You promised to wreak havoc on the dungeon, but instead you've got Dragon Slime!

The heavily armored squadron of the Skullcrusher Axe Gang continued to hold out, swinging their giant axes and hacking the slimes and mermen that pounced at them to pieces. However, the number of monsters was outrageous; as soon as they cut down one group, another would immediately pounce.

The stone-winged beast repeatedly swooped down from the air, grabbing lone mercenaries and throwing them directly into the swarm of slimes.

Those people didn't even have time to scream before they were engulfed by the acid.

Taking advantage of the chaos, Dark Swamp Poison Shadow circled around to the flank of the defensive line.

But they didn't expect that Ron had already set up a hidden hunting cage on their flank—the cage door suddenly slammed down, trapping them inside a steel mesh half a person's height.

A dozen or so bloodthirsty dogs immediately emerged from outside the cage, roaring as they rushed over and dragged the person out of the steel net, tearing them to pieces.

The air on the battlefield was thick with the smell of blood and burnt food.

Ron coldly watched as the peaks of the energy curve rose higher and higher, the onslaught of the strange tide continuing.

He knew that the purpose of this strange wave was not to annihilate them, but to completely wear down the mercenaries' offensive and bring their morale to rock bottom.

Bakus squinted at the distant camp, watching the elite troops at the front line being overwhelmed by the monster tide, his fists clenching so tightly they cracked.

"Retreat!" he ordered through gritted teeth.

As the bugle sounded, the mercenaries began to slowly retreat.

But the monsters did not retreat immediately. Sand snakes and mermen continued their pursuit, while stonewing beasts circled overhead, as if urging them to hurry up and get out of the Black Whisper Caves' territory.

Half an hour later, the battlefield fell silent, leaving only corpses scattered everywhere, broken weapons, and craters burned by acid.

Ron deactivated the rune array on the control panel and exhaled: "First round, over."

He knew this wasn't the last one.

Bacchus would not admit defeat, but the mercenaries' morale had been crushed by this wave of attacks.

Next time, it will be his turn to take the initiative.

The twilight outside the Black Language Cave was quickly swallowed up by the night.

The burnt smell left from the battlefield during the day hadn't dissipated yet, and the wind carried a sour stench, as if reminding everyone that too many people had died in this place during the day.

The mercenary camp was unusually quiet.

The elite troops who had been swept away by the strange tide during the day lay scattered throughout the camp, and the remaining soldiers had lost their arrogance, leaving only suppressed curses and low groans.

Chapter 133

Ron stood on the high platform of the Black Language Cave, looking at the flickering lights of the camp in the distance.

"They won't be able to hold out tonight."

He didn't wait until it was completely dark before directly mobilizing two monster groups most familiar with night battles—Stonewing Beasts and Bloodhounds.

In addition, twenty guards, all wearing specially made night-walking cloaks from the Black Language Cave, silently circled around from the leeward side of the terrain.

The first to act were the bloodthirsty dogs.

Like a crouching shadow, they darted out of the darkness and rushed straight towards the lookout post on the east side of the outer camp.

The two half-asleep mercenaries only had time to utter a short cry of alarm before their throats were ripped open, their blood splattering onto the stones beside the campfire.

Before the fire could burn brightly, the stone-winged beast descended from the sky, grabbed the soldier guarding the ballista, and threw him directly into the dark forest.

With a tearing sound, the ballista fell silent.

Ron, with his personal guards, took advantage of the chaos and cut directly into the center of the outer camp.

Instead of having his guards shout, he ordered them to cut the main ropes used to secure tents and obstacles in the camp.

Within minutes, most of the campfires in the camp were overturned, and the defenses were in complete disarray.

The Ironscale Hunters' vice-captain hurriedly organized his men into formation, only to find that the shadowy outlines of monsters lurking in the darkness were everywhere, and the crossbow bolts they fired only struck open ground and fallen tents.

At this moment, Ron released the second wave—slime barrels that had been brought in advance from the entrance to the Black Language Caverns tunnel.

These barrels were opened in mid-air, and the slimes crashed into the enemy ranks like scalding oil, turning everything they touched into slippery death traps.

Several heavily armored soldiers who rushed forward slipped and were knocked over by their comrades behind them. The next second, they were pounced on by the bloodthirsty hounds and torn into pieces.

The outer camp was in complete chaos.

Some shouted for retreat, while others desperately rushed out, but where was the way out in the darkness?

Stonewing beasts circled overhead, occasionally swooping down to drag away one panicked soldier after another like harvesters.

Ron seized the opportunity and had his guards launch signal rockets—to be seen by the sentries inside the Black Language Cave.

A few breaths later, the sand snakes and murlocs passed through the ruins of the daytime battlefield and charged directly into the collapsed outer flank of the camp.

In less than half an hour, the mercenary camp was completely destroyed.

The campfires burned in all directions, screams and curses mingled, and finally turned into a chaotic cacophony of sounds as people fled.

Bacchus had no choice but to sound the horn for a full retreat ahead of schedule, leading his remaining troops to a more distant temporary assembly point.

Ron did not pursue them—the objective of the night battle had been achieved.

He left only one sentence for his guards: "Let them remember that the nights in the Black Language Cave are more deadly than the days."

On the high platform, he watched the scattered fires in the camp gradually disappear into the distance, and the threat fluctuations on the energy monitoring screen gradually decreased.

The balance of this ultimate offensive and defensive battle has completely tipped in their favor.

Before night had even fallen, the makeshift assembly point outside the carnival maze was already in complete chaos.

Overwhelmed by the strange tides during the day and then decimated by a night raid, the mercenaries' morale had completely collapsed.

Less than a third of the Skullcrusher Gang remained, the Ironscale Hunters lost most of their ballistae, and the Dark Swamp Poison Shadows were almost completely wiped out.

The remaining soldiers, wrapped in blood-stained cloths, huddled around the campfire to keep warm, not daring to leave the camp.

Bacchus sat in the command tent, the map in front of him covered with hastily scribbled markings and retreat routes.

The man in black robes advised in a low voice, "Our main force has suffered so many casualties, we should retreat. If we drag this out any longer, we won't even have any soldiers left to protect us."

“If we retreat, I’ll lose,” Bacchus said in a hoarse voice.

He raised his head, his eyes revealing a chilling deadness. "There's still one move I haven't used—the heart explosion."

The man in black robes paused, then asked, "You mean... directly target the energy core of the Black Language Cave?"

“Yes.” Bacchus pointed to the Black Language Cave symbol in the center of the map. “If we can’t take the outer city, let’s just cripple it completely.”

He had prepared this "heart-shattering" plan long ago.

Set up an energy interference array around the underground city to forcibly compress the flow of the core energy pulse, and then detonate the high-energy magic crystal at a key node.

Even if the core isn't destroyed, it's enough to paralyze all the formations in the Black Language Cave for a period of time.

Given this window of opportunity, he could lead his remaining troops into the core and force Ron into a corner.

“We only have one chance left,” Bacchus slowly uttered. “Either we succeed, or we all die here.”

Meanwhile, Ron, on the high platform of the Black Language Cave, was also watching the abnormal changes in energy fluctuations on the control panel.

The core energy vein, which should have been stable, began to tremble irregularly, as if someone were squeezing a section of water pipe from the outside, causing the energy flow to become intermittent.

Claudia immediately realized: "Someone is pressing on the core meridian from the outside!"

Ron said in a deep voice, "Bacchus is going to play dirty."

He pointed to the outer map of the console, "Notify the Sand Serpent Swarm and the Murloc Elite to search for the location of the interference array on the outer perimeter."

"Have your guards carry explosive talismans and detonate them on sight when they encounter magic crystal nodes."

Both above and below ground are engaged in tense confrontation.

The roaming monsters of the Black Language Caverns, like hounds released from their cages, searched for the buried interference runes in the surrounding dense forests and ravines.

Once discovered, the explosive talisman detonates, sending flames shooting straight into the night sky.

But the people of Bacchus are also desperately protecting those nodes.

A jamming array on the north slope was overturned by the sand snakes, and several mercenaries guarding the array were torn in two on the spot.

At the canyon mouth on the west side, the merman team used their spears to knock away the shield formation that was blocking them, shattering all the magic crystals.

Ron, standing on the platform, could sense that the fluctuations in the core energy veins were gradually stabilizing, but several nodes were still causing trouble.

He knew that Bacchus's real trigger point must be in the remaining nodes.

"Lock onto the last three jamming arrays," Ron said coldly. "I'm going there myself."

At the temporary camp in the Carnival Maze, Bacchus also received reports from the front lines.

"They've destroyed most of the nodes!" the black-robed man said anxiously.

“It’s alright.” Bakus stared at the map. “As long as the final heart array can hold out until it detonates, the Black Whisper Caves will still be destroyed.”

He raised his hand and pressed down on the last mark on the map, as if to pin it into the paper.

"Get ready to take action."

The wind in the Beiling Canyon felt like a knife against my face.

Ron led twenty guards on a swift march over the gravel, their armor and weapons turning white from the cold.

At the end of the canyon ahead, the energy fluctuations were so intense they were ear-piercing, as if someone were forcibly drawing the life force from the core meridian.

Embedded in the stone wall in the middle of the canyon are three giant, dark red magic crystals, surrounded by a complex interference array. Inside the array, a dozen fully armed mercenaries guard the center, their chest badges bearing the skull axe emblem of the Skullcrusher Gang.

Cracks have begun to seep from the surface of the magic crystal, and a blinding red light shines through the cracks, as if it is about to explode at any moment.

Without uttering any nonsense, Ron raised his hand and threw out three explosive runes, which slammed into the shield pillars on the outer edge of the formation.

boom! boom! boom!

After three muffled thuds, the shield's light membrane flashed twice and cracked open.

"rush!"

The guards charged into the formation like arrows released from a bow, swinging their shields and axes in unison, instantly knocking down the first rank of mercenaries.

The air was immediately filled with the stench of blood and the scorching heat of the magic crystals, which mixed together and made one's throat burn.

The vice-captain of the Skullcrusher Gang charged out, wielding his giant axe with both hands and cleaving a guard's shield in half.

He was wearing combat boots engraved with speed runes, and he took a single step to reach Ron.