I shivered in excitement. God damn, the territory system I’ve been anticipating is finally here!

“Beiming, where is the territory, and how goes the battle situation?”

“I have no idea. Its coordinates haven’t been announced yet!” Beiming Xue said. “But don’t worry, big bro, we still have time. A Spirit Rank boss called the Death Lord will be spawned at a random location in an hour. Players must first kill this Death Lord, claim a loot item called ‘Territory Token’, and use it to claim temporary ownership over the new territory. The ownership becomes permanent after the player’s guild successfully defends the territory for 8 hours straight.”

“Oh, I see…” I replied. “We’re coming back immediately. We’re counting on you to command the guild until we return, Beiming!”

“No problem, but seriously, take your time when you drive home. There’s no need to be hasty.”

“Got it!”

……

I hung up the call. Oh boy, it looks like today’s going to be a busy day. The girls had already figured out what was going from the bits and pieces of my conversation. When Tariq asked us what was going on, I sent him away on some random task, finished lunch as fast as possible and rushed back to the workshop with the girls. Everyone here understood just how important the first territory was. Whoever managed to claim it first would get a head start over all other guilds, and benefit greatly during the latter stages of the guild development. Therefore, Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls must have this territory to ourselves. To lose it was to fall behind our competitors in the conquest for Sky City.

Inside the car, Murong Mingyue said excitedly, “The Death Lord is a Spirit Rank boss, so its loot should be pretty good, right? Still, at least hundreds of thousands of players will be fighting for the right to kill it. This is not going to be easy…”

I nodded. “Let’s observe the battlefield first before coming to a decision. If necessary, we can even give up this boss to preserve our troop strength. But of course, if we can kill it, then there is no reason we shouldn’t strike first and gain the upper hand!”

“Mn, I like what you’re saying!”

Suddenly, Murong Mingyue shot me a long look before smiling. “Boy, if we get into a fight with Snowy Cathaya, you won’t throw again like you did at Who Will Rise, will you?”

I replied awkwardly, “Of course not. This is different.”

While slamming down on the gas pedal, He Yi said with a smile, “That’s enough, Mingyue. Lin Yixin is an extraordinarily beautiful girl, so it’s only natural that Lu Chen couldn’t muster the heart to kill her. Our Lu Chen would never resort to heartless methods to achieve his goals, right?”

Murong Mingyue giggled. “Yes, yes, Lu Chen is absolutely perfect in every way. Seriously Eve, you don’t even try to hide your favoritism…”

He Yi: “...”

……

After we returned to the workshop, I logged into the game immediately!

Swhoosh!

The moment I appeared in Sky City’s inn, I sheathed my sword and ran out of the door. At the same time, I received a party invite from He Yi. I accepted it immediately. He Yi’s Royal Road was pretty good, and I decided that there was no need to change party leaders unless the situation demanded it. Currently, He Yi had enough Tactics to boost her party members’ stats by 30%, and the boosts to Defense and HP were especially noteworthy. For example, I currently had almost 16k HP. Just how many people could kill me one on one like this? It was no wonder we lost to Snowy Cathaya back at Who Will Rise. Lin Yixin’s Bombshell boosted all her party members’ stats by almost 40% at the time.

“Finally! We’ve been waiting for you!”

Beiming Xue called out to us inside the party channel. “I’ve already instructed Gui Guzi and the others to spread out across Sky City. We should be able to locate the boss immediately after it spawns.”

But I said, “No, that’s too risky. Beiming, tell our core players to gather at the center of Sky City. Once the boss appears, we’ll try to get to it in 20 minutes at most. If we can hit the boss with 500 high-level players and 3 Famous General Skills, there’s no way someone can nab it from under our noses!”

“Alright, I’ll inform everyone about the new instructions right away!”

The next moment, Beiming Xue ordered inside the guild channel, “All Top 100 archers, warriors, magic knights, mages, wanderers and priests in the guild, please gather at Sky Forest (10000, 10000) right now. We will be the flex team responsible for reacting to the situation and intercepting the boss at first notice!”

Our dark archer wielded great authority in our guild because she was a player on the Heavenly Ranking and a corps commander. In fact, she was second only to me, He Yi, Xu Yang, and Murong Mingyue in terms of authority. Everyone knew that the guild leader, the two vice leaders and Beiming Xue were living together in a workshop since long ago, and plenty of scandalous rumors had popped up from time to time. Worse, Pure Love seemed resentful that Beiming Xue got to live with me but not her, so every time we met, the first question she asked was whether I had slept with Beiming Xue already. It was worrying to say the least.

“Come on, let’s clear out the mobs for our players first!”

I pulled out the Heaven-stealing Sword and went to the eastern bridge with He Yi, Murong Mingyue, and Beiming Xue behind me. When we were at the edge of the forest, He Yi summoned her mount and got up her horse. The Snow Domain Windchaser neighed loudly as our beautiful guild leader said, “I’ll open a path for you all. Try not to fall behind too much...”

Jealousy gripped us for a moment, but He Yi had already taken off toward the assembly coordinate in a straight line. Almost none of the low-level wild bears and wild wolves could take more than a hit from He Yi, and she was only using ranged attacks too, the energy beams dealing almost 8000 damage per hit. A mounted knight was seriously powerful, so much so that even I couldn’t help but feel envious of her!

……

Beiming Xue was darting through the forest with incredible speed, the natural obstacles almost incapable of slowing her down at all. The Archer class was known as the king of the forest for a reason. Inside a forest, they had the absolute advantage over any class.

Murong Mingyue was slightly slower than Beiming Xue. She was a cloth-armor class, and her boots didn’t add too much movement speed. Her current speed was literally the fastest she could go.

Pa!

I placed a hand around Murong Mingyue’s waist and put strength into my legs, artificially enhancing Murong Mingyue’s movement speed with my own. It wasn’t much, but every little help counted. At the same time, I said, “Sis, your movement speed is terrible…”

Murong Mingyue twisted in my arms while giggling, “Stop, I’m ticklish…”

Me: “Sis, you’re a girl, you know. Please behave yourself…”

Murong Mingyue: “Mu…”

It wasn’t long before our four-man party reached the designated spot. Faster than all of us, He Yi was already swinging her spear and killing the dozens of Level 125 elite bears hogging the area. The mobs dropped shitton of Big Magic Stones that no one was even interested to look at until High Fighting Spirits finally came over and picked them all up. Every yuan counted for that man.

As time passed, more and more people started to show up. Li Chengfeng, Xu Yang, Gui Guzi, Chaos Moon, Moonlight Stone, Moon Dew, and many more familiar faces were all here. Before we knew it, Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls had gathered all sorts of talents except a super mage like Luo River God of the Capital. Of course, we weren’t the only guild who was facing this problem. Practically every guild except Purple Lily had a shortage of high-level mages due to how rare they were, and mages with unrivaled finesse even more so.

Xu Yang laughed loudly. “The boss will be spawning in 20 minutes. I’m so excited!”

Chaos Moon shot him a glance. “You took viagra before you entered the game?”

Xu Yang: “...”

Li Chengfeng pulled out his own sword and echoed Xu Yang's laughter. “It’s been a while since we fought like this. Let’s hope that this Spirit Rank boss is a generous one. We can get a Territory Token if we kill the Death Lord, right? Let’s do our best to become the first guild to march into the territory!”

“Mn!”

I nodded. “Give me your all, everyone! We cannot afford to lose today’s battle!”

“Ohh!”

Every Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls player around me nodded in unison. I was glad to see how united we were.

……

Beep!

It was at this moment I received a message from Lin Yixin: “Are you guys assembling your forces, Lu Chen?”

“Yep. Did you hear anything about the boss yet?”

“No. What’s wrong?”

“Yiyi, it’ll be a bloodbath once the territory appears. What are your thoughts on this matter?”

Lin Yixin giggled. “Are you afraid that we would become enemies?”

“Mn. This is one fight we cannot be anything but foes.”

“It’s fine.” Lin Yixin smiled. “Snowy Cathaya and Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls will work together to eliminate all forces until one of us has officially claimed temporary ownership of the territory. Then, we will fight a fair battle to decide the ultimate winner. What do you say?”

“Agreed!” I declared. “I won’t be as merciful as the last time, Yiyi.”

“Hehe, neither will I!”

We both understood how important a territory was to a guild. The upcoming conflict could only be described as a bloodbath. Whatever our thoughts might be, we were both saddled with the responsibility to fight for our guild’s future and dreams, so fight we must.

……

Twenty minutes later, a system announcement dinged across Sky City—

Ding~!

System Announcement: All players, please be informed that a Level 145 Spirit Rank boss “Death Lord” has appeared at location (27842, 762) with the Territory Token. Whoever kills the boss and claims the Territory Token first will gain the right to use the teleportation formation of the first territory!

……

“Motherfucker, that’s so far away from here!”

I swore and swallowed the rest of my groans. It was bad enough that the boss spawned quite far away from us, but the ones who killed the boss and claimed the Territory Token first also got the sole right to use the first territory’s teleportation formation. What this meant was that the players of that guild could teleport infinitely into the first territory and aid in the defense no matter how many times they died. It might even be too unfair an advantage. I wondered which guild could kill the boss first?

Gui Guzi’s pulled the reins on his Armored Swordback Dragon and shouted, “Everyone, follow me! It’s time to kill a boss!”

……

Meanwhile, a cool-headed He Yi stared at me with those bewitching eyes of hers and asked, “The boss spawned too far away from us. It’ll take the main bulk of our forces 15 minutes just to get there, and someone would’ve engaged the boss by then. What should we do?”

I said, “You and Gui Guzi have mounts, so I want the two of you to go ahead and hopefully engage the boss before anyone else. If we can snatch the boss’s aggro at least, then the other guilds can’t have absolute control over the boss!”

“Mn, got it!”

After mouthing her agreement, He Yi and her Snow Domain Windchaser blitzed across the forest and quickly vanished to the horizon. She was faster than even Gui Guzi. This time, most of our players weren’t just watching her back with the kind of admiration one normally reserved for an extraordinarily beautiful woman. This time, there was pride in their eyes as well; pride in the strength of their guild leader!