I, the prince in distress, send money

Chapter 538 The Player Who Fights to the End
The task of cleaning up the trash before leaving is an easy one for players in the town of Casarina.

Even if Governor Almeida is hiding deep within the governor's mansion, surrounded by more than thirty fully armored soldiers armed with flintlock muskets and small cannons, it won't be a problem for the player.

It was nothing more than a surprise attack under the cover of darkness, taking down the front and back gates of the governor's mansion, moving things over to block the gates, and finally setting a fire.

Flames greedily licked at the night sky, and the Casarina Governor's Palace crackled and wailed amidst the towering flames.

Soon, the sounds of Governor Almeida's hysterical shouts and soldiers trying to break down the blocked gates could be heard from inside the palace. However, as the fire grew stronger and time passed, the noise from the walled buildings gradually subsided until it disappeared completely.

Beyond the firelight, several figures stood silently in the flickering shadows of the flames.

"That's about it, the trash inside should be completely burned by now..."

"Wait a little longer, until the fire gets a bit smaller. I'll take some men in their Death Legion suits and go in to take a look. There's definitely a secret passage inside. If we leave, that fat pig might survive."

"Ignore them. The fishmen on this island will help us solve the problem."

One of them said dismissively.

"As long as we move fast enough and don't let the fat pig catch up with us, he's doomed if he stays on the island."

"Alright, that's enough for now. We need to organize our forces and break out towards the docks..."

The group turned and headed towards Casarina's town square.

There, a dark mass of people was gathering uneasily... the remaining soldiers of the Macon League, and many more emaciated civilians with terrified eyes.

They are the only living people who must be removed from this desperate situation after this "garbage cleanup" operation.

Players are both ruthless and gentle; they are like a winter storm, sweeping away all those who are hostile to them, whether they are murlocs or the foolish governor of the Makon Alliance, leaving nothing behind.

However, they are willing to sacrifice themselves for the innocent civilians of Macon, undertaking actions that are destined to end in death... even though the former offers no missions or rewards to the players.

Time was of the essence, and Olaf, who had been waiting in the square for a long time, waved to signal the group to return to their ranks after seeing them return. Then he led the well-prepared team out of town.

The majority of the civilians in the Macon Union were somewhat panicked, but those who had survived these three months possessed basic rationality and realized that leaving the town and heading towards the docks was the only way out.

So they didn't run around, but silently followed instructions, carrying the packages handed to them by the Macon soldiers and following the people in front.

Like a silent dragon, the procession departed Casarina's dilapidated town walls, bid farewell by the firelight, and plunged into the inky darkness of night.

Five kilometers might not seem like much on a normal day, but at this moment, the journey to the dock felt incredibly long and dangerous.

Leaving the relatively familiar town, the ground was a muddy and bumpy dirt road, and all around were desolate wilderness and the faintly visible, twisted outlines of trees.

The air was filled with the salty smell of the sea breeze, and a deeper, more nauseating stench... of fish-man slime and the putrid smell of human corpses.

The civilians huddled together, suppressed sobs and heavy breathing filling the air.

The remaining soldiers of the Macon League gripped their spears, flintlock muskets, and swords and shields tightly, nervously scanning the darkness that seemed poised to come alive at any moment.

The remaining less than two hundred players were scattered at the front, middle and back of the line. They were silent, but their senses were already heightened to the extreme, like the most sensitive radar, scanning for any unusual movement.

Olaf led the way, constantly adjusting the team's route based on his memory and feedback from the players who had scouted ahead, trying to avoid low-lying areas and water sources where ambushes were likely to occur.

However, the fish-men's tracks were everywhere on the island, making it impossible to avoid them.

The first wave of attacks came less than a kilometer from the town.

There were no warnings, no roars, only a sudden rustling sound from the waist-high grass on both sides of the road, and a series of short figures rushing towards them, carrying slime and a fishy smell.

"Left side, engage the enemy!"

The player on the outermost edge of the group let out a low growl. His longsword was already drawn, drawing a cold arc in the dim starlight, accurately decapitating an oncoming murloc, and spurting out foul-smelling blood.

"Keep the formation, don't break it!"

Olaf's voice was like a rock, calming the slightly agitated front row of the team.

"Spearmen, push forward! Musketeers, fire freely, conserve ammunition... Civilians, keep advancing! Don't stop, or you'll die!"

boom! boom! boom!
The sporadic firing of flintlock pistols broke the silence of the night, and in the flickering light of torches, players in battle could see more ferocious fish faces emerging from the darkness.

They split open their mouths, hissing silently, brandishing rough bone blades and harpoons, and charged wildly from all directions with their numbers and fearless spirit, intending to overwhelm the human ranks.

The players became the strongest dam.

They formed a three-person team, supporting each other. Their movements were concise and efficient, with flashing swords and shields blocking. Every attack was accompanied by the screams and falls of the murlocs. The player at the front was like a precise killing machine, tearing open gaps in the murloc waves to ensure that the team's progress was not blocked.

But there were just too many murlocs; it seemed impossible to kill them all.

They attacked from the front, harassed from the flanks, and even tried to flank from the rear, suddenly increasing the pressure on the middle and rear of the formation.

"There are more behind, there are more behind!"

Many civilians in the group suddenly screamed in terror.

Fortunately, players had anticipated this.

The twenty-odd players responsible for covering the rear immediately stopped. They turned around, pulled out a pottery jar emitting a pungent smell from their specially made canvas backpacks, lit the fuse with a tinderbox, and threw it as far as they could as possible.

"boom……"

When the pottery jar hit the ground, it shattered and exploded in a dazzling burst of flames.

These explosions were not violent and did not create any shockwaves. Instead, they splashed out upon impact, creating a fire field filled with raging flames.

The sudden appearance of the fires connected, forming a crescent-shaped barrier. The light illuminated the uninvited guests on the road behind and temporarily deterred the fishmen from launching a sneak attack from behind, forcing them to take a detour.

"Quickly, speed up, don't stop!"

The players who stayed behind to cover the rear, and their captain turned around and shouted loudly at the civilians who were watching, urging them to leave quickly and stop watching the spectacle.

If you keep watching, you won't be able to escape either.

Because of the fire and the presence of players covering the rear, the murlocs were temporarily unable to attack the humans from behind, and the assault team struggled forward amidst bloodshed and slaughter.

Olaf and the vanguard player, who were at the forefront, stepped on mud and the corpses of murlocs with every step. Olaf's newly replaced axe quickly became dull again, and his breastplate clanged as the murloc bone spears fell on it.

The civilians at the back of the line supported each other, displaying an astonishing will to survive, and closely followed the players who were clearing the way.

The soldiers of the Makon Alliance were not idle either. They blocked both sides of the column, forming a makeshift spear formation as they marched, stabbing at any stray murlocs that tried to get close.

Two kilometers, three kilometers... The outline of the pier was already faintly visible in the darkness, and the sound of waves crashing against the rocks could even be heard.

However, just when hope seemed within reach, the road ahead narrowed, with steep earthen slopes on both sides.

On the earthen slope, countless pairs of ghastly green, greedy eyes shone brightly.

More fishmen had been waiting there for a long time. Like a black tide, they slowly spread down from the top of the slope, completely blocking the last stretch of road leading to the dock.

Olaf looked at the dense green eyes on the earthen slope ahead, like will-o'-the-wisps, and the fishmen surging down like a black tide. Instead of being afraid, he burst into a rough and bold laugh.

"Hahaha, brothers, the final moment has arrived! Valhalla is calling us!!!"

He slammed his blunted battle axe to the ground, sending up a few specks of mud, and then pulled another heavy hand axe from his waist.

"For glory and for the covenant!"

Behind him, more than fifty players, also from the Valangi Warband, roared in unison. They tore off the tattered shrouds, revealing their scarred fish-scale armor. They gripped their hand axes, swords, and shields tightly, their eyes burning with fighting spirit.

"The rest of the people..."

Olaf roared without turning his head.

"Lead the team and charge forward! The dock is just ahead; leave this to us!" Without further farewells or hesitation, the remaining hundred-plus players immediately sprang into action. Like the sharpest spearheads, they swept up the human team in the middle and launched a desperate charge towards the seemingly impenetrable tide of murlocs.

Olaf and his fifty-odd Varangian veterans, like solid reefs, actively met the largest torrent of fishmen surging from the slope to their side.

The two forces collided with a deafening roar.

The Valancie players formed a tight wedge formation, with Olaf at the very front.

They abandoned complex techniques, leaving only the purest and most violent slashes and charges.

The hand axe swung, sending up chunks of flesh and shattered bone armor; the shield slammed down, smashing the charging murlocs away along with their disgusting weapons.

The Valancie players formed a mobile wall of death with their bodies, tearing a gap in the murloc wave and drawing most of the pressure away from the main force.

"Go, let's go!"

The players leading the team roared, urging the exhausted players on.

The civilians mustered their last bit of strength and staggered forward.

The Macon soldiers, their eyes red, used their spears to stab at the few merfolk that squeezed through the gaps on the side while protecting the crowd.

Having broken through the gap opened by the Valangi players with their lives, the team finally made it through the narrowest and most dangerous section, and the wooden pier and the damaged warehouse at the dock were now in sight.

However, the glimmer of hope was quickly extinguished by an even greater shadow.

In the dock area, even more fishmen crawled out of the sea and emerged from abandoned houses, filling almost every inch of open space, far exceeding the numbers of any previous attack.

The entire team, including the players covering the rear and those charging ahead, was instantly surrounded from all sides!
"Form the array! A circular defensive array!"

The players shouted at the top of their lungs.

The surviving players and Macon soldiers quickly moved closer together, protecting the civilians in the middle, forming a fragile circular formation facing outwards.

Swords, spears, and even hastily picked-up wooden sticks—everyone gripped their weapons tightly.

The merman hissed and slowly approached from all directions, its pale green eyes merging into one in the darkness, creating a suffocating sight.

Despair, like icy seawater, began to seep into everyone's heart.

At this critical moment...

"boom!!!"

Several muffled and loud cannon shots tore through the night sky and drowned out the fishmen's cries, followed by the sharp whistling of cannonballs cutting through the air!

Several cannonballs flew from a distance and landed in the dock area. Two of the cannonballs landed right among the murlocs. As they bounced, the cannonballs smashed more than a dozen murlocs into pieces. The flying wood and stones they kicked up cleared a small gap in the dense murlocs.

Besides the murlocs being hit by the cannonball, even the defending team was hit by a cannonball, and many people were thrown into the air, including soldiers and civilians from Macon.

The indiscriminate attack caught everyone off guard, including the murlocs. The players were the first to react!
"It's shipboard artillery, our ship is firing!"

"They're here! Our backup team has arrived!"

When someone took out their binoculars and looked out at the sea, they could see the 600-ton armed merchant ship billowing its sails, breaking through the thin fog like a ghost, and speeding toward the dock.

On one side of the ship, the smoke from the cannons had not yet dissipated, while on the other side, the cannon windows were already open, their dark muzzles pointing towards the shore.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

Several more cannon shots rang out in succession, this time a salvo.

The cannonballs rained down on the dock like hailstones. Some landed among the merfolk, while others hit other parts of the dock. Although the accuracy was low, the loud noise and flashes when the cannons fired, as well as the terrifying destructive power of the cannonballs after they landed, still scared the merfolk into running around in all directions.

In fact, not only were the murlocs frightened, but the breakout team was also terrified of the cannonballs that flew around aimlessly without any accuracy.

"Quickly light the torches so they can see us, then everyone rush forward to that intact berth a hundred meters to the left!"

The players knew they had to seize this fleeting opportunity, so they quickly directed their team to advance toward a relatively intact deep-water berth from their memories.

Upon hearing the shouts, the terrified civilians rushed forward without regard for their own safety, and the once orderly procession instantly descended into chaos.

Fortunately, more than fifty players stayed behind and helped hold off the murlocs, preventing too many civilian casualties... It was impossible to avoid any casualties at all; the dock terrain was too complex, and there would always be murlocs that bypassed the players and the Makon soldiers' interception to attack the civilians.

As the civilians ran, the merchant ship quickly approached the dock, and in the process, it even crashed into a section of a dilapidated pier.

Before the ship had even come to a complete stop, dozens of players had already jumped off the ship's side with weapons in hand and joined the battle on the shore.

"Quickly, get people on the ship, and you all get on too, hurry!"

The player commander, who jumped off the ship, shouted loudly as he swung his scimitar and slashed down a murloc that tried to approach.

Several officers in Macon immediately sprang into action, directing the Macon soldiers to maintain basic order on the scene, setting up temporary gangplanks so that civilians could line up and desperately climb onto the merchant ship.

Meanwhile, the players who remained on the ship also sprang into action. On the deck, they cut the mooring lines and used crowbars to push the heavy cast-iron cannons. Accompanied by shouts, the cannons were pushed over the ship's side and crashed heavily into the sea, splashing up huge sprays of water.

Next came barrels of gunpowder and shells.

The weight was decreasing rapidly, and the merchant ship's waterline was rising at a visible rate.

The player is following a pre-arranged plan, clearing excess weight from the ship to allow as many people as possible to board.

However, doing so effectively rendered the merchant ships' only source of firepower, putting increasing pressure on the players still fighting on the docks.

However, no one could afford to worry about too much.

Players who completed these actions also jumped off the ship with their weapons and rushed towards the dock battlefield.

"Alright, hurry up and board the ship, then leave the island... We'll buy you some time!"

As the last group of civilians staggered onto the merchant ship with the help of soldiers, the battle on the dock had reached its climax.

The players' defensive line was constantly compressed, and the murlocs, like sharks that had smelled blood, surged in from all directions.

Forced to retreat into the dock, Olaf and Varangi, along with the other players, joined up with them. Covered in blood, they stood back to back, forming the last line of defense at the entrance to the pier.

"Set the ship quickly!"

Olaf roared without turning his head, splitting the head of a murloc hunter who was trying to cross the line with his axe, splattering his face with foul-smelling slime.

On the merchant ship, the player sailors struggled to cut the last mooring rope. Propelled by the tide, the ship began to slowly leave the damaged dock.

"They haven't come up yet!"

A Macon civilian pointed to the figures still fighting on the dock, his voice trembling with tears.

The people on the ship remained silent.

They saw the Bagnian mercenaries who had stayed behind to cover the retreat begin to light something... it was the last of the few burning clay pots they had carried with them.

Flames rose behind them and spread rapidly, forming a wall of fire that separated the dock from the pier, temporarily holding back most of the pursuing mermen.

However, this also prevented them from boarding the ship themselves.

The firelight illuminated the figures as they turned to face the endless waves of merfolk and raised their weapons.

Olaf's voice pierced through the sound of the waves and the screams of the fishmen, reaching clearly to the ears of everyone on the ship, filled with joy and determination.

"Tell Chris, Varangian's warriors fight to the last man!"

(End of this chapter)