearance undoubtedly bought him some time.

---

Page break for AD start

Page break for AD end