An additional Yu Shun enhanced the team's efficiency a lot in capturing the fortress. Usually, they would resort to climbing the wall to do a surprise attack but it was not needed with the presence of two Stage-3 Zombies, Mace.
Using their hand-like mace, the two zombies would crush the steel gate before attacking the fortress. To everyone's surprise, the two Maces combined only needed twenty strikes in total to break the seemingly sturdy steel gate.
Thanks to Yu Shun, the day he joined them was the day they conquered all seven fortresses. They finished the side objective in three days, taking all the rewards by themselves.
Kang Jiayi's view of the new world has turned upside down. He had carefully watched this group, and he realized the severity of the government's absence to fight the disaster. If the government did not manage these people soon, establishing an empire was truly no longer a pipe of a dream.
But if what Tang Shaoyang said was the truth that his beloved country had fallen, he had to think of a way to revive his fallen country. The country might have fallen but his spirit as a soldier and his love toward the country was deep-rooted in his heart.
However, he found something that hard to believe. His family, after days, joined the group, his family started to see this and Tang Shaoyang in a new light. Especially his son and his wife, Kang Zian had put all his heart to catch with the others from the Tarriors. His wife, Mu Liqiu agreed to his son-in-law to have more than one wife after his daughter stuffed her with the Empire thingy. His wife now believed that the Tang Empire was her new home.
The old man did not know what his daughter fed to his wife, but if he truly wanted to revive the country, his family was bound to not support him. At least, that was what he felt from their changes.
Kang Jiang was in a tough spot, the country he loved and his deeply loved family. He was bound to choose, 'You are already too old for this, better to retire and enjoy what you have now,'
"Hahhhh…" the old man released a long sigh as he remembered his son's words.
—Father, the name of a nation does not matter but the people are! What's the difference between the old country and the Tang Empire while they protected the same people? The Tang Empire's people are the old country's people who survived the disaster! The old country's revival or the Tang Empire thriving holds the same meaning for me! As long as they don't abuse their power, I will follow their path to survival.
His son's words rang in his head. It was what his son said to him after he woke up from his coma. He tried to persuade him to not take any part in the battle but his son insisted. The old man did not know what entered his son's head to suddenly change like that.
But the old man found some truth behind his son's words. Let out yet another sigh, he glanced toward the bonfire that was near the biggest. Around the bonfire, six people sat circling the bonfire and talked something serious. It was a routine that happened every night.
'Maybe I should help them,' the old man started to have a change of mind. He was talking about the military administration since these people were just civilians before he could share his knowledge about the military with them to establish a proper military division.
*** ***
The following day, Tang Shaoyang led his people toward the direction they believed where the Berserker King was. So far, they had guessed correctly behind the theory of the heptagon fortress that led them to a big victory within three days.
It only took two hours of the careful journey for them to prove the theory was correct. In the center of the heptagon fortress, a big fort that three times bigger than a normal fortress stood up.
The frustration was that Tang Shaoyang could not use the rope climbing tactic for the surprise attack or destroying the gate just like what they did before. On top of that, there was an Orc General on each side gate, overseeing the defense along with Orc Guard.
"Let's climb the wall, Boss! We will open the gate just like we did to capture the first fortress," Lu An shared his idea to enter the last fort.
"We can try that, we will make our move at night," since they only had one Concealment Cloak, making a move now would make them the target to the orcs.
The sun was down as two moons appeared in the sky. The moon had a different color, one was red and the other one was just like a normal moon on Earth.
Tang Shaoyang led his people to the last fort. 68 people including him decided to attack the south gate. They could not afford to split up with their number so they focused their attack on one gate.
"This is going to be hard," Tang Shaoyang muttered in a low voice as he observed the fort two hundred meters ahead. Completely different from the beforehand fortress, the last fort had torches placed on the wall. A big flame burned fiercely to light the dark fort.
"But it should not be a problem for us," Lu An chimed in, "The torches are near the top, if we are fast enough the orcs will not notice us," speed was his specialty, and he was confident to sneak to the top wall without being noticed.
"We will try," Tang Shaoyang nodded his head. Then both walked toward the last fort, where they predicted The Berserker King was. They took a soft approached and made as little noise as possible to not attract unwanted attention from the orcs. Since the torches hung on the top wall, the fire only lighted the area around the wall.
This was not their first wall-climbing so they nimbly climbed the wall. When they were about to reach the area of the torch, they stopped while exchanging glances. The boss and subordinate nodded at each other before with a big pull of their hands, the two figures shot up.
The moment they stepped on the wall, ten arrows whistled from the darkness. Each of the arrows hit the intended target, the Orc Guards' head. In the blink of an eye, ten Orc Guards had fallen. The fallen Orc Guards caused a little noise when their armor touched the ground, alerting the remaining seven Orc Guards and one Orc General.
In the next second, the next wave of ten arrows came. Each Orc Guard was targeted by an arrow while the remaining three arrows accelerated toward the Orc General.
Slurgh! Slurgh!
The sevens arrows took down the remaining seven Orc Guards, but the Orc General was much tougher. It deflected the three arrows with a wave of its ax. The Orc General opened its mouth and was about to warn the other orcs that they were under attack.
However, Tang Shaoyang was much faster than the Orc General. Taking the battle-ax out of the inventory, he clogged the opened mouth with the hard shaft.
Not expecting such action, the Orc General failed to make any noise from his mouth. At this moment, Lu An appeared behind the Orc General. He activated [Dash] and followed with [Fatal Strike] to slice the Orc General's neck.
With quick support and combined with teamwork, they captured the south gate quickly. Tang Shaoyang and Lu An did not immediately open the gate, they surveyed the inner part of the fort.
The inner part was filled with huts that were built close to each other. From the south gate, they could tell the huts were not less than a hundred. The number was unexpected for the two, so far, the most they had encountered in one fort was less than two hundred and not even a hundred orcs in the smallest fortress.
"Let me do a quick check, Boss!" Lu An shared the same concern as Tang Shaoyang. The latter nodded and peeked down, at the inner gate, six Orc Guards guarded the gate.
"Do you need help?" He was pointing at the six Orc Guards below. Lu An shook his head, "There's no need, I will sneak into their house instead of killing then. It's too risky to kill the guards below,"
After that, Lu An descended through the stairs and rushed to the inner part of the fort. It did not take long for Lu An to come back. After five minutes of the quick check, he came back to report his discovery.
"There are eight straw beds in each hut, I have checked twenty huts and all the huts are the same. On top of that, I encountered more Orc Guards than Orc Warrior,"
Eight straw beds, meaning eight Orcs lived in one hut. If they roughed up the number of huts, the number of orcs around a thousand, not less. With the addition of bad news that most of the orcs were stage-2 evolution, they were at a big disadvantage in number if they confronted them head-on.
Tang Shaoyang was worried more about his subordinates. He could easily kill the Orc Guards, but his subordinates could not. If they attacked blindly like before, they would be done for once they were surrounded by the orcs.
"We need a new plan," Tang Shaoyang muttered as he looked at Lu An.