A screaming High Fighting Spirits charged to the front and swung his battle axe, hitting Red Dust, a magic knight with a bloody Barrier Break. Red Dust was the vice leader of the subguild and a pretty famous expert in his own right, and his HP and Defense reflected that strength.

Invincible penetrated Red Dust’s shield and dealt a whopping 15k damage in one go. It wasn’t enough to one-shot the magic knight, however. Red Dust immediately retaliated with a combo that deleted nearly half of High Fighting Spirits’ health.

"You want to die?!"

High Fighting Spirits grinned madly as he grabbed Red Dust’s arm and swung his axe again, this time unleashing his signature move, Xiezhi Howl. The skill instantly deleted Red Dust’s mount tenacity, killing the mount and turning the magic knight back into a foot soldier.

Without a mount, Red Dust was no match for High Fighting Spirits. Although his priests tried to keep him alive, High Fighting Spirits still took out the poor bastard in another two strikes.

……

Clang!

I clashed swords against an enemy warrior and sent him stumbling backward. Fighting On All Fronts was one of the rare few warriors who had the skill to parry my attack. He was also an expert of the subguild, and judging from the text floating above his head he had been signed by Founder Group.

The direct strike didn’t hit flesh, so I dashed to his flank and hit him with a War Crush and Thousand Ice Slash instead. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, the warrior died before he could do anything.

Thud thud!

Suddenly, pain blossomed from my chest as two iron arrows hit me. It was the work of Purple Dawn. He then unleashed another Spiraling Arrow Blade and deleted another 4000 points from my health pool. Top-class archers had always been in a pain in the ass, but I was sure that Purple Dawn’s bow had a property or passive that ignored Defense to a certain degree because the damage he had dealt wasn’t normal. I was wearing two pieces of Earth-grade equipment, the Soul Suppressing Cloak and Crimson Rock Dragon Armor, and he still hit me for thousands of damage when the average archer could only deal two-digit damage to me. This was only possible if his weapon largely ignored Defense.

"Beiming, suppress Purple Dawn!"

The Blazing Shadow Bow gleaming menacingly in Beiming Xue’s hand as she darted across the battlefield and fired eight arrows in quick succession at Purple Dawn. The enemy archer had no choice but to retreat because of the risk of instantly dying if some of these arrows managed to crit. As a dark archer, Beiming Xue’s attacks were empowered by Undead Energy X. Adding that to her awesome set of equipment, even tanks would find it difficult to defend themselves.

The pressure Purple Dawn’s archer party put on us immediately lessened when he retreated. Gui Guzi immediately raised his spear, Rainbow, and shouted, "Brothers and sisters, charge!"

Almost a hundred Fireblade Cavalrymen activated their Charge and trampled our enemies’ hopes and dreams into pieces. Countless enemy frontliners collapsed to the ground as the riders’ blades stabbed into the shields, armors or both. Working like a well-oiled machine with our backliners, they easily tore many holes in the enemy’s formation in no time.

Suddenly, a Level 125 warrior of Candle Dragon raised his spear and shouted angrily, "Do not panic! We must protect the Martial God and the War Gods until they are done with the boss! We are Candle Dragon, and we will never retreat! In the name of faith and dreams, charge!"

I wasn’t expecting someone from Candle Dragon to have the courage to rise up and raise everyone’s morale, although in hindsight it made sense that countless talents would be attracted by Candlelight Shadow’s fame and flock to his side, false it might be.

The warrior was mid-charge when his surroundings suddenly turned icy cold. The next moment, the grass turned into ice, and a devastating storm illuminated by starlight dropped onto the warrior’s head. He lost most of his HP, and his guildmates were collapsing all around him. Another Dragon’s Roar later, the Level 125 warrior died as well.

Thud!

Stranger of Three Lifetimes tapped the ground with her scepter and said with a smile, "Disciplinary action complete. Please, continue!"

I had to suppress an exclamation of admiration. The Level 125 warrior must have over 19k HP, but Stranger of Three Lifetimes still killed him with an AoE magic spell. Just how high was her Magic Attack? I couldn’t help but recall Luo River God of the Capital and how loud my heart thumped every time I faced her in the competitive arena. Even with my Magic Resist, she could’ve easily destroyed me if I wasn’t careful. Past a certain point of Magic Attack, a mage was extremely terrifying. Their offensive power was deadly enough, but their Magic Shields made them almost unkillable as well. If a mage successfully dodged Barrier Break, then the upper hand for the next six seconds was all theirs.

……

He Yi, Xu Yang, Li Chengfeng, Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun, and Chaos Moon were all fighting at the frontlines and killing key players with Barrier Breaks. They had undoubtedly become the nightmare of all the players of Candle Dragon’s first subguild. I wouldn’t even be surprised if some of them were traumatized when the battle was over.

Chaos Moon was the standout of this battle. After obtaining a complete set of Spirit-grade equipment and the AoE skill "Rock Crush", her strength had climbed to a whole new height. Every time she swung her sword and conjured the cyan energy that looked like a mountain range, she put massive pressure on her opponents both physically or mentally. It was because Rock Crush’s visual effects were incredible.

Even less powerful players like Du Thirteen and Yamete were charging fearlessly and securing kills left and right.

Facing the full strength of Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls, the first subguild of Candle Dragon couldn’t keep up their defense and crumbled completely just 10 minutes later. Despite numbering over a thousand people, the fight quickly devolved into a one-sided slaughter.

Crack!

After taking out 4 warriors with Burning Blade Slash, I discovered that I had punched through the enemy’s formation completely and appeared on the opposite side. I looked to the open space in front of me and found a giant dragon swiping and spitting its breath at the players on the ground while the main tanks—Candlelight Shadow, Blue Sky Scar, Tempest Shadow, and so on—tried to endure the attacks.

Rumble rumble rumble...

Candle Dragon’s super mage, God’s Dance, was throwing fireball after fireball at the boss. The Great Earth Wind Dragon was a wind-type monster, so fire magic countered it perfectly. Clearly, God Dance was the main damage dealer of this fight, and almost every magic spell she cast dealt over ten thousand damage to the boss. It was amazing.

……

He Yi, Gui Guzi, and Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun quickly joined up with me on their horses. Behind me, Li Chengfeng, Chaos Moon, and the others were cleaning up the remainders of Candle Dragon’s first subguild. After giving us some minor assistance, Stranger of Three Lifetimes and Blazing Hot Lips also came to us and stopped just shy of three hundred yards away from the boss. Currently, the boss's HP was hovering at around 30%, and even with the power of Candle Dragon it should take them 15 minutes or so to defeat it. We still had time.

"Why didn’t you attack Candle Dragon, Momo?" I asked.

Stranger of Three Lifetimes curled her lips. "There’s no way I’m going to play the cannon fodder, okay? Look, that’s Purple Lily over there. Oh, I also spot Snowy Cathaya and The Monarch Descends chatting with each other in the southeast direction. Even Warsky Alliance has shown up already. All we need to do is wait, and someone will lose patience and make the first move for us, especially since the boss is giving Candle Dragon a lot of trouble."

"Yeah."

I nodded and counted heads for a bit. Although I had expected this from our earlier conversation, I still couldn’t help but be impressed by the fact that over 2000 Candle Dragon players had come to the B8 floor. It wasn’t easy to gather this many players this quickly on the eighth floor no less. Loathsome Candlelight Shadow might be, there was no denying the power of his influence and strength.

Soul of the Wild smiled a little. "Hmph, who would step out when Candlelight Shadow still has his Ghost God Prophecy? Or maybe you would like to be a gentleman and tank the spell for us, Lu Chen?"

I shook my head rapidly. "No way, I’m definitely not dying here. I’ll wait until Candlelight Shadow uses his Ghost God Prophecy on someone…"

Lasting hid a giggle with her hand. "Exactly. Everyone’s afraid of Ghost God Prophecy because top-class players such as Lin Bing Dou Zhe and Laughing at the Heavens have already died to it, and they won’t be the last. Just wait, the next person he’s going to kill is either a guild leader or even a CGL Hall of Famer!"

I replied, "Who knows? Just wait, someone will lose their cool before us. We have three dragon scales, so we can still send three parties to the B9 floor even if we lose this boss. But most of these guilds don’t even have one dragon scale, so they’ll definitely act before us."

"Well, you’re right!"

Currently, Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls had three dragon scales, Snowy Cathaya had one dragon scale, Warsky Alliance had two dragon scales, and Candle Dragon had one dragon scale. Everyone else—Purple Lily, Peach Garden, Gods of Destruction, the Top 10 guilds of Vanished God City, and so on—had nothing at all. That was why I was in no hurry to commit suicide. Someone would play the cannon fodder for us, and all we had to do was wait.

……

As expected, a group of players started charging Candle Dragon before the boss's HP had even dropped to 20%. It was Peach Garden led by Indigo Collar, and they were about 700 strong. Unfortunately, they didn’t nearly have enough players to deal any real damage to Candle Dragon.

Candle Dragon shot a glance at Peach Garden before ordering, "Blue Sky, Tempest Shadow, you two go eliminate Indigo Collar. Hmph, this annoying fly never picks a good time…"

"Got it!"

Blue Sky Scar ran toward Peach Garden. Tempest Shadow led a group of riders and clashed against Peach Garden’s players. It was immediately obvious that Peach Garden stood no chance at all as the initial charge alone cost them plenty of frontliners. At the very least, they were weaker compared to Blue Sky Scar and Tempest Shadow.

Seeing that Peach Garden was about to collapse, another person finally lost their patience—

Clang!

Li Chengfeng pulled out his Tempest Sword and growled, "I can’t wait any longer! I’m going to fuck Candlelight Shadow up right now!"

Then, he and his party charged forward before me or He Yi could say anything.

"Fuck, this guy…"

I should’ve seen this coming. Li Chengfeng really, really hated Candlelight Shadow, and in the end, he just couldn’t control himself.