Starting from Zero

Book 4, Chapter 29

Escape

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We soon gathered in front of the city gate. Hawk is pretty smart when it comes to these operations. He bought many ropes from the system shop and prepared them into thick towlines enough to drag the cannons.

"How about this?" Zirai used the towlines to make a giant noose with four ends. So Phiona, Loong'er, Lucky and Skyfire can each take one end and lift the cannons. The cannons look more like some kind of observatories. Who knows how heavy they are.

"Should be good!" Everyone nodded.

"Let's move then!" Zirai is getting super excited.

"Wait!" Big Pot raised his hand. "Someone needs to stay on the rope right? The companions aren't going to command themselves."

"You go then!" Violet pushed Big Pot onto Lucky's back. "Be careful not to fall."

"Noooo! I'm afraid of heights!!" He tried to climb down.

I signaled Lucky to take off with the three other companions, bringing the rope noose and the screaming Big Pot with them. They didn't go far. Skyfire stayed lower, without leaving our sight, which caused the other companions to stay behind too.

"Um, Zirai? Is your dragon afraid of heights too?"

"Very funny. That's MY companion, what do you expect when I'm standing on the ground? You at least know there's a limit for how far you can command your pets right?"

I think Hawk and Elfy mentioned this before. Ordinary companions can only operate within their master's sight. This is not the case for my team though.

"You should go with them then." I told them to get down.

Zirai summoned her titans to lift her up, then un-summoned them again. Well that's handy.

"You guys wait in the city! I'll get to right above the cannon. Give me a signal when ready, and I'll come down!"

"Got it. Let's move!"

The team marched towards one corner of the Goddess City where one of the energy crystal cannons is located. Four cannons are separately placed at each corner of the city, and a bigger one is stationed on top of a tower in the city center. This layout is used to make sure that at least three cannons can hit something no matter which direction they come from.

Our targets are the four smaller corner cannons. Of course we want the middle one as well but we're not sure we can lift it, with that kind of size. If we manage to pirate the other four this time, we can try to get the big one later.

We sneaked under the cannon in the southeast corner of the city. The stone platform support made of flagstones is as tall as the city wall, whereas the half-sphere shaped cannon stays aloft in the center of the platform. Thirteen guardians are standing under the cannon in a circle, with their backs against the cannon. There's an unconspicuous room nearby which must be the spawn point. When the city goes into war, the five rooms at mentioned locations will produce 100,000 level 800-850 regular NPC soldiers. That will definitely be quite a view.

"Is it possible to seal that door?" I pointed to the spawn room and asked Hawk.

"We can't seal it but...It's still possible to stall them."

"How do we do that?"

"Look at the cannon."

"And?"

"What will happen if we knock it over and make it crash into the door?"

"I like your way of thinking." I gave him a thumb-up.

"Be quiet you two! We're going!" Elfy lost patience.

I sent Zirai a /tell, asking her to start.

A black spot in the sky quickly grew bigger. The temporary transport team arrived almost in an instant.

Zirai jumped onto the cannon and began to tie the ropes. The NPC guards looked back towards her the moment she touched the cannon.

But we already moved before they can react. The ten Phantom Knights charged ahead, followed by everyone else. We knocked down the guards within a matter of seconds.

I gave Zirai an "ok" gesture. She then ordered Skyfire and the others to gain altitude. They (those with wings at least) flapped their wings as hard as they can.

A dull bumping noise, followed by a smoke cloud. The cannon left it's base and went afloat.

Groups of NPC soldiers are already appearing inside the house nearby!

Zirai summoned her titans. They pushed at the remaining cannon base, which fell and broke the stone platform to pieces and caused all the rocks to bury the spawn point under a giant rubble.

Something's not right. That base lying on the rubble...It looks like a tripod stand, with a long, thick iron pipe attached to it.

Wait, it's the cannon! I looked up to the transport team. What they're carrying is the half-sphere casing of the cannon. So the actual cannon isn't so big, the heavy casing is used to hide the cannon's long barrel!

I quickly contacted Zirai. "Come back! You took the wrong stuff!"

"What??" Zirai watched from Skyfire's back as we stood on the rubble, waving at her and pointing to the object behind us. She soon realized the real target is still on the ground.

We can't hesitate now. I simply asked Phantom to send a telepathy and call Lucky and the others back. Phiona used her fire to burn the rope away. The giant half-sphere cannon casing fell and created a big gap on the city wall, while causing block pieces to fly about. We all covered our heads and dived for cover.

Lucky is already flying down. The cannon in the city center turned to our direction and fired with a strange "poof" noise. A cannon bullet carrying a violet colored trail, like a comet, approached us. It aimed high, apparently going for Lucky.

Lucky did a beautiful tactic roll in mid air, dodging the bullet. It flew towards outside the city and landed on a small mountain tip. The landing point is pretty far away but we still heard the explosion. We observed the scene from the opening gaps on the wall. The mountain tip is flattened into plain ground!

Shit, that was scary. I hope no one's over there.

Lucky continued to dive down when the northeast cannon fired at us too. Lucky didn't have time to avoid this one, and was killed fast and clean!

The explosion brought a shockwave towards us. The ground full of rubble is now covered in smoke and dust. There's no way we can reach the gate now so we just decided to get away through those openings on the wall.

The dust was blown away by a strong gust. Loong'er came down like a swimming snake. She is no smaller than Lucky but her long, slim body is much much harder to hit.

She only had to dodge one shot before touching down, then she coiled around the cannon and began to float. Lucky was revived using Phiona's skill. He quickly escaped from those cannons' lines of sight because he doesn't want to experience that again. This is the first time something one-shot him. Not even the dragon deity Ao Guang can manage that.

We quickly jumped off the city wall. There's a deep city moat below, obviously we'll have to rely on ourselves to get past it.

I summoned Night Shade who did a wonderful job again. He leaped over the moat with me, Rose and Yuri on his back, although a little breathtaking.

Hawk, however, caused some embarrassment. With Hawk and Elfy on the back, Sunshine fell into the river half way.

Gold Coin simply ran across on top of the water surface, leaving a trail of separated water current behind. She runs too fast!

Razor used his ninjutsu "Suiton" and teleported across the river.

Violet summoned Ashura. The kid has a mount with him, a silver pegasus!

Zirai's friend, Passerby, summoned his companion too.

Oh my god what a giant roach!!

Someone actually caught a cockroach as a companion! Of course it can fly. It had no trouble bringing Passerby over the water. Man he got guts. I got gooseflesh just looking at the size of the bug. Most women are terrified of these things, while I tend to avoid them because they carry too much filth. I hate filth!

Passerby is holding onto one of the hairy legs like it's nothing. Ewwww.

So there's only Big Pot and Wayne left. They looked at each other, nodded hard, held hands, jumped into the water and began to swim.

Oh well.

"...What are they doing?" Rose asked while looking at the duo who are moving slowly to us, dog paddle style.

"Why not using their companions?" Yuri muttered.

Violet came over on the pegasus (Ashura is lying in her arms). "I know Big Pot's pet. It can't swim. As for Wayne... no idea."

I chuckled. "Wayne got no companion. He only has two servants, and they're can't swim either."

"Ow." I think Yuri is actually feeling sorry for Wayne.

"Okay okay, let's be quick. Get those guys up here, we need to run!" Elfy and Hawk dragged their soaked bodies ashore and urged us.

I summoned Rosa and gave orders, though I can't hide my amusement looking at the swimming competition.

"Drag the two guys out of the water."

Rosa extended two tentacles and fished them out.

"Enough swimming, now run!" I turned to Hawk and the others, telling them to retreat.

Wayne gave me a sad face. "I don't have companion!"

Razor followed him. "You know, same here."

"You have enough companions for them right?" Yuri suggested.

I shook my head. "Loong'er is carrying the cannon, Lucky and Phiona will be against the enemies. They can't bring people. Same for the Phantom Knights. Night Shade is already carrying three of us, that's enough burden for him."

Passerby came up and put his hands onto their shoulders. "You can come with Roachy. He's fast I tell you! It will be like racing a car."

"Okay I guess..." Wayne climbed onto the giant cockroach's body, unwillingly. Oh ho ho man he looks so funny!

Razor didn't say anything. He jumped onto the bug's head and stood straight, arms crossed.

Big Pot summoned his companion too, a...gray, wild boar, as big as an ox. I gave out a hearty laugh and almost fell off Night Shade. Big Pot has a giant pig with a horse saddle on its back! I know about those Wolf Raiders, but what is this, Pig Raider?

The NPC army didn't give us time to think about that. A battalion appeared at the front gate and marched towards us fast. And they look strong!

I wish I could take the time and observe the army parade but obviously that's not going to happen now!

Apart from the flyers, the fastest one among us is still Night Shade.

The second place is--surprisingly--Big Pot's boar. Ahh har har hahaha those four tiny legs are almost as fast as Night Shade!!

Gold Coin is sprinting on her feet. She has no problem keeping up with us.

The one in the back is Hawk's unicorn, Sunshine. I wonder what he's thinking about now. The handsome steed has the same body build as Night Shade but he fell behind a boar.

Again, never judge a book by the covers I guess. And no, don't judge pigs either.

The army cavalry is getting close. We have to pick up speed. Lucky and Phiona no longer need to help with the transportation so I called them back to stop the pursuers.

Lucky swept past the rider formation from start to end while unleashing his breath. It didn't do much to the level 850 city defenders but was enough to cause trouble to their horses. Phiona washed them over again using her purple flame. After some white flash, thousands of riders became footmen.

The Phantom Knights took the chance and launched their attack during the brief chaos. When the defenders managed to organize their retaliation, the knights are already running away.

We soon reached a great distance where the Goddess City is only a small dot on the horizon. It should be safe but I'm feeling really uneasy for some reason.

Hawk noticed my expression. "What's the matter?"

"I think someone's watching us."

"Someone? You mean, someone went this far from the city behind us?"

Then I heard sharp noises coming from the sky. We all looked up. There are...spots, coming out of the clouds.

"Griffins!! Take cover!" Razor is the first one to recognize the beasts and alerted us to hide.

From my point of view, there are at least 5,000 griffins up there. The sunlight above us is becoming blocked out. And the sounds of these things flying is no different than an airplane formation!

"Watch out!"

One of the griffins left the group and dived at us at full speed. My warning came too late. Big Pot is caught into the air.

Phiona charged from the side and collided into the griffin, which lost its balance and fell from the sky. Passerby's cockroach caught the falling Big Pot with an impressive move and ran away.

I tried to call Lucky for help before I saw him already entangled in a fierce fight against a group of griffins. I summoned everyone available. Any extra hand would be helpful now.

Dart waited for a chance when Phiona flew low and jumped onto her back, then switched to a griffin's back when Phiona got close to the enemies. There are too many of them so the griffins can't really stay far from each other.

Dart is simply hopping between different griffins. The thing is, when he left a griffin, it will come down spinning in the air, while losing some feathers at the same time.

"Woo-ho! Hey Ziri, your pet's awesome!" Gold Coin talked to me while checking one of the fallen beasts.

"Is he?"

"Just look!" She pulled the griffin's wing, and I instantly saw what she meant. Dart went to pick their feathers! The back edge of this griffin's wing is almost bare. Since they don't have a wide tail like birds, they'll need to use their long feathers at the back of their wings to steer around. If Dart plucked them clean...

Razor suddenly exclaimed. "Hey I gained a level! But I didn't do anything. We get EXP by killing NPCs?"

I looked at my own EXP bar, and yes, it's growing. There's still a long way to go before I can level up though.

Tank is leveling up rapidly. These griffins are level 800, each kill can gain him several levels at his current state. I watched as the palm-sized Tank grew bigger. He will turn into that original size in no time at this rate.

Phantom pulled me out of my thought and alerted me to help Dart. I saw him falling down, so I ordered Night Shade to ran up to him and then caught Dart in my hands. He was hurt by someone. He has no trouble annoying the common griffins, but some of them got riders on their backs, one of them managed to strike Dart down.

Despite our efforts, most griffins got past us and caught up with Loong'er and Skyfire. Zirai ordered Skyfire to fight off the griffins. Some more feathers rained down.

Loong'er failed to hold against the assault. She dropped the burden in order to fight better, and the cannon was caught by a dozen griffins before reaching the ground. They began to carry the cannon back. We can only watch as they flew past our heads but we can't do anything!

As I'm trying to come up with something, I heard a buzzing sound behind. Tank is now big as an elephant and he's trying to fly with his hidden insect wings.

He got into the air after some attempts. It sounds like being the middle of a bee swarm, amplified by some loud speakers.

The griffin transport panicked when they saw the sudden attacker. Maybe he's confident in his hard shell, or maybe he's just not good at controlling his flight yet, Tank simply threw himself into the griffins like a bomb.

The griffins lost their balance, and the cannon fell down again which landed on Passerby's cockroach.

Yuri is already finishing up the second chapter of her Fallen Variation. The skill will come into effect any time now.

But something always goes wrong. A griffin dived before we can react and caught Yuri. I'm struggling against a griffin myself so I can't help her. I should have left her and Rose on Night Shade! We scattered up to keep more enemies from going after Loong'er. Now it seems a bad choice!

Yuri was killed soon due to her weak build. She disappeared in a white flash, with her song interrupted. Before I can make new decisions, Rose is lifted into the air as well. Damn it I can't protect anyone like this!

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Novel migration imminent. If things go well.