Late Ming Dynasty: Summoning players from Liaodong to support the Ming Dynasty

The once disciplined formation crumbled instantly. In the narrow alleyway, barely wide enough for a few people to walk side by side, two hundred elite soldiers huddled together, rushing around like headless flies. Fear had clouded their judgment, and the instinct for survival drove them to shove and push their comrades, desperate to escape this eerie inferno as soon as possible.

At that very moment, the "pumps" installed high up in the warehouse, which were made by Gongshu Ban himself and had an ancient appearance but concealed a deadly intent, were precisely triggered by the heat of the flames spreading below.

"Crunch... crunch..."

A sickeningly loud creaking sound of machinery rang out, standing out clearly amidst the crackling of the flames.

Immediately afterwards—

boom!boom!boom!boom!boom!

Like dozens of muffled cannon shots, the pistons of more than a dozen pumps suddenly shot out at the same moment! The enormous thrust sprayed the mixture that had been filled inside the pumps—a mixture of coal dust, sulfur powder, and even iron filings and dry flour—like a spray, fiercely into the already hot tunnel!

In an instant, the entire space was shrouded in a grayish-black dust with a pungent sulfur smell. Visibility dropped to zero, and you couldn't see your hand in front of your face.

"Cough cough...cough! What the hell is this thing?!"

Turgh coughed repeatedly, tears and snot streaming uncontrollably from his mouth, nose, eyes, and even ears. He felt as if his mouth, nose, eyes, and even ears were filled with this damned powder. He couldn't see his surroundings clearly, only that the air had become thick and scalding, and each breath felt like swallowing a handful of scalding coal dust just pulled from a fire, with a tearing pain shooting through his throat and lungs.

A warning screamed in his heart, and an unprecedented shadow of death completely enveloped him. Before he could even figure out what kind of tactic this was, the first wave of burning eerie green flames ignited the deadly cloud of dust.

Then, a truly devastating attack, akin to a dimensional reduction strike, arrived.

boom----!!!

There was no earth-shattering roar, only a series of muffled explosions, so deep they seemed to make the earth itself groan in pain! The sound didn't act on the eardrums, but rather on the internal organs through low-frequency resonance! All the air in the alleyway seemed to be ignited, compressed, and then violently released in that instant!

Turgh felt an irresistible force crashing down on him from all directions, easily sending him flying like a leaf in a storm. His prized white armor, capable of withstanding sword strikes and arrows, offered no protection whatsoever. Instead, it acted like a hard mold, transmitting the terrifying impact completely and without reservation into his internal organs.

"puff--"

A mouthful of scalding blood, mixed with fragments of internal organs, gushed from his mouth. His body slammed heavily against a wall several meters away, causing spiderweb-like cracks to appear in the sturdy structure.

He struggled to lift his head, and the hellish scene before him was something he would never forget, and it terrified him.

The roofs of those enormous warehouses were ripped off in pieces and lifted into the air! Countless burning timbers and tiles scattered like a dense rain of meteors!

A terrifying shockwave, carrying with it all-consuming flames and thick smoke, raged through the narrow alleyways that Zhou Keke had meticulously designed! These alleyways, which had been designed with aerodynamics in mind, were no longer alleyways at this moment.

They turned into "fire tunnels"! They became the nozzles of a death storm!

The violent airflow, amplified by the "chimney effect," emitted a shrill, howling sound! It pumped the flames from one warehouse into another, like bellows, completely connecting all the independent fires into a vast sea of ​​fire!

At this moment, the entire warehouse district transformed into a veritable hell on earth!

The elite white-armored warriors of the Later Jin, the sharpest spear of the Great Jin Kingdom, at this moment, completely lost their qualification as "human beings".

They were turned into fuel.

They became sacrifices, screaming and writhing in this enormous crematorium.

High temperatures, thick smoke, explosions, toxic gases, and flames everywhere.

Their pride in their bravery became a colossal joke at that moment. A Bayara warrior instinctively drew his scimitar, trying to carve a path to safety, but the moment his hand grasped the hilt, he screamed in agony as his entire palm was instantly scalded and torn open. His blade failed to strike a single enemy.

Their superior armor, layers upon layers that countless Ming soldiers envied, now became the most vicious curse. They transformed into sealed iron cans, trapping the intense heat capable of melting gold and iron, roasting them alive from the inside out!

A young soldier rolled in the flames, frantically tearing at the straps of his armor, but the straps were already charred and brittle from the intense heat, breaking easily and impossible to untie. He howled in despair, his voice turning from piercing to hoarse, until finally, his body curled up and charred inside the armor, becoming a charred corpse in a painful posture.

The air was filled with the stench of burning protein, mixed with the acrid smell of sulfur, and the inhuman screams of countless people dying, twisted by the high temperature and despair.

Turgh lay on the ground, panting heavily.

He was lucky enough to be pushed to a relatively safe corner by the shockwave of the explosion, avoiding being directly engulfed by the flames. But he felt like he was suffocating. The scalding air burned his already damaged lungs, and every breath was accompanied by excruciating pain.

He struggled to turn around and look in the direction he had come from.

There, not a single comrade could be seen standing. Only a sea of ​​fire remained, and countless black figures struggling, writhing, and ultimately turning into charred remains within it.

The proud warriors of Bayara, those fierce warriors who could take on ten men on the battlefield of Sarhu, now died so pathetically, so humiliatingly, so... ridiculously.

They didn't even... they didn't even see the enemy's face!

Turger's mind went blank. Then came endless regret and a chilling coldness.

He finally understood.

From beginning to end, this was a trap.

A trap that was so meticulously planned it was appalling and so cruel it was inhuman!

That secret letter that brought hope was fake! That inside man didn't exist at all!

That dark path to glory is a one-way road to hell!

The prince's ecstasy, his own ambition, everything was just a play written by that Southern Dynasty brat named Chu Ze!

And they, these hundreds of the most elite warriors of the Great Jin, are the pathetic clowns in this play, responsible for screaming and dying!

An extreme chill ran from the soles of his feet, up his spine, and straight to the top of his head! The coldness even surpassed the surrounding high temperature, enough to melt gold and iron! This was not a physical sensation, but a tremor in his very soul!

escape!

We have to escape!

This thought, like a branding iron, was deeply imprinted in his chaotic mind, becoming his only obsession at this moment!

He had to escape! He wanted to tell the Prince everything that had happened here! He wanted to tell the Great Khan!

This Chu Ze is not human! He is a devil in human skin! This Guangning City is a true hell on earth!

With his last ounce of strength and will to survive, Turgh scrambled to his feet. He assessed his surroundings, abandoning the entrance to the secret passage, already blocked by rubble and flames, and the alleyways consumed by fire. Stumbling and staggering, he rushed towards another part of the maze—the only open area not completely engulfed in flames!

That was the place where Qin Jue and Xiao Ran's "harvesting team" had been waiting for a long time.

As he ran, he used all his strength to shave off the armor that was as hot as a branding iron. The heavy armor slammed onto the charred ground with a dull thud. Without the restraint of the armor, he felt lighter and his speed increased.

He burst through the thick smoke, rushed over the crumbling wall of fire, the ground beneath his feet scorching hot, each step feeling like walking on a red-hot iron plate. Finally, a clearing without flames appeared ahead!

The hope of life is right in front of us!

But just as he stepped out of the fire and greedily inhaled the first breath of fresh, cold air, his steps suddenly froze.

He saw it.

At the other end of that open space, where the flames blazed into the sky, at the boundary between fire and darkness.

A series of black figures, backlit, silently emerged from the darkness.

They were dressed in matching black night clothes, their faces covered by black masks that only revealed their eyes. Firelight flickered behind them, outlining their silhouettes like ghosts. They were like a group of death gods crawled out of hell—calm, silent, and professional.

They made no sound, no triumphant shouts, no bloodthirsty roars.

They simply and silently, with a tacit understanding honed through countless rehearsals, quickly dispersed, forming a semi-circular encirclement that blocked all possible escape routes. The distance between each person was precisely calculated, allowing them to support each other without hindering one another's movements.

In their hands they held all sorts of weapons: longswords, short swords, and some strangely shaped flails and grappling hooks that Turgh had never seen before.

Not a single spark of fire was reflected from the weapon. This was because it was coated with a layer of black grease that absorbed light.

The leader was a man in black who wasn't particularly tall, but had an exceptionally upright posture. He held two short, curved blades in his hands, the blades not designed for parrying, but purely for the most efficient cutting and reaping.

Qin Jue.

He looked at the Later Jin general who had rushed out of the fire, his body blackened by smoke, his hair singed, and who looked like a demon. His eyes showed no emotion, as if he were looking at a statistic or a target.

In his field of vision, a bright red symbol was floating above Turg's head—[Elite Leader Turg].

Qin Jue didn't speak, but instead gave an extremely concise command to the "harvesting team" beside him in the guild channel that only they could hear.

"Begin. Prioritize dealing with elite monsters, then clear out the remaining mobs according to their numbers. Finish this quickly."

The next second, dozens of black figures moved.

Like the most agile cheetahs, they lightly touched the ground with their toes, moving silently yet with unparalleled speed and ferocity as they pounced!

Turgh watched all of this in despair.

He saw it on the faces of those men in black—an undisguised excitement and focus that only a hunter would have when spotting his prey.

He saw it: their practiced yet ruthless teamwork, two or three at a time, overlapping and providing cover, every movement brimming with deadly efficiency, every angle aimed straight for the vital organs. This wasn't a battlefield; it was a slaughterhouse assembly line!

He wanted to raise his scimitar in a final stand, to defend his last dignity as a Bayara warrior.

But his arm, injured in the explosion, was too weak to even lift the knife. The excruciating pain and exhaustion prevented him from performing even the simplest movements.

A cold, sharp glint flashed in his pupils, which were widened by despair.

puff.

The sound of a sharp blade piercing flesh was faint, yet terrifyingly clear.

Turgh lowered his head, looking at the black dagger protruding from his chest. Qin Jue's figure had already appeared behind him like a ghost.

Blood gushed out along the blade, taking away his last warmth and strength.

In his final moments, what he saw was the leader of the men in black calmly drawing his dagger, and then, surprisingly, pulling out a clean white cloth from his pocket and meticulously wiping away the bloodstains that shouldn't have been there.

That action didn't seem like killing someone.

Like a perfect craftsman, after completing a trivial piece of work, he carefully maintains his tools.

"Why...why..."

Blood and foam gushed from Turgh's mouth. With his last ounce of strength, he uttered a question he could barely hear himself: Who are they? Which Ming army are they? Why are they so... so inhuman?

Qin Jue didn't answer him. He'd heard far too many of these NPC's dying words.

The only person who answered him was a player with the ID "Wind Chasing the Wind".

He rushed forward in one stride, not even glancing at Qin Jue, and skillfully kicked Turg's still twitching corpse with his toe.

This is a superstitious practice circulating among players, commonly known as "enlightening a corpse by whipping it."

The next instant, a strange purple light burst forth from Turgh's corpse!

Holy crap!

【Wind Chasing the Wind】’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets, and his voice cracked, like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.

"It's purple! It's purple! We got a purple one, brothers!"

This scream was louder than any of the previous screams of the Later Jin soldiers, and it was filled with a wild joy that came from the depths of their souls.

Upon hearing the sound, the eyes of several members of the "harvesting squad" who had just dealt with the remaining soldiers turned green instantly, and they surrounded the group like a pack of hungry wolves.

"Damn it! Fengzi, you bastard, you've already looted the corpse first again! How come your hands are so red, you bastard!"

"Quick! Post the stats so we can see! Don't keep this to yourself!"

"Let me see! Let me see what this wonderful treasure is!"

【Wind Chaser】was squeezed in the middle by the crowd, his face beaming with the silly grin of someone who had won the lottery. He frantically shoved a grotesque scimitar from Turg's corpse and proudly shared the item information in the team chat.

【Skull Crusher】

Quality: Rare (Purple)

Type: One-handed curved sword

Equipment Requirements: Strength 30, Basic Swordsmanship Level 5

Attributes: Armor Penetration +15, Slash Damage +10%

Special effect: [Skull Crusher] - There is a 5% chance to trigger when attacking heavily armored units. This attack ignores 80% of the target's physical defense.

Note: It was once the glory of Turge, the Zhangjing of the Later Jin Dynasty; now, it is merely your spoils. Well done, Chosen One.

"hiss--"

A collective gasp filled the channel.

"Ignores 80% physical defense! Holy crap, this is a can-breaking knife!"

"Fengzi, you've struck gold! Take this knife and sell it on the forum, it'll fetch at least this much!" A player held up five fingers.

"Five thousand RMB? That's more than that! I bet ten thousand people would still be fighting over it!"

"Sell my ass!" [Wind Chaser] clutched his scimitar tightly to his chest, warily eyeing his companions with the protective gaze of a mother hen guarding her chicks. "This is my family heirloom! Nobody's going to take it from me!"

There was no fierce fighting.

A duel without heroes.

There was only one... one-sided slaughter.

Turg never understood this until his death.

These enemies, whom he saw as hellish demons, would excitedly approach the corpses after killing his comrades, making actions he couldn't understand and muttering nonsensical words like "loot the corpse," "pick up," and "roll the points."

Pride, bravery, glory... all turned to dust at this moment.

They are just monsters that drop equipment and experience.