It wasn’t long before Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun caught up to us. The Bald Wolf was a low-rank mount, but it still gave him a lot of movement speed. Of course he could catch up to the normal players. Right now, the highly-spirited wanderer was gripping his wolf’s hair with one hand to steady himself and carrying the Ardent Thunder Blade with the other. With his current Attack, he definitely deserved to be called a super expert in Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls!

……

We reunited with our main force before continuing on our journey. Just yesterday, Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls became the first guild in all the servers to hit Rank 5. This meant that we now had a max member cap of 15000 including Bloody Mercenaries. Even better, most our players were pros or hardcore gamers with high attendance, as evident from the fact that thirteen thousand of our players were marching with us right now. No one could underestimate a force this huge no matter who they were.

Moreover, we had three Famous Generals in our guild, so many of our experts were able to enjoy the powerful buffs. Both He Yi and I exchanged a smile with each other as we took note of the guild’s current strength.

Thud thud thud...

Gui Guzi rode up to us on his Armored Swordback Dragon and said in a low voice, "Boss Broken Halberd, Boss He Yi, I just scouted that new territory. First, it is as its name suggests, an undead city. Second, Warsky Alliance and their sub-guilds—about twenty thousand players as of the moment I checked—have already made it inside the territory. Third, I learned that Warsky went offline for half an hour for some business before returning online. After that, their defenses underwent a change…"

"A change?"

I frowned. "Can you be more specific?"

Gui Guzi grinned. "Flower Room, Mad Dragon, and Gods of Destruction had decided to help Warsky Alliance guard their territory. In fact, the temporary alliance was forged just a moment ago. If I’m not mistaken, Warsky must’ve called the guild leaders on the phone and cut a deal with them."

Xu Yang exclaimed in astonishment, "Dang, this is a bit too much, isn’t it? We now have to fight Flower Room, Mad Dragon, Gods of Destruction, and Warsky Alliance all together? Will Warsky only stop after he gathers a hundred thousand troops? Can we really take over City of Death with our inferior numbers?"

I gave him a reassuring smile. "Don’t worry, we’ll reach them before they can gather all the troops they want to. Also, the defenders aren’t the only ones who can forge temporary alliances. In fact, I dare say the attackers will outnumber Warsky Alliance and friends with ease since we’re hardly the only ones who want a piece of the pie. Warsky Alliance may have seized temporary ownership of the territory, but they’ve also made themselves the prime target. We’re free to act as we wish now that they are the ones who had to bear all the aggro."

Murong Mingyue smiled slightly. "Lu Chen’s right. Our chance is here, and it is up to us to seize it. Anyway, we can plan out our move after we reach the place. Frankly, Ancient Sword has the biggest chance out of any guild to win this territory tournament, so you lot had better give it your all and die for our glory, understand?"

"Mn mn!" The guys smiled awkwardly at Murong Mingyue in unison. "Beauty Mingyue is absolutely right!"

The priest glared back. "Where are you looking? Eyes on the road, people!"

……

Our thirteen-thousand-strong army passed by the foot of Dragonbone Mountain Range. Not far away, we spotted a couple of smaller guilds making their way toward the new territory as well. However, they only numbered in hundreds of thousands and were not our match at all. Their guild leaders wisely raised their weapons and hollered, "We’re changing directions toward the west! Do not engage Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls!"

Intentional or not, I couldn’t help but be pleased by the guilds’ gesture of submission. Meanwhile, He Yi and Gui Guzi had gone ahead to scout the path ahead of us. Both assassins and archers had become outdated in terms of scouting after we entered the era of cavalry. These days, high-level riders were the kings of everything.

It wasn’t long before our vision widened. We were now standing atop Howling Wind Plains, a map sitting in between Black Coast and Dragonbone Mountain Range, and the new territory was right in front of us.

Everyone started running like mad until a small, shabby-looking village appeared at the horizon. We could hardly conceal our astonishment when we arrived. Is this the fabled "City of Death"?

The rather small territory was surrounded by pitch black wooden fences. There were four gates facing each direction of the compass, and they looked like they were built from rusted iron and skulls. I said skulls because there were skulls embedded to the steel plates. Still, they probably had pretty high tenacity. A simple arrow tower was erected every ten steps across the walls, and each of them was guarded by three undead archers; Level 125 shadow-rank NPCs to be exact. They looked like they had pretty good Attack!

Other than that, there was a smithy, slaughterhouse, potion shop, clothing shop, and so on scattered all around the territory. Almost all the NPCs were skeletons, for obvious reasons. Finally, there was a large twenty-meter tall guild hall at the center of the territory that was surrounded by Level 125 shadow-rank undead swordsmen. Warsky was standing at the entrance of the guild hall and speaking to October Rain right now.

Outside the territory, I licked my lips and grinned widely. "What a beautiful undead city. Alright, I’m going to make it mine to turn it into the most powerful undead city in the world!"

He Yi nodded smilingly. "Yes. We can do all that after we seize it for ourselves!"

……

No one tried to invade the City of Death even though we had arrived. Although the territory looked shabby, it was still guarded by tens of thousands of players and a powerhouse like Warsky Alliance. If we attacked them recklessly, all thirteen thousand of our players would perish in no time. Moreover, the rules stated that any player who died in a territory war couldn’t enter said territory anymore, so every life was extremely precious here.

"Snowy Cathaya has arrived…" Xu Yang said at this moment.

We turned around and saw Lin Yixin in her silver armor as expected. She was accompanied by Purple Marquis, Shadow Chanel, Clear Perfume, and others.

He Yi and I exchanged a smile with each other before she said, "Go greet her, will you?"

So I walked out to Lin Yixin and said, "Yiyi, you came earlier than I thought…"

Lin Yixin smiled back before replying, "We’re the ones who should be saying that. Anyway, do you have a strategy yet? Warsky Alliance is clearly doing everything in their power to secure this territory!"

"Mn, do you have any strategy?"

"Not yet, Warsky Alliance’s allies are growing as we speak, so…"

Lin Yixin looked at the territory. One by one, the IDs of the smaller guilds were changing to blood-red before our eyes. I wondered what Warsky offered to persuade them to change sides so easily.

It wasn’t long before the territory was positively overflowing with defenders. Some of them were even standing outside the territory to avoid overcrowding.

It was at this moment Chaos Moon reported, "I got it. Warsky promised those guilds a 50% discount on everything such as repair fee, purchase fee, teleportation fee, and more if they helped them!"

"Fuck. No wonder so many people decided to switch sides…" Xu Yang looked dumbfounded.

I frowned. "50%? Can he really afford to pay the expensive taxes if he slashes everything by 50%? A guild territory ultimately belongs to the main city, and they are required to pay hefty taxes every day. How can they afford it if their income isn’t up to snuff? Pay from their own pockets?"

Lin Yixin burst into laughter. "You stupid, do you really think Warsky will fulfill his promise to all the guilds? Just you wait, he’ll find a million excuses to deny his promise once the territory is secured. October Rain is no simple woman."

"Mn, I know that. But what should we do now?"

"Easy. We assemble the guilds and spend the next two hours fake-attacking the City of Death. I would rather diminish their numbers now than deal with their massive army later. After that, we launch the real siege and do our utmost to invade the guild hall and seize the territory in two hours!"

"Okay!"

He Yi chose this moment to walk up to us and asked, "Before that, there’s one thing we must discuss. No matter what happens, only one guild may occupy this territory. So who shall lay claim to the City of Death, Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls or Snowy Cathaya?"

Lin Yixin looked conflicted. She stared back and forth between me and He Yi before admitting, "I haven’t thought about it yet…"

He Yi giggled. "Why don’t we make a gentleman’s agreement? Whoever enters the guild hall first will be the one to lay claim to the territory. The other party will assist in its defense. What do you think?"

Lin Yixin’s eyes lit up. "First come first serve? Hehe, I like this idea!"

I nodded. "Alright then. Whoever enters the guild hall first will get the territory!"

"Okay!"

……

Lin Yixin nodded and proceeded to stir the people’s hearts. She asked me to give her 2.5k gold before sending out a shout that was worth 5k gold:

Ding~!

System Announcement (Player "Wind Fantasy" Shout): Friends of Sky City, Warsky Alliance has occupied the new territory and summoned their accomplices to defend it. Snowy Cathaya and Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls have agreed to join forces so we may launch a joint assault on them! We hope that everyone will join in on the assault as well! Do you remember the map monopoly and malicious PK by Gods of Destruction at Venomous Wasp Forest? Do you remember the atrocious acts of Flower Room? Do you remember how Mad Dragon killed everyone who dared to defy them outside the starting village, and how Warsky Alliance threatened to kill you if you dare enter their map? If you haven’t forgotten the shame you suffered, if you wish to live free from the oppression of these domineering guilds, then join us and fight for freedom and fairness! I, leader of Snowy Cathaya, hereby promise everyone that we will never try to monopolize a map, be it at Sky Forest, Black Coast, Dragonbone Mountain Range, or anywhere else! In fact, we’ll actively beat down on such practices and ensure that everyone gets to enjoy a fair and harmonious gaming environment!

……

It wasn’t a long announcement, but it was extremely inflammatory. The fact was over 90% of gamers just wanted to have a good time and waste a bit of time. No one liked to be oppressed, killed, or kicked out of a map, but if you played an MMO, it was only a matter of time you ran into this problem. Therefore, Lin Yixin’s announcement had inevitably awakened the anger and passion of these players. Their guilds might be small, but they wouldn’t let the chance to prove their spirit slip past them!

"Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls will attack the eastern gate. Snowy Cathaya will attack the western gate."

Lin Yuxin smiled. "Remember, the first two hours of our assault is a feint. Two hours later, after the other guilds have depleted some of the defenders’ numbers, we’ll launch our real assault!"

"Okay!"

……

Lin Yixin and her generals left after that.

I glanced at the shabby eastern gate of the undead city before smiling. "Brothers, it’s time to surround the gate! But don’t attack yet. I want you to stare at October Rain and Coldmoon Rose until they grow overly conscious of our gazes!"