As the first rays of dawn illuminated the city walls of Luoyang City, the forty main force members of Dragon Soaring Group 2 and over thirty people from the Luoyang Branch had already assembled.
Today marked the official day for Dragon Soaring Country to expand and claim territory in Fengyin State. To ensure the success of the first pioneering operation, Xiao Jie arranged for the assembly to happen at 7 a.m.
Everyone had logged into the game bright and early, with Xiao Jie boosting morale in the voice chat while finalizing the assembly in the city square of Luoyang City.
Looking at the throngs of players before him, Xiao Jie was quite familiar with large-scale assemblies . However, this time, he would be the one leading this troop.
After three days of team building, the members were well-acquainted with each other, so there was no chaos, only a solemn killing intent and full confidence.
Following Group 2 were the members of the Luoyang Branch. As the local landlords, they too would participate in this operation. They could lend a hand with the Outer Circle, clearing out Little Monsters and such, and then, of course, they were needed to handle various tasks like recruiting refugees after the territory was seized.
Seeing that most of the people had arrived, Xiao Jie declared in a loud voice: "All right, everyone, is that everyone here? Today is Group 2’s first pioneering activity. I hope everyone takes this seriously and completes their tasks earnestly. Rewards for those who contribute, punishments for those who err. I won’t say more. Let’s move on to assigning tasks."
"Our main target today is to reclaim the villages on the Luoyang Plain that have been occupied by Monsters, which will soon become part of our territory in Dragon Soaring Country.
According to the information provided by the intelligence team, there are a total of 23 human settlements on the Luoyang Plain, including villages, markets, and manors, of which about 12 are expected to be reclaimable.
We aim to reclaim them all. With our own territory, we can recruit refugees, increase the population of our nation, and when the population grows in the future, we can recruit troops and use NPC soldiers as cannon fodder in battles.
Today, we will start our reclamation with the villages near Luoyang City, a total of four. Information about these villages can be found in the group file, and everyone should take a look."
While speaking, Xiao Jie opened the national system for one last check.
In the past few days, the main force of Beiming State’s Group 1 had already started pioneering, and Dragon Soaring Country’s King’s Path Value had already risen to 9%.
Meanwhile, the Overbearing Value remained at 0%, suggesting that the guild leader had firmly decided to take the King’s Way.
This was understandable, as Long Xingtianxia possessed the Ren King Seal, which made taking the King’s Way twice as effective—it certainly seemed like the better deal.
Moreover, taking the Overbearing Way would lead to conflicts with NPC forces. Though they are just in-game algorithms, NPCs somehow feel more human-like, and killing Monsters tends to come with less psychological burden.
Most importantly, it carries a lower risk.
As such, Xiao Jie was naturally eager to comply, so storming castles was off the table for now, better to reclaim villages seized by wild Monsters first, gain some territory, and incidentally boost Public opinion value.
Currently, Dragon Soaring Country’s Public opinion in Luoyang Plain was only 1%, pitifully low.
It seemed the Luoyang Branch hadn’t been very active these past few days.
But Xiao Jie wasn’t in a position to blame Little White Dragon, considering he had taken some of the top players from Luoyang Town to join Group 2.
With the leftovers in Luoyang Town being not very adept, it really wasn’t possible to achieve anything significant.
However, now with Group 2 stepping in, things would be different.
"Okay, everyone should have a basic understanding of the information on these villages by now. We will start our reclamation with Black Rock Village. The Luoyang Branch has once seized this village, but unfortunately, it was taken back by the mountain bandits of Black Wind Mountain. Today, we will reclaim it once again and permanently transform it into our own territory.
So they say, cleansing the world and rebuilding the Nine States—let this begin today!
Has everyone watched the video of the last reclamation battle? We’ll just do as shown in the video. Considering we’re the main force, we’ve got to do it splendidly, and not let the people from the branch mock us. Everyone—move out!"
With Xiao Jie’s command, a large contingent of people marched out grandly from the city gates, speeding towards the north.
It was a path well-traveled, and the team swiftly arrived just outside the village walls of Black Rock Village.
Before them stood a village that had been transformed into a mountain bandit stronghold, where rudimentary fences had been replaced with robust wooden walls, with large wooden gates shut tight, and four Arrow Towers in the vicinity, where archer mountain bandits were on guard.
And around the village roamed numerous mountain bandit Little Monsters.
With over seventy players now slowly spreading out, the Little Monsters were promptly cleared, and the two groups of combatants lined up in front of the village wall in battle formation.
Seeing the frantic shouts of the mountain bandit archers atop the wall, Xiao Jie felt a nostalgic thrill—such a familiar scene.
The battle to conquer Black Rock Village was still vivid in his mind.
He remembered it being somewhat perilous despite not being very difficult overall, losing two players by the end. But this time it was going to be completely different.
With so many level 30+ veterans, this was undoubtedly going to be a crushing victory.
Xiao Jie had already drafted the battle plan, which had been distributed to the group members the day before. Now, he began to issue orders directly.
"Mage Group, provide ranged firepower suppression, and blast those Arrow Towers for me!"
Several Master of Magics immediately stepped forward, initiating targeted elimination of the enemies on the village walls from beyond the archers’ range.