"Steady—kill it!"

Li Chengfeng knocked aside a Giant Purgatory Beast’s arm with his shoulder and retaliated with a powerful blow to the chest. He then followed up with a Dragonbone Flurry to the armor that was so devastating that the mob couldn’t help but stumble a couple of steps despite its weight. The high-level warrior’s offense was as reliable as ever.

"Mages, slow them down with Arctic Rain!" He Yi yelled.

It wasn’t long before ice started raining on the battlefield. Practically everyone’s Arctic Rain was sitting at max rank, and although the speed reduction effect wasn’t much, it still greatly reduced the pressure our frontliners were facing.

……

Whoosh…

He Yi’s Firelight Mouse was standing on its master’s shoulder. Shaking its head left and right, it cast the Fire Rain spell that dealt massive damage to the metal armor–type Giant Purgatory Beasts. The pet’s Magic Attack was in stark contrast with its unassuming size as it was a high-tier boss pet!

Swhoosh swhoosh swhoosh...

Bursts of healing lights slowly healed our frontliners dropping health and kept them from dying. All things considered, our priests were one of our stronger classes, especially because the girls were led by Murong Mingyue and Moon Dew. They were powerful figures whose breasts kept all the men and women in the world alive.

I hacked away at the Giant Purgatory Beast’s body. For me, the Silver Dragon Storm that triggered occasionally was just a bonus because I could’ve cut down these Giant Purgatory Beasts with ease even without it. The Heaven-stealing Sword was so powerful that the mobs’ Defense might as well be paper.

The battle became locked in stalemate even though we were mowing down the Giant Purgatory Beasts one after another. Right now, Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls, Snowy Cathaya, and The Monarch Descends had joined together to form a triangular formation with us as the point. The three of us were also the few battle lines that hadn’t been washed away by the mobs. A dozen or so middle-rank guilds were struggling to hold on, but it was thanks to them that we were in a much better place than we could’ve been had we been forced to spread out and plug the gaps that had appeared in many places.

Still, the Giant Purgatory Beasts had successfully broken through over 60% of the battle lines on the east side of Sky City. It was a massacre. Level 145 shadow-rank mobs were supposed to appear in the higher places of Dragonbone Mountain Range only, but now they were pouring out of the light screen and hitting the normal players like a tsunami. Of course it was going to be a massacre.

Observing one such scene from afar, Du Thirteen couldn’t help but comment, "Fuck, what a terrible sight…"

I nodded. "This is why you join a guild. In a large-scale battle like this, a defense line made of dozens or hundreds of players only is practically useless, not to mention that they were pretty weak to begin with. I dare say that only quarter of them have the stats to pierce the Giant Purgatory Beast’s Defense, so it became even more impossible for them to survive this battle."

At the back, the tamer Xue Lu looked at the frontline worriedly and said, "Thirteen, Lu Chen, stay alive, okay?"

"Don’t worry, Lulu!"

Du Thirteen mustered his courage and began duking it out with a Giant Purgatory Beast with all his might. He could lose face, but not in front of his girlfriend. Otherwise, he would be kicked out of their bed and forced to kneel before his keyboard. That would just be tragic.

……

Chaos Moon squeezed her way to my side before smiling mysteriously. "It looks like Du Thirteen and Xue Lu are very close…"

I replied, "Of course!"

Then Chaos Moon said, "It’s to the point where I can feel vibration through the walls every night…"

"..." What could I even say about that?

A few seconds later, I asked, "Thirteen and Xue Lu are staying in the same room in the base?"

"Yeah. It’s not like there are no spare rooms—in fact, there are over 20 empty rooms for them to choose from, but…" Chaos Moon curled her lips. "It’s not like I can’t understand their passion for each other after a long separation, but they clearly don’t understand our pain. Do you know how much mental torture us singles have to endure every day…"

"Why don’t you find your own partner then?"

"There’s no one who’s up to my expectations. Xu Yang’s too stupid, Gui Guzi’s too green, High Fighting Spirit’s too idiotic, and Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun is too vulgar. You are the only one who qualifies, Lu Chen…"

I couldn’t stop my facial muscles from twitching. "I don’t mind you praising me, but why must you shittalk everyone else in the guild at the same time?"

Countless people were shooting death glares at us as a matter of course. Gui Guzi, High Fighting Spirits and everyone else who got criticized looked like they wanted to drop their Giant Purgatory Beasts and challenge Chaos Moon to a duel.

I let out a bitter chuckle. "I understand how hard it is for a bunch of thirsty and resentful single men and women to live together, but just give it some time, will you? Once you’ve gotten used to their stupidity, greenness, idiocy, and vulgarity, you’ll find them a lot more pleasing to the eye than before. This is just how humans are; there is no environment that we can’t adapt to…"

Chaos Moon: "Fine, I’ll wait for my one true love to show up I guess…"

"Good luck!"

"..."

……

A while later, Li Chengfeng’s face turned frigid. "Fuck, a spy of mine just told me that the Giant Storm Beast was lured away by Warsky Alliance…"

I let out an "oh" of acknowledgement. "Their luck is pretty good today…"

"Should we snatch it from them?"

"It’s fine, there are at least another four bosses to kill. Plus, things may not necessarily go well for them…"

Li Chengfeng and I exchanged a knowing smile with each other. We both knew how powerful a Level 145 Spirit Rank boss could be, especially those with AoE skills. Warsky Alliance lacked a Famous General Skill that increased their Defense like Gui Guzi’s Knight God and Little Piglet’s Vajra, so they should suffer huge damage even if they successfully took out the boss.

A few minutes later, Gui Guzi smiled. "Boss Broken Halberd, I just received news that a couple hundred elites from Flower Room and Hegemon Palace are moving to snatch the boss from Warsky Alliance. If the boss doesn’t put enough pressure on them, they definitely will succeed..."

I shook my head. "WTF, Li Le and Wang Dongliang really need to dump a couple of points in their Intelligence stat. Even if we pretend that they have the strength to snatch the boss from Warsky Alliance, it doesn’t change the fact that they are taking a huge risk by splitting their troops. What happens if the quest fails, and we lose Sky City completely? This isn’t just a boon, you know, failure could impact all the servers in China…"

Li Chengfeng curled his lips. "Are you seriously putting stock in their intelligence? All these people can see are the tiny profits right in front of them. If they understood the concept of looking ahead, they wouldn’t still be terrible despite spending god knows how much money on this game…"

"I guess so…"

He Yi couldn’t help but tease us. "You two backbiters aren’t that much better than them, are you?"

Li Chengfeng laughed loudly, "What are you talking about, guild leader? This isn’t backbiting, this is setting the world to rights! Am I right, Lu Chen?"

I echoed his sentiment firmly. "Of course! We are righteous and magnanimous people, we would never commit a dishonorable act, much less shittalk someone behind their backs! Am I right, Gui Guzi?"

Gui Guzi started sweating heavily. "Why don’t you guys enjoy yourselves and leave me to clean up these mobs…"

He Yi: "..."

……

Nearly an hour later, Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls, Snowy Cathaya, and The Monarch Descends finally got enough breathing room to split up and take out the mobs in other places. The terrible battle ultimately ended in victory for the east side players, although the same couldn’t be said for the players on other sides. In fact, it was a miracle that some of them were still standing. After all, even the united front of Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls, Snowy Cathaya and The Monarch Descends had to fight long and hard before we finally overcame the sixth monster wave.

A long time later, a system announcement finally announced that Warsky had taken out the boss of the sixth wave and gained 1 Luck. Clearly, the opportunity was granted to him by his commanders because Warsky didn’t quite have the damage to deal the final blow. In their guild, Warsky was the spiritual leader, and he was so charismatic that his three CGL Hall of Famers would die for him if need be. That was a skill as well.

I looked around me and gasped a little. It was because nearly every other guild besides Snowy Cathaya, Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls and The Monarch Descends had been slaughtered to the last. They had barely enough people to construct a simple defense line, and that was not going to be enough to withstand the seventh monster wave at all.

He Yi pursed her lips. "I think the player faction is about to crumble…"

I nodded in agreement. "Mn, that definitely looks like the case..."

Li Chengfeng reported. "We lost over 800 players during the sixth wave just now, and none of them are able to revive close to the city. We will probably lose even more people when the next few waves hit us. Frankly, it will be a miracle if we hold on until the tenth wave…"

Xu Yang grinned reassuringly. "It’s fine. Even if we lose, we still got a lot out of this, didn’t we? Just look at the equipment we got…"

"Yeah!"

I ordered, "Little Gui, sweep the battlefield with your cavalry immediately. Pick up only top-tier equipment. Xu Yang, take a few people with you and do the same. Many players dropped their equipment when they died to the Giant Purgatory Beasts, and it’d be a shame to let them go to waste…"

"Got it. Be back in a jiffy!"

……

It was at this moment a beautiful female rider rode up to us. It was none other than Lin Yixin herself. Getting off her Frostscythe Warhorse and grabbing its reins, she greeted He Yi with a smile, "Good afternoon, Sister He Yi~"

He Yi nodded back with a smile. "Nice to see you too. How is Snowy Cathaya faring? Do you think you can block the next wave?"

"We’re more or less doing okay, but it was a difficult battle for sure…" Lin Yixin replied. "The mobs are a bit too powerful, so there were moments where things were quite dangerous. Plus, the NPCs still haven’t mobilized their troops yet. Maybe we all must die before they’ll make a move…"

I replied, "Well, the game is programmed so that the players can have all the ‘fun’ until the total player count falls below a certain threshold. Only then the NPCs will enter the battlefield. Just give it your all. No matter what happens, Gods of Destruction and Warsky Alliance are sure to fall first…"

"Yeah!"

Lin Yixin said with a giggle, "I’m not worried. I just received news that Warsky Alliance, Gods of Destruction, and Flower Room are still neck-deep in the Giant Purgatory Beasts. They haven’t even cleared out 70% of their mobs yet, and it’ll be a while before they’re finally done. I wouldn’t have had the time to come over and chat otherwise. Oh right, I believe we should snatch the next couple bosses no matter which side they spawn after this. It’s not like the rest of the guilds have the strength to take them on anymore, even if they want to…"

I nodded. "Alright, we’ll do just that!"