"What are you doing, Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand?!" Tempest Shadow and Blue Sky Scar immediately stepped out and shouted harshly.

I said indifferently, "Killing Candlelight Shadow, duh. What, you have a problem with that?"

They looked surprised. They were both CGL Hall of Famers, but I had treated them like they were beneath my notice. That was the truth. They were both better than top-tier players, but they really weren’t much of a threat to me. Candlelight Shadow though; it would be a shame if I couldn’t get something off his body to commemorate his visit here today. That Blade of Divine Flame would be perfect.

……

It was at this moment a group of assassins ran over from the distance. They all had a draconic symbol on their shoulder, meaning that they belonged to Candle Dragon.

"Leader!" The assassin ran up to Candlelight Shadow before saying in a low tone, "Luo River God of the Capital is crossing over to Floating Ice City from the borders! She also brought almost a thousand of her guildmates! I’m pretty sure she’s coming for us!"

Candlelight Shadow’s eyes turned cold. "Fuck, that woman sure knows how to show up at the lousiest timing!"

The man turned around and shot me and Lin Yixin a fierce glare. Then, he shouted, "Purple Lily has somehow caught wind of our presence, so we need to leave now to avoid being caught in a pincer! Don’t worry! There are plenty more chances to remove Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls, Snowy Cathaya, and Purple Lily in the future!!"

All 500 or so Candle Dragon players took out their return scrolls and crushed them. I charged toward Candlelight Shadow, but I was one step too late. The bastard stared at me coldly as he teleported back to Dawn City in a shower of stars!

……

"Fuck!"

I swore out loud and clenched my fists. Lin Yixin immediately walked up to me and consoled me with a soft smile. "Why are you unhappy? Candlelight Shadow failed to get anything from us. To them, not winning is the same as losing, am I right?"

I nodded before breaking into a smile. "See, I told you we can beat him if we work together."

Lin Yixin rolled her eyes at me. "Boo, boo. It was a two on one and we barely got one over him. I’m honestly surprised you can smile like this."

I laughed. You can’t win all the time as long as there’s competition, and this time Candlelight Shadow got one over me because his pet was better than mine. That was fine. Once I got an amazing pet of my own, I would turn the tables on him.

……

It was at this moment the iron gates of Skull Castle opened once more. The seventh wave had finally begun.

Ding~!

System Notice: All players, please be informed that the second-to-last wave of Skull Castle’s counterattack is about to appear. The commander boss of this wave is Orma the Skullbreaker!

……

"Just two more…"

I stared at Skull Castle while gripping my sword. Before we knew it, we had fought for so many hours that the sky was turning dark. This war was finally nearing its end, but we only had a couple thousand players left. There was no way we could defeat this wave.

Suddenly, countless players burst out of a forest and ran toward us. They were led by a beautiful mage holding a bloody scepter in her hand. It was none other than the leader of Purple Lily, Luo River God of the Capital!

The lily emblem glowing on her players’ shoulder made them look like a garden of flowers. It was quite the beautiful sight.

Xu Yang turned around in alarm and raised his sword. "Are they friend or foe?"

I hurriedly put a hand on his shoulder before saying, "Calm down, we can act after they’ve clarified their intentions!"

"Mn!"

He Yi walked out of our formation and met Luo River God of the Capital with a smile. "Hello, Beauty Luo. What business do you have here?"

The mage looked around before asking, "Where is Candlelight Shadow and Candle Dragon?"

"They ran away."

"Ran away?" She looked a bit disappointed. "OMG, I brought almost a thousand players with me and they got away? What a shame…"

He Yi looked astonished. "Do you have a grudge with Candlelight Shadow or something?"

"Yeah, I’m absolutely going to kill him one day!" Luo River God of the Capital revealed her intention without hesitation.

He Yi smiled. "Well, since you’re already here, do you want to help us attack Skull Castle?"

“Sure, why not!"

The mage waved her Purgatory Scepter and shouted, "Purple Lilies, attention! Assume formation and prepare for battle!"

Luo River God of the Capital hadn’t come alone, and quite a lot of them were first-class players. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call them the elites of Ice Moon City. If Candle Dragon was the king of Dawn City, then Purple Lily was the king of Ice Moon City. I bet it was a lot of fun to stand at the top of the less populated tier 2 cities!

"Where are your people, by the way? Why are there so few of you?" the mage asked.

I answered, "They’re all dead, of course!"

"All dead??" Luo River God of the Capital turned blue immediately. "Is… is it okay if I change my mind?"

"Of course not. The bowstring is drawn, and the arrow must fly."

“...”

Despite her misgivings, Luo River God of the Capital turned out to be a better person than I thought. She actually chose to fight with us and face the hell that was the second last monster wave!

……

"Oh right, did you guys fight Candlelight Shadow when he showed up?" Luo River God of the Capital asked suddenly.

Lin Yixin said, "Yep, Lu Chen accepted Candlelight Shadow’s challenge and fought him one on one!"

The mage’s eyes widened. "What was the result?"

"He lost!"

"Ah?"

I smiled and added, "She’s right, I lost to Candlelight Shadow. His pet is just too much for me to deal with. But then Beauty Wind Fantasy joined me for the second round, and that time we managed to beat Candlelight Shadow."

Luo River God of the Capital nodded. "The two of you are able to beat Candlelight Shadow together? That’s amazing!"

Lin Yixin’s cheeks were red with embarrassment. "Are you taunting us?"

But Luo River God of the Capital replied with a dead serious expression, "Absolutely not. I know full well how deadly that bastard is. Not only is his equipment and pet better than most people’s, his skill and technique are rivaled by only a handful of players. In fact, pick any three active CGL Hall of Famers to fight Candlelight Shadow 3 on 1, and I guarantee you they’ll lose ten out of ten times! Falling Dust here is the only exception!"

Both Lin Yixin and I were caught off-guard by Luo River God of the Capital’s explanation. We knew that Candlelight Shadow was powerful, but we didn’t know that he was that powerful. There was no reason for us to disbelieve her.

He Yi asked, "If you know he’s that strong, why are you butting heads with him, Beauty Luo?"

Luo River God of the Capital smiled. "He is talented, but he is also a terrible human being. Hmph, I’m not stopping until I pay him back for what he did to me back then! It’s either Purple Lily or Candle Dragon. Only one of us will be left standing in the end!"

What she said piqued my curiosity. "What did he do to you?"

Luo River God of the Capital shot me a glance. "It’s unsightly for a top-class pro to grow excited from gossip…"

"But I’m not a top-class pro!"

“...”

In the end, Luo River God of the Capital didn’t tell us what happened between her and Candlelight Shadow, so we started our own private discussion inside the party channel. A riveting talk later, we all agreed that Candlelight Shadow probably dumped Luo River God of the Capital and took her child with him, so she ventured all the way to the Heavenblessed Continent to take revenge. That child could be either Tempest Shadow or Blue Sky Scar.

……

Finally, the seventh monster wave appeared from the gates. We couldn’t see the monsters due to the thick night fog at first, but a bunch of giant earth lizards quickly burst into our view a moment later. The Earth Lizard was a big wild-type monster with a high level and suffocatingly powerful stats—

Earth Lizard (Elite)

Level: 88

Attack: 920~1100

Defense: 750

HP: 22000

Skills: Rend, Poison Spit, War Stampede

Introduction: A monstrously strong Rank 7 guardian that lives in the forest depths. After the Earth Lizards were summoned by darkness and enslaved by the Night Creatures, they became one of the many guardians of the cities of the dark.

……

"Fuck, a max Attack of 1100? This is getting really ridiculous…" I gasped. This is really bad. How on earth are we going to defend ourselves from tens of thousands of Earth Lizards?

Xu Yang, Du Thirteen and everyone pulled out their weapons and shouted, "We fight to the end!"

I gave them an affirmative nod before ordering, "Tighten our defense line and form a circle! We can’t fight for ourselves any longer!"

Luo River God of the Capital also ordered her players to form battle formations just in time to defend themselves against the rampaging lizards. The moment the mobs hit the players, they immediately raised their front claws and hit the ground!

Boom!

Bloody energy tore the ground apart, and all the players who were caught within the skill range started losing HP dramatically!

Motherfucker, this War Stampede is too much in a battle like this! At this rate, our remaining army will be routed in less than half an hour!

I hurriedly charged into the horde and unleashed Thousand Mirage Slash and Purgatory Slash. I didn’t release my Dark Wasp because it would die before it could do anything useful.

Meanwhile, Luo River God of the Capital waved her scepter and cast her spells. When it came to AoE skills, no one was greater than the classic high-level mage. Every mob caught within the spells took at least 3000 damage per hit, and it took her two or three casts at most to annihilate an entire horde. At this rate, she would enter the Top 10 after this battle was over!

Bang bang bang!

At first, the frontliners were able to hold out for a moment. But the War Stampedes kept coming, and the wave seemed endless. Eventually, the frontliners started dying faster and faster until it looked more like a bloodbath than an actual war!

Murong Mingyue used AoE healing spells at the beginning, but she quickly realized that she wasn’t doing nearly enough to offset the damage being done. So she focused all her healing onto He Yi and I instead. Even then, we had to drink health potions repeatedly or risk collapsing ourselves.

Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls and Snowy Cathaya weren’t the only ones who were being massacred. Purple Lily had lost over half of their numbers less than ten minutes after the battle began!

Luo River God of the Capital looked like she wanted to say something, but she swallowed all her grievances and focused all her energy on killing the Earth Lizards instead.

Another ten minutes passed in the blink of an eye, and the number of lizards were overwhelmingly bigger than the number of players. Although we had killed thousands of Earth Lizards, it was clear that we would be routed first before them.

Boom!

While I was firing a Thousand Mirage Slash and killing an entire horde of Earth Lizards, Lin Yixin shouted at me, "Lu Chen, we can’t hold out any longer. This is too much…"

I looked back and saw only a dozen or so players behind me. Dominating Heaven Blade, Song of Cloud and Water, Indigo Collar and many more were long dead, and even Du Thirteen, Chaos Moon and a few more familiar faces had vanished. I had no doubt in my mind that this war would end with the complete annihilation of the player faction.

"What should we do?" Lin Yixin asked urgently.

An idea entered my mind as I shouted. "We create our own ‘choke point’! Tell all the frontliners to form a circle around our remaining mages and priests and focus on defending only! If even that doesn’t work then it’s game over for us!"