Chapter 1422: Who Will The Treasure Go To
Chapter 1422: Who Will The Treasure Go To
Sophie transformed into a literal bolt of lightning and zipped toward the west side of Crossroads Valley Fortress. There, the Northern Alliance, Cyan Earth City, Swallow Ear Canton and more were still defending against the Fire Qillins of seventh wave. Now that Coldblade the Infinite Storm had rejoined them, I bet they must feel like swearing up a storm.
……
"Gulp…"
Xu Yang swallowed while looking at the traces of remnant energy in the air, "The duel between Divine Rank bosses sure is exciting to watch, isn’t it? What do we do now? Do we chase after them, or do we stay here?"
I gripped the Chill of the Nine Provinces and declared, "What else? Main force, follow me! We’re going to the west side of the fortress, wait for an opportunity, and take out Coldblade! The motherfucker stole Thunder from us, and he’s not getting away with it!"
Li Chengfeng smiled. "Yes, that is exactly what I was thinking. Let’s go!"
The ground rumbled as the surviving first-rate players of the China server started making their way toward the west side of Crossroads Valley Fortress. At this point, nobody cared if the west side belonged to the Northern Alliance or anything of the sort. The boss was more important than that. Also, the enemy might not necessarily have the power to stop us even if they tried. Coldblade had already killed a large majority of them during his first appearance, and he just went back for desserts.
……
The barren lands were covered in fresh, not-yet-despawned bodies. Nearly the entire west side of Crossroads Valley Fortress was in ruins. All of the buildings were destroyed, and signs of storm-wrought destruction were everywhere. We all knew how powerful Coldblade’s AoE skills were, so even we couldn’t help but pity the defenders a little.
"Form up and hold! Do not let the Fire Qilins breach through our defense line!"
Vienna’s Sorrow was commanding a couple thousand players to form new battle lines, but it wasn’t going to be enough at all. A couple thousand players were absolutely no match for a couple thousand undead qilins.
In another direction, Cyan Beast’s God of War and Breeze and Rain were commanding their troops to kill the qilins as well. Their numbers were greater than Hero Alliance’s—I counted around 40k riders in total—but lacked the ranged DPS and support necessary to support their frontliners. As a result, they took massive casualties. Practically no one managed to survive more than a Flame Spit or two.
Breeze and Rain pointed to the right and ordered, "There are three qilins over there! Get 100 Gold Cavalrymen to deal with them right now!"
A captain rushed out to lead the squad of Gold Cavalry, but when they were about halfway to the three Fire Qilins, an icy cyclone suddenly erupted on the ground they stood on and turned them into piles of flesh, blood and bones. Coldblade could be seen flying right over them.
"Motherfucker…"
Breeze and Rain’s complexion looked green. "Why is Coldblade back? This is bullshit!"
He then shot us a glance and swore again, "Dammit, the Chinese are here as well. The situation’s getting more and more chaotic…"
God of War knocked back a qilin and asked, "What do we do now? Do you want me to face off the Chinese, or?"
Breeze and Rain kept his cool. "It’s fine, there are too many of them. Not even you will be able to do much against them. We should continue holding our ground and see what happens next. Coldblade is still a ways away from dying, so the Chinese shouldn’t attack us so soon. Regardless, tell our dead brothers and sisters to return to us as soon as possible. If they don’t show up soon, we are going to wipe one way or another!"
"Yeah…"
……
Pa!
I planted the Chill of the Nine Provinces on the ground and pointed to the left and the right. "Let’s set up a 400-meter defense line here and intercept some of these Fire Qilins. This is a good chance to nab a couple more Fire Qilin equipment sets while we wait for Sophie to deal with Coldblade. It’s going to take at least half an hour before Coldblade’s HP drops low enough for us to kill anyway."
Everyone nodded. Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls was easily the most numerous and strongest force in Crossroads Valley. After our army of nearly 100,000 spread out into a battle line on the west side of the fortress, we began fighting the Fire Qilins. Maybe it was because of Coldblade’s presence, but the mobs in this direction kept spawning even though they had stopped almost everywhere else.
We could hear the sounds of clashing metals and whooshing air as Sophie flew into the clouds and engaged Coldblade. On the ground, Sophie’s dark army appeared and clashed against the Fire Qilins as well. It was a chaotic situation to say the least.
"Form up and prepare to receive the mobs!"
I stood at the forefront and withstood the attacks of at least a dozen or so Fire Qilins. The Flame Spits felt like the warm air of a sauna except that their temperature was higher. Yep, the kind of temperature that would turn a slice of pork meat into charcoal…
It wasn’t long before the other Chinese guilds—Snowy Cathaya, Candle Dragon, Warsky Alliance and more—joined us and formed a complete defense line. Instead of kicking the Northern Alliance and Cyan Beast while they were losing, we chose to help them defend against the qilins instead. Both Vienna’s Sorrow and Breeze and Rain let out an obvious sigh of relief. They knew that their chances of surviving were almost zero if the Chinese had chosen to backstab them now.
……
The fighting continued for 20 minutes. We all earned a lot of March of Chaos points and Fire Qilin set pieces, and I was now sitting at over 20 complete sets. I had enough inventory slots to fit at least a hundred pieces of the set, so overcapacity was among the least of my concerns.
Some time during the fighting, I opened the contribution point interface and noted that I was still firmly in first place as expected—
(Intrusive Nabuch Note: New site doesn’t allow any formatting in tables, so allow me to slack and leave this ranking as is)
1. Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand (China) Points: 7,472,880
2. Breeze and Rain (India) Points: 3,712,200
3. Wind Fantasy (China) Points: 3,550,280
4. Lian Xin (China) Points: 3,472,770
5. Candlelight Shadow (China) Points: 3,112,900
6. Legendary Brave (China) Points: 2,923,330
7. Vienna’s Sorrow (USA) Points: 2,913,470
8. Luo River God of the Capital (China) Points: 2,903,430
9. Tear Stain (Korea) Points: 2,812,830
10. God of War (India) Points: 2,803,740
……
After all the fierce battles we had fought up until this point, I now had more than twice as many contribution points as the runner-up, Breeze and Rain. Moreover, Lian Xin was the player with the highest jump in terms of placing, surpassing Candlelight Shadow, Li Chengfeng and Vienna’s Sorrow to sit at fourth place. She could’ve placed even higher if she hadn’t wasted time running away from the mobs to dodge their powerful attacks. It was the right call though. Had she died, she wouldn’t be earning any contribution points at all, and most likely would’ve fallen out of the Top 10.
All players in the Top 100,000 on the March of Chaos contribution leaderboard would be rewarded, but obviously the rewards for the Top 10 players would be incredible. Not only that, the difference between the rewards for the 10th and the 11th place was probably going to be like night and day. Just because the devs hadn’t mentioned these unwritten rules anywhere didn’t mean that we weren’t aware of them. Long story short, get into the Top 10, and you would be rewarded with an endless amount of riches and treasures.
……
"The fuck? Why are you guys fighting on the west side?"
A familiar voice rang from the entrance to Crossroads Valley. It was Dominating Heaven Blade and Gods of Destruction. They had run back over all the way from Sky City to rejoin the battle. Dominating Heaven Blade was a decisive man, and despite the odd situation he didn’t hesitate to point at Warsky Alliance and ordered, "We’re going form a defense line beside Warsky Alliance. We have 50k players, so we’re not going to fail this time…"
Gods of Destruction formed their defense formation and aggroed a couple hundred Fire Qilins in no time. Blood immediately started spilling everywhere.
The good times didn’t last, however. Less than five minutes later, a group of red names appeared and glared at Dominating Heaven Blade with obvious anger on their faces. They were none other than God’s Domain. Red Maple himself shouted, "Gods of Destruction of the China server, you are trespassing into our defense area! Fuck off now, or we will take you out!"
Red Maple was acting like he could destroy Gods of Destruction anytime he wanted, which, to be fair, was completely true.
"The arrogance! Let’s fuck up these motherfucking little Japanese already!" Dominating Warrior God raged.
A frowning Dominating Heaven Blade shushed him. "Not yet. If they don’t attack us, there’s no reason for us to provoke them!"
Unfortunately, Red Maple never intended to let them get away. He Charged into Gods of Destruction formation and unleashed his Fire God Flurry, Windblade Cyclone, Maple Kill and more AoE skills immediately. As dozens of Gods of Destruction players hit the ground, the army of tens of thousands behind him hit Gods of Destruction as well. As expected, the Japanese players hadn’t stopped hating us ever since they lost the War of Purple Grape City. They would grasp at any excuse to attack our server.
"Motherfucker! Kill them all!" Dominating Heaven Blade was a hot-blooded man. He didn’t hesitate to charge Red Maple the second the battle was engaged.
Red Maple sneered, drove back the guild leader with Thunder God Ball, and one-shot the group of archers led by Dominating Archer God at the same time. The strength difference between the two guilds was like night and day. God’s Domain was the Japan server’s best guild, while the Gods of Destruction guild was barely holding onto their Top 10 spot and still declining to this day.
……
Warsky couldn’t stand by and see Gods of Destruction be bullied, however. He raised his Immortal Blade and roared, "Little Japan thinks they can fuck up Gods of Destruction right before our eyes? Follow me to take out Red Maple and God’s Domain! Farewell Song, go!"
True chaos descended on the battlefield as multiple player, monster and NPC forces clashed against one another. It literally couldn’t get anymore chaotic than this.
Red Maple was an intelligent man. While doing his best to avoid Warsky, Lin Bing Dou Zhe and the top players, he roamed about targeting swathes of weak or average players with just his AoE skills. As a result, Warsky Alliance lost a tremendous number of players despite being slightly stronger than God’s Domain.
……
"You have a good shield. I’ll take it!"
Red Maple laughed madly as he suddenly pounced toward Laughing At The Heavens [1]. As crimson dragon’s claw grabbed onto Laughing At The Heavens’ shield tightly, the latter thrust his spear forward in retaliation, "You think you can take my Green Dragon Shield? Dream on!"
Crack!
Unfortunately, this wasn’t a 1v1. An assassin, Purple Thunder, stunned Laughing At The Heavens from behind and elicited another mad cackle from Red Maple. A triple-hit skill later, the magic knight dropped dead and lost his Green Dragon Shield to the Japanese.
……
Red Maple didn’t hesitate to turn tail and run the moment he got the loot he wanted. He was an intelligent man who knew to quit while he was ahead.
However, a stun icon suddenly appeared above Red Maple’s head while he was retreating. Then, Farewell Song appeared with two Ancient Immortal-grade daggers in his grip. He hit Red Maple 5 times and scored 3 critical hits, dropping the warrior to red health almost immediately!
"Dammit!"
However, Farewell Song’s follow-up stun resulted in a miss, which gave Red Maple the chance to run away from him. He glared at Farewell Song with bloodshot eyes and uttered, "Heh, Farewell Song, is it? Just wait! I’ll kill you one day!"
Farewell Song simply melted into thin air once more.
Red Maple wasn’t stupid enough to waste another second threatening the assassin. He hightailed it as quickly as he could.
……
On a tall hill, Red Maple growled, "Cavalrymen, cover me. Priests, heal me. We are absolutely going to destroy Gods of Destruction and that meddling Warsky Alliance today. Keep mustering the men until we have 200k riders! We’ll crush them all in a cavalry charge!"
Before he could finish though, a black figure dashed out of the nearby shrubbery with lightning speed. It was the Charge skill!
Bang!
Caught completely off-guard, Red Maple was stunned before he could do anything!
Ice Blade Shatter!
Ice Ray Flurry!
……
Several icicles skewered the number one expert of the Japan server and killed him there and then.
Pop! A pair of fiery red, dragon-shaped wristguards fell to the ground.
The Ghost Armament, Crimson Dragon Arm, actually dropped!
1. T/N: respect, man. Keep absorbing this bad karma for everyone
E/N: At this point he’s the Bad Luck Brian meme ☜