544 Chapter 544 - Silver Moon’s History of Struggle (1/2)
Two cities separated Linyin City from Baishi City; It was not an easy trip to make. This was mainly because the territory of Linyin City, which was inside a huge swathe of densely packed woodland, teemed with Hunters. And since more and more players were crossing the level-40 threshold, the number of Hunters in the jungle increased by the day, too. Given that it was the peak hours for gamers to be online in the server right now, encirclements and traps abounded in every few steps.
Ye Xiaowu, who had more knowledge of this VR world than anyone out there, was able to tap into this in such a time like this. He might not know how the Linyin City's players divided the entire jungle among themselves, but he at least knew the monster distribution in every area in this region. No matter how messy these players set their traps, there was no way that they would set them in places without monsters, right?
Thus, by circling around and taking detours, a lone level 36 Priest managed to traverse through the jungle without bumping into any sort of trouble. This was the second time a player had achieved this feat in Linyin City. The first person to succeed in this was also Ye Xiaowu, which he achieved by himself when he was making his way over.
He made sure to follow the main road upon leaving the jungle. Despite his extensive knowledge, there was simply no way Ye Xiaowu could change the fact that he had baby legs. It was already rather late by the time he reached his destination, and in comparison, Gu Fei was already long offline. Ye Xiaowu did not make any other stops and just headed straight to the Knights' Barracks the moment he entered the city.
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Over by the Knights' Barracks in Baishi City, Silver Moon was sitting at the steps within the barracks alone. How many days had it been since he was stuck here? He could not even remember the exact number himself. All he knew was that he had not once gotten far from the barracks ever since he got slain while on the road to Linyin City.
On that fateful day, Silver Moon discovered that Dusky Cloud and his men were waiting right outside the barracks for him to appear, so how could he not know what the whole lot of them intended to do?! Silver Moon already figured out that something was amiss the moment he saw those people standing by in advance. Afterward, when he attempted to motivate Oathless Sword and the others to lend him a hand, he was, instead, given the cold shoulder and soon received the system prompt: [This player is not accepting messages from anyone not in his friends list.]
Silver Moon felt as if he had fallen into a bottomless pit in that moment. Losing that helping hand, he was left wondering who else he could persuade into aiding him. Having carefully mulled over his situation once over, the shrewd Silver Moon very quickly realized that he had fallen prey to another's machinations. Furthermore, this plan devised was quite devious. It did not simply send him over to the spawn point for Dusky Cloud to camp him out; more importantly, it had ensured any hope of escape or assistance for him was ruined in the process.
The boss of Traversing Four Seas had deleted him from his friends list. Silver Moon no longer put any hope in the man, but what about the comrades from his mercenary group? Even though he had abandoned those people in an attempt to first make his escape, Silver Moon had no one else to turn to so he decided to harden his pride and give it a shot. In the end, before he could even fire off a message, he received a series of prompts as each member of his mercenary group left the group, with some even expressing their contempt and choice expletives before leaving. Silver Moon instantly became the only member of the Silver Moon mercenary group. He tried to privately message some of these players, but just like what had happened with Oathless Sword, all he received was the system prompt: [This player is not accepting messages from anyone not in his friends list.]
”Young Master's Elite!” Silver Moon grinded his teeth. Even though he did not know what sort of plan his adversary had devised, he had no doubt in his mind that the lot of them were the perpetrators for his current predicament.
As a scum that abandoned his brothers-in-arms at such a critical period, Silver Moon still failed to realize that his action was what had caused everybody to desert him, even as he started nursing a deep-seated resentment for someone else's plan enacted against him...
”Looks like I can only depend on myself…” Silver Moon spent a whole hour contemplating over how to get himself out of his current predicament, but still failed to come up with anyone else he could use. He even thought of groveling and begging Vast Lushness for help, but he ended up giving up on that as well. However, this was not because there was a limit to his scummy ways, but that he had a considerable understanding of Vast Lushness. He would only be inviting her to spit in his face if he looked to repent right now.
Without any friends he could utilize, Silver Moon thought of approaching his enemy for a compromise. Dusky Cloud was about to fall asleep staking out at the Knights' Barracks when Silver Moon approached with a genial smile and made an effort to converse with the crowd. Silver Moon knew that Dusky Cloud's party had set their eyes on his valuable King's Sword, so perhaps these people might be hunting him down so doggedly entirely because of his weapon. Silver Moon figured that he might find a peaceful resolution to this situation with that chip in hand.
With a smile on his face, Silver Moon slowly expressed his idea. His gift of the gab was the real deal, so all sorts of idioms and phrases were thrown like 'all it takes is a smile to melt away past enmity', 'a real man must take heed of the grand scheme of things', 'the world will be us for the taking if we work together'. Every possible nauseating flattery he could come up with flowed with ease from his mouth to sweet-talk Dusky Cloud until diabetes nearly set in. By the time he ran out of descriptive phrases, Silver Moon had taken the risk of stepping out the spawn point to show his sincerity in hopes of better bonding with Dusky Cloud.
Dusky Cloud was immediately roused by this. Silver Moon thought that his rhetoric had succeeded in swaying the man, so he quickly reached out to shake the hand of Dusky Cloud.
Dusky Cloud reached his hand out as well, albeit with his dagger in it. That stab was so vicious Dusky Cloud seemed to be wishing to punch a hole through Silver Moon's stomach. The whole lot of men with Dusky Cloud instantly surged toward their target, making it such that Silver Moon had no way of retreating as he got surrounded.
It was murder – a righteous murder. These men had waited for a very long time; none of them could bear for it to end too quickly as everyone wanted to properly savor this moment. Aside from Dusky Cloud's original stab, the rest unequipped their weapons and proceeded to slowly shear off his HP with the lowest damage they could inflict, wreathing him in as they sent him to his grave.
In that moment, Silver Moon regretted his erroneous view of Dusky Cloud's character and reflected on his impulsive action, and lamented having an all-Endurance build… The beating he received from this encirclement seemingly stretched on forever. Going on for several minutes in this fashion, plenty of those squeezing from the outside that did not manage to get their hits in even grew impatient with their fellow comrades eventually.