Pata!

Infinite despair and confusion erupted from the assassin’s eyes when he felt the Chill of the Nine Provinces’ cold blade pressed up against his neck. He couldn’t believe that a Level 211 magic knight could duel this well. He found it even harder to believe that he had been completely outclassed by one, and that he was a fraction of a second away from being killed.

"咔！"

Ka!

I exerted a bit of force into my arm and pulled, slicing his neck and causing a shower of blood. I could even see the veins spasming in a hopeless attempt to keep its owner’s blood in its body. The weak point attack dealt 370k+ damage and one-shot the second Blood Alliance assassin. Once again, I felt appreciative toward Intelligence Agency. It was definitely easier to assassinate Blood Alliance with their coordinates.

……

I picked up the dagger dropped by the assassin. I had 109 Luck, so anyone I killed must be prepared to drop the good stuff. Our WMD’s Famous General Skill, Plunder, was still better in terms of PK loot dropping, but not by too much. Anyway, the dagger was a Level 210 Heaven-grade weapon. It was no wonder he looked as disbelieving as he did.

Beep!

Suddenly, I received a message from Outspoken. "Brother Guard Captain, we have a problem. The spies we planted in Blood Alliance just informed us that your actions have alarmed the rest of the players in Blood Mallet Canyon. Assassin’s Creed himself just ordered a hundred assassins to your location."

I replied smilingly, "Don’t worry, I can deal with this. Just keep me informed regarding their coordinates."

"Got it!"

……

Fiery red maple leaves were scattered throughout Blood Mallet Canyon. It was autumn in the game, so the falling leaves created a cascade of red and orange. This was good news for me because falling leaves and strong wind were disadvantageous to assassin stealth. Combined with my powerful perception, I had every confidence that I could defeat even an opponent like Farewell Song.

This time, Intelligence Agency sent me 7 new coordinates. It was clear that these people were attempting to surround me from all sides. They had no idea that they were walking right to their deaths!

Thud!

An unnatural noise almost too soft to hear entered my ears, followed by an unnatural pause in movement when a leaf fell from a red maple tree. I smirked a bit. My first opponent had come to me.

I ran toward the assassin and stabbed her through the chest. She was a 25-year-old woman with hanging eyebrows, triangular eyes, and harsh lines on her features. She took 340k damage and died before she could do anything.

Another four coordinates closed in on me at nearly the same time. I could tell that they had all activated Swift Dash because the leaves on the ground looked like waves that were cut in half by a sword.

"Watch out, big brother!"

Xinran spoke in warning, but her smile revealed her true thoughts. Even without Fusion Armor, I still had over 1.3 million max HP. I had buffed myself with Iron Wall VII for the 100% Defense, and I had Cyan Dragon Scale to bump my defensive stats even higher if it turned out to be necessary. Suffice it to say, it was nearly impossible for these assassins to kill me.

I waited until the time was right before dashing about two meters away from my original spot, causing Blade Vortices to miss me completely, cutting only some leaves in the way. After I dashed back into the fray, I one-shot two assassins with a swing to the neck each before parrying another assassin’s attack with my shield. Finally, I spun around rapidly to face the fourth assassin and punched him in the chest!

Bang!

109298!

The shock on the fourth assassin’s face was incredible. Somehow, my barehanded attack had deleted over 50% of his HP! He tried to escape, but he was only making things easier for me. After I turned back toward the third assassin and killed him, I threw the Chill of the Nine Provinces at the escaping assassin and pierced his torso with perfect accuracy. He never had a chance. He dropped to his knees and uttered in defiance, "This is impossible! Who are…"

……

I bent down and picked up a ring he dropped. It added a ton of Agility and 4% critical hit rate; a great piece of equipment for Agility-based classes such as assassins, archers, and tamers. More importantly, it was worth at least a couple hundred RMB. I dropped it into my bag and resolved to sell all the loot at Sky City later.

Suddenly, I felt a massive pressure entering my Domain, and a spine-crawling chill blowing against my nose. It was the fifth assassin. Somehow, he managed to elude my Dark Pupils even after he was less than three meters away from me. He might have a special stealth skill just like Farewell Song. The chill I felt on my nose earlier was his ice dagger stabbing toward my throat.

Pa!

I threw myself backward and felt the dagger sliding across my nose. It had been a millimeter away from hitting me. Moreover, the assassin didn’t freeze just because his first attack had missed. He swung his left dagger from bottom to top and successfully landed Blind on my back.

49129!

Not bad! Not many players could penetrate my Defense. My vision turned pitch black, and I saw in the combat log that the effect would last for 2.7 seconds.

Blind removed a player’s vision temporarily, but not their movement. Without hesitation, I hit the ground with the pommel of my sword, propelled myself back to my feet, and thrust the Cyan Dragon Shield forward with all my might!

Bang!

112883!

The shield bash knocked both the man and his daggers away from me. I chased after the source of the sound and slashed the space where I envisioned his torso should’ve been, but...

MISS!

It missed. The assassin had crouched just in time to dodge it. I was prepared for this though. The moment I felt no contact, I raised my foot and performed a soccer kick!

Chiang!

I heard a metallic clang and felt a bit of pain biting at my leg. The assassin had parried my attack with his dagger and poisoned me with Envenomed Strike at the same time!

Finally, 2.7 seconds had passed. My vision had finally returned to normal.

I saw that the fifth assassin was a 25-year-old youngster called "Cold of Spring”. He was a Level 223 eighth-promotion assassin wearing a full set of Heaven and Immortal–grade equipment. No wonder he was able to go toe-to-toe with me for a time. His skills were nothing to scoff at as well.

He had missed his chance, however. I was going to end his performance right here and now.

Bang!

I crashed my shield into his daggers again before slashing at his torso. Once again he managed to parry my attack, but I loosened my grip on the sword so I could smash its pommel into Cold of Spring’s jaw. The moment the strike connected, and blood jetted out of his lips, his eyes became filled with despair. In a match-up like this, one wrong move was all it took to lose everything.

Puchi!

My blade cut across his neck, and blood spilled out of the wound like a fountain. This time though, the lucky sonuvabitch didn’t drop anything.

……

I gave Cold of Spring’s corpse a kick to confirm that he was dead. I glanced at his shoulder and noticed that he was a corps commander. That would explain why he was much better than the assassins who had assaulted me up until this point. A guild can only have 7 corp commanders at most, and I’m willing to bet that this guy was pretty high in the ranks even among his fellow corp commanders.

Blood Alliance was an honorless guild where the most bloodthirsty and cruel players were gathered. Addicted with the killing in the game, there was nothing more they loved than killing players and robbing their dead bodies. One might say that they represented the darkest, most twisted subset of players in the game. Their personality was twisted, and they took joy in bullying others. Worse, they represented the majority of humanity in the real world. There were countless real gangs and crime syndicates, and I was absolutely certain that some of them were a part of Blood Alliance. It was one of the many reasons why everyone was eager to get rid of them.

I wasn’t afraid of Blood Alliance, and neither was He Yi. So what if they were real-life gangsters? He Yi had hired a dozen or so retired special force soldiers using her connections to protect us, and they were living on the first floor of our apartment. If they thought they could get the better of us offline, they were in for a rude wake-up call.

……

Beep!

Again, I received another message from Outspoken: "You really are something, aren’t you, Brother Guard Captain? Did you recognize Cold of Spring among the players you killed earlier?"

I replied, "Sure. What’s wrong?"

"Do you know who Cold of Spring is?"

"Why would I know about some random nobody?"

"Nobody? Is that a joke? Cold of Spring is one of the four best players in Blood Alliance. He’s one of the highest elders in their guild, and they are given command over a dozen or so subguilds at least. Their titles are based on the seasons, so there’s a Summer, Autumn and Winter elder besides the one you just killed. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, but they may be coming to you very soon…"

I smirked a little before replying, "Wonderful. I hope they’ll save me the trouble of finding them and come to me at the same time!"

Outspoken: "..."

……

Outspoken didn’t message me after that. It was clear that my audacious reply had both awed and frustrated him a little. After all, there were only a handful of players in the world who would dare to treat Blood Alliance like a joke.

I returned to Xinran, took the reins of my onager and continued toward my next destination. There were still a lot of players grinding or PKing in Blood Mallet Canyon, and one such battle was happening right in front of me. Most of the players who were ambushed by Blood Alliance chose to revive together so that they couldn’t be ganged up on and killed again easily. I was collecting the power of rebirth for Xinran anyway, so I went to them without hesitation.

On a related note, I wasn’t the only one who was having a good time. The guild channel was bustling with activity as well—

Li Chengfeng: "Dammit, Blood Alliance are a bunch of scumbags, but you gotta admit that they’re really skilled. They’re at least 10% better than our eighth subguild. I was actually feeling a bit stressed when 7 of their assassins attacked me at once…"

Chaos Moon: "Pooh! You won that 1v7 handily, you shameless man!"

Gui Guzi: "We just took out a hundred-man party. It’s quite easy if you know where they are. Of course, the Ghostblade Halberd helped out a lot. I critted some dude for 1 million damage just now. It’s awesome!"

Beiming Xue: "You should set your aspirations higher, big brother Gui. Do you know what big brother’s highest damage number ever is? He once critted a boss, A BOSS, for over 10 million damage!"

Gui Guzi: "Please don’t use Boss Broken Halberd as a comparison. That’s just unfair."

He Yi: "Someone mentioned that a guy with an… onager?... just appeared at Blood Malley Canyon and took out a lot of Blood Alliance core players earlier. They sound amazing…"

Li Chengfeng: "Does anyone know this mysterious stranger?"

Xu Yang: "Their ID is Fruit Knife Guard Captain, but I have no idea who that is."

Murong Mingyue couldn’t stop herself from breaking her silence. "The information must be false. How could anyone with that kind of ID be an expert?"

……

Suddenly, He Yi’s voice took on a much more serious tone. "Oh no! Everyone, stop whatever you’re doing and assemble at Sky Ridge now!"

"What happened?" Li Chengfeng asked.

He Yi answered, "Chance Meeting just dropped her Dragonbone Whip 10 seconds ago! It was taken by a Blood Alliance assassin called Flame of Summer!"

"What!?"