In the wilderness, players were duking it out against one another like crazy. Battle cries filled the sky, and bodies were all over the ground. Since this place was very close to a graveyard, all the players who died in battle were able to revive and rejoin the fight almost immediately. It was one of those never-ending battles where the only real way to win was to outlast the enemy’s patience.

The Dragonlight Cavalry led by Gui Guzi himself were charging back and forth across the battlefield and annihilating absolutely everyone who dared to stand in their way. Since all 10000 Dragonlight Cavalrymen under his command had been strengthened by the Brave General Horseshoes, their HP, Defense and Attack surpassed Tear Stain’s elite cavalry by a margin even bigger than the gulf before. There wasn’t a single cavalry troop Throne of the Wild could deploy that would be effective against them.

Meanwhile, Hickey commanded the Godkiller players inside the caves to continue mining the ores as fast as they could. There wasn’t much ore left in this particular cave anyway since we had mined most of it during the afternoon, and I reckoned that it would take at least half a month before the system respawned them. It was obvious what Hickey was planning. She wanted to mine most, if not all of the Obsidian Metal in Obsidian Cave and deposit it in our players’ bags, preferably within 10 hours. The best way to foil Tear Stain’s plan was to give her nothing to mine in the first place.

……

At the back, the vice leader of Throne of the Wild, Emperor Wang, was carrying a heroic banner on his back and slaughtering our players left and right with his spear. At some point, he abruptly leaped into the middle of an archer party and caused his spear to burst into light. It was the warrior’s eighth-promotion skill, Ultimate Strength Break!

Bang!

Ultimate Strength Break fell like a giant hammer and absolutely annihilated the archers with barely any Strength. The damage numbers that popped above their heads were incredible as a matter of course—

261680!

191240!

204440!

Ultimate Strength Break dealt damage that was equal to the martial strength difference between the user and the target times 40, and Emperor Wang had at least around 8000 Strength. In most cases, martial strength was synonymous with Strength. Even in the best case scenario, Godkiller’s archers only had a Strength stat of 4000 or so—and in the worst, a pitiful sum of 2000—so this was always going to be a tragedy no matter what.

This was why people said that Ultimate Strength Break was a skill meant for bullying agility-based classes, mages and all support classes. For example, I had a total Strength of 14980. Assuming that I had Ultimate Strength Break, I would be able to do a monstrous 13000 times 40 damage to a player with only 2000 Strength. If the septuple damage effect of the Purple Ying Sword triggered as well, it was entirely possible that my victims would be tempted to delete their accounts outright.

Luckily for them, my eighth-promotion class skill was Myriad Swords Obliteration, not Ultimate Strength Break. Or was it? The AoE of Myriad Swords Obliteration was seven or eight times bigger than Ultimate Strength Break’s, and with my level of attack power, I would still be able to one-shot the agility-based players, mages and supports anyway. If anything, the damage spillover was just a waste of potential DPS. A one-shot was a one-shot whether it dealt 1 million or 100k damage.

……

My hand itch suddenly grew a lot worse as Emperor Wang continued to go to town on our players. Hickey then said to me, "If you can’t stand it, then go. At the very least, killing the vice leader of Throne of the Wild will be a blow to their morale."

"Yeah!"

I nodded strongly before turning the Ancient Divine Dragon around and rushing toward Emperor Wang like lightning. I activated Thunderous Charge when I was still 40 yards away from him, and Emperor Wang was skilled enough to spot me, send an archer flying into the air and take two steps to the back to dodge the skill.

Instead of halting my momentum, I continued charging for a couple more meters before turning my mount around suddenly and executing War Crush. Three red rings erupted from my person and deleted much of Emperor Wang’s HP before he could react.

"Ah?!"

It was said that some things didn’t feel real until you had experienced it yourself, and that was exactly the case for Emperor Wang right now. He didn’t really understand how high my Attack was until my War Crush left him with only 50% HP. He hurriedly drank a big health potion before landing Triple Slash against my Dragon God Shield!

Chiang chiang chiang...

49890!

51282!

49010!

As expected of an eighth-promotion player, his Attack was pretty good. But that was all. I didn’t even activate Battle Astral Wind because I didn’t want to feel like a child bully.

"Motherfucker! Die!"

There were a lot of Throne of the Wild players in the vicinity, and apparently the arrogant man couldn’t stand the humiliation I dished out to him in their presence. Embarrassed and angry, he raised his spear and did something a more coolheaded him would have never even attempted—Blitzkrieg into Ultimate Strength Break. I was stunned. Did this idiot really think it would work?

I lowered my shield and let the blade hit me. Of all the things I might be afraid of, Strength battle was absolutely not one of them!

Bang!

Emperor Wang’s Ultimate Strength Break hit my shoulder, but not only did it fail to inflict the overwhelming pressure it was intended to do, Emperor Wang himself staggered backward as if he was struck by something. At the same time, a damage number rose from my head—

1000!

It was hilarious. Ultimate Strength Break thrived on Strength difference, and Emperor Wang’s total Strength was at least half of mine, if not more. As a result, the super skill only managed to deal 1000 basic damage to me. If this wasn’t a tragedy, what was?

……

"Ugh…"

A groan of despair escaped Emperor Wang’s throat and he froze like a statue.

Not bothering to wait for him to recover, I rocked his body with Burning Blade Slash before casting Myriad Swords Obliteration on both him and his lackeys. They died without being able to put up any resistance whatsoever, and those who were lucky enough to be outside the range of the skill lost their shit and didn’t dare to rush our ranged players anymore.

The battle was still going on though, and not only were people dying and reviving at high speed, equipment was being "traded" on both sides almost as if we were having a trade gathering or something. I kept fighting and killing everything in my sight, and an hour later I encountered Tear Stain once more at the foot of a mountain.

Swhoosh!

I applied Battle Astral Wind to my person immediately. It was about time I let her taste the power of my new OP skill and correct her misunderstanding that she could kill me with the human sea attack.

Bang bang bang!

Empowered by Blitzkrieg, Tear Stain landed a triple-skill combo—Ice Flame Slash + Ice Blade Slash + Quadruple Slash—on my shoulder. However, the invisible energy surrounding my body swallowed all the skills and lost only 15% of its durability. Tear Stain’s jaw hit the floor. "How… how is this possible?!"

Not bothering to answer, I executed Summon the Storm + Rise of the Guardian Dragon combo and instakilled all the elite cavalrymen in the area. Tear Stain herself had to run away with just 15% left in her health bar while shouting, "Retreat!"

Throne of the Wild’s players heeded her command and withdrew like tidewater. For now at least, Tear Stain had decided to abandon the raid. Gui Guzi and his players had also taken out the thieves who were trying to do some quick mining at the edges of the cave and regained much of the stolen Obsidian Metal.

……

"Little Gui, Heaven’s Rain, Diamond Dust, round up the Dragonlight Cavalry and pursue the enemy for 5 kilometers!" I ordered.

"Yessir!"

All 10000 Dragonlight Cavalry soon vanished from both our sight and our hearing. I left the task of hunting down the defeated enemy to them because they were fast, strong, and ridiculously tanky. Even if Tear Stain tried to turn around and fight, she wouldn’t be able to threaten the Knight God–buffed Dragonlight Cavalry.

Besides that, I ordered the 20000 Zephyr Cavalrymen of Godkiller to sweep the battlefield for equipment and items. Despite all the battles they had gone through so far, the equipment of Iron Skull Wilderness’ players was still trash compared to the Dragonlight Cavalry’s. I wouldn’t be able to face them if I failed to improve their welfare. Moreover, I was part of the reason they had traveled all the way to this crossroad of the servers. They wouldn’t be able to survive this place unless I built up their strength.

……

Staring at the direction Throne of the Wild had escaped to, Hickey asked me, "Are you sure Tear Stain and her men have withdrawn, boss? That they’ve given up on raiding the Obsidian Cave?"

I shrugged. "I don’t know. I have no idea what she’s plotting after all. However, she is Candlelight Shadow’s junior sister. She had learned all kinds of strategies and tactics from him, and her mental strength is one of a kind, so I’m fairly sure she wouldn’t give up just like that. This is just the beginning. You’ll have to station more men around the caves and protect our miners…"

"Understood." Hickey nodded. "I’ll move Bloodlust’s one hundred thousand elite troops to this area so that they can react to the enemy’s activities at a moment’s notice."

"Good!" I shot her an encouraging smile before saying to Warscar. "Warscar, drop everything you’re doing right now and focus on patrolling our supply line with 20000 Berserk Viking Cavalrymen. Make sure you escort our transporters to Black Cavalry Scout Camp every step of the way. I have a feeling that that woman will try to raid our supply lines now that her frontal assault has failed."

Warscar grinned. "Will do, guild leader."

……

Instead of joining Hickey or Warscar on their business, I made my way back to Black Cavalry Scout Camp. As expected, the blacksmiths were forging the Brave General Horseshoes at a snail’s pace. Mona wouldn’t urge the blacksmiths to work faster if I wasn’t around, so I needed to stay in the camp to make sure that the work was being done at a reasonable pace.

When the clock hand moved past 9 pm, another 20k+ Brave General Horseshoes were finally complete. I gave them to Hickey and Warscar to distribute to the Zephyr Cavalry. At the same time, Hickey rode over while breathing heavily. "Boss, the situation at Lost Forest went exactly as you predicted. Tear Stain had tried to ambush our transporters with 30000 cavalrymen, but Warscar managed to hold the line in the end. Your boy, Gui Guzi, and his 10000 Dragonlight Cavalrymen were also a great help…"

I nodded. "Of course."

Suddenly, Warscar sent me a message: "Boss, our people at the two southernmost caves just came under attack…"

Hickey frowned. "Dammit!"

I also clenched my fists together. "Fuck, she’s trying to create diversions and spread our forces thin. She knew that we don’t have the numbers to cover all areas…"

Hickey replied, "Yeah. Speaking of which, I wanted to tell you that a large amount of ores in the innermost area of the three northernmost caves suddenly went missing. It wasn’t until ten minutes ago that I learned that Tear Stain had dispatched almost ten thousand assassins to stealth into the caves and dig the ores. It was already too late when we found out…"

"Fuck…"

I leaned against the tree and rested the Purple Ying Sword on my knees. "Ah, whatever. We knew from the start that this woman was a smart and formidable opponent. She must desperately need the Obsidian Metal to go so far as to steal our ores. Let’s do it this way. Hickey, I want you to dispatch archers to each cave and have them use Skypiercer every minute. It should stop Throne of the Wild from repeating the same ploy and stealing our ores without us noticing. Also, tell everyone that we’re going to be mining all night. Remember, the entire reason Tear Stain is mining these ores is to build Obsidian Thunder Siege Engines and fuck us over. There’s no way we can let her succeed!"

"Understood, boss. One more thing. About 1000 God’s Domain’s players have appeared at the edge of Ice River Canton. For now, they seem to be observing us only."

"Ignore them and focus on mining. They can be our guinea pigs after we’ve outfitted all our riders with Brave General Horseshoes!"

"Mn!"