A morning fog came over Frost Stained Canyon.

"All units, shrink the formation! Don’t spread out too much!"

Hickey shouted while riding along the edges of Godkiller’s formation, causing the players on the outside to withdraw immediately and move closer to one other. The move increased the density of our firepower and minimized the chances of our coordinates being exposed to the enemy. While Breeze and Rain’s troops had high levels and great equipment, they ultimately weren’t residents of Iron Skull Wilderness. They were much less familiar with the terrain than Hickey or Warscar.

Swhoosh!

I fired Thousand Ice Slash and froze a group of Cyanblade Tigers. A group of screaming vikings immediately rushed forward and cut them down to size. Thanks to their Berserk talent, there was no such thing as a mob they couldn’t kill with sheer numbers. The dead mobs generously donated us a good number of items as well.

It was at this moment a cavalryman rode up to me. He was a human warrior and a former subordinate of Hickey’s. He said in a respectful tone after dismounting, "Guild leader, a new party of players is approaching us from the south slightly to the east. They belong to Iron Skull Wilderness."

I oh’d in acknowledgement before asking for details, "Which guild do they belong to?"

"Bloodlust."

"What? Bloodlust is here?" Hickey exclaimed in astonishment when they heard this.

I asked, "Hickey? Is Bloodlust a powerful guild?"

She nodded. "Yeah. Half a year ago, when I first entered Iron Skull Wilderness, I interacted and clashed with Bloodlust a couple of times. In terms of player numbers, they are a strong guild we cannot afford to underestimate. The guild leader of Bloodlust, Bloodthirsty Demon, used to be a top expert of the German server. Later on, he rejected his in-game nationality and became an unaffiliated player. He’s famous enough that he managed to rally a ton of Iron Skull Wilderness players to his wings, and he currently has almost 200k players under his command. One might say that at least 20% of all unaffiliated players in Iron Skull Wilderness belong to Bloodlust. They are a super powerful force we must watch out for."

I gritted my teeth. "Understood…"

Warscar asked me, "What do we do with these people, guild leader? Do we take the fight to them and destroy them, or?"

I shook my head. "No, our biggest enemy is still Breeze and Rain and his Beast King Cavalry, not to mention that we don’t know if God of War is joining him. We’ll see what happens when we encounter Bloodlust. Don’t provoke or attack them unless they do it first, okay? Anyone who does that will have to answer to me!"

"Er, okay!"

……

About five minutes later, the thunder hooves came from the forest nearby. Then, a couple hundred Level 190+ metal-armor players riding gray warhorses burst into the clearing. Their levels were fairly high, and they weren’t too weak even compared to our core players.

Leading them was a young man wielding a broadsword. He was a Level 201 rider, and his ID was Bloodthirsty Demon. He was of course the leader of Bloodlust. One only needed to see his prideful expression and cold confidence to know that he was a top expert.

Bloodthirsty Demon looked at the Godkiller players who were fighting the mobs and sneered, "So Godkiller arrived first, huh? Where’s Hickey? Step out and speak to me!"

Hickey walked out of our ranks and said indifferently, "Bloodthirsty Demon, you and your goons came here for the Ascension Proof, didn’t you? Hmph! You do know that we aren’t the only forces in Frost Stained Canyon, right? A huge number of Indian players are coming in from the north side of the map already."

Bloodthirsty Demon chuckled. "Oh, I know. That is exactly why Godkiller will stay put, right?"

Hickey gritted her teeth. "What do you mean by that?"

Bloodthirsty Demon pointed his sword at her. "You heard my meaning loud and clear. Even if I disregard the fact that you’re intruding upon my territory, you guys are too pussy to engage the Indians! Strongest force in Iron Skull Wilderness my ass, cowardly rats like you people will never accomplish anything in your life!"

Hickey exploded. "Bullshit!"

Hickey abruptly charged Bloodthirsty Demon and thrust her sword at her opponent’s chest. The latter acted even faster and charged right past Hickey, causing her attack to miss. Not only that, he swung his shield at her sword arm and sent her stumbling to the back with his incredible Strength. Hickey’s reaction was no slower than her opponent’s however. She retaliated with a Barrier Break to the shield that dealt an incredible amount of damage—

133229!

Angered by her retaliation, Bloodthirsty Demon exploded, "You are courting death!"

He raised his sword and executed Triple Slash + Earth Shattering Slash combo. The combination of single-target skill and AoE skill prevented Hickey from dodging.

"Ngh…"

Hickey’s eyes burned with fighting spirit despite her dire predicament. First, she parried the first two hits of the Triple Slash and ate the third hit with her shoulder. Then, she leaped away from her mount before Earth Shattering Slash could land and kicked Bloodthirsty Demon in the chest, somehow canceling his skill before it could take effect. However, her opponent’s Triple Slash still dealt almost 90k damage to her.

Hickey was more skilled than Bloodthirsty Demon, but both her equipment and her abilities were lousier. It was why she was still at a disadvantage here.

Meanwhile, Bloodthirsty Demon raised his weapon and exploded again. "You asked for this, Hickey! Don’t blame me for killing you!"

Seven rays of light suddenly shone from the tip of his blade before he thrust out at her as quick as lightning. "Eat this! Fleeting Shadow Seven!"

"Ah?"

Hickey wasn’t expecting Bloodthirsty Demon to know such a skill, and the man was moving too fast for her to dodge. She crossed her sword in front of her and used Guard, but there was still a great chance that she would die here.

Whoosh!

It was at this moment a dragon suddenly blotted Hickey’s vision. It was me coming to her rescue on the Ancient Divine Dragon, of course. She watched the bloody Sunchaser Cloak flapping behind my back and said smilingly, "You sure took your time, boss…"

I activated Great Earth Transformation and Guarded with the Dragon Shield. I wanted to see exactly how powerful this so-called Bloodthirsty Demon really was!

Bang bang bang…

My shield rocked 7 times in a row, and each time I dropped about 30k HP. Even I couldn’t find fault with Bloodthirsty Demon’s Attack. Unfortunately for him, I had a total HP of 600k. There was no player in the world who could one-shot me.

"Who are you!? How dare you interfere with my duel!!"

The arrogant man didn’t care who I was at all. He thrust a Barrier Break at my shield clearly intending to kill me first and "talk" later.

I had a clear view of his movements, so I easily zigzagged around the attack and knocked his sword to the side. After he was open, I punched him in the chest with a bloody fist!

My fully-powered punch knocked him backward and dealt over 40k HP, causing his mouth to fall open. I did it to show him that I could hurt him much, much worse had I attacked him with my weapon.

"Guild leader!"

A group of high-level Bloodlust players immediately unsheathed their weapons and came to their guild leader’s rescue. Bloodthirsty Demon’s sword also glowed with the light of Triple Slash again.

Whoosh whoosh...

I urged the Ancient Divine Dragon to back away about a dozen or so steps before making a hand seal with my left hand. As light erupted from my person, I growled out, "Myriad Swords Obliteration!"

Swhoosh!

A silver sword blast flew into the sky, and the next moment a couple thousand silver blades fell indiscriminately on the ground in front of me!

Bang bang bang...

Dust flew everywhere as the silver blades pierced armor and shield with equal ease. Not only did they deal incredible damage to the pursuing players, a couple of them were one-shot where they stood. Even Bloodthirsty Demon himself had dropped to low health.

……

"Enough!"

I abruptly shouted and pointed my sword at Bloodthirsty Demon. "Godkiller wasn’t going to be your enemy, so if you know better, you’ll stay the fuck away. No one will stop you from entering Dragonsnake Devil’s Den, but provoke us again and you will regret it!"

Bloodthirsty Demon licked the blood on his lips before sneering, "Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand? You’re the Chinese boy who recruited Warscar and Hickey? Very well, I’ve memorized your face. When I’m done with Dragonsnake Devil’s Den, I’ll come to you and teach you a real lesson. Just watch, we always repay our debts!"

Finally, Bloodthirsty Demon shouted to the players behind him, "Move to the east and avoid Godkiller! We’ll enter Dragonsnake Devil’s Den from the side!"

The tense atmosphere finally relaxed a little. Everyone was watching Bloodlust with wary eyes, and I was especially afraid that Warscar would lose his shit and rush them again. Thankfully, he managed to restrain himself this time. I should make sure to praise him later.

……

As a seemingly endless stream of cavalrymen, archers, mages, priests and more streamed past our party, I couldn’t help but admit that Bloodlust had a good reason to believe that he could obtain the Ascension Proof. I counted at least 200k troops that were marching to Dragonsnake Devil’s Den. Bloodlust was literally going all out.

Hickey’s eyes shone with wisdom as she stared at Bloodlust’s backs. "There are many Famous Generals in Iron Skull Wilderness, but not a single Divine General. Bloodthirsty Demon has always thought himself to be the strongest expert of Iron Skull Wilderness, and I’m willing to bet that he’s willing to do anything to get the Ascension Proof."

I gritted my teeth. "It’s fine. Tell everyone to resume the march and stay patient. Don’t you worry, Hickey, that Ascension Proof will be yours!"

Hickey giggled. "Thank you in advance…"