Li Chengfeng usually looked like nothing could faze him, but even he was a bit apprehensive after Hall of Immortality dispatched four subguilds to attack us. He looked back at me and asked, "Are we sticking to the same strategy, Lu Chen?"

I nodded. "Take care, everyone. This may be a much harder fight than before. There are a lot of experts hidden amidst their ranks, and both their levels and the quality of their equipment are far better than Throne Seeker’s subguilds."

Chaos Moon frowned and said, "It’s a shame that Lu Buyi isn’t a member of the main guild. His stratagem, Purple Dragon, would’ve been incredibly useful. A 70% to all stats is almost as good as Beauty Lin’s Famous General Skill."

Xu Yang said gruffly, "He didn’t join us because he wants to be considerate of Freezing Point. Hmph! It’s almost as if he forgot that we are his brothers too. In my opinion, that Freezing Point is not a good person either. When he was the guild leader of a small guild, he was both cautious and conscientious. Now that he’s the guild leader of our eighth subguild with 5000 players under his command, he immediately forgot himself and turned arrogant. He has only been with us for a while, but he already accrued plenty of criticisms from our other subguilds."

I knitted my eyebrows sternly, "Xu Yang, keep your voice down. It’s a bad habit to backbite someone, and Freezing Point is one of our brothers now. You know the saying ‘trust those you employ, employ not those you distrust’, right?"

Xu Yang replied a bit indignantly, "Even if that is true, that is no reason to lower your guard completely, Lu Chen!"

"I know…" I sucked in a deep breath. "Dammit, if only Eve was here. She’s way better than me at dealing with things like this."

"Yeah, we’re just hatchlings compared to her…" Xu Yang sighed.

It was at this moment Chaos Moon raised her eyebrows and said, "Lu Chen can call himself a hatchling, but you? What part of you has anything to do with the word ‘hatchling’? Definitely not your face!"

Xu Yang blushed immediately. "Chaos Moon, you don’t hold back when you slap people, do you…"

High Fighting Spirits waved his axe and growled, "Hey, Hall of Immortality is advancing toward us, so stop teasing Chaos Moon already! Get ready, the battle will begin three minutes later!"

……

By now, the distance between both sides had shortened to a hundred yards or less. They were so close that I could see even the pimples and acne on the face of a female warrior. Dark Pupils improved my vision and gave me the ability to discern an enemy’s weakness, but a world that was too clear was also a curse. My newfound power wasn’t a burden only when I was together with perfect women like Lin Yixin or He Yi.

Swhoosh!

Once again, I imbued the Cyan Netherworld Sword with undead energy as I stared at the compact lines of enemy players marching toward us. I barked out a series of orders, "We’re going to engage the enemy any second now! Archers and mages, stick to the same tactic for now and suppress the enemy from afar! Give us your best Spiraling Arrow Blades and Galaxy Storms, please!"

Right now, our fighters were somewhat neutered because we were missing our mounted players, so our ranged players had to step up for us to win this. After all, not everyone was insanely powerful like me, Li Chengfeng, Chaos Moon and the others, and the percentage of melee fighters with AoE skills in the entire world was below 0.01%. This meant that most people were still relying on Blaze and inferior Flurry skills to attack their enemies, and players who learned Barrier Break already were both rare and outstanding. For now, they were the kind of players everyone appreciated no matter where they went.

That being said, a lot of Sky City’s fighters had picked up Barrier Break since I started selling Strength Supplements at Sky City. Some players even traveled all the way from Wind City or Vanished God City just to purchase them in bulk. I had earned a lot of money because of this.

Behind me, Beiming Xue drew her bow fully before saying softly, "It’s time. Far Shot, loose!"

All the archers bent upward and aimed forty five degrees above the ground. Then, they started firing arrow after arrow at the Hall of Immortality players directly ahead of us. Unfortunately, the enemy was so numerous that our arrows were like a small rain to them.

I dashed to the front and met the eyes of several enemy fighters. I let out a chuckle and called out, "Come at me!"

The fighters exchanged a glance with each other before shouting, "Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand is here! Kill him and grow the fame of Hall of Immortality! Kill Legendary Brave and Chaos Moon to become the new heroes of the era! Brothers and sisters, charge!"

Laughing, I swung my sword and launched a Thousand Ice Slash straight at them. "Show me what the ‘heroes’ of Hall of Immortality are made of!"

"Boom!"

Ten streaks of icy sword energy landed in a crowd of players and directly dealt between ten thousand to twenty thousand damage or so. However, the real killer was the 40% splash damage of my weapon. Like a chain reaction, the sword energies created a hole in the enemy formation almost immediately.

However, a single Level 132 magic knight managed to survive my skill, and wearing a look of excitement on his face he laughed loudly and said, "Hahaha, you had your chance to kill me, but you failed. Now it’s your turn to die, Broken Halberd Sinks to Sand! Die!"

His warhorse let out a neigh as its rider urged it to move faster. The moment the magic knight reached me, he immediately used Blaze. That wasn’t all though. A fiery cone came right after the flaming thrust, making it a Blaze + Barrier Break combo. The magic knight was a big dreamer alright.

Pu!

1902!

His Blaze left a scorch mark on my shoulder armor. Just before his Barrier Break could hit me, I abruptly hit his weapon with my left arm in hopes of parrying the skill. I had never tried this before. Would it work?

Unfortunately, the skill still penetrated my chest and dealt a big damage number—6983!

Wait, it wasn’t a complete failure. The Barrier Break should’ve deleted 10k HP at least, but my technique had reduced its damage by 30% or more!

Thud!

I grabbed the magic knight’s spearhead with lightning speed and grinned wickedly at him. Then, I pressed the Cyan Netherworld Sword against his chest and conjured an indigo cone!

"Die!"

25674!

A brilliant flash later, the flaming energy penetrated the enemy’s chest and one-shot the stunned magic knight just like that. As expected, he was no match for me in a direct engagement.

Thud thud thud...

By the time I looked away from the ground, my chest was completely riddled with arrows. It was because the enemy archers were shooting me with everything they had. Despite Moon Dew and our priests’ best efforts to heal me, they weren’t able to keep my HP above the 50% mark. It was annoying. The enemy’s attack was powerful and organized, but it wouldn’t have been a problem if Murong Mingyue was around. I deeply missed her and her Famous General Skill, Bright Mirror. The stratagem already boosted a priest’s healing power by 35%, but with Tactics it almost doubled the amount of healing a priest could do. For example, a Greater Heal could heal almost 20k HP with this stratagem active. How amazing would that be if Murong Mingyue was with us right now?

Unfortunately, Murong Mingyue and He Yi had gone to Nanjing to negotiate a contract. They were likely to stay the night there, and it was highly unlikely that they would log into the game from there. They had left behind their gaming helmets at the workshop.

Behind me, Beiming Xue shouted, "Big bro, withdraw 10 meters to the back! You’re too far forward and we can’t reach you!"

"Got it!"

I kept swinging my sword and hitting the enemies with Burning Blade Slash or War Crush whenever possible. The main reason I was able to hold on was thanks to the lifesteal passive of my sword. In just a short moment, I had dished almost 100k damage and regained 10k HP in return. The 10% lifesteal was absolutely crucial to my survivability.

I beat a slow and steady retreat as I fired Dragon Slaying Slashes and left a trail of Ice Cyclone Domains. The Hall of Immortality players who were trying to get to me suffered greatly to say the least.

Finally, I had moved close enough to my battle line for Beiming Xue and my archers to assist me with Volleys, Spiraling Arrow Blades and more. Now, anyone who tried to get close to me and hit me with their melee skills would have to consider if they could survive the bombardment first. Beiming Xue’s attack power was so powerful that I doubted that there were many people in the entire world who could withstand her Spiraling Arrow Blade right now. At the very least, I was sure that less than 10% fighters in the world could endure her Spiraling Arrow Blade for more than 6 seconds.

Boom boom boom!

Galaxy Storms kept exploding around my feet. Some were friendly, some weren’t. Regardless, pain kept assaulting my senses as the area 10 yards around me turned into a meat grinder. The fighters of Hall of Immortality in this death zone kept dying, but I stood strong thanks to my priests’ tireless healing. Like a bright, fleshy target, I held my ground and stopped all Hall of Immortality players from pushing past me!

At the distance, a Level 134 mage with the mark of a guild leader floating on his shoulder spat on the ground and cursed, "Sonuvabitch, if I wasn’t his enemy I would almost be impressed by this! Brothers, focus down Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand! Wipe that fucker out of existence and prove to me he’s mortal! No matter how strong he is, he only has so much Magic Resist!"

He was wrong, actually. I had a base Magic Resist of 3710, and after all my buffs and skills my total Magic Resist was about 8000 or so. Assuming that the enemy mage was at the same power level as I was, the magic damage I took was reduced by 70% at least. That was why I was still standing despite being bombarded to hell and back.

The mages walked to the front and tried to chant their spells.

A wide grin spread on my face as I said, "Dream on, sucker!"

My sword glowed brightly with the energy of a dragon’s soul as I raised my weapon. Then, I threw it at the mages and watched it slicing through their bodies and reaping their lives like wheat. By the time the Sword Boomerang finished its cycle and returned to my hand, a dozen or so mages—even some who had their Magic Shields turned on—collapsed to the ground and died. My attack power was over ten thousand, and my current stratagem was Martial God. To all mages, my attack power was a nightmare to them!

……

It was at this moment I heard a voice coming from my right—

"Oh shit, I think I’m gonna... SHIIIII—"

Our Level 135 warrior, Wolf Fang died before he could finish his sentence. His Magic Resist wasn’t high enough, so he was killed by the enemy’s mages!

In the end, it had come to this. The battle had reached a point where everyone was struggling just to survive. Li Chengfeng, Chaos Moon, Xu Yang, and High Fighting Spirits had fallen beneath 50% HP, and it looked like anyone of them could die at any moment.