I pushed down my anger and gave him a mirthless smile. "Hehe, we can not cooperate, but you will either be killed by those mobs or the Northern Alliance. Silver Soul is an average guild, but surely you are aware that you are no match for the elites of the Northern Alliance? Otherwise, the Avengers would’ve succeeded when they attacked Burning City."

The eyes of the magic knight called "Rose-tinted Spectacles" turned cold. "We serve our country with our body and soul. All the players who attacked Burning City are true warriors, and you have no right to dishonor them!"

I nodded. "Of course, I’m not denying that every Chinese player who took part in the attack on Burning City is a courageous person. But if you’re not literally retarded, you should know that abandoning Dawn City to attack Burning City was an impossibly stupid plan. You were all just the sacrificial pawns in Candlelight Shadow, Thunderbolt, Bloody War God and Wind Slayer’s game for power!"

The corner of Rose-tinted Spectacles’ lips twitched as he glared at me hatefully, but he didn’t deny the truth of my words. A while later, he said, "Fine, we’ll cooperate temporarily. How are we going to do this?"

I smiled and said, "Join my party, and I’ll turn on Martial God. Once we take out the Silver Halberdmen blocking our way, I’ll lure the Northern Alliance over to you. Tell your assassins to ambush them mid-way, and your archers to kill them with Spiraling Arrow Blades. Hopefully, we can take them out without any losses."

Rose-tinted Spectacles nodded. "Alright, may our cooperation succeed!"

……

That was what he said, but I spotted a glint of cunning behind his eyes. Clearly he wasn’t a simple-minded person, and to cooperate with him was like to cooperate with a tiger. Still, I had no other choice. Unfortunately, none of my guild members or even my allied guild members had teleported close to my location, and the possibility of dying was too huge if I rushed in alone. I could resurrect myself with the Resurrection Art, but that was the last resort. After all, level equaled strength, and no amount of skill and equipment was enough to make up for a lack of levels!

We made our party. There were 47 Silver Soul players in total.

"Wah, Martial God increases attack power by 200%..."

A young archer’s eyes immediately lit up right after he joined the party. "What an amazing Famous General Skill! This is the first time I got to enjoy such a powerful stratagem, not to mention that our captain is the CGL Hall of Famer and Little Heavenly King himself, Lu Chen. Hoho, I’m so happy…"

"Have some self-respect, Windless!" Rose-tinted Spectacles shot the archer a glare, but the latter simply stuck out his tongue in response and smiled.

I asked, "Did your party have to fight your way over?"

The young archer immediately spoke up, "Mn. We took out around 30 Silver Halberdmen until we got here. This dread-rank mob is just way too powerful. There were around a hundred of us at the beginning, and by the time we got here, over half of us had died. I don’t know if you noticed, but we only have 7 MTs left. Everyone else is gone…"

I smiled. "It’ll be fine from now on. I’ll be the sole MT of the party. Priests, give me Restore now and prepare for battle. Let’s take out all the mobs in the area first before we attack the Northern Alliance, and keep a low profile! The Northern Alliance hasn’t noticed us yet, and we don’t want to catch their attention too soon!"

"Mn." Even Rose-tinted Spectacles nodded in agreement.

Dark Pupils was a special racial vision skill, and it could see through stealth, weak points and greatly increase my field of view on the minimap. That was why I could see the Northern Alliance’s hundred-man party on the minimap, but they couldn’t see me through the fog of war. While there was a chance someone in that party had a similar skill to mine, it was very unlikely. Skills like these were so rare that even the likes of Lin Yixin, Candlelight Shadow and Li Chengfeng didn’t possess them, much less the average players.

Swhoosh!

Green light hit me as several priests cast Restore on me at nearly the same time. Only the strongest spell took effect, however. My HP started regenerating rapidly.

I spurred the Armored Ice Qilin Horse forward and raised my hand. Dragon Slaying Slash!

Bang!

The skill hit a Silver Halberdman in the head and drew its aggro. This particular mob moved surprisingly quick and activated Charge the moment it got within range!

"I’ll help too!"

Rose-tinted Spectacles clearly didn’t want to give up all the credit to me, but his angle was so terrible that the mob’s Charge actually stunned him instead of me after I took a couple of steps backward. The players behind us immediately broke out into laughter.

Rose-tinted Spectacles turned blue in the face, but I ignored him and focused on striking the mob’s weak point with Burning Blade Slash + Universe Break. Naturally, I dealt far more damage than Rose-tinted Spectacles could ever do.

The archers in the party shot the Silver Halberdman, but even with my stratagem they only managed to do between two to four thousand damage. I understood now why Silver Soul had lost as many players as they did. With this level of DPS, it would be stranger if they suffered no casualties. These archers were so weak that they almost couldn’t penetrate the dread-rank mob’s Defense.

Well, lucky for them, I was the main attacker of the party now. Stunned by how rapidly the Silver Halberdman’s HP was dropping, some Silver Soul players actually clapped their hands and cheered me on.

"Hmph!"

Rose-tinted Spectacles saw everything and stopped attacking. I had a suspicion that he was scheming something nefarious, and it wasn’t long before I was proven correct. I saw three assassins slowly shifting their way to my back.

A bit of anger grew inside my heart. I’m working with you fuckers to kill the Northern Alliance dogs, and this is how you repay my kindness? Humankind has truly fallen low these days. Still, these assassins were being way too obvious. They were clearly waiting for my health to drop and ambush me when the time was right.

Rose-tinted Spectacles was such a simple man that I could practically read what he was thinking right now. I was Silver Soul’s number one enemy, so if he managed to kill me here and catch it on record, he could claim credit with his guild leader, Wind Slayer, and maybe even get the unofficial head of committee of the Avengers, Mr. Candlelight Shadow himself, to send him a congratulatory message: God, this guy is so despicable.

Thud thud thud...

Suddenly, my apparition withdrew from the frontline and moved behind me protectively under my control. It was the eyes behind the back of my head to protect myself from harm.

Seemingly noticing my wariness, Rose-tinted Spectacles smiled at me while attacking the Silver Hlaberdmen. "Why did you withdraw your apparition, Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand? This’ll go much faster if you use it to kill the mobs."

I smiled back. "The apparition isn’t one hundred percent loyal all the time, you see. It’s switched to follow mode since it’s currently in a rebellious phase."

"I see." Rose-tinted Spectacles smiled a smile that didn’t reach the eye. Still, the threat was enough to keep the fool from acting. The apparition was simply too big of a threat for them to ignore.

……

The three forces—namely me, Silver Soul and the Northern Alliance—in this area were stuck in a weird relationship right now. The Northern Alliance was Silver Soul and my common enemy, and we had agreed to cooperate with each other temporarily to defeat them. However, Rose-tinted Spectacles was clearly plotting to kill me, and his subordinates could attack me at any moment. I was alone and I needed their priests’ healing, so I had no choice but to leave them be for now.

It wasn’t long until the last Silver Halberdman blocking our way was lured over by my Dragon Slaying Slash and killed. The Northern Alliance players were still impeded by the fog of war and unaware of our situation.

Rose-tinted Spectacles was trying to steal the last hit on the mob with a premeditated Universe Break, but he didn’t succeed before and he wasn’t about to start now. I was amused to say the least. The guy’s gaming skill was average at best, and there was a 0.8-second gap between his attacks. On the other hand, the time gap between my attacks was less than 0.2 seconds. How on earth did he think he was going to beat me?

Stepping on the body of the last Silver Halberdman and claiming the Silverblade Armor it dropped for myself, I pointed at the corners and said, "Assassins, stealth over there and wait until the enemy is in ambush range. Hey you, pooh, get the fuck away from me and stay in the corners like I told you too! Follow me again and don’t say I didn’t warn you when you die! Archers and mages, move back a little and hit the mounted players with Mountain Stagger Arrows and Ice Dragon Howls when they appear. They’re nothing without their mounts. Priests, keep the frontline healed as per usual!"

Everyone nodded in unison. The assassins also backed away from me, albeit reluctantly.

……

I spurred my mount forward and traveled at full speed. The reason I chose not to skulk my way over was one, they couldn’t see me yet, and two, my plan was to hit them fast and confuse them!

The Armored Ice Qilin Horse was fast, but the Phantom Wolf King was even faster. Together, we burst out of the fog and saw a 200-man party engaging three Silver Halberdmen in battle. The good news? The mages and archers standing at the back of the party were very close to me.

Overjoyed with my luck, I wasted no time in engaging them in battle!

I charged forward and hit a dense pack of mages with Burning Blade Slash and War Crush. The first skill destroyed the high-level mages’ shields, and the second skill instakilled them before they could even think to Blink away to safety. Screams of pain filled the air for a time.

Next, I raised my palm and shot two golden seals into the sky. They fell back down on a group of archers, and 40 archers were dead just like that. Ancient Seal was seriously amazing especially against ranged players. It was unfortunate that I didn’t have enough Divine Energy Points to use this skill as I pleased.

……

"Fuck, someone’s attacking us! It’s Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand!" The party leader who was also a Knight General abruptly turned around and commanded his panicking men. "All riders, turn around and take him out!"

I was already making my escape before they could move toward me. The Armored Ice Qilin Horse had infinite stamina, and I vanished into the dark in just the blink of an eye. The thundering hooves behind my back were all I needed to hear to know that the Northern Alliance’s cavalry was chasing me!

Suddenly, I heard Rose-tinted Spectacles’ voice from in front of me. "Ready, loose! Use Spiraling Arrow Blades, and switch your mode to free-for-all!"

Thud thud thud…

Countless Spiraling Arrow Blades exploded in the narrow corridor. Not only did they hit the Northern Alliance’s cavalry, they also hit me as well. I lost an entire chunk of HP because of it.

Fuck! These Silver Soul fuckers are turning on me already!?