He couldn't take it anymore. Chariot had just about reached his limit.
He really wanted to toss the card in his hand and start a new round of material strengthening, but the battle was so exciting that he didn't want to miss a single moment of this image-and-text livestream.
As a result, he could only endure the constant chatter and critiques from the rest of the villa.
With the addition of the floating cannons, the outcome of the battle was no longer in doubt.
Although they didn't know if the enemy's four-digit health pool was 9,999 or 1,111, it didn't really matter.
It wasn't that the Ancient of War was defeated instantly; rather, with Steel-grath holding the front line, Lan Qingyou could calmly use the floating cannons to slowly grind down the Ancient of War's health.
It was what gamers commonly called 'chipping away.'
The Ancient of War was also driven to a frenzy. It went from lashing out with its branches to whipping them frantically, and eventually, exploding fruits began growing from the branches atop its head to bombard the area—the entire process took less than thirty minutes.
During this time, Lan Qingyou spent every moment focusing her mind on controlling the floating cannons, aside from the occasional snapshot.
To be honest, she made it look easy.
However, this was only possible because Lan Qingyou was essentially chugging a mana potion every ten seconds.
After all, both controlling floating cannons and maintaining flight consumed mana points.
Furthermore, because she was controlling three floating cannons at once, she had to take brief pauses to recover her mana.
This meant that within those thirty minutes, Lan Qingyou had consumed nearly 180 Basic Mana Potions, totaling almost 1,800 milliliters of liquid.
To put that in perspective, a common bottle of water is only 550 milliliters.
In thirty minutes, Lan Qingyou had drunk the equivalent of about 3.2 bottles of water.
So.
The moment the Ancient of War collapsed, Lan Qingyou could no longer hold it back. She threw all dignity to the wind and began vomiting right there in the air.
“Squeak!”
“Chirp!”
The two little guys poked their heads out from her robe, looking at Lan Qingyou with concern.
“Don't worry, my stomach just can't take it,” Lan Qingyou said, comforting the two little ones while taking a photo with her card to post in the group.
High Priestess: “It's down!”
The Star: “Yeah, finally finished it off.”
Hierophant: “That was a long war of attrition.”
The Emperor: “But it was spectacular. It's been a long time since I've seen such a thrilling popcorn blockbuster.”
Wheel of Fortune: “I wouldn't call it a popcorn blockbuster. After all, that term usually implies a movie that looks good but has no substance—trash you forget the moment you turn away.”
The Emperor: “Oh? Is that so? I always thought it just meant something with big, flashy scenes.”
Chariot: “Stop rambling about nonsense. What about Steel-grath? How's the damage?”
Compared to the others' relaxed mood, the previously mocked Chariot was only concerned with the current state of his 'masterpiece.'
The Tower: “It's fine. The damage rate is about ten percent, which meets the initial design expectations. [Image]”
After she finished vomiting, Lan Qingyou sent a reply to the group.
Chariot’s eyes lit up the moment he saw it: “See! See that?! That’s what you call a Master of Steel! I told you it could hold the line!”
Earlier, when people were discussing its durability, Chariot had felt insulted. But since he wasn't on the scene and only had photos to go by—plus the fact that Lan Qingyou couldn't give him immediate feedback while she was fighting—he had been stifling his frustration the whole time.
Now that he heard Lan Qingyou say it had met design expectations, he had to come out and gloat a bit.
After all, as the only witness on the scene, Lan Qingyou possessed natural authority on the matter.
High Priestess: “Yeah, yeah, sure, whatever you say.”
The Sun: “Let's discuss how to handle the next three. After all, those three are grouped together.”
The Star: “True. If we're not careful, Steel-grath might get gang-piled.”
Hierophant: “Two fists are no match for four hands. Looking at the previous photos, pulling mobs in that terrain might be difficult.”
Death: “I don't think it'll be that hard. Just lure one to that open area near the corner of the stone house and then release Steel-grath.”
Justice: “That area is too small. It's not enough space for an ancient and Steel-grath to fight.”
Seeing that everyone had started discussing the next battle and was completely ignoring him, Chariot opened his mouth to speak but ultimately said nothing.
In any case, his strength had been verified and his dream had been realized. That was enough.
So, he tossed aside his previous displeasure and happily joined the discussion.
Back with Lan Qingyou, after soothing her stomach, she put away Steel-grath and landed next to the Ancient of War, releasing the Blade-roller to begin the harvest.
Because of her previous experience with the War Treant, she didn't even need Spoon's help this time; she was exceptionally proficient.
However, she was disappointed this time.
Unlike the War Treant, there were no saplings inside the Ancient of War.
In other words, in a sense, this Ancient of War was truly dead.
It couldn't undergo a 'reincarnation' like the War Treant had.
Of course, it might also be because the Ancient of War was too high-level.
Lan Qingyou offered no comment on the matter.
Though a bit regretful, she wasn't discouraged. This sort of thing was a matter of luck; getting one was a bonus, and not getting one wasn't a loss.
After all, there was still a stone house waiting for her.
Anything protected by four S-grade or higher monsters was bound to be extraordinary.
However, there were still three more ancients to deal with, which was a bit of a problem.
Fortunately, the all-capable group members had already hashed out a tactic while Lan Qingyou was processing the Ancient of War.
It could be summarized in four words: environment destruction and fire isolation.
Just by looking at the words, Lan Qingyou didn't even need to read the detailed discussion in the chat to guess the general idea.
The stone house was on a slope, and so were the three ancients.
Therefore, she only needed to destroy the outer slope and lure them to the open ground here, using fire to keep them as far apart as possible so they could be taken down one by one.
It sounded simple enough, but the execution was still quite difficult.
The most critical factor was the stone house.
If she destroyed the outer slope, she might accidentally damage the stone house. To be safe, Lan Qingyou decided that extinguishing the fires seemed like a more reliable approach.
Extinguishing the fires was actually not a difficult task for Lan Qingyou at all.
She just had to toss down a dozen or so Frost Potions, and any fire would be snuffed out.
Following that, the three ancients came charging down toward Lan Qingyou.
Although they were all ancients, their movement speeds varied slightly due to their different specializations.
The Ancient of Knowledge was the slowest, so Lan Qingyou used fire to isolate it at the bottom of the slope.
Next was the Ancient of Life, and finally, it was the Ancient of Wind's turn.
Using the same strategy as before, Steel-grath tanked the damage and stripped the ancient's bark while Lan Qingyou controlled the floating cannons from the air to attack.
It was still a slow grind, but she was fine with wearing them down.
The only difference this time was that she had to make a few more trips to the fire isolation zones to keep the flames burning bright.
Rate on N.U.
