Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

“Just how many is a lot?” Sword Demon and the others knew that Vast Lushness’s spyglass was a powerful tool, and they had already taken the initiative to locate her when they needed to confirm the reconnaissance.

“It’s just people all around us. It seems like we have been surrounded. With such numbers, it is most definitely not just 1 or 2 guilds here. I reckon it must be the guilds that were defeated in the recent City Wars that have gathered in hopes of taking their revenge on us,” Vast Lushness truly had plenty of fighting experience in games.

“D*mn them all. How unbecoming!” War Without Wounds expressed his indignation. This sort of situation was like they were willing to gamble but refuse to admit the loss. It was utterly lacking in character.

“This is a one time challenge,” Sword Demon’s expression was grim. “Currently, our guild is very much the target of the public’s ire. We most definitely cannot back down from this fight, as the moment we show ourselves as weak, the players in Yunduan City would know that even though Extremely Heaven Defying has control of six city Precincts, joining us would not be a good thing. We might all be killed in the end, but we must most definitely make these attackers pay an even more painful price for their actions. We need to let the players in Yunduan City know that trying to carve up Extremely Heaven Defying would most definitely not be a happy occasion.”

During crunch time, Sword Demon would not be giving a superficial speech like what he did during the bonfire night party before. Every word he uttered was clean and crisp, directed straight toward the listener’s hearts. Players who heard him speak could feel a thought come to all their minds: That’s right, we definitely cannot let others think we are pushovers. Even if we are to die, we have to strike fear into the hearts of our enemies, because we would most definitely not die in vain!

“Well said, boss Sword Demon!” Nobody had any idea who was the one that shouted this, but a round of applause thundered from it, with even others who directly gave out a roar into the night sky. It was all thanks to Sword Demon, a man who would always look a little dull on every other occasion, along with the atmosphere that permeated, that this gathering tonight would actually come to such a head.

“We’ll go with the formation we used during the City Wars event. Organize into your battle teams!” Sword Demon commanded.

The teams were swiftly formed up. It had only been a day since the fight in the city had ended, so everyone still remembered how they were organized then.

“Strive to break this encirclement and seize the initiative. We’ll turn around right after and dish out the pain!” Sword Demon declared.

The players echoed his sentiment with resounding battle cries. Furthermore, these players that were encircling them had finally appeared in everyone’s field of vision, while Young Master Han had already walked up right beside Vast Lushness and reached his hand out to her.

Vast Lushness was truly left without any choice. Even though Young Master Han would very quickly return the spyglass once he was done using it, the frequency of which he wanted to borrow the item was really high, which honestly gave her the sense that she was the one who was borrowing the item.

Despite having such a thought, Vast Lushness still handed the spyglass over to Young Master Han.

Young Master Han raised the spyglass and looked around, and immediately sent out a message through the guild channel, “They are about 200 meters away, standing about 1 meter apart from each other. It’s about a 10 rank deep formation, meaning we’re up against around 12,000 – 15,000 players.”

“The closer they get, the deeper their formation would run. We should attempt our blitz on their ranks as soon as we can. Everyone, get ready,” Sword Demon yelled.

“Warriors to the front, Mages to the back,” Young Master Han said.

“Priests will be in the center while the Knights will act as the rearguard,” Sword Demon added.

“Archers in both flanks,”

“Thieves get into Stealth and scatter.”

“Why are there two people giving commands….” The players of Extremely Heaven Defying were very confused as they quietly whispered to one another.

“But their commands are linked…”

“Or perhaps complementary?” They were all wondering, nevertheless acting in accordance.

“Two-man commands huh….” Deep Waters and Coco smiled at each other when they heard the players from Extremely Heaven Defying discuss it.

“What familiar memories, but it’s unfortunate that the two of us won’t hear it anymore,” Coco sighed with regret.

“But we can still lend a hand,” Deep Waters took out his bow and sent a message over to Sword Demon. “I’m sure you’ll need a few teams to do a feint attack, right? Make it more difficult for the enemy to shrink in on us, even better if we create a bit of chaos in the process.”

“We’re already doing that. Are you and Coco leading a team too?” Sword Demon asked.

“Sure! But how would we be able to hear the commands?” Deep Waters asked.

“Of course you will be able to, we’re a new guild!” Sword Demon said.

Deep Waters knew what he meant. A new guild meant the members were not familiar with each other, so that meant the guild leader would have to directly appoint team captains. Everyone was uncertain of the captain’s capabilities for the moment, so there would not be issues of submitting or otherwise.

Deep Waters very quickly got a party invite, and the party leader had already transferred leadership to him. What followed was a torrent of exclamation over the party channel, “Ah? Deep Waters? Are you that Deep Waters? The one who was once among the ranks of the Five Unyielding Experts?”

Deep Waters faintly answered to the affirmative, “Yes, that’s me.”

“Ah!!” All the players in the party clamored.

“Stop acting mighty!” There was of course a voice that went to the contrary.

“Who is this person?” A cloud of question marks appeared.

“She’s my wifey,” Deep Waters said with a bitter expression on his face.

“Oh, hello sister-in-law!!” There was now a cloud of greeting from the players. This was an MMO at the end of the day, so if experts are all big brothers, that meant that the wife of an expert would be seen as a sister-in-law.

“Our goal is the direct east, harry their advancement and become a general nuisance. Everyone, listen to my command. We’ll be changing to the direction of the breaking point any time,” Deep Waters said.

“Roger that,” The moment the players from the party saw that it would be an expert taking point, it was only natural for them to be all the more convinced of his capabilities.

“I’ve prepared traps due west from here. Lushness, you should head over to the blitz team. You won’t be able to keep up with our speed,” Deep Waters said.

Vast Lushness nodded as she left on her own to join Warriors, Mages and other babylegged job classes that made up the main battle team. While the main force may lack the flexibility, they would most definitely be ones wielding the most ferocious firepower.

“Our goal is due south. Is everyone ready with their ammunition?” Royal God Call was also taking charge as a team captain, and was pointing out into the distance to address his men.

“Captain, the direction you’re pointing toward is north.”

“I know that, I’m only telling you guys about it. I don’t have to be looking in the direction of south at the same time, do I?” Royal God Call said even as he unhurriedly turned 180 degrees around.

“The teams have finished forming up and we are 150 meters away from the enemy. Prepare to set off. Engage in battle before they reach 100 meters!” Sword Demon gave the command, sounding like he had a bit of a problem, but everyone understood what he meant. The 100 meter distance he was referring to was the 100 meter radius from the center.

With the four teams leaving in unison, Deep Waters, Sakurazaka Moony and Royal God Call’s three feint attack teams consisting of about 20 Agility-focused players had great mobility. Their goal was not to kill the enemy, but to let them realize that they existed, not letting these people get the chance to deal a strong blow to their main force, thereby achieving their purpose of dividing up the enemy’s strength.

However, the moment these four teams set off together, the enemy had swiftly made their adjustments as well. The goal that the three teams were trying to achieve had been seen through by the enemy, and they continued to shrink in for the complete surround even as they began to reposition themselves. The south, east, and west directions slowly thinned, as they concentrated the bulk of their forces toward the north side, where Sword Demon’s team that consisted of their main force was being gathered.

“The enemy has seen through our plans,” Deep Waters sent this message to Sword Demon in a hurry. The feint attack teams could only attack as a ruse, and with their simple job class distributions, even though they were facing thinned defense on the enemy, they were incapable of breaking through by their own power.

“Heh, it’s no wonder that such a simple plan would be so easily seen through by the enemy,” Sword Demon simply replied.

“So you have another trick up your sleeve?” Deep Waters asked.

“Actually, our team is also a feint,” Sword Demon said.

“What?”

“When the enemy saw through our scheme, they would most naturally converge onto us and concentrate their manpower in response, which is why the defense on your side has thinned out,” Sword Demon began explaining.

“I get that they thinned out, but we—” Deep Waters was saying when he suddenly got startled. Even though the three feint attack teams did not have much diversity in terms of their job class distributions, it appeared as if they lacked the power to turn into the main attack force, but if it was that certain someone…

“Royal, break through!” Sword Demon said over the channel.

“Got it,” Royal God Call answered as his entire team began to charge forward and blitzed the enemy. Archer fired their projectiles, only to hear laughter coming from the enemies on this side of the encirclement. What sort of tricks can those 20 or so Archers pull out from under their sleeves? The player that was taking command of the players there lazily waved his hand, and Guardians immediately stepped forward to provide cover for all. They were only up against Archers, and there was no need for them to engage in a long range skirmish. Since they were keen to try and break through the encirclement, that meant that they would have to attempt to get into a close combat engagement. What threat would these Archers be when they had to fight in melee range? The man was convinced that his team would easily massacre all these Archers if this happened. The leader happily watched on expectantly, seeing the opposing forces close in. The Warriors and Thieves happily got ready to do battle with the Archers as they got nearer.

Without any indication whatsoever, a single figure suddenly appeared within the ranks of the players enclosing in, as if the 6 meters between them did not exist at all. A single flaming glow appeared around this player’s body, and it completed two full revolutions, leaving a circle of white light in the wake of the attack.

“It’s him…” In that instant before the player in charge of them got insta-killed, he realized who the person who assaulted them was. He was feeling very depressed; the encirclement that he participated in was huge, so why did that man just so happen to have bumped into him?! At the same time, he was also well aware that that thin layer of defence there would not be enough to hold back that man.

“Thousand Miles Drunk had broken through in the south!” This message was very quickly delivered to all the players taking part in this encirclement.

“No problem. Let him break through. Thousand Miles Drunk isn’t their everything anyway. There’s still a lot more of their players that we’ve got surrounded in our encirclement,” The leaders of the players who had come out to put together this encirclement seemed to have already planned for such a scenario beforehand, which was why they were evidently none too flustered when they learned what happened. Vanquishing Thousand Miles Drunk? Even the 1000 players from Carouse were unable to accomplish this, though they were currently in such numbers that were multiple times greater than that, the whole lot of them were incomparable in terms of the quality of the players from Carouse and these people here. As such, none of them even toyed with the idea of attempting to take down Thousand Miles Drunk from the very beginning. Besides, their target was not Thousand Miles Drunk at all. Despite the fact that he was the main culprit that led to the downfall of the city assaulters during the City Wars event, all the players here were presently even more envious of the reward from the event!

While Thousand Miles Drunk’s reward of being able to search for his bounty targets had left most of the players terrified, it was still a very balanced reward that he had gotten from a reward angle. They felt that it was truly a rubbish reward, so they considered it as heavenly karma for awarding it to Thousand Miles Drunk.

But Extremely Heaven Defying actually now held a monopoly of all the six city Precincts in Yunduan City after their merger, and that was the so-called tipping point that was really unbearable for everyone.

Perhaps everyone shared such a sentiment, but the players here were actually the ones who had been motivated by their anger to do something about it. They needed to vent, otherwise they would not be able to sleep soundly at night. Playing something like an MMO only made it that much easier for them to achieve this catharsis. There were basically no consequences aside from suffering rebuke from their victims. Not to mention the fact that they would be basically snuffing out Extremely Heaven Defying… Players would most likely be cheering and praising them for what they had done, right?

“Ignore Thousand Miles Drunk! Seize what time we’ve got and finish off all the players of Extremely Heaven Defying; every single one last of them!!” The guild leaders of the guilds who had come forth to encircle Extremely Heaven Defying were all yelling this madly in their respective guild channels.