The Great Thief

There was indeed a trap here.

The existence of the Ancient of Lore in the Grey Valley Stronghold was not a secret. When Lu Li was guarding the Black Sea Coast before, he had entrusted Grey Valley to Wandering. There were two trump cards. The first was the walls of the Stronghold and the second was this Ancient of Lore.

While this tree’s body was rooted within the walls of the Stronghold, its skills were able to strike outside the walls.

Therefore, a conclusion was reached that the Ancient of Lore’s range was covered a wide radius. Furthermore, this could mean that there were a tremendous number of Treants providing materials for the Ancient of Lore. Only these Treants could summon so many Saplings.

The first hypothesis was correct. The range of the Ancient of Lore was indeed rather wide and was still able to extend even further. The final extended range could be enough to cover the whole map.

However, the second hypothesis was not so accurate.

Truthfully, the Ancient of Lore could use one little Sapling and bring forth a tremendous army. There was no need for logic in the game. After all, games were not logical.

After breaching the walls of the Stronghold, Dream 13 suddenly realised that they had overlooked the threat that that Ancient of Lore brought.

Who knew that the Ancient of Lore would become the third threat?

“Retreat!” This was the third time that they had decided to change tactics and their movements were much quicker. Perhaps it was because they had grown accustomed to it, or maybe it was because everyone in Wings of Dawn was already preparing to retreat as soon as they heard the command.

“What the…They’re running away really quickly!”

Ruling Sword’s members were all stunned at the speed at which their opponents retreated.

Around ten of them were left behind while the rest of them ran away. The army of trees was in pursuit of the remainders.

The saplings quickly rotted. They looked strong, but their Armor, Health and Attack were all quite low. Their duration of their summoning was also quite short, which was why they were only useful in particular situations such as these.

The ten Wings of Dawn players only managed to drop a few items.

This was better than nothing. Furthermore, they made the Wings of Dawn retreat, so they couldn’t just reset.

This was the end of the battle and everyone was teleported out of the battlefield.

Both sides met once again, this time in front of the battle manager. If this wasn’t a safe zone, then it was likely that they would have started fighting again. After all, the Wings of Dawn had lost a substantial number of assets this time.

“Liu Jin Zhu, you’re actually so incredibly shady!” Elevenless scolded as he stared at Wandering. He had even called him a brother when they drank together last time.

“Wow. Calling me by my real name, huh? Looks like you haven’t learnt your lesson,” Wandering shot back. He decided that he wasn’t going to take responsibility of this and added, “I mean, I wasn’t the one who screwed you guys over. I wouldn’t be able to think of such sneaky and cunning strategies anyway. The one you’re looking for is over there.”

“Sorry…” Lu Li said, faking a smile and apology towards the opposing side.

He didn’t deny that he was responsible for commanding this battle. Wandering was only in charge of pulling aggro and distracting them.

“Why? Why? Why? I don’t remember offending him in any way!” Elevenless was extremely frustrated. Every time he crossed swords with Ruling Sword, whether as a part of the Wings of Dawn or by himself, he always lost out. Lu Li didn’t have reason to do such things, did he?

“You don’t even know why?” Wandering looked at him like he was stupid, then continued to say: “Did you guys forget about how you guys teamed up with Soul Eater to screw Drizzle Court over?”

“Screwing Drizzle Court over? How is that related to Lu Li?” Elevenless was confused and didn’t understand.

“Let’s go. Stop making a fool of yourself,” Dream 13 said as he slapped the back of Elevenless’ head, then with a face full of disappointment, he could only mutter, “Stupid couple.”

Elevenless suddenly understood.

They teamed up with Soul Eater and screwed over Peerless City. Naturally, Water Fairy was also affected. Lu Li was just taking revenge for his girlfriend.

They couldn’t say anything more other than ‘stupid couple’. This was the only way to express their feelings.

Lu Li was listening in and didn’t deny that his efforts today were to take revenge for their ally. Peerless City had lost quite a lot with the loss of their Stronghold. Therefore, it was only natural for Lu Li to screw the Wings of Dawn over.

Drizzle Court successfully defended their Stronghold in the Western Wilderness. Tanaris, originally held by the Gangnam Royals, was taken by Gale Legion while Blood Red War Flag’s Barrenlands were taken by Glory Capital. During this time, Glory Capital had also successfully defended Stranglethorn Vale.

At the same time, Ruling Sword maintained control over the Black Sea Coast and Grey Valley, while Glory Capital maintained control of Stranglethorn Vale and Barrenlands. Gale Legion had Tanaris, while Drizzle Court had the Western Wilderness. The new contenders had the chance to fight for Hillsbrad and Stonetalon Mountains, which was originally Peerless City’s.

Tanaris was quite a barren land and was covered in sand. However, the competition over it was intense. Peerless City, Wings of Dawn, Gangnam Royals and Gale Legion were all fighting over this one piece of land. As for the next battle, it was unknown whether or not Gale Legion would be able to defend their Stronghold.

The Blood Red War Flag had occupied Barrenlands for two weeks. In the end, it was still taken by Glory Capital.

Glory Capital was truly powerful. They managed to successfully take down Blood Red War Flag as the Stronghold attackers. If it was Ruling Sword in the place of Glory Capital, Lu Li didn’t even have a sliver of confidence in victory. The successful defense of the Stronghold last week was purely because of luck. It was because of this that Lu Li was going to start cheating at the Black Sea Coast Stronghold.

The next battle was likely to be more intense and frantic. Furthermore, with the new update, the Stronghold was going to be harder to defend.

However, the frequency of the Stronghold battles would decrease. At the very least, they wouldn’t have to defend it once every week. This way, everyone would have more time to do other things, for example, competitions.

Pro players were now re-energised from the first season.

Competitions were the most important events of the professional gaming circle. Even the Donghua Cup, which didn’t really garner much attention, was brought into the spotlight and was extremely popular because of Dawn.

This time, the main part of Donghua Cup wouldn’t be the training of new players.

Everyone’s eyes would be on the many new and unknown squads who would join the competition.

From the official statistics, there were already more than 1.6 million squads that entered the competition. To put this into perspective, there were 30,000 squads last year. Even Lu Li didn’t know where all of these 1.6 million squads came from.

Truthfully speaking, Lu Li had a part in the creation of this huge flood of teams.

In his previous life, there were also many people who joined Donghua Cup. However, that number only reached around 100,000 teams.

Lu Li and his founding of Ruling Sword had created a legend among the players.

A few people had joined together, won, then created a club of their own. After this, they walked on the path of legends and stood at the pinnacle of gaming. Was that not the dream of every player?

As a result, the 1.6 million squads entering into the Donghua Cup set a new world record.

The Donghua Cup had its similarities with previous competitions, but it also had its differences.

Ruling Sword was not the first squad to enter the Shadow Cup. The Shadow Cup had different requirements to enter the preliminary rounds.

Lu Li felt that the Donghua Cup was an opportunity to train up new players in the club, so he decided to allow the new players to enter.

Ruling Sword didn’t have many competent new players, so there were still some old members who joined their ranks.

Lu Li definitely wouldn’t join; he didn’t even want to lead the team.

However, because this was a competition, he couldn’t shirk all of his responsibilities. He, alongside with Water Fairy, accepted the invitation to analyse some matches of their own choosing.