Reign of the Hunters

Chapter 343 Defeat

 

Even Sweeping Reed himself could not describe what he was feeling in his heart at that very moment. It felt as if he had been splashed by a cold bucket of ice. 

 

That Dragon… Is controlled by a player? 

 

That Dragon is a pet of an Upwards Ho! player? That was the only explanation for the lack of damage the Dragon’s attack dealt to the Upwards Ho! players on the field. The fort remained unscathed as well under the Dragon’s attack. 

 

Death Blossom was overjoyed by Breeze’s apparent excitement of the news. This meant that Golden Era had dealt a crushing blow to Upwards Ho!. 

 

The guild might be small, but it did not mean that it was not able to put up a fight. Fate was different from the games that were previously ruined by Golden Era. The player base of the game was simply so large that the sheer number of the guild could not bring a meaningful impact to the game, and was not able to defeat the major guilds that were already in the game. They needed a way to keep up with the progress of all the guilds in the game. 

 

Golden Era’s tactic might be underhanded, but all was fair in love and war. What they wanted was results, and the process did not matter to them. That was why the guild would employ everything in their tool to gain the upper hand. They were always the ones to have the last laugh in their previous games. 

 

Despite their bad reputation, Golden Era would always face successes in recruiting new blood. It was something that Breeze had understood a long time ago. No human was without sin, and even a saint was bound to make mistakes sooner or later. 

 

And it was exactly because of his philosophy that Breeze agreed to employ the strategy proposed by Sweeping Reed. 

 

Upwards Ho! was small. It was never able to compete with the giants like Tang Dynasty, Wolf Pack, and Black Plum Family. Even the newly split Iron Blood and Battle Spear were guilds that Upwards Ho! could not even hope to match. But a guild’s potential was not determined by its size, but the quality of its players. 

 

A guild’s unity, and its progress in dungeon clearing, as well as its reputation among the players, were the most defining features of a successful guild. Upwards Ho! was a guild that had met that standard. 

 

Such a guild was very rare in the Eastern Continent, and even the entirety of Fate. Breeze knew that if he could not crush Upwards Ho! within the first year of the opening of Fate, the guild would only continue to grow, and dealing with them on a later date would be an even greater challenge. 

 

This was why Upwards Ho! was one of Golden Era’s priority targets when they first entered the game. The guild was famous among the players, and had a substantial number of players topping the leaderboards despite its small size. They were like a very elusive eel that had avoided the assassination attempts by Golden Era. 

 

These players were always in major cities or in dungeons, and the very few opportunities Golden Era had at dealing any significant damage to Upwards Ho! ended in failure. 

 

Their assassination attempt on Gongzi You yielded an even more humiliating outcome. Ten of their assassins were defeated by Gongzi You, and they have lost three Secret Cloaks in the process. Honey Barbie was punished after the incident, but no amount of punishment could reverse the fact that the guild had suffered an irrevocable loss. 

 

And Golden Era had learned a very important lesson on that day. They immediately ceased their aggression against the other guilds, until the construction of the fort in the Lesser Demon Sanctum. 

 

The fort was built in such secrecy that it took three days for Golden Era to finally get wind of its construction. But it did not matter, as a strong guild like Golden Era was able to quickly gather all the information that was needed, and was able to find out the identity of the fort’s owner. 

 

It was like a godsend opportunity to Breeze. He knew that Upwards Ho! was attempting to protect something by building a fort in the Lesser Demon Sanctum. 

 

What the guild had intended to defend did not matter to Breeze. But he was soon to receive information that the fort took everything Upwards Ho! had to build. 

 

This meant that the object that Upwards Ho! was trying to protect was very important. It was so important that Upwards Ho! was willing to gamble everything they had. If Golden Era struck, the guild would definitely be crushed. 

 

A human wave tactic might not be effective against the entire population of the game, but it is more than something that a small guild like Upwards Ho! could handle. There were millions of low level accounts in the Eastern Continent, and even a small fraction of them could crush Upwards Ho! under their sheer weight. 

 

But Breeze did not act early enough. The attack was carried out when the fort was nearing its completion. It was a decision made out of the consideration that Upwards Ho! was allies with many of the Eastern Continent’s major guild. 

 

This meant that any attacks that were launched early would give the allies of Upwards Ho! to react and send in their forces to the guild’s aid. This would spell total disaster for Golden Era as they do not have the manpower to take on multiple major guilds at the same time. 

 

 

And if the fort was destroyed at a moment near its completion, Upwards Ho! morale would surely be crushed along with it. This would mean that whatever the guild was trying to defend would fall into his hands. 

 

The spoils belong to the victors. It has always been the way of the world. 

 

But he did not expect Upwards Ho!’s elites to bind their Recall to the Lesser Demon Sanctum, and was able to react to the attack in time. Their presence might be troublesome, but it was a small price to pay for the victory ahead. 

 

The sea of low level players caused a lot of headache to Upwards Ho!, but the Dragon caused nothing but misery to the players of Golden Era. 

 

Dragons were the highest life form in Fate, and had always played the role of BOSSes in dungeons. It would take a hundred elite players with high tier equipment to take on such a BOSS, and a Dragon encountered in the wild would require even more manpower to overcome. A Dragon capable of flight like this was definitely high in level, and the hundreds of thousands of Golden Era low level accounts were as helpless as ants before a flamethrower. It was a one-sided massacre. 

 

This was why Breeze was unsettled when the Dragon appeared. But Lady Luck was on his side, as the Dragon would also deal catastrophic damage to Upwards Ho!. 

 

But when Reed remained silent for such a long time, the feeling of unease immediately returned, “Reed, are you still there?” 

 

“Yes.” came the response with a gloomy voice. 

 

Breeze could immediately tell that something had gone wrong, “Did something happen?” 

 

“What?” Sweeping Reed’s voice caused Breeze to slightly frown. Something was very wrong. 

 

But he was a veteran. He would not allow himself to panic in a situation like this. He knew that he had to remain calm and make the wrong decisions. 

 

“That Dragon belongs to someone from Upwards Ho!.” Sweeping Reed squeezed his words out through gritted teeth. The Dragon was still tearing through the Golden Era players as he spoke. It did not move fast, but it was still faster than the low level players. Each attack from the Dragon would leave a sea of corpses in its wake. 

 

Sweeping Reed had brought 850,000 low level accounts with him. His plan was to drown Upwards Ho! under the sheer numbers of his own men. But the Dragon alone laid waste to his plans. 

 

The players, who were reluctant to allow their hard earned experience points to be wasted, started to flee towards the edges of the map and any teleportation points. But their sheer number meant that their escape was slow. 

 

Ye Ci was very satisfied with chaos caused by her attack. 

 

She guided Ol’ Six after the fleeing Golden Era players, leaving death and destruction wherever she went. The damage counters from fleeing players filled her vision with nothing but red. She had accumulated a large amount of Sin points by slaughtering such a large number of players. 

 

Breeze smashed his fish against the table, “How many of you are still alive?” 

 

“I don’t know.” Sweeping Reed grimaced, “There’s no way to tell. I don’t even know how many died from just one attack.” 

 

 

“Forget about it. Pull back.” Despite his reluctance to accept this defeat, Breeze knew that pressing the attack would only result in more losses. 

 

And a person who refuses to face defeat would never succeed. 

 

“But boss… Are we going to give up just like that?” 

 

“Oh? Why don’t you go slay that Dragon then?” Breeze laughed. 

 

Sweeping Reed knew his boss very well. He knew that he was not allowed to continue the attack. “Everyone retreat!” he shouted into the command channel, “Those who are dead, go revive yourselves in the grave and Recall.” 

 

The Golden Era players were very disciplined. They did not even utter a single world in the Map or World Chat when they received the order. The players began withdrawing from the battlefield with a hastened pace. 

 

Is it over? 

 

Ye Ci took in a deep breath and looked up into the sky. The day was still gloomy in the Lesser Demon Sanctum, but there was sunshine blooming in Ye Ci’s heart. 

 

 

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