Another World: When a Necromancer Possesses the Banner of Ten Thousand Souls

Almost simultaneously with the close-quarters combat, the barrage of long-range firepower reached its climax.

Su Muyao's eyes were sharp as an eagle's, her breathing slightly rapid, but her movements of nocking and drawing the bow remained steady and fluid. She no longer sought to inflict high damage on her targets, but instead focused on those demon wolves attempting to flank or posing the greatest threat to her melee teammates.

"Armor-Piercing Strike!" A specially made alloy arrow flew out of the bowstring, carrying a swirling airflow, and accurately struck the shoulder of a demon wolf that was about to pounce on Lei Lie's side and back.

"Pfft!" The arrowhead was halfway into its body, and the wolf's forward momentum suddenly stopped. It let out a painful howl, and its movements were obviously distorted.

"Explosive Arrow!" Another arrow shot towards the relatively dense area of ​​the wolf pack and exploded with a bang. Although it failed to cause any real damage to the thick-skinned wolves, the shockwave and flying fragments of the explosion successfully disrupted their movements and slowed down their attack.

The two rangers, Lin Feng and Huo Yuan, focused on controlling the battlefield. Arrows imbued with special effects such as "Frost Wrap," "Paralyzing Poison," and "Visual Disruption" were continuously fired at the limbs of the demonic wolf or the area where it was about to land.

Although these effects last only a short time on high-level dire wolves, often only slowing their movements by a fraction of a second or causing them to slip, in such intense melee combat where every second counts, this slight disruption can often be a matter of life and death, creating a precious opportunity for the warriors in front to counterattack or parry.

Under Li Xingyao's control, the skeleton longbowmen were extremely efficient. They worked in groups of three to five, sharing the vision and commands provided by Li Xingyao through the mental link, focusing their fire on the wounded dire wolves that were being forced into a stalemate by their melee teammates or marked by ranged skills.

Burning arrows inflict a continuous burning pain, corrosive arrows weaken their stamina and defense, frost arrows further reduce their agility, lightning arrows occasionally trigger a paralyzing effect that is short-lived but deadly, and heavy rock arrows can effectively deliver a heavy blow.

Their individual attacks may not be very damaging, but their attacks are concentrated and well-coordinated, constantly depleting the dire wolf's stamina and condition.

Lin Wei had become the most dazzling artillery piece in the formation. Her pretty face was slightly pale, and fine beads of sweat could be seen on her forehead, clearly indicating that casting spells continuously had greatly depleted her mental and stellar energy. But her eyes remained calm, and with a wave of her hands, powerful fire spells were unleashed as if by art.

She focused her attacks on the healthy wolves, intending to use her high attack power to eliminate them one by one.

"Fireball!" A huge fireball of lava roared as it slammed into a demon wolf at the back of the pack. The explosion sent the wolf tumbling away, its body charred black, struggling to get up for a moment.

"Crimson Light!" A highly concentrated meteor of fire shot out instantly, accurately piercing the neck of the fallen demon wolf, leaving a charred, bloody hole. The demon wolf whimpered and collapsed to the ground, convulsing.

In the intervals between the cooldowns of these skills, she unleashed a continuous barrage of fireballs, like machine gun fire, precisely striking the front or sides of the dire wolves that were trying to accelerate and charge. The shockwaves and scorching heat waves of the explosions effectively disrupted their pace and vision.

Zhang Xin, on the other hand, was like the most stable foundation. His task was not to kill the enemy, but to maintain this crumbling defensive line. He constantly manipulated the power of the earth, raising rock walls and spikes of varying heights and thicknesses in front of and on the flanks of the defensive line.

These obstacles cannot completely stop the wolves, but they can greatly limit their charging routes and dodging space, forcing them to choose more unfavorable angles to attack, or waste energy to break through or get over these obstacles.

He would occasionally raise a small, sturdy stone platform under a teammate's feet to help them stabilize their body as they were being pushed back by blocking, or suddenly thrust out sharp spikes from a wolf's landing spot. Though not fatal, these spikes were enough to leave the wolf in a sorry state.

Li Xingyao stood in a relatively safe position slightly behind the center of the formation, his expression calm, but his pupils occasionally scanned the information on his helmet screen and the battle situation on the battlefield. His brain was like an overclocked processor, handling multiple tasks simultaneously.

He commanded every undead unit, dictating when the skeleton swordsmen should move in to cover positions and when they should coordinate attacks; which target the skeleton longbowmen should focus fire on; and whether the tyrant zombie should continue to hold its ground or assist in the attack…

All commands must be executed in an instant to maximize the overall efficiency of the undead legion and compensate for the lack of individual combat power. As lower-level undead continued to be lost, he constantly summoned lower-level undead from the undead space to replenish them and maintain the thickness of the defensive line, while star energy and soul power were continuously consumed.

Li Xingyao didn't use too many skills to consume star energy, but instead used Death Arrow to finish off enemies whenever he had the chance. Death energy swirled around his fingertips, like the most patient hunter, specifically targeting those demon wolves that had been severely injured by their teammates or whose life force was rapidly decreasing under siege.

"Arrows of Death!" One after another, gray-black energy arrows shot out silently, striking their targets. The death energy invaded their bodies, bringing intense pain and deeper erosion.

The Death Arrow doesn't consume much energy, but it also doesn't deal much damage. What's fatal is the accompanying "Death Corrosion" effect! For these already badly injured dire wolves, this effect of dealing extra damage based on the target's status is maximized.

"Pfft!" A demon wolf, whose abdomen had been cleaved open by Mu Chenbin's heavy sword and whose lung had been pierced by Su Muyao's arrow, was staggering backward when a deadly arrow precisely pierced its chest wound.

The wolf's body stiffened abruptly, the ferocity in its eyes dimmed rapidly, and a dense aura of death erupted from its body, even turning the blood flowing from its wounds black and putrid—the critical hit had been triggered! It collapsed to the ground without a sound, completely lifeless.

Li Xingyao, like the Grim Reaper on the battlefield, calmly wielded his scythe, reaping the lives of those already wounded. His actions greatly reduced the pressure on the battlefield.

The battle reached an extremely tense stalemate. On the abandoned highway of the town, the sounds of roaring, explosions, clashing metal, cracking bones, howling and wailing of wolves, human cries of pain, and heavy breathing mingled together, creating a cruel symphony of death.

Everyone was working beyond their limits. Star energy was being consumed at an alarming rate, like a flood bursting its banks. Lei Lie's right shoulder guard was missing, revealing bulging muscles and a deep claw mark beneath, blood staining his breastplate. Mu Chenbin's heavy sword blade showed multiple curls and cracks. Lin Jin's tower shield was covered with deep dents and claw marks.

Wu Feng's movements remained swift, but his breathing was noticeably heavier, and his face was pale. Clearly, the intense focus and dodging were a huge test of his mental and physical strength.

Su Muyao's quiver of specially made arrows was empty, so she started using ordinary armor-piercing arrows, which were less powerful. Lin Feng and Huo Yuan also began to fire less frequently, needing more time to build up their special effects.

Lin Wei could no longer cast Fireball and Crimson Light continuously, requiring longer intervals to recover, and relied more on Fireball for crowd control. Zhang Xin's face was pale; the prolonged and extensive terrain manipulation was taking a heavy toll on him.

Li Xingyao's undead army suffered heavy losses; the skeleton warriors had been replaced several times, and the number of low-level undead stored in the undead space had drastically decreased. Although the Tyrant Zombies had strong defenses, they were all wounded, covered in claw marks, and the most seriously injured one even had an arm torn off, making it walk with difficulty.

Moreover, maintaining such a large-scale summoning and precise control is also a huge test of his mental strength and star energy.

The dire wolves were not faring much better. More than fifteen dire wolf corpses lay on the ground, and seven or eight more were severely wounded and unable to fight head-on. They could only bar their teeth and howl in vain on the perimeter, or struggle to lick their wounds and occasionally launch some low-level ranged attacks to harass the enemy.

Most of the dire wolves that were still attacking were also injured, and their speed and strength were obviously not as good as at the beginning. The madness and bloodlust in their eyes were gradually replaced by a kind of anxiety and fatigue.

The battle has entered a phase of attrition, a matter of which side cannot hold out. If a rout occurs, the victor will seize the spoils of victory. The balance of power on the battlefield is slowly tilting towards the human team.

Because of their superior equipment, class composition, teamwork, and the attrition caused by Li Xingyao's undead sea tactics, they managed to withstand the frenzied attacks of these advanced star beasts and stubbornly held on.

Just then, Li Xingyao's gaze sharpened slightly. He noticed a faint energy fluctuation flashing past the corpses of several of the earliest slain demon wolves at the edge of the distant battlefield. That was… the energy reaction of a star core!

The battle was so fierce that almost no one had time to think about the spoils. But Li Xingyao was different; the Myriad Soul Banner was extremely sensitive to soul energy.

"I can give it a try!" he thought to himself.

Li Xingyao immediately used the mental link to issue commands to the few skeleton warriors who were still fighting closest to the corpses.

A wounded skeleton warrior, in the instant it fell to the ground, swiftly reached into the broken skull of the wolf corpse with its bony hand, and grasped a crystal the size of a pigeon egg, shimmering with a silvery-gray luster and containing subtle energy flow, before concealing it in its bony paw. The entire process occurred in the blink of an eye, almost unnoticed by anyone.

Then, another skeleton warrior was killed in the same way…

Li Xingyao diverted a sliver of his mind to guide the skeleton warriors who had succeeded in their attack, gradually moving them towards the rear of the formation, closer to the Tyrant Zombie, during lulls in the fighting.

Soon, one, two... four high-level star cores were quietly collected through this "battlefield scavenging" method, and were eventually carefully taken by the huge claws of a tyrant zombie, hidden in its palm. There was one more that could not be obtained for the time being because it was too far away.

As the battle intensified, Li Xingyao realized that everyone couldn't hold on for much longer. Suppressing his heavy breathing, he voiced his thoughts in the team chat: "Lin Wei, everyone is exhausted. Our star energy is probably less than 30%."

If we continue fighting, we may not be able to annihilate all of these wolves. Moreover, given the habits of the Shadowmoon wolves, the main force of the wolf pack that pursued the three groups earlier could return at any time. If we are surrounded by them, we will have no chance of survival. I suggest we prepare for a retreat with alternating cover.