He Yi stared dazedly at nothing in particular as her shoulders shook. Sorrow and determination shivered in her beautiful eyes for a long time until finally, her tears slid down her cheeks.

Murong Mingyue hugged her quietly and whispered something I couldn’t hear into her ear.

Xu Yang also stood protectively next to He Yi.

It was at this moment Beiming Xue rose to her feet and walked up to He Yi. She then said, "Sister Eve, I’m from Bloody Mercenaries too, so… see you later…"

"Beiming, you…"

Beiming Xue gave her a small smile, and the emblem of Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls vanished from her shoulder. She then left with a troop of Dragonlight Archers as well.

For a long time, He Yi blanked out and didn’t say anything.

……

A while later, Li Chengfeng walked into the territory hall with a set of Level 100 equipment and a blood-red spear. He looked back at the commotion outside the entrance for a bit before smiling. "Heh, this sure is an interesting development. Little Gui is such an impulsive bastard, isn’t he? Pay him no heed, guild leader! When Lu Chen returns, we’ll make him apologize to you on his knees!"

Xu Yang shot Li Chengfeng a look. "Read the room, man! This isn’t the time to be smiling like this!"

Li Chengfeng immediately turned serious. "I’m going to burn the midnight oil today. Is there anyone who would like to grind the B1 instance, Canyon of Fate, with me?"

High Fighting Spirits glared at him. "Not interested! I’m not feeling it right now!"

Li Chengfeng shrugged. "Okay, sure. Lian Xin, Sister Mingyue, wanna come?"

Murong Mingyue nodded. "Mn. I’m going to bed after one run though."

"No problem!"

……

The image turned dim. That was all Chaos Moon had recorded.

Still kneeling on the grass, I licked my dry lips and looked at Chaos Moon. "How long ago was this? Little Gui, you really…"

Chaos Moon replied, "About half an hour ago. I came over right after this happened because I was worried that you would overthink things. Gui Guzi left with Bloody Mercenaries and 5 of its subordinate guilds, which means Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls has now split into two forces. In total, the main guild lost almost 5000 Dragonlight Cavalrymen to Gui Guzi, and 2000+ Dragonlight Archers to Beiming. It’s a huge loss to say the least…"

Chaos Moon paused for a second before continuing, "I have a feeling that Eve had a good reason behind her action though. She just couldn’t say it at this time. She’s such a smart woman, there’s no way she would crumble to the pressure and do something like this."

I tightened my fists. "That idiot, I’m going to whip his ass when I return to Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls. He made Eve cry for the first time in half a year! Unforgivable!"

Chaos Moon smiled. "Good, looks like you’ve recovered some of your spirit. That makes my return worth it. What are your thoughts regarding Bloody Mercenaries’ departure from Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls? Your brothers, Du Thirteen, Yamete and even your dear sister, Beiming Xue, went away with Gui Guzi…"

"Nothing…"

"What do you mean nothing? What kind of explanation is that?" Chaos Moon glared at me.

I asked her, "What is Little Gui doing right now?"

"He…"

The corners of Chaos Moon’s lips turned up as she replied, "That idiot mustered a force of 250k and is marching toward Sword Lord of Jianghu’s territory right now. As far as I can tell, Sword Lord of Jianghu won’t be able to hold it. They claim to be the China VR department spokespeople of Heavenblessed, and assuming that Gui Guzi is successful, Tang Long is going to get a hard, painful slap to the face very soon. I can’t wait."

I smiled.

"Seriously? You’re smiling in this situation?!"

"The hell do you want me to do then? Cry?"

"There’s nothing funny about this though!"

I looked at Chaos Moon and said seriously, "It’s true that Gui Guzi leaving the guild is a huge thing, but let me ask you a question: Who’s the one guy who was smiling during that meeting?"

"Who? You mean… Li Chengfeng?"

"Yep. Chengfeng is one of the smartest people I know. I bet he must’ve figured something out…"

"Hmph, like hell he did. I think he’s smiling because he had fun grinding with Heaven’s Rain and Diamond Dust. I even heard that he went to eat dapanji with them during dinner, and that they looked like they were having one hell of a great time…"

"You’re overthinking this, Chaos Moon…"

"Bullshit, I’m as wise as they come…"

"Like hell you are. Anyway, log out of the game after you return to the city. I’ll be waiting for you inside my room. I’m going to bed after we have supper so I can wake up early in the morning and rob some assholes!"

"Okay!"

……

After supper, I went to bed feeling like a jumbled mess of emotions. Li Chengfeng and the others dying in Final Duel Valley, Sophie attacking Purple Grape City, I myself being hunted in Final Duel Valley, and now Gui Guzi leaving Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls with many of our men. So many things had happened in the past few days, but the only thing I could do to fix them was save myself, and even that might be beyond my ability. The old saying "a clay bodhisattva fording a river can't guarantee his own safety" was true after all!

Early next morning, I cleaned myself, had breakfast and checked the official forums before logging into the game.

As expected, there was chaos in the forums even though it had been a few days since the Nation War was over. Too many things had happened in the past couple of days. At the home page, the topmost title read: "CGL states that they will provide a final, reasonable explanation behind the deletion of Little Heavenly King, Lu Chen from the Hall of Fame and implores the other CGL Hall of Famers to calm down."

However, the players couldn’t settle down at all. I clicked into the thread, and it was all vitriol—

1st comment (Player "Freshwater Fish"): Explanation my ass, Lu Chen is the greatest contributor of the War of Purple Grape City bar none. He’s the one who wiped out Purple Grape City completely and eliminated the eastern wolves for us. It’s bad enough that his reward was taken away, and now you’re deleting him from the CGL Hall of Fame as well? Pooh! You’re all just a bunch of cowards! Tang Long can go eat shit!

2nd comment (Player "Warsky"): 1st comment, +1! Tang Long can go eat shit!

3rd comment (Player "Green Lotus Leaf"): T_T Where did you go, my dearest Lu Chen? I want to see you so much, but Purple Grape City players are blocking the way in front of White Rose Fortress. I’m not good enough to overcome them, I’m sorry! I love you though! Also, Tang Long can go eat shit!

4th comment (Player "Stranger of Three Lifetimes"): Agreed, gal above me. Hang in there in Final Duel Valley, Lu Chen. Imma be there to see you. Tang Long can go eat shit!

5th comment (Player "Ninja God Turtle”): Now that even Shusheng and Lin Fan are out of the Hall of Fame, the CGL truly can go eat shit! And so can Tang Long, of course!

6th comment (Player "Little Piglet"): Ah, the good ol’ ruling via iron fist! When can we be rid of these worms, my dear country? Tang Long can go eat shit!

7th comment (Player "Training My Iron Palm With Breasts"): I only have one thing to say, and that is Lu Chen go go go, and Tang Long go eat shit!

……

After counting at least thirty thousand posts of "Tang Long go eat shit", I finally understood why Tang Long had acted like he had gone completely bonkers. This was why!

The CGL officials were obviously way smarter than Tang Long though, doing their best to save the situation and placate the masses. Sure, it didn’t look like it was working, but at least they showed that they were working on it. On a related note, Zhang Chun had announced his retirement from the CGL organization and surrendered all his responsibilities. He refused to be associated with people like them. I had nothing but respect for the man who would go this far to defend his integrity.

The other hottest thread on the forums besides the CGL Hall of Fame thread was of course—

"Gui Guzi quits Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls in anger, Bloody Mercenaries sweeps Sword Lord of Jianghu. What is eternal brothers if not undying loyalty?"

The posts below were equally passionate—

1st comment (Player "Life is Impermanent")": Gui Guzi is a true man, hahaha! Claiming vengeance no matter the cost is what a real man would do!

2nd comment (Player "Little Raindrop"): I love Gui Guzi so much, and I love Lu Chen and Li Chengfeng as well. You’re all a bunch of cute bros!

3rd comment (Player "Warsky"): Actually, Warsky Alliance covered for Gui Guzi during the assault, so...

……

Almost every comment in the thread was a vote of support. I looked around for details of the siege. Apparently, Gui Guzi had mustered a force of two hundred thousand and swept Sword Lord of Jianghu’s players in near unstoppable fashion. Snowy Cathaya, The Monarch Descends, Blazing Hot Lips and Warsky Alliance surrounded the territory with nearly 2 million players and forbad anyone from interrupting the siege. They did nothing but watch as Gui Guzi flattened Sword Lord of Jianghu and claimed the territory as Bloody Mercenaries’.

As a result, the balance of power in Sky City became even more complicated than before. An outsider wouldn’t even be able to make sense of it. All they knew was that Gui Guzi had left Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls, claimed a territory of his own and made himself the king of a hill.

In comparison, Candle Dragon hadn’t made too much of a splash at all. Their losses were just as bad as ours or worse, having to block tens of millions of Cyan Earth City players from reinforcing Purple Grape City. Almost all one million Candle Dragon players had been killed in that war. Our opponents this time were just too powerful. The three main cities combined had over hundreds of millions of players, not to mention that we had to fight the main city’s NPCs as well. It was a hard-won war for sure.

Another thread stickied at the top of the forums was the news of Sophie, second greatest boss of Heavenblessed, conquering Purple Grape City for herself last night. In fact, the map had refreshed while I was asleep, and Sophie had built eleven fortresses and beacon towers that connected all the way to Sky City during this time. If any hostile force were to attack Purple Grape City, now an undead castle, the beacon towers would be lit, and Sky City would reinforce them right away. This meant that the Japanese players’ hopes of retaking their main city had become smaller than ever before.

……

I was just about to log into the game when my phone suddenly rang. It was Li Chengfeng’s number.

"Yo, Chengfeng!"

"Ha, Lu Chen. How are you and Chaos Moon doing?"

"Not bad, not bad. What about you?"

"It’s okay. It’s a pain in the ass grinding again from zero though, hahaha…"

"Sorry…"

"Dude, I didn’t call you to listen to your apology. What I want to say is… be careful when you return to Final Duel Valley."

"What’s wrong?"

Li Chengfeng said seriously, "I checked the Japanese forums and read that they found out that you were the one who persuaded Sophie to occupy Purple Grape City. As a result, literally every Japanese player feels deep-bone hatred toward you. Although Red Maple and many of their greatest experts were busy restarting from zero, 100 of the Top 500 champion arena players of Japan have come together to form a new guild called ‘Descent of the One Hundred Gods’. The guild is only 100 men strong, but they are all top-class experts. Their goal is to camp Final Duel Valley until they take you out, so, yeah, be careful."

"Got it, brother!"

"Take care, brother!"

"I will!"

……

I smiled. Descent of the One Hundred Gods, is it? My time in Final Duel Valley should be less lonely with them around.