Ding~!

System Announcement: Due to insufficient number of attackers, the guild "Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls" has successfully defended its territory. Territory "Dark Moon City" is awarded the following rewards: all resources +400000, Wall Defense +40%, Ghost Arrow Tower attack range +150 yards, 4000x Umbra Sharpshooter, and 3000x Ghost God Knight!

……

Everyone let out a sigh of relief when they heard the system announcement because it was already midnight. Thank goodness today’s battle was finally over!

"Finally. These Flower Room pests were easy to kill, but seriously annoying!" Xu Yang laughed as he pulled his bloody sword from the chest of a Flower Room player.

Li Chengfeng said with a grin, "Tsk tsk! The territory rewards ain’t bad at all, but why aren’t the personal rewards announced yet? We had to have accumulated enough contribution points to earn personal rewards, right?"

I nodded. "They should be announced anytime now."

Before I could finish my sentence, another ring resounded in our ears—

Ding~!

System Notice: You've accumulated 237720 contribution points in this Nation War. You’ve gained the rewards: Level +2, Reputation +40000, 50000 gold, and an item reward: Shadowchaser!

……

"Oh? Shadowchaser?"

I hastily opened my bag and found a dagger shrouded in purple flames sitting in one of the slots. I checked its stats, and it looked pretty good—

Shadowchaser (Heaven-grade, Outstanding★★★★)

Attack: 1150~1400

Strength: +210

Stamina: +225

Agility: +190

Tactics: +40

Passive: Increases user’s Attack by 55%

Passive: Extremely high chance to increase user’s Attack by 50%

Slots: 8

Outstanding Property: Shadowchaser. When landing a hit on a target, 25% chance to deal shadow damage. Enemy inflicted with this condition loses a total of 15% HP over 15 seconds.

Level Requirement: 155

……

It was a very good dagger. 4-star Outstanding Heaven-grade item was a super divine weapon at this stage of the game, and its attack power was almost on par with my Cyan Netherworld Sword. This was incredible considering that it was a dagger-type weapon.

Whenever I obtained an equipment through my own personal effort, I always considered my interests first, treating the guild secondary. Therefore, I immediately thought of giving the dagger to Lin Yixin. The Devil Bell was a great item, but it was also the only good piece of equipment she had on her right now. Everything else she was wearing was either second-rate or not even worth mentioning.

So I beckoned Lin Yixin over and said, "Yiyi, come here!"

The smiling girl walked over lithely and asked, "What is it?"

I passed her the Shadowchaser while replying, "Take this. It’s the equipment reward I got for winning this territory war…"

Lin Yixin’s mouth fell open as her eyes were shone with excitement. She couldn’t help the sweet smile on her face as she stared at the blazing dagger. "Wow, this dagger is amazing! Not even the one I had had before was comparable to this… just how many people did you kill, Little Cheat? I can’t believe you got such amazing equipment when I only got Spirit-grade wristguards for my efforts…"

"How would I know? Maybe I just have good karma?"

"Are you trying to say that you have better karma than me?" Lin Yixin immediately threatened me with a wave of her fists.

"No, no. Now equip it. Your DPS will be higher with this…"

"Mn."

Lin Yixin caressed her new dagger lovingly as she said, "It’s so powerful! It’s way stronger than even the sword I’m wielding right now, hehe…"

"Yep. Now go get some rest already. See you tomorrow at the Land of Soul Suppression!"

"Okay. You should rest sooner too. I don’t want to see you with a pair of panda eyes tomorrow, get it?"

"I got it, so go catch some ZZzzZZzz already! Okay?"

"Okay…"

The Fruit Knife Goddess was surprisingly meek today—when she was facing me at least—because she obediently took out her return scroll and logged out of the game just as I had requested her to. It was so unnatural that Purple Marquis, Clear Perfume and the rest of her guild members stared at her in shock, "Was our guild leader always this obedient?!"

……

Our allies left one by one. It wasn’t long before Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls was the only guild left in the area.

I checked my levels and noted that I was still a ways away from the best players out there. Still, I was the MVP of wars today, and the experience reward was so handsome that I had leveled up from Level 152 all the way to Level 157. It wouldn’t be hard to catch up from here. Even the currently highest-leveled player in the China server, Luo River God of the Capital, was only Level 165, and past the Level 160 mark, every level was an absolute chore. Therefore, I had good confidence that I would be able to catch up to the super mage, especially since I still held a slight advantage in terms of equipment and pet right now.

"Dark Moon City will refresh in half an hour’s time," He Yi said with a smile.

Murong Mingyue also smiled as she looked at our city. "I sure hope siege battles like this will happen a couple more times. We may be able to rank up our city to 10 in just a month if that’s true."

Xu Yang laughed. "The territory reward we got this time was really good. Additional 40% Wall Defense, additional 150 yards to our arrow towers’ attack range; all that stuff benefits the territory permanently. It’ll be incredibly difficult for any guild to attack Dark Moon City from now on."

"Mn."

I smiled in response before shooting a question, "Xu Yang, how is Warsky City developing? Did you check it at all?"

Xu Yang shook his head, but Li Chengfeng said, "I did. They’re a Rank 5 castle right now, and Warsky has been purchasing Resource Bags and troop cards from all over the place. They have swept clean practically every area they could find in the north, and long story short, Warsky is doing everything in his power to increase Warsky City’s rank as fast as possible. He clearly hasn’t given up on his ambition yet…"

"Mn. I want you all to keep a close eye on Warsky City. Dark Moon City’s rank is too high, and its forces are too powerful. There’ll always be someone coveting our city…" I said with a nod.

Beside me, Beiming Xue blinked in puzzlement as she asked, "Big bro, we cooperated with Warsky Alliance during the War of Dawn City, right? You’re also friends with Warsky, right? So why do we need to be wary of Warsky City?"

I chuckled. "Beiming, ever heard of the saying ‘all is fair in war’? It’s true that we were comrades-in-arms during the Nation War, but that doesn’t mean that our competition to become the greatest guild of Sky City is over, especially during the rest period. There can only be one king in Sky City, and Warsky Alliance has always been prepared to replace us at a moment’s notice!"

He Yi nodded approvingly. "Lu Chen is correct. Plus, it’s hardly a bad thing to remain cautious."

"Mn. Anyway, it’s time to log out and get some rest. Tomorrow 11 am, I want all players who are above Level 140 to assemble at Wind City. We don’t know what traps are waiting for us in Land of Soul Suppression, but there’s no way we are sitting this one out. It would be sad as fuck if we missed out on some super divine item or something."

Chaos Moon chuckled. "That’s so like you. You don’t want to lose out, no matter what!"

But Heaven’s Rain retorted, "You’re wrong! Vice leader big bro is not like that, or he wouldn’t have lost 90 levels to protect the palace entrance of Dawn City…"

Chaos Moon giggled. "But little one, that is exactly why I like him so much…"

Murong Mingyue shook her head. "Sigh, you just can’t beat a guy who gets confessed to everyday. Now, let’s log out and fill our stomachs already! Once I hit the sack I don’t plan to wake up until it’s noon. I’m so sleepy…"

"Yeah, sure!"

……

After the discussion, we went back to Dark Moon City. This was our base, and we had everything such as equipment repair merchants, potion merchants, auction houses and more. As a Rank 9 castle, we were also incredibly powerful. That being said, it wasn’t like Dark Moon City was without its flaws. For example, the goods auctioned at our city weren’t nearly as varied as the ones at Sky City.

To give an example, Sky City’s auction house was similar to Golden Eagle. The quality of their goods was absolutely guaranteed. On the other hand, Dark Moon City’s auction house was similar to Taobao. Everyone was free to auction their stuff, good or bad, with minimum restrictions, and there was absolutely no fairness to speak of. Items were usually snapped up on the spot, and both sides were satisfied with the result. Long story short, it was the trading center for frontier adventurers who were too lazy to travel back to Sky City and go through the necessary procedures.

……

I took off my gaming helmet. It was another day of hard work and mind-blowing starvation as usual.

With the night-wind howling in our ears, we traveled to a night market and sat around an unwiped table. After ordering four warm dishes and a soup, we waited impatiently for our egg fried rice to be served.

"I’m starving, I’m starving!" Murong Mingyue whined with hopeful eyes.

I shot her a suggestion. "You can eat the table if you want."

"Fuck you…"

It was at this moment a couple of deathly guys who looked like the living reincarnations of evil spirits sat down at the table behind us. After a discussion about eating their table that ended up going nowhere, they moved onto the next topic and said—

"God damn, today’s battle was an exhilarating one! I didn’t think we would live for tens of hours without dying! We’re slowly but surely getting stronger, hahaha!" said the student wearing a peaked cap.

Another student wearing an earring said, "Stop dreaming. If you happen to run into Vienna’s Sorrow, you’re still going to die in a single exchange, hahaha!"

The peaked cap student chuckled. "Speaking of which, Candlelight Shadow is a pretty good player. That Divine General Skill, Outer Flame, he just learned is just as good as Lu Chen’s Ancient Seal, and he killed a ton of enemies and Heroic Bannermen thanks to it. Hehe, it looks like the Martial God is finally going to show his true power, hehe!"

"Doesn’t matter though…" another student wearing a red scarf said. "We suffered huge losses after Vienna and Dark Night’s Rose slammed into our flank with tens of millions of troops. Hall of Immortality’s 200k troops tried to stop them, but they were annihilated before they could even make a peep. That idiot Bloodthirsty Monarch almost cried because of this. No matter how strong Candle Dragon is, they just aren’t strong enough to stop Vienna’s Sorrow’s assault."

The earring guy added, "I heard that Candlelight Shadow gave up on conquering Eternal Love City right before I logged out of the game. It just wasn’t possible with his current army, so he set his sights on some French tier 2 city instead. Now this is a lot more doable. It’s a shame though. We could’ve conquered Eternal Love City if Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls and Snowy Cathaya were with us."

Red scar guy sneered. "Are you kidding? Candlelight Shadow’s betrayal caused Lu Chen to lose 90 levels, and the Fruit Knife Goddess’s account to be deleted! Only an idiot would help them after the kind of shit they pulled. In fact, if I wasn’t a member of Wind City, I wouldn’t participate in this Nation War myself. Hmph!"

"To put it bluntly, this is a war for Candlelight Shadow to save face. If he succeeds in taking this tier 2 city, then all is well. But if he fails, heaven knows how many people are going to criticize Candle Dragon."

"Yeah. Speaking of which, are we going to continue this Nation War tomorrow?"

"Of course not! Land of Soul Suppression is opening tomorrow, and the map is said to be full of loot. We’ll catch some quality sleep tonight, teleport back to the city tomorrow, and pray for the best when we head to Land of Soul Suppression. It’s not like there’s anything we can do in a Nation War without good level and equipment anyway. Plus, can you imagine how frustrating it is to run away every time you run into someone who’s stronger than you?"

"Yeah, fuck the Nation War! Only an idiot will throw their life away for the Martial God!"

"Yeah!"

I nearly burst into laughter as I listened in on their dialogue. Candlelight Shadow was definitely stuck between a rock and a hard place right now, but the students were right in saying that he could save some face by occupying that French tier 2 city. He must, because it was his only chance left.

…...

After we devoured our supper, we returned to the workshop and slept peacefully until noon.

……

It was already 10:30 am when I woke up. After washing myself in a hurry and finishing the boxed lunch Beiming Xue bought for me, I logged back into the game and got ready to conquer the Land of Soul Suppression!