Translator: ryangohsff Editor: Nora
Chapter 868 – Burning the City
Mediterranean Squadron’s big victory, 21st day morning, imperial city Rabat was similarly not calm.
The expedition army’s three legions had left the city early in the morning under Baiqi’s leadership, officially launching their assault on Rabat, focusing their attack on the north city region.
The only ones left in the Satellite City were Ouyang Shuo and his Divine Martial Guards.
In the morning, the army left, surrounding the imperial city. Whether it was on purpose or not, out of the four sides, the east had the least forces, and their attack strength was the weakest.
If one paid attention, one would notice that the overall soldier numbers did not reach 200 thousand. This meant that there was a group of them that were not on the battlefield, and who knows where Baiqi arranged them at.
When the Moroccan players defending on the city walls saw that, they were really solemn, and their hearts were also really emotional. The few days of passion and hot bloodedness that built up in them could finally be vented.
“Fight! Fight! Fight!”
The morale of the player forces was really high, and the Moroccan Guards waited solemnly.
A seismic battle was about to start; naturally, it would be a bloody and intense one.
This battle lasted for over two hours, and tens of thousands of soldiers were buried on the battlefield. Some were from the expedition army, some were Moroccan players, and some were the Moroccan Guards Soldiers.
Beneath the city wall, corpses were strewn all over, and blood flowed into a river.
North outskirts, Baiqi sat on a war horse, his expression solemn. Although he had predicted it and made a lot of preparations, the enemy’s defense had exceeded his expectation.
As this battle concerned the matter of the country’s survival, the enemy soldiers all used up 120% of their strength. Not only did the commanders not need to rush the soldiers or raise their morale, but the enemy troops’ morale soared high right from the start.
“What a respectable bunch!”
Baiqi had already started to feel thankful that Jia Xu had thought of the vicious plan.
If not, the Dragon Legion Corps would need to be prepared to be badly hurt. Baiqi raised his head and looked at the city ahead. His eyes were resolute, and his heart was as calm as stone.
The battle continued. At basically every moment, there would be people who entered the Reincarnation Hall, becoming spirits and roaming the dark hall.
As there were too many of them, many spirits floated within the huge hall, forming a terrifying sight like that of hell.
At this very moment, a person appeared in the hall.
Originally, this was not a surprise. However, his identity was not ordinary. He was the person who killed himself on the Spanish Squadron warship, Tangier Lord, Rainier.
Seeing Rainier, the surrounding players were all astonished, “Rainier, weren’t you with the Spanish Invincible Squadron? Why did you appear in the Reincarnation Hall?”
“….”
Rainier did not know how to reply to that.
“Did the Spanish Invincible Squadron engage the Mediterranean Squadron? Were you that careless to be bombed on the ship?” some of the players grumbled.
Rainier’s face was ashen white, “The Spanish Invincible Squadron was defeated by the Mediterranean Squadron and are on their way back to their country.”
“What did you say?”
That news was just too shocking. Some people could not react in time, and those who reacted had their faces turn ashen white.
Rainier said bitterly, “The Spanish Invincible Squadron will not be coming. We have no other reinforcements.”
“….”
The hall was totally silent.
A breeze blew across, sending a chill down their spines.
“How did this happen?”
The Moroccan players could not accept the cruel reality all of a sudden. The world was just so cruel to Morocco, their territory army fell, and now, they lost their reinforcements.
Rabat was now truly a lone city.
The news that Rainier brought with him quickly spread to the players through the forums.
This time, be it the work occupation players or the combat occupation players who were valiantly fighting, their morale dropped by a large chunk.
Their chance of winning this country war was getting slimmer and slimmer.
“Do the heavens really want Morocco to die?” The players were not resigned.
This unhappiness and anger turned into endless amounts of hatred and killing intent, slowly spreading out, “Since that’s the case, let’s go all out. If we can kill one of them, that’s good.”
The battle had entered its climax, and the players’ eyes turned red from the killing. They did not bother about their own defense. They directly killed into the enemy forces, becoming really vicious and catching the expedition army off guard.
The attacks of the expedition army slowed down.
When Baiqi got the intel, his expression did not change. He knew that this was the final blow of the enemy, like the last moments before a person was about to die. As long as one held on for this wave, the enemy would collapse.
Not to mention that the expedition army still had their killing blow.
Thinking of which, Baiqi looked up into the air. The sun was hanging high up, and it was about to be right over their heads.
“It’s about time.” Baiqi muttered.
Pretty much like it was replying to Baiqi, three heaven deafening blows suddenly spread out from within Rabat.
‘Hong!’
‘Hong!’
‘Hong!’
Along with the explosions, a mushroom cloud like flame rose up. The rumbling embers and blaze quickly spread out across all directions.
In a short while, there were numerous small houses that were on flames. As the ocean breeze blew across, the flames grew bigger; it was like a fire dragon sweeping around.
In a short while, hundreds of people were buried in a sea of flames.
“Not good, the alchemical fire oil storage has exploded!”
The civilians closest to the storage found out what had happened, and their faces filled with shock and fear.
“Quick, put out the fire!”
The city was in chaos; the civilians all grabbed water basins from their own houses, taking water from the well and throwing the water at the buildings on fire. Unfortunately, the flames were too vigorous.
“Quick, demolish the nearby houses! Do not let the flames spread.”
Someone came up with an idea but some people did not want to, crying, “That belongs to me, I cannot demolish it, I cannot.” He cried as he tried to stop the others.
People around him were anxious as they scolded, “At such a time, how can you still care about so much. Even if you do not demolish your house, it will be burnt by the flames.”
As the situation escalated, some people dragged the owner aside while others went to demolish the house.
It was total chaos. At this very moment, the Guards troops rushed over. They had gotten military orders to move the people and forcefully demolish the houses; they were to create a buffer zone and prevent the fire from spreading.
With the standards of the ancient times, there were no firefighters and could only use such a method.
The problem was that the fire spread too quickly. Before they even managed to demolish the buildings, the fire had already arrived. Those who were demolishing the buildings could not avoid the fire and were buried in the flames.
In a short amount of time, the buffer region was adjusted time and time again. The heavens made it worse. The ocean brought with it a huge breeze, and the flames borrowed the breeze and became stronger and stronger.
The civilians in the city all walked out of their houses. They squeezed onto the streets and looked at the blaze with helpless expressions.
“How did the storages explode all of a sudden?”
Some people asked.
“Who knows? Those who were guarding it all died instantly in the explosion. To try to get details and find out whose mistake it was is already meaningless.” Some people shook their heads.
“That’s right. The battle under the city wall is still proceeding and such a thing happened inside the city. Let’s hope the soldiers do not get distracted.”
“How would they not? Who knows how many houses were destroyed in the fire? Those were basically their houses.”
“The matter of the houses burning is small; the key is the people inside dying too.”
The more the people spoke, the more depressed they grew.
Along with the killing shouts near the city walls, there was nothing worse than this.
At this very moment, roars could be heard from the skies. The Flying Squads of the Great Xia had finally arrived and threw down burning bombs.
‘Hong! Hong! Hong!’
At this very moment, all the Black Snake Guard spies in the city acted, spreading fire all around the city.
All of a sudden, the entire city was engulfed in flames, and those who did not know what was going on thought that were suddenly placed in a sea of flames. It was a truly desperate situation.
“How did this happen?”
All of their faces were totally ashen white as they tried to save themselves.
However, the flames were just too much and burning bombs were being tossed down continuously. Along with the huge fires, the flames grew bigger and bigger and even the Imperial Palace was in flames.
The city walls were unable to escape the fires, and it was also heavily targeted by the Flying Squad. Burning bombs blazed amongst the troops, truly affecting their morale.
Along with the flames was the rumbling thick smoke. It was easy to imagine how thick the smoke was from such a huge fire. The smoke not only affected the people from firefighting, but it spread even quicker than the fire itself.
The streets, the houses, in the blink of an eye, they were all engulfed in smoke.
Civilians who were engulfed in the smoke all escaped haggardly, losing all their desire to bother with trying to put out the fire. As for those who hesitated, they could not differentiate the directions and were immediately trapped.
Much less those who ran deeper into the smoke; only suffocation and death awaited them.
Fire was merciless, how was it a game?
At this moment, the difficulty of putting out the fire had grown exponentially. Those who were smart already knew that this fire could not be extinguished, and they muttered, “The imperial city is done for.”
“What should we do?” The people were powerless.
“What can we do? We will only die if we stay in the city, let’s escape!”
“But isn’t fighting still going on outside the city?”
“But we cannot just wait to die in the city, right? Even if they are fighting, I heard that the Great Xia Dynasty has rules and will not hurt us civilians. Maybe they will let us leave?”
“You’re right, let’s go before the smoke spreads here.”
As they spoke, they quickly packed up their stuff and went toward the nearest city gate. Not only the NPCs, but even the work occupation players and causal players were not willing to remain in the city.
Even if they died, it was better than suffocating in the fire.
Such a way of dying was really a torture.
In this world, not everyone was so brave in the face of death.