Sword Among Us

Ever since the battle at Eternal Peace Temple, Happy vanished from the eyes of the players once more. This time, he did not show up for a full half a month, and Class One Hall suffered through it in great unease.

The three monsters of Class One Hall never left Beijing, and every day, they trained in their prisons without stop. Even Zhou Yu went to the north…

During that half a month, a slight change happened to the setup in World of Martial Arts.

Chivalry Sect was the leader to the south of Changjiang, and they rapidly increased their original forty or so branches to more than seventy. They spread out through various important cities, and many sects who had once served under Class One Hall switched to obeying Chivalry Sect.

Fortunately, Chivalry Sect was not as uncompromising as Class One Hall. They set up an alliance with one or two of the greatest sects in each city and shared the core resources with them. Hence, Chivalry Sect had a much smoother time in getting the resource points they wanted compared to Class One Hall, and they were also much more supported by the other gamers.

The area south of Changjiang became a solid fortress because of Wind Void, Lin Xiao, and Red Dust’s management!

The trio also gained different titles in the game.

Wind Void became Mandarin Butterfly Heroine Duchess. Since her contribution to Chivalry Sect was not as great as that of Lin Xiao and she lacked the resolution to kill, mighty determination, and sufficient wariness, she was not suitable to be crowned an empress.

Lin Xiao then became Moral Chivalry Duke and Red Dust was named Monk of the World Red Dust.

*****

Naturally, the area north of Changjiang was still controlled by Class One Hall.

Even though Vice Hall Master Blood Robes died in Eternal Peace Temple, which resulted in three top-tier players and a group of strong fighters losing their reputation to a point like never before, it was still not enough to damage Class One Hall’s foundation. Besides, once the disciples from the branches in the south were called back, Class One Hall became even stronger than before in the north. Nothing could move them there.

Dream Clouds attacked mercilessly.

She swiftly destroyed two large sects, and the people in the north who had been discussing Class One Hall’s failures stopped bringing up that topic.

After all, people who were skilled were always better than those who were not or had just mastered a skill even if they suffered some setbacks. Besides, only some superficial parts of Class One Hall were damaged. They were still a roaring tiger!

Even though they failed in Eternal Peace Temple, some people with keen eyes in the game had incredibly high appraisal of Dream Clouds. If Happy had not appeared, Chivalry Sect would have fallen from the top of the pyramid and become a powerful but normal large sect. There was a change they might have ended up even worse than that.

Dream Clouds’ encirclement there could be said to have been full of determination to destroy Chivalry Sect’s foundation!

Three of the most outstanding leaders of Chivalry Sect had gathered in one place, and Tang Feng had led people from Assassin Hall to kill Red Dust.

Five of Class One Hall’s best—Blood Robes, Zhou Yu, Child’s Heart, Evil Wolf, and Monk with Thick Eyebrows—were sent together with the people from Perpetual Joy Sect, which should have made it impossible for anyone from Chivalry Sect to escape.

Once the three leaders of Chivalry Sect died, Class One Hall could instantly destroy all of Chivalry Sect branches in the north before they mobilized their forces to invade Changjiang and suppress Chivalry Sect until they could not fight back.

Mu Clan might do something while they were in Baokang, but their power when it came to fighting war and providing reinforcements was low. If they went out of Baokang, they would lose the support of the three local sects and become unable to turn the tides.

Hence, after the fight at Eternal Peace Temple, many people compared Dream Clouds to a fierce tiger who hid herself behind the scenes and would show her fangs at any moment. She became known as the fire goddess and the ruthless Cloud Empress Dream Clouds.

Zhou Yu’s abilities could not be doubted, but it was a pity that he had fled during the battle at Eternal Peace Temple, and his glorious image was damaged slightly.

The players called him Zhou Lang Junior [1], or rather, Divine Spear Duke Zhou Yu, who was Zhou Lang Junior who fled a battle.

Blood Robes and Barren Murderer each died once due to Happy, but both were successors of an ultimate technique, and their abilities could not be questioned, so each of them was also given the title of duke.

The successor of Star Sucking Great Skill became Star Duke Blood Robes. It was different from Happy’s previous life when he was known as Star King.

The Undying Abyss King Barren Murderer who died once turned into Abyss King Duke. In Happy’s previous life, he was known as Abyss King.

*****

Even though Changjiang served as the borders for Chivalry Sect and Class One Hall, they did not manage to stop the development of another mighty sect—Towering Palace!

They were the greatest market makers in the cities in the coastal area. Towering Palace never joined the conflict between Chivalry Sect, and they did not show any intention to side with anyone. They only focused on developing their branches in the coastal area.

There, they not only monopolized all the best resource points, they also often went to the sea to fight against pirates. They traveled from Heilongjiang in the north to Yunnan Dali, and not only did they run into pirates, they usually entered the territories of other nearby countries.

Right now, since they could not communicate with the players from Russia, Vietnam, North Korea, and South Korea due to language barriers, both sides thought that the other players were NPC pirates, and when they ran into each other, they fought…

No one knew the details of the fights, but Towering Palace managed to prosper. They enjoyed going to the sea and had a major operation almost every day, which made it clear that they never suffered any losses!

On Towering Palace’s side, Clear Music was known as the calmest and wisest queen.

When she moved, she would create music. She was the Music Empress, Clear Music!

But unfortunately, not a single person in Towering Palace was fit to take up the title of duke.

Merciless Saber and Loving Sword were at most top-tier fighters. They were at the same level as Evil Wolf and Monk with Thick Eyebrows, which meant that they were not at the same level as Blood Robes, Lin Xiao, and the others.

*****

In the map of the world which the three great lords divided into equal territories, many players found a territory that did not belong to any of the three great sects. It was a territory that belonged to a player sect that was not affiliated to the three great sects, and it was growing stronger at an astonishing speed!

Baokang!

It was situated to the north of Changjiang, and it was near Changjiang itself, but there was no Class One Hall force nearby, and Chivalry Sect did not take it into its territory either. The area was also some distance away from the coastal territories.

The dozen cities around Baokang were independent of the three great forces. They belonged to the China server, but they were not controlled by anyone.

Mu Clan proclaimed itself king there!

It was developing at a fast pace and showed sings of becoming the fourth great power in China!

Since all Class One Hall branches in the south had been destroyed, Mu Clan took over nearly half of them and divided the various resource points with Chivalry Sect equally in a straightforward manner.

In the beginning, they had only set up eight branches in the area with Baokang at its center, but after some time passed, they had no fewer than fifteen branches to the south of Changjiang. In total, they had more than twenty branches!

Because of it, Mu Clan swiftly developed to a sect with nearly forty thousand people!

There were more than seven thousand people in War Hall. They were still in their initial stages, but they already possessed fighting power that surpassed what a normal large sect could field.

On top of that, Mu Clan’s players who focused on occupations had been distributed equally among the resource points managed by the twenty or so branches. The profit they gained every day was impressive, and Mu Clan’s storage was rumored to possess more than fifty billion taels of silver worth of resources.

They used their vast pool of resources as a foundation and swiftly developed a Pill Refinement Hall, Divine Weapon Hall, and Armor Forging Hall aside from their clan prison.

Not only did many herbalists like Pomelo pop up, forgemasters like Heartless Iron also came to them. They all received breakthroughs in their craft.

The herbalists made a grade two medicinal pill called Origin Leopard Pill. Whoever ate it gained 20% damage, 10% attack speed as well as movement speed, and 10% defense for two hours

They also created a grade two poison called Impure Arsenic Trioxide. When it was put on a weapon, the poison was effective for two hours. The abilities of those who got poisoned by it were instantly reduced by 60%.

If the poisoned person did not take in any strong antidote within three minutes, they would die. But even if the poisoned person took a strong antidote, they still needed half a minute to completely get rid of the poison.

Quite a number of elites from Mu Clan also received titles.

The man with three corpses and ten thousand poisons became Ten Thousand Poison Duke Little North!

The man who commanded armies was Mechanism Duke Thunderous Battle!

The woman with Throw Spirit Sphere was Throw Spirit Duchess Momo!

The man with the silver mask was Silver Mask Duke Silver Wolf!

There was also Happy, who was known as an invincible player along with the mysterious One Emperor and who had never known defeat in the hands of a player. As of then, both their strengths were unfathomable and could not be measured.