At that moment, all h.e.l.l broke loose in the Vast Plain.
Like a receding tide, the creep waves of monsters in every direction except for the north retreated. On the battlefront, all members of the Midsummer Guild were stunned. It was as if they were inside a dream.
Had they lost this defensive battle?
Had the guild just been disbanded?
Having heard the system notification, every single player, be it the members of the Midsummer Guild who were still on the Vast Plain or those who had just been revived and were now rushing back into battle from Tianlong City, was stunned. All their effort, their sacrifices, and their perseverance were all for nothing.
At least a small group of players was aware of the true reason behind the failure of the encampment"s defense. It was all because of one person! One player who was on the Midsummer Guild"s. .h.i.t list and who had then decided to become their enemy!
This was a form of revenge against the Midsummer Guild. The Paladin Order did not decimate everything; they had stopped their a.s.sault once the encampment"s lobby was taken over. By then, everyone was quiet, be it the players who were lucky enough to have survived the a.s.sault, or the bystanders who had been watching the monsters" invasion of the city from the sidelines, or those players who were just hanging around to gather experience points, or even those who were harboring evil intentions towards the city. At that moment, everyone looked utterly perplexed and puzzled.
Midsummer Rose was still alive. There she was, standing among the ruins of the encampment"s lobby in all her slender and elegant beauty. Even now, she seemed haughty, as if she was above and beyond the normal and mundane. As she watched Xiaofeng silently, her eyes held the same look of confusion, rage, dissatisfaction, hopelessness, regret, and a whole medley of other emotions that were jumbled together. Those emotions swirled in her eyes, dulling the light of her beautiful eyes. The usual sparkle in her eyes was now gone. That, per se, was a heartbreaking sight.
"Let"s go," Xiaofeng announced.
Xiaofeng did not plan to linger around. All he did was give the ruins a quick survey before he turned around to leave. Xiaoxue"s ma.s.sive frame turned around the moment it received the directive of its master. A moment later, it broke off into a trot. More than one thousand terrifying members of the Paladin Order followed Xiaofeng in succession as the a.s.saulting party withdrew.
"d.a.m.n... I can"t believe I"m seeing this. Midsummer didn"t even last until the final wave of monsters before the encampment"s defense was broken through."
"This troop of Paladins is far too terrifying. At our current level, we wouldn"t be able to hold back a Level 30 Boss no matter how many people we send out."
"And then there was the Master Healer. Absolutely ruthless! I can"t believe he had managed to bring together a squad of Paladins with such tremendous strength. At this rate, this is no different than engaging with Midsummer in a battle to the death."
"But from what I see, Midsummer had still gotten the short end of the stick. The Master Healer is an unaffiliated player and a complete pain in the a.r.s.e to deal with. It didn"t matter that Midsummer was a large guild with a lot of members. So what if Midsummer had the number"s advantage. The Master Healer merely poked around a little and Midsummer just fell apart. Just look at this incident. I bet Midsummer is suffering a loss of at least two billion! Just the guild token alone had cost them a billion! They won"t be able to make up for a loss like this no matter how rich they are!"
"The monetary losses are still secondary. The main thing right now is that Midsummer"s reputation had just been dealt a devastating blow. The guild had just been forced into disbandment. The consequences are just too great. I"m pretty sure more than half of the members will quit the guild after this!"
"I really wondered just how big the animosity between the Master Healer and the Midsummer Guild is. I mean, for him to go through such lengths to mastermind all of this? It had to be pretty serious. I heard that the Midsummer Guild had already added the Master Healer to its. .h.i.t list when they were at Novice Village."
"But isn"t the head of the Midsummer Guild the most beautiful woman in the entire Huaxia District? The Master Healer didn"t even bother to give face at all. How ruthless."
"Wait a minute. Doesn"t the Doomsday League have a vendetta against the Master Healer too?"
"Yeah, that"s right! They even went live at that time when they tried to kill the Master Healer. It was quite an event, too. But in the end, their plan backfired and they got destroyed instead. Right now, no one knows where the Doomsday League has been hiding out. Maybe they are secretly reforming, who knows. I bet they are too ashamed to even show their faces."
"Wait! That time the tables got turned against the Doomsday League because the Master Healer had deployed an NPC troop right? d.a.m.n, if the Master Healer has the ability to deploy troops of such strength at short notice..."
"Then the Doomsday League"s goose would"ve been truly cooked! Right now, the Midsummer Guild is suffering the same fate as the Doomsday League back then!"
"Seriously. Do not ever mess with the Master Healer..."
"It"s not just the Master Healer. We shouldn"t mess with those G.o.dlike players as well, especially the ones who go solo. If you deliberately go up against a large guild, that would be a pain in the a.s.s to deal with for sure. It"s hard to survive an ambush from a huge squad. I mean, a small party would not necessarily be able to hold their own against an entire guild. But if someone is targetting you from the shadows and silently taking you down, you wouldn"t have a place to retreat to no matter how large your organization is. You"ll always be on the defensive."
"Well, this is the new paradigm of online gaming. In the past, even if you had outstanding individual stats, you still wouldn"t be able to do well against an enemy with a number"s advantage. But in a virtual gaming world as realistic as Myth"s, a player"s individual abilities could be manifested to the fullest."
"Hey, hey. Here comes the Master Healer. Are we going to retreat or what?"
"What else if not retreat? Stay behind and wait for them to treat you dinner?"
The Vast Plain was a vantage point on top of which one would be granted a view of a vast ocean of low hills and large rocks across the region. This was especially true on the north side of the Vast Plain. Once Xiaofeng emerged, hordes upon hordes of players had dispersed and scattered out. Most players felt somewhat disappointed in the way things had turned out; among those disappointed were those players who had come to gain more experience in battles involving the defense of a citadel against a creep invasion, as well as those players with evil intentions and who had been planning to use the opportunity to attack the Midsummer Guild. The former"s disappointment was due to the fact that they were unable to witness the final few waves -the key moment of the whole defense- of the a.s.sault, whereas the latter was dismayed by the fact that the encampment"s lobby had been breached before they could even make their move and do some real damage.
"Yo, you guys are here as well? What a coincidence."
Xiaofeng had noticed quite a number of familiar faces when he came out earlier. Both War Spirit Knife and Immortal Fire were there whereas quite a few players he had known from the time he was trying to complete an instance zone for the first time. Since Xiaofeng was in a good mood, he had taken the initiative to greet those familiar faces.
However, all the players on the Vast Plain revered Xiaofeng. They feared and respected him at the same time. None of them had the courage to approach him. To those players, Xiaofeng was a guild-destroying machine. Whichever guild that was engaged in an encampment defense, Xiaofeng"s arrival would mean that it was game over.
"Hey, why are you guys running? Yo! Hey! Which guild are you guys from?"
Even the players who knew Xiaofeng well had avoided greeting him, let alone those who did not know Xiaofeng at all. The latter fled even faster the moment they heard Xiaofeng"s question; they all feard that their guild would become Xiaofeng"s next target.
Those players who had come prepared and had intended to bring harm to the Midsummer Guild were all left in a state of speechlessness. They all felt that they had come for nothing.
"Brother Xiao!"
Not too far away, Xiaofeng saw Qian Duoduo and a group of players approaching him. All of them were giving him strange looks as well.
"Hm?"
Xiaofeng arched his brow when he noticed an extra player with a red name among Qian Duoduo"s party. The player with the red name was none other than Han Feng, who was currently skulking behind Qian Duoduo"s party.
"Stop! Stop! Let"s talk things out! It"s all a misunderstanding! A misunderstanding!" Han Feng shouted the moment he realized that things were about to go south.
Han Feng was just here to hide and stay away from trouble.
There were just too many players from various guilds, more than half of which had a vendetta against him. Quite a number of players had snuck up on him the moment he made his presence known just now. Because he was a red name, he was unable to return back to the city. That was why his face changed immediately when he noted his current situation. He had never expected the players from various prominent guilds to show up at the Vast Plain. A lot of them were high-level players who were not inferior to him be it in terms of levels or items.
After going through all his options, Han Feng thought that it would be safest to come to Xiaofeng. At least no guild would dare get on Xiaofeng"s bad side right now, not when Midsummer"s fate was right in front of everyone to see.
"We"ll talk about it later."
Xiaofeng did not made any comment despite noticing the fact that Han Feng had been hanging out with the Nicholas Brothers and those little brats. All Xiaofeng did was shake his head while he ignored Qian Duoduo and her issues. Xiaofeng led the Paladin Order away from the place.
It was already very late right now. He still had to go offline to make dinner for Xiao Ling.
"Wait!"
Riding her ferghana horse, War Spirit Ziyi chased after Xiaofeng and his company. She had stuck with Qian Duoduo at first. But after her brief reunion with War Spirit Sky and War Spirit Knife just now, she had decided to come after Xiaofeng.
"What?" Xiaofeng asked, turning his head back around.
Xiaoxue did not slow its trot.
War Spirit Ziyi drew closer to Xiaofeng. "Where did you manage to recruit the paladins? Are you able to deploy them any time you want?" she asked in a soft tone while her spellbinding eyes glanced towards the group of paladins travelling behind.
The ferghana horse was the most expensive mount in the system"s shop; at its top speed, it could keep up with Xiaoxue"s normal pace.
Xiaofeng"s eyes darted briefly towards the War Spirit Hall whose leaders, War Spirit Sky and his brother War Spirit Knife, had yet to leave. "War Spirit Sky ordered you to ask me, didn"t he?"
"Yes! I bet a lot of people are dying to know as well, especially the members of the prominent guilds. This group of paladins is too large of a threat to ignore," said War Spirit Ziyi.
War Spirit Ziyi did not try to deny the true intention behind her question. Her foxy and sultry face now held an uncharacteristic sternness. This was just too big of a deal.
"Would you believe me if I tell you that it was just a coincidence?" Xiaofeng said. "I was in the middle of an escort mission when I came across them. They had all been requisitioned by the system back then. I didn"t plan anything. I didn"t even expect to run into them."
Xiaofeng had told her the truth. Indeed, he himself was at a loss. Even if he had indeed been planning to launch an a.s.sault on the Midsummer Guild, the outcome of the battle was still something that he had never antic.i.p.ated.
"What? Just that simple?" War Spirit Ziyi asked, her beautiful eyes widening and her sensual lips parted slightly due to shock.
Xiaofeng nodded. "Just that simple," he said in a helpless tone.
War Spirit Ziyi suddenly pressed her enticing lips together. Once again, the sultry smile was back on her face. "Actually..." she said hesitantly.
"Hm?"
Xiaofeng gave her a look of confusion. He did not understand what she was getting at.
War Spirit Ziyi picked up where she left off. "Actually, even if Midsummer Rose dumped you, you shouldn"t seek revenge in such a way. As a man, you should be more forgiving and easy-going. Besides-"
"Wait a minute! What the h.e.l.l are you even talking about?" Xiaofeng cut her off, feeling a bit puzzled. Something she said sounded off.
War Spirit Ziyi gave Xiaofeng a consoling look right then. "You don"t have to hide it anymore, you know. That Han Feng had already told us about the love-hate relationship between you and Midsummer Rose. Hey, I get it. I mean, the most beautiful woman in the Huaxia District and the most powerful expert in the Huaxia District? It was supposed to be an epic tale which everyone can"t help but look upon with envy. But because of the difference in statuses-"
"Hey! Shut the f*ck up!" Xiaofeng cut her off instantly.
A dark scowl formed on Xiaofeng"s countenance. He turned his head around abruptly and glared at Han Feng, who was still bragging about something to Qian Duoduo and her group in an overly exaggerated manner. There was a considerable amount of murderous intent in Xiaofeng"s eyes.
Han Feng, who had a very keen sense of danger, felt a chill careening down his spine. When he looked up and noticed Xiaofeng"s unkind look from afar, he was instantly reduced to shudders and trembles. "Er... Well, I just remembered that I have something I need to take care of. Farewell, and may we meet again in the future."
Han Feng bid a quick farewell with the Nicholas Brothers and then fled without so much as a backward glance.
Xiaofeng was already too far ahead at this point; there was no point in chasing after Han Feng since he knew he would not have been able to catch up anyway. Xiaofeng could only watch Han Feng scurrying away in panic.
"Eh? Why are you having such a big reaction? Could it be that there"re more to the story?"
War Spirit Ziyi"s beautiful eyes sparkled at the opportunity to engage in gossip. She stared at Xiaofeng unblinkingly.
"You should get out of my sight too!" Xiaofeng barked out in a tone of annoyance, feeling beyond frustrated.
Xiaoxue picked up speed and left War Spirit Ziyi behind. Xiaofeng rode on and brought the paladins back to Tianlong City.
Xiaofeng did not enter the city and merely dropped off the paladins at the gate. After that, he quickly went offline. He was in no hurry to report the completion of his mission and he was sure that he would get his share of the reward.
"Clack!"
The sound of thunder was the first thing he heard when Xiaofeng got offline. The room flashed brightly.
It was late indeed. The sky had gone very dark, though of course, the weather might have contributed a bit to that too. Outside, it was cloudy and overcast, and it was pouring. It had been a while since Chenghai City had experienced rain this heavy. The temperature would probably drop for the next few days.
There was a bundle of something under the blanket, a shaking and trembling bundle, in fact. Xiaofeng drew back the blanket and saw Xiao Ling there. Then again, who else could it be other than Xiao Ling? Xiao Ling was hugging her body tightly and her body felt stiff and taut all over. Whenever the thunder rumbled, her body would quiver vigorously.