"It’s interesting…"

We were strolling along the edges of a forest when Lin Yixin spoke up with a smile, "Warsky Alliance is infamous for their shameless recruitment tactics. Purple Lily, Snowy Cathaya, Candle Dragon, Ancient Sword and more, practically everyone has lost some players to them before. This time though, Candle Dragon managed to recruit Hundred Battler from Warsky Alliance. Sure, Hundred Battler is just a useless noob, but Warsky can’t feel very good about it. No one likes being treated to a taste of their own medicine after all."

"I cannot imagine Candle Dragon approving the attack after what we heard earlier, so Hundred Battler must’ve acted out of his own accord. The dude definitely wasn’t expecting us to slaughter him and his couple hundred Qiu Beast Cavalrymen in less than a minute though." I sighed. "When you offend too many people, you can’t go anywhere without watching your own back."

"And whose fault was it for standing out too much, huh?" Lin Yixin teased me.

I shot back. "You of all people have the least right to say that, you murderous hobo…"

He Yi chuckled. "Enough, you two. Let’s get serious here, shall we?"

……

The forest was unusually quiet and desolate even considering that it was nighttime. We had moved far enough from the Lantern Girls’ domain that I could spot an ancient castle at the distance. It was 2.5 kilometers away from us at most. The sky was covered in demonized crows, and their red eyes never left our person for a second. They seemed to be waiting for us to die so they could feast on our corpses.

"Get lost!"

An annoyed Lian Xin cast Ice Spiral Matrix in midair. The black crows immediately scattered in fright.

Beiming Xue stared at the grass ground beneath our feet for a moment before pointing toward the northeast. "Big bro, can you scan that area with Dark Pupils and see if there are invisible units close by? I’m spotting some irregularities on the ground here and there. It’s either a player or a mob…"

I turned Dark Pupils on and off two times before the invisible figure revealed itself to me. It was a humongous skeletal minotaur. I wasn’t sure why it was an assassin though. Its size was only going to slow it down and diminish its stealth effects.

I read its stats and noted that it had high Attack—

Minotaur Assassin (Fiend)

Level: 300

Attack: 42000-51500

Defense: 44500

HP: 3750000

Skills: Night Blind Stab, Eye of Reincarnation, Blade Vortex

Property: Stealth effect increased by 50%. Extremely high chance of avoiding being seen by Clear As Flame.

Introduction: The Minotaur race is a mixed breed born from the union of ancient sacred beasts and humans [1]. They possess powerful physique and explosive strength, but they were ultimately unable to withstand the invasion of the undead legion and were transformed into the puppets of the undead. Bloodthirsty Emissary trained them into killers who can conceal themselves under the moonlight. The combination of their explosive strength and their assassination techniques is absolutely terrifying, but their stealthiness is questionable to say the least. Even so, countless humans had died to their daggers in the hundreds of years they’ve been undead puppets.

……

Beiming Xue stuck out her tongue. "OMG, these assassin mobs have a crazy amount of Attack. I doubt even Farewell Song has this much Attack…"

I smiled. "If we’re just talking about base Attack, then sure. But if we account for equipment effects, then it’s not as clear cut as you think. Farewell Song’s basic attack can deal over 200k damage to me, and his skills are even more powerful. As for the Minotaur Assassins, well, let’s check that out right now, shall we?"

I locked onto the closest Minotaur Assassin and activated Thunderous Charge!

Swhoosh!

It was a perfect stun. I immediately followed up with a six-hit Burning Blade Slash + War Crush combo that dealt over 2.72 million damage. One more basic attack later, the Minotaur Assassin was almost done.

Thud thud thud...

My Phantom Wolf King swiped it three times with its claws, and the Minotaur Assassin died right as it broke out of the stun. Seven rays of EXP light entered our bodies, but 50% of the kill experience went to me. What could I do? The person with the highest DPS usually got the better reward. It was the main reason support players grew slower in terms of levels.

Moon Dew said calmly, "2.72 million damage, huh. Maybe we should just call you ‘the boss' from now on…"

Me: "..."

Lin Yixin pouted. "Yeah. Even my highest-burst combo deals a bit over 1.5 million…"

He Yi consoled her, "Don’t be sad. Lu Chen is our ally after all. Imagine if it was Candlelight Shadow or Warsky who had this much damage. We would die nine out of ten times when running into them…"

I consoled both girls, "I only got this much damage because of my flurry skills. If Yiyi performs triple slash + Extreme Break, or Eve uses Stormwind Break + Purgatory of Ice and Magma combo, your DPS won’t be far behind mine. Don’t forget that you are dragon riders now. Your Crimson Crystal Dragon and Snow Crystal Dragon give almost as much Attack as my Ancient Divine Dragon."

"That’s true. Well, let’s keep this up!"

……

We continued. We always pierced the Minotaur Assassin’s stealth with either my Dark Pupils or Beiming Xue’s Clear As Flame so that they never got the drop on us. The mob dropped an assassin-exclusive equipment set that wasn't as good as the Lantern Girl set, but was still worth around 1000 RMB or so. More importantly, its drop rate was much higher than the Lantern Girl set, and it only took us an hour or so to assemble a full set. It looked like today was another jackpot day!

Pa pa...

Beiming Xue looked like a pretty little night-walking cat as she jumped from tree branch to tree branch. After she landed on a branch of a particular large tree, she concealed her Xuanming Bow’s equipment luster and whispered in the party channel, "Watch out, big bro. I see a group of players grinding on the right side of Bloodthirsty Castle…"

"Oh? Can you see who they are?" I asked while looking at a Minotaur Assassin.

Beiming Xue nodded. "The party leader’s Amber Pupil, and the party members are Now and Forever plus 300 or so outer-land players. They’re all Dark Mercenaries…"

"Fuck!"

I clenched my teeth. "I almost forgot that Bloody Shield Domain counts as the outer lands too. It makes perfect sense for outer-land players to explore this place. So this is where Dark Mercenaries have been grinding, huh? Very well. Beiming Xue, ascertain their location and numbers, then report back to me. We’re going to take them all out. Amber Pupil managed to teleport away to safety last time, but he won’t get lucky again. This time, I have more than enough Divine Energy Points to wipe the floor with him!"

Lin Yixin smiled. "Let’s do it this way: Sister Eve and I will hide in the forest and wait for your signal. Once you get close enough with Earth Escape and disrupt their formation, we’ll rush out and catch them by surprise. Dark Mercenaries’ players aren’t as easy as Hundred Battler’s party earlier. We need the surprise advantage to walk away unscathed."

"Very well! Let’s do it!"

……

My apparition and I slowly crept our way toward Dark Mercenaries’ party from beneath the ground. This skill was OP, but I could never become a top-tier stalker like Farewell Song or Moonkiss because it reduced my movement speed by a whopping 90%. Meanwhile, Farewell Song and Moonkiss had skills and equipment that increased their movement speed so much that they could be moving 5 to 7 times faster than normal when ambushing a target. At that point, you might as well treat them like ghosts; capable of suddenly appearing behind you without any notice whatsoever. They could’ve chased down Dark Mercenaries’ players one by one and killed them all, but I couldn’t. Therefore, my only option was to catch them with a devastating sneak attack.

The Phantom Wolf King was also following me while stealthed. I was still waiting for the right time to launch my attack. Not too far behind me, the beautiful riders of Crimson Crystal Dragon and Snow Crystal Dragon were waiting for my signal. The second people started screaming, they would immediately join the battle, but not a second sooner. It wouldn’t do to alert our enemies beforehand.

Beiming Xue whispered again inside the party channel, "Big bro, I see a couple of very-high-level assassins to your left, coordinate (18274, 90892). There may be more of them. They’re the scouts of the party. Their archers have also activated Clear As Flame, so make sure you avoid their perception range…"

I nodded. "Understood…"

Meanwhile, Amber Pupil was gripping his broadsword and staring arrogantly at Bloodthirsty Castle. He clicked his tongue and said, "Tsk tsk, an SS Rank quest isn’t too hard to complete, especially one that only requires us to kill a servant girl of Bloodthirsty Emissary. Assuming that we have time to spare when the deed is done, do you think we should take out Bloodthirsty Emissary himself? Who knows, we may get one of the Twelve Divine Armaments for killing him!"

Now and Forever nodded. "I hope so. The problem is the quality of these Hero City players we’ve been given. If they’re as bad as Sword Lord of Jianghu, well, we may not even be able to kill that Ancient Immortal Rank servant girl."

"Don’t worry, they are the elites handpicked by Vienna’s Sorrow himself. If you’re worried about him screwing us over on purpose, remember that he demands us to return 50% of them when the one-time period is over. He wouldn’t care so much if they were just useless cannon fodder, right? I plan to use them as much as possible during this time and strengthen Dark Mercenaries to the max. After all, there is no one we can rely on more than ourselves. Speaking of which, how are the 7000 players you recruited from Elephant City? Are they reliable?"

A tinge of cruelty entered Now and Forever’s grin. "Very. They are all players who have been kicked out from Elephant City, and they are either thieves, murderers, red names, or all of the above. This is exactly the type of people you want when fighting against Ancient Sword’s Dragonlight Cavalry."

Amber Pupil nodded approvingly. "Treat them well. We need them to return to the China server."

"Yeah!"

……

I continued moving myself, my apparition and the Phantom Wolf King until I had Amber Pupil and Now and Forever surrounded in a triangle. I had to ensure that none of my characters were within range of the archers while still able to inflict massive amounts of damage at a short notice. Otherwise, the priests would be able to keep them alive, and our operation would more or less end in failure. Their numbers were vastly superior to ours. We couldn’t afford to treat this lightly.

Most importantly, Amber Pupil and his goons were blocking the way to the castle entrance. We couldn’t enter Bloodthirsty Castle without clearing them out!

1. T/N: well this came out of nowhere