It didn't matter whether it was Xie Feng, the girls, or King of the North; they all looked at the land covered with flames and lightning continuously striking with dazed eyes.

The scene outside the Bright Light Barrier was as if the hell itself had been summoned in the upper world to punish the living beings.

The temperature outside the barrier had reached such a frightening level that if a person did not have equipment or skills that increased their Fire Resistance by 10 or 15%, just by standing there a player or NPC could die in a matter of seconds or minutes depending on the amount of health points.

In the surrounding area, no player or NPC soldiers could be seen standing and the bodies of hundreds of thousands of people could be seen lying lifeless on the ground as flames engulfed them.

ROAR!!!

The players farther away screamed in terror at the roar of the Abyssal Dragon. None of them cared about anything else and gave up on trying to win; they turned around and began to run furiously while pushing the one in front of them.

However, could they, whose movement speed was barely average and who were being held back by other players, really escape from a Saint grade boss? It was obviously impossible.

The five-kilometer beast opened its giant mouth wide and began to launch showers of fire and thunderstorms from every part of its body as it flew through the skies.

In just ten minutes, the army of over six million players had been completely decimated and, since the teleportation scrolls had been disabled because they were in combat, none of them could escape the Abyssal Dragon's terrifying area-of-effect damage attacks.

As for the fifty thousand or so NPC soldiers who had arrived with the resolve to fight for the people behind them... They had long since blended in with the players and died.

To the Abyssal Dragon, there was no difference between the army of players or the army of NPCs; they were all ants that could not withstand a strike or two from it.

However, while the players could revive, the soldiers of the NPC army who had fallen in this war had no virtual revive button.

Seeing nothing but death and chaos outside the barrier that measured just over ten meters in diameter, the King of the North's eyes flooded and tears could not help but fall silently.

A man's tears were very valuable; because a real man only cried when his heart was completely crushed. So how valuable were the tears of a king?

A person who had everything from political power to real power, from real love to fake love that he could obtain with gold; literally, King of the North had practically everything a man would want to have. However, even he could not stop his tears from flowing.

Xie Feng, Mu Wuying, all the girls, looked at the middle-aged man who seemed to have become a century older with complicated eyes.

His grip on the mighty Unbound Bow was no longer as firm as it had been in the past, his shoulders looked slumped just like those of a man defeated by the life, and his shiny leather armor seemed to have become dull.

"What a pity." King Hu Yi spoke as if he was talking to himself. Although his tears were falling uncontrollably, his voice did not quiver in the slightest as this was the kind of upbringing he had received since he was a child.

"Every one of those men who died out there had lived a very hard life... Very hard. They faced death how many times? Hundreds of thousands is not a good enough number to answer that question... They fought hard to become strong and protect their loved ones, but just one move of that beast ended it all... Really, what a pity." King Hu Yi regretted. A sigh escaped his mouth as he shook his head slightly. "Those heroes shouldn't have fallen here... It's too unfair to them, to their families... To mankind in general."

Xie Feng listened to the king's words in silence.

The soldiers in silver and golden armor were the true elites of humanity. Men who had experienced countless life and death battles to raise their levels and with the power to protect entire cities. In fact, a mere thirty thousand silver-armored soldiers had been able to protect Eternal Wind City from all danger for many years.

However, in this battle, fifty thousand of these men had fallen in the most ridiculous and senseless manner possible. They had virtually no ability to fight before they were riddled to death by the Abyssal Dragon.

"I wonder if I was wrong?" King Hu Yi sighed again.

As a wise king, his duty was not to make his men fight wars that were unwinnable, to begin with. However, he had brought his people to fight in a war that from the beginning there was no hope of victory. In fact, the appearance of Shiva, Kali, and the rest of the players was something the king had not counted on, to begin with.

The only reason why the NPC soldiers and the king had been able to deal so much damage to the Abyssal Dragon before was only because the monster was sealed in space and could not move. Otherwise, it would be impossible to even touch it.

The only reason the NPC soldiers had managed to get their swords and spears to touch and damage the beast was because the earth mages and Ling Long sealed its movements and because Kali had lowered its defenses.

If it were not for Shiva's timely appearance here, if it were not for the fact that he possessed a certain influence in the virtual world due to his personal strength and past achievements, no player would have stepped forward as they would never believe the words of a normal player. And, without the appearance of the six million players, the damage the Abyssal Dragon would have suffered from the NPC soldiers and the king would have been insignificant compared to its half a billion health points.

Everything had gone too well from the start; the earth mages, the pressure exerted by Ling Long's fists, Shen Xinya's strongest attack and her reductions, Mu Wuying's powerful blessings, Xie Feng's crazy skills... It was all too good to be real.

But, luck was not something that could be relied on forever.

Without all these little coincidences and joins together, one attack or two was all the Abyssal Dragon would have needed to finish off the NPC army.

King Hu Yi knew this, but he still brought his men to fight.

"You didn't make a mistake." Xie Feng finally spoke. While looking at the fiery inferno outside the barrier, he slowly continued, "You are a great king who bravely stepped forward to fight even when you knew that only death awaited. All to buy time for the weak and to try to find a small ray of light in the midst of a shadowy future... The only thing wrong here is war."

"War only brings pain... War is a word that should not exist."

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A/N: This chapter is part 1 of something that will happen much later in the story. The conversation between Xie Feng and King of the North is something I hope you will remember. Thank you for reading!