678 Chapter 678 - The Five Minutes Rule (2/2)
Sword Demon was tearing up.
”Was that for a quest?”
”Yeah. That's for our individual quests. Sword Demon was tasked to kill that player, while I was sent out to Yunjiao Lake to do some investigating. We've already completed one quest each before this,” Gu Fei informed.
”Oh, what's that?” Brother Assist pressed on.
Gu Fei gave him a quick summary of what had happened once more, adding, ”Help us say hi to Young Master.”
”Hahaha, what for?!” Brother Assist had said this thusly, but his action spoke otherwise as he sent a message to Young Master Han, unafraid of causing a little mayhem, ”Young Master, Miles, and Sword Demon had asked me to give you their regards!”
”What?”
”Heh, the two of them are with me right now,” Brother Assist said.
”What the heck?” Young Master Han asked.
”They said they happened to be strolling by…” Brother Assist used the same excuse the two had given to him before.
Thus, Young Master Han did not bother to reply after. Gu Fei then began to urge Brother Assist to help them execute their sinister plan, ”Quick, Brother Assist. Go find out where Oathless Sword is at!”
”How am I gonna find that out…” Brother Assist muttered.
”Ask Royal!” Gu Fei quipped.
”That… That's not too good an idea. It's too obviously cheating. It's best if we do not make things difficult for Royal…” Sword Demon said.
If they really went with the plan that Gu Fei had thought up, it was not difficult to get the answer they were looking for. All Royal had to do was casually ask for his guild leader's position across the guild channel. Why would anyone treat this as a secret not to be shared if they were in the know? However, given Royal God Call, Gu Fei and Sword Demon's relationship with each other, by the time Sword Demon and Gu Fei succeeded, anyone with half a brain would also recall what Royal God Call had done, they would probably end up being cast aside.
”Yes, you're right,” Gu Fei had been a little too impatient that he had failed to consider this fact. Now that he was reminded of this potentiality by the considerate Sword Demon, he even realized just how problematic his suggestion was, and how much it would inconvenience others.
”How about we just go along with my idea and camp out for Oathless Sword?” Sword Demon said.
”There are three spawn points over that gate, and the three of us can each take one,” Gu Fei continued.
Brother Assist was speechless. Were they not disregarding his existence a bit too much? They had included him in the mix without even asking if he had an opinion about it. These two had their quests, which meant getting a reward for its completion. But he was essentially being volunteered to provide free labor right now!
”Alright, I'll take the west, you can take the east. Brother Assist has slow movement, so just take the post right in the middle!” Even when they were allocating their positions, neither man had actually sought to ask Brother Assist for his opinion.
”Hey hey hey!” Finally, Brother Assist could not stand it any longer.
”What?” The two men turned their heads around, their eyes shining bright as they came eye to eye with Brother Assist.
The words that Brother Assist had wanted to say were on the tip of his tongue, but when he opened his mouth, he had no idea how it turned into something else, ”How do I contact the two of you?”
”Speaking of which, I find this odd! You're a third party in this event, which makes you irrelevant to the two main forces clashing! Why are you able to send messages to the people from the guilds, yet view us as hostiles?” Sword Demon was nonplussed.
”Who knows?” Brother Assist shrugged.
”In that sense, isn't the third party that you represent also on the side of the guilds? There's a good number of people out there who have not joined any guilds, after all!” Sword Demon said this, even as he consciously sent a message over to Brother Assist. But unexpectedly, the system prompt about prohibiting communication did not appear. Just as he was stunned at this sudden change, Brother Assist had also gasped in shock, ”Eh? What's going on? Did you send this?”
To his surprise, Brother Assist also casually typed out a reply, which Sword Demon had successfully received as well. Both men were equally stumped. They could still remember quite clearly that they had respectively tried to contact each other after the city war began, but the system had told them the other player belonged to hostile forces.
Now that they were discussing the design and function, Brother Assist was more well-versed with such matters and asked after much consideration, ”Can the two of you send a message to Young Master Han and the others?”
Both men gave it a shot and shook their heads, ”Nope.”
Brother Assist analyzed, ”This could perhaps be the special privilege that the third party force possesses. The system and the guilds are two forces that are clearly defined in their role for this event, vying for control with each other. But to the third party that I belong to, our messaging might be restricted to the region we were in. If we were inside the city, perhaps we could exchange messages with the players within the city, while when we are outside its walls, our communication is limited to the players outside. I really can't think of any other explanation for this aside from this.”
”That's understandable… But what's the point of giving you guys such a function?” Sword Demon cannot make sense of it.
Brother Assist was all the more twisted by this setup. Just what was the use of being given such a function? Parallel World always enjoyed throwing riddles at its players and it was quite the agonizing torture for players that were like him.
”Let me try and see if I can use the channel,” Gu Fei suddenly thought to use his mercenary channel, so he sent a message, but was unable to send the message out in the end.
”This is a little unfair! The channel is commonly used by all, yet we can't use it. So why can the people from the guilds be able to use it?” Gu Fei said.
”Who knows…” Brother Assist bitterly mulled over this.
”Let's not think about such things for now, and hurry over to the three spawn points to camp Oathless Sword! So much time has passed, I reckon there should be someone who has died five times there by now, right?” Gu Fei would always find the slaying of people to be the most pressing matter.
”Let's go then. I'll go east and you go west, Brother Assist will hold the midpoint,” Sword Demon said.
The three thus proceeded to make their way in their designated direction, maintaining contact through messages from time to time. The magnificent battle happening over at the north gate at this moment had indeed run into a bit of a snag because of this previously unknown configuration. The first to flare up were the men used for cannon fodder. This portion of players was much weaker than the main force and was being crushed by the system's defenses unilaterally, and these people quickly racked up their fifth death count. They experienced the five minutes recuperation restriction that the system had in place, and this situation was very quickly reported to their respective guild leaders. These guild leaders then proceeded to inform stronger guild leaders up the chain and soon, the major guild leaders that were at the top of this chain of command were made aware of this problem, and they were truly quite taken by surprise by this sudden development.
This was the real hand of God.
The person who created the rules would forever be above those who needed to comply with the rules. And in this world, the system was the creator. Thankfully, the system would still be in place to serve the people, so the rules it created would still seek to create greater entertainment for those who conform to its rules. If that was not the case, the odds of the players emerging victorious would essentially be zero if the rules were in place just to mess with the players.
In this case, everybody could feel the impending headache when they saw this once unknown configuration surface, for this dealt the deadliest of blows to their unlimited respawn strategy!
All the guild leaders urgently sent their command down the pecking order, calling for everybody to stop the wasteful expenditure of their lives, calling for everybody to be more careful. People were instructed to try their best to survive, to do the best they could to buy the time necessary and cover that extra five minutes that had now appeared on everyone's ledger. This particular point might not be too difficult for the men that came from the stronger guilds, but this five minutes time frame was no doubt more than a little fatal for those players from the cannon fodder army. Furthermore, the bulk of the players made up this particular force and had no idea about this restriction in the beginning, so none of them really bother to form up the most effective teams. They were just heading off to their deaths anyway, with everyone being more than happy to swarm up and die very casually. Their numbers helped ensure that not everyone would die in that one charge, but the moment that this five minutes restriction came to pass, there was no way that they could simply control their deaths in such a manner. The large guilds had all realized that the cannon fodder army was the key to the outcome of this assault, thus they no longer dared to let the cannon fodders casually indulge in their arbitrary assault and whims no longer. Instead, they swiftly began to reorganize the players as soon as they could, sending them to their deaths wave after wave in a periodic fashion.
There were still quite a lot of players from each guild that were adept at taking command, and all of them were working together currently, as the cannon fodder army swiftly got themselves properly organized. They were all very proud of themselves, feeling as if they were about to turn the tide. But who would have guessed that this was the very moment when bad news arrived: Someone who had first died ten times was now facing a ten minutes recuperation time.
Everybody was utterly astonished. Dragging out each rotation to cover these ten minutes was already a challenge for the main forces, so obviously there was no need to elaborate on how much worse the cannon fodder army would fare. The foreheads of all the guild leaders had all begun to sweat. They could perhaps hold on for ten minutes, but it was made very apparent from how this configuration was designed. The first five deaths were just the first rung of the ladder, and every five more deaths would subsequently increase the recuperation time needed by another five minutes. Letting it continue on when they make it past the ten minutes marker, could they still make it past 15 minutes after? And if they could hold on for 15 minutes, what about the 20 minutes timer after that? There was definitely no way that they could do this battle by whittling down the enemy like this.