The Heartbeat of the Cruel Elves

It was as if the arrow had a spirit and would not want to hurt such a pure person.

Of course the arrows would not be effective. Looking at Cassia's tangled flying hair, Li Yin understood instantly.

The storm of arrows missed their target because they encountered a real storm!

The third-ring arcane spell - well, since it was cast by Cassia, it should be called a divine spell at this moment, Wind Wall.

Cassia used the power of magic to create an invisible wind barrier in front of herself. The violent wind could sweep away anything that tried to enter this area.

Countless crossbow arrows were deflected by the wind wall and flew past Cassia, continuing to fly behind her and falling in the distance. From a distance, it seemed as if weeds had suddenly grown on the hard ground.

After a long time, the arrows became sporadic and the storm gradually subsided.

The attack was ineffective. The enemies wrapped in black armor stopped shooting, retracted their crossbows, and re-engaged in the fighting on the ground. On the other side, Cassia, whose fear spell did not achieve the expected effect, slowly landed and returned to the center of Nevelle's army. It was unknown whether she was helpless or was preparing other means.

Li Yin turned around and faced his three enemies again, his heart still in turmoil and he was filled with shock.

Although Cassia's reaction was beyond Li Yin's expectations, he was not particularly shocked overall, because he did not believe that this powerful dark elf princess would die so easily.

What really shocked him was that these mysterious enemies were not dark elves, but appeared inexplicably in this lost dark elf ruins, and were wearing a full set of dark elf-style standard equipment. Not only could they not be easily defeated by weapons, but they were also immune to the influence of powerful fourth-ring magic like fear!

How can we defeat these guys?

At this moment, Li Yin couldn't help but recall the scarlet spiders' hesitation in the maze and what Cassia once said about their "fear".

As expected, this is an enemy that even the Scarlet Spider fears, Li Yin sighed inwardly. He felt a headache and racked his brains, trying to find a way to deal with this creature.

But his enemies didn't give him much room to think.

Three mysterious warriors who had been defeated by him attacked him together, two in front and one behind.

Li Yin frowned slightly. After experiencing so many events in the underground world, he was no longer the young man who panicked when he first drifted underground. Although he was shocked by the existence of these strange creatures in front of him, he did not act at a loss.

Facing the attack from both sides, he decided to strike first without thinking. He turned around and rushed towards the lone enemy behind him before the enemies in front and behind him could close in. While quickly shortening the distance between the two sides, he took advantage of the situation to temporarily escape the attack range of the other two enemies behind him.

He raised the sword in his hand, and with the momentum of rushing forward, he slashed at the opponent fiercely. These strange enemies were stronger than ordinary dark elf soldiers, but Li Yin was stronger than them, and much stronger!

Swords clashed.

With a loud clang, this blow, which combined all of Li Yin's strength and carried the momentum of his entire body rushing forward, directly pushed the enemy's weapon back onto his chest, and knocked him back with his sword.

Li Yin's momentum did not stop, he followed the retreating black-armored warrior and continued to stride forward. Suddenly, there was a sharp sound of metal breaking through the air from behind, and the two weapons missed his moving body by a hair's breadth again.

Li Yin remained calm as he approached the black-armored warrior. While the other party was still swaying and trying to maintain his balance, he reached out his hand and decided to help him.

He grabbed its shoulders and twisted its body around like an eagle catching a chick, blocking it in front of him. There were two loud clangs again, and the two curved swords finally hit the target accurately this time.

However, the only drawback is that this goal is not what they originally expected.

Of course, it is fortunate that the opponent's armor is strong enough, so that their finally hit attack did not achieve the desired effect.

The two black-armored warriors looked at each other in surprise. The black-armored warrior whose shoulder was grabbed by Li Yin instinctively reached out and tried to grab his arm.

Chapter 158 Courage

The previous "resurrection" of the black-armored warriors sounded the alarm for Li Yin. Moreover, the third black-armored warrior he held in his hand still had the exquisite dagger stuck in his neck.

Li Yin didn't know what kind of action could make these mysterious and strange creatures lose their ability to resist quickly, and he was worried that he would be entangled by this guy accidentally. So he made a quick decision, raised his foot, and kicked it on the butt. The hard iron sole and the golden butt collided with a loud bang, and the third black-armored warrior rushed towards one of the two black-armored warriors in front as if he had a booster.

Accompanied by the sound of armor colliding, the two black-armored warriors collided with each other and fell to the ground together.

Li Yin turned his wrist, pointed the tip of his sword at the remaining black-armored warrior, and rushed forward without hesitation...

His strength was far beyond theirs, and his martial arts skills were even better than theirs. After escaping from the dilemma of being attacked from both sides, even though he faced the joint attack of three people, he only experienced a slightly prolonged fight before he knocked them all to the ground again without any danger.

Li Yin put one foot on the chest of one of the enemies, swung his sword, accurately aimed at the gap under its jaw, cut off its helmet strap, and then slashed the side with the sword again, knocking its helmet directly off.

He wanted to see who this mysterious creature was that was immune to fear and not afraid of knives, pickaxes or chisels.

Then, the facial features carved out of a translucent milky white material mixed with sparkling spots, like jelly, came into his sight for the first time.

The empty eyes and the stiff face that showed no expression even when on the verge of despair made him slightly startled.

Suddenly, a resistance force was generated under my feet. The strange thing was supporting itself with both hands, trying to get up again.

Li Yin didn't say anything and swung his sword at its exposed head.

The stiff feeling in his hands, as if inserted into thick plaster, made him even more surprised. If he did not have divine power, it would not be easy to penetrate this strange body.

However, after a sword pierced its head, the strange creature's hands scratching the ground suddenly stopped, and Li Yin also felt that the resistance force from the soles of his feet disappeared instantly.

Did it work? Li Yin looked at the ground in doubt.

Does this mean that we have to attack the head directly?

Just as Li Yin was summarizing the information based on the results of the attack, suddenly, the stiff corpse on the ground bounced violently, and the arms that were originally spread on both sides of the body suddenly stood up and grabbed his thighs directly.

Fortunately, he was prepared and never let down his guard. He jumped away in time with his legs. But even so, this sudden attack still scared him.

After he withdrew, he saw that the strange creature was still grabbing in the air with its hands, as if it was still looking for his limbs. After it grabbed for a while and completely missed, it seemed to react and supported itself with its hands, trying to get up again.

But at this moment, its head was nailed to the ground by Li Yin's fine gold sword that pierced through the rock. It used both hands to support itself on the ground, and even raised its waist in the air to exert force, struggling desperately for a while, but in vain, it only made its head penetrate deeper into the sword blade, and under the fixed effect of the sword blade, it was separated from the ground and suspended in the air.

Li Yin first hurriedly bent down to pick up the weapon that fell on the ground, then turned his head back. Seeing this scene, he was immediately amused and confused.

It looks like it won't be able to get up for a while. This thing's IQ is a bit questionable, can't it just pull out the sword from its head?

Just as Li Yin was thinking this, he saw that the strange creature, after struggling in vain, actually reached out for its head.

"Okay." He curled his lips. His IQ is not high, but it's enough.

However, it was not easy to pull out the sword. First, the black-armored warrior's current posture was not conducive to its use of force. Second, the swords they used were all curved swords. The blade of this kind of sword had a certain curvature, which was originally more conducive to chopping. After being inserted into an object, it would hook it like a hook, making it difficult to pull out. If it hit a flesh and blood body, it would be fine. At this moment, it was deeply embedded in the rock and the black-armored warrior's hard head, which was not much softer than the rock, and the difficulty of pulling it out increased sharply.

In short, it seems that it will take some time for it to get out of this predicament.

But while the two of them were fighting, the other two unattended black-armored warriors crawled up from the ground again.

Li Yin felt a headache. Although he seemed to be able to handle the current troubles, it seemed that this handling would never end.

What's more important is that he was able to cope with the current situation because of his own strong power and tireless physical strength, while his colleagues around him, the dark elves, were increasingly showing signs of weakness in such a confrontation. As the battle became more and more intense, the space for each soldier was compressed to the extreme, which greatly reduced the agility that the dark elves were proud of. On the contrary, the black-armored warriors, who had stronger armor, stronger power, and even an extremely hard and tenacious body, had the upper hand in such a head-on confrontation.

At this moment, the disadvantage of their stiff and sluggish movements was minimized to the greatest extent. Relying on their strong armor, heavy strength, and almost immortal bodies, they only needed to use their greatest strength to swing their weapons at their opponents who had no way to escape.

Not long after, Li Yin, who was still dealing with the siege of two black-armored warriors, noticed that two more black-armored warriors had dealt with their respective enemies and were rushing towards him.

In the foreseeable future, more and more enemies will gather around him. Even if he is gifted with supernatural powers, he may not be able to defeat four people with two fists.

Not only that, just as Li Yin was gradually struggling, the dark elves' overall front line was also shrinking under the opponent's unstoppable pressure. If this continued, it seemed that defeat was only a matter of time.

After understanding the current situation, Li Yin made a prompt decision, blocking the enemy's attack while slowly moving backwards. He had already begun to consider the possibility of escaping after the battle failed, and he kept glancing behind him, trying to find the best escape route.

But the huge crowd behind him made it impossible for him to see the situation further away. So he had to turn around and concentrate on dealing with the attack in front of him, while following the overall shrinking line of the dark elves, moving back step by step.

"hold onto!"

"do not be afraid!"

Suddenly, amid the painful wails and fearful shouts of the dark elf soldiers, Cassia's clear and powerful voice was heard.

"The warriors of Nevile."

"The great spider goddess is watching you from within the abyssal web."

"Your mistress is waiting for news of your triumphant return at home."

"Use your swords to teach these ignorant monsters the price of daring to violate the noble dark elves of Nevile!"

At the same time, along with her passionate words, a surge of magical waves spread out from behind Li Yin.

So, in an instant, even though he didn't care about the Spider Goddess, there was no mistress waiting for his news at home, and he was not a noble dark elf. As a slave, Rein still straightened his chest for the goddess, the mistress, and the noble dark elf, and felt a strong excitement for no reason.

This is the power of magic.

Rein understood this very well. But what did Cassia want to do with this power?

Listen to her tone...

Maintain the morale on the verge of collapse and then launch a counterattack?

But a counterattack would be impossible to succeed.

Even if the dark elves could maintain their morale, never retreat, and fight to the death, the reality is that the gap between the enemy and us is too big. If they continue to fight without any changes, the result will be nothing more than a fierce struggle before death, and it will not affect the final outcome of this war.

"Follow my orders." At this moment, Cassia's powerful voice came again.

"Change the formation front and back."

"To the southwest—"

"Retreat in an orderly manner!"

Is this the purpose?

Li Yin suddenly realized, but for a moment his expression was a little confused.

The purpose of using blessing to inspire courage in soldiers is not to attack, but to escape?

This purpose may sound outrageous at first glance, but upon closer inspection it seems to have some rationality?

After all, Cassia was talking about an "orderly retreat." If one retreats hastily without maintaining good morale under extremely unfavorable combat conditions, the retreat is likely to turn into a complete rout rather than the "orderly retreat" that Cassia hoped for.

"Don't ignore orders and run away blindly. Those who disobey orders will be killed!"

Sure enough, Cassia's stern voice came again from behind the army.

It’s just… Although I understand the reason why Cassia acted this way, the act of using the blessing spell to retreat still sounds a bit weird no matter how I understand it.

In short, under Cassia's strict orders and the powerful guarantee of the blessing spell, Nevile's troops began to retreat in an organized manner. As for Rein and other dark elf soldiers who were originally at the front of the army, they changed from the front to the back during the retreat, responsible for hindering the enemy's attack and covering the retreat of the troops in the rear.

While fighting with the enemy, they followed the overall pace of the troops and retreated in an orderly manner.

The screams continued, but the expressions of fear on the dark elves' faces had decreased a lot. This must be the effect of the blessing spell, Li Yin thought as he looked around in his busy schedule.

Otherwise, under the oppression of the enemy and the evacuation of the rear troops, even human soldiers would not be able to withstand the pressure and would flee in panic, not to mention the fickle dark elves.

For Lein, the blessing did not have as strong an effect on him as it did on the dark elves. After all, he did not care about the Spider Goddess, nor did he have any mistress, and he was not one of the noble dark elves. After the brief excitement caused by the magic effect, he almost immediately came to his senses. Now, the reason why he still stood firmly at the front line and did not flee was not because he, as a human, was braver than these dark elves. As a human, he could responsibly say that there was no such thing. At least he had not, was not, and would not think that he was much braver than other intelligent races.

In the world above, there are many slogans like "The hymn of mankind is the hymn of courage". Humans regard courage and the positive and progressive mentality that arises from it as the greatest advantage that distinguishes humans from other races. However, in Li Yin's view, this is just a self-consolation product of the self-esteem of the race. Similar slogans can also be applied to other races based on stereotypes, such as "The hymn of elves is the hymn of wisdom", "The hymn of dwarves is the hymn of tenacity" and so on.

Li Yin never thought that those little dwarfs who could only live in caves in the mountains were much stronger in their tenacity in overcoming the environment and trying to survive than humans who lived in mountains, oceans, yellow sands and glaciers everywhere; just as he never thought that humans would necessarily be braver than these guys who did not have claustrophobia.

As for the elves... well, after being exposed to many arcane arts originating from the elves at the Mage Academy, Li Yin had to admit that intelligence was a physiological characteristic, and they might... really be a little smarter.

Furthermore, what Rein said earlier, "Even humans...", was not meant to mock the dark elves' lack of courage, but to describe another characteristic of the dark elves' character, changeability. In fact, in Rein's opinion, from a certain perspective, changeability is also a symbol of courage. After all, according to the popular saying now, one must "have the courage to make changes."

I have strayed off topic. Anyway, what is restraining Li Yin and preventing him from fleeing is that, firstly, the entire army has not been completely defeated. His mistress and his good friend... four eyes are staring at him from behind. So even though this is a war that does not belong to him, he has to continue fighting. Secondly, his military strength is objectively much greater than that of other ordinary dark elf soldiers and the mysterious enemies in front of him. Therefore, although the current situation is tricky, he can still cope with it. Finally, the factor that makes Li Yin most confident is -

Once the front line completely collapsed, with his agility and amazing jumping ability, he was confident that he could escape faster than all the other dark elves on the front line. At that time, all of them would passively become his rear guard, and his safety would still be guaranteed.

In short, for now, Li Yin does not have any urgent anxiety about how to survive in the present.

At this moment, what bothers him more is the longer-term issue of survival.

The retreat cannot be endless.

And judging from the way the enemies in front of them were pressing forward step by step, they obviously had no intention of letting them go.

So, as the commanders of this army, Cassia... and Dufiya, what are they planning to do?

Is retreat just a temporary expedient? Or are they at their wits' end and are struggling symbolically?

Chapter 159 Construct

Gradually, the rear guard troops, while hindering the enemy, were also dragged down by the enemy and were separated from the orderly retreating main force by a certain distance.

This panic of being out of touch with the main force, coupled with the fact that the Dark Elves on the front line suffered more and more casualties as the battle progressed, inevitably caused the morale of the Dark Elves to gradually decline even with the blessing, and there was a trend of collapse again.

The dark elf soldiers who fell one after another around him, their screams when they were dying, and the black-armored warriors who kept coming up to replace them made Li Yin grit his teeth. He had to consider the issue of retreat.

Cassia...and Dufiya, what exactly are their plans?

He turned his head and looked back, only to see that a few dozen steps away, the large army of dark elves suddenly retreated into a narrow alley according to Cassia's instructions.

He looked slightly stunned. It was impossible to enter this narrow alley with the original wide formation of the troops, so they had to change their formation at the entrance of the alley, reducing the lines and lengthening the columns. In this way, the few retreating times that the soldiers on their side had bought with their lives were delayed a lot.

Why should we waste time walking on these small roads instead of taking the spacious main roads in the city, especially when it is so urgent?

His mind suddenly turned, and his eyes suddenly lit up. After knocking down an enemy with one sword, he accelerated and retreated along the path where the main troops had passed.

Soon, the soldiers at the rear also arrived at the narrow alley entrance. As the battle line stretched out very long, they were inevitably crowded here. Moreover, unlike the previous retreat of the main troops with stable order and strict discipline, at this moment, all the soldiers fighting knew very well that they were the last batch of troops. If they retreated too late, no one would help them block the knife. On the contrary, they would become the ones who used their lives to buy time for other elves to escape - and this was obviously not in line with the values ​​of the dark elves. In addition, as more and more dark elf soldiers died, the remaining soldiers had to face several more enemies than before, and the situation became more and more dangerous. So, someone's pushing and shouting became the catalyst, and the entire rear guard almost completely collapsed at the moment of blocking the alley entrance. All the dark elf soldiers scrambled for each other and rushed into the alley, fearing that if they fell behind by half a step, they would become shields for others to block the knife.

The complete collapse caused the last bit of defense of the front line to completely disintegrate when facing the black-armored warriors. The collapse of the dark elves was exchanged for the black-armored warriors' more swift and sharp killing. And this killing in turn intensified the fear of the dark elves. For a while, there were constant wailing and screaming at the crowded alley.

As for the main force, Li Yin looked into the alley and, as he expected, they had already re-formed their battle formation deep in the alley.