Chess Mage of Faerûn

Chapter 290 Fenglin Huoshan
"Rest assured, we will not let you down."

Arden, confident in his abilities, replied nonchalantly, earning only a noncommittal hum in return.

"On my command, prepare to meet the enemy."

At his command, Maginot's gang assembled and formed a respectable advancing formation, with even the chess pieces blending in under Zhang Yuan's manipulation.

If this formation were placed in a regular military organization like the Flame Fist, it would be condemned to death, but to be able to deploy such a formation in a gang war is enough to attract attention.

At least the gentlemen of the Finger Gang were taken aback when they saw this, realizing that the other party's ability to make a comeback and build a business in such a short time was no fluke.

At that very moment, the gates to the enemy's lair opened!
One after another, figures filed out from the door and quickly formed a convex crescent moon formation. Their skill surpassed even that of Maginot.

Arden and his men did not seize the opportunity to launch a powerful offensive; instead, they advanced slowly and methodically.

Firstly, the enemy's reaction speed was too fast, so a sneak attack wouldn't have any advantage. Secondly...

At the beginning of the plan, Master Zhang gave them personal instructions and wrote down the four-character strategy of "wind, forest, fire, and mountain".

Their retreat was swift as the wind.
The advance was swift and unhurried, like a forest.
They seized territory and divided the spoils, their aggression burning like fire.
Friendly troops are in trouble and remain as motionless as a mountain.

Upon first hearing this, Arden Lorraine and the others felt as if they had been enlightened. Upon closer examination, they found it to be invaluable advice, a concise summary of the code of conduct and patterns of their gang in the turbulent years of Luskan. It could practically serve as the gang's motto and guiding ideology.

Having obtained this effective method, Arden naturally regarded it as the gold standard and followed it exactly, which made Zhang Yuan, whose progress was slow, somewhat impatient.

However, what was bound to happen eventually did. These two, representing their respective sides, though outwardly opposed, were inwardly united and finally clashed head-on.

The battlefield was filled with deafening roars and fierce battle cries. The shouts of battle were incessant, and both sides fought bravely and relentlessly.

In this battle, the sky darkened and the sun and moon lost their light;
This battle was a clash of equals, a meeting of brilliant minds.

There were no casualties in this battle!

miracle!

It can only be said that the two sides are too close in skill, maintaining a delicate balance in some mysterious way, and it is definitely not due to some dirty tricks such as a friendly match where the two sides agreed to play together.

Unfortunately, there were no witnesses to this miraculous battle in the history of warfare.

Needless to say, the bystanders who had long since retreated were nowhere to be seen, and the Finger Gang, who should have at least assisted in the battle and cheered them on, were nowhere to be found.

Where have people gone?

Arden, who was playing a friendly match, looked around with some confusion at the spot where the Finger Gang had stood earlier, but there was not a single person in sight.

But in his ears he heard Kegan's rough, deep voice.

"Take my Earth's Wrath Knee Severing Strike!"

The dwarf raised his axe and charged up for several seconds before unleashing a low slash that seemed slow but was actually even slower.

Good heavens, Arden! Despite being a shield warrior, he parried the axe with agility comparable to that of an old turtle in the blink of an eye.

"The other group has disappeared. I hope nothing went wrong?"

Arden, who seemed to be fighting with the dwarves, was now speaking in hushed tones.

“Our boss has his own methods, and besides, what’s there to worry about with these guys?”

Kegan, however, was unimpressed. He thought that the level of that rabble was probably not even as good as the Maginot Line back then.

"Oh, by the way, I'll show you a treasure."

The dwarf's tone suddenly became strange, as if he was suppressing something, and he tucked his axe behind his back with his right hand. ???

Arden danced a war dance, glancing curiously at his opponent, at the right hand that was being offered to him.

watch out!

Kegan's blindfold hammer struck Arden right in the face.

"Ow!"

Caught off guard, Arden quickly covered his eyes and, somewhat shocked and angry, questioned the other person:
"What the hell are you doing? Didn't we agree on this?"

"Hehe, what are you yelling about?" The dwarf's face revealed the wicked smile he had been holding back. "After fighting for so long, there's not a single mark. Isn't that too strange?"

"You," Arden hadn't even finished his protest when similar things happened to almost every member of the Maginot Line, and for a time everyone was covered in bruises.

The Canaan members were indeed highly skilled as mid-level combatants. Apart from the half-ogre brothers who had difficulty using heavy weapons, even Lawrence managed to fire an arrow into the thigh of a grunt with his crossbow. These wounds appeared to be bloody, but in reality, they were nothing serious.

If these guys were in their previous lives, they would have made a lot of money much faster as minimally invasive surgeons.

"Couldn't you have informed me beforehand?"

"Did I tell you that you still have that same imposing aura as before?"

. . .

Arden was speechless. Firstly, what the other party said made sense. He himself was fine, but if his underlings knew that they would still end up getting stabbed in the back, they might turn from roosters into sicklings.

Furthermore, the other party did not use their full strength. These minor injuries will heal in a couple of days. Besides, given how easily the other party subdued them, what could they do even if they were unwilling?
Two flowers bloom, one branch each.

However, it's not entirely by bullying the weak and fearing the strong that this guy, Damo, was able to become the leader of a gang. This guy would come up with a clever idea from time to time, and he was truly a first-rate genius.

He had previously felt he had lost face, but his indifference to the "fierce" battle between his allies was in line with the principles of military strategy and coincided with the "mountain" principle.

Seeing the two groups locked in a fierce battle, the situation seemed extremely tense and difficult to resolve, he began to have doubts.

Join the fight? It's not worth risking your life.

Just wait around? If Maginot can't take them down, won't we just have come to the market district for an armed demonstration and gotten nothing in return?

Suddenly, he remembered the leader's behavior earlier and the rumors circulating in the streets, and a brilliant idea flashed into his mind.

"Boss, are we leaving? Why don't we go back to that place and grab some loot instead, so we won't have come for nothing?"

Seeing that Dom had gestured for the Finger Gang members to quietly leave the edge of the battlefield with their leader, they looked at him with some confusion.

"That son of a bitch Arden is full of bullshit, but at least he's right about one thing: we can't just focus on this little bit of money."

"Boss, there are a lot of vendors in the market area, and they're even more lucrative than those in our North District. This is no small amount of money."

"Wouldn't it be better if we took over this territory?"

Dom's words only confused his underlings more. If they were going to fight, what did this move to advance into the rear mean?
Despite being stared at by a series of puzzled gazes, Dom remained confident:
"I'm asking you, didn't you all see the person from the Money Gang who was giving orders earlier?"

Everyone nodded.

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(End of this chapter)