The previous Demon People of the Mountain Villa had been unable to eradicate these crows completely, so it was easy to imagine how difficult they were to deal with.
Still, those crows bullied the weak and feared the strong.
After suffering considerable losses, they no longer dared provoke the Demon People. They had learned their lesson, choosing only to toy with the slaves on the mountain and the ghosts of the Spirit Manor below.
The Demon People would never stand up for slaves, so they could not be bothered to leave the pass and deal with them.
Sword Forging Manor, the tower-defense fortress.
Through a palm-sized window, Jiu Cai Rong stared intently at the flock of crows in the sky, so nervous he could barely breathe.
On the surface, he appeared calm and unhurried. A dozen minutes earlier, he had picked up a stone and hurled it at a crow, firing the first shot of the war before shouting, "Large-scale mainline expansion—"
"Crow Calamity, activate!"
Jiu Cai Rong was excited and uneasy.
As an utterly ordinary wage slave, he had never enjoyed such a glorious moment.
Unfortunately, he had absolutely no experience with wealthy players leading a dungeon's world-first clear, turning on voice chat to direct a team battle.
As everyone knew, those who had directed team battles and those who had not were worlds apart.
Talent alone was not enough. Rich experience was required.
Some wealthy players even spent huge sums to hire experienced people to direct their team battles.
"How about you take over?"
Jiu Cai Rong knew Su Yu Niang was a battle maniac.
She had directed all kinds of team battles, from shooting games to traditional online games. She could pick at her feet, direct the battle, curse people out, and lead the charge all at once.
Seeing the expression of utter agony on Jiu Cai Rong's face, Su Yu Niang kindly consoled him:
"I'll pass. You have to trust these blacksmiths. Everyone has a first time, and you'll gain experience in the future. Besides, there's no need to worry about directing badly, because they don't listen to orders anyway."
"..."
Jiu Cai Rong felt as if an arrow had pierced his heart. If you're so good with words, could you shut up? I'm already nervous enough.
There were more than twenty defensive towers in the area, with an average of four or five people per team.
They were arranged in a grid, covering one another.
The war began!
As the flock of crows blotted out the sky above the Mountain Villa, a large number of players raised their bows through the firing slits and unleashed a synchronized rain of arrows at the sky.
In wartime, there was no need to consider accuracy.
The main goal was suppressive fire.
During wars, it took an average of more than twenty thousand bullets to kill a single person.
They had not built crossbows either. After making two, they had realized that the cost-performance ratio was far too low.
They were complicated to produce, inaccurate, and easy to damage. A bow, meanwhile, was merely a metal rod and a hemp string. The production efficiency was incomparable.
Its loading speed was actually far inferior to that of a bow. With some training, and setting physical stamina aside, a person could fire more than one arrow per second. The rate of fire was astonishing. Accuracy was another matter.
"Fire again!"
Whoosh!
The second wave of arrows shot into the sky.
Because this was where the most Magic Copper was found, they had just unleashed what looked extravagantly like a volley of Magic Copper arrows to outsiders. Scattered crows were instantly struck and fell to the ground.
A large number of arrows also rained down onto the ground.
But by then, the ground had long since ceased to be flat. It had become a landscape of distinctive, round, funnel-shaped depressions.
The funnel surfaces had been coated with a small amount of some otherworldly lubricating oil extracted from a mine. The liquid was called No. 95 Oil. The ground was extremely slippery, and most of the arrows that landed there slowly slid into the pits at the bottoms of the funnels.
Beneath the pits.
A player in the tunnels was specially assigned to recover the arrows, working in an orderly fashion.
"Sort them properly. Sort them properly."
"This mark belongs to the Eye Legend team."
"This one's the Cat Litter Squad."
The arrows were sorted into categories. Couriers carried them through the crisscrossing underground passageways and returned them to the various towers.
After firing like this for several minutes, the results of the volleys were surprisingly good. Money Boys were slow-moving and dull-witted. In close combat, even an ordinary hunter with proper training could toy with one at will.
Their only advantage was their tremendous strength. Precisely because they were so strong, however, they could draw powerful bows with ease.
The crows were packed too densely. By firing mindlessly, the blacksmiths had actually killed more than a thousand crows in several fierce waves of arrows.
At that moment.
Inside an arrow tower.
A blacksmith named Yan Hua analyzed the situation without pause.
"These crows really are like the records described. Some of the flesh of Five Bodies Realm demon beasts is indestructible."
"Arrows that hit those parts of the flesh do nothing at all. Their skin is tough, and their flesh can regenerate. Their recovery is far too powerful. We can only attack the parts they haven't tempered."
Demon beasts were different from humans.
The parts humans tempered followed a fixed pattern: the head and four limbs. Together, they were called the Five Bodies.
Demon beasts, however, tempered their bodies randomly. It could be a hand, a wing, or a claw.
Most demon beasts did not cultivate techniques at all. They merely absorbed spiritual energy by instinct, tempering various body parts and slowly increasing their Cultivation Level over the years.
Thus, their weaknesses were random.
That depended on a cultivator's personal experience in hunting demon beasts: probing with attacks bit by bit and observing where the weaknesses lay.
But most of the crows before them seemed to be in the early Five Bodies Realm. Only one wing and one claw had undergone body tempering. Everything else was mortal flesh, making their entire bodies equivalent to weak points.
On top of that, the blacksmiths did not need to consider which parts were weak.
They were firing blindly, after all, relying entirely on luck.
Just then, his teammate Yan Xia suddenly shouted, "Holy crap! Crows are attacking the firing slits we use for our bows! They're pecking like mad at the window of the tower opposite us!"
That fast?
Their intelligence was impressive!
Everyone's expression changed. They saw a flock of crows surrounding the firing slits of the opposite tower.
They were tearing at it furiously!
The firing slits were small windows wrapped in metal, but even that could not withstand such abuse. If things continued like this, the opposing tower would certainly be breached, and the crows would soon be eating their brains.
"Cover them! Cover them! We have to cover them!"
With a great shout, they fired at the opposite firing slits, shooting down the crows that were gnawing away at them.
Everyone was thrilled.
Amazing.
This was simply too amazing. The battle command center had predicted the enemy's move.
They had specifically reinforced the defenses around the firing windows. Otherwise, the tower would already have been lost.
The animal-science specialists and various psychology experts outside had predicted that the crows' first reaction would be to attack the windows that had attacked them. That was why the towers had been arranged in a grid, allowing them to cover one another and prevent any of them from being breached.
Very soon.
A flock of crows also reached their tower and began pecking at their firing slits. The tower opposite them understood the situation as well and helped cover them.
"Hahaha, we don't need their help! Attacking them is one thing, but attacking us?"
"Exactly, exactly! Our tower has a guillotine!"
"Start chopping!"
They shouted happily and released the ropes.
The huge cleaver above the firing slit dropped at once, instantly killing the flock of crows and cutting them in half. Blood flowed across the ground.
They had transformed their firing slits into guillotines. Anyone who dared stick its head out to peck would be chopped off.
This time, they felt they had occupied the high ground of intelligence!
Every attack the enemy launched had fallen within their predictions.
In the underground battle-report room.
"How are things?" Su Yu Niang's hand was a little sore, so she set down her bow and rested.
"Dao Jiujiu has rehearsed how to forge iron several times in his head. The corpse has already been sent over, and he's leading the blacksmith team in trying to forge the first magical artifact," Jiu Cai Rong said.
Though it was the lowest-grade magical artifact, perhaps even a cultivator setting up a street stall would find no one interested in it.
To them, however, it was a huge step forward in life.
"I'm asking how the battle is going," Su Yu Niang said.
"The second rotation of archers has begun. The couriers are shooting now, while those who are tired of shooting have gone to collect arrows and started working as couriers."
Jiu Cai Rong did not look very pleased. "The results appear impressive, but they're nowhere near what I expected. Our hit rate is only thirty percent, and that's against such a densely packed flock of crows."
The arrows were being consumed rapidly.
Some had lodged in holes in the ground where they could not slide. Those near the towers could be poked with a long pole to make them flow into the pits, but there was nothing they could do about the distant ones.
At this rate, even with diligent recovery, they would probably run out of arrows after firing for only another hour.
By then.
Without suppressive fire, they would inevitably fall into a disadvantageous position. The towers being breached was only a matter of time.
Close combat?
The Money Boys had already tried fighting each other.
They were all low-level demon beasts, so in theory they were evenly matched. But the Money Boys had great strength and sluggish reactions, their movements stiff and clumsy.
In close combat against agile crows with fast reactions, the outcome would inevitably resemble a cat playing with a mouse. They would fail to land a single hit and be toyed to death.
"The arrows are being wasted too quickly—far too quickly. I underestimated how much these blacksmiths would waste." Jiu Cai Rong took a deep breath. Suddenly, an even worse battle report arrived.
"Something's wrong! These crows have suddenly stopped attacking the firing slits as a group. They've begun attacking the gaps between the buildings, the blind spots where they can't cover one another!"
"Some of them are even digging at the corners of the towers. They seem to be trying to dig tunnels inside."
As soon as those words fell, Jiu Cai Rong and several blacksmiths responsible for command turned pale and shot to their feet.
How was that possible!?
They were attacking the blind spots at the earthen walls of the towers?
Their walls were made only of earth, broken stones, and tree leaves used as reinforcement. They could never be so extravagant as to build them from Magic Copper, so they naturally could not withstand the crows' beaks digging away at them for long.
They had reinforced only the defenses around the firing slits.
According to common sense.
An animal's instincts would make it attack the place that had attacked it, so the observation windows that kept firing arrows should naturally be the first targets.
The crows should not have bypassed the observation windows and attacked the blind spots.
For humans, avoiding the front and attacking the walls was perfectly normal.
For beasts, however, it was abnormal. It was like someone shooting at you with a bow, only for you to suddenly turn and attack the floor beside you that had never attacked you. It was absurd.
It went against animal behavior and animal instinct.
And if they had merely achieved this much, it would only mean they were not unintelligent.
But now.
What they found utterly absurd was this:
The towers had no blind spots at all!
They defended one another. Even the so-called blind spots were covered by firing windows designed into the tunnels beneath the towers.
The buildings and towers before them represented the crystallization of countless experts' wisdom.
They had even built a 3D model with computers in the real world and obtained the optimal construction model through practical simulations.
"How could there be blind spots?"
"Those experts are brickperts! They talked such a big game."
Everyone began arguing noisily.
At that moment, Su Yu Niang glanced at them. "No. The buildings don't have blind spots. Our actual attacks have created them."
"You mean..." Jiu Cai Rong realized it as well.
"Yes. There are only a hundred of us."
Su Yu Niang's voice was low. "Because our numbers are so small, defensive blind spots have appeared. But these are temporary blind spots created as our archers move, and the enemy can keep finding them."
Her voice sank even lower. "Is that really possible?"
They should not think this was simple.
Even if they replaced the crows with a normal human, a national-level strategic expert with a highly intelligent brain might still be unable to accomplish this while directing the crows under such circumstances!
Only someone skilled at arranging troops, coordinating the overall situation, using a small number of crows to probe the current distribution of archers, and locating the temporary firing blind spots could launch attacks against the weak points.
The blacksmiths were not fools either.
They hurriedly changed positions again and again, constantly altering the blind spots. The enemy adjusted its overall strategy, gathered information from the various towers, and immediately found new temporary blind spots.
"Although it's unbelievable, this is the only explanation. Does the enemy understand military strategy?"
At that moment, everyone felt a chill run through them!
It was as if they had seen a victorious general who had planned everything from his command tent, directing the crows as chess pieces in battle.
"It's a boss. The boss of the crow flock must have appeared!" someone suddenly shouted.
Before you continue