Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

“Why would they eliminate all of you for no rhyme or reason?” Skygazing Under the Tree found this a little hard to believe. There was no cause for such baseless hatred!

Wind Seal helplessly answered, “Young Master Han is ultimately someone who once belonged to Carouse, and killing us was as easy as turning over the palm of his hand, so…”

“Why must that guy be so meddlesome!?” Skygazing Under the Tree wanted to cry, but no tears would come out. He had calculated everything from start to finish, but never did he expect that this had been akin to drawing water with a basket; everything he had done was now in vain. Skygazing Under the Tree had already given the benefit that Wind Seal wanted, and for such matters to result in his quest failure, the responsibility of this eventuality naturally could not be placed upon Wind Seal alone. In other words, Skygazing Under the Tree had definitely gotten the short end of the stick with his investment for this operation. From what he understood of Colored Clouds’ guild leader, Gu Xiaoshang, and how the woman acted and conducted herself, there was a good chance that her guild might not pick up the quest. But nevertheless, there was no guarantee that he would have the chance to claim it back now that the quest was just left up for grabs! He looked at his own guild, Disembodied Spirits Under the Tree. They did not have plenty of members to begin with, and they even had people who had been kicked out of the City Wars event after dying too much now.

“Let’s head on over and have a look for ourselves!” Ultimately, Skygazing Under the Tree was unwilling to just give up on it. He gathered what remained of his men, and got ready to set off for Yunjiao Lakeside.

“This will surely be a waste of a trip,” Wind Seal said.

“You don’t have to go. I’ll be the one having a chat with them,” Skygazing Under the Tree said. Now that the quest was out in the open, there was no need for Wind Seal to be the point man for this quest. To Skygazing Under the Tree, he was no longer worth anything. And because of his background as someone who defected from Carouse, it was better to lose him, seeing how he had even garnered Young Master Han’s animosity.

As he made his way over, Skygazing Under the Tree contacted the spy that he had in Colored Clouds, inquiring about their activity and the general situation over by Yunjiao Lakeside. If Colored Clouds were the ones who picked up the quest, Skygazing Under the Tree was prepared to bribe this person just like what he had done with Wind Seal and do the same as before…

Colored Clouds was quite an open guild, and nothing was kept secret inside the guild. As such, the spy very quickly came away with a detailed report as to what was happening over by Yunjiao Lake. Skygazing Under the Tree read everything, and sure enough, Colored Clouds did not pick up the quest, but Young Master Han had randomly pulled a player from Carouse that happened to be passing by to do it. This was all done in an effort to take the initiative in their confrontation between him, Thousand Miles Drunk and Sword Demon. Skygazing Under the Tree was rather speechless at that. What was seen as a highly sought after quest was no more than a somewhat valuable tool by that person.

“We could negotiate…” Skygazing Under the Tree pondered over this. Right now, what he could not make sense of was whether Young Master Han had grabbed some random passerby to get the quest out of convenience, or if he still had some sentimentality toward Carouse. He would have more room for negotiations if it was the former, but Young Master Han was someone who was famous for being hard to deal with, so Skygazing Under the Tree felt that he had to plan this out properly if they do end up talking.

Perhaps we don’t have to negotiate… Skygazing Under the Tree suddenly thought. Since Thousand Miles Drunk was able to take on the entirety of Carouse on his own, Colored Clouds would most likely not be any better off. Currently, the advantage that Colored Clouds have should be the fact they were in position to ambush Thousand Miles Drunk, as well as the fact that they had someone like Young Master Han on their side, a friend of Thousand Miles Drunk, who would have an understanding as to how that man operated. If he were to first make contact with Thousand Miles Drunk and leak this information to him, he could very well kill someone with a borrowed knife and snatch the quest right out from under everyone’s noses during the ensuing chaos…

Skygazing Under the Tree felt that this was a great plan the more he thought about it. The strength that Thousand Miles Drunk possessed was indomitable to the point of frightening, and that could be used to his own benefit. Young Master Han might be familiar with him, but the same could be said about Thousand Miles Drunk toward Young Master Han as well. As such, as long as he revealed this information to Thousand Miles Drunk, the knowledge they had on each other would cancel out.

But where do I go to contact Thousand Miles Drunk? Skygazing Under the Tree had eyes and ears everywhere, and he quickly contacted his man inside Carouse, asking him if he had noted which direction Thousand Miles Drunk had departed toward.

“He left. He most likely went to meet up with the people from Forever In Flowers, but I’ve got no idea what he’s up to after that,” that spy reported.

“D*mn…” Skygazing Under the Tree cursed. Finding someone in-game was the most painful thing to do. Forever In Flowers was a completely inconspicuous guild that he naturally did not waste his manpower infiltrating their ranks, especially when the guild in question had such a unique characteristic. It was really difficult for him to find someone as reprehensible as those men from Forever In Flowers.

Halfway leading his men to Yunjiao Lakeside, Skygazing Under the Tree began to waver about his decision. Suddenly, a sharp eyed underling quickly pointed down the path ahead and yelled, “Look who’s there!”

Everyone turned to where he pointed and saw Thousand Miles Drunk with two ladies, walking right over in their direction.

“No way, are the heavens looking out for me?” Skygazing Under the Tree was excited. However, when he thought of how he had previously played a role in tricking Thousand Miles Drunk, the man might very happily slay him immediately seeing how excitedly he ran right into his arms! Upon considering this point, Skygazing Under the Tree casually delegated two of his men for this task, deciding to let them be the ones in charge of the communication. He only needed Thousand Miles Drunk to know that there was an ambush waiting for him over by Yunjiao Lakeside, so there was no need for his personal involvement in relaying this piece of information.

Both players were hardly afraid when they heard what their guild leader had instructed them to do. After having experienced what it was like to go through the cycle of life and death over by the spawn point in the encampment at the hands of those Thieves and Archers from Carouse, they had long since been numbed to the reality of dying, so risking themselves once more like this was hardly a big deal, thus they very openly walked right up toward Gu Fei and the two ladies.

“There are two men coming toward us!” Gu Fei had of course very quickly noticed them.

“They seem to be coming right for us,” Gu Fei had pulled his sword out.

“Don’t be so rash, perhaps they wish to speak to us,” Slyris said.

“Why would you say that?” Gu Fei asked.

“I think anyone who would attempt to fight you would not send just two men over,” Slyris reasoned.

“That makes a lot of sense,” Gu Fei nodded approvingly.

The two men had reached the three by this time, and after exchanging a cordial greeting, they addressed Gu Fei as “big brother Miles”.

The men from Disembodied Spirits Under the Tree did not don their guild emblems, and Gu Fei did not really recognize the two random members either. Seeing that the two did not seem to harbor any ill intent, he asked, “Do you two have any business with me?”

“Oh, we simply have news to inform big brother Miles.”

“What is it about?”

“It’s regarding the continuation of your quest.”

“My quest?”

“Yes, with Guillermo,” the two men answered.

“And you guys are?”

“We’re from Disembodied Spirits Under the Tree,” they said.

“What are you guys up to this time?” The moment Gu Fei heard where they are from, he immediately suspected that this was a trap. However, there was nothing to be afraid of since it was just the two of them alone, and it did not seem like there was any ambush in their immediate surroundings.

“Oh no, our quest has already failed.” they hurriedly assured.

“Oh? What happened?”

“Well, the person who was holding the quest escorted Guillermo out to Yunjiao Lakeside, only to end up stumbling upon an ambush there. With our men eliminated, why would the quest still be available? However, Guillermo is currently holed up in the log cabin there. What our guild leader figured, since we’ve lost our chance to accomplish the quest ourselves, he would make it more convenient for big brother Miles. He was prepared to send you a message detailing all of this to you, but we happened to have run across you three here!” These two were very eloquent, and with how adept Skygazing Under the Tree was using his sources, not only did he want to borrow Thousand Miles Drunk’s strength to kill the others, he wanted to make him feel indebted to him as well.

“Oh, in that case, thanks a lot!” Gu Fei said.

“There’s no need to be courteous,” the two men quickly diffused. “We’ve also identified the enemy guild, and they are men from Colored Clouds. Furthermore, there seem to also be your good friend, the Priest by the name of Young Master Han, among their ranks.”

“Oh, I’ve already guessed that it was them,” Gu Fei nodded.

“That’s more or less what we gathered. Take care, big brother Miles. We’re taking our leave now,” The two of them said.

“Oh? Where are the two of you headed off to?” Gu Fei asked.

“Ah?? Just… Over there…” The two had no particular place to go, and were momentarily unable to give an answer, so they randomly pointed over to some place ‘over there’.

“Ah, over there. Let me send you off. It’s much closer for you to head over there from the encampment,” With that, Gu Fei pulled out his sword and executed his Twin Incineration before sheathing his sword in the time their white light appeared.

“What… What did you do that for?” Yan Xiaozhu was shocked.

“Kid, you’re too naive. Those guys are merely thinking of using us to do their dirty work for them!” Gu Fei explained.

“Yes, it was very obvious,” Slyris nodded.

“Actually, under normal circumstances, I don’t have the ability to take on an entire guild all by myself either!” Gu Fei said.

“Are you hinting me something?” Slyris gave him the side eye.

“I don’t mean your equipment. Even if you hand me your rings, against such a well prepared arrangement, taking on a thousand men is really too much of a challenge. Furthermore, there were plenty of conditions that had to be fulfilled in order for me to be able to beat back Carouse the last time. Their commander had made a lot of mistakes in that fight, but I’m afraid that the man over there would not be making that many mistakes,” Gu Fei sighed.

“And it’s very easy to take advantage of the terrain over by Yunjiao Lakeside!” Slyris mentioned.

“That’s right. Besides, the spawn point for the encampment is right ahead,” Gu Fei, Slyris and Yan Xiaozhu were taking this path because they were all supposed to get ready and log off for the day by now. Even though the event was still ongoing, Gu Fei continued to moderate his gaming. Additionally, he had no idea where to look for Guillermo before, and he had planned to continue his search tomorrow. However, he could not help but hesitate a little now that he had gotten this latest update.

After the two men Skygazing Under the Tree had sent made contact with Thousand Miles Drunk, the rest of his men had run off far to hide. When the two had been so casually slain, one of them had also been ejected from the City War. Skygazing Under the Tree secretly heaved a sigh of relief inside his heart, it was a good thing that I did not personally approach Thousand Miles Drunk. Who knows what might happen if the guild leader was removed from the City Wars event? I wonder if that would remove the entire guild from the event as a result.

Even though that man had seen through our intention of using him to do the killing for us, there’s no way that he would not end up doing it at the end of the day. As long as this remains true, we would still stand a chance to fish in troubled waters. This was what Skygazing Under the Tree had thought to himself as he continued to lead his men toward Yunjiao Lakeside, resuming to plan out what he was going to do as he made his way to the destination.

Gu Fei and the two ladies had continued to head toward the encampment. Seeing that the place was just right before them, Slyris asked, “Are you also allowed to log out here from this encampment?”

“I don’t know, gotta give it a shot,” Gu Fei said. The system had designated Gu Fei to be the enemy of the guilds assaulting the city, so it would not be too much for Gu Fei to be barred from using this encampment to log out. Gu Fei had only come over because it was a lot nearer than the city due to his laziness to travel all the way back to the city.

There were a lot of players inside the encampment, and the guilds that were not mounting an assault had all chosen to set up camp around the perimeter of the encampment. It was already sufficiently arrogant of Gu Fei to even brave appearing at such a place right now. Actually, there were quite a lot of players who noticed his presence, with some even verifying his identity. However, the legend of how Gu Fei had defeated Carouse was too terrifying, so much so that none of these players even dared to poke their nose into Gu Fei’s business since he was not directly threatening them after all. All of them simply pretended to not see him when he passed them.

“The hubris…” Slyris could not help but mutter this under her breath. Even she was a little remorseful entering the encampment together with Gu Fei. This time, both Yan Xiaozhu and her identities were exposed. These guilds did not dare to make any sort of move because Gu Fei was present, but what would happen if he was not around? Slyris simply could not imagine just what sort of reception they would receive now that they were revealed to be players helping Gu Fei.

“We’ve arrived!” Gu Fei said this to the ladies. At the same moment he took a step into the encampment that doubled as a spawn point for players, he heard the system prompt him: [You have successfully occupied the enemy encampment. Hold it for five minutes, and the encampment will be dismantled.]

“What is this?” Gu Fei was about to study this when the players all around him suddenly became restless and stirred, because they had similarly received a similar message promptly at the same time, and they immediately realized that the intruder referred to Gu Fei.

Gu Fei was a little perplexed because this was not the first time that he had stepped into the city assaulter’s encampment. He had confirmed that when he was around the last time; he had never gotten that prompt at all, and it was the NPC guards stationed here that verbally shouted a spy had infiltrated the camp. Upon recalling this point, Gu Fei looked all around and realized that there were no more NPC guards here! This encampment happened to be that very one that he had caused the great massacre from before, where the guild players had decimated all the NPC guards present when they had imperiously abused the penalty-less spawn repeatedly.

It turned out that, when the NPC guards that the system had designated for an encampment were eliminated, the city defender side would be able to conquer the place after occupying said encampment for five minutes! Gu Fei had unwittingly triggered this new component of the event when he stepped into the encampment, but the city assaulters had already turned and stared at Gu Fei in their bewilderment. Slyris and Yan Xiaozhu were the neutral third party players, so neither received any sort of prompt, asking in their surprise, “What happened?”

“A fight is about to break out, quick log out!” At such a critical juncture, Gu Fei had still wanted to shamelessly log out. In the end, the system actually prompted: [A player would be personally responsible for the losses incurred from forcefully logging out. Do you still wish to continue?]

“I can’t log out from here!” Tears were flowing freely down Gu Fei’s cheeks.

In just this short span of time, there were already players from all the guilds around that launched their attacks right at them. These players with plenty of gaming experience under their belt could already tell that losing their encampment might very well have a huge impact on the outcome of the City War here in Yunduan City. This time, none of them dared to show any sort of courtesy toward Gu Fei as a wave of players came surging over with murderous intent. Everyone realized that with so many fellow brothers-in-arms alongside for this attack, the fear in their hearts more or less dissipated. Arrows, spells and all these ranged attacks were always the first to reach.

“Blink!” Gu Fei pointed, and disappeared in that instant. When he turned back around in the next moment, he saw that Slyris and Yan Xiaozhu were both wreathed in white light. Taking a look at his friends’ list, their names were still lit up, so that evidently meant that they had not gone offline, but had gotten themselves killed instead. The encampments set up for these City Wars allowed players to log out, but they were not designated safe zones, so logging off in this place had also become something of a skill as well because players could end up finding themselves interrupted in the process. Slyris and Yan Xiaozhu were both met with this tragedy, but Gu Fei truly had no way of taking care of either ladies then.

All Gu Fei could do was that one Blink, but that also meant he was now outside the perimeter of the encampment proper, and every player received a loud prompt from the system: [The encampment had been successfully defended!]

Everybody was a little taken aback by this. Should they continue to act against Thousand Miles Drunk? What would they do if they end up offending him? Everyone had only unified for such a short second, but now that the crisis had been averted, everyone immediately began to carefully weigh the pros and cons of their actions toward their own favor. They were all hesitant about acting against Gu Fei.

This moment of doubt was all the chance that Gu Fei needed. Everything had happened very suddenly, and the players’ positions were hardly organized. There was no proper encirclement, so Gu Fei chose an opening and dashed right through. There were some who also wanted to continue fighting Gu Fei, but they were simply unable to catch him in time. Archers and Mages were able to carry on pursuing with their attacks, but because of how disorganized their positions were, they would naturally end up injuring others collaterally. It was fine if these were people from their own guilds, but if they accidentally injured people from other guilds, it could not be helped when words were exchanged and arguments broke out between several guilds in no time. Every guild participating in the City Wars was completely incapable of demonstrating any sort of unity. They were all focused on obtaining benefits for their own guilds, and that solidarity that they had shown for that one second before only happened because their encampment was threatened.

Of course, Gu Fei was unable to guess the utterly complex thoughts that these players hailing from the various guilds were harboring. He simply felt that he was about to be surrounded, so he gave it his all to try and escape. Ultimately, some of the players from all these guilds simply stood aside and watched, secretly hoping that the other guilds would act in their stead, so Gu Fei would retaliate and kill them off in the end. Then there were those that really tried to chase after him, but ended up drawing aggro from the others when they end up accidentally injuring other players in the process… With everything happening, the resulting chaos was far more serviceable than when Zhao Yun was ordered to be captured alive by Cao Cao during the battle of Changban. Gu Fei managed to escape from the spawn point inside the encampment in no time. Taking a look at his friends’ list once more, he saw that Slyris and Yan Xiaozhu’s names were both darkened. It seemed like neither of them were viewed as a target after they respawned, so they managed to safely log out.

Gu Fei had made it out alive, while the players from all the various guilds began to bicker once more. Those who made to attack Gu Fei blamed those who did not, while those who did not make any moves toward Gu Fei complained about how those who did failed to go all out. Others who had been collaterally injured blamed those who attacked, while the attackers lamented over the pettiness of those who got hurt. The entire place was in such a mess that everyone was just holding everyone else liable for the outcome, the sound of this ensuing debacle could be heard for several hundred meters, leaving Gu Fei a little dumbfounded when he turned back and stared.

Only the large guilds would have been able to take command in such a situation.

When the system had prompted the players about how the encampment was in the process of being captured, every player who was part of the city assault forces were informed. This included even those guilds who were nowhere near the encampment. They were also very concerned about the situation, but soon received the update that the defense had been successful. Everybody sighed in relief, but everyone began to inquire about the entire incident.

“This appears to be a component of the City Wars…” After learning about what happened, the scholars and theorists in the large guilds, like Youthful Reflection, all began to analyze the information they had gleaned.

“If all seven encampments were captured, then where would we respawn when we die? Then there’s also the neutral players without any guild affiliations; they are using these spawn points as well!” someone wondered.

“If that were to happen, I’m afraid it would be considered as our defeat, so the City War would most likely end for us and everything would go back to normal. We’ll all end up spawning wherever we should be spawning,” Someone deduced.

“D*mm*t, How did such an incident even came to be?” Every guild leader from the large guilds was despondent. There had not been any improvement ever since the City Wars event started, and everyone nearly jumped out of their skin when their own encampment had actually been attacked by the enemy this time. The problem was that their enemy this time was just two players, yet they were able to create such a huge mess all by themselves. Just what would everything be like if it were several powerful guilds in their stead? Furthermore, would the City guards had been defending the city this whole time attempt a follow-up attack? If they would do that, given how much stronger these NPCs were, would it not be a cakewalk for them to survive for five minutes in the encampment?

“Thousand Miles Drunk is really too much of a scourge. We simply cannot allow him to galavant around as he wishes any longer. We need to work together and properly suppress that man!!!” A guild leader suggested. At the moment, the Yunduan City Guild Summit was occurring once more, and they were all discussing about this incident where one of the encampments had nearly been captured by the enemy.

And the guild leader who had angrily proposed this line of reasoning just happened to be the very same person who represented the guild Carouse, which had just been utterly humiliated in their fight against Thousand Miles Drunk: Brave Surge.