The fight was about to break out at any moment. It was then Lin Yixin looked to her side and said, “Hey cheerleader, how much longer are you planning to wait?”

……

Responding to her call, I stepped out of the cover with the Ghost Ice Soul unsheathed. My Purgatory War Armor gleamed menacingly under the sunlight, and my Bloody Purgatory Cloak was fluttering in the wind. Since my face was fully hidden by the Purgatory War Helmet, I almost looked like a murderous knight from hell.

Then Lin Yixin shattered my composure by muttering to herself, “There he goes with his act again…”

I almost tripped and faceplanted into a nearby bush. WTF! Who on earth do you think I’m acting like this for? I’m just trying to buy time for Snowy Cathaya!

Dominating Heaven Blade definitely bought my act, however. “Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand?”

I pulled up the visor of my helmet and smiled at him tauntingly with red eyes. “Yep, it’s me. How have you been doing, Dominating Heaven Blade?”

Dominating Heaven Blade nearly choked himself again when he heard my greeting. It took him a long while to recover himself. “Why are you here? Why aren’t you guarding your leader, From Water?”

“Oh? That’s an interesting question.” I asked him, “ Is there a reason I should be guarding my boss right now? She’s not even online at this moment.”

Dominating Heaven Blade looked very hesitant. After glancing back and forth between me and Lin Yixin, he let out a cough and said, “Look, Gods of Destruction and Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls have always stayed out of each other’s way, haven’t we? In fact, I don’t mind allying with Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls. Together, we can achieve great things in Floating Ice City, don’t you think? With that in mind, there’s no reason for you to get involved in a private feud between Gods of Destruction and Snowy Cathaya, am I right?”

I sucked in a deep breath and asked, “You can stop beating around the bush and state your request clearly, Dominating Heaven Blade.”

Dominating Heaven Blade looked surprised. He probably expected me to turn him down immediately.

Dominating Warrior God couldn’t stand someone talking so bluntly to his leader, so he raised his sword and said, “Isn’t it obvious? Hmph! The Gods of Destruction guild is declaring war on Snowy Cathaya due to private reasons, and we have no intentions of offending Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls in any way. Therefore, we want you to stay out of this fight! Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand, you’ll accept our leader’s generous offer if you know what’s good for you!”

I smiled and spread my arms. “Is that it? That’s easy!”

Dominating Heaven Blade’s eyes lit up. “Does that mean you won’t interfere with this fight, and that you’ll let us settle our score with Snowy Cathaya one-on-one?”

I turned back to look at Lin Yixin. She was staring at me hopefully with those wide, beautiful eyes of hers.

I turned back to face Dominating Heaven Blade before nodding. “From Water is my superior and the leader of Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls. I’m just the vice leader. Therefore, I don’t have the right to decide the direction of our guild, let alone get them involved in a war they have no stakes in, so yes, I promise you Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls will stay out of this.”

Lin Yixin immediately stomped her feet in anger. “Stupid Lu Chen, you’re actually going to leave me to die?! Oooh, I misjudged you!”

Clear Perfume looked astonished by my decision. The bit of goodwill Shadow Chanel developed toward me while we were fighting side by side evaporated and turned into disdain once more.

On the other hand, Dominating Heaven Blade and Dominating Warrior God looked pleased by this. The former let out a laugh and said, “Wonderful! In that case, I hereby declare that Gods of Destruction and Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls are eternal allies from now on. If Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls players are in danger, Gods of Destruction promise to do their utmost to help them, and vice versa. We swear to never go back against our oath!”

Lin Yixin bit her lips before mumbling, “Stupid Lu Chen, don’t you see yet? Dominating Heaven Blade just wants to isolate Snowy Cathaya and kill us before we grow too strong for them to beat. Once we’re gone, their next target will be Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls! Even a three-year-old kid would understand this! Your intelligence truly has no bottomline to speak of!”

Shiing!

Suddenly, I pulled out my Ghost Ice Soul and pointed it toward Gods of Destruction. Then, I made a stunning declaration. “Therefore, as the leader of Bloody Mercenaries, I officially declare war on Gods of Destruction!”

“What?!”

Dominating Heaven Blade shook in disbelief before shouting at me, “What do you think you’re doing, Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand?! Are you playing me for a fool?”

I smiled at him and said, “Exactly. As I’ve said before, I am just the vice leader of Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls, and I have no right to decide their fate. On the other hand, I am the leader of Bloody Mercenaries, and I’m the one who gets to decide who my guild points their swords at! Starting this day, Bloody Mercenaries officially declare war on Gods of Destruction! You want to destroy Snowy Cathaya? No problem! But you must step over our dead bodies first!”

Everyone in Gods of Destruction ground their teeth in fury. They looked like they wouldn’t wait to grind me to dust and scatter my ashes.

I shot Lin Yixin a sidelong glance and found her smiling sweetly at me in gratitude.

Finally understanding what was going on, Clear Perfume looked at Lin Yixin and smiled gently at her. Shadow Chanel’s opinion of me changed yet again as she shook her head in exasperation. “This scoundrel. I just can’t see through him…”

……

Utterly infuriated, Dominating Heaven Blade sneered at me, “I heard you were Falling Dust in Spirit of Grief, a former Heavenly King? I guess Lady Luck has abandoned you completely, or you wouldn’t try to stop us with that measly guild of yours. Very well, I don’t mind telling you that Gods of Destruction have at least 50 sub guilds and a hundred thousand players under our banner! What do you possibly have that could stop us, huh?!”

I smiled. “Oh, stop boasting about your numbers already. So what if you’ve gathered ten thousand sheeps? They’re still going to be eaten by the wolf in the end! I don’t need to tell you something that simple, do I?”

“What? You’re comparing us to sheep?!” An incredulous Dominating Warrior God couldn’t stop himself from laughing. “Your boast is even worse, Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand! You and your pathetic guild are the sheeps who are waiting to be slaughtered by us, not the other way around! Are you even hearing yourself, you foolish joker!?”

Dominating Warrior God then turned toward Lin Yixin and said in a sincere tone, “Beauty Wind Fantasy, I’m not going to deny that I like you a lot, and I’ve never said this to any woman I’ve encountered in my life. We may be friend, foe or stranger in the future, but I just want you to know that I like you, and that you’ll always have my undying love!”

Lin Yixin watched him calmly before asking a question, “Do you really understand what it means to have undying love? I don’t think so. You don’t even understand the meaning of perseverance.”

Dominating Warrior God let out a small snort. “As I said earlier, I just want you to know that I like you, whatever your opinion of me may be. Before we fight, I would like to ask you a question on behalf of Gods of Destruction: is Snowy Cathaya interested in an alliance with us? If you are, there is no one in Floating Ice City who can stop us. It would not be a pipe dream to slaughter Bloody Mercenaries, Mad Dragon, Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls, Peach Garden et cetera and take over Floating Ice City once and for all.”

“Hehe…”

Lin Yixin smiled. In that moment, her smile looked especially intoxicating. “You said you like me, didn’t you? Then why is this sucker the one who’s standing in front of me, ready to defend the honor of Snowy Cathaya to the death and not you?”

Lin Yixin’s smile grew wider when she pointed a finger at me.

I couldn’t stop myself from complaining, “Fuck, who are you calling sucker? I don’t suck at all…”

Clear Perfume and Shadow Chanel giggled at our antics.

……

Dominating Heaven Blade glared hatefully at us. “So what if Bloody Mercenaries and Snowy Cathaya are on the same boat? That only makes it easier for me to sink you both!”

Clear Perfume suddenly spoke up with a smile, “Hah! A cherry boy like you could never understand the relationship between our leaders!”

Dominating Heaven Blade looked taken aback. “Excuse me? Who are you calling a cherry boy? Right this moment, I have seventy lovers at my beck and call, if not more!”

Clear Perfume sneered at him disdainfully. “Oh yeah? If you’re that confident, can you tell me the name of one girl who’s on your bed because of your character, not your money?”

Dominating Heaven Blade fell into thought for a moment, but it looked like Clear Perfume’s impression of him was spot-on.

Meanwhile, Dominating War God was swearing loudly in envy, “Motherfucker! The rumors can’t be real, can it? Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand and Wind Fantasy are actually acquaintances in real life?”

Clear Perfume confirmed his suspicions with a nod. “Sure. In fact, Mr. Handsome over here just treated me and Beauty Wind Fantasy to dinner a couple of hours ago! What’s wrong, are you jealous?”

Dominating Warrior God immediately pointed his sword at me. “Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand, I challenge you to a one-on-one duel!”

But I shook my head and responded uncaringly, “You’re not worth my time…”

“You!”

Dominating Warrior God was so furious he nearly puked blood.

Finally losing his cool completely, Dominating Heaven Blade raised his blade and ordered, “Brothers, get ready to attack!”

Lin Yixin smiled. “Finally, we get to the good part. I was thinking that you would never stop yapping, or are you waiting for reinforcements to show up?”

……

The battle was about to break out when a loud noise suddenly came from the entrance of the valley. An entire company of well-equipped players with the symbol of a blood-red sword on their shoulders spilled out of the forest and charged toward Gods of Destruction. It was none other than the reinforcements we had been waiting for!

Leading at the forefront, Gui Guzi raised his spear and laughed at his enemies. “Dominating Warrior God, I heard you wanted a one-on-one duel? How about I stand in as your opponent instead? After all, you’re seriously not worth my boss's time!”

On another side, a beautiful girl wielding the Purgatory Bow darted to a nearby shrubbery in search for the best angle to land hell on our enemies. A moment later, she raised her hand and whispered, “Archers, go!”

Dozens of archers appeared behind her like shadows. Everyone’s arrows were notched and ready to go.

Dominating Heaven Blade’s party immediately turned as pale as death. After all, what was supposed to be a quick and easy search-and-destroy quest had suddenly turned into an unfavorable engagement against a hundred-man team, and that wasn’t even accounting for the fact that Gui Guzi and Beiming Xue were the ones who were leading them. The gap between two sides had become insurmountable in the blink of an eye.

The archers Beiming Xue brought with her were especially deadly. Everyone of them was a third-promotion player, and their combined attack power could only be described as formidable!

Pointing her hand at Gods of Destruction, Beiming Xue smiled and declared the attack order. “Ready… loose!”

Ashen-faced, Dominating Heaven Blade beat a hasty retreat while shouting, “Brothers, dodge!”

……

Woop woop woop woop…

The sounds of dozens of arrows being loosed at once was incredibly melodious. The arrow rain—especially Beiming Xue’s Evil Spirit Volley—exploded amid the group like bombs instead of arrows, and the core of our enemy’s backline, the mages and priests, were one-shot in an instant. Once again, Beiming Xue had proven herself to be a formidable long-range attacker.

Leading whatever remaining troops he had, Dominating Heaven Blade tried to make a break for the exit at the back of the valley.

Dominating Mage God kept firing one Ice Dragon Howl after another while shouting, “Brothers, retreat!”

Suddenly, Dominating Mage God’s body turned still!

Puchi!

Blood splattered everywhere as a bright sword pierced through Dominating Mage God’s chest. Someone had actually one-shot him through his Magic Shield!