29: Book 7 is here! Unlock the Hell Tower and the Archer Queen!
"Upgrade," Lin Feng murmured to himself.
Rumble—!
This time, the tremor was more violent than any before! The entire fortress platform let out an unbearable roar, and a golden beam of light, almost solid, shot into the sky, scorching a huge hole in the eternal, dim yellow firmament above!
The bluish-grey rock beneath his feet expanded wildly outwards, its area once again surging. On the sturdy city walls, the flowing energy shield became even more solid, emitting a reassuring, heavy glow.
At the heart of the fortress, the stone hut seemed to be raised and widened by an invisible force, transforming into a magnificent building constructed of white stone with a roof of bluish-grey tiles. A fireplace even appeared in the center, radiating a faint warmth.
【Congratulations! Your Town Hall has been upgraded to Level 7!】
【Wall Durability Increased: 6000 -> 7000】
【Defense Tower Slots: 12 -> 14】
【Resource Building Slots: 7 -> 8】
【Maximum Fusion Quantity: 5】
【New Building Unlocked: Hell Tower!】
【New Hero Unlocked: Archer Queen!】
【New Feature Unlocked: Ground Defense Array】
【Institute Unlocked New Blueprints!】
A series of brand-new messages exploded in his mind like heavenly music.
Lin Feng's thoughts immediately delved into the new building that most attracted his attention—the 【Hell Tower】.
It was a ferocious-looking black high tower, entirely constructed of some obsidian-like material. The tower body was coiled with bizarre structures resembling devil's ribs, and at the top, a dark red crystal, as if condensed from magma, was emitting an ominous glow.
This... this was the "killing weapon" in Little Devil's hands, the one that even caused Dragon Aotian to fall!
Lin Feng immediately opened its attribute panel.
【Hell Tower】
Quality: Legendary (Orange)
Attack Power: Initial Damage 50 (Magic Damage)
Attack Speed: Continuous Burn
Range: 100 meters
Special Effect: 【Lava Beam】—Continuously deals damage to a single target. Damage rapidly increases over time (reaches maximum after 10s), with a maximum increment to 5000 points/second.
【Blaze】—Units hit cannot receive any healing effects.
Feature: Requires loading heavy oil to attack.
Construction Cost: 5000 Gold Coins.
Lin Feng's pupils slightly contracted.
Initial damage 50, rapidly increasing, maximum 5000. These numbers rapidly converted in Lin Feng's mind. This meant that after only ten seconds, it could deal 5000 points of damage per second to a single target!
Coupled with the outrageous 100% healing reduction effect!
This thing was simply made to annihilate all high-health, high-healing, high-armor elite units, and those heroes who dared to resist with their bare bodies!
No wonder Dragon Aotian's Holy Light Priest's Divine Dragon was instantly vaporized. This kind of exponentially increasing magic damage gave no chance to resist at all.
Lin Feng then looked at its glaring research unlock cost—5000 gold coins.
This was an expensive figure.
After upgrading to Town Hall 7, he now only had 2700 gold coins left, which was not enough to build the Hell Tower.
He shifted his gaze to the newly unlocked hero, the 【Archer Queen】.
【Hero: Archer Queen】
【Level】: 1
【Attack】: 200
【Health】: 500
【Skills】: None
A ranged hero focused on attack power, perfectly compensating for the Barbarian King's weakness in melee output. Once heavy oil was plentiful in the future, he could develop both, letting the Barbarian King charge into battle on the front lines, while the Archer Queen provided ranged fire support from the rear.
But this was not an immediate priority.
The problem he faced now was only one: how to deal with "Little Devil"?
His brain, like a super-high precision computer, operated at an unprecedented speed, reassembling and deducing all fragmented intelligence about "Little Devil."
A seemingly perfect plan formed in his mind: use five units to synthesize an ultimate assassin combining the three characteristics of 【Shadow Step】, 【Leap Over Walls】, and 【Ceasefire】, ignoring all defenses to directly strike the 1-health core.
However, just one second later, this plan was personally rejected by him.
His thoughts swept through the 【Institute】, where several new spell blueprints unlocked by the Level 7 Town Hall were displayed.
【The Log】: Unlock Cost 800 heavy oil. Effect: Releases a rolling giant log, dealing area damage and knocking back all ground units in a straight line.
【Lightning Spell】: Unlock Cost 1000 heavy oil. Effect: Summons several lightning bolts, precisely striking several high-health targets within a small area.
【Poison Spell】: Unlock Cost 1200 heavy oil. Effect: Creates a cloud of poisonous mist, dealing continuous damage and reducing the speed and attack power of enemy units within the area.
Lin Feng's eyes instantly became cold and rational.
He realized a fatal problem.
His 【Shadow Step】 units could indeed evade the 【Active Targeting】 of defensive towers and heroes.
But it could not evade the 【Area Damage】 of spells!
Little Devil's talent dictated that he must be an extremely defensive "turtle-style" player. It was impossible for him not to research these crucial defensive spells.
Lin Feng was almost certain that as soon as his Ghost Assassin stepped into the opponent's fortress, what would greet it would definitely not be the dawn of victory, but a 【The Log】 falling from the sky or a pre-prepared 【Poison Spell】.
Although his ultimate assassin was powerful, its health was bound to be low, making it equally vulnerable in the face of these area spells.
A simple base rush was a gamble with an extremely low success rate.
Once it failed, he would completely expose his biggest trump card of "synthesizing units." At that time, he would face an endless, mad retaliatory pursuit from a devil with a resource advantage.
No.
It was not yet time.
Lin Feng's gaze deepened, and a bolder, more stable plan slowly formed in his mind.
Bait and bayonet.
He needed a powerful front-line force, strong enough to threaten Little Devil, like a heavy hammer, to attract all of Little Devil's attention, to wear him down, and to force him to reveal all his spell trump cards.
Only when Little Devil thought he had already dismantled the main offensive, at his most relaxed moment, would the ghost unit hidden in the shadows truly be the drawn bayonet, the lethal strike!
And to assemble such a "heavy hammer" bait unit, his current resources were far from enough.
"It seems that before I deal with you, I must first deal with another 'natural disaster.'"
Lin Feng's gaze slowly turned to the blood-red countdown constantly flashing on the panel.
【Time until the first Blood Moon Monster Wave:】
【One day.】
He decided to first use the Blood Moon, a disaster everyone avoided, to accumulate the capital to deal with "Little Devil."
The Blood Moon was bound to drop rarer materials and a massive amount of resources.
While everyone else struggled for survival, he would turn this disaster into a feast for himself alone.
At the same time, the "slaughter" in the regional channel intensified.
"System Announcement: Lord Swift Wind Swordsman (SS-rank - Wind Assault) has defeated Lord 'Hill Giant' (A-rank - Earth Power) in a deathmatch. Fortress destroyed, Lord annihilated!"
"System Announcement: Lord Holy Light Priest (S-rank - Life Recovery) has defeated Lord 'Poison Ivy Witch' (B-rank - Poisonous Entanglement) in a deathmatch. Fortress destroyed, Lord annihilated!"
The entire chat channel's style completely changed. It was no longer about monster waves but about the naked plunder and slaughter between various gifted individuals.
Most of them were Lords with SS-rank and S-rank talents, annihilating A-rank, and even B-rank, gifted individuals. Clearly, for those who had just upgraded to Town Hall Level 5, or had not even fully familiarized themselves with the PVP mechanism, they had no ability to kill gifted individuals of the same rank. They could only target gifted individuals one, or even two, ranks lower than themselves.
"The strong prey on the weak..."
Lin Feng's eyes were cold; he took in all this information, then reopened the hero panel.
He needed to upgrade this brand-new hero unit.