Looking at the skeleton soldier's bones, [ Aluode ] couldn't help but sigh inwardly:
"Messenger, it wasn't me who ruined you, it was..."
He struggled for a while, realizing he couldn't quite recall the second half of the sentence.
Since it's not a meme from my own country, I'll have to go back and ask [ Gill's Cuisine ] after I log off.
After excitedly looting, many players started hacking at each other with knives, splattering their blood everywhere to create the illusion of a fierce battle.
At that moment, the sharp-eared and sharp-eyed [ Aluode ] suddenly froze.
Was that the sound of horses' hooves?
There are still experts!
The others quickly heard the increasingly imminent sound and turned their attention to the Idea King, [ Aluode ].
He stood there thinking for a while and then said:
"Raise our flag and tell everyone that this sandcastle has been recaptured!"
As he spoke, [ Aluode ] looked sharply at the crowd:
"They're here to steal the credit! But this credit belongs to us, and no one can take it away!"
After saying that, he told the others to continue setting up the scene, and then led a few players to the outer wall, the spot where [ Howling Pothos ] had been a dozen minutes earlier.
A cloud of dust approached from afar. Watching this scene, which seemed familiar yet with the roles reversed, the [ Dark Archmage ] felt a little weary.
She had been lingering in this sandcastle on the border of the Skeleton Alliance for a month, and had almost forgotten that she had been a lone wolf for most of the past year.
As someone with social anxiety, she now gets talked to by people every day. If this continues, her social anxiety will be cured!
Moreover, [ Aluode ] and his ilk are too cunning. [ The Dark Archmage ] always feels a bit mentally exhausted being around them, and has already started to consider whether to fake his death to escape in the past two days.
A moment later, the sound of hooves outside the sandcastle gradually faded away, and a group of people stopped a few dozen steps away from the fortress.
Upon seeing that the Skeleton Alliance flag was still on the sandcastle, one of the men rode forward and removed the hood of his battle robe. A burst of Psionic Energy, like the crackling of electricity, then pierced through everyone's eardrums.
[ Aluode ] covered his ears in pain, then removed his hood, revealing a human face and a bright red crystalline cluster between his brows:
Who are you? What are you doing here?
He pretended not to know and loudly questioned.
The hundred-strong team that had just arrived was astonished to find that a group of humans had taken over the fortress.
Upon seeing the mark between their eyebrows and recalling the announcement sent by Sand Capital earlier, the group finally calmed down a bit.
The skeleton soldier who stepped out of the ranks looked at [ Aluode ] and asked:
"Are you reinforcements too?"
[ Aluode ] made an exaggerated expression of surprise upon hearing this:
"Are you... Lide, the messenger?"
The skeleton man, seeing that the other party could call him by name directly, immediately had no more doubts.
He nodded and said:
"That's right, I am Lide. So you must be the reinforcements Jiāsīdīng brought, right?"
"How is Sandcastle doing now? Where is Jiāsīdīng? Where is the Knight?"
Upon hearing this, [ Aluode ]'s expression suddenly shifted from excitement to sadness:
"Sigh, they've all already..."
"When Jiāsīdīng brought us here, those imperialists had already breached the sandcastle and started looting!"
"The soldiers here, and the knights, have all... died heroically."
"We charged in and fought a bloody battle with those imperialists, but they were too fast. We finally caught one of them, but he kept resisting, and we executed him in the end."
"I see."
Another person rode forward, removing his hood; he was clearly another Middle Tier skeleton with partially crystallized body parts.
Thank you all for your help.
After saying that, he looked at the messenger Lide:
"Didn't you say that there were giant monsters among the enemy, and that you couldn't possibly defeat them?"
"Yes, yes."
Lide seemed to suddenly remember something and looked at the outer wall again:
"This... this is impossible!"
The skeleton soldier Lide shouted:
"And what about that green monster?"
"What green monster? When we arrived, there was only a bunch of imperialists here."
"How is that possible? If it weren't for that monster, how could Sandcastle have fallen?"
The messenger was on the verge of a breakdown; he shouted:
"Let Jiāsīdīng speak!"
Jiāsīdīng is gone!
[ Aluode ] stated bluntly:
" Jiāsīdīng was focused on rescuing the knight, so he rushed forward faster than anyone else and has already died in battle against the imperialists!"
No! Impossible!
Lide shouted:
"You betrayed him! That must be it!"
Upon hearing this, [ Aluode ] was also extremely angry:
Do you know what you're saying?
Have you read the documents sent by Sand Capital?
"We mercenaries with crystal clusters cannot harm you skeleton soldiers on our own initiative, otherwise the officer who planted the crystal clusters in us would know immediately!"
"If you don't believe me, go south now and ask the fortress knight in the first sandcastle if he knows we have betrayed the Alliance!"
"After seeing Jiāsīdīng in the first half of the night, we rushed to his aid and risked our lives to retake the fortress and drive away the imperialists. Now we are exhausted, thirsty, and seriously injured, and you are still framing us!"
"We're working so hard because your superiors hired us, not to have you smear us!"
Seeing that a conflict was brewing between the two sides, the fortress knight who had personally come from the northern sandcastle quickly began to smooth things over.
It wasn't that he was afraid of a mere messenger or human mercenary; it was just that the official documents from Sand Capital had only recently been issued, and it wasn't wise to escalate the matter.
They don't even have mercenaries in their own fortress yet. What if word gets out and no humans come to serve as cannon fodder?
So he thought for a moment and came up with what he considered a brilliant idea:
"Fellow mercenaries, we have no other intentions, but since you two are unable to reach an agreement, why not open the gates of the sandcastle and let us in to inspect it?"
"This way, we'll get justice for both sides, shall we?"
"Sir Knight, is this all the justice you deserve?"
Unexpectedly, the words of the fortress guard caused [ Aluode ] to completely explode:
"Open the gates of the fortress and let them in. Let these fleshless bastards see how we fight and shed blood!"
As he spoke, [ Aluode ] gave a disdainful snort:
"They just want to steal the credit for recapturing the sandcastle, right? We're not going to compete with them!"
"Brothers, pack your things and let's retreat!"
"I'd like to see how you, Sir Knight, explain that you recaptured a fortress but didn't find a single bone!"
"If you want more evidence, why don't you all head west now? Maybe you can catch the Imperialists before they leave the Alliance territory!"
[ Aluode ] finished speaking and, without waiting for the knight's response, a chaotic cacophony of shouts and curses soon followed.
A minute later, the gates of the sandcastle were fully opened, and more than fifty humans, almost all of them wounded, left with the recovered skeleton remains and a mangled corpse of an Imperial.