The Almighty Ring

“I’ll take your word for it,” said Happy Drunk.

“Of course, since when did I ever break a promise,” said Jiang Fei.

“I will get my men with you in thirty minutes. Send me your coordinates!” said Happy Drunk. Although he was not showing it, he was beyond happy. A fortress was not something that one could easily get.

Not everyone could get their hands on a fortress. Jiang Fei was a special case since he had a huge head start. Others would find it hard. For example, if Happy Drunk were to suddenly get himself an empty fortress and claim it, other guilds would fight him for it. Before Happy Drunk could even set up the fortress defense, other guilds would have already decimated his fortress. Before he could even defend against the Light Faction, players from the Shadow Faction would have destroyed it.

Every player then was from major cities. Who did not have enemies? It was a zero-sum game. If I don’t get one, you don’t get one either.

In the end, the total fortresses that were built in both the Light and Shadow Factions were no more than ten. One of them was Jiang Fei’s own Demon Dragon Fortress, the strongest fortress that was built on the Faction Map. Compared to Jiang Fei’s, other fortresses were nothing but fragile lego contraption that could fall at anytime! Many of them had not even finished their core buildings.

Demon Dragon Fortress was able to be so strong because of Jiang Fei’s early head start. By the time players were able to enter the Faction Map, Jiang Fei had basically finished building the defensive walls. Not forgetting the Hidden Class—Constructor, Beansprout.

With the ever-efficient manager, Miss Rosetta Rose helping Beansprout by providing as many materials he needed, the fortress was built to stand against siege attacks. The towers that were built by Beansprout had powerful offensive attacks that would make anyone who dared to come close run back to their mama. The fortress was just like a stationary dragon. Leave it alone and it grows. However, if you dared disturb it, expect nothing but utter destruction!

Jiang Fei had even installed two Altars inside the fortress that would provide a powerful boon to all allies.

The Demon Dragon Fortress’s position and its prowess made it hard for any Light Faction enemies to even try to invade the Shadow Faction. If they wanted to get close to the Demon Flame Fortress, they would have to get through the Demon Dragon Fortress first.

The Aristocrats were doing very well for the past few months. Although they had made good expansion, they were still not able to claim any fortress on the Faction map for themselves. One thing that Jiang Fei had always forgotten was that Han Tianyu had not logged into the game for many, many months.

Due to several issues in the real world, Han Tianyu had thoroughly forgotten about the game. To begin with, the reason he had played the game was to get closer to Jiang Fei. Now that his relationship with Jiang Fei was stronger than ever, there was no need for him to bother Jiang Fei in the game.

Jiang Fei had never bothered to inform Han Tianyu the importance of the game. Hence, from Han Tianyu’s point of view, Jiang Fei playing the game was just a means of relaxation. There was no need for him to join Jiang Fei anymore.

Hence, while Happy Drunk was on cloud nine, Han Tianyu’s mind was lost in the clouds. Because of his prolonged absence from the game, the burden of leadership of the guild had fallen onto Happy Drunk. Without the support of the rich folk, The Aristocrats had not been at its top form for many months now. Back then, whenever a problem came up, Han Tianyu would use his money to solve it. If there was something he did not like, he would use his money to go around it. If anyone dared to oppose his guild, he would load his diamond cannon with his cash as ammunition to blast them away.

When Han Tianyu was still leading the guild, no one dared to oppose him. However, now that Han Tianyu’s presence in the game was gone, the guild was forced to do things the normal way.

No one could forget that The Aristocrats was an ally of the Empyreal Dragon. Back then, when Empyreal Dragon was still a growing little bird, the Aristocrats was there to help them, to nurture them to become the Phoenix they were today. Sadly, other pug players did not care about that. All they wanted was to join the strongest guild. The best would only join the best. Hence, other noob players tend to flock to the lousier guild, the Aristocrats.

While Empyreal Dragon was over 80,000 members strong, the Aristocrats had only over 55,000 members. If there was a guild leaderboard in the Shadow Faction, the Aristocrats would be in the top 20 list, while Empyreal Dragon would always be at the top.

Jiang Fei asked the Aristocrats for help because Happy Drunk and Jiang Fei were close. At a certain point, one could say that Jiang Fei had faith in Happy Drunk.

This escort mission was too important for anyone to be slacking. Once the mission failed, everyone who had participated in this mission would lose three levels. Jiang Fei did not dare to ask other guilds for help, especially since they might bear a grudge toward them and could purposely sabotage the mission to see them fail and lose their hard-earned experience.

When he was done with Happy Drunk, Jiang Fei continued to roam in the sky, keeping an eye on anyone or anything that came close to the convoy. On the ground, Billy Boy had strategically assigned many members to guard each side of the convoy. Billy Boy took the lead while Seven Star Warrior was guarding the rear. The entire convoy was moving extremely slowly. Even though Jiang Fei had called two guilds for help, having to instantly mobilize tens of thousands of players was not something that could be done in a jiffy.

Still unbeknownst to Jiang Fei, players of the Light Faction had gathered and had already started to hunt for the convoy. The reinforcements from the Shadow Faction were still gathering.

Half an hour later, Jiang Fei, who was flying in the sky had finally noticed something.

A white pillar of light that was as wide as the Empire State Building flashed somewhere far away. After the white pillar of light dissipated, an army of 40,000 soldiers emerged.

“Stop the convoy! Enemies incoming!” cried Jiang Fei from the top of his lungs.

“Stop the wagons!” cried Seven Star Warriors and Billy Boy at the same time. The entire group of 50,000 players of Empyreal Dragon started to fan out and form a circular defensive formation.

Jiang Fei flew in closer to examine his enemies and found that they were NPC soldiers, not players. It seemed that they had just encountered the first wave of enemies.

“I’ll try my best to hold them back. Little Rain, standby and get ready to cast your Forbidden Spell!” said Jiang Fei before speeding off into the clouds.

Billy Boy acknowledged Jiang Fei’s order and immediately got into action.

“Boys! It’s time to protect the fireworks! Little Rain, do your thing! Tanks, square formation around the fireworks!” cried Billy Boy.

Almost immediately, eight tank class player emerged from the group and formed a 3×3 formation with Little Rain at the center.

As the 40,000 NPC soldiers got closer and closer, Jiang Fei landed his dragon somewhere close to them and immediately dismissed it. He pulled up his bow and started to attack. Like a machine gun, Jiang Fei’s insane attack speed had sent many arrows out into the sky in a few seconds. Like a shower of arrows, each of Jiang Fei arrows had enough attack power to kill one soldier each.

The problem was with the number of enemies. Even though Jiang Fei’s killing speed was insanely fast, Jiang Fei was only able to kill eight soldiers per second. It would take him quite some time to clean out 40,000 soldiers!

Even though he was able to kill less than 500 soldiers in a minute, it would take him more than one hour to kill all 40,000 enemies.

At this point, Jiang Fei summoned the Skygliding Dragon again to help him block a few enemies from advancing. Coupled with the fallen bodies, the army’s movement speed was slightly slowed down.

Five minutes into the battle, Jiang Fei was only able to kill over 2,500 soldiers. Although the numbers were insane, it was only a tiny chisel to the entire army’s prowess in numbers.

“Big boss! Time to get away!” cried Little Rain as he warned Jiang Fei of his incoming Forbidden Spell.

Apocalyptic Scorch!

A small fireball was released from Little Rain’s magic staff toward the center of the army. The fireball then made it into the ground where it exploded with a bang. Flame came out spewing from beneath the earth, destroying the NPC soldiers.

As Little Rain leveled up, he continued to farm more equipment that could boost his Forbidden Spell. One of the stronger equipment he had was the ring that Jiang Fei had given to him, the Ring of Decimation. Together with other equipment that he had farmed on his own, he had managed to increase his Forbidden Spell’s damage output, casting range, and Area of Effect range. Compared to when he had first used the spell, Little Rain’s current Apocalyptic Scorch was at least five to six times more potent!