Starting from Zero

Chapter 33

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Book 3, Chapter 33
Intruding Dragon State

I enjoyed a good night"s sleep. Today I"m gonnabreak through the guard system of Dragon State city.

To improve my odds, Idragged Wayne along. His task is to help me figure out a route to my targetbefore I attack the city, and then follow me closely when I"m being chased, sohe can pick up any equipment I may drop in case I"m killed. I even gave him mybracelet to prevent any unexpected situations. I configured my armors and otherequipments as first pick-up priority. No one can s.n.a.t.c.h things faster than the auto-pickfunction of my s.p.a.ce Bracelet.

    With my name color, I"m pretty sure at least half of what I"mwearing will drop on the ground if I die.

    "Leave a.s.sured, boss! I will make sure you don"tlose anything!"

   "...That sounds like you"re seeing me off to the executioner. Seriouslynow, don"t even blink. If I lost any one piece I"d go suicide, and make sureyou"re dead too before I do it."

    "Yeah yeah." Wayne answered with impatience."I"ll scout the city."

There he goes.

I stood just outside the attack range of the cityarchers and prepared. First, I summoned all of my companions. Phantom mergedinto me as usual, while the others...look really pumped up. Somehow they"re even moreexcited than me.

    Then I summoned my main force this time--the ten PhantomKnights. I ordered them to stay in a row on a slightly higher plain ground andwait for Wayne"s signal.

    It"s still early in the morning, with few playersoutside the city. Not many people play the game at this hour at weekdays. Butthat doesn"t mean this conspicuous group wouldn"t be noticed. Before Wayne cameback, a group of players gathered up. They kept approaching us until they cansee our details.

    One of the bystanders, a Fighter, asked his partner:"Is that a boss monster?"

    "Don"tthink so. Look at that name, a red name!"

    "Ziri?... I"ve heard it before."

    Another player chipped in: "Of course you heardit before. That"s the top wanted criminal in the game!"

    "It"s her!"

    "It"s really her!!"

     A lot of Oohhsand Aahhs rose among the players. I listened to their comments while sitting ontop of Night Shade. That somewhat satisfied my vanity. I never knew I"m THISwell-known!

    "Wait, it"s a woman?"

An annoying voice cameabout.

"I know right? I thought it was a huge guy withscars and a big axe and stuff, so I can kill him and become a hero. Now look atthat face, I don"t want to hurt her!"

That"s...move annoying.

But the third voice almost caused me to fall off NightShade.

    "She looks beautiful!! I don"t care who she is, I want her as mygirlfriend!!"

    "Yeah!! She"s brilliant! I gonna keep her as mywife, she must be good at both fighting and...you know!"

    "Pfft. As if you can win. Look at that set up. Ibet she can take down three of you within a minute."

    "I agree. She got a whole lot of companions. Imean, a lot! And is that a dragon behind them?"

    "Oh come on. It"s just eleven people, plus threecompanions. Won"t be TOO hard to deal with."

    That idiot misslooked Night Shade. He even saw Phantom Knights as players! I wonder how they"ll reactif they know they are all actually my Servants.

    A guy who"s carrying an owl on his shoulder spoke:"Four companions is already impressive for 11 people. Do you know how hardit is to get even one companion? Maybe you all have two or three slots, butmore than 90% of people don"t even have a single companion now. Andlook at that, a dragon! Or at least something similar to dragon. It can wipe agroup of you guys with one hit!"

    "I want her armor!"

    "But there are too many of them!"

    Wayne sent me a message when the players had theirdiscussion. "Boss, I"ve found it. The quest NPC is not far from the citygate, I"m standing at the gate now. Come on!"

    "Understood!" I lowered my helmet mask andshouted: "Form up! Guards to the front! Praetorians, stay close to me! Onward!"

    The knights moved into position the moment I finishedmy orders. We marched towards the city in a tremendous formation.

A greatnumber of the bystanders began to panic. "Oh my gosh! What are they doing?A red name is going to the city!"

We didn"t receive any attacks when we move into thecity territory, I got a system notice instead.

"Please select whetherthis is an individual action, or a city siege. You have 5 seconds."

"Individual!"

Once decided, I ordered thegroup to speed up. The five stronger male Phantom Knights at the front deployedtheir shields. Good choice, because a wave of arrows raineddown upon us just as they raised their shields. Most of the arrows landedbehind us, they probably didn"t expect us to be so fast.

A smallnumber of the attacks still hit us, without causing much damage. (In [Zero], projectileweapons need to hit the target to cause damage. Arrows or bolts. .h.i.tting theshields will not deal damage, while melee weapons will.)

The second arrow barrage arrived several seconds afterthe first one. We are prepared though. Phiona cast a flame storm and burned outall the feathers, causing the arrows to tumble in mid-air, without hittinganything. But some of the arrows still managed to hit my shield, causing my armto go numb. Level 600 city guards are not to be underestimated.

Leveraging thefast speed of our mounts, we didn"t give the guards a third chance to attack. There"salso a bridge outside Dragon State city. But unlike the giant stone bridge ofthe Lost City, this is just a small wooden bridge which stands on top of a citymoat.

A row of warriors are already defending the bridge whenwe got there. It"s not a siege war so the city gate is left open.

    I ordered theknights in the front: "Ignore them. Charge ahead! Lucky, clear a path forus!"

    Lucky swooped down from the air the breathed fire allover the bridge, forcing the warriors to break out of their formation.

    The fivevanguard knights tightened their group until they"re the same width as thebridge. They let out a battle cry in union, drew their spear and began to accelerate.With the speed and weight of their combat mounts, they tackled the warriors indisarray down the bridge, followed by several water splashes.

The players far away are watching the scene with their mouths wide open. Someone finally gave a single comment:"Well I certain would not want to ever get knocked over by those guys."

The level 600 warrior guards failed to stand theirground against the level 850 Phantom Knights. Now all of them are swimming downthe river. When I got into the city I saw Wayne waving at me from a corner. There"sno time to mind where I"m going now. I grabbed Wayne and dashed straighttowards where he"s pointing at, while causing all kinds of mayhem on the street.

Ugh. My reputation is going to become even worse at this rate.

Lucky and Phiona are setting fire here and there alongthe streets. The whole city is probably on fire now. And I can notice myEvilness increasing already!

    Loong"er deployed a huge crystal barrier behind us.A group of pursuers didn"t stop in time and crashed into it like dumpingpotatoes into a barrel. The other riders far behind didn"t hit the wall butthey pulled the bridles too hard and all got thrown off their horses.

    The obstacles didn"t last long. A group of city defensecavalries soon approached us. These guys are level 800, and their leader is 850.Besides there are too many of them!

     We cut countlesscorners and rushed into a small alleyway when Wayne shouted: "That NPC is inhere, and there"s only one exit. Ask your men to block the entrance for a while!"

    "Team! Hold them off at the entrance!"

    "Yes sir!"

    Ten Phantom Knights should be enough to cover up here. Thealleyway is too small, more helpers won"t make any difference.

"Lead theway!" I followed Wayne deeper into the alley.

I eventually had to ask Night Shade to wait outside. Thepath became too narrow for riding!

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