Throughout the day, Hell's army was consuming Graycastle's ammunition reserves.
The purpose is to prevent Graycastle's catapults from having enough reserves to saturate their output when Hell launches a real attack.
At the same time, it is also to determine the specific erection position of Graycastle catapult based on the impact point and flight arc.
Slings, especially those carried on city walls, are generally fixed and difficult to move.
Determine the specific location of the catapults. Hell can choose to send troops to attack these catapults and destroy them directly.
Even worse, by determining the location of these catapults, you can determine their best attack range and projection angle.
Any catapult, no matter how long the attack distance is, will have a certain angle that it cannot hit. This is determined by the structure of the machine.
Of course, the designers of city defense have already thought of this problem.
So generally, there are at least 4 catapults on the city wall to ensure that there are no blind spots, at least except for the section at the foot of the city, there are no other blind spots.
The catapults on the city wall are a little better. At least no matter how sudden the Crypt Devil's sneak attack is, they can't fly to the city wall.
However, the slings placed behind the city wall have a high probability of being attacked by the Crypt Demon.
Night is coming, even if all the magic lights in the city are lit, there are still many dark corners that cannot be illuminated.
Xu Lai arranged for enough soldiers to patrol the city, as well as special scouts to listen.
But Xu Lai had never dealt with demons like the Crypt Demon when he was defending the city.
And after all, it is a magical world. It is not known whether there is any sound when traveling underground. Even if there is, it may not be able to be covered up with magic.
The devil has been inactive during the day, just waiting for the best time to act at night.
Xu Lai is almost 100% sure that the group of crypt demons will definitely take action tonight.
Xu Lai had already chosen the targets of the operation. During the day, he built more than ten catapult positions in the inner city.
This kind of catapult position built within the city wall does not have the range bonus of the city wall, and has no advantage over the devil's catapult.
Even, because the attack target cannot be seen, it can only attack according to the instructions, and the hit rate is much worse than that of ordinary catapults.
It's just that if the demon troops are densely packed, it doesn't matter even if the hit rate is a little bit low. Anyway, you can hit the demon no matter how you hit it.
The devil created so many mirror images, and the fake devil came out just to consume one's own ammunition.
Xu Lai didn't believe that he had created so many catapult positions and deliberately only arranged a small number of soldiers for defense. Those demons would not be interested.
Completely different from the devil’s guess, Xu Lai will not cherish any ammunition or catapults.
Except for the high-end goods that were sent to the city walls, with Qingfeng City’s capabilities, it would not be a big problem to build hundreds of ordinary catapults in a day.
It's just that the craftsmen in Qingfeng City work harder and the workers move more times.
Therefore, Xu Lai also specifically told the defending soldiers to pay attention to the movements underground at all times, and to protect themselves first if something went wrong, leaving the catapult alone.
These catapults are the traps Xu Lai prepared for the demons.
A large number of woven nets and ice traps were laid in the catapult position.
Due to the characteristics of itself and the demon race, the Crypt Demon is highly resistant to fire and earth elemental magic.
The most common traps, such as flames and ground thorns, are not very effective against crypt demons. They may be able to paralyze these demons.
Weaving nets and freezing traps is not to kill these crypt demons, but to trap them and not give them time to bury themselves in the ground again.
As long as these crypt demons are trapped or frozen, the troops arranged by Xu Lai will come over immediately.
The Crypt Demon is good at sneak attacks, and attacking from behind can cause double damage.
But their frontal abilities are only slightly stronger than those of the Winged Demons.
In order to be able to sneak underground smoothly, they cannot wear any equipment.
Except for a few leader-level crypt lords who have specially crafted exclusive equipment, the rest of the crypt demons have naked attributes.
The only thing they are better than the Winged Demon is that they do not have to specifically limit their weight, so they can carry a thick carapace and grow sharp back spines.
But Xu Lai was fully prepared, but he still miscalculated. The Crypt Demon did not appear all night.
Not only the crypt demons, but also the demons outside the city are also very powerful, but in fact they are just two or three kittens.
A flare was projected into the air, and countless dark demons could be seen coming from the battlefield seven or eight kilometers away.
However, mirror images are not easy to distinguish, and light and shadow are needed even when the vision is good during the day.
At night when visibility is poor, even with flares, it is difficult to tell whether it is a mirror image or a real demon.
But Xu Lai didn't need to cherish the ammunition anyway. Nearly a hundred trebuchets, catapults, and catapults were launched at the same time on and under the city wall.
There is a turret on Graycastle. Xu Lai will not be able to add this thing for a while, because the most critical magic cannon in the turret requires a high-level alchemist to make it.
Xu Lai has ordered several cannons from Qingfeng City, but even if the cannons are available, it will take craftsmen two or three days to build a new turret.
The turrets that were repaired before are still in use now.
These turrets can all fire cannonballs poured with a large number of iron balls. They are not only powerful, but can also scatter.
The disadvantage is that the previous magic cannons were all extremely ordinary items.
Not to mention compared to the cannons used by the tower mages, it is also incomparable to the ordinary naval guns on Xu Lai's fleet.
The power is okay, but the range is only one kilometer. Even with the dual blessing of ballistics and archery, the range is less than 1.5 kilometers.
Under the darkness of night, Xu couldn't tell clearly whether the demon was turned into pieces or whether it was blasted into dregs.
Anyway, each round of catapult firing can destroy at least a thousand demons.
The movement speed of the demons is not slow. Presumably Kerrigan has other speed-increasing treasures besides logistics.
At a distance of seven or eight kilometers, the demon infantry had already appeared within the range of the phantom shooters within a few rounds of bombing.
With the bonus of strengthening the arrow tower, the phantom archers, who already had an extremely wide range, took the lead in launching a powerful long-range offensive.
Thousands of arrows, accompanied by tens of thousands of phantoms, appear almost in a straight line in the sky continuously.
Whether it is the Hellfire summoned by Kerrigan using the Gate of Hell, the Horned Overseer, or the mirror image copied using the Mirror Image Technique.
When they came within the attack range of the phantom shooter, it was like encountering a city wall made of arrows, and no one could break through.
One hellfire after another was bombarded into pieces by powerful arrows.
According to the demons' previous experience, the projectile distance of human shooters is indeed very far, but the power is extremely average.
The heroes of the Longbow Regiment who defend Lionheart City not only have ultimate archery skills, but also have archer skills and are equipped with a complete archer suit.
Taking these three items together, even the shooters led by Xu Lai are far from comparable to their opponents in terms of range and output.
But the damage caused by the shooters in Lionheart City was less than half of that of the phantom shooters, even though the number far exceeded the phantom shooters. No matter how strong the defenders of Lion Heart City are, after all, the projectiles only deal a quarter of the damage.
No matter how tall or powerful the city walls and arrow towers of the capital city are, and no matter how many bonuses they provide, if they are reduced by three-quarters at once, how much power will they still have?
The phantom archer not only does full damage, but also has no discount on the arrow tower bonus, and can also bring more phantom arrows according to its own level.
The average level of Xu Lai's phantom archers is close to level 8, which is equivalent to each phantom archer being able to shoot 8 additional arrows.
The phantom arrows were not enough, but the demon eliminated only one-tenth of the troops, and the remaining nine-tenths were either mirror images or cannon fodder.
The mirror cannot bear any damage. Whether it is the human beings who were driven out and enslaved, the cannon fodder, or the little devil or Little Tiaotiao, they are all extremely fragile units.
If a phantom arrow is fired at a unit like this, it might be able to skewer seven or eight of them.
Just maintaining this kind of firepower configuration will not last long.
A phantom archer, even an 8th level phantom archer, only has 3 quivers with 120 arrows.
Under the special effects of archery and logistics, the amount of ammunition can be increased by 30% in total, which adds up to only 156 rounds.
With the Phantom Shooter's terrifying rate of fire and 156 rounds of ammunition, it can be fired in less than three minutes at the extreme limit.
Of course, judging from the quality of the devil, there is no need to maintain such an exaggerated intensity.
But one phantom shooter, for up to ten minutes, will also use up their daily free ammunition.
For the rest of the time, either Xu Lai provided ammunition supplies, or they had to arrange for them to rest.
A reinforced arrow tower with three floors of shooting positions, which can accommodate up to 12-18 shooters at the same time.
Xu Lai arranged three times the number of phantom shooters in each arrow tower, allowing them to rotate at any time to ensure that the output of the arrow tower continued.
Ten minutes later, seeing that the demons could not come up, Xu Lai ordered to reduce the intensity and release some demons appropriately.
Anyway, there are tens of thousands of sky shooters on the city wall. If that is not enough, more master shooters can be mobilized.
After reducing the frequency of attacks, occasionally thick-skinned Hellfires break through the phantom defense line.
However, at this time, there are still 4 turrets and hundreds of ballistas on the city wall, waiting for them.
Under the blockade of turrets and ballistae, these fish that slipped through the net could not reach within one kilometer.
Helpless, Xu Lai could only order the frequency to be lowered again, allowing the phantom shooters to shoot and rest for two or three seconds.
But even so, because the demon army was filled with too many illusions, after breaking through the crossbow bolts and artillery fire, there was still not much left.
These demons don't need to work with the sky shooters, they only need to call on the batch of recruits recruited after the founding of the People's Republic of China.
These recruits followed Xu Lai and fought all the way from the grassland to Gray Castle. They were led by Rena to fight in several tough battles and even ate dragon meat.
Their level at this time is already not low. The average level has exceeded level 5. They are basically level 5, supplemented by a small amount of level 6 and level 7.
They will deal with the demons who break through the defense line at close range, carry out fixed-point strikes, and gain experience.
Xu Lai glanced at the demons outside the city and showed no interest, so he focused on the city.
However, the movement in the city was even smaller. Apart from normal patrols, there was no unusual movement.
The devil's actions at night were indeed thunderous and rainy, so Xu Lai didn't feel any pressure at all.
On the contrary, the demons themselves lost some troops.
However, Kerrigan was not impatient at all. The loss of these demons was nothing to him, not to mention that most of them were summoned, and their death was in vain.
As long as he moves his hands without showing any signs of failure, he only needs to let the demons under him know that he is taking action.
The operations during the day and night, in addition to consuming the ammunition of the defenders in the city, more importantly, also allowed Kerrigan to have a basic assessment of human strength.
Like that terrifying continuous rain of arrows.
Although he had heard reports before, he knew that Xu Lai had a very powerful long-range force.
But he didn't know how strong this army was.
Now he understands that with the addition of the arrow tower, those archers can shoot to a distance of nearly two kilometers, and their key power and speed are extremely terrifying.
If he didn't know the skills of these shooters and rashly concentrated his troops to attack, he would definitely suffer heavy losses.
Although the continuous rain of arrows did not last long, Kerrigan knew that as long as the other party had it, it would definitely last.
Xu Lai must have an extremely large, even artifact-level space ring on his body.
Therefore, Kerrigan dared to conclude that as long as Xu Lai was willing, this continuous rain of arrows would definitely last for a long time.
In addition to the human shooters, Kerrigan is also more concerned about Xu Lai's efforts in city defense.
After struggling to capture Lionheart City, Kerrigan captured a large amount of wealth and a huge population.
But these wealth and population cannot be used by him for the time being.
The key is that he did not have time to stop and reorganize his internal affairs at this time, and he had accumulated most of the siege weapons for several months and lost most of them in the battle of Lion Heart City.
And he was in such a hurry that he couldn't bring those bulky guys with him.
Bristone had already fought against Xu Lai, and the city was destroyed, leaving only an inner city.
Krigan removed all the catapults from Bristone's inner city wall and modified them into new catapults.
It’s just that these more than twenty precious catapults are now Kerrigan’s treasure, and he is unwilling to use them to consume each other with Graycastle.
Only when the catapults and siege engines from Lion Heart City arrive, can he take them out and consume them with Xu Lai.
Some time ago, Kerrigan saw Xu Lai's cavalry, and today he saw Xu Lai's city defense weapons and some of his shooters.
Kerrigan touched his chin, and while it was still dark, he called for gold and retreated his troops.
His camp has been moved to the front line, only thirty kilometers away from Graycastle in a straight line.
The Crypt Demon is a surprise force arranged by Kerrigan, and it must cooperate with the main force.
As for whether this surprise force can produce such an effect, Kerrigan is not sure yet.
The best result he hoped to achieve was to directly break through Graycastle's two-layer city wall from the inside out.
Under a sudden sneak attack, it is useless for humans to have strong long-range troops, and they can only rely on melee guards.
If the Crypt Demon can directly open the two city gates, it will provide great convenience for Kerrigan's siege.
But if the crypt demons do not have this strength, Kerrigan needs to arrange for them to sneak attack on the catapult positions, grain warehouses and arsenals, etc., to create chaos in the city.
What exactly needs to be done and how to do it depends on the strength of the human infantry.
So Kerrigan withdrew his troops without giving up. After adjusting his formation, he continued to attack Graycastle the next day. (End of this chapter)