The Fusion Armor patterns etched across my arm looked incredibly dazzling in the night. Sky Forest was incredibly silent at this time, and the demonic, bloody glow of the Ghost Spirit War Boots gave off made me look even more sinister in the dark. I was walking at a leisurely pace, but Lian Xin had to jog to keep up with me. She shouted from behind, "Slow down, bro! I can’t keep pace with you!"

Although I was walking, Fusion Armor made me as fast as the Ancient Divine Dragon. It was no wonder Lian Xin couldn’t keep pace with me. So, I reduced my speed a bit and walked side-by-side with her.

"Little Xin."

"Yeah?"

"You were the fourth best player on the Nation War contribution leaderboard. You must’ve gotten a great reward, right?"

"I got an Archean Immortal-grade cloth-armor robe, so it’s okay, I guess. Still way worse compared to your Ghost Spirit War Boots though."

"It’s good. As of now, Archean Immortal-grade equipment is priceless and cannot be found anywhere in the market."

"Yeah."

Lian Xin blinked before asking another question, "By the way, how much longer are you going to be Protective Umbrella’s guild leader? Boss openly said that she hopes that you return to Ancient Sword as soon as possible. It’s why the vice leader position has been left empty until now!"

I smiled. "I know. I want to go back too, but Protective Umbrella hasn’t solidified their footing at Ice River Canton yet. Currently, my plan is to find and occupy player territory close to Dark Moon City and Black Coast for Protective Umbrella. This way, they’ll become Dark Moon City’s defense line against the enemies from the sea, and Dark Moon City can protect them from everything. It’ll be a mutualistic relationship."

"Wow, that is a good idea. Okay, we’ll do as you say. I’ll check what territories are available at Black Coast right now…"

"I’ve already done that. Dragons Run Wild alliance has a Rank 8 guild that has a territory at Black Coast. Since Dragons Run Wild has collapsed, the guild territory is still under British players’ control. I’ve already asked Gui Guzi and Xu Yang to attack them with the main cavalry of Bloody Mercenaries. Once all opposition has been swept away, Hickey and the Zephyr Cavalry will enter and occupy the territory. In fact, they should be fighting already."

Lian Xin’s eyes widened. "You should’ve just started off with that. Also, don’t you think that you’re being a bit too smart as of late, big brother? Girls don’t like guys who are too smart for their own good, you know?"

I chuckled. "So what? I have Eve and Yiyi anyway. They are all the women I need!"

"Hmph. Playboy!"

……

It was at this moment sounds of battle suddenly erupted from the forest in front of us. The erratic flashes of skills seemed to suggest a massive PvP battle. I perked up. As mentioned before, there were still a ton of small or large Northern Alliance forces attacking our players and acting as they pleased within Sky City. The reason Lian Xin and I had formed a two-man party today was to deal with these nuisances.

Chiang!

I unsheathed my weapon and said with a smile, "Someone with big balls is PKing in our territory, I see. Get ready, Little Xin. If it’s a civil war then whatever, but if it’s a red name then they must die!"

"Heehee, understood!"

I dashed ahead of Lian Xin and hacked apart the brambles blocking my way. At the forest clearing, I saw a large group of Korean cavalrymen from Burning City fighting against a group of Gods of Destruction players. The only player I recognized was Dominating Knight God, and he and his men were obviously the ones at a disadvantage.

I rushed in without hesitation and fired Myriad Swords Obliteration long before I physically reached them. An entire group of Korean cavalry immediately lost a ton of HP. When they turned around and saw who I was, the leader exclaimed in astonishment, "Shit! It’s a god-tier player, Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand! Retreat to the southeast! We don’t have the numbers to kill him!"

The corners of my mouth curled up. "You think you can escape after invading our homeland a second time? Rejoice! Today’s lesson is infinite corpse camping!"

I dashed past them like a lightning bolt while swinging the Purple Ying Sword left and right, eliciting howls of pain with Thousand Ice Slash and Burning Blade Slash. I also made the Phantom Wolf King and my apparition attack from two different directions so that they couldn’t escape. They didn’t even number one thousand, so they faltered practically immediately.

Boom boom boom!

Their nightmare was just beginning, however. I wasn’t the only enemy they had to fight. When an explosive, magical kaboom rocked everyone’s eardrums, they realized in terror that one of China’s best mages, Lian Xing, was present as well!

God Devil Break thrived on massive Intelligence difference, and none of these cavalrymen had the Intelligence necessary to survive Lian Xin’s attack. They scattered in every direction after seeing their brethren’s death, but Lian Xin made them faceplant into her Origin Force Fields with ease. At this point, even I couldn’t help but feel pity for them.

"It’s impossible to win this! Run! Run!"

A dozen or so cavalrymen escaped toward the deeper area of the forest, but they were no match for my speed. After catching a magic knight and stabbing him through the back, I fired three Ancient Seals and two Dragon Slaying Slashes to annihilate another dozen escapees. Finally, I crouched a little before tossing the Purple Ying Sword mightily into the forest. Just like that, the spinning cyclone of doom that was Coiling Dragon Revolution turned the last group of escapees into cold, icy corpses. We weren’t in a Nation War, so they must run back to their corpses to revive.

The enemy party was killed so quickly it was almost unbelievable. My movement speed was at least several times higher than the enemies’, so I was able to kill them one by one as fast as if they were clumped up in a group. It absolutely wasn’t a fair fight at all.

……

When the dust settled, Dominating Knight God sucked in a deep breath and looked back and forth between the floor of corpses, and me and Lian Xin. He said in a dumbfounded tone, "Heavens, I wouldn’t believe that two players could take out an entire thousand-man party if I didn’t just see it with my own eyes…"

I chuckled. "What are you waiting for, Dominating Knight God? Contact Dominating Heaven Blade and tell him to send some men over to corpse-camp these bastards already. These Koreans think they can rob us while we’re down? We’ll have them cough out their heirloom and some more!"

Dominating Knight God grinned. "Haha, you’re right. I’ll do that right away!"

Lian Xin and I turned around and left after that. There were a lot of Northern Alliance players in Sky City, but there were even more Chinese players as a matter of course. Now that there were enough player territories around to provide everyone with equipment repairs and supplies, they automatically formed hundred-man parties, thousand-man parties and even ten thousand-man parties to wipe out the rest of the invaders.

Lian Xin and I spent the whole afternoon killing players in the forest and little else. When it was nighttime in the real world, there were almost no foreign players left in Sky City domain. It wasn’t just Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls who were doing this either. Snowy Cathaya, Warsky Alliance, Candle Dragon, Blazing Hot Lips and more had sent out their elites to eliminate the foreign forces as well. The goal was to suppress them completely in 7 days so we wouldn’t have to worry about our backyard going up in flames when we launched our counterattack.

We fought until it was past 9 pm when Murong Mingyue messaged me stating that He Yi had returned from Shanghai. Only then we logged out of the game to have supper.

On an unrelated note, my friend list was completely deleted after I was exiled from the China server, so not only did I have to add my friends back one by one, I had to retrain all my Intimacy from 0. I would like to hold someone accountable for this, but Tang Long was already in prison, and Tang Feng was an old fox who would almost certainly deny all responsibility in this regard. The only good news was that most of the friends on my friend list were pretty women, so grinding with them was a benefit, not a taxation on my mental health.

……

Tonight’s supper was mudbugs at the night market. The four of us sat around a table, drank several bottles of beer and enjoyed a good breeze in general. It was a pretty relaxing night until Murong Mingyue said, "Sigh, if only Lil Beiming was with us…"

I immediately shot her a glare. "Seriously?"

"Ahem, sorry. Let’s continue eating…"

It was past 10 pm by the time we finished dinner. After we returned to the workshop, we agreed to meet up at Sky Ridge Fortress, seek out Princess Karinshan and receive faction quests from her. News of the construction had spread throughout the China server, and no one was foolish enough to pass by the opportunity to grind.

We logged into the game, but Beiming Xue wasn’t present. We called her to see what was keeping her, and she told us that her hostel was missing a game data line interface, and she unfortunately was the one who drew the short straw. Speaking of which, Beiming Xue was swamped by fans the second she returned to her university. University students from all around Wuxi went to her university just to catch a glimpse of the legendary Dark Archer of Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls in real life. It was so annoying that Beiming Xue spent 15 minutes just complaining about it.

Outside the gate of Dark Moon City, I spared a moment to admire the beautiful light adorning my arm. Not only was the Fusion Armor powerful and agile, it looked cool as heck as well. During the battle of White Horse Highland, one of the major reasons I was able to solo 7 top-tier experts including Breeze and Rain, God of War and Red Maple and come out on top was thanks to the turn rate penalty removal of the Fusion Armor. I had moved way faster than my opponents expected, and my overwhelmingly powerful Attack and Defense meant that they didn’t get a chance to adjust before they died. That was why I was able to kill Red Maple and Cyan Frost.

……

"Everyone ready? Alright! Frost Cloud workshop’s five-man party, go!" Lian Xin chirped.

However, Murong Mingyue covered her forehead and said, "I thought you majored in management, Lian Xin? Was your Math teacher a Fashion teacher or something? There are only four of us since Lil Beiming isn’t around…"

"Er, huh. You’re right. There are only four of us!"

I shook my head. Anyway, I made He Yi the party leader and had her activate Royal Road. Originally, the plan was for He Yi to carry Murong Mingyue and me Lian Xin to Sky Ridge Fortress, but I didn’t have enough Intimacy with her yet. As a result, we had no choice but to run on foot toward our destination. That being said, we got to kill some mobs on the way, so it wasn’t a complete waste of time.

50 minutes later, we arrived at Sky Ridge Fortress. I looked up. Sky Ridge was covered in ice and snow as usual, but now a magnificent building had been constructed at the top, and the vines had been replaced by 20 ice ladders or so. Still, for the sake of player convenience, we weren’t required to climb to the top to receive the faction quests. There were rows of buildings at the foot of the mountain, and we could receive the faction quests from the NPC guards outside.

He Yi walked up to an NPC and chatted with him for a moment. A moment later, we received our first party quest—

[Collect Animal Fur]: Kill any wild monster above Level 200 and collect 1000 animal fur. Bring it to the guard for 100 faction points per person in your party and a great amount of experience. Max Party Size: 10.