Beep!

It was a message from Ling Xueshang. "Lu Chen, this is a ploy against us. I heard through the grapevine that Warsky had sent October Rain to negotiate with the guild leaders of Hall of Immortality, Throne Seeker, and Rose of the Holy Domain at Vanished God City. She succeeded. That is why the three great guilds launched a raid against Dark Moon City. The guilds of Sky City—Warsky Alliance, Hegemon Palace, Gods of Destruction, and more—aren’t our only opponents this time. If we count their main guild and subguilds together, each one of the guilds from Vanished God City has over one hundred thousand troops in total. The situation is extremely disadvantageous toward us!"

I smiled a little before replying, "Xueshang, just focus on leading your guild and tackle the third guild territory with Snowy Cathaya. Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls will deal with this ourselves. Hmph, the three guilds of Vanished God City aren’t so powerful that they’re worthy of my attention, so don’t worry. If they come to Sky City, then I will fulfill my responsibilities as the host and ensure that they all die on this land!"

Ling Xueshang replied with a smiley emoji and a question, "You sure you want to fight this on your own?"

"Of course! What else should we do during this boring afternoon?"

"Hehe. Alright! On behalf of all the players of The Monarch Descends, thank you very much for your support, Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls!"

"You’re welcome. By the way, I’ve sent Gui Guzi and three thousand elite riders to intercept Warsky Alliance’s men at the western entrance of Sky City, but that is all the players I can spare for you. You must do the rest yourself."

"Got it. Let’s both do our best!"

"Yeah!"

……

It was at this moment the key players of Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls—Beiming Xue, Li Chengfeng, Xu Yang, High Fighting Spirits, Chaos Moon, and more—appeared and walked toward me. Almost all the leaders of our guild were gathered next to the tiny blood pond of Dark Moon City and discussing about the upcoming raid—

"How many enemies are we facing this time?" Xu Yang asked.

Li Chengfeng replied, "Our main enemies are the three guilds from Vanished God City, but the likelihood of our usual enemies, Mad Dragon, Gods of Destruction, and so on joining in on the fight is also pretty high. In brief, it’s not looking too good for us, and we’d better give it our all if we don’t want to lose Dark Moon City."

I nodded in agreement. "Yes, we need to give it our all. Don’t underestimate the three guilds!"

Beiming Xue said, "I’ve built plenty of arrow towers in the territory as of late; on average one every ten steps. This is the perfect occasion to use them. When an archer enters an arrow tower, their attack power is reduced by 10%, but their attack range is increased by 50%. I’m sure this will put great pressure onto our enemies."

I smiled. "Mn, I’m looking forward to your performance, Beiming. Both you and Gui Guzi are absolutely crucial to our victory. How many archers do we have in the main guild, by the way?"

Beiming Xue curled her lips slightly. "You were focusing on developing our cavalry, so our archers were neglected. Currently, we only have 1500 archers or so. It is a bit lacking, to be honest."

High Fighting Spirits laughed. "It’s fine, they’re all elites, and they’re led by Lu Chen’s sister. I’m sure they are all players who can 1v10 no problem!"

I shot him a scrutinizing look. "You’re right, but why do I feel like you’re taking a jab at me…"

Hearty laughter filled the air for a moment.

……

A short time later, most of our players were gathered inside the territory. Of course, I had added all enemy guilds including Hall of Immortality, Throne Seeker, and Rose of the Holy Domain as well into the teleportation access blacklist. If these invaders didn’t deserve to be on that list, then no one did!

A thousand thoughts raced inside my mind for a moment, and I decided that I didn’t like our odds. The three great guilds numbered 300k players in total. Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls had 10k players, Bloody Mercenaries also had 10k players, and our 8 subguilds added up to 40k. Even for us, 5:1 number disadvantage wasn’t easy to beat, not to mention that the three guilds might not be our only opponents. October Rain was a smart woman. If she could convince the guilds of Vanished God City to stick their hands into the war for Sky City, then she could convince other forces to intervene as well. Long story short, this wasn’t the time to hide my cards. Dark Moon City would be in grave danger if I didn’t employ every tool available.

I opened my friend list and sought our Luo River God of the Capital’s ID. Then, I made a call request—

"Hi, Luo Luo…" I called out to her sweetly.

Luo River God of the Capital visibly shuddered. "Cut that out, you brat! Are you trying to disgust me to death? Anyway, judging from your tone you want something, don’t you?"

"Mn. Hall of Immortality, Throne Seeker and Rose of the Holy Domain from Vanished God City just declared war on us, and I’m worried the guild can’t hold out on our own. Are you busy right now? If not, do you mind sending us some reinforcements? Dark Moon City is invaluable to Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls…"

Luo River God of the Capital replied helplessly, "I would like to help you, but Candlelight Shadow, that bastard literally just declared a raid on our territory on behalf of Candle Dragon’s first subguild just a few minutes ago. We are probably in far more dire straits than you are…"

"Ahem, I don’t mind if you send only Moonkiss and a couple of assassins to help me…"

"No way, that’s my girl! Why on earth would I lend her to you?"

"Damn!"

"Hehe. Alright, let’s both do our best. I trust you will survive this, so don’t forget to say a prayer for Purple Lily, okay? Candle Dragon will be hitting us with everything they got, so this is going to be a big fight for us. I’m planning to ask Peach Garden to help us. That guild is weak as hell, but their numbers are huge…"

I was speechless. Peach Garden was a pretty powerful guild back in Floating Ice City. Now, they were just stuck between Purple Lily and Candle Dragon. Poor thing!

I hung up. Well, Purple Lily clearly couldn’t help us this time. Time to check another ally!

This time, I sought out Stranger of Three Lifetimes and sent her a call request—

"Hi, Momo! Long time no see!" I greeted her with a brilliant smile.

Stranger of Three Lifetimes was also smiling beautifully on the other side of the call. "Lu Chen, you know the saying ‘One doesn't visit a temple without a cause’, right? Just tell me straight what you need already!"

"Okay. Hall of Immortality, Throne Seeker, and Rose of the Holy Domain just declared war on Dark Moon City. Wanna help out? They are some of the strongest guilds of Vanished God City, so I’m sure your guild knows them pretty well. Can you send someone over to kick their butts?"

"Ah?" Stranger of Three Lifetimes’ mouth fell open. "What unfortunate timing, the third territory just spawned at Vanished God City. Fate, Dirge of War, and Hunting Moon Dynasty are all fighting over it. I just promised to help out Come See The Snow Tonight of Baidicheng, and I can’t really break my promise, can I? How about this: if this territory war turns out to be a lost cause, I’ll send aid to Sky City. Of course, that is if you manage to hold out until I arrive, which is at least 5 hours from now. Is that fine?"

I nodded. "Sure, it’s better than nothing, right? I’ll give your guild teleportation access to Dark Moon City. Come help us as soon as can, Momo!"

"Yes, it’s a promise!"

"Thanks!"

"You’re welcome. We are allies, hehe~~"

……

I finally managed to wring a promise out of one of our allies, but the reliability of their aid was questionable to say the least. After all, they could only help us if we managed to stall the three-hundred-thousand-strong enemy forces. In the end, our performance would be the deciding factor of this war.

Gripping the Cyan Netherworld Sword, I walked around the territory until I saw Du Thirteen, Xue Lu, and Yamete standing together. I walked up to them and greeted them with a smile, "Hi, Thirteen, Lulu, Mamate!"

Du Thirteen laughed. "God damn, our bad luck is catching up to us, huh? I don’t think the fight against the three big guilds from Vanished God City will end well…"

I shot him a dumbfounded look. "What the fuck, dude, can we get optimism in here?"

Yamete replied, "We may as well pray and hope that the heavens strike down Bloodthirsty Battle Monarch, Emperor’s Equal, and Rose Thorn with a lightning bolt in that case. This is so annoying! By the way, isn’t the guild leader of Rose of the Holy Domain a pretty lady? I thought our Lu Chen was a casanova who attracts women of all ages, so why is Rose Thorn attacking him? It’s so strange…"

I retorted, "Come on, I’m not even close to being that attractive, okay?! Did you forget that October Rain and Coldmoon Rose are two women who would very much like to see me dead? This Rose Thorn is just another person on the list. That being said, I admit that I’m impressed that a woman had single-handedly turned Rose of the Holy Domain into the titan it is today!"

Du Thirteen nodded in agreement. "Yeah!"

Yamete’s features darkened. "The ten guilds of Vanished God City have always been famous. It is common knowledge that Candle Dragon, Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls, and Snowy Cathaya are the three strongest guilds in the three major cities, but if we’re talking which major city is the strongest, then Vanished God City is the indisputable number one. One guild is bad enough, but today three guilds are working together to attack us. This is an unprecedented feat that will probably never happen again in the history of guild wars. What an ‘honor’…"

I smiled. "Honored, my ass. I would rather not panic like an ant on a frying pan than having this honor!"

Xue Lu giggled. "Calm down, Lu Chen. Is there anything Thirteen and I can do to help?"

"Yes." I nodded and pointed at the teleportation formation not far away from us. "Lulu, I want you to guard this location with a group of archers. Archers have great anti-scouting abilities, so I want you to use Volley on the nearby NPCs every three seconds or so. This is to check if there are enemy assassins in the area. The teleportation formation must be protected no matter what, or Snowy Cathaya, The Monarch Descends and the rest of our allies won’t be able to reinforce us at time."

Xue Lu smiled sweetly. "No problem, just leave it to me. I will station at least 500 archers around this area. No assassins will be able to slip past us!"

Du Thirteen also raised his sword and said, "Don’t worry, brother. I will station a couple hundred elites around the teleportation formation as well. No one will be able to slip past us."

I nodded strongly. "Very well, I shall leave the city to you, Lulu and Mamate’s hands temporarily."

"Wait, what? Are you going somewhere?" Mamate asked in surprise.

I gave him a smile before looking to the north with a kind of feverish flame in my eyes. "Oh yes, it is our responsibility to welcome our guests from Vanished God City, is it not? If we hole up in the city and wait for them to come to us, the only fate that awaits us is certain defeat. After all, you cannot rejoin the territory war if you die close to the territory. But if we bring the fight to them first, then we may yet survive this battle! My plan is to lead our main forces and engage the united army outside the canyon! I’m going to prepare a great welcoming gift for them!"

Mamate couldn’t help but laugh. "That sounds awesome! Ten thousand versus three hundred thousand? You are a man with balls for sure, Lu Chen…"

Du Thirteen also laughed. "Is this our suicide mission?"

I nodded. "You are correct. I have no plans of coming back alive after I head out to meet them. It’s just a death and a level loss, what is there to be afraid of? When Vanished God City shows up, I’m going to give them a taste of the super offense of the strongest guild in Sky City!"