I fumed as I stared at Breeze and Rain’s back. This was the type of enemy I feared the most. The moment he failed to steal the Ancient Divine Skill Scroll, he immediately escaped and gave me no chance to kill him at all. A true hero was the type of person who didn’t allow their feelings to cloud their judgment, and could advance or retreat as the situation called. If only Breeze and Rain was an ally!

……

I looked at the orange scroll sitting in my hand. I had to hide underground for more than an hour and play every trick I had prepared for this scenario to get it. No one could say I didn’t deserve it. When my eyes made contact with the scroll’s stats though, I felt like someone had dropped my heart into a pool of ice—

Alexander the Great’s Battle Axe (SS Rank Ancient Divine Skill): Increases user's Attack by 125%. Summon a war axe and deal a Cruel Strike to all targets within 15 yards in front of you, preventing them from receiving any heals for 12 seconds. Cooldown: 120 seconds. Cost: 50% MP. This scroll cannot be used by players from the following servers: China, India, Korea, Japan, Myanmar and Singapore.

Fuck! Alexander the Great’s Battle Axe was an AoE skill that increased Attack by 125%, ignored Guard and invincibility skills, and even prevented its targets from receiving any heals for 12 seconds. It was a super good AoE skill that was on par with my Myriad Swords Obliteration, if not better, but… it couldn’t be used by players from the Asian servers! Are you fucking kidding me!?

I never wanted this Ancient Divine Skill, but I would be lying if I said that I was fine that I went through all that effort just to obtain a scroll that I couldn’t use in the first place. I bet Breeze and Rain would feel like strangling himself if he had taken the scroll instead of me.

……

I made the Ancient Divine Dragon slowly glide down a mountaintop. A bit more later, I entered another red zone. I wasn’t the first one to visit this place as I saw through Dark Pupils a couple of dots searching for something in the distant forest. There was a blue river between the mountain ranges with ancient totems erected on its shores, and there were dragon engravings and oracle bone inscriptions on them.

I knew immediately that I had finally found a zone that was exclusive to the Huaxia culture. This was the zone I must search if I wished to obtain an Ancient Divine Skill with Chinese origins.

I spotted two players—a magic knight and a wanderer—and they were both Korean. More specifically, they were Throne of the Wild players. Paying no attention to the sky above their heads, they rode through the forest and chatted without any regard for their surroundings—

"It looks like we’re the only ones on this map here, Jiho. Anyway, I found out that this river is called the Ji River. It is said in the ancient records that it is the well spring of culture of the Chinese, and the birthplace of their two most revered mythological figures, the Yan Emperor and Huang Emperor."

The magic knight licked his lips and snorted. "Hmph. Yanhuang culture? If you ask me, their culture really originated from Silla and Goryeo…"

I barely hid a snicker in the air. Silla and Goryeo only had a total history of two to three thousand years, but the Yan Emperor and Huang Emperor were mythological figures from at least four to five thousand years ago. The guy couldn’t even get his timeline sorted properly.

The wanderer continued, "I wonder where the guild leader is right now? Oh well, with her abilities, I’m sure she’ll survive whatever hardships this map can throw at her. As for the two of us, the only way we’re going to get out of here alive is to cooperate with each other. Ideally, we want to find our way out of this map and meet up with the guild leader. Otherwise, finding our own Ancient Divine Skills and leaving is a good compromise as well."

"Yeah, of course!"

Both players gave each other a nod of solid determination.

Well, that determination was about to be shattered into pieces. This was China’s exclusive map, and Throne of the Wild had no place here.

Swhoosh!

I fired a God Binding Art and immobilized the magic knight immediately. Shocked, the wanderer looked up only to eat Dragon Slaying Slash to the face!

190042!

As he stumbled backward from the attack, I activated Fusion Armor and glided down from the sky. After casting Thousand Ice Slash that froze the escaping wanderer, I fired Dragon Slaying Slash one more time to shut him up permanently. Next time, he wouldn’t dare to badmouth other cultures.

I turned around and faced toward the magic knight next. His eyes were filled with shock, terror, and the realization of what was about to happen to him. If I killed him, his current account would lose its only chance to step into the Heavenly River Realm. He would never be able to become anything more than a Divine General. Of course, he had to have entered the Great Earth Realm to become a Divine General in the first place, and I was pretty sure that that wasn’t the case.

Pu!

I gave him three new holes in his chest and a free ride to heaven. Well, almost free. I picked up the high-rank bread he dropped and ate it to replenish my Satiety. I only had three pieces of bread left in my bag, and I needed to conserve them as much as I could. There was no telling what other dangers might be awaiting in front of me.

……

I saw a couple of cute white rabbits hopping here and there between the trees not far away from me. At first, I thought they were normal critters and part of the scenery. That was until I scanned them with Dark Pupils and saw that they were goddamned Level 275 fiend-rank monsters. Their name was Ancient Mage Rabbit, and their Magic Attack was scarily high. They were also proficient in 4 types of magic. I quickly made up my mind to avoid them as I was a metal-armor class.

After circling around an area that was crawling with hundreds of Ancient Mage Rabbits, I continued along the river while remaining hidden. My Ghost Spirit War Boots pushed aside the aquatic plants on the shore. I sighed a little as I stared at the lively fish and slow-flowing river. Assuming that the river of history had a tangible shape, it would probably look something like this: tireless and ceaseless regardless of the mortal whims that were imposed upon it. Thousands of years ago, the Huang Emperor Xuan Yuan had fought the Yan Emperor at Banquan, slain Chiyou at Zhuolu, and founded the glorious civilization of China. From there, countless more heartbreakingly beautiful myths such as the story of Nuwa patching up the sky with the five-colored stones were born. Right now, my sole responsibility was to follow the Mother River to its very beginning and reclaim all the Ancient Divine Skill Scrolls I encountered along the way.

There was one thing that annoyed me though. There were far more casual players than there were Chinese. What the hell was going on here?

……

About half an hour later, I reached the inner area where I saw an undead soldier wielding a stone axe in the forest in front of me. After I moved closer and saw that it was Level 275, I decided to aggro one over.

As usual, I kicked off my attack with a Dragon Slaying Slash!

Crack!

The skill hit the undead soldier squarely in the head and caused him to face toward me with blood-red eyes and a savage expression. He roared, "Who are you? How dare you disturb the peace of my Nine Li Tribes!"

He rushed me with his stone axe raised, but something unexpected happened. Before he got close, he waved his axe and somehow launched a blast of fire straight at my Dragon God Shield. It seared my entire body and deleted a visible chunk from my HP—

110028!

Not done yet, he raised his axe once more and connected it solidly with the Dragon God Shield, causing my HP to drop yet again. God damn, the undead soldier looked like nothing special, but he was actually a dual cultivator!

50093!

His physical damage was less than half of his magic damage though; a non-issue basically. It was natural. As a metal-armor class, I was naturally good at tanking physical attacks. It would be a different story if Beiming Xue or Lian Xin were in my position.

Dark Pupils revealed parts of the the undead soldier’s stats—

Chiyou Demonic Soldier (Fiend)

Level: 275

Introduction: An ancient Nine Li Tribes soldier under the command of Chiyou. After Chiyou was killed by the Huang Emperor Xuanyuan, his troop of millions were put under a permanent seal. Today, these demonic soldiers plotted to return to the human world and arrogantly proclaimed their furious desire to shred all living things into pieces.

……

I chuckled. These soldiers thought they could tear the human world apart with just this level of strength? How foolish!

I swung my weapon a couple of times and easily took out the Chiyou Demonic Soldier. Thanks to the 20% lifesteal of my weapon, I was left with 70% HP at the end of the fight. Generally speaking, the Chiyou Demonic Soldier was even weaker than the Cyan Wolf Guard. That wasn’t to say they weren’t dangerous. Right after I continued forward, I was ganged up on by three Chiyou Demonic Soldiers at the same time. My HP had dropped to a dangerous 25% at the end of it. They could certainly even kill me if they managed to surround me from all sides.

Pop!

The 49th Chiyou Demonic Soldier I killed dropped a card. I picked it up and found it to be above average—

Chiyou Demonic Soldier Card: Increases user's Attack by 65%, and Defense by 20%. Duration: 120 minutes. Level Requirement: 200

Although it was much weaker than the Fire War God Card, it was easy to obtain and an amazing buff for grinding or open world PvP. Boosting Attack by 65% was not something even some average Ancient Immortal-grade weapons could boast.

I continued forward. I exited the forest and arrived at a meandering mountain range. After I climbed up to its ridge, I was greeted by a surprising sight—

I saw a giant covered in flames swinging its axe and attacking a group of players surrounding it. There were at least 50 of them, and they were from the Northern Alliance, Chaotic 27, and even India. The two faces I immediately recognized were Throne of the Wild’s Tear Stain and Argentina’s No. 1 player, Red Ovenbird.

Tear Stain was Candlelight Shadow’s junior sister. She was also the one who used the territory she had stolen to launch a near fatal assault against the China server. Red Ovenbird was the guy who promised Zhang Chun and I that he wouldn’t invade the China server, but worked together with the Northern Alliance anyway to attack us during the previous Nation War. We now knew that the man was too self-seeking to be given any trust at all.

……

"Careful! The boss has splash damage!"

Tear Stain zigzagged toward the boss, landed a chain of combos, and successfully escaped without taking any damage. While retreating, she barked out a series of orders and refined their group’s battle strategy even more. Since everyone here was an elite eighth-promotion player, they were able to operate like a well-oiled machine.

The giant at the center had only one eye. He wielded a battle axe on his right hand and a chain-like weapon that looked like a shield on his left. Since he was covered in flames, he dealt continuous damage to everyone within a certain range. Even the likes of Tear Stain had to be supported by 9 priests to be able to survive the constant damage.

One look was all I needed to know that the giant was Xing Tian, and the battle axe and chain-like shield in his hands were his signature weapon, the Ganqi. I also knew that these bastards were killing our China-exclusive boss. They are so dead...