342 Chapter 342 - The Undercurrent beneath the Peace (1/2)
Deep Waters was indeed a player who had been to many places as he was able to tell with a glance that the white light that that had engulfed Svelte Dancer was from her use of a teleportation skill; a country bumpkin would have thought it was her dying or getting forcefully disconnected. Moreover, mainly players from Yueye City would know of the existence of Windchaser's Emblem – an item akin to a product only available to select people or circle.
Not knowing where Svelte Dancer had gone to, Deep Waters hurriedly sent his guildmate, who had just been killed off, a message expressing his condolence, only to receive a [The user is no longer in a serviceable area.] system notification. The man was evidently still online, so there could only be one reason why he could not be contacted: He was serving time in prison.
Deep Waters quickly deduced that Svelte Dancer was probably doing 'Bounty Mission' as well. Initially, he had thought that she was randomly killing his guildmates in the city; now, he felt that it was more logical to assume that she was doing 'Bounty Mission'. If someone was really going around and rampantly killing his men, the guild channel would long explode into a flurry of activities. Seeing that everything was as quiet as ever and no one was reporting anything, it could only be said that those who had been killed off were sent straight to prison. With that being the case, it would truly be impossible for them to inform the rest about their plight.
Seems that many are spending their time in prison today… Deep Waters thought to himself. The players who had collaterally been apprehended by the guards pursuing Gu Fei were also sent to prison, so who knew how many tables of mahjong were formed by those stuck in prison right now? Deep Waters found it comical when he thought about this that way. However, his expression quickly turned sour when he realized something: These players who were currently squatting in jail, especially those who had PK value of over 20 points, would be stuck there for the next two days or so, and that was on the premise that they would not log off while doing time.
Unfortunately, the reality of the situation dictated that it was implausible. Just the boredom of being stuck in prison for twenty-four hours would make many of them divide their prison time into several hours in a week… As for those who were required to spend forty-eight hours in prison....
Being imprisoned for long hours would normally not be detrimental to anyone besides the person themselves, but since their guild was currently at war with another force, losing a good chunk of manpower was truly disastrous for them. A swathe of players in his guild had earned themselves PK points from today's battle. Those who only had a few PK points could be ignored, but those who had rather high PK value could not. After all, they would have to be in jail for several hours. Deep Waters reckoned at least several dozens of players had PK value of 5 points and above, and most of them were probably Mages.
The guild was very well-versed with group PvP. Using traps to restrict their enemies in the jungle, they would then utilize sneak attacks to harass and deploy their Mages to obliterate. In the city, Archers' arrows would suppress the enemies and Mages would obliterate!
No matter which way one looked at this, Mages were the deciding factor to close out their assaults. As for their Hunters, they were only good at firing sneaky shots from their hiding spots. And regarding the imposing arrow formation of Yunduan City's Traversing Four Seas, Linyin City was just not the right environment to practice something that focused on positioning and arrangement.
With how this city's streets varied in width, there was a limit to the number of players that they could field in a street fight. The full extent of their firepower would at most include the first three or four rows of Archers in front that had direct vision of the enemies, and everyone else would have to fire arrows in arcs. This particular move was something new that they had learned from Traversing Four Seas' Sharpshooters today. In fact, their execution of it was a mess, and some of them even almost shot down their Mages on the rooftops by accident.
Doing a rough calculation of the eventual clash, the combat might of Deep Waters' guild would depend on a street's width. Most likely, their guild with over three hundred Archers could only field about thirty to fifty players to deal damage to the enemies. The only upside that Deep Waters could think of regarding this was how they could quickly replace their vanguard with the second row of players. They would merely last longer in a battle of attrition and have a more significant Snipe efficacy.
With many of their Mages sent to prison, it was likely that in their fight later with the enemies, Deep Waters' guild would lose plenty of its artillery battery. Therefore, it was really hard to imagine how they would fare in that upcoming clash with just their Hunters' messy shots and without their Mages' highly efficient firepower.
The more Deep Waters thought of this, the more worried he became.
Yunduan City's players act of erasing their PK points no longer seemed to just be affecting the individuals involved, as it was possible for many of his men to find themselves in prison if they did not quickly clear off their PK value. This was a very heavy loss.
With that in mind, Deep Waters hurriedly sent out a message on the guild channel requesting those who were still online to quickly help their Mages erase the PK value to their names.
”Why is it suddenly so urgent?” the guild members asked.
”It's very important to be quick about this,” Deep Waters replied.
”But I was just about to—” Many of them started to give all sorts of excuses, such as being busy grinding, questing, or even bringing a lady around to sightsee. Some even claimed to be heading to Baishi City to collect more Whitestone Dust after depleting their stock in that last engagement.
Deep Waters was on the verge of breaking down as he shouted, ”Don't you all understand?! Many players from Yunduan City are doing 'Bounty Mission' at this moment, and the players on top of the Wanted Players list are mostly our men, so each of them is being sent directly to prison!”
Everyone quickly understood the severity of the situation, and the ensuing discussion was something even Deep Waters had not thought of.
”These guys can pick up our bounties, but we can't do the same to them!”
”Why's that?”
”Don't you know the rules governing the Wanted Players list? If none of them registered their account in Linyin City, we would have to head to the Overall Wanted Players list and pick them up. How are we gonna know which of them are the ones we're supposed to target?” someone asked.
”Haven't they registered their accounts in Linyin City yet?”
This question floated in Deep Waters' mind. Did the enemies register their accounts in Linyin City yet?
Conventional logic dictated that they must have done that. Otherwise, they would be really inconvenienced if anything untoward happened. However, at the moment, there were plenty of underlying connotations to this question. If the enemies were doing 'Bounty Mission' without registered first, it was likely they had done so intentionally.