Chapter 703-Terrifying Night
Translator: ryangohsf
Editor: Nora
The night sky was as dark as ink, the black clouds hung overhead.
One could not see many stars, and even the half moon was hidden in the clouds. The entire night sky was like a pitch black drawing, making it hard for one to breathe.
The cold wind blew by, wrapping up the clouds and causing them to turn up and down.
The Red Cliff at night was quiet, like a beast that had kept its fangs, slowly storing energy as it waited to tear the enemy into shreds.
Within the Wulin Fortress on the west shoreline of Red Cliff, hundreds of warships appeared in the night sky, like ghosts lying in wait. Around the warships, numerous torches were lit up.
Under the cover of the fire, the river surface within the water fortress shone.
On the deck, one could occasionally hear the sounds of footsteps. In the unassuming cabins, voices sounded out, like soldiers gathering to gamble to pass the boring night.
Even the patrolling soldiers were talking.
"Who would appear during such lousy weather?"
"Yeah. We have spent so long in this god forsaken place and have not even seen a shadow. What are we even hiding here for?"
"The Lord has planned it out, why are you guys speculating?"
"That's right, why you talking about such useless stuff!"
"Let's just get past this duty and go back to our rooms!"
"Be quiet! Maintain vigilance!" The captain leading them finally could not take it anymore and chided.
The night calmed down once more and in the cold wind, there were occasionally some grumbles.
In the middle of the fortress, a five story high giant turreted ship stood out like a peacock, surrounded by the other warships. It was like a Lord, standing above reproach from the rest.
That turreted ship was the flagship of Xiong Ba - King.
During this battle, Xiong Ba would be in charge of Wulin while Zhan Lang would take charge of Red Cliff.
On the highest floor of the King, in a well decorated reading room, there was Xiong Ba. He was dressed in martial attire and sat in front of a table. On the table was an oil lamp that flickered as the wind blew, like it was about to be extinguished.
The window of the reading room started to creak under the cold wind, giving out an ear piercing sound.
"The wind has started?"
Xiong Ba got up and moved to close the window. He looked up at the pitch black sky, his eyes locked, “Dark cloud, hidden stars, the weather is unusual!"
As people put it, unusual whether always forebodes catastrophe.
Who knows why, since the day started, Xiong Ba had felt unsettled. He felt that there was something bad that was going to happen. The ink like night sky made him feel suppressed and hard to breathe.
"There's no reason, ah!" Xiong Ba shook his head and denied it, trying to toss aside the random thoughts in his head. After calming down his emotions, he just closed the window and stopped looking at the sky.
Half a month before the battle map started, Yanhuang Alliance had started preparing for it. In Di Chen's words, no matter what, they needed to crush Shanhai Alliance and take back supremacy in China.
The explosion in the first half of the year was a process for them to gather strength and power.
Shanhai City upgrading to Grade 3 Prefecture had pressed down on their momentum, but it did not affect much as the true battle was in this battle map.
After getting the cannon crafting technology, Xiong Ba became even more confident.
"Qiyue Wuyi, it's time for you to fail!" Although Xiong Ba admired Qiyue Wuyi for his achievements, it did not mean that he did not want to defeat Qiyue Wuyi.
On the contrary, this desire to win was more intense in him than anyone else.
The Battle of Yizhou Island was seen by the outside world as a battle between Yanhuang Alliance and Shanhai Alliance.
In the end, the Yanhuang Alliance victory was a very good description of their rise in the first half of the year. It was also a continuation of the battle between the two alliances.
Xiong Ba naturally did not think so shallowly.
He was proud of the victory and had used it to raise the prestige and might of King City.
But to say that this was a battle between the two alliances was a little far from the truth.
Xiong Ba knew that from the start, Shanhai City did not even join in. If not, just the Jiaozhou Squadron joining in would be enough to crush them.
After winning against Xunlong City, Xiong Ba followed the successful model of Qiongzhou Island like shipbuilding industry, salt, and adventure gamemode players.
Toward Yizhou Island, Xiong Ba invested a lot into it. His ambition was to split the ocean with Shanhai City, one in the north, one in the south.
Yizhou Island was the dividing line.
To fulfil such ambition, the Battle of Red Cliff was the key. He needed to prove that even in naval battle his navy could crush the legendary Shanhai City Navy.
Hence, it was not hard to understand why he placed so much emphasis on this battle.
Even to say that to destroy the Shanhai City Squadron, Xiong Ba had given up on the historical generals in this map.
Outside of the battlefield, Xiong Ba also did a lot of work.
For example, the third party that contacted Xunlong Dianxue was actually a hidden power from the Xiong Ba family. The goal was to cause internal conflict in Shanhai Alliance.
Xunlong Dianxue and Gong Chengshi choosing the Sun Liu Camp undoubtedly proved that his scheme had succeeded.
Toward Xunlong Dianxue, to say the truth, Xiong Ba found him an eyesore. In his eyes, he felt that he was just lucky to be friends with Shanhai City.
How could true commoner Lords compete with them?
The only change was Qiyue Wuyi.
Hence, the determination of the aristocratic families to remove this anomaly had never changed.
"It was just too difficult."
Thinking about the achievements of the voyage squadron, Xiong Ba felt defeated.
Even in the battle map, things were not going smoothly. The clean defeat of the Lu Su Army had given Xiong Ba and Zhan Lang problems.
The first part of the plan had ended in failure.
Based on the time, the Shanhai City Squadron should have reached Red Cliff two days earlier. In the end? They had waited patiently, fully focused, excited and nervous, but it was all for nothing.
It was like the Shanhai City Squadron had disappeared.
Xiong Ba had also guessed that maybe they had turned around to attack Liu Bei. After all, the bait of Liu Bei, Zhao Yun, and Zhuge Liang gave them a lot of reason to do so.
However, the intel he received last night dismissed this conjecture.
To ensure long distance communication in the battle map, the Yanhuang Alliance spent large amounts of money to buy four golden eagle spirit beasts from adventure groups.
This spirit beast was special and could travel thousands of miles in a day to spread intel.
With that, the three groups split in Red Cliff, Dongting Lake, and Mengyu River could keep communication.
The intel was from Chun Shenjun. Although the two hated one another, they were rational and could work together in the battle map.
Based on what he said, their situation there was bad.
When Lu Su's army was destroyed, Huang Gai had sent a letter to Liu Bei to proceed to Red Cliff together. The problem was that Liu Bei was waiting to take Changsha Prefecture, so how could he move out?
His rejection infuriated Huang Gai.
Huang Gai directly scolded Liu Bei in the letter for betraying his brothers: when you were chased by Cao Cao like a dog without a home, Jiangdong took you in and gave you a place to live.
It was the Jiangdong Army that crushed the Cao Cao Army and broke their legend of being invincible. Only then did you gain breathing room.
Now, Red Cliff has problems, but you only want to occupy land and not help, shameless.
Such a letter had totally humiliated Liu Bei. Guan Yu and Zhang Fei raged and fumed that they wanted to kill Huang Gai.
Luckily, Liu Bei was rational and stopped them to prevent internal conflict.
Even so, both sides were on bad terms and could not work together. Huang Gai personally led his troops toward Red Cliff.
Based on the time, they would need three days to reach Red Cliff.
As for Liu Bei's side, it was not that they truly did not help. After he settled the people of Changsha and stabilized the rule, he started to prepare to move out.
At the same time, to appease the Jiangdong Organization, Liu Bei had asked Guan Yu to lead the vanguard.
As such, it was obvious that the Shanhai City squadron totally did not attack Liu Bei.
This made Xiong Ba and Zhan Lang confused.
Logically speaking, wouldn’t it be better the earlier they attacked Red Cliff? The longer it dragged on, after the various troops gathered at Red Cliff, wouldn’t it be near impossible?
Xiong Ba would not believe that Qiyue Wuyi was so arrogant.
"There's definitely a scheme. But where will the problem come out from?"
Toward this point, Xiong Ba could not get it.
"Do we have a spy? So Shanhai City did not dare to come?" One could not blame him for holding suspicions. After all, he could not afford to lose this battle.
Xiong Ba focused his targets to the few Lords.
All of a sudden, the atmosphere grew tense.
However, after checking and checking, he did not find anyone suspicious.
With that, Xiong Ba locked himself in his reading room to contemplate.
Now, it seemed like their plan did not work out.
"Forget it, time to sleep!" Xiong Ba sighed, getting up to leave the reading room.
As the oil lamp was extinguished, the room became pitch black once more.
The night sky became thicker and darker.
As the late night arrived, even the soldiers gathered to gamble had went back to rest. The stronghold became really quiet, only leaving the sound of the wind.
Just at this moment, a bunch of ghosts sneakily crept toward the King.
An unexpected massacre was about to occur.
This night was destined to end in chaos.