"Damn it, this Black Flame is nothing but a mad dog — he bites anyone he sees," Xue Ji cursed. "I'm remembering this. Next time I get the chance, I won't let him off."
"Guild Master, our healers died way too many times earlier. After fighting for so long, their mana is completely drained. We can't disengage from combat to use magic springs for recovery — we can only rely on mana potions, and those are all gone now. If Dark Star's people don't show up soon, we're all done for." Gu Dan glanced at the healers whose mana had run dry and quickly reported.
Xue Ji knew this all too well. Earlier, when they had plenty of healers, they could rotate in two shifts — one group recovering mana while the other healed. But after Zero Wing's surprise raid killed the majority, rotating wasn't even feasible. The death toll would have easily doubled if they'd tried.
"Damn Wei Wo Du Kuang! If he hadn't talked me into blocking the Snake of the Body, we wouldn't be trapped in this dead end." By now Xue Ji thoroughly despised Wei Wo Du Kuang and regretted ever listening to him.
If he had known Zero Wing possessed such formidable strength — along with that lunatic guild master Hei Yan — he would have sat back and watched the tigers fight from the mountainside. Instead, he had brought ruin upon himself.
With the healers' life-restoring magic gone, and Zero Wing still wielding Ice Grenades and other magic scrolls on top of their already superior combat power, the gap between the two sides grew even wider.
Xiongba Tianxia's players fell like wheat being mowed down, harvested by Zero Wing's members in swathes. They died in droves.
On the other hand, Zero Wing's healers were performing brilliantly. The members charging at the front could hardly die even if they tried.
The kill ratio between the two sides became increasingly terrifying. Starting at one to three, it climbed to one to eight, approaching nine. That meant for every one Zero Wing member who fell, eight to nine Xiongba Tianxia players went down.
Meanwhile, the Snake of the Body was also achieving impressive results — the ratio shifting from the original one to two, up to roughly one to three.
"We can't wait any longer. If we keep waiting, even when Dark Star arrives, we'll already be completely wiped out." Watching more and more of his people die — from the original ten thousand-plus down to barely five thousand — Xue Ji burned with fury and felt as though a knife were carving his heart. He immediately shouted in the guild channel, "Everyone, charge with me! We're going all in — escape however many can!"
At Xue Ji's command, every remaining Xiongba Tianxia player launched a desperate charge, pushing forward even through the blizzards and AoE spells raining down from the enemy's casters.
This kind of headlong assault only made it easier for Zero Wing and the Snake of the Body to cut them down, at even less cost. However, when over five thousand people were fleeing for their lives with no regard for their own survival, it was impossible to kill every single one.
In less than ten minutes, out of Xiongba Tianxia's total force of over ten thousand, fewer than five hundred managed to escape. The rest were all eliminated.
With such devastating losses, Xiongba Tianxia's ambition to dominate White River City had completely evaporated.
"Zero Wing's combat power really is something. Just over three thousand members, and nearly all of them are elite-level players." After the great victory, Zhao Yueru gained a completely new appreciation for the Zero Wing Guild.
Zero Wing had a total membership of only five thousand — fewer than an ordinary third-rate guild. But having witnessed the combat strength displayed by those three thousand-plus fighters, she understood that Zero Wing had rightfully earned its reputation as one of the six great guilds. It was truly in a class of its own, leagues above any second- or third-rate guild.
And that Ice Grenade attack earlier had been overwhelmingly destructive and awe-inspiring!
Without that single move, the battle would have cost far more and taken much longer to win.
"Qingxue, your eye for talent really is as sharp as ever. Zero Wing is no ordinary guild," Zhao Yueru said with a grin. "Sure, a few hundred of Xiongba Tianxia's people got away, but with losses this catastrophic, they don't stand a chance in the fight for White River City anymore. Without Xiongba Tianxia as our old rival, our chances of becoming White River City's dominant power just went up significantly."
Bai Qingxue rolled her eyes at the grinning Zhao Yueru — how could she describe things that way?
But Zero Wing's performance had indeed exceeded her expectations.
Over three thousand Zero Wing members had faced a frontal assault from more than ten thousand Xiongba Tianxia players and lost only about a thousand — a truly impressive record.
If the fighting hadn't been at its most intense in the opening phase when casualties were heaviest, Zero Wing would probably have lost only five or six hundred in the entire battle, while Xiongba Tianxia had lost over ten thousand. That spoke volumes about just how powerful their combat strength truly was.