“I knew it wouldn't be this easy.” Ye Xiu sighed after reading Loulan Slash’s message. Compared to Conquering Clouds, both the guild and team Seaside were troublesome opponents. Their team’s Zhao Yang was an All Star level pro who used the Qi Master, Boundless Sea, a powerful character even amongst the pro players.
Although they were strong, there was still a limit to just how powerful they were. The truly powerful Clubs were too occupied with the drama happening during the playoffs. The only ones who still had time to fight for field bosses were the small fries who still hung around on both sides.
“Where are they now?” Ye Xiu asked Loulan Slash.
“They’re on the way. There are two groups.” Loulan Slash answered.
Guild Seaside didn’t have much success with wild bosses in the past, so they had learned to be more vigilant every time they found a new opportunity; they would gather their troops together before they embarked on the conquest. Because of this, they were a lot slower than Heavenly Justice and Conquering Clouds.
“Two groups are fine. Let’s hurry up and finish it up here. You guys continue dealing with the boss. I will lead another group to deal with Seaside.” Ye Xiu decided.
Loulan Slash wasn’t dealing with the boss at the moment. He and his five people team were enjoying their massacre against Conquering Clouds along with the assistance of Ye Xiu’s group. Loulan Slash had only sent a portion of his people to deal with the boss Night Streak. Seeing that that portion was enough, everyone else continued to enjoy the slaughtering.
With sharp strategies on one side and overwhelming combat prowess on the other, Heavenly Justice beat Conquering Clouds swiftly. Although Heavenly Justice didn’t win without any casualties, all of the losses they sustained were rather negligible. The brilliant strategies minimized the damage they had taken.
Conquering Clouds quickly realized that their defeat was set in stone and struggling longer would only lead to more losses. The guild leader ordered the retreat with a long sigh. Under normal circumstances, Heavenly Justice would have just let them go, but considering that Seaside was arriving soon, they chased after Conquering Clouds, trying to kill off as many players as possible. Heavenly Justice wanted to eliminate the possibility that Conquering Clouds would come back to take an advantage of both sides once Heavenly Justice clashed with Seaside.
Conquering Clouds had the worst luck today as they were slaughtered all the way out of the Darkness Palace. Even the guild leader died in the chaos.
Without a leader, Conquering Clouds fell apart immediately. Ye Xiu stopped the bloodshed right away, and started reorganizing the troops because Seaside’s troops were now within sight.
Heavenly Justice had grasped total victory against Conquering Clouds, so everyone’s moral was through the roof right now. Loulan Slash spent no time on the boss. Instead, he followed Ye Xiu’s group all the way to the entrance. Using this small break, he delivered a rallying speech to his own guild, outlining the glorious victory they would have over Seaside.
“Stop listening to his bragging. Hurry up and get into positions!” Ye Xiu yelled out, and the crowd scattered instantaneously.
“What are we doing?” Loulan Slash was confused.
“Ambush!” Ye Xiu replied.
“Ambush?”
“Do you actually want to go head to head with them? Don’t you know how to use your information properly?” Ye Xiu questioned.
“But didn’t they already see us?” Loulan Slash was even more puzzled.
“Then they can chose to not enter. There’s only one entrance to the palace anyways.” Ye Xiu refuted. He had already regrouped all the players and sent everyone in hiding. He never planned on having a direct confrontation with Seaside, so instead, he had the ambush in mind from the start.
“Oh. I get it. I should get my guys to hide too.” Loulan Slash turned around to deliver the new command to his group.
“Tell me,” Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim stepped in front ofLoulan Slash, “If you come over here, then once the boss dies over there, who will pick up the loot?”
“F***!!” Loulan Slash jumped up in shock.
The right to pick the boss’ loot wasn’t free for all. It’s usually determined within the group, so only the guild leader or the person designated as the guild leader had this right. Loulan Slash hadn’t given this authority to anyone, so by default, he had to be the one to pick up the loot. However, he was so far away from the boss that the system had switch the right to pick loot to free for all, which definitely didn’t work for Loulan Slash.
After realizing this, Loulan Slash ran back like a shooting rocket. On the other hand, Ocean Ahead and the others stayed behind to join the upcoming battle.
But then again, just now was pretty exciting, but this time… seemed a little shameless?
Although something felt wrong, everyone hid themselves well. As they approached, Seaside noticed that there was a crowd at the entrance, but the mob quickly dispersed. Knowing that there was a wild boss, Seaside assumed that the scene they witness was probably the result of the clash between two guilds: What a wonderful opportunity for us!
No matter who the winner of that conflict was, both sides must have suffered severe losses. If this isn't the most perfect time to attack, what is?
Guild Seaside moved swiftly and was soon upon the entrance at the middle of mountain. Nonetheless, they maintained a cautious position and did not break their formation nor did they attack randomly, preparing against a potential assault.
Unfortunately, they had miscalculated the results of the conflict between Conquering Clouds and Heavenly Justice. They never imagined that Heavenly Justice had decimated Conquering Clouds by such a large margin. There were some minor casualties, but the moral of Heavenly Justice was incredibly high after that one-sided victory.
While guild Seaside was still thinking about how to torture a group of wounded after a battle, they stepped into the gateway of Dark Palace. A flood of skills exploded out without any warning.
“AMBUSH!!!” The guild leader of Seaside screamed, but he was not too worried. This was, in the end, a game. All that an ambush could usually accomplish was to provide some initial advantages since instant-kill between same level players was not a possibility. Unlike a real battlefield, where a successful ambush could take out a field of enemies. In a game, all it could do was lowering the enemy's’ HP somewhat, unless you focused firepower on a single target. Believing his opponents were just a group of wounded players, the leader of Seaside’s troops did not panic at all.
He told his troops to not panic, and then started observing the situation calmly. Within moments, this guild leader found himself in a total confusion.
Wasn’t this offense…. A little too violent?
The guild leader of Seaside noticed this whiling watching his own HP gauge slipping at a visible speed. The attacks were simply too fierce to be coming from the pitiful victims that he was imagining. On top of that, there were attacks coming from all directions, so he had no idea which way he should be retreating to.
“First team…”
“Fourth team…”
“Sixth team…”
Ye Xiu, on the other hand, was giving out a constant flow of commands and directing this surprise attack with patience. He had no intention of turning this into a frontal battle after gaining even thetiniest advantage at the beginning. However, Ocean Ahead and his friends had a different idea. After being contemptible for awhile, they decided to charge in and soon wrestled among Seaside’s players.
This gave the ambushed Seaside a sense of direction and focused their attacks on them.
In terms of numbers, guild Seaside had the upper hand. Still, Heavenly Justice had just won a perfect victory. Their high moral boosted their performance level way above the usual. Coupled with Ye Xiu’s ingenious strategies and the fact that only Loulan Slash was missing from the elite force, Heavenly Justice dominated the battlefield with ease. Guild Seaside’s confidence quickly deteriorated: Aren’t our people dying a bit too quickly?
Advantage? Where is our advantage?
Seaside’s guild leader finally began to panic. The current situation was not what he had expected in the slightest. He had dreamt of an easy victory. He had prepared to accept the struggle if the opponent was not that much weaker, but he couldn’t understand why the balance of winning was tilting in favor of the other side as it continued to progress.
“Third team, 4 o’clock direction, charge.”
“Ninth team, 8 o’clock, traps.”
“Sixth team, AoE attack, provide cover for the charging team…”
“First team, ignore them. Come back and regroup with the second….”
The attacking teams were also being put on track as well under Ye Xiu’s command. They maintained the violent attacks without sacrificing organization. Seaside’s ease and calmness had already been crushed. The guild leader was starting to give out directions like “stand your ground!”. If the people from Conquering Clouds were here, they would definitely feel a sense of deja vu. If someone could give them another chance to start over, they would retreat right at that moment without any hesitation.
Unfortunately for Seaside, since they had no idea what had happened before they had arrived, they still believed that there was still a chance for them to turn it around. The guild leader was still looking for an opening to turn the tide. As he looked around, he noticed that his people were disappearing at a frightening pace. Soon it seemed like the entire screen was filled with Heavenly Justice’s people, waving their blades around to reap the life of another one of his comrade. All the characters with guild Seaside’s tag above their head were either struggling or on the ground.
It was only then did Seaside’s guild leader realize that he had lost this fight completely. He had lost this boss fight without even seeing the boss once.
No matter how unsatisfied they were, they could not revive dead characters with their emotions, so Seaside had no choice but to retreat, which is the best thing they could do right now.
Seaside had a smooth retreat. Loulan Slash did not receive any more additional news of any newcomers, so they did not treat Seaside the way that they treated Conquering Clouds. Upon seeing them retreating, Ye Xiu let them off by easing the attacks before sending Loulan Slash a message. Loulan Slash did not have the spare time to reply. When the players rushed back to where the boss was, the announcement that Heavenly Justice had killed Night Streak showed up in the world channel.
Cheers erupted from the troops. All of that killing was for this moment.
Noticing that everything went without problems, Ye Xiu finally let his heart drop back down and started hoping for the right loot.
When the new message from Loulan Slash arrived, Ye Xiu was fully expecting a report of the loot, but the message had only one word, “F***!”
“What?” Ye Xiu was confused. This was a level 70 field boss’ drop, so no matter how unsatisfactory it was, one could always use it to trade for something he or she needed.
“I got killed by someone!” Loulan Slash messaged again.
“WHAT?”
“Deception! Wasn’t he your friend?” Loulan Slash asked.
“That guy…” Ye Xiu paused in surprise. He could guess most of the things that happened without asking and cried out hurriedly, “Steam Bun! Hurry up and guard the door!”
“Humph?” Steamed Bun looked up. After a second of confusion, he took off his headphones and walked towards the entrance of the room.
All three people in the room stared at him for a second, then Ye Xiu snapped exasperatedly, “I’m asking you to guard the door in the game!”
While Tang Rou was laughing hysterically, Wei Chen was full of seriousness, “This was a grave mistake on our part!”