As soon as the Hall Guard Knight fell to the ground, the guards within the Inner Court naturally surrendered.
If it had been earlier, they might have had some resistance in mind, but seeing their leader fleeing, their morale naturally plummeted — some even out of a sense of retaliation simply threw down their weapons. Only a few diehards remained, but Luo Hao could handle them.
Fang Hong actually understood that the Hall Guard Knight wasn't truly fleeing, but made the most effective judgment. Knowing they were outmatched, the primary option was to relay the news from here. After all, with the sandstorm raging and communication interrupted, the only way to transmit information was through the most primitive means.
Though he understood this in his heart, he naturally wouldn't speak of it.
This combat inevitably caused some casualties, but it was unavoidable. Fang Hong had Luo Hao watch over these people, instructing them to tie themselves up with ropes and reassuring them that they wouldn't be harmed, as they were about to leave.
This tactic indeed worked, as the surrendering soldiers seemed to lose their will to resist and followed the instructions.
"It's best to be quick," Fang Hong instructed Luo Hao and Wu Xiaopang.
"The resurrected will revive in fifteen minutes at the earliest, and even without them, the noise they made earlier must have drawn some attention. We don't have much time and must leave this place immediately."
The two nodded in agreement.
Fang Hong then went to retrieve the Mirrorer left outside the hall.
The previous illusion was naturally created using his Mirrorer, and his so-called bold plan was after attacking the first team, to disguise as them using their armor and then launch a surprise attack at the Inner Court's entrance.
He also used the Mirrorer to record the image of the leading Hall Guard Knight and used the sound crystal from the Clockwork Fairy to record the other's voice, thereby creating the initial illusion, which indeed proved useful, successfully deceiving the other's vigilance.
As for the original owner of this image, they were currently imprisoned in the dungeon with the other guards, experiencing the treatment they had once 'enjoyed.'
The reason Fang Hong came up with this plan on the fly was due to the current sandstorm.
The communication issues brought by the sandstorm were quite a headache for him, but fortunately, this trouble was mutual; the Arcanist would equally face unmitigated difficulties. Because they couldn't communicate in the sandstorm, it created an opportunity to play for time, otherwise, the other side would be alerted immediately upon their attack on the teams entering the outer area.
No matter what plan he had, it would be impossible to execute.
The members of the Shield of Lufu quickly subdued every guard in the Inner Court, and Fang Hong, true to his word, did not trouble them, leaving them in place. The reason he spent time restraining them was merely to prevent them from following up from behind, as he needed to buy time and couldn't let the other party know exactly how far they had advanced.
The sandstorm was just one layer of cover; the other was their sufficiently fast actions, causing the information the enemy had to be significantly delayed.
The core of this tactic was to move swiftly and stay one step ahead when both sides lost their grasp on battlefield information.
This wasn't his original idea; similar tactics have many classic examples — they draw from the experiences of Silver Forest Crown, Rose Cross Army, Elite, and other well-known guilds, of course, not without some refinement from 'R' and himself.
But whether it would be effective, Fang Hong wasn't sure, despite its success for others, could it succeed for them?
This was uncertain.
As 'R' said — any plan involves an element of serendipity.
The only thing he could do was to perfect every detail as much as possible to prevent any human errors in his plan.
Although the gate collapsed under the attack of the Orphen Twin Stars, the passage wasn't completely closed — it was unlikely to be sealed, after all, the structure hadn't entirely crumbled, only one side of the load-bearing structure had tilted. They quickly passed through the half-collapsed gate, through the hall, and proceeded to the back.
As Fang Hong predicted, the other side might have noticed the outer zone's loss of contact, consequently redeploying their forces to encircle this direction. However, the encirclement was mainly limited to the outer layer or some key areas; once broken through, the defense behind was noticeably thinner again.
Probably also because the enemy did not anticipate, instead of breaking outward, they were penetrating further into the central district of the castle. Moreover, this direction wasn't where Luo Yu and others were held, Fang Hong could imagine that many forces were likely concentrated over there as well.
But fortunately, his plan was to bypass those forces.
After a few skirmishes, they quickly approached the area where the warehouse was located.
These skirmishes mostly erupted between them and patrolling guards, actually if Fang Hong had deployed the 'Hornet-I', some battles could possibly be avoided. However, he didn't do so, firstly because it was unnecessary, secondly for the sake of time-saving, and thirdly he was silently calculating the information the opponent should have received by now.
After these few skirmishes, the other side should have discerned the direction he and the Shield of Lufu were moving towards.