I hung on until past 1 am in real time, but in the end I couldn’t stay awake any longer and went to bed. The good news was that the forging of the Brave General Horseshoes went very smoothly, and most of the Obsidian Metal was either sitting safely in my players’ bag or in the camp. A basic estimate also told me that we had enough Obsidian Metal to equip almost 50k Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls Dragonlight Cavalrymen and Dragonlight Archers.

The next morning, I woke up and checked in with Hickey to see if anything had happened while I was gone. And there was a lot. Tear Stain turned out to be far more determined and resourceful than any of us could’ve imagined. Throughout the night, she created all sorts of diversions, fake attacks and more to distract our players and steal or raid the Obsidian Metal. Thanks to her relentless efforts, she was able to seize at least 10000 Obsidian Metal for herself. The good news was that over 95% of the Obsidian Metal was still in our control, and after a whole night of mad digging, all 12 mining spots in Obsidian Cave had been picked clean by us. A large majority of the Obsidian Metal had also been carried into Black Cavalry Scout Camp and freed from Tear Stain’s ambitions as well.

……

In the late morning, I sat inside the territory with a small hill of freshly made horseshoes by my side, and Mona working at the smithing table in front of me. Gui Guzi, Xu Yang, Heaven’s Rain and Li Chengfeng were present as well. Outside the camp, a large troop of Dragonlight Cavalrymen from the main guild had shown up to carry hundreds and thousands Brave General Horseshoes back to Dark Moon City.

His Dark Blade in hand, Li Chengfeng embedded it into his mount, looked at his stats and couldn’t resist the grin spreading across his face. "OMG, look at those beautiful, beautiful numbers. Where did you even find so many, Lu Chen? I thought an item like this would be one of a kind…"

I nodded. "I know right? The horseshoe was a reward for being the first party to beat the first boss of the S3 instance, Ochil. It so happens that I know an NPC in this camp, so together we were able to create its blueprint and duplicate this horseshoe to infinity and beyond. The materials necessary to make it can only be found at a series of caves in Dragonbone Mountain Range, so we went there to do some mining only to be interrupted by Dragons Run Wild first and Throne of the Wild later. Since yesterday morning, we’ve been fighting almost non-stop until now. It was disgusting…"

Li Chengfeng guffawed before slapping me on the shoulder. "So what? If we really can get every Dragonlight Cavalryman and Dragonlight Archer a Brave General Horseshoe, then even fasting for a week is not an unacceptable cost. At face value, this horseshoe may not look like much, but it improves our rider’s overall strength by at least 20%. That is a decisive amount of power in a PvP group battle in the open world. Personally, I think our 50000 Dragonlight Cavalrymen can sweep Cyan Earth City’s 250000 Beast King Cavalry with the upgrade. What do you think?"

I clenched my fists tightly in excitement. "But of course! We’ll show them when the next Nation War starts. Speaking of which, how are things within the country right now?"

Li Chengfeng leaned against a wooden stake next to me before replying, "What else? Candlelight Shadow gave Pop Culture enough support to continuously absorb the new players within Sky City and grow themselves into a super guild with a million members. For the past few days, they’ve been sending players to Dark Moon City’s perimeters and gauging our temper. I suspect that they would’ve attacked us already if it wasn’t for the 1000 Bone Dragons sitting in our Dragon’s Lair."

I asked, "What is Eve’s opinion on this provocation?"

Chaos Moon giggled. "Guild leader told Li Chengfeng to do as he sees fit. Excluding the 10000 Dragonlight Cavalrymen Gui Guzi had taken to Bloody Mercenaries, we have 30k Dragonlight Cavalrymen and 18k Dragonlight Archers. These two troops alone are enough to sweep the army of one million small fries from Pop Culture, not to mention the 30k Zephyr Cavalrymen you gave us. Long story short, we aren’t worried about the clowns from Pop Culture at all. If they become too annoying, we’ll just trash them so hard that they need their nanny to carry them to the toilet, heehee."

Me: "..."

I shot a look at the Ancient Sword players coming over to pick up the Brave General Horseshoes before saying, "Hey you guys, if you’ve filled your bag with the horseshoes, you should teleport back to Dark Moon City and store them in the guild warehouse right away. The guild leader will distribute them later. These horseshoes are our blood, sweat and tears, and it’d be a shame if someone managed to steal them from you."

They broke into smiles and answered, "Yes, vice leader! We’ll head back right away!"

My shoulder was missing its guild emblem and nation emblem, but my players still knew me as Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls’ vice leader. In fact, Lian Xin was still the only vice leader of the main guild to this day. No one had taken over the position that I had been forced to leave behind.

……

When it was almost noon, the tally was finally complete. A total of over 70k Brave General Horseshoes had been transported back to the guild warehouse, and it was enough to equip a ton of riders with the Brave General Horseshoe. Including the troops currently under my command, Ancient Sword had a total of 40k Dragonlight Cavalrymen, 18k Dragonlight Archers and 60k Zephyr Cavalrymen, and very soon they would all be upgraded with Brave General Horseshoes. The world would soon learn the true terror that was our cavalry legion!

At noon, I logged out of the game and ate lunch with Chaos Moon and Lin Yixin. However, I received yet another phone call in the middle of a meal, and this time it was a number I hadn’t seen in a long time, Gui Guzi.

"Yes, Little Gui?"

"Bad news, Boss Broken Halberd!" Gui Guzi said while panting heavily.

"What’s wrong?" I remained calm.

He replied, "We found out that Tear Stain wasn’t raiding the Obsidian Metal for siege engines! It was for a quest to generate a neutral Rank 8 guild territory at Soaring Flame Desert next to Dragonbone Mountain Range! Tear Stain was able to react faster than everyone and surround the territory with 400k Throne of the Wild players she had brought with her. She is expected to occupy it in half an hour at most. We only have 10 hours left to make a decision now. What do we do, boss? Are we occupying this territory or not?"

"Soaring Flame Desert?"

I shivered. "And it borders Dragonbone Mountain Range? That’s… really close to our Dark Moon City. Fuck!"

Gui Guzi replied, "Exactly. Guild leader Eve stated that it was ten kilometers away from Dark Moon City at most. If Dragonbone Mountain Range isn’t literally impassable, they could easily reach us in 1 hour at most. Even still, the guild leader is worried that there’s a secret path through Dragonbone Mountain Range that we aren’t aware of. If her assumption is true, it will be all too easy for Throne of the Wild to raid us…"

I put down my chopsticks and hummed thoughtfully. "Did Tear Stain really come all the way to Purple Grape City for this one territory? What on earth was she thinking?"

"I don’t know. I can’t figure out her motivations either…" Gui Guzi replied.

I gritted my teeth and said, "Regardless of her true intentions, we cannot allow Throne of the Wild to occupy this territory without a fight. Little Gui, log into the game and inform Warscar and Hickey to rally my men. I’m logging in too. Once we’re ready, we’ll set off to Soaring Flame Desert and take this territory from Tear Stain!"

"Okay!"

……

I hung up and explained the situation to Lin Yixin and Chaos Moon.

Being the intelligent girl she was, Lin Yixin immediately noticed something. "Tear Stain is obviously building a frontline base. A Rank 8 territory can unlock teleportation formation immediately, so Burning City would be able to teleport millions and millions of troops to this territory. If they found a shortcut through Dragonbone Mountain Range as well, then they’d have a direct path to both our territories and the three main cities of the Center. No, we absolutely cannot allow this territory to fall into Tear Stain’s hands…"

Chaos Moon urged, "What else are we waiting for then? Let’s log into the game and rally our troops right now! It’s only Tear Stain and Throne of the Wild. We’ll be able to wipe them out with a snap of our fingers!"

I nodded. "Yeah, let’s!"

……

And so, we rushed back to the hotel and logged back into the game.

Swhoosh!

The forging process had been completed by the time I appeared in the camp once more. I repaired my equipment and departed after bidding Mona goodbye.

Outside Black Cavalry Scout Camp, Warscar, Hickey, Bloodthirsty Demon and the others had already assembled the men at the entrance. The moment they saw me, Warscar said, "Less than half of our people are online due to last night’s work. For now, we only have 9000+ Zephyr Cavalrymen. Should we wait a bit longer, or should we depart now?"

"We depart now. Hickey, please identify the exact coordinates of the guild territory. We’re marching to Soaring Flame Desert right away!"

"Mn!"

Hickey nodded before replying, "Your Gui Guzi had returned to Sky City. He said that he’d assemble the troops and return with your main guild’s army. An official owner will be decided in 10 hours, or in this case, a bit over 9 hours because of all the work and marching. We don’t have much time."

"Yeah. Let’s go!"

……

The Godkiller and I marched for a bit until a large group of players suddenly appeared on our right wing. I had never seen them before, and their guild symbol was that of an evil dragon.

"Eh? Who are those people?" I asked.

Hickey replied, "They’re a group of 7 guilds from Iron Skull Wilderness around 200k players strong. After we escaped into Purple Grape City, a dozen or so second-rate Cyan Earth City guilds turned their ire on them to vent their frustration. As a result, they ran all the way here to meet up with us. Since you weren’t online at the time, I didn’t accept them into the guild, and I told them to do whatever they wanted in the meantime…"

I frowned. "Are they reliable?"

"I have no idea."

"Er…"

Warscar suggested, "How about we decide this after we’ve taken over that territory? We can let them join us, since there’s no better place than a battle to see if they have balls or not!"

I nodded. "Heh, that’s a good idea…"

……

Including the 9000+ Zephyr Cavalrymen, our total troop amounted to less than 200k, and our non-cannon fodder players numbered less than 50k. There was a reason Tear Stain thought of Godkiller as a guild of mobs.

After we marched past the forest area, the land around us slowly turned barren and yellowish. Another ten minutes later, everything was sand except the occasional cacti and dry animal carcasses. There were bones of alpacas, sand wolves and more.

The marked coordinate on the map screen grew closer and closer. Finally, a majestic shadow appeared at the distant horizon.

Warscar immediately raised his axe. "That’s the main city. Let’s ride to it and crush it to pieces now!"

Me: "..."