"Go!"

I shouted in the party channel and burst out of the ground, activating both Battle Astral Wind and Heavenly River Transformation at the same time. Amber Pupil’s skill was questionable at best, but his men were nothing like him. They would have never made it this far in the first place if they were mere weaklings. That was why I couldn’t afford to conserve my strength.

Fire wreathed the Chill of Nine Provinces as I closed the distance between Amber Pupil and I by around 20 yards. Then, I unleashed my Burning Blade Slash from an angle that would catch Amber Pupil, Now and Forever and the rest of the elites beside them.

"Shit!"

Caught off-guard, Amber Pupil could only raise his sword and arms and assume a Guard stance. His body shook three times as he was struck by Burning Blade Slash!

179892!

221938!

252885!

His Guard was successful, and he was even able to reduce over 50% of the damage he received. However, it didn’t mean he was out of danger because I immediately cast Summon the Storm next. The ambush had just begun, and they were already 500k HP down or more. Now and Forever straight up lost his Magic Shield and was forced to withdraw.

"Ambush! It’s that fucker Lu Chen!"

Now and Forever healed himself to full using Soul Forge before applying Yin Yang Mirror to himself. It was a skill that reflected the damage he received back to his enemy.

While chasing after Amber Pupil, I shouted, "Volley his Yin Yang Mirror[1], Beiming!"

Beiming Xue rode out of the dark forest and loosed an Evil Spirit Volley into the enemy. Only one of the arrows was aimed at Now and Forever, but she still lost over 400k HP in one go. Still, it was the best possible outcome we could hope for. If it was me who had to dispel the skill, I would’ve lost at least a million HP. That would be unacceptable.

Buzz!

My sword buzzed, and a golden sword at least tens of meters long appeared in the sky. It was my strongest skill, the SSS Rank Ancient Divine Skill, Xuanyuan Slash!

"Oh no!"

Now and Forever was too close to me, so he had no choice but to Blink away. However, I predicted his reaction and Thunderous Charged straight away to his new location. Now and Forever’s face turned purple when he saw me closing the distance while dragging the absolutely deadly energy that was Xuanyuan Slash with me!

BOOM!

The Xuanyuan Slash destroyed the earth, Now and Forever, and nearly a hundred Dark Mercenaries players. Screams filled the air, and the Onmyouji died just like that. 1.8 million damage was more than enough to take his life especially because he wasn’t wearing any damage reduction equipment at all, at least not that I could see.

"Bastard!"

Amber Pupil’s Square Slash and Blazing Fire Ball hit my back but failed to delete even a single point of HP. Instead, my Battle Astral Wind lost 29% of its durability. Amber Pupil’s Attack wasn’t very high, so even my Battle Astral Wind was too big of a hurdle for him.

"Get lost!"

I dashed backward, summoned the Cyan Dragon Shield in an instant and bashed it against Amber Pupil’s shoulder, driving him right toward the magical spell that was Lian Xin’s Ice Spiral Matrix. Horrified, Amber Pupil hurriedly stopped in his tracks before zigzagging away from Lian Xin. The reason he did this was because he knew that Lian Xin had Origin Force Field.

Unfortunately, Lian Xin was far more skilled than Amber Pupil could possibly imagine. She had me and many more peak fighters to train with after all. She cast 7 Origin Force Fields in total along Amber Pupil’s path, and not a single one of them had missed. Dizzy from the sheer amount of times he ran face-first into an invisible wall, he shouted, "I need some cover fire and healing over here!"

Swhoosh swhoosh swhoosh...

Holy light enveloped Amber Pupil again and again and pulled him away from death’s door. Arrows and magic spells landed all around Lian Xin to keep her from finishing the job, and at least dozens of cavalrymen were circling to the back to ambush Beiming Xue, Lian Xin and Murong Mingyue. They never made a sound throughout the counterattack. This alone showed how experienced they were at PvP battles. I reckoned that any party who wasn’t us would likely be facing the threat of annihilation already.

……

Thud thud thud...

I ran across the mud while changing my speed and direction repeatedly. Every time I reached a turning point, I would reduce my speed by 50%, gather my strength, and stab an archer right through their chest armor, killing them. Without pause, I would then dash down another direction toward another target. I never attacked an opponent directly. They were all running attacks that, if insufficient to kill the target, at least left them with a grievous wound that crippled their ability to fight normally.

While I was passing by a group of archers and mages, I made a hand seal and unleashed Myriad Swords Obliteration + Rise of the Guardian Dragon combo that successfully decreased their Magic Shield’s durability by a lot. However, I also became the focus of their God Devil Break and lost at least 200k damage per hit. The offensive power of Dark Mercenaries’ best mages was definitely scary.

Suddenly, a pair of dragons roared in the sky. It was Lin Yixin and He Yi activating their Heavenly River Transformations and Ancient Divine Skills. For a limited duration, all of their skills such as Ice Flame Slash, Storm Slash, Purgatory of Ice and Magma and more would ignore Defense. It was a one-sided massacre especially because they were attacking from the air.

"Roar roar…"

It wasn’t like the enemy wasn’t able to retaliate against us, however. The Phantom Wolf King died after failing to dodge a volley of God Devil Breaks from at least a dozen or so mages. My apparition also dropped to the ground in no time because it couldn’t protect itself with Battle Astral Wind or benefit from passive defensive skills such as Ghost Deity Shield. The difference between our Defense stats was like night and day.

……

Swhoosh!

Suddenly, a red light flashed beside Beiming Xue, stunning her and deleting 290k+ HP from her person. Her ambusher’s ID was—Cold of Spring!

I shivered. Motherfucker! Wasn’t Cold of Spring a member of Blood Alliance? Why the hell was he here now?

A chill crawled across my spine. Blood Alliance was one of the parties who roamed the outer lands, and it was well-known that there was no one they wouldn’t work for except those who couldn’t afford their services. Could it be… that Dark Mercenaries had come to some sort of secret agreement with Blood Alliance?

I immediately scanned Beiming Xue and Lian Xin’s surroundings with Dark Pupils and spotted at least a dozen or so assassins moving toward them. I hurriedly shouted, "You’re surrounded by assassins! Get them all with Frozen Domain!"

Before I could finish my sentence, Lian Xin was already stomping the ground and extending her magic outward. An instant later, ice, snow, and many, many frozen assassins suddenly appeared out of thin air. Frozen Domain was one of Lian Xin’s ultimate skills, and it froze her targets 100% of the time. Unless her opponent was protected by an invincibility shield, or was a super high-level boss, there was no one she couldn’t freeze with the spell. Naturally, Blood Alliance’s assassins didn’t fall under this category. If anything, Lian Xin had more than a 100% chance to freeze them since she outleveled them by a lot.

Cold of Spring, Flame of Summer, Leaf of Autumn and Cadence of Winter all appeared frozen around Lian Xin at the same time. The frozen status condition would only last 4.5 seconds, so I wasted no time in moving to the right spot and tossing a Coiling Dragon Revolution while I was still 45 yards away from them. The spinning blade of death quickly engulfed Cold of Spring, Flame of Summer and Cadence of Winter and dealing a sizable amount of damage—

790283!

812737!

729934!

These assassins all had a good amount of HP. You might even say that they were the cream of the crop among leather-armor players. Due to the Frozen status condition increasing their Defense and the fact that they had around 1 million HP, my Coiling Dragon Revolution wasn’t able to kill any of them. That was fine though. Lian Xin was there after all. A single Dimensional Storm was all it took to transform the Spring, Summer and Winter elders of Blood Alliance into a pile of potions and equipment. The remaining assassins could only watch helplessly from their icy prisons.

It wasn’t over though. I shouted as I reached Lian Xin, "Watch out for Assassin’s Creed!"

As if on cue, I picked up a surge of killing intent and saw a grass shudder just a bit too much to be a brush with the wind. I immediately pulled Lian Xin behind me and swung my Cyan Dragon Shield forward, successfully intercepting Ambush. My blade clashed against a dagger in a shower of metallic spark, and an invisible veil pulled away to reveal Assassin’s Creed icy and malicious grin. He used the force of our clash to push himself a dozen or so meters away from me before reentering stealth in a flash of fluorescent light.

Assassin’s Creed quickly vanished from both my sight and my minimap, but a quick on-and-off of Dark Pupils was all it took to return him to view. As I thought, few assassins could escape my detection skill unless it was Farewell Song with Ghost Lake Mirror. I pretended that I didn’t see Assassin’s Creed though. I focused on taking out the five or six assassins who had just broken out of their icy prison before Beiming Xue revealed them all with Skypiercer. After that, it was just a matter of how fast Lian Xin could kill them all with her magic.

……

While this was going on, our beautiful dragon riders had also murdered countless enemies including one sad and pathetic Amber Pupil. Moon Dew had seized an opening to run to the city gate and press a hand to a magical rune on its surface. She then shouted in the party channel, "Everyone, the gate’s going to open in 1 minutes and 42 seconds! It will open for only 15 seconds before closing! After that, we have to wait for 60 minutes before it opens again!"

I drove back a group of Dark Mercenaries players with Thousand Ice Slash before shouting, "Move to the gate and get ready to charge in at first notice! I’ll cover our rear and keep Dark Mercenaries and Blood Alliance away from the gate for as long as I can!"

Thud! Thud!

Lin Yixin and He Yi descended from the sky. I could definitely hold the line alone for one minute or so, and the few players who could threaten me such as Now and Forever or Amber Pupil were still running back to their corpses. I would make certain that we were the first ones to enter Bloodthirsty Castle.

……

Creak...

As the gate slowly opened, a countdown appeared on everyone’s interface—

15!

14!

……

I said in a hurry, "Get in now! I’ll hold the line for just a bit longer!"

"Mn!"

I stayed where I was while the girls rushed through the gap. Arrows and magic spells were blasting away at my Guardian Dragon Armor, but I barely felt any pressure with the protection of the Cyan Dragon Shield and my 2.3 million max HP.

My breathing slowed to a crawl as I waited patiently and expectantly for my prey to show up.

1. E/N: Yin Yang Mirror reflects one attack back. Beiming’s Volley is made up of weak arrows, probably like 30% of her basic attack, 8-12 arrows depending on skill variation. Other than some random DPS spell from Murong Mingyue, it’s their single weakest damage number