Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

Ignore Thousand Miles Drunk! This was the command made by a majority of the guild leaders that were participating in this encirclement attempt, but there was one guild leader out of the lot who completely did not think of this at all.

There was of course no need to care if Thousand Miles Drunk were to break out and leave the place, but the reality of the situation was that he did not do that. Instead, he did not seem to have any intention of doing anything like that at all. Blinking right into the midst of the enemy ranks and insta-killing a circle of them in a single slash, he began running along the circumference of the encirclement.

The players participating in the encirclement were all in a state of chaos right now. They had all considered the possibility of someone breaking through their ranks and making it out of their encirclement, and they had also thought that it was possible for them to turn around and attempt to penetrate from the outside in again, but it was essentially unheard of a situation where someone dove right into the ranks and follow around the circumference of the encirclement.

This encirclement was segmented into the various guilds, and it just so happened that the guild leader whom Gu Fei had targeted for his blitz was also someone who did not agree with the plan to ‘ignore Thousand Miles Drunk’. He really wanted to give him due attention, yet he lacked the ability to do anything to that effect. The guild that he led was only a level 2 guild with a total of 74 members, and only 34 of them had participated in this attack, which was only a very very small portion of the entirety

This guild leader originally wanted to leverage his superior numbers. Even though they would not be up against a lot of people, to be able to cull a rabbit while collecting hay would at least let them release some of their own melancholy. But how was he to know that he would be so unlucky as to run into Thousand Miles Drunk? At this rate, forget about trying to alleviate what depression they felt, the fact that these players ended up losing a level meant all they could only wallow in their despondence after they got to the spawn point.

Before the guild leader could even finish thinking everything through, Gu Fei had already slain his way right up to him. Gu Fei was not all by himself either as Royal God Call and the Archers he was leading had been providing him with support from the outer circle. They were all far away, repeatedly firing off their arrows. Royal God Call discovered that this batch of enemies that he was facing were frighteningly weak, where even a single Snipe could directly insta-kill a player. This was already a phenomenon that had not happened in a very long time, and anyone that could be insta-killed by Royal God Call would most likely be 10 levels under.

“D*mm*t, all of you come on over and lend a hand! We’re about to be wiped out by Thousand Miles Drunk!” The players who were experiencing what it was like to be slaughtered by Gu Fei were all screeching and moaning for assistance. They were not so woke as to be willing to sacrifice themselves just so as to stall Thousand Miles Drunk since they had all come this time just to take advantage of the situation and vent their own resentment. Not one of them had thought that they would have to make any sacrifices, not to mention a sacrifice that would result in losing a whole level. Seeing that they were completely unable to put up any sort of resistance against Thousand Miles Drunk, they could only desperately holler to their left and right for other players to come to their aid.

The players on their left and right were players from other guilds, and when they saw just how indomitable Thousand Miles Drunk looked as he went about slaying them, all of them could hardly find the time to evade the man, so who would care to stay and save people they did not even know? Everyone shared the same thought: If the thousand strong Carouse could not even handle Thousand Miles Drunk, why should we pit ourselves against the man and sacrifice our own lives for nothing?

In the beginning, the encirclement that Gu Fei was up against was disappearing as they got killed, but these players were later dispersing as a result of the terror they had for the man. These players participating in the encirclement were yelling at the top of their lungs “Thousand Miles Drunk’s here”. Formation and position were all non-existent wherever he went, and all the players would be running in the direction that was farthest from where Gu Fei was headed as long as they were still a distance away from the man in question.

“Vanguards, swap over to become the rearguard and vice versa. Back away!” Sword Demon was also giving out orders to his party. The team that he was leading had gone charging in so fiercely that their enemy had focused their manpower in anticipation of their clash. But right before they entered the opponent’s attack range, all of them suddenly turned their heads and backed off, not a single player showing even a hint of hesitation in this sudden change.

“Chase them! Don’t let them get away!” Some guild leaders had thought that their prey was about to escape from the breakpoint that Thousand Miles Drunk had already carved out.

When this order was given, the Agility-focused job classes each came pouncing out with great ferocity in no time. However, Sword Demon’s team was not in the least bit panicked. With their vanguard now their rearguard, it was the Warriors and Mages that were covering their retreat. Before those speedsters could even get close, countless spells were already thrown out, and half of them were soon killed off as a result. Drifting was shaking his head repeatedly amidst this formation, “How noob. A huge portion of these players are noobs. Truly, an unorganized mob.”

“Watch the left flank!” Southern Lone Blade warned. The enemy was not just surrounding them in one direction, and right now they were rapidly shrinking in after them in every direction. Mages could only bombard their pursuers in front of them, while those that came in from the left flank had already reached melee range. In the end, countless Thieves revealed their presence from the flank, as the whole lot of them plunged their daggers into their targets. Almost all the players that had taken the chance were vanquished in this one maneuver. These Thieves were exceptionally resourceful. After losing the cover their Stealth provided, they very deftly shrank bank into the formation and waited for their cooldowns to finish. Meanwhile, the Mages had also changed the direction of their attack, as they turned to the direction where the remaining enemies were still around and began to randomly bombard the area.

“Actually, even if we do end up in a head-to-head clash, we might not have failed in breaking through their ranks,” Southern Lone Blade mused.

“Better if we play it safe,” There was no reason why Sword Demon would not have been able to tell that the standard of the players they were up against were all relatively on the lower end, yet the more they appeared to be so, the more Sword Demon felt there was a need to be cautious. In the event that they were truly beaten by this host of low-skilled players, the image of Extremely Heaven Defying would be in utter ruins, and there would be even fewer people that would dare to join.

“Things are a bit more chaotic over there, why don’t we make our way over and give it a shot?” Southern Lone Blade pointed to his right. “If we wanna do this, let’s do this a little more viciously.”

Sword Demon turned to his right and gave it a glance. Sure enough, the enemy formation to their right was extremely scattered, and the players were giving him the sense that none of them had any idea where they should be going.

“Okay!” Sword Demon nodded. He immediately sent out the message, “Attack the right!”

“Wedge formation!” Young Master Han added.

“Blitz!” Sword Demon gave the order as his team suddenly changed their trajectory that they were headed toward and went straight for the right.

The players on the right flank were having a dispute precisely because Sword Demon’s team chose to retreat instead of advancing. Some guilds believed that they should steal ahead and set themselves up to intercept the enemy, while others felt that they should directly penetrate into the enemy’s backline and sever the team into half. This last minute gathered encirclement army did not have an overall commander that everyone could take orders from, so the various guilds had made the agreement to defend their own positions from the start, and provide assistance toward the direction where their prey would be attempting to break through. But there were too many changes to Sword Demon and Extremely Heaven Defying’s battle strategy, which made things really difficult for this collection of guilds to implement any sort of counteraction. Each of them acted to their own accord, and this temporary collaboration of guilds that could not be any more last minute would naturally result in chaos.

Sword Demon’s team made a beeline straight for the right flank, while the players in the right were all exclaiming “They’re coming!” as they were being slaughtered till they were left routed and defeated. Everything that they had discussed was completely useless, be it their plan to intercept or to sever the enemy team into half. At the moment, it was their enemy who was heading straight for them, and the disorderly encirclement was close to splitting out an opening for their prey when they came charging in. Even Sword Demon, who would always respect and remain cautious of his enemy, could not help but admit: he had indeed overestimated their enemy a little too much.

“Continue to advance along the ranks of this encirclement!” After discovering the enemy that they were up against were exceptionally weak, he mercilessly gave the attack order. The situation right after was similar to what happened with Gu Fei, and the only difference was that Gu Fei was killing in a counter-clockwise direction, while Sword Demon and his team were going in the clockwise direction. Both teams were just following the ring of players before converging along the circumference of this encirclement. The players that either party had passed either died by their hands or they had scattered all over the place just to escape from this assault. Formation? It could be considered as a form of formation if someone were to consider the players scattering out to be something like that.

Deep Waters and Sakurazaka Moony’s two teams were also running toward this direction as well. Most of the players that made up the two teams were members of Forever in Flowers, and that meant they were mostly Hunters. Since both Deep Waters and Sakurazaka Moony were experts with traps, they were able to keep running while commanding their members to set up traps, hearing the sound of their pursuers yelping and screaming as they got themselves caught in the traps they laid.

“Shallow, too shallow!” With the two trap experts working together, that was the only comment that they were making whenever they opened their mouths. The difference in strength between the two parties could be seen from their movement speed alone. When Deep Waters and Sakurazaka Moony came running over, their pursuers were only lagging behind more and more. The difference in terms of their equipment, level, and poor coordination with each other; there was no way these enemies could compete at all. The experts gathered were all looking at one another, feeling as if winning the battle today was a little too much like bullying, given just how weak the other party was.

“Should we still continue to fight them?” Gu Fei asked Sword Demon, a little down-hearted. From the moment he had blinked into the midst of the enemy formation, he had yet to meet even an ounce of resistance. Everyone ran the moment they saw him, and Gu Fei was actually able to catch up to those with slow movement speed in just a few steps, but sure enough, there was nothing exciting for him to kill like this. Not to mention Gu Fei knew that this was no longer the City Wars event, and he was feeling a little soft-hearted knowing that players he finished off would face the penalty of losing a level upon dying.

“It’ll all depend on them,” Sword Demon answered. At the moment, they had already broken through the encirclement with relative ease, while the Priests that Young Master Han was leading had actually ensured not a single player lost their lives in the process. Right now, the various guilds that were squeezing right behind them were also seemingly hesitating toward this assault as they backed off.

All these players had covered their faces, and not a single one was wearing their guild emblems either. Just this point alone and they knew that these were just cowardly third rate rabble, trying to take advantage of their numerical superiority to bully the few, yet they still worried about future retaliation, not even daring to reveal their real looks.

Sword Demon stepped out from his team and coughed once before loudly saying, “Which of you would be able to step out and speak?” Sword Demon had the eyes of a veteran, so he could see that the other party was cobbled up together at the last minute, and there was not a single overall commander to this mob. This was the reason why he did not directly ask for the one in charge, but asked if there was any who could represent the rest to speak.

Sure enough, several masked figures stepped out from the enemy formation, and they were all guild leaders. Standing out together, they looked at each other. Each of them was now standing upright after they believed that there was no problem being the spokesperson for them all.

“You guys, there’s no point in continuing this fight any longer, so why don’t we end it here?” Sword Demon was very direct. He did not ask these men meaningless questions like why they attacked them, as the answer itself was easily apparent. Furthermore, it did not seem like there was any huge ruse behind this encirclement, since it was really hard to imagine what sort of great scheme could be borne out of such a messy attempt at surrounding them in such a manner.

These spokesmen all exchanged glances with each other. Evidently, these men were all thinking of only representing their own guilds, unable to make the decision for the over 10,000 players gathered here. They would love to say some words in such a situation, but they had no idea what they could say given the embarrassing state they were in right now.

Sword Demon and the others were unable to make out any of the expressions on these masked men’s faces, so they could only carefully observe the enemy formation. Upon discovering they were not taking this time to attempt any sort of encirclement, it was like they had subconsciously gathered to this place, a very simple habit of going to where there were more people gathered. Turning around to see their own teams, Sword Demon was very happy when he saw that they were all still maintaining their battle formations even though the PK-ing had stopped, feeling as if the members that they had in their guild right now had a very bright future ahead of them.