"It looks like the situation has become clear…" Lin Yixin said with a small smile on her face. The Devil Bell around her wrist rang melodiously as she walked over on her Moonchaser Tiger.

"Yes, it’s become clear…"

I nodded in agreement. "While we and the Northern Alliance fight each other to the death at Poplar Valley, the Chaotic 27 stays neutral and is ready to rob the crap out of anyone who’s at the wrong place at the wrong time. Their only goal is our equipment and items, and they don’t care much for everything else."

Gui Guzi exclaimed in disbelief, "What is this modern day barbarism?"

Chaos Moon chuckled. "They’re called the Chaotic 27, but they don’t just have 27 tier 1 cities, you know? They have 27 tier 1 cities, 27 tier 2 cities, and over 400 tier 3 cities. You’ve never seen something like this before, haven’t you? Their tier 3 cities aren’t much bigger than our Dark Moon City. Over 80% of the main cities of the countries that are ranked in the bottom 100 of the global economy ranking are located at the Barren Lands. It is even rumored that their gaming helmets are free gifts distributed by Eternal Moon Corporation itself and not something they purchased on their own. If you’re starving and you know that a single Purple Gold–grade item is enough to feed you for an entire month, even you would set up an ambush and rob your victims blind!"

Gui Guzi asked, "Aren’t Brazil and Argentina soccer nations? How are their citizens so poor?"

Lin Yixin replied, "The economic lifelines of developing countries are grasped in the hands of a small subset of people, meaning that the rest of them are as poor as ever. I would be doing the same thing if I was them…"

I shot her a glance and said, "Don’t say that. You’re spoiling your own image…"

"Fine…"

Lin Yixin nodded smilingly before standing close to me like an obedient girlfriend. Purple Marquis, High Fighting Spirits and everyone else almost died from sheer envy.

……

"Well, what should we do?" Gui Guzi asked in puzzlement again. He was a straightforward person with no knack for planning or trickery. He could be trusted to fight at the frontlines, but it was better to leave the strategizing to people with greater life experiences such as Li Chengfeng, Murong Mingyue and Chaos Moon.

So I looked at the others and asked, "What do you guys think we should do? Candle Dragon, Warsky Alliance and Purple Lily are only planning to defend Poplar Valley. In fact, they’re nearly done with their mission. Our road, on the other hand, is much longer and different compared to theirs."

Li Chengfeng said, "In my opinion, we should just charge through the pass, ignore those ruffians and head straight to White Horse City. If they dare to meet us on White Horse Plains, then we’ll kick their asses and show them who’s boss."

Chaos Moon was in agreement. "That’s so barbaric! But I like it…"

Li Chengfeng looked at her excitedly. "You like me?"

"No, I mean I like barbarism." Chaos Moon swung her blade once to emphasize her point.

The dragon warrior smiled awkwardly. "Damn, I keep getting rejected everyday…"

Chaos Moon chuckled. "You don’t get the right to say that. I know you turned away all the girls who tried to invite you out inside the game."

Du Thirteen agreed. "Yeah! This guy even turned down one-night stands! Where is your manhood, man!"

The conversation was steering in the wrong direction, so I glared and scolded them, "What are you guys doing? We’re in the middle of a Nation War! Now form up and get ready to break through the Chaotic 27’s blockade already! I’m pretty sure the Northern Alliance has set up an ambush at the exit of the pass, so be prepared to face anything! The Dragonlight and Purple Dragon Cavalries will lead the charge!"

"Yessir!" everyone answered in unison.

……

However, something unexpected happened just when we were about to launch our assault. Led by a beastman berserker wearing a red helmet and wielding a battle axe, countless elite cavalrymen with red IDs and the same type of equipment and mount suddenly appeared from the pass and charged toward us with murderous intent. The berserker shouted, "You bastards, you shall not stain the holy soil of the Chaotic Empire with your filthy hands! Slay them all, my braves!"

I nearly cried on the spot as the Northern Alliance’s intent finally dawned upon me. Somehow, they had managed to lure the NPC legion garrisoned at Poplar Valley to us! It was bad. Both our guilds had spread out our formation, so it was impossible for us to dodge out of the NPCs’ way. The only thing we could do here was to fight!

"Fuck! NPC legion!" Li Chengfeng also wore a sad expression on his face. "What do we do? Do we meet them head-on, or...?"

Chiang! Lin Yixin unsheathed her weapon and declared, "An enemy nation’s NPC is categorized as a monster, so this means that we can get equipment and EXP from them. Prepare for battle!"

Everyone unsheathed their weapons at once, and large groups of riders moved to the front and waited for the NPCs to reach them. Usually they would be charging toward the enemy, but this time it was unnecessary because we were fighting NPCs. As the defenders in a positional warfare, we mainly relied on our mages and archers to damage the enemy, our priests to keep us healthy, and our bards and tacticians to buff us. With proper coordination, we could even defeat the NPC legion without losing anyone!

This is my chance to earn some guild points!

At the frontline, I charged toward the axe-wielding boss and hit him with Burning Blade Slash right away, pulling him toward me. He was a Level 195 Immortal Rank Boss, so his strength was probably between the Heaven-stealing Tiger and the Yin-Yang Tiger. He shouldn’t be a problem to our army whatsoever.

……

"Keep up the HPS and DPS, people!"

Li Chengfeng shouted, "The boss has an axe AoE skill, so I don’t want anyone to go near it unless you have high Defense and high Attack! You will die otherwise!"

Me, Gui Guzi, Li Chengfeng, Chaos Moon and a couple more players were the only ones who met these criteria. While we were surrounding the boss, I read the lines of text floating above the boss's head—

Ned the Law of Chaos (Immortal Rank Boss)

Level: 195

Introduction: The guard captain of the Land of Chaos. He commands the seventh legion of the empire. He became a great commander thanks to his formidable strength and battle axe.

……

"Die, invader!"

Cyclones appeared around Ned as he swung his axe around in a circle and knocked everyone back. His Strength stat was so high that even I was knocked a dozen or so steps back.

"Shit, we lost the aggro!" Li Chengfeng shouted.

The guard captain riding a black warhorse had already charged into our ranks while we were still recovering ourselves. Blood-red light appeared around his axe and fell from the sky, and a group of archers was one-shot just like that. Even the Dragonlight Cavalry at the front had lost nearly 100k HP from that one attack. A Level 195 boss like this was a lethal threat to any player whose defenses weren’t up to par.

That wasn’t all. All over the place, NPC riders were slamming into our battle line and giving everyone a difficult time. It was bad enough that these Level 190 to Level 193 dread-rank NPCs were incredibly powerful, but their loot tables were actually worse than those of mobs with their level and rank. They were the kind of foe no one was willing to fight unless the circumstances were exceptional, and unfortunately for us, that was exactly the case right now.

Swhoosh!

I used the God Binding Art and was lucky enough to shackle Ned. Li Chengfeng immediately ran toward the boss and pierced his chest with the Augustus’ Spear, dealing a huge amount of damage using Barrier Break. His Attack far exceeded that of a normal player after he activated Great Earth Transformation.

We surrounded the boss again and kept it occupied while our archers and mages attacked. However, our arrows kept bouncing off the boss's body even after Beiming Xue had reduced its Defense by 50% using Bone Eroding Arrow—his Defense was that high—and our mages’ firepower was subpar at best. The fact that they did only 2000 damage to the boss on average was frankly embarrassing as hell.

Lin Yixin joined the battle on her Moonchaser Tiger and hit the boss with a powerful Extreme Break + Ice Flame Slash combo. A while later, she couldn’t help but comment, "OMG, are there no good mages in Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls? None of your Dragon’s Roars did over 10k damage. Our guild alone has 10+ mages who can do over 20k…"

I whined. "Can you give us some of your mages…"

"No way, this isn’t something I can agree to…"

Purple Marquis echoed in agreement. "Yeah. You may be the guild leader’s boyfriend, but we are not your subguild, and the guild belongs to all of us!"

"I know…"

Sigh. Ned was a heavy-armor boss, so neither our fighters nor our archers could do as much damage as they usually did. Worse, this should be the part where our mages would shine, and yet, magic firepower happened to be our greatest weakness right now. What an awkward spot to be in.

……

Our people died one by one as the Immortal Rank Boss kept swinging. Luckily, the Dragonlight Cavalry was pretty tanky, and most of them could tank an attack or two. They were in no danger of dying if they withdrew to the healers immediately after they took an attack. Our one advantage in this fight was our enormous numbers, and that was exactly what we were going to do; put down the boss with sheer numbers.

The battle was very fierce. Fireballs exploded against armor, and arrows flew all over the place. Many of our players leveled up during the battle, and the highest grade a dread-rank mob could drop was Earth-grade equipment. Sure, the drop rate was incredibly low—not even 1 in 10000 from the looks of it—but the chance definitely existed, and lower-grade equipment such as Purple Gold–grade or Spirit-grade dropped far more frequently. Everyone was treated to pleasant surprises here and there.

About 15 minutes later, the Immortal Rank boss let out his last scream and died. Li Chengfeng and Chaos Moon both insisted that I score the last hit because I had high Luck and thus, high item drop rate. It would mean giving me 50% of the boss's experience, but they believed that it would be worth it.

Swhoosh!

I leveled up to 168. It wouldn’t be long before I hit Level 170 now!

"Let’s see the drops, Chaos Moon!"

"Sure!"

Chaos Moon quickly scooped up all the items beneath the boss's body and showed it to us. There were 5 equipment drops in total—

Wristguard of the Law of Chaos (Heaven-grade, Outstanding★★★★)

Metal Armor of the Law of Chaos (Heaven-grade, Outstanding★★★★)

War Boots of the Law of Chaos (Heaven-grade, Outstanding★★★★)

Flowing Light Bow (Heaven-grade, Outstanding★★)

Bonecrusher Sword (Earth-grade, Outstanding★★★★★)

……

We shared the loot with Snowy Cathaya. It took a bit of wrangling, but we managed to retain the three Law of the Chaos set items for our dragon warrior Li Chengfeng. The Flowing Light Bow went to Clear Perfume, and the Bonecrusher Sword went to Purple Marquis. The twenty or so gems were distributed to the players with high contribution.

However, just because we managed to kill the legion commander didn’t mean that the assault was over. In fact, a large amount of infantry and archers just emerged behind their cavalry troops, and a war eagle with grayish brown feathers appeared in the air. There were people riding on top of the eagles, meaning that they were sky rider NPCs. This was going to be "fun"!

……

"Prepare to intercept! Please give it your all, archers and mages!" I shouted.

The bad news wasn’t over yet though. Li Chengfeng bumped me in the arm and said, "Boss, the worst is still yet to come…"

"What?"

"Look to our left…"

"OMG!"

I saw clouds of dust from where Li Chengfeng was pointing. The elite cavalry charging toward us was none other than the Northern Alliance’s Bloodthirsty Beast Cavalry. Clearly, they had circled to our flank to catch us in a pincer attack. This was bad. If we didn’t find a way to repel them somehow, both our guilds wouldn’t survive the assault!