The attacks from the heavy ballistae were fully Tier 3. Even a Great Lord–level monster would be knocked back if it tried to tank them head-on, its defenses shattered by sheer force.
Yet the heavy ballistae's volleys were not only effortlessly blocked by the four colossal figures, but the manner in which they were blocked wasn't a clash of brute force—it was a grab, as casual as picking up a twig from the roadside.
This was enough to shatter everyone's composure.
"Attack!"
"Every heavy ballista fires at once!"
Everyone in Star Ring understood all too well what these monster-like mechanical puppets represented. If these things reached the main body of troops and the heavy ballistae, the result would be catastrophic. The puppets had to be destroyed before they closed the distance.
In an instant, every heavy ballista swiveled to a new target, abandoning the Crescent Moon Town defensive magic array that was on the verge of collapsing and locking onto the four defensive puppets with a frenzy of fire.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh…
The sound of projectiles tearing through the air rang out without pause. The bolts streaked downward like a shower of meteors, landing with pinpoint accuracy on the positions of the four defensive puppets. The coordination of the heavy ballistae was so precise that even seasoned ranged fighters couldn't have done better.
This assault was nothing like before—where only a single bolt had been fired. Now each defensive puppet faced over a dozen projectiles simultaneously. Not only was the volume staggering, but every single bolt was explosive: even missing the direct hit, a near landing would deal devastating area damage. For something as sluggish as a mechanical puppet, dodging was simply out of the question.
Or so it should have been.
Facing the incoming volley, the four operators inside the defensive puppets—Qi Guang and the others—knew a head-on block was impossible. Instead, they maneuvered the puppets' bodies in motion.
Boom boom boom…
A chain of explosions thundered across the battlefield. Yet the atmosphere over the entire arena had gone deathly cold and silent.
The defensive puppets operated by Qi Guang and his team had dodged every last bolt. They moved with the agility of a nimble assassin, letting every projectile scrape past their hulls without so much as a graze.
"How is that possible?! Why are the mechanical puppets reacting so quickly?!"
The players manning the heavy ballistae stared at the charging defensive puppets, eyes nearly popping out of their heads.
Mechanical puppets were universally known for their defense and raw power. Their universal weakness was slow reactions. If a puppet had caught a bolt by hand, they might have marveled at its strength and left it at that. But these puppets now moved with the fluidity of monkeys—it completely rewrote everything they thought they knew about mechanical constructs.
At that moment, not even the high-level players present could make sense of it, let alone the executives from the various major guilds who had seen their share of wonders.
Only
Qi Guang and the other three had trained extensively in the Transcendent Tower, and it had improved their capabilities considerably. Though none of them had reached the initial stage of the Realm of Logic, their skill levels were already quite high. Their control over the defensive puppets had reached at least an ordinary expert's standard—more than sufficient to dodge a simultaneous volley of over a dozen bolts.
"Defend! Don't let them get close!"
On the battlefield, the relentless waves of heavy ballista fire proved utterly useless against the now-mobile puppets. Instead, the ballistae crew was forced into a steady retreat, desperately trying to maintain distance.
But the defensive puppets operated by Qi Guang and his team were Bronze-rank war puppets. Their movement speed far outstripped the heavy ballistae, and the gap between the two sides shrank with every passing second.
Eight hundred yards…
Five hundred yards…
Two hundred yards…
With the distance dropping below a hundred yards, every Star Ring player tensed up. Then Qi Guang and the other three brought their defensive puppets to a sudden, dead halt—blocked by an invisible barrier that held them firmly in place.