He Yi coughed once before asking, "I would like everyone to give their opinion regarding Blood Alliance’s repeated assassination attempts. We cannot allow them to keep doing whatever they want, so what do you think we should do?"

Li Chengfeng grimaced. "The enemy’s hidden, while we are in the open. Honestly, it’s very difficult to seize the initiative here. In my opinion, we should dispatch the eighth subguild to hunt down any Blood Alliance players they encounter. Besides that, we should put up a bounty on all Blood Alliance players and drive them out of Sky City entirely. Sky City is our home, and we shouldn’t allow them to do as they please."

Chaos Moon agreed. "Li’s ideas are pretty logical. I support them."

Gui Guzi asked me, "What do you think, Boss Broken Halberd?"

I sucked in a deep breath before answering, "Yes, Chengfeng’s ideas are pretty sound. Very well, we’ll put up a bounty to hunt down all Blood Alliance assassins within Sky City borders. I’m not sure how effective it’ll actually be, but it’ll put some psychological pressure on the fuckers at least. We should also contact all our allied guilds—Snowy Cathaya, Blazing Hot Lips, The Monarch Descends and more—and coordinate a joint declaration of war on Blood Alliance. If possible, I want to involve Warsky Alliance, Pop Culture and Candle Dragon in our efforts as well."

He Yi said, "Got it. I know what to do."

I continued, "On a related note, I heard that there are player guilds that are specifically made of spies and moles in Sky City. They’re even called the in-game intelligence agency. We can seek them out and purchase the location of Blood Alliance’s meeting spots for a cheap price. Considering the circumstances, any Blood Alliance player we manage to kill is a win for us. Their guild leader, Assassin’s Creed especially must die. We should set his bounty at 5000 gold per kill!"

However, Chaos Moon burst into a giggle. "OMG, you really are a stingy man!"

I was confused. "What do you mean?"

He Yi explained with a chuckle, "It seems like you aren’t aware, but Blood Alliance has put a 150k RMB bounty on your head, you know? Gui Guzi, Lian Xin, Beiming Xue, Li Chengfeng and I have a bounty of 90k RMB, and Chaos Moon, High Fighting Spirits, Xu Yang and You and Yun have a bounty of 30k RMB. You’re worth 5 times more than the cheapest of us. Aren’t you glad?"

I rubbed my nose in embarrassment. "I can’t say it doesn’t stroke my ego, but I certainly don’t appreciate being priced like a piece of meat on the market. Anyway, let’s focus on suppressing Blood Alliance as much as we can before the Northern Alliance and the India server launches the next Nation War. We cannot allow these greedy, shameless bastards to continue their reign of terror unimpeded."

"Understood!"

……

Very soon, three system announcements resounded throughout Sky City—

Ding~!

System Announcement (Player "From Water" Shout): Blood Alliance has been ambushing my players repeatedly, and I will no longer stand for it. As the guild leader of Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls, I hereby declare a kill operation upon the entire Blood Alliance! You will not PK and destroy the rules of the game for money in Sky City any longer!

Ding~!

System Announcement (Player "Wind Fantasy" Shout): Blood Alliance has ambushed Clear Perfume’s party and killed 15 of our men. I will not allow this to stand! Assassin’s Creed, wash your neck and wait for me. I won’t stop coming for you until I’ve killed you 15 times in person! Snowy Cathaya hereby declares an all-out war against Blood Alliance! We will kill you all!

Ding~!

System Announcement: (Player "Stranger of Three Lifetimes" Shout): My two friends have said everything I wish to say, so I’ll keep this short. Blazing Hot Lips hereby declares war on Blood Alliance, and we will not stop until one of us is wiped from the surface of Heavenblessed. If you’re smart, you’ll remove that emblem from your arm right now, assassins. Otherwise, we’ll kill you every time we see you[1]!

……

Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls, Snowy Cathaya and Blazing Hot Lips have declared war on Blood Alliance, and it wouldn’t be long before Warsky Alliance, Candle Dragon, The Monarch Descends and more would follow suit. Blood Alliance had pissed off almost everyone, so it was only natural for them to strike back. As it turned out though, Assassin’s Creed was a cold-blooded lizard. Not only wasn’t he unperturbed by the declarations of war, he even made a system announcement of his own—

Ding~!

System Announcement (Player "Assassin’s Creed" Shout): I am Assassin’s Creed, and your rules mean nothing to me. The only things I recognize in this game are my employer’s instructions and their money. As long as my heart is still beating, I will keep killing until my employers are satisfied. Pay me the appropriate sum of money, and I will kill even Beautiful Little Pepper, Heavenly King Lu Chen, or Martial God Candlelight Shadow myself! Everyone in Blood Alliance is crazy or hated by the light, so we can hardly blame the rabble for hunting us. Be warned though, you are the one who will be hunted, not us! Hahaha!

……

For a time, no one could say anything. Then, Li Chengfeng broke the silence:

"Holy shit. I thought I was an arrogant mofo, but I’m nothing compared to this Assassin’s Creed. He really declared war on the entire Sky City?"

I smiled grimly. "Assassin’s Oath is an incredible skill after all. They’re invisible 100% of the time to another player at the same level, 75% of the time to a same-level archer with Clear As Flame, and occasionally invisible even to my Dark Pupils. The season of assassins is upon us, so Assassin’s Creed’s arrogance isn’t as baseless as you might think."

He Yi said, "Chaos Moon, if you have any plans to grind today, cancel them all. I want you to sit at the intelligence agency and share with us Blood Alliance players’ coordinates at first notice. Also, no more random party sizes. All parties are required to consist of at least 50 players, and must have at least 10 archers in them. The Dragonlight Archers will be participating in this operation as well. Let’s try to kill a thousand Blood Alliance players at least before the day is over!"

Chaos Moon: "Yes, sister guild leader[2]!"

He Yi: "..."

……

Sky City was never an idle city, but no one expected a small guild like Blood Alliance to cause such a huge commotion. Of course, this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Events like these kept our guild united, and the timing of it was perfect because the Northern Alliance and the India server were still gathering their strength. The most direct proof of this was the fact that they were skirmishing against our fortresses. For those who didn’t understand, it meant that they weren’t plotting something big and thus could afford to lose those levels. If they were plotting something big, they would be hoarding their levels like gold and avoid engaging our borders until the right time.

It was past 4 pm, and Xinran’s healing was about 7% done. I had spent the whole afternoon roaming around Sky Forest and profiting off the deaths of small guilds. To be more specific, three bosses had spawned near Pegasus Springs, and a ton of small guilds died trying to challenge them. Their loss was my gain, and I was starting to think that gathering the power of rebirth of 100000 players wasn’t as difficult as I thought. China had a massive playerbase after all. It just took a lot of time.

It was past 5 pm when I decided to return to Sky City and resupply for a bit. Xinran smiled like a pretty little flower as she lay in my arms and clung to my neck.

"Where are you going, big brother?"

"Strella dropped Dragonbone Whip, right? Well, I was going to put it up for sale at the auction house earlier, but it slipped my mind. I hope it’ll sell for 100000 at least. It’ll allow me to make a down payment for a house in the suburbs…"

"What is ‘suburbs’, big brother?" Xinran asked while blinking.

I thought for a moment before explaining, "There is a world parallel to this one whom people like me call the real world, and the suburbs are a place in that world. The reason I want to live there is because it’s relatively peaceful and quiet."

"The real world…"

Xinran thought long and hard on the term before pouting at me. "What do you mean by the ‘real world’, big brother? Are you happy living in the real world?"

An involuntary smile sprung to my lips as I recalled Lin Yixin and He Yi. "Yes, I am."

Xinran asked, "Can I go to the real world? I know you’re there every time you disappear. I want to be there with you…"

I gave her a tight hug before smiling at her. "Who knows? Maybe we will meet in the real world one day. It’s unlikely, but if fate would have it, then..."

A longing look appeared on Xinran’s face. "The real world, huh? I wonder what it looks like? I can’t wait to visit it…"

She instinctively kicked her legs to express her joy, but terrible pain immediately erupted from her severed limbs. She let out a cry of pain as cold sweat immediately covered her forehead.

I couldn’t help but feel her pain too. I vowed to heal her as soon as I finished my business.

A few minutes later, I arrived at a stately building with heavy traffic flow. It was none other than the auction house and the concentration point of wealth of the entire Sky City. It was only natural considering that millions of equipment and items, and hundreds of millions of gold were transacted everyday.

……

"You need to pay for the ticket first before you can get in, young man!"

Two NPC axe-wielders blocked my way and demanded me to pay them 1 gold as the entry fee. They then looked at Xinran and said, "The girl must pay 1 gold for the ticket as well!"

I glared at him. "If I refuse?"

"Then we’ll have to do this the hard way. I commend your balls, kid, but this isn’t a place where you can act as you please!"

Xinran didn’t want to make the situation worse, so she pulled a gold coin from her dimensional space and said, "Is this okay?"

The brawny guy nodded with a smile. "I knew you were a sensible one, girl…"

I grimaced. Sensible my ass, I’m a goddamned Senior Master Sergeant in Sky City, but these knuckleheads never acknowledged my rank for even a second. These guards were just like the assassins of Blood Alliance; they would rather die than give up a profit.

After we entered the auction house, I walked up to an auction NPC and put up the Earth-grade and Heaven-grade equipment I had picked up at Dragon God Cave for sale—

Sinclair’s Wristguards: Grade: Earth. Shelf Price: 600 gold

Grass Forest Dagger: Grade: Earth. Shelf Price: 900 gold

Stegood’s Battle Armor: Grade: Heaven. Shelf Price: 4000 gold

Bard’s Scepter: Grade: Heaven. Shelf Price: 5000 gold.

……

As I put the equipment on auction, the big-bearded NPC couldn’t help but shoot me looks of disdain. He seemed to be disdaining the fact that my listed items were only so-so. Unperturbed, I took out the Dragonbone Whip and watched his face turn from disdain to utter shock in an instant. It wasn’t just him either, some nearby players were stunned by what they saw as well. Some of them exclaimed their astonishment out loud, "Holy shit, what the heck is that? It’s so orange and bright! Is it a Divine Armament? It has to be a Divine Armament, right? But no one has sold a Divine Armament at this auction house until now!"

I held the Dragonbone Whip in front of the NPC and said, "Give me a price estimate, beardy!"

"What?"

Beardy stuttered in shock as he held the equipment. "Are… are you sure you want to sell this weapon? It’s… it’s the legendary Divine Armament, you know?"

Getting impatient, I said, "Cut the bullshit and give me the estimate already!"

1. E/N: Funny, what if you can’t see them though? That’s kinda the point

2. T/N: you can read this as guild leader onee-sama if you don’t get it