221: Chapter 221 Watching from the Sidelines, A Dog-eat-Dog Game (1)

Inside the narrow alley, the shield wall retreated another three zhang.

Scarface's shoulders were drooping—his breathing had shifted from abdominal to thoracic. Thoracic breathing was fast but shallow—the rate of physical stamina consumption was nearly double that of abdominal breathing.

He switched the poisoned dagger to his other hand—there was a gash on his right hand, and blood was streaming down from his wrist into his sleeve. He gripped the dagger with his left hand—the wrist holding the blade looked a size thinner, but he held it with absolute steadiness. The blood on his ear had stopped flowing—it had crusted into a thin, dark red film on his neck.

Shorty crouched behind the shield wall, re-binding the splint made of broken wooden sticks to his right shoulder. As he bound it, he pulled the rope extremely tight—it sank nearly half a finger's depth into the skin of his shoulder. Once tightened, it restricted his right arm's range of motion to a minimum—the arm was rendered incapable of exerting full force again. He drew a spare dagger from his waist with his left hand, stood up, and took his place to the right of Scarface.

"How many are left outside?"

"We killed about five or six just now—there are at least forty left outside. Two False Core, one Black-Armored Commander. The Black-Armored Commander hasn't entered the narrow alley—he's waiting outside for us to retreat."

"They're blocking the front—we can't retreat out of the narrow alley. Retreating to the side passage—it's death all the same. Their speed in the ocean is nearly double—once in the water, we'll never outrun them."

Shorty rubbed the blade of his short dagger against the stone wall—re-spreading the poison evenly across the edge.

From the frontal direction—in the distance—a deep, low vibration came from the sea. The vibration originated from the direction of Blue Moon Island's frontal defensive line—nearly ninety degrees off from the narrow alley's direction. A brilliant golden Qi light flashed from the Ring Reef—it blinked briefly, then dimmed. The main force of the Haiyuan Clan had already approached the reef wall—and had collided head-on with a unit of the Sin Battalion guarding the reef.

Scarface's reaction to the vibration was different from Shorty's. When he heard the battle begin at the front, his facial muscles didn't move. But his left hand gripped tighter—the veins on the back of his hand bulged from beneath the skin, rising about half a finger's height. A frontal engagement meant that all of Blue Moon Island's defending forces were pinned down at the Ring Reef—no one could be spared to support the flank. But it also meant that the main force of the Haiyuan Clan at the front was far greater than the flanking assault team. Once the front was breached, the entire Blue Moon Island would be overwhelmed by the surging Haiyuan Clan. By then, no one in the narrow alley, whoever they were, would survive.

The Black-Armored Commander was also waiting for the result of that initial collision at the front. He pushed his bone spear half an inch further into the narrow alley—but gave no order for a new wave of attacks. After the main force pressed onto the Ring Reef, the tactical function of the flank changed. It shifted from "infiltrating to create chaos" to "pincer attack." The target of the flanking assault team shifted from the frontal outer perimeter defense to encircling the defenders on the Ring Reef from the rear.

But Scarface's Private Soldiers were blocking the narrow alley—the Black-Armored Commander couldn't get through.

On the second floor of the Lords Mansion—behind the crack in the window shutter, Lu Changyuan adjusted the focal length of his observation lens to the exit of the narrow alley.

Outside the narrow alley exit, the Black-Armored Commander switched his bone spear from his right hand to his left. The moment his bony fingers released the spear shaft—deep knuckle prints remained on the shaft. These were marks left by the bony plates of his finger joints rubbing back and forth on the shaft after gripping the bone spear continuously for nearly a stick of incense—when power was uncontrolled, one couldn't leave such evenly spaced knuckle prints. He gripped it tightly with his left hand again—switching the bone spear from a horizontal hold to a vertical one. A vertical hold of a bone spear was the starting stance for siege breaking—specifically designed to strike the front of a shield wall.

The narrow alley exit—the Private Soldiers' shield wall blocking the alley entrance had already retreated nearly twenty zhang. Twenty zhang had pushed the shield wall from the alley entrance to one-third of the way into the narrow alley. The alley's width went from less than one zhang at the exit—narrowing to less than seven feet at its deepest point. Seven feet—two people standing side-by-side couldn't even squeeze in without turning sideways. The Haiyuan Clan's shield formation got stuck when it advanced to this point—at most, only one and a half of them could be squeezed into the front row.

The Black-Armored Commander's bone spear couldn't be thrust in from the front—extending the spear into the middle of the shield formation would disrupt his own side's formation.

He held the bone spear vertically—and slashed at the stone wall from outside the narrow alley.

The instant the bone spear's blade struck the stone wall—the talisman paper of the old reinforcement formation was shaken right off the wall. The talisman paper flipped twice in the air—landing on the sandy ground three zhang away. The surface of the stone wall was split by the bone spear, creating a crack less than half a finger wide—the crack extended about five zhang inward from the narrow alley exit. Within those five zhang—the brick joints of the stone wall went from tight to loose. The mortar on the outside of the stone wall crumbled off layer by layer—collapsing to the third layer, revealing the old bricks in the inner layer of the stone wall. The old bricks were reef bricks chiseled from the Ring Reef when Blue Moon Island was founded—their hardness was nearly three times that of ordinary bricks. When the bone spear struck the reef bricks—sparks flew between the spear blade and the brick surface.

It wouldn't break.

The Black-Armored Commander pulled the bone spear back—the crystal fragments on the spear blade dimmed by nearly half after this strike. Reef bricks were immune to Qi attacks—they only succumbed to physical impact. The Haiyuan Clan's bone weapons were effective underwater—the bone material had a natural affinity for water-type Qi. But on land, the Qi transmission efficiency of bone weapons dropped by nearly forty percent compared to underwater. The consumption rate of the crystal fragments on land was nearly double that of underwater—after two and a half sticks of incense of continuous combat, nearly seventy percent of the Qi reserves had been used.

He slammed the bone spear against his side—and glanced into the narrow alley.

Inside the narrow alley—the Private Soldiers' shield wall was still retreating. But the speed of the retreat had slowed—it had gone from half a foot per breath to less than two inches per breath. The shield wall itself could no longer hold—the retreat speed was suppressed only because Scarface was stabilizing the formation from behind with shouted commands.

Scarface braced a long spear he had snatched from the hands of a dead Private Soldier onto the top edge of the shield wall. The spear shaft was a standard long weapon issued by the Zhenhai Fortress—engraved with a very faint military insignia. The insignia had been intentionally scratched out—the scratches were new, and rust hadn't had time to form yet. After bracing the long spear—he bit down on his poisoned dagger. Then, he drew the last spare interlayer shield from his Storage Pouch—a small round shield, only two-thirds the size of a standard shield. He slipped the small round shield onto his right forearm—stepped forward, and stood directly at the first gap in the front row of the shield wall.

With the dagger in his mouth—he couldn't speak a complete sentence. But he tilted his head in the front row of the shield wall toward Shorty—the direction of the tilt was toward the seam of the Haiyuan Clan's bone shields outside the narrow alley. Shorty saw this direction—and picked up the last bone hook from the ground. The bone hook had been snapped off the hand of a dead Haiyuan Clan warrior—the shaft of the bone hook was still wrapped with the broken forearm bone fragments of the Haiyuan Clan warrior. He wrapped the fishing net's retrieval rope around his right wrist—then hooked the bone hook onto the stone wall outside the narrow alley. The hook's blade caught the crevice in the stone wall—hoisting Shorty up nearly one zhang.