85 Chapter 85 - Removing the Firewood from under the Po (2/2)

”Tell me more of this plan,” Dusky Cloud was a veteran player who had been through a lot as well. Naturally, he would not readily agree to a plan he had no idea of. Only a noob player would get excited just from being invited to take part in a scheme.

”How big is the Past Deeds Guild?” Sword Demon asked.

”It's a level-four guild with five hundred members. About three to four hundred members get online daily,” Dusky Cloud looked over at Will-low as he said this, seemingly asking for the validation of his information.

Will-low confidently nodded her head, ”That's about right.”

Past Deeds was strong indeed. Traversing Four Seas, Yunduan City's largest guild, was slightly inferior to it, being only at level 3 with three hundred members.

”I heard Past Deeds has a poor reputation around here. Many players must be holding a grudge against that guild,” Sword Demon remarked.

”That's true,” Dusky Cloud affirmed.

”Is there any way to mobilize the public?” Sword Demon probed.

”Mobilize? Against Past Deeds?” Dusky Cloud laughed bitterly for a moment, ”Are you thinking of using the power of the masses to overwhelm Past Deeds? I don't know what you're smoking, but most players here are afraid to move against them. They may cuss like bad*ss m*th*rf*ck*rs, but that's it. They're all talk and no action. F*ck! In the past, we made arrangements with a few other guilds in Yueye City to sweep a grinding map from Past Deeds together, yet only a handful of them showed up when it was time to act. All across the mountains and terrains of that level 30 to 40 grinding map were filled with Past Deeds' players! What sort of sweep could we achieve with just that pitiful amount of people? Nowadays, almost all the experts in Yueye City are members of Past Deeds. If we don't have at least twice or thrice their number, it's impossible to achieve anything against Past Deeds. You're looking down on the intelligence of Yueye City's player base if that's your plan. Do you really think that we haven't thought of plans exploiting our superiority in number?”

Sword Demon smiled, ”That means you can contact other guilds, right?”

Dusky Cloud nodded his head once more, ”Of course, I do. After all, my current goal is to eradicate Past Deeds. If the others and I allow them to continue their arrogance, how will we hang our hats up here? I'm actually depressed right now. Today, Vast Lushness managed to have a good look at me. Once the matter with Fugitive 27149 passes, I will most likely be the Past Deeds' next target! If only I have five hundred experts to lead against Past Deeds and annihilate them once and for all!”

”Can you find five hundred men?”

”I mean five hundred EXPERTS! Haven't I mentioned how the players of Past Deeds can gather in a grinding map all at once? A wrong move on our part may invite a concentrated attack from them. We must at least have the ability to destroy everyone all at once to deal with them,” Dusky Cloud clarified.

”And yet, an opportunity happens to be present at the moment,” Sword Demon laughed enigmatically.

”What opportunity?” Dusky Cloud asked.

”Can you tell your buddies to come over here? I want to explain the situation to all of you in one go. I can guarantee that it'll be the most enticing offer,” Sword Demon said.

”Are you for real?” Dusky Cloud had his doubts.

”I'm not one for jokes,” Sword Demon answered seriously.

”Alright, wait for a bit!” Dusky Cloud felt assured. He immediately sent a message to his friends along this line, ”You m*th*rf*ck*rs! Get your *ss*s over here!”

In no time at all, Will-low's house was filled with more people. Each of them had a look of suspicion on their faces. Dusky Cloud hurriedly addressed them, ”Everyone, settle down first. We're still missing some people.” The crowd began to settle down as they waited for others to arrive. Not long after, nine more players filed into the house.

”Ahem!” Dusky Cloud cleared his throat to begin, ”Everyone, this player here is Sword Demon. I'm sure you guys are familiar with his IGN.”

Sword Demon was a legendary figure in the online gaming community. All these experienced gamers inside the room had obviously heard of him, so they immediately professed their admiration for him. Once this was over, they collectively asked Dusky Cloud, ”Why did you call for us?”

”Silence, you b*st*rds!” Dusky Cloud cussed, ”Brother Sword Demon is proposing a plan to annihilate Past Deeds, so I called you guys over to hear him out.”

”Annihilate Past Deeds? F*ck me! Brother Sword Demon, how large is the reinforcement you brought along?” someone shouted.

”Heard you're from Yunduan City! Traveling this far just to assault Yueye City's Past Deeds... No wonder everyone praises you. This brother here is thoroughly impressed!” another person exclaimed.

”F*ck, yes! There's finally hope. We've managed to survive these trying times!”

After Dusky Cloud's buddies expressed their opinions, Sword Demon laughed politely and said slowly, ”We don't have many people. There're only six of us.”

All the players inside the room were stunned, exchanging looks with one another. Just as someone opened his mouth to speak, Dusky Cloud interjected, ”You m*th*rf*ck*rs better shut your traps and let Sword Demon finish speaking.”

In the end, just one person mumbled, ”In the end, it's still the same case of asking us to risk our lives. If this ploy falls through, we'll definitely suffer the wrath of Past Deeds!”

Before Sword Demon could respond, Dusky Cloud already scolded, ”Celestial Pig, you m*th*rf*ck*r. What even is your sh*tty guild? You've got about thirty plus b*st*rds in it, and half of them are your family and relatives' level 10 accounts. They don't even come online anymore. Why're you nagging so much when you can just gather your family again to nominate a new guild?!”

Celestial Pig laughed brightly, ”A circle, though small, is still complete! It wasn't easy for me to set up my guild! For the sake of meeting the required number to nominate it, my grandfather had to enter this VR game and struggle through the confusion of getting to level 10, nearly causing him to have cerebral hemorrhage. I won't even dare to bother him again!”

Dusky Cloud continued badmouthing him, ”Shouldn't you be putting effort into this matter, then? You're barely scraping by these days. Didn't you get cuss out like dog poop by that b*st*rd Blue Ease at the Auction House yesterday? Looking at your cowardly mug, you still dare to mention your grandfather? To think you still have the face to look your grandfather in the eyes after he risked his life with that cerebral hemorrhage just to help you nominate a guild. Do you even have dignity? Grow a pair, will you? Just this one—”

”Alright, you m*th*rf*ck*ng b*st*rd! This bad*ss m*th*rf*ck*r will join you! Happy?” Celestial Pig nearly cried tears of blood.

”That's more like it,” Dusky Cloud affirmed. He then said to Sword Demon, ”Brother Sword Demon, don't worry a thing. Even though these friends of mine are uncultured—”

”M*th*rf*ck*r, you're the one who's uncultured. Your whole family is uncultured!”

”Old Cloud, you're a real m*th*rf*ck*r yourself! Stop acting like you're a saint.”

The crowd eventually settled down after five minutes. Dusky Cloud resumed, ”See how uncultured these cowards are? Every other word they say is punctuated by expletives—But!” Just as everyone was about to start cursing once more, Dusky Cloud hurriedly interjected, ”Besides Celestial Pig, who has no backbone, the others are hot-blooded top players through and through. If you truly have a workable plan, give it to us. We promise not to wrinkle our brows and to carry out every task seriously!”

”Yeah, that's much better, Old Cloud,” Everyone was satisfied, except for Celestial Pig who continued to howl, ”You m*th*rf*ck*ng b*st*rd! G*d*mn, you s*n*f*b*tch!”

”Okay!” Sword Demon, who had been spurred by everyone's expletive-laden verbal exchange, eagerly said, ”With the help of such a band of brothers like you all, I'm sure that there won't be any issue. Past Deeds' strength lies in the high levels of its players and the large manpower it can mobilize. Furthermore, that guild's players usually move in a large group or stay in the same grinding map together, making it difficult for others to attack them. Now, through our machination, all the online members of Past Deeds will split up into ten different locations.”

Everybody's eyes widened. Being experienced players, they naturally knew what this meant.

”Do you have a map of Yueye City?” Sword Demon asked.

”I have one right here,” Will-low immediately took out a map and handed it over.

”Ah! There's a flower among us. Why didn't I notice before?” The lecherous wolves in the pack surfaced. ”Hey, babe! What's your name?” each of them seemed to say the same line.

”You f*ck*rs, this is her house! Settle the f*ck down and finish listening to what Boss Sword Demon has to say!” Dusky Cloud hollered at the unruly bunch.

Sword Demon swept his gaze over the map on the table and extended a finger to point out the ten locations on it one after another, ”When the time comes, the Past Deeds' players will split into ten groups. Each of the nine groups will man the entrance of the underground prison, Bounty Assignment Hall, and the seven designated log-off points. The last group will stay outside Youye Valley's entrance.”

When people in the room heard this, they immediately understood what Past Deeds' members were trying to do.

”They really plan to hunt down Fugitive 27149! They're truly ruthless, not even giving him the chance to log off or turn himself in!” Dusky Cloud commented. The matter of Gu Fei hiding in Youye Valley's level 50 grinding map had long spread throughout Yueye City.

Sword Demon continued, ”Past Deeds will move into position once 27149 leaves Youye Valley. You mentioned before that their online count is always somewhere around three hundred to four hundred. Let's assume that they have four hundred members right now. Youye Valley will need more people since the entrance is rather wide, which means that the nine locations in the city will have about thirty to forty players each. If we have five hundred men with us—uh, we do have five hundred players on our side, right?” Sword Demon asked the crowd.

The people started counting with their fingers, coming up with a final headcount after exchanging a few words with one another, ”There should be over six hundred players, but some of them aren't online right now. If we exclude the low-level and poorly geared players, there should be around four hundred men.”

Sword Demon nodded his head in acknowledgement, ”Four hundred men. If these four hundred men are split into five groups, each group will have eighty persons. Against each of Past Deeds' groups of thirty to forty players, we obviously have the advantage in number. We should be able to eliminate five of their groups without taking too long. But we shouldn't stop just yet when that happens. The players on our side should continue to charge toward the nearest target, eliminating the members of the nine groups of Past Deeds in the shortest time possible. Past Deeds will suffer a huge loss if a majority of its members uniformly drop a level.”

Once they started discussing the serious matter at hand, the group of men no longer crazily cursed one another. Each of them now had a solemn expression on their faces as they quietly listened to Sword Demon's battle plan. After he was done speaking, none revealed immediate excitement.

A few of them were deep in their thoughts. Suddenly, someone said, ”If that's the case, dropping the Past Deeds' members by one level will just leave us in a stalemate. If we include Past Deeds' reserve members in Youye Valley and their members who are still offline into the equation, the losses we will incur from this battle are actually greater. We're still far off from toppling Past Deeds at that rate.”

All nodded their heads in agreement.

These people were rather calm. Sword Demon smiled, ”Of course, merely sweeping through the nine groups once isn't the end. There're many fine details we can still exploit.”

”Please continue, Brother Sword Demon,” everyone listened intently.

”After the Past Deeds' players are killed, they'll revive at their respective job classes' spawn points. This is the first detail that we can exploit. The battle will be conducted in front of the spawn points. In other words, dead players will revive at where they are affiliated. Take the battle occurring at the Thieves' spawn point for example. The quickest enemy reinforcement to arrive at the clashing in front of the Thieves' Union will probably be the Thieves that have been killed at any of the PvP fields. Currently, players are in the early stages of Parallel World. How well the different job classes will fare against one another is fairly obvious, considering that everyone is mostly at level 30 without much difference in skills. So the players who will attack the Thieves' Union should mainly consist of Warriors, as this job class has the greatest advantage against Thieves,” Sword Demon elaborated.

Everyone immediately understood. They began to analyze everything thoroughly according to Sword Demon's speech.

”I suppose Archers should be the main force in the Mage Academy?”

”Mages should be the main aggressors in the Warrior Encampment!”

”The Archer Range should be assaulted by Thieves!”

”There're still three other job classes!”

Sword Demon continued to explain, ”Warriors, Mages, Thieves, and Archers are the four main job classes with noticeable vulnerability to specific job classes. Out of the five groups we're currently forming, four should have each of these four job classes as their main force. After using our numerical superiority of eighty players in each group to quickly take down the different opposing groups consisting of thirty to forty Past Deeds' members each, we'll take hold of the different spawn points. We will then leave sixty players, or maybe even just fifty, who possess an advantageous job class to each of the respective spawn points to maintain control over those areas. Exploiting the job classes' vulnerability, engaging the enemies with a lower number of people that possessed advantageous job classes, and maintaining our dominance of these four specific spawn points of Warriors, Mages, Thieves, and Archers are three aspects that we need to take note of.”

Sword Demon paused for a bit, and then he addressed the crowd once more, ”Everyone, take a look at the map. Yueye City's seven spawn points are located around here. With this street right here as the point of radius, then the Mage Academy is at the one o'clock direction, Knights' Barracks at three o'clock, Warrior Encampment at four o'clock, Fighters' Dojo at six o'clock, Priest Academy at seven o'clock, Archer Range at nine o'clock, and Thieves' Union at eleven o'clock. As for the underground prison, it's in the city's northwestern corner and is far from the PvP field. The Bounty Assignment Hall is in the street closest to the Archer Range.

”Our five teams can only conquer five out of all these locations at first, and I believe those enemy groups stationed at the remaining four places will most likely head over to provide support soon after. The locations of each establishment will be the second key detail that we need to take note of.

”According to our plan, we must seize the four spawn points for Warriors, Mages, Thieves, and Archers. Since the Warrior Encampment is situated between the Knights' Barracks and Fighters' Dojo, it will probably receive support faster than the other places. To ease the pressure of defending, we have to give up on seizing the Warrior Encampment from the very start. Our first three groups will begin their assaults at three of the aforementioned four spawn points, and the fourth group will need to start their assault by heading to the Knights' Barracks to destroy the Past Deeds' thirty odd players positioned there. Only after doing this will the fourth group proceed to seize the Warrior Encampment and defend it. The newly revived Knights in the nearby Knights' Barracks will probably head over to the Warrior Encampment to assist their comrades there, so our fourth group will need to hold their fort over at Warrior Encampment and avoid distributing their own forces to help with the clashing over at the other spawn points.

”Our fifth group will need to be a team with high maneuverability. They will strike at the Fighters' Dojo from the get-go! Currently, there aren't many Fighters in-game since only a limited number of players chose that job class, so there's no need to defend the Fighters' Dojo once this group take care of the Past Deeds' members over there. Once the opponents are killed off over at Fighters' Dojo, our fifth group will need to head toward the Archer Range. The Priest Academy is along the way, but the Past Deeds' members stationed in the Priest Academy will have already left to provide support at the battle in front of the Archer Range started by one of our first three groups. Priests essentially don't have any ability to fight alone, after all. So just leave thirty or forty players to man the Priest Academy. The remaining members of the fifth group should then continue toward the Archer Range and join up with the group there. Together, they'll obliterate the thirty-man reinforcement coming from the Bounty Assignment Hall, which is situated near the Archer Range. The joined groups will then make their way to the Thieves' Union and continue onward to the underground prison to destroy the last Past Deeds' group in the city,” Sword Demon drew a circle with his index finger on the map.

”By this point, five out of the city's seven spawn points will be completed subdued. So it may be possible to pull the necessary manpower from the various groups to control the other two remaining locations. The excess manpower from each group should also prepare for the final battle with the enemy players coming from Youye Valley! Rest assured; our number is certainly more than the final Past Deeds' group. In fact, after we take hold of all these advantages, many observing players may be willing to give us a hand. Past Deeds won't have a chance to recover after this,” Sword Demon concluded.

Everyone pored over the map, pointing and discussing quietly. After some time, Dusky Cloud said, ”Brother Sword Demon's ploy is truly brilliant.”

Sword Demon accepted the compliment gracefully, ”Naturally, what I've just described is the most ideal situation. When we're executing the plan, quite a few things outside of our calculations may occur. But as long as we strictly follow our plan, the chances of us emerging victorious are high.”

Dusky Cloud nodded his head, ”I have a question.”

”Speak.”

”I actually eavesdropped on the conversation between Vast Lushness and you and four others earlier. Does this mean you five have already planned to deal with Past Deeds from that moment on?” Dusky Cloud asked.

”That's correct,” Sword Demon affirmed.

”Why? Why did you come here all the way from Yunduan City just to mess with Past Deeds?”

”We're doing it for a friend,” Sword Demon said firmly.

”Friend?” Dusky Cloud was momentarily stunned, immediately following up, ”Is it Fugitive 27149?”

Sword Demon nodded his head in affirmation.

Sword Demon's confirmation made Dusky Cloud hesitate, ”You do know that No Smile is my friend, right?”

”I do,” Sword Demon nodded his head once more.

Everyone saw Dusky Cloud begin to hesitate. Now, it was Celestial Pig's turn to curse, ”Old Cloud, you m*th*rf*ck*r! Why're you suddenly so cowardly? We're all aware that No Smile is your friend whom Fugitive 27149 has dropped by eight levels. But this and that are two separate matters. No Smile might have lost eight levels, but he's got nothing to do with what we're about to m*th*rf*ck*ng do to Past Deeds. If you're a real man, you'll know how to separate personal from business. If you really want to avenge No Smile, go challenge Fugitive 27149 to a duel! Don't mix this huge matter with your petty personal issue!”

With that, Celestial Pig stepped forward and looked at Sword Demon, ”Big Brother Sword Demon, I'll take over if this coward backs out. I've heard of your character, so I'll put my faith in you. Count my guild in.”

The house was silent, as no one spoke for a while.

Dusky Cloud looked about and suddenly burst into laughter, ”Celestial Pig, you m*th*rf*ck*r! Your sh*tty guild only has a dozen or so players in it if one excludes your kin. Leave this to the professionals and get your *ss to the back of the line!”

Everyone immediately felt relieved. They came over to Dusky Cloud and playfully punched him, throwing a couple of insults for good measure, ”You m*th*rf*ck*r, I was almost convinced that you're about to turn into a coward. It's a good thing that you didn't disappoint us!”

”Do it! Let's all do it!” everyone yelled.

”Do it! Let's eradicate those b*st*rds of Past Deeds!” Dusky Cloud bellowed the loudest.

Sword Demon finally sighed in relief. He immediately sent a message on the mercenary channel, ”Alright. We've found a gang of dependable brothers for this. Problem solved!”