The Great Thief

Chapter 262: The Fish That Slipped Through The Net

Translator: Halcyon Translations Editor: Halcyon Translations

Lu Li didn’t have a sadistic mindset where he enjoyed the suffering of others.

But most importantly, would anyone believe him?

All of the players within his eyesight were fully focused on killing monsters; the huge amount of experience and rare Molds had driven them crazy.

Lu Li hesitated for a bit before he sent a message to Water Fairy and Hornet’s Nest.

He didn’t explain in detail what was going to happen, but mentioned that he had unintentionally discovered the suspicious movements of the Horde players and the NPCs.

The team of ten left their prime farming location and shortly, others came to take their spot.

“This is such a good place; I can’t believe those idiots gave up on it.” The players who were lucky enough to take over this spot were not thankful, but spiteful.

“They probably used up all their supplies. So what if they’re experts? They’ve hogged this place for long enough; it would only be a matter of time before the crowd becomes angry,” his comrades agreed.

“It’s not like we’d be any less than them if we had the equipment and the level.”

“This Lu Li must be imagining things.”

Hornet's Nest saw Lu Li’s message, but didn’t take it to heart.

He respected those who defeated him, but his pride and ego still remained.

Water Fairy was much more cautious – she stopped killing monsters and left the territory of her own guild.

She was also a full dexterity Thief with shoes that had a speed buff, so it only took her a dozen minutes to run to her destination.

“Team one to twenty, leave battle and return to the city,” Water Fairy instructed after looking at the movement of the Horde players.

As the big boss behind the scenes, she could give instructions without notifying the Guild Master.

Falling Star, the Guild Master of Drizzle Court, asked for the reason behind Water Fairy’s actions and couldn't help but feel that something was off.

Falling Star had been following Water Fairy for many years, and they also knew each other in reality. However, Falling Star had never seen Water Fairy fully obey someone’s instructions like this and wondered if Lu Li had cast a magic spell on her .

Team one to twenty contained a total of two thousand people; they were the mid-rank forces of the Drizzle Court. As long as they were fine, the guild wouldn’t be affected too much, even if the others were wiped out.

They also took all of their loot with them.

At the very most, all that the others would lose was experience, and possibly an equip if they were unlucky.

This time, Drizzle Court had assigned sixty teams, each consisting of a hundred people, but only twenty teams were asked to retreat. This was because Water Fairy didn’t trust Lu Li’s judgement entirely, even though she saw the restlessness of the Horde faction with her own eyes.

The Horde players were in fact acting in a restless manner.

Glory Capital had always been the supreme leader above everyone else; all the guilds followed their commands, regardless of their reputation.

About an hour ago, Sorrowless had begun maneuvering the Horde players from the big guilds. He asked them to move South, then return back, in a continual, unending process.

If Earth Dragon, the Guild Master of the Blood Red War Flag, asked for the Alliance players to shift locations, even the medium-sized guilds probably wouldn’t obey.

There were some people who questioned Sorrowless’ requests, but he ignored them. In fact, he even maneuvered people more frequently.

Since questioning didn’t work, everyone became silent and did as they were told.

Over these few years, Glory Capital had grown in terms of power and influence. All those who dared to oppose them had disappeared one by one; there was no mercy.

After about an hour’s worth of effort, there was still nobody who could figure out what Sorrowless wanted to do.

With a wave of his flag, a grand total of 700,000-800,000 players from the elite teams of the large and medium guilds would take action, surrounding the Barrenlands in a fan-formation.

This was his plan right from the beginning; the constant shift in location and people was for this purpose.

Once the operational plan began, all of the previous manouvres would seem like wise moves with great vision.

It only took twenty minutes to completely surround the Barrenlands, which was a large-scale map with a maximum capacity of a few million players. Running from one end of the map to the other would take hours.

The NPCs also cooperated with Sorrowless and his deployment.

Lu Li wasn’t a coward; he wouldn’t retreat without a battle if only the players were involved.

However, this time, a hundred thousand NPCs had joined forces with the Horde faction.

Or rather, a hundred thousand Orc Riders had joined; this was definitely the main force of the Steel Knights.

Based on what Lu Li knew, every single unit from the Steel Knights would at least be a level 50 Elite. The Junior Captains would be Bosses and as for the officers with titles……

There was simply no way to compete against this.

If it wasn’t for the fact that the system wanted to give out bonuses to the players, there was no way that the Centaur troops, who were only about LV20, would be capable of standing up to the Steel Knights. The difference in strength between the two was not something that could be changed by sheer numbers.

When the Steel Knights charged out from Durotar, the fates of the Centaurs would be sealed right then and there.

However, the players had no clue that Sorrowless had already received a secret quest from an Orc NPC. He was asked to cooperate with the Steel Knights in driving out all of the intruders from the Barrenlands.

The Alliance faction was also on the list of intruders.

Standing on top of a high hill, the mountain breeze blew against Lu Li as he looked down upon the fresh smoke of war that arose from the Barrenlands.

A few hundred thousand elite players from the Alliance, alongside countless random players, were being slaughtered like livestock.

When he had read the articles from the past that described this event, he thought that they were all exaggerating and was confused because Dawn was a game of balance. There was no way that it would allow a one-sided war like this to happen.

However, he had now witnessed this with his very own eyes.

This led him to understand many things that he couldn’t understand from the past.

The rewards from ‘The Invasion of the Centaurs’ actually weren’t as good as the rewards from ‘The Meisnera Output Battle‘, especially with regards with experience. Back then, Azure Sea Breeze had almost gained enough experience to level up twice.

The experience received from the current event was a lot less.

As for the silver grade Molds, while Lu Li and his team had managed to obtain a lot of them, this wasn’t the same for the others. Overall, the game was still quite balanced.

However!

During The Meisnera Output Battle, it was the Alliance players who had taken all the gear, but in the Invasion of the Centaurs, the gear and experience rewards were given to players from both factions.

This placed an invisible gap between the factions.

In order to bridge this gap, a special quest was permitted by the system.

The result of this was the fall of countless Alliance players in the Barrenlands.

Lu Li looked for a little longer and felt powerless. There was nothing he could do to make the situation better, so he returned back to the city.

There were too many high-level orcs below, which denied any chance for him to gain anything from the situation.

He wasn’t interested in assassinating Sorrowless either.

Sorrowless had never wronged Lu Li, so he currently had no interest in killing him.

To be fair, Lu Li looked down on himself too much.

At the very least, Drizzle Court had minimized their losses thanks to his warning. Not only were they able to keep their Molds, but they also kept two thousand people away from harm.

At first, Hornet’s Nest didn’t really take his advice to heart, but when the spy who was placed in Drizzle Court by Seventh Heaven reported back with the news of Water Fairy’s retreat, he began to reassess the importance of Lu Li’s warning.

Seventh Heaven didn’t only have spies in Drizzle Court; they had even placed some spies in the opposing faction. This was done by having the staff members in reality play on the Horde while still giving them a salary. All they had to do was provide information.

These spies within the Horde reported back on the situation, which made Hornet’s Nest begin to feel that something was wrong about Sorrowless.

Following the principles of safety first, Seventh Heaven also had ten of their elite teams retreat.

Of course, these elite teams brought back with them all the loot.

Any guild would have at least one spy in another guild. Everyone was aware of the actions that Seventh Heaven and Drizzle Court had taken and once they retreated, they came around to ask why.

Hornet’s Nest and Water Fairy didn’t mention anything about Lu Li – all they said was that they noticed some strange activity from the opposing side.

As such, players from the other guilds copied their action and had some of their teams retreat.