Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

Chapter 792: Chapter 792 – Leaving after they were done Killing

Gu Fei sent a message to Dusky Cloud and his men, not sparing any words of courtesy as he immediately broached the subject, “Since you’re all here, let’s just have a bloody good fight!”

When Dusky Cloud and everyone heard what he said, they found it to be very much in line with their liking and wished they could just randomly grab someone off the street and begin killing. However, Gu Fei proceeded to tell them in detail about the plan, so Dusky Cloud and his men immediately dispersed after listening to it in full, freely wandering around Yunduan City by their leisure. Most of them had not been to this city before, so they treated this task as a tour of the place while they tried to familiarize themselves with their surroundings.

Young Master Han had very quickly found himself a good position to oversee the operation, though he had not sent just a single set of coordinates to Gu Fei, but several sets all in one go. Each of them were the major streets that led to the Archer Range, and it was apparent that Young Master Han intended to attack it from various angles.

Gu Fei was hardly bothered with the arrangement of this battle tactic and simply transmitted the appropriate instructions accordingly. Dusky Cloud nodded when he read what was written and the nearly 200 players were split into several parties, each headed toward one of the coordinates they were given. Gu Fei, Svelte Dancer, Sakurazaka Moony, and the others each also received instructions via messages and began to ready themselves.

———————————————-

Outside the Archer Range in Yunduan City, after the ambushers had experienced a flurry of activity, they were ultimately left with loneliness when the dust settled. Black Index Finger and his underlings had once sent a message to the players here when they were hunting the men from Forever In Flowers, letting them know so they could get ready to repeatedly kill these players. However, there was just no reason for the wretched men from Forever in Flowers to give them such a chance to do so. After very carefully taking in their surroundings upon respawning, not a single one of them stepped out from the spawn point, with some even logging off outright, while others stayed inside to ogle at the ladies. The ambushers were all helpless; there was nothing that they could do if their targets did not leave the spawn point, so the only choice they had left was to continue their boring vigil outside, uncertain when they would finally be able to do anything.

It was the same with the people that were lying in wait by the Warrior Encampment comprised of two groups of players; those who had their faces covered and those without. Those who had their faces covered strutted around more openly, while those who were not masked were the main attackers that would be doing the ambushing and encirclement.

The whole lot of them were bored when all of a sudden, a player with a piece of cloth covering his face came stumbling down the street as quickly as his legs could carry him, shouting out loud all around him to spread the message, “It’s Thousand Miles Drunk!! Thousand Miles Drunk is here!!”

“Ah!” Everyone was in an uproar when they heard this. They were feeling lonely, but they were not lonely to the point that they wanted to while the time away together with Thousand Miles Drunk. There was a single fact that everybody was well aware of: The combat strength in the various spawn points was perhaps enough to encircle and kill Thousand Miles Drunk, but they were certain that a good number of them would end up dying by Thousand Miles Drunk’s sword. Thus, even though they had all banded together for the sole purpose of going up against Thousand Miles Drunk, none of them had actually wanted to run into Thousand Miles Drunk in the meanwhile. Similarly, all of them hoped that they could quickly vanquish Thousand Miles Drunk, though none of them had ever thought that they would be doing it themselves. The risk was just too great. But now, it was Thousand Miles Drunk who had taken the initiative to come knocking right up their doorstep.

“Everyone, get ready! Quick, prepare for battle!” Now that the man was here, there was no way for anyone to flee even if they wanted to. After being nervous for a while, they promptly began to position themselves according to what they had planned from the start. The players who did not have their faces covered were all in their assigned posts, secretly preparing for the encirclement, while the players whose faces were behind a mask or a piece of cloth started to begrudgingly gather together to provoke Thousand Miles Drunk’s assault. They still had no idea just how many of them would end up losing their lives doing this.

“Where is everyone? Come on out!” Gu Fei hoisted his sword as he walked down the street, acting extremely arrogant. Several of these masked players poked their heads out and he ignored them all, “Why are there just a few of you? Where are the others?”

“We’re right here!” The leader of the masked players led the rest of his men and came charging out to engage in battle. Without another word, Gu Fei dashed up to meet them in combat. The leader had even prepared some lines so as to better lure Thousand Miles Drunk to fall for their ruse, because according to his colleagues stationed over by the Warrior Encampment, Thousand Miles Drunk seemed to have somewhat of an idea regarding their tactical objective, so he might not fall for the trick. Especially since the man would slay his way into the spawn point, and then use a teleportation scroll to escape. But how was he to know that the situation over here would be so simple; all the leader did was say a single line and their target had immediately taken the initiative to come pouncing right after him.

“Here he comes, everyone, get ready,” The leader’s weapon seemed to be trembling ever so slightly as he tightly gripped it in his hand. He swiftly slapped his hand once; this was really too weak of him.

“ATTACK!” Giving out the command, the Archers who were capable of attacking from the longest range out of all the job classes unleashed their first volley of attacks. Gu Fei began to utilize his kung fu footwork and moved in a strange manner, causing all the arrows to miss him as they came raining down.

The second wave was a spell bombardment. Gu Fei came to a halt and tossed out his own spell in response, before rapidly backing away from the range of the spells cast.

The third wave of attack was when Gu Fei’s spell finally emerged, but the players were prepared for this as well, and all of them managed to evade this spell without exerting too much of an effort. Having experienced going head to head with Thousand Miles Drunk, the players were constantly communicating with each other, so they had also studied the few steps that Gu Fei would habitually take against them.

However, evading the attack meant that a gap in the attack would also appear. Gu Fei had very keen eyesight, so he was able to grasp this brief pause that had been created by the enemy’s actions, and he used this chance to dash forward. Spells and arrows continued to sail toward him, but the path that Gu Fei took happened to be the spaces where their attacks would not reach him. Weaving his way through the spells and arrows in this fashion, Gu Fei soon made it face to face with the enemy’s frontline.

The Warriors swiftly stepped forward and provided cover for the Mages and Archers behind them, while the Thieves came out from various directions and began to get closer to Gu Fei while in Stealth. The group leader here got a little excited at this point. Everything had proceeded very smoothly, so could the encirclement be so easily accomplished like this? Everyone could hear him whistle sharply, as not only did the masked men, but even the many pedestrians, onlookers, and peddlers from the various streets in every corner suddenly covered their faces and came converging on Gu Fei in every direction.

Unfortunately, Gu Fei had already expected something like this to happen, because he knew that the real attack was just about to begin right now. He was also well aware of the caliber of the players that were camping out this spot.

Dusky Cloud and his buddies all hailed from Yueye City, and they had plenty of PK experience having gone through hundreds of battles during their time there. Yet when it was now their turn to make their move, they instead opted to quietly set off without making a sound. In contrast, Sakurazaka Moony and his band of men were utterly insolent, shouting and yelling as they began their assault. A wave of arrows signaled to the enemy that they were not just up against Thousand Miles Drunk alone. They quickly scrambled to find players to deal with what was happening over there, when they discovered that the number of enemies they were facing was much more than they had initially expected. Furthermore, they could see that this crowd of players looked to have a comprehensive job class composition that was all decked out in very powerful equipment.

There were a total of six parties of such players, each descending toward the Archer Range from the six streets nearby. By the time the campers noticed these players were charging right toward them, Dusky Cloud and the others were already right in front of them.

“KILL THEM ALL!” Dusky Cloud gave the order and every single one of these players exploded with their PK fervor, bellowing their lungs out as they plunged right into the enemy ranks in unison.

The campers were completely at a loss over what to do. Out of all the combat scenarios that they had drilled for, not once did anyone consider the situation where they had to deal with enemies in such numbers before. They had been thinking about how to encircle the enemy, but when they were the ones who were being surrounded, how were they supposed to break out of it? They were completely unfamiliar with this topic.

“Put everything on the line and kill Thousand Miles Drunk first at all costs!” The leader of the ambushers here in the Archer Range did not have the time to ponder about just where these men had come from, making the decision right there and then even as he signaled their main forces for assistance. He could already tell from just how ferociously these men fought that even though they were not anywhere near Thousand Miles Drunk’s prowess, they were still experts that were stronger than the average player, and more importantly, there were a lot of such experts. Even though his forces held numerical superiority, the edge in terms of numbers here was nowhere near enough to substitute for the difference in quality between the two forces. It was only a matter of time before they would be defeated, so instead of putting up a pointless defense, he figured it would be better to seize what time they still had to eliminate Thousand Miles Drunk since he was already ensnared within their encirclement.

This leader’s line of thinking was correct, and he had been quite optimistic about how it should go, but Thousand Miles Drunk was most definitely not someone so easy to contend with.

A circle of flames burned, and essentially no one could get near Gu Fei despite being surrounded. At the moment, what made him even more happier was not that Dusky Cloud’s assault had been a success, but that he had successfully triggered passive retaliation. The people around him had no doubt taken the initiative to attack him and Gu Fei could very clearly tell that slaying the circle of players around him would not incur any PK points!

Gu Fei was thinking this as his sword swung in all directions, creating bursts of white light one after another, and his PK Value remained at zero. The players that surround him continued to circle him and they all got cleared away; this process repeating itself. Were it not for the fact that dead players would be teleported back to their respawn point, Gu Fei would probably have plenty of corpses littered around his feet by now. But even though the conditions to achieve passive retaliation was very troublesome and was largely involuntary, Gu Fei was finally marked with PK point several waves after. However, Gu Fei felt that this foray had been very worthwhile, and it was a considerable triumph to end up getting PK points only after some time had passed.

On the other hand, it was the leader of the ambushers who was feeling utter despair, having failed to take down Thousand Miles Drunk on the inside while also failing to stop the assault coming from beyond that was surrounding and killing them all. Kill off Thousand Miles Drunk at all costs? They had already put everything on the line, yet Thousand Miles Drunk did not look like he was anywhere near death. But he must have killed over 30 players by now, right? Where are the city guards? Why have they not appeared yet? The leader had no idea that Gu Fei had intentionally controlled how much PK points he earned through this entire fight. All the leader noted was how many players he ended up killing and began to cling onto the hope that the city guards would come to his aid.

“Leader! We really can’t continue like this. Let’s run away!” Someone could no longer carry on.

“Run away? Where to?” The leader was laughing bitterly as he looked at the encirclement they were in.

“The spawn point, each and every one that could make it in there would count as one life saved,” someone pointed out.

The leader saw that nobody had any fighting spirit left in them so he had no choice but to nod his head, giving the order to make a run for the spawn point and wait for their reinforcement.

It was like they figuratively ran into a wall with this one charge; the tactic of diving into the spawn point after losing a battle next to the spawn point was too simple. Be it Young Master Han, or the PK veterans Dusky Cloud and his comrades, everyone had already expected their enemy to make such a move. The moment they noticed their enemy had the intention of retreating, all of them had begun to pay particular attention toward setting up defense in that direction. These campers put their lives on the line as they tried to charge past this blockade, only to end up suffering heavy losses from their own forces while barely taking down just a handful of players from the other side.

The campers were now in such a state of disarray that everyone was already rudderless; all of them subconsciously resisted the attack, and their only hope was that their reinforcement would be able to arrive sooner, so that they could save more lives. However, this hope was extremely unrealistic. Given how large the city was, it was impossible for players to make it over within those few minutes. In the end, not a single one of them managed to escape, as every single one of them stationed at the Archer Range was killed. Dusky Cloud and his men were the sorts that would act ruthlessly when given the opportunity, so their enemy was hardly able to be of a match at all. None of them wavered in the least when those players they killed revealed a look of sorrow, as even Gu Fei began to feel his heart soften in the face of that.

“Hahahahaha, this is awesome! Hi Miles bro!” Dusky Cloud was laughing uproariously, officially meeting Gu Fei for the first time since they made the trek over.

“Where are we be going next?” He had not had his fill of killing yet, cleaning the blade of his sword as he asked.

“The enemy would most definitely be on their toes after this group wipe. We won’t be able to accomplish something like this so easily any longer,” Young Master Han said as he walked out. Dusky Cloud and his friends did not like this man, yet they also knew what he had said made sense. No one would be foolish enough to not take precautions and ramp up their manpower in the various spawn points now that they were made aware of the existence of the extra 200 experts on Gu Fei’s side.

Furthermore, Dusky Cloud was even more conscious of the fact that Young Master Han was a man with plenty of schemes and ideas, be it battle strategies or anything of that sort. There was no need for them to lend a hand in putting their heads together for this, so he did not bother to think any further, simply turning around to quietly ask one of his buddies, “How many did we lose?”

“Just 11 of us. Haha, Yunduan City players are such noobs.” The player who answered was obviously still very excited. For a group PK that numbered in the hundreds to only suffer 11 casualties, that was without a doubt a huge victory.

“Haha, who are the idiots who got themselves killed?” This was their style. To this group of intrepid and unflinching men, PK was commonplace, and it was not uncommon for them to lose levels from dying in such a manner. They were not the sort to show any sympathy over such things, and would merely be ridiculing one another.

“Don’t loiter around here any longer than you have to. Everyone should take your leave and disperse first!” As Young Master Han was addressing the people, everyone had instead turned to look at Gu Fei. Gu Fei also knew that a significant portion of the enemy might be arriving very soon, so he waved his hand, “let’s withdraw first.”

“Let’s first disperse from here. Shall we blend into the crowd and search to see if we have any other chance to strike?” Some of Dusky Cloud’s comrades were still keen on finding people to PK!

“Fine,” there were no reasons for Dusky Cloud to not want to do this, so he waved his arm and everyone that had gathered very naturally transformed into passersby, waiting momentarily to see if there would be an opportunity to strike.

“What, you guys aren’t sated yet?” Gu Fei chuckled when he saw what they were doing.

“We can’t make the trip out here for nothing!” Dusky Cloud laughed.

“You’ll have plenty of chances. We’re up against a whole sea of players after all!” Gu Fei said.

“We won’t be able to deal with a sea of players, but we can definitely deal with a small unit like before,” Dusky Cloud declared.

“Hahaha, now that they know I’m here, I’m positive they won’t be sending just a small unit out. Let’s go. If we’ve got the time to chat idly, why not spend it outside the city grinding?” Gu Fei said.

“Grind?” Dusky Cloud was stunned.

“That’s right. Let them busy themselves in here. We’ll head on out and engage in some efficient level grinding. We can’t possibly let them affect our day-to-day lives here in-game!” Gu Fei might have said this, but he had never truly ground in his normal day-to-day life in Parallel World. He was merely saying this from the perspective of the average gamer.

“Efficient level grinding?” Dusky Cloud’s eyes shone brightly when he heard this.

“Let’s go!” Gu Fei hailed. Dusky Cloud immediately informed all his comrades and their eyes sparkled as well when they heard it.

“Let’s all disperse in this manner and meet outside the city,” Gu Fei reminded.

Everyone echoed their agreement and went about in separate directions, intending to meet up when they reached the grinding map outside the city.

“Brother Assist isn’t online right now. I’m going to log off for a bit as well and get in touch with those who are stuck in Jail,” Young Master Han said as he headed toward the Archer Range. There were also enemy Archers inside the Archer Range at the moment, all of whom were very worried that it would be the other party’s turn to camp them. Unexpectedly, it was as if their enemy had forgotten the method entirely as they all left to go about their own business, seemingly unconcerned with the Archers any longer. They did see some from the other party that seemed like they wanted to leave but were still hanging around, and that made all the Archers not have the guts to be rash either, shrinking back to a corner in the Archer Range looking rather pathetic. When Young Master Han walked directly toward the Archer Range, he did not spare more than a few glances at these people before logging off as well.

“Let’s continue to kill them, why are you even grinding levels?!” Svelte Dancer was quite unhappy with this decision.

“There’s nobody out here for us to kill right now,” Gu Fei said. “However, we’ve already managed to seize the initiative, so we can do anything we want, while it would be our enemy that would have to guard against us. Every single spawn point out there will have to see an increase in the manpower assigned. Who knows, they might even form teams in every corner of Parallel World to find us? So let us let them tire themselves out a little.

“That’s too devious,” Svelte Dancer imagined the effort the other party had to expend and instantly felt the insidiousness of this strategy at play.

“Are you coming with us to grind?” Gu Fei asked.

“What else can I do if I’m not tagging along?!” Svelte Dancer cried. “I’ll call the ladies over as well.”

“Can we not?” Gu Fei was sweating. Teammates as dull as pigs were coming again, and that was scary. But why would Svelte care about his concerns, sending out her message by her own volition.

The whole group left the city successively and went out to grind. After choosing a place suitable for the grind, Gu Fei naturally developed the efficient grinding routine for the monster there and taught it to everyone. Dusky Cloud and the others were all delighted! This trip of theirs granted them a very fruitful bonus; forget about the efficient grinding routine that they picked up, they even got to level together with so many ladies; this was a blessing that their Ten Guild Alliance had never experienced before! The men in the guild would always be cursing and swearing at each other every hour of the day, but when they were able to grind their levels with so many ladies, it was like all of them had begun to learn how to speak politely, though in the end, the words they used the most were ‘careful’, ‘carefully’ and ‘extra careful’.

Gu Fei had brought them out to a region where the monsters were of a higher level than them, and it was really difficult for the ladies since some were still not even level 40. Gu Fei could not stand to watch them struggle, but he saw that Dusky Cloud and his party did not seem to mind carrying these burdens around, and everyone had a wonderful time playing the game with everyone else.

—————————————

There was no such joy in Yunduan City. Players were aggressively charging toward the Archer Range when they received the news that they were already wiped out there. Meanwhile, those players who respawned at the Archer Range watched Thousand Miles Drunk and the others leave, but they had no idea if they had left for real or if it was just a ruse, so none of them dared to take a step out so easily. All they could do was continue to wait for their reinforcement to arrive.

“Who were those people?” Black Index Finger and the rest of his men were very dejected.

“Could they be from the Ten Guild Alliance?” They had this suspicion ever since they learned that Gu Fei had fled all the way to Yueye City, so they were able to guess it right straight away.

“No matter their identity, the fact remains that they represent trouble,” Black Index Finger was having a huge headache. He was already reduced down to level 38, he had no idea just how many people were secretly laughing behind his back! Even though the Archer Range had experienced a group wipe, the players who were killed were not members of The Black Hand Syndicate, but these people were insistent that the enemy they faced were very strong, and they were all requesting the experts from the large guilds to position themselves there.

“Our enemy has close to 200 experts on their side, and then there’s also that maniac Thousand Miles Drunk. Without 1000 players, I doubt we would be able to camp there…”

“There’s actually no need for there to be so many players. Let’s send some of them to the various locations!”

“That’s the only option we got.”

“Won’t we be too passive if we just camped like this? I think we should organize some men to search for their whereabouts.”

“There’s no need to arrange teams. Just get people to look, and we can find the time to gather manpower after.”

“D*mm*t, how did things turn out like this?”

“Hang in there. Wait for those players in Jail to come out, we would be able to vanquish their guild in the end!”

“What if they don’t come out this whole time?”

“Why would they not come out?”

“Because they logged off for sleep…”

Silence. This scenario was too frightening to consider. They had so many players, did that mean they have to camp this place for their whole lives?

“We need to first eliminate Thousand Miles Drunk!” Someone suggested. “That guy might very well be the person they placed all their hope on. Without him, just what could they even look forward to?”

“Find him! Send a thousand players and get their whereabouts!”