Chapter 698.4: Follow Me, Go Get Your Guns!
... What’s going on?
Almost everyone was asking the same question in their minds, until deafening artillery and gunfire erupted outside the walls.
Squads of jailers ran in panic toward the perimeter, firing out toward the streets from behind cover along the wall. But the return fire was like a tsunami. In just a few minutes, more than a dozen men fell from the wall, leaving horrifying pools of blood in the open ground before the gate.
Slaves in the blocks closest to the gate were terrified and retreated farther back, while outside the camp the fighting raged fiercely.
The Moonfolk attacking Rowell Camp had already left more than 200 bodies behind, and casualties were still climbing. Their combat strength wasn’t impressive. They had only overwhelmed the garrison, already smashed by the New Alliance, through sheer numbers and a burst of savage ferocity.
The jailers inside Rowell Camp were far less well-trained than the city defense troops under General Abhinan, but with complete organization and advantageous terrain, they inflicted heavy casualties on the New Alliance First Avengers Corps.
Seeing that the mobs were all noise and no breakthrough, Warden Sunir, lying atop the watchtower, finally regained some courage and shouted toward Blackwater Street. “Haha! You shameless traitors! You think you can breach His Majesty’s fortress? You must still be dreaming! Just wait, the Gray Wolf Army stationed along the Everflowing River is already on its way! You’ll pay for today’s atrocities!”
At the mention of the Grey Wolf Army’s name, a flicker of fear appeared on many Moonfolk faces, including Laxi’s.
But it was only a flicker.
There was no turning back for them now.
Watching the stubbornly unconquered camp, Peepo, observing from afar, lowered his binoculars and spoke into the communication channel. “Are we really not going to help them?”
At the rate they were going, a lot of people would die.
A calm voice replied over the channel. “They need to finish this themselves. No one can help them... Give them the captured 100mm artillery.”
Peepo nodded. “Copy.”
Elsewhere, at a street corner on Blackwater Street, Moonfolk fighters gathered behind cover began organizing a third assault. Seeing they had no new tricks, Sunir, hiding in the watchtower, grew even more brazen, shouting insults over the wall. “It’s useless! Give up! You low, filthy slaves! You can’t even aim! Shoot over here! Come on! Pah!”
Despite his taunts, he never exposed his head above the cover. Only the 30 centimeter concrete wall separating them gave him enough sense of safety.
Rowell Camp’s walls were five stories high, entirely made from concrete, with the thinnest section nearly two meters thick.
500 jailers were stationed inside. Each wall could be manned by a full company, with another unit held in reserve for flexible response.
With the ammunition stockpiled in the armory, he could hold out here forever!
Staring at the unbroken fortress, Laxi’s expression grew grim.
They had tried every method they could think of, Molotovs filled with pine oil and phosphorus powder, crude catapults, even smoke attacks.
The next second, several Moonfolk carrying shovels pushed a 100mm artillery piece out from a narrow alley.
“The New Alliance brothers gave us this!” one of them shouted.
Laxi’s eyes lit up. He yelled to his comrades, “Who knows how to fire a cannon?!”
Obviously, none of them did.
But after a brief hesitation, a dark-skinned, skinny man raised his hand. “I’ve seen the garrison fire one! I can try!”
Without hesitation, Laxi grabbed his shoulder, dragged him to the cannon, and pointed at the distant gate. “You got it!”
The man nodded nervously, pulled a pointed shell from the ammo crate, rammed it into the breech, and closed it.
Calling for the others to aim the barrel at the gate, he grabbed the firing rope, sprinted aside, and shouted loudly. “Fire!”
As his words fell, he yanked the rope hard. A flash of fire lit up the entire alley, shaking even the nearby buildings.
A thick tracer streaked toward the distant gate, blasting a deep inward dent into the iron door!
Covering his ears and regaining his balance amid the dust, Laxi saw the punched-in gate and burst with joy. “Fire another one, hurry!”
Even without his order, the hastily appointed gunners were already fumbling to clear the spent casing and reload.
Seeing the hole punched through the gate, Sunir nearly wet himself in the watchtower. All his earlier arrogance vanished.
At that moment, a second shot rang out, another orange streak flew at the sealed gate.
Then a third...
Finally, after taking five consecutive hits, the iron gate could no longer bear it. It collapsed inward, kicking up rolling clouds of dust across the yard.
Seeing the gate destroyed, the Moonfolk, whose morale had been wavering, immediately regained hope. Rifles raised, they surged toward the fallen gate.
“Kill!”
The wave of battle cries was so powerful it seemed to tear through the smoke itself.
Faced with the tide of mobs rushing in, the defenders on the walls finally cracked, fear overwhelming them as they began to retreat.
“Hold the line! Don’t let them in!” Sunir shouted hysterically, scrambling down from the watchtower and screaming at the retreating jailers, but nothing could stop the rout.
On the northeast wall, the jailers forced the gates open and fled headlong toward the slums, tossing away uniforms and rifles as they ran, leaving onlookers scrambling to loot them.
As the mobs closed in, not a trace of arrogance or pride remained on Sunir’s face, only terror and pleading. He stammered, unable to form a complete sentence. “I-I was forced to do it... I was just following orders...”
Before he could finish, a rifle butt smashed into his head, sending stars exploding in his vision as he fell backward.
“Fuck your mother!”
The crowd swarmed him, stripping him naked and hacking him to death with knives, hanging the remains from the watchtower where he had crouched moments before.
One by one, the cages holding slaves were thrown open. At first, the newly freed stared at their familiar companions in confusion, but soon, driven by the atmosphere, they joined in.
Surrendering guards were rounded up in the yard and executed. No matter how they begged, no one listened.
Blinded by rage, the Moonfolk slaughtered the lackeys of the Xilande Empire in the most brutal ways, offering them as sacrifice to the comrades who had died in the assault.
Cheers rang through the pigeon-cage-like prison blocks. Slaves of every race, Moonfolk or not, joined the celebration.
Watching from afar, Peepo reported the situation again. “... Rowell Camp has completely fallen. I think we should take control as soon as possible. If they keep rampaging, something might go wrong.”
Ample Time’s voice came over. “... Mm. This area is yours now. Also handle the resettlement of the freed slaves and their training, we need them to have some combat capability before our regular troops arrive.”
Peepo made a helpless face. “You really picked me an easy job, didn’t you?”
Ample Time smiled faintly. “Do a good job. I have faith in you.”
“I’ll try.” After cutting the connection, Peepo waved his hand and led the brothers armed to the teeth toward Rowell Camp.
That was an unorganized riot.
They weren’t like the Bores of Boulder Town, who had labor unions and at least a flimsy little pamphlet that could pass for guiding ideology.
Without restraint, violence with nowhere to vent would soon spill over onto nearby onlookers, ordinary survivors who just wanted to watch the chaos.
After all, when those people were enslaved, those same onlookers had watched coldly. Now that the slaves had guns, it was hard to say they wouldn’t take their anger out on people weaker than themselves.
No, it was almost certain they would.
Looking at the survivor named Laxi standing in the center of the camp, Peepo walked over and handed him a cigarette.
Laxi froze for a moment. Seeing the friendly exoskeleton-clad soldiers, he broke into a grin, took the cigarette, and put it in his mouth. “Thanks, brother. You’ll always be our brothers. We’ll never forget what you did for us today!”
“I hope you mean that,” Peepo said, lighting it for him, then lighting one for himself.
After quietly finishing his smoke, he looked into those beast-like eyes and continued, “You’ve won this time. As you can see, the Empire is just a paper tiger. The emperor’s men are a bunch of spineless eunuchs, hyenas wearing human skin. But even hyenas in human skin aren’t easy to defeat over and over again. Remember, a starving wolf might win once or twice, but only humans can keep winning.”
Laxi frowned slightly. “What do you mean?”
Peepo said, “It means you need to restrain your men. The slaves here are not your spoils, they’re your comrades. I don’t think I need to remind you of that.”
“Of course,” Laxi replied without hesitation. “How could I be like those beasts?”
“Good. I hope our investment turns out to be the right deal, at least one that doesn’t bring us... trouble of our own,” Peepo said as tactfully as possible.
This self-defense counterattack was only authorized by the New Alliance Constitution and the Player Handbook. Players had the right to conduct limited retaliation against any neutral forces not on the whitelist that initiated attacks against players.
As for where the limits of retaliation lay, there was no explicit clause.
The developers hadn’t stopped them, which meant they hadn’t violated server rules. But whether they had crossed the administrator’s intentions was another matter.
That was, after all, a military action without the administrator’s authorization.
The New Alliance didn’t follow the rules of an empire. Its goal was to unite suffering survivors. How to do that, and where to draw the line, was in the players’ hands. Most likely, the administrator had already received the reports of what happened.
Since no stop order had come through the official quest system, it meant the administrator was, for the time being, neutral toward this operation.
They needed to minimize anything that might displease the administrator, whether indirectly or directly.
Laxi frowned again. “All right... tell us what to do, and we’ll do it.”
His thinking was simple: You eat someone’s food, your mouth goes soft; you take someone’s help, your hands go weak.
Everything they had was given by the New Alliance. And for a long time to come, they would likely depend on New Alliance supplies. Following their arrangements made sense.
Besides, after charging here on nothing but rage, he honestly had no idea what to do next.
Drive the Xilande Emperor out of the Heavenly City? That was far too distant...
Peepo nodded in satisfaction and stuffed the rest of the cigarette pack into Laxi’s hands, leaving him flustered. “Next, we’ll train you and help you establish proper organization... Also, we’ll need a few photos. Can you cooperate?”
Laxi froze. “Photos?”
Peepo nodded again, glancing toward the open gates. “That’s right. We’ll need you to pick out a few people who look especially pitiful and have them squat back in those cages for a bit... Actually, five minutes will do. You might think it’s pointless, but we need them to shut some people up.”
