741 Chapter 741 - An Uncertain Situation (1/2)

Six Mages were able to forcefully suppress over 30 Mages inside the Mage Academy. Gu Fei was a freak that could not be measured in accordance with the average gamer while Drifting, Slyris and Flame Singed Clothes were all genuine experts of the job class, the top experts amongst all Mages in Parallel World. Cirrus and Loser were actually much weaker in comparison, taking care of the miscellaneous issues that cropped up when they followed the four. At the moment, when Cirrus and Loser saw how a bunch of players was staring at the two in astonishment and admiration, neither of them was feeling secretly elated. Instead, they felt somewhat unsettled, as if they were secretly stealing the fruits of labor from someone else.

”Hmm... Why aren't the enemy attacking? Have they all gone stupid?” A Mage suddenly blurted out. Southern Lone Blade was standing beside him when he heard this. He turned around to discover this bunch of players looking on with quite a fair bit of skepticism. Southern Lone Blade sighed with sadness. The actions of these people before was understandable since they were all new guild members, but now that they had shown their inability to not even understand how these apex experts were PK-ing, that truly demonstrated just how noob they were.

But it really had to be said; in terms of such wide area suppression against the enemy, Drifting and the two other experts were far more impressive than Gu Fei. Gu Fei was simply playing out his role as the killer he always was, but the other three were actively interrupting the enemy's attack as they calculated and took spell cooldowns into consideration. This was also another form of rhythm to grasp, and Colored Clouds' Mages had already been completely subdued, falling in step with the tempo that Drifting and the others had set. It was not that none of them wished to cast their spells, but they discovered that there was no way for them to unleash their own AoE spells. Every spell had their subsequent cooldown timers, which Drifting and the other experts of their caliber had already gotten a grasp of. By now, the three of them had at least gotten an idea of the cooldowns for the remaining 20 or so enemies they were now up against, and it was as if they had the full view of their skill bars. In such a situation, in addition to their own experience with the Mage job class, they were essentially capable of preemptively predicting what their enemy would do. The difference in terms of their skill caliber, experience, and awareness greatly highlighted the gap that lay between an expert and the average player. The members of Colored Clouds were by no means considered to be terrible players, but when compared to the elites in the entire Parallel World, they were still very far off.

Southern Lone Blade watched with great pleasure, suddenly recalling that Sword Demon had called him to receive the incoming Priests over by the east gate, he quickly sent a message over to Sword Demon, ”You should run along to the east gate yourself. I'll stay and lend a hand over here.” Even though the six Mages pretty much had control of the situation, any slip up at this stage could very well turn the tide. It was not like the six Mages had not died ever since they stepped into the Mage Academy.

”Okay, got it,” after receiving Sword Demon's affirmation, Southern Lone Blade quickly began to organize his manpower. Mobilizing this patchwork of players was as good as leaving them idle, so he simply decided to lead the ladies from Amethyst Rebirth and charge into battle. Southern Lone Blade was considered a top expert as well, so his ability to observe and get a grasp of the battlefield was top notch. Even though he was taking charge of some rather mediocrely skilled ladies into the fight, the good thing about the ladies was how obedient they were to their commander. So aside from occasionally reacting half a beat slower, they would not really make any mistakes that left Southern Lone Blade grinding his teeth.

The situation became much more stable now that there was an inclusion of combat strength on their side. However, it was at this moment when Royal God Call reported in ”Attention, attention. Young Master Han has gathered some troops, looking like they are about to leave the Priest Academy.”

”Where are they headed?” Sword Demon asked.

Royal God Call was struggling. He felt Sword Demon should have known better than to ask him such a question.

”The direction they are headed for is still unclear.” Xi Xiaotian answered.

”The two of you should go and keep an eye on them for a bit,” Sword Demon said before sending a message to Gu Fei, ”Miles. You guys should hurry up on your side. Young Master has made his move; there's a chance that he might be heading for the Mage Academy.”

”Relax. We're about done here,” Gu Fei replied. He glanced outside the academy and saw that there were still some players who had not died in the Mage Academy still blankly watching the spectacle!

”Everyone, rendezvous with the others by the east gate!” Gu Fei sent this message out in his guild channel, repeating the message several more times, adding more exclamation points for emphasis each time. Finally, the players outside noticed his messages and began heading over to the east gate as a response. While inside the Mage Academy, the number of Mages from Colored Clouds had been dramatically reduced, as it was apparent that a good many of them had died 25 times and were sent to the 17th district. Those Mages had been happily playing with their Kamikaze tactics, so their death counts were already plentiful, and with Gu Fei and the others cleaning up after, the Mages very quickly reached their 25 death count.

”The direction that Young Master Han and his men are headed to could be the east gate!!” Xi Xiaotian and Royal God Call both utilized their movement speed to quickly track Colored Clouds until they had finally gotten a clue about their troop movement.

”D*mn, did that guy see through our plan again?” Gu Fei cursed.

”There could be people working for him in our guild,” Drifting said.

”It's not just the guild; there might even be men from the batch of Priests coming over to join us that could actually be on his side,” Xi Xiaotian said.

”Oh crap! Is there anyone over by the east gate? How is the situation outside the city gate?” Sword Demon quickly called out in the guild channel. Previously, the players who were killed by the Kamikazes had all received the instruction to head out and gather by the east gate, and those with faster movement speed had already reached the gate. Hearing Sword Demon's next set of instructions, some players poked their heads to take a look. However, these players had only very recently joined the City Wars event, and they did not have a good grasp of the situation. In their eyes, the fight between the city guards and players was very intense, and there was nothing out of the ordinary there.

”Eh? I don't think so?” Several men said thusly.

Sword Demon did not believe them, so he made sure to message Brother Assist to warn him not to casually send Priests over, even as he hurried over to the east gate as quickly as he could…

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Beyond the east city gate, Brother Assist's batch of mercenary Priests began to split up and blend into the crowd. Each of them was waving their magic staves, acting as if they were Healing the players when they were merely mumbling nonsense. All of them felt relieved when they saw that the players and the city guards were all just ignoring them, continuing to wave their magic staves and chanting their spells as they headed in the direction of the city gates.

Everything went as smoothly as Brother Assist described, and several mercenary Priests coming in from different directions had all moved nearer to the gate. They were just a few steps away from circling around the city's line of defense and successfully making it into the city when a bunch of people suddenly came bolting out on the attack. The Priests were all surprised, wanting to Heal themselves, but it was evident there was not just a single player that attacked, and it was apparent just how well prepared they were. This handful of Priests were very quickly eliminated in this manner.

”What happened?” A huge number of Priests found themselves respawned in the nearest encampment, absolutely uncertain as to what happened. They were looking all around now, searching for their fellow mercenary compatriots. But everyone had only met each other that one time, and they had difficulties finding anyone amid the crowd of players moving around the encampment. Thus, each of them sought out their employer, messaging Brother Assist to ask what sort of situation were they in.

There was no reason for Brother Assist to have known how they got ambushed, but the moment he received Sword Demon's message about not sending the Priests over, he more or less guessed that there had been a change to the circumstances, first assuring the Priests even as he asked Sword Demon for more details regarding their current predicament.

”There might be traitors among the Priests, which means they are already made aware of our plans here. It won't be that easy for us to enter the city like before,” Sword Demon elaborated.

”D*mm*t, we've already got several casualties over by the east gate.” Brother Assist rued.

”Have they been repeatedly killed yet?” Sword Demon asked.

”Nope… They are neutral players, would they be targeted like that as well?” Brother Assist had his doubts.

”Players are no longer able to step into the City Wars region after dying 25 times. Neutral players currently still have a modicum of freedom in these areas, so I believe that they will experience such a restriction if they end up in the same fate as well. It is just that the current neutral players probably have not died so many times yet, so no one has yet to discover this,” Sword Demon inferred.

”So do we tell them to stop making any attempt into the city for now?” Brother Assist asked.

”Yeah, stop for now. We might be in a bit of a pickle this time,” Sword Demon continued to discuss about this matter of getting the Priests to stop as he canceled the order of meeting by the east gate. They had managed to get the Priests they needed, yet they were unable to make it into the city… The enemy had apparently kept an eye on both Brother Assist and July. Not only did they secretly hid chess pieces on the board, but they had also enacted a hunt for them out in the open.

”If only we still had teleportation scrolls!” Sword Demon sighed. They had used up all their teleportation scrolls by this time; even the Auction House in Yunduan City had been cleaned out of its stock. No amount of coins they offered mattered if none were for sale.

”Could we get our friends from other cities to help us by buying some for us?” By now, everyone was more or less aware that they were in a less than ideal situation and things had not progressed as smoothly as they had hoped. Coloured Clouds had sacrificed a lot of their Mages in exchange for the Priests on Gu Fei's side. The new Priests that they had just hired were unable to get into the city, and while the Holy Knights were capable of healing as well, they were not yet at the level where they were capable of completely replacing the Priests as the premier source of HP recovery on the battlefield. They were in a dire situation, and the experts were all anxiously doing their best to come up with some sort of plan, and that was when Gu Fei thought to ask about the viability of this idea he had when he recalled how Drifting had managed to acquire teleportation scrolls from his previous city.

”That will be very troublesome! Our messages won't get through, the other party won't be able to get into the city easily, and there might not even be many who can make it into the city either… Who knows when will be able to resolve all these issues before we can get our hands on a teleportation scroll!?” Drifting said.

”But what other choice have we got?” Gu Fei asked.

”I've got a solution,” Xi Xiaotian interjected.

”Quick, tell us!” Everyone was desperate.

”We can look for a Workshop,” Xi Xiaotian said.

”Workshop?” Gu Fei furrowed his brow. The unpleasant history of having dealings with Five Nights had left Gu Fei with a bad taste in his mouth.