MMO: Pierce Heaven Til’ It Breaks

“Nice to meet you, I’m Dark Wing, the Guard Commander of Shattered Frost City.”

Not long after Leghar left Wind Capital with his family, Li Yi approached him.

Without breaking a sweat, Li Yi successfully convinced Leghar to head toward Shattered Frost City. When Archiemonde heard of that, he actually jumped out of bed. Although he did fall, he forced himself to go out and greet Leghar personally with the support of his wife.

After a short conversation, Archiemonde managed to convince Leghar to stay. He also made Leghar the Vice Guard Commander, just one rank lower than Li Yi.

With Leghar’s capabilities, regardless of which city he brought his family to, it would always more or less end up like this. Of course, if Shattered Frost City did not have Li Yi, he would have become the Guard Commander directly.

Li Yi contributed by bringing Leghar here, so his Reputation Value in Shattered Frost City rose by another 2,000 points.

Compared to Li Yi, Scumbag Wang who had chased Leghar away was in a much worse position.

Wind Capital’s Reputation Value dropped by 5,000 points, going straight into the negatives. Inflation of goods in town increased by 50%, and his Popular Support dropped to −100%. Of course, these were not the worst of it. When the Pinewood Brigand was alerted of this news, they immediately jumped and cheered. That very night, they rushed into Wind Capital.

Without a general to lead the army, the NPC soldiers were not motivated to fight at all. When the Pinewood Brigand rushed into Wind Capital, the soldiers were already disoriented. They made a show of holding out for a short while, but soon they were fleeing from Wind Capital in twos and threes. Half an hour later, not a single NPC soldier remained in Wind Capital.

They had all fled.

Scumbag Wang led all of the members of the Huashan Guild out in a counterattack, but the result was predictable. They were knocked out flat by the Pinewood Brigand. After forcefully hanging in there for about a dozen minutes, all of them joined their Leader Scum in tragedy.

There was no general guarding the Castellan’s seal, so when the Brigand Leader fought his way into the Castellan’s residence, a shocking system notification appeared.

[The Pinewood Brigand Leader has defeated Wind Capital’s Castellan, Wang’er, and successfully obtained the Castellan’s seal. He is now the new Castellan!]

Scumbag Wang lost his position as Castellan, and a Brigand Leader who did not even have a name became the new Castellan…

This incident shocked even its instigator, Li Yi.

When players started becoming Castellans, it became common to have the original NPC Castellan stage a revolt and return to the position. However, this was his first time seeing a nameless gold-named monster lead an army to successfully capture a city…

It seemed as though he had once more accidentally made history…

Although Li Yi did not personally help the Brigand Leader take the city, he received an indirect benefit in the fact that his affinity with the Pinewood Brigand immediately reached the highest it could go, filling up to the maximum value of Worship. He also obtained a Hall of Fame event for being the first person on the server to achieve Worship status with any faction.

Now that the brigand threat was eliminated, Shattered Frost City’s Prosperity Value rose by 5,000 points, reaching 35,000/100,000 points. It was the highest among all of King of Pantheon’s major cities and lost out only to the three royal cities.

The series of incidents meant that Li Yi’s Reputation Value in Shattered Frost City rose by another 3,000 points, and it seemed that he would achieve Worship in a major city at any time now.

Wind Capital was now practically a ghost town. Almost all of the NPCs had fled, and other than the members of the Huashan Guild who insisted on tying their Return City Stones to the place, there were basically no other players there anymore.

The Pinewood Brigand Leader visited Li Yi again. Although he was now the Castellan, he did not even have a name, so here he was getting Li Yi to give him a name.

“Your name will be—His Uncle.”

Li Yi decided on a name and the Brigand Leader His Uncle left excitedly. His impression of Li Yi rose by another 300 points.

Scumbag Wang was still getting the Huashan Guild members to attack Wind Capital, but the results did not differ. As soon as the Pinewood Brigand NPC’s put on the NPC soldiers’ uniforms, they immediately transformed into official soldiers, and their abilities rose like the tide as well. This was especially true of the Brigand Leader His Uncle, whose level instantly rose to Level 100, and whose HP shot up to 90,000,000. It almost looked as though another Leghar had appeared.

Of course, he and the Pinewood Brigand under his command were still vastly different from Leghar and his original NPC army. For example, His Uncle could not use Leghar’s special unlimited backup skill. If they were killed, they would also respawn in their original form, returning to the Shattered Frost Pinewood and their old job.

Intelligent NPCs were quite crafty indeed. As soon as the Brigand Leader His Uncle took the position, he immediately contacted the other Castellans. Once a good relationship was established, he poured out his savings, contributing half of the spoils from their raids to the development of Wind Capital.

Li Yi rode the Crimson Tiger King out to the Pinewood Brigand’s old haunt and ended up finding that it was completely empty. Whenever a brigand spawned there, they would automatically head toward Wind Capital. It seemed as though being an official was indeed much better than being a brigand…

Li Yi had no choice but to head toward Wind Capital. Inside the Castellan’s Residence, he found the Pinewood Brigands’ Quartermaster, Second Brother Zhang.

That guy had changed as well. He stood beside His Uncle, keeping his original post while also becoming Wind Capital’s Official Secretary.

Now that he had achieved Worship status, would Second Brother Zhang’s wares change? Li Yi saw the answer now.

All of the trash items were gone, and only the best goods were left. Although there were only eight items there, each and every one of them was rare and precious. And the best part of all was that all the wares were dirt cheap.

Dragon Heart Shavings, Moon Red Grass, Star Iron… There were seven rare ingredients in total, with 3–10 of each in stock. The last item was a Protect Armor Crafting Tome.

He bought all the ingredients, and even though he could not use the Protect Armor Crafting Tome, he could give it to Snickersnee. Now that would get him a bang for his buck.

The Protect Armor was the strongest main tank armor under Level 70 that players could craft. If Snickersnee could craft that, it would definitely cause an uproar.

By the time Li Yi settled these matters, two days had passed. It was the time that he and Platinum Hand had agreed on, the moment to attempt the Fire Devil Dungeon.

Although the game had already reached the Nourishment Chamber stage, it was still relatively difficult to gather a group of people together.

Qing Pingle’s corpse camping period was over. As he was killed by PK too many times, the system protected him automatically, sending him straight back to the Safe Zone in the city. Of course, that did not come cheap. They took 5 levels off of him, so now he was back to less than Level 10.

Li Yi was still waiting for the results of Shen Lang’s investigation. Of course, regardless of the results, nothing could be changed anymore. Just like Li Yi in the past life, even though the incident originated with someone else’s actions, the one who had ultimately made the final decision was himself.

The members of the Little Drunk Cat Guild were still surrounding the city Qing Pingle was in. Whenever he stepped out of the city, they would immediately gang up on him.

Betraying them by hacking the Cooldown was the easiest way to invoke widespread fury. Even if Li Yi had not given such orders, there would still be many people on his case.

When they did a headcount in the dungeon, they counted 92 people in total. Aside from Qing Pingle, 7 others could not make it.

Unless you used magic crystal rocks to save your progress in the Fire Devil Dungeon, it would refresh once a day. That was why there were strict rules disallowing parties from adding new members halfway through the dungeon.

It could not be helped that some people could not make it. When it came to games, some people would have the time while others would be busy. It was relatively difficult to get everyone together at once.

The leader of Platinum Hand, Lil Man, was here as well. This took Li Yi by surprise because he had noted that the superstar Xu Man seemed to be performing some one-woman concerts these few days.

Li Yi had absolutely no recollection of adding Xu Man as a friend, but when he added the Platinum Hand leader, Lil Man, those two large ?? question marks had left a lasting impression on him. How could he forget that?

There was Lil Man, and there was Xu Man. Li Yi’s only deduction was that they were one and the same. The leader of Platinum Hand was the superstar Xu Man.

In the past life, the disbandment of Platinum Hand had always been a mystery. However, once he connected it to the superstar Xu Man’s suicide, things began to make a lot more sense. That seemed to be the only logical explanation.

“There are 7 left, and 3 of those are main tanks. Could they all have gone to the superstar Xu Man’s concert?” Li Yi shook his head as he looked at Lil Man from Platinum Hand.

“Why are you looking at me like that? Don’t go thinking that I’m Xu Man just… just because I have the word Man in my name as well. She’s a superstar, and I’m just an ugly duckling.” Lil Man did not speak, but she was typing extraordinarily fast.

“Hahaha, that superstar is also playing King of Pantheon? Do you really believe that? Hahaha…” Once he understood what Li Yi was implying, Mad Dragon laughed until his sides split.

“Hahahaha, our leader is the superstar Xu Man? Oh dear, that’s my first time hearing of it. Superstar Xu Man, sign me an autograph, I’m your number one fan.” Infinite Insanity reacted even more exaggeratedly, placing his hands together in a sign of worship.

“F*ck off!” Lil Man was pissed.

“I don’t care if you believe it, but I’m convinced.” Li Yi laughed and changed the topic.

After two days of preparations, all the members had leveled up and they had also gathered all the items they needed to complete the dungeon, including things like Fire Resistance Potions and Mana Recovery Scrolls. Everything was ready.

There were many ways to defeat the 300 Inferior Fire Elves, the most common of which was to have the Thief pull aggro before using Cyclone Step to run away quickly, kiting the Inferior Fire Elves around in circles. The party’s Archers and other Thieves would then use Mislead and Shift Blame to pull one Inferior Fire Elf at a time while the tanks shielded them. After that, one Archer and one Thief would be left on call to substitute the main Thief. Before the aggros got mixed up, they would kill off the Inferior Fire Elves in one go.

Such a method required seamless teamwork between party members, especially when it came to when to pull aggro and when the others could hit the enemy without drawing aggro. Just the slightest mistake and the party would be instantly annihilated.

For a party to work together so perfectly definitely required them to die together a few times. However, Li Yi currently had two pieces of equipment that increased SPD, as well as 3 scrolls that enabled him to resurrect on the spot with full stats. That was enough to boost his confidence.

He simplified things by pulling aggro in place of the Thieves and then using Miracle of Wind to forcefully burn through the enemy.

“I’m not sure if we can succeed by burning through. I still think it’s best to have Thieves pull aggro while Archers Mislead one monster at a time, that way’s safer.” Pretty Good Mood voiced his concerns. In order to figure out a way to defeat more than 300 Inferior Fire Elves, he had not slept well for the past two days and nights.

“The rules are just like last time, but let’s switch up the places. The three of us will try once each, starting with me, then you, then Blue Sky.”

“No problem,” agreed Pretty Good Mood and Royal Blue Sky at the same time.

“Does anyone else have any opinions? Alright, we’ll officially start the dungeon battle in 5 minutes!”