If you counted the five guild alliance, the wild boss of the Gray Corner, Brawler King Dinglong, had attracted twelve guilds. This was discounting those who might have gotten the message and were on their way.
With twelve guilds, there would be at least one elite team from each guild, making it a total of over a thousand characters clustered in this corner of the Grey Corner Blackmarket. There were quite a lot of people, but since it was a market, the terrain was full of stereoscopic buildings. The characters were scattered inside the buildings, outside the buildings, some on higher levels and some on lower ones. Even so, the place was still filled with characters. No space was left for the five guild alliance that had arrived a little late. And what aggro they had! As soon as they arrived, almost all the characters there had turned to look at them, prepared to fight.
"What's this? Did you all form an alliance or something?" Ye Xiu asked loudly.
It would have been better had he not asked, but now that he had, everyone was going with it.
"That's right, we're getting rid of you first!" It wasn't clear who exactly replied, but if they could represent the group to speak up, then they would have to be someone whose opinion was respected in the group.
"Tch, do you even know where I am?" Ye Xiu mocked.
Looking around, the crowd realized that they really didn't know. Although pro players were skilled and had good audition skills, everyone was standing in clusters right now. While they could figure out the general area where Ye Xiu's voice was coming from, they couldn't find Ye Xiu's exact location. Ye Xiu wasn't like them, who used their main class on their alts. This guy was an unspecialized now, the combination of all 24 classes. This made his alt account situation rather complicated, too.
"Who cares where you are? If anyone dares come any further, we'll kill them all!" Another unknown person spoke up with a threat this time. However, considering how things were looking right now, it didn't seem like an empty threat. They were very united even if it was forced.
"Alright then, we won't go any further. We'll just stand and watch. You all go ahead," Ye Xiu said.
Over a thousand people simultaneously sent a sweat emoji and the speech bubbles that popped up covered a huge area at once. It was an impressive sight, to say the least.
"Old Ye, you can't just do that!" Someone jumped out of the crowd to speak. Everyone looked over. It was a Spitfire from Tyranny, fiddling with the automatic handgun in his hand.
"Yo, it's you. How have you been? Good?" Ye Xiu asked.
"I'm very well, thank you," Zhang Jiale said.
"Did you cry?"
"Fuck off!" Zhang Jiale erupted.
"I told you ages ago. Tyranny isn't good enough. If you want to win the championships, you should've come to Happy," Ye Xiu said.
Boos immediately rose from the crowd. Even though this was God Ye Xiu, who had the most championship titles under his belt, everyone felt that this sort of boast was just crazy.
"Who are you calling not good enough?" A Striker walked out of Tyranny's formation. After talking so much, Ye Xiu's character had been exposed. This time, he was using a Launcher.
"Old Han came too? How lively. I like it. I feel like we pro players should come in game more often when we're free to spar together, improve together, advance together," Ye Xiu said in a serious tone.
"Stop spewing bullshit and disappear already. Or do you want us to send you off?" A Blade Master from Blue Brook also came out. Just from the speed at which he talked, it was doubtlessly Huang Shaotian.
Zhang Jiale, Han Wenqing, Huang Shaotian!
The three surrounded Ye Xiu ready to attack. This face off alone was enough to have many people gasping! This was a face off that would only ever be seen in All-Stars! Not only that, the show at All-Stars wasn't as intense or serious as the competition for bosses.
"What are you doing? Trying to bully me with numbers?" Ye Xiu had his character back away as the elite teams of the five guilds behind him stepped forward threateningly.
"Either way, don't even think of causing trouble this time." Thunderclap's Xiao Shiqin had come over as well. Seeing that the situation wasn't bad, what with everyone so aggressively against Ye Xiu's presence, he didn't want to waste the chance to cooperate and kick Ye Xiu out of the competition.
"I'm not causing trouble. Can't I even take a walk here now? What do you want? Are you big guilds clearing the place, having your pro players bully others?" Ye Xiu yelled.
Hearing this, the crowd's fuse was blown. This guy was just being shameless!
"Why are we talking with this guy, just kill him!" Someone yelled.
"Who dares speak to me like that?" Ye Xiu yelled back.
With so many people and so many voices, no one could immediately tell who it was that spoke, but no one cared either. However, with five guild elite teams standing behind him, Han Wenqing and the others didn't dare charge over. Otherwise, that guy would definitely order the five hundred people behind him to drown them in people. Hoping that he would come out and 1v3 them was a naive thought.
As a result, not only was the attention of pro players turned over this way, the elite teams were as well. Everyone began to advance as one. This time, it wasn't just Ye Xiu's character but all of the five guilds behind him who began to retreat.
"What are you doing? You want to fight, huh? You aren't even going after the boss and you want to PK? That's unfair!" Ye Xiu said.
"If you don't want to fight, then leave. We won't let you have this boss."
"You think we're so easy to scare?" Ye Xiu called out.
"If you continue, it won't be good for anyone. Why don't you just take your people and leave?" Yu Wenzhou said from Blue Rain's side.
"Why do we have to go and not you?" Ye Xiu asked.
"Because you have no chance of winning." Yu Wenzhou continued to chat with Ye Xiu patiently.
"Heh, we might not have a chance of winning in a fight, but are we here to fight?" Ye Xiu suddenly laughed.
"Hm?" This reply had Yu Wenzhou lost for words. Then, he looked around, only to see that all the players from the guilds were facing off against the five guild alliance aggressively, cracking their fists and ready to fight at any time.
"Boss!" Yu Wenzhou, who was usually very composed, called out suddenly, his tone a little pained. At the same time, someone at their rear yelled out, "Boss!!!" as well.
That's right, boss!
Everyone's aggro had turned to Ye Xiu and everyone had forgotten that they were here to fight for a wild boss and not for Ye Xiu. Thus, when everyone's attention was elsewhere, a small team appeared at the other end of the Corner. They had no guild tags above their heads, like a normal passing team of players. They suddenly attacked, immediately pulling Brawler King away.
Was this a coincidence?
Of course not!
Yu Wenzhou was one hundred percent sure that this was one of Ye Xiu's schemes. This was his plan. He had managed to completely divert their attention.
All the teams hurried to respond, but that small team was definitely prepared and had planned for this. They knew exactly where to drag the boss, darting in and out of the streets of this black market smoothly. It was the elite teams of the guild that were having a lot of trouble. Operating as a whole in places like this made them clumsy.
It was a good thing that every guild had pro players. They didn't have the time to take care of their entire team and all rushed out individually, using their own judgement and methods to search for the boss.
Huang Shaotian, who had been at the frontlines of the face off against Ye Xiu, had managed to get his Blade Master to the frontlines of their hunt for the wild boss in the blink of an eye. With Yu Wenzhou's calm and clear analysis and arrangements, he quickly caught up.
"Where do you think you're going?!!" Huang Shaotian yelled, his Blade Master jumping down from a roof nearby and using Sword Draw midair. A flash of sword energy gathered on his blade and flew out. The attack seemed about to knock down a bunch of people, but then someone in the team suddenly charged out, their spear swinging up and dispersing the light. The Sword Draw had been parried.
Having to parry when only able to see the flash of light caused by the sword energy from the attack and not the blade itself was something you could do if you relied on mechanics alone. Huang Shaotian hadn't expected that his strike would be unsuccessful. Out of Happy's members, only Ye Xiu would be able to this. So who was this person?
Huang Shaotian had no time to wonder. The Battle Mage struck out with his spear once again and Huang Shaotian hurriedly pulled back his sword to guard in midair. He had wanted to use this strike to glide through the air and continue to chase the boss, but he hadn't expected that the other would realize his intentions and switch from a stab to a upwards flick. Huang Shaotian's Blade Master wasn't knocked to one side by this attack and was instead flicked upwards.
"Who are you?" Huang Shaotian was shocked. The Battle Mage's mechanics weren't what was shocking, but rather his understanding of his intentions and judgements. This definitely wasn't something that Happy's rookies could do.
"Who do you think?" The other retorted.
"Holy crap how did you get here weren't you a Launcher how did you become a Battle Mage?" Huang Shaotian yelled in surprise.
"I said, didn't I? I have eight computers open, logged into eight alts. Didn't you believe me?" Ye Xiu said, his spear once again striking towards Huang Shaotian's Blade Master, but this time, he directly used an ultimate, Furious Dragon Strikes the Heart. Huang Shaotian's Guard skill was on cooldown, so he couldn't block the attack. Instead, he used a Rising Dragon Slash to pull his character higher in the air and dodge the attack. Then he saw that Ye Xiu's Battle Mage had long since canceled the skill and left him in the air to run back to his team.
"Fuck, don't you dare run!" Huang Shaotian hollered.
"Who's running?" Ye Xiu replied.
Huang Shaotian looked over again. Ye Xiu hadn't run. It was just that his Battle Mage had darted over by a body unit and blocked off Huang Shaotian's path beforehand. He had never planned to leave with his team, but stay and stall Huang Shaotian.
"Fuck!" Huang Shaotian immediately understood his intentions. By the time he was finished with Ye Xiu, who knew where the boss would be?
"Why are you such a slippery bastard?!" Huang Shaotian yelled.
"Hahaha, you should learn from me!" Ye Xiu didn't mind chatting with Huang Shaotian some more.
However, would a thing like speaking interfere with Huang Shaotian's combat ability? Of course not. He kept chattering on and on even as he charged forwards. His intention wasn't to fight Ye Xiu to the death, but to charge past him. But...
Lu Hanwen's Blade Master arrived, Zheng Xuan's Spitfire arrived, and Yu Wenzhou's Warlock also arrived. Huang Shaotian had worked hard to find the boss, so obviously he'd only share his intel with his own people and not the other guilds. The ones who had gotten his memo and came were all Blue Rain's people. Yet when they arrived, they found Huang Shaotian still here facing off against Ye Xiu. Where was the boss? It had left this street ages ago.
"It went that way. Don't worry about me, you just hurry and chase after it," Huang Shaotian called out.
"You think I'm not here or something?"
"Senior, you want to block us four on your own?" Lu Hanwen asked in shock.
"Don't listen to his bullshit! Hurry and give chase, little guy," Huang Shaotian yelled.
"I'm really worried for your IQ. You think you're the only one who knows how to call reinforcements?" As his words fell, Blue Rain's four pros were instantly surrounded.