Chapter 1374: Ink Qilin

I arrived at the borders of Bloody Shield Domain on the Ancient Divine Dragon. The wind here felt absolutely bone-chilling, and the bloodiness in the air was even thicker than normal after the launch of the new patch. The mob density of the maps had visibly increased as well. About a hundred meters away, I saw zombies with incomplete limbs and tattered clothes jumping here and there on the barren plains. They were Level 295 fiend-rank mobs that could inflict Poisoned status with their attacks. Thank goodness the devs retained a tiny bit of conscience and didn’t pit us against Level 300 mobs from the get-go. Otherwise, man, the combat players might as well change to construction right now.

For this event, players who died in the Chaotic Regions would lose a level and revive in the main city right away, but they weren’t barred from reentering the map. What this meant was that this was a test of tenacity, and that this battle was going to be a long one. Even with the entire world working to clear the event, I wouldn’t be surprised if it lasted two whole days or more.

……

"How are we doing this?" Beiming Xue asked me.

I thought for a moment before ordering in the party channel, "Split into hundred-man parties of Dragonlight Cavalry, Dragonlight Archers and Holy Mages and aggro the mobs one by one. The Dragonlight Cavalry will stun the mobs with organized Charges and execute their combos, the Dragonlight Archers will take turns stunning them further with Shock Arrows, and the Holy Mages will kill the mobs with Touch of the Dragonkiss. Begin!"

Everyone nodded and got to work. The hundred-man parties had already been assigned beforehand, so there was no delay between my order and their action.

While leading the charge, I took a moment to check my bag. The biggest stack of cards I had brought were the Bloodthirsty Corpse Eater Cards—over 50 of them in total—so I used it to buff my Attack by 30% and my max HP by 60%. It was good enough for this fight.

My sword auras exploded among the mobs like a meat grinder. The Chill of the Nine Provinces was already amazingly powerful, but Martial God boosted my Attack by 200% as well. As a result, I was able to kill a Level 295 mob every 12 seconds or so. In fact, I was soloing a corner of the area because I didn’t need my players to help me. The Dragonlight Cavalry exchanged wry glances with each other, and even Heaven’s Rain stuck out her tongue and commented, "OMG, vice leader big bro’s Attack is just insane. No wonder Candlelight Shadow couldn’t beat you…"

I shot her a smile and continued forward.

The zombies were hopping mad, and our experience bars were madly hopping. All in all, we were off to a most pleasant start. The bloody plain was huge enough to fit us, the other 10000-man parties of Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls, Blazing Hot Lips, Purgatory Mad Dragon, Warsky Alliance and more guilds. Everyone knew that the new patch was full of profits just waiting to be uncovered, and they didn’t hesitate so split their forces to cover as many ground as possible.

Almost 3 hours later, our 10000-man parties were several kilometers deep into the map. Bone-chilling wind wouldn’t stop blowing, and the ground was covered in skeletons and rotten corpses on stakes. It was clear that they were humans that had been executed by this undead army. In fact, huge necropoleis were starting to enter my view.

"Big bro, look!"

Beiming Xue pointed to the west. "There’s an Archean Immortal Rank boss over there!"

"Hmm?"

I looked behind me and saw the boss. There was a glowing red figure hopping up and down in the hazy night, and it was a huge zombie called the Zombie King. It had a pair of long fangs, and its arms were outstretched. Its clothes were straight out of an older Chinese dynasty. Long story short, it was a Hong Kong zombie. I was one hundred percent certain that the designer was a Chinese. Anyway, that wasn’t the point. The point was that we absolutely possessed the power to annihilate this Archean Immortal Rank boss. It was just a matter of how.

"Do we wanna swarm him?" Moonlight Stone asked.

Her brother, Tiger Leopard Knight, replied from his Dragonscale Beast, "That’s a bit too much. It’s just an Archean Immortal Rank boss."

I smiled. "Exactly. A hundred players should be enough to destroy it. I’ll be the tank, so just get me a couple dozens of archers and mages. By the way, all Dragonlight Cavalry are to use only their skills to recover unless they have no other choice. As I mentioned earlier, there is no telling if there is a place we can restock our supplies in, so we need to take care to conserve our resources. For example, the magic knight’s War God Recovery restores 100% of your HP over 60 seconds. Why wouldn’t you want to abuse it? Now, let’s go. Also, no need to maximize your DPS to squeak out some more experience. It’s shared across 10000 players anyway, so it makes little to no difference. But of course, the last-hitter is going to get the bulk of the experience…"

I was already charging the boss with the Phantom Wolf King as I made the above rant. I stunned the Level 295 Zombie King with a Thunderous Charge and made it scream with many devastating skills. Just so that the others could pierce its Defense, I stabbed it with Purple Frost Concentration and lowered its Defense by 37%.

Behind me, dozens of Touches of the Dragonkiss burst out of the ground and struck the boss. The amount of damage they dealt could only be described as crazy—

247271!

219238!

237178!

……

Not even 2 minutes had passed, and the Zombie King only had 30% HP left.

While shooting with the Xuanming Bow, Beiming Xue let out a sigh before saying, "OMG, our mage party is really starting to look unbeatable. No way Warsky Alliance’s Gold Cavalry could punch through our firewall of God Devil Breaks no matter what they try…"

While attacking the boss, I replied, "Not necessarily. Warsky isn’t an idiot, he won’t make his Golden Cavalry run headlong into their doom. Knowing him, he would send his Cyanscale Cavalry, Frostscale Cavalry or whatever to hold our attention, then dispatch the Gold Cavalry to charge our Holy Mages from multiple directions. The Holy Mages only have an attack range of 40 yards, and it takes the Gold Cavalry only an instant to cover that distance. If the firewall is spread thin enough for them to break through, then it will be our mages’ turn to scream under their Ultimate Strength Breaks. That is why there is no such thing as the strongest unit, only the most flexible tactics and strategies. The strongest army is forged from blood and iron, and we all still have a ways to go."

Beiming Xue nodded repeatedly. "Mn, big bro is right!"

Heaven’s Rain chuckled. "You certainly are becoming more and more like a resourceful commander, and your achievements are the very proof of your words… You know, I heard a funny story about Warsky Alliance the other day. During one of their outings, Warsky had a bit too much to drink and wept into October’s Rain chest. He said that he would’ve traded Farewell Song, Laughing At The Heavens and Lin Bing Dou Zhe away if he could get just one Lu Chen for Warsky Alliance."

I was astonished. "What happened after that?"

Heaven’s Rain giggled. "What else? October Rain slapped him, and Farewell Song, Laughing At The Heavens and Lin Bing Dou Zhe gave him a bump on the head each."

Me: "..."

Tiger Leopard Knight commented, "Haha. Too bad for him, Lu Chen is probably never going to serve another guild besides Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls, not to mention that he would never serve someone like Warsky. Right, Lu Chen?"

I sucked in a deep breath before answering, "Yeah. The paths we tread are ultimately different, so we can never truly work together with each other!"

……

The Zombie King had dropped to 5% HP at this point, so I raised my voice and said, "Brothers and sisters, it’s time to punch the boss's face in! Whoever gets the last hit will get 50% of its experience, so don’t hold back! Hahahaha…"

Everyone laughed in response while unleashing their Barrier Breaks, Volleys, God Devil Breaks and more damaging combos against the boss. It only took a moment for the Zombie King to lose its last sliver of HP and drop to the ground. The combat log stated: Player "Moonlight Stone" has killed the Zombie King and gained 5000 points!

Damn, bosses really were worth a ton of contribution points!

Unfortunately, Moonlight Stone only had 6 Luck, so the boss only dropped Earth-grade equipment. I couldn’t exactly tell the gang to leave the last hit to me either because people would think that I just wanted to claim the boss experience for myself. This was especially true considering that we were operating in a 10000-man party right now. It wasn’t the same as when I was partying with just Beauty Lin, He Yi, Lian Xin and the rest of the girls. It takes a discerning person to be able to navigate through social interactions properly.

Now that the boss fight was done, I dragged down the contribution point ranking to give it another look. There were players from all over the world and not nearly enough Chinese players up in the Top 10—

Candlelight Shadow and Luo River God of the Capital were the only two Chinese players in the ranking’s Top 10. Little Piglet would’ve been the third if he hadn’t abandoned his nationality a while ago. Hickey was unaffiliated from the start. Anyway, the event had just begun, so it was natural for everyone’s points to be super close to one another. For the same reason, I wasn’t particularly worried about my ranking. I currently had 36770 points, which put me at the 12th place. With my insane number of AoE skills, it would only take me a moment to catch up to the point leaders. In fact, I bet I would have twice the amount of Tear Stain’s contribution points already if I was soloing. I had that much confidence at least.

Five whole hours passed, and we managed to kill a couple more bosses during this time. I managed to last-hit two of the bosses and drop an Archean Immortal-grade spear in the process. I gave it to Heaven’s Rain to significantly improve her offensive power. Her Ultimate Strength Break should be able to really hurt a boss now.

The guild channel was bustling with activity as a matter of course—

Li Chengfeng: "The mobs of the Chaotic Regions really are amazing. I’ve calculated the average experience I’ve been receiving, and I reckon that I can level up every 10 hours or so. If I grind hard, I should be able to enter the Heavenly Ranking of Sky City once more!"

Gui Guzi guffawed. "Do your best, Li! We’re having the time of our life as well. Man, the mob density in Bloody Shield Domain is seriously crazy. The experience from the Corpse Eaters alone can put a smile on my face."

Chaos Moon: "Strange, Lu Chen still hasn’t entered the Top 10 yet…"

Beiming Xue: "That’s because he’s been grinding with us this whole time…"

He Yi: "What’s with the sudden sense of responsibility, Lu Chen?"

I slapped my chest and said, "What do you mean? I’ve always been responsible toward the guild. In the past, I grinded solo only because I had no other choice…"

Everyone: "Like hell you did!!"

……

Unfortunately, no peace could last forever. A few minutes later, Tiger Leopard Knight galloped up to me like the wind with a stern expression on his face. "Guild leader!"

"What’s wrong?" I asked.

Tiger Leopard Knight pointed his spear to the west and said, "The map over there is a canyon-style mountain pass, but it’s currently occupied by a bunch of Dark Mercenaries elite cavalrymen. They… seem to be targeting the 30000 Purgatory Mad Dragon players next to us…"

I was surprised. "Elite cavalrymen? Are they the Iron Cutter Cavalry Hero Alliance gave to Little Piglet?"

"Yes. I counted around 3000 of them, and Little Piglet is with them as well. He’s… got a new mount…"

"What is it?"

"It’s a huge, black beast called the Ink Qilin. I think it was sponsored by the Northern Alliance as well…"

"Fuck!"

I clenched my fists. Looks like the temporary peace has ended sooner than I thought.