The Vastly Different Sixth Wave

Inside the Demiplane, Wan Chuan commanded his Kinfolk as the remaining two thousand-plus Stoneheart Halflings stood ready in tight formation before the Portal.

Stoneheart Halflings were a variant of Halflings. Their individual attributes were no different from ordinary Halflings, but they possessed a talent ordinary Halflings lacked: the Stoneheart Talent. It made them immune to charm, greatly increased their resistance to negative conditions such as fear, and slowed the decline of morale.

In addition, Wan Chuan had assigned the Warrior Class to these Stoneheart Halflings. Every warrior was equipped with Chainmail, a shortsword, a hand crossbow, and a small round shield. They were armed to the teeth.

Being unable to support high-tier Kinfolk could not be helped, but he could make up for their combat power in other ways.

Armor, shields, swords, and crossbows in hand—they could face nearly any enemy without an obvious weakness.

Relying on this lavishly funded equipment, he had crushed every enemy head-on through sheer strength. Even the Berserk Demons from the previous wave had been shot dead by hand crossbows after five or six hundred Stoneheart Halflings had held them back at the cost of their lives.

Six minutes later, the Portal opened once more. Brimming with confidence, he watched as its rippling light arched around a humanoid figure that did not seem particularly tall. An... "Elf? No, a Half-elf!"

His expression changed involuntarily. He clenched his teeth, but fortunately remembered the teachings of his teacher and father and did not interfere with the Kinfolk on the verge of battle.

As Half-elves carrying shields and swords emerged one after another and formed ranks before the Portal, a Stoneheart Halfling leader raised his shortsword and shouted:

"Supreme Lord of the Earth, Son of the Mountains above, bless your people! Kagras, kill!"

The Stoneheart Halfling warriors, already prepared, pulled the triggers of their hand crossbows. A dense barrage of whooshing sounds erupted as bolts filled the sky. A series of thuds followed, and the Half-elves' round shields were soon studded with short bolts. The occasional warrior whose shield failed to cover him was struck, but the seemingly ordinary leather armor they wore was not ordinary at all—it was Magic Leather Armor. A layer of clear light flashed, and although many bolts hit, they were deflected away.

The first volley achieved nothing. The Stoneheart Halfling leader slashed his sword down, and the second wave of bolts flew out.

By then, more than two hundred Half-elf Warriors had emerged from the Portal and formed a semicircle around it. Then, under Wan Chuan's darkening gaze, Half-elves carrying longbows stepped out one after another. They drew their bows and nocked arrows, sending shafts whistling across the battlefield. With a clang, one arrow pierced straight through a Stoneheart Halfling's round shield, its remaining force striking his chest, punching through his Chainmail, and sinking several inches into his flesh.

Elves were bona fide high-tier legendary races. Though Half-elves were not as powerful as Elves, they were still a Medium Race, among the very best in both intelligence and potential among Medium Races.

Lin Xiao's Blackscale Naga were also a Medium Race, but they were still far inferior to Half-elves.

The moment the Half-elf Archers appeared, Wan Chuan could no longer hold back. He issued a Divine Revelation to his Kinfolk, and the remaining two thousand or so Stoneheart Halflings charged the Half-elves under their leaders' command.

He had initially wanted to use his Kinfolk's hand crossbows to pick off a wave of enemies from afar, but now it seemed that his own side would be the ones picked off at range.

As a Deity, how could he not know what Elves were most famous for? In a ranged exchange, almost no race could outshoot Elves—not even when they were only Half-elves.

The moment the Stoneheart Halflings moved, the Half-elf Warriors immediately advanced to expand their defensive perimeter, opening up distance from the Half-elf Archers behind them. Half-elves continued to emerge from the Portal, and nearly every arrow they fired claimed a Halfling's life.

Two hundred Half-elf Warriors certainly could not stop two thousand Stoneheart Halflings, but they could hold them off for a while. During that time, by the time the three-hundredth Half-elf emerged from the Portal, the first Half-elf Archer to emerge had already fired eighteen arrows. The Stoneheart Halflings' rectangular formation had been shot into a concave hollow, with seven or eight hundred corpses strewn across the battlefield.

The losses in this short span were nearly as great as the losses from wiping out the Berserk Demons in the previous wave.

And the casualties continued to mount. Every time the bows were drawn and arrows nocked, hundreds of Kinfolk died.

"We've lost!"

Wan Chuan shook his head regretfully. Though he still had more Kinfolk left than the Half-elves, the outcome had long since been decided.

On the Yuan Hong Plane, the entire plane was desolate and empty. Only Yuan Hong stood alone beneath the sky of the plane, watching the Half-elves gradually return through the Portal below.

The sixth wave had caught him by surprise. It was not some kind of demon, but Half-elves—three hundred level-two veteran Half-elf Archers. His thousand-plus Lizardman Archers had exchanged fire with them and been utterly crushed.

After that, there was nothing more to say. Once they lost the shooting exchange, the other Lizardmen became targets, killed one by one without any ability to fight back.

On another plane, there were also Lizardman Archers, but the Lizardmen there had crimson skin all over their bodies. Their arrows had crimson arrowheads, like flaming rockets. Each arrow that struck a shield melted a small hole straight through it.

Though they were somewhat inferior to the Half-elves in archery, the gap was not great, and they held the numerical advantage. These Lava Lizard Archers actually won a narrow victory in a direct shooting duel with the Half-elves. In the end, fewer than fifty Lava Lizard Archers survived.

Yan Renjie truly deserved to be one of the two strongest students in the entire grade. His raw strength was indeed formidable.

As for the other strongest student in the grade, Wan Ying from Class One, her Harpy Kinfolk were actually not as formidable as the Lava Lizard Archers. The reason she was as famous as Yan Renjie was because she possessed a hero—the Harpy Queen.

She was the queen of the Harpies, a ranged archer capable of firing arrows imbued with lightning damage.

But her most powerful ability was not her lightning arrows, but the hero spell Chain Lightning. She flew into the air and sent out a bolt of lightning as thick as an arm from afar, instantly killing forty or fifty Half-elf Archers.

Its one-minute cooldown was very short. In just three casts, the Half-elf Archers were crippled.

The sixth wave was decided in a very short time. Within five minutes, nearly everyone except Yan Renjie and Wan Ying had been wiped out. The only difference was who held on longer and who achieved slightly greater results.

Except for Lin Xiao.

The Naga and Murlocs carried out his strategy. From the very beginning, they moved far away from the Portal, scattered apart, and employed guerrilla tactics.

Though the Demiplane was only so large, and guerrilla tactics here were no different from waiting to die, his true purpose was not to fight guerrilla warfare. He merely wanted to buy time.

The Half-elves directly occupied the center of the plane and began exterminating the scattered groups of Naga and Murlocs around its edges. Small groups of Naga were killed by the Half-elves' superior forces one after another, and their numbers rapidly dwindled.