The Great Thief

This wasn’t the first time Glory Capital was attacking Ruling Sword’s Stronghold. In fact, it would be odd if they weren’t challenging Lu Li for the Strongholds.

They were a club that had been established for just a year, yet they held two Strongholds in prime locations. As the overlords of the gaming circle, they couldn’t just let Ruling Sword continue developing.

There were some things that just didn’t make sense, like why the antagonist of a movie would always wait until the protagonist grew strong before facing them.

However, Ruling Sword could unequivocally say that no one had allowed them to freely develop.

Every inch of ground they had taken was the result of blood, sweat and tears.

Before the establishing the guild, they were constantly being targeted by the Imperial Secret Service. Immediately after they had established a guild, they provoked a gaming circle giant – the Gangnam Royals. They had fought a number of guild wars as they had been hindered by other guilds too.

“I don’t think things are that simple!” Wandering said as he found Lu Li. He had a serious expression on his face.

Wandering rarely had such a serious expression. He spent most of his time lazing around, but he was actually a really smart guy that people listened to when he opened his mouth.

“Why do you say that? What did you find out?” Lu Li asked, clearly puzzled.

“With Eternal Kingdom’s strength, how ambitious would they have to be to think they are capable of taking our Stronghold. Do they just have money to burn or something?” Wandering didn’t believe that Eternal Kingdom would sabotage themselves like this.

“Do you mean there is some sort of trick?” Lu Li was still confused.

“Something is definitely happening – it’s just a question of what,” Wandering said adamantly. He had a very keen ability to notice things about the human condition.

“Then I will gather everyone to study it.”

Lu Li quickly invited some people to have this discussion. They didn’t have any real information on hand, but he invited the club members and members of the First Clear team.

Of course, Lu Li wasn’t going to take this matter out of this circle. Even if Ruling Sword was a relatively more cohesive guild, it didn’t mean that there were no undercover players lurking among them.

Lu Li explained the situation and asked for the group’s opinions.

“Does anyone else feel like there is some conspiracy happening here?”

“Maybe Eternal Kingdom just needs to take a Stronghold to satisfy their investors. As for why they chose us, I don’t know,” Cat Dad said. And that was the main problem – no one could think of why they would choose Ruling Sword.

These were Strongholds that even Glory Capital couldn’t take. Why would Eternal Kingdom even bother trying?

“We can’t rule out the possibility that this is just a coincidence, but even that doesn’t explain it,” Lu Li said. People would often lie to themselves about what they thought that they were capable of. But in a situation like this, there was now no way to stop a tragedy from occurring.

Everyone had now expressed their opinions. There were some that just thought it was a coincidence. Others thought that Eternal Kingdom had hired a group of masters that were strong enough to attack the Black Sea Coast Stronghold.

Lu Li listened to everyone’s opinions and tried to recall some of the things that had happened his past life.

If he remembered correctly, Eternal Kingdom would eventually submit to Glory Capital and just join their alliance to further solidify their dominance in the Horde.

However, he just couldn’t remember when Eternal Kingdom joined.

Wait!

Lu Li was shocked for a moment. If the current Eternal Kingdom was already part of Glory Capital then…

“I have one suspicion,” Lu Li said quietly.

Everyone was quiet as they waited for him to continue.

“If Eternal Kingdom and Glory Capital have made some kind of deal to coordinate an attack against both Black Sea Coast and Grey Valley, would that explain it?” Lu Li asked.

“That would be treacherous,” Sky Moon instantly responded.

Wandering was relieved as he understood what Lu Li meant.

In a normal situation, Ruling Sword couldn’t defend both Strongholds at the same time with the same strength. But given that Eternal Kingdom was not that strong, Glory Capital was their number one enemy, Glory Capital had almost defeated them last time, and the defenders of Stronghold battles had been weakened once again, Ruling Sword would find it even more difficult and would have to invest most of their strength in Grey Valley. Especially with the deal they had with Grand Hegemony, there wouldn’t be much of a defence at the Black Sea Coast.

All they needed to do was to put their main force into Eternal Kingdom’s attacking team and the Black Sea Coast Stronghold would be ripe for the taking.

“Wow, this really is a sinister plan,” everyone agreed in shock.

However, there were some others that began to feel optimistic.

“Well we now know about their plans, so it’s not a problem anymore.”

“It is good that we know, but that doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods just yet,” Lu Li said with a frown. “This is just our speculation. But if we are wrong, and Glory Capital’s offensive focus is still on the Grey Valley Stronghold, then we’ll be done for.”

Everyone went silent once again. Lu Li’s concerns made sense too.

It was even more unrealistic for them to attempt to defend both Strongholds at the same level as Ruling Sword didn’t have that kind of strength. Lu Li was really feeling the inconvenience caused by lacking information. He secretly decided that he had to set up some kind of intelligence system in the future. At the very least, they wouldn’t have to guess what the problem was.

After all, they didn’t have the strength or the information here and were really struggling to defend just these two Strongholds adequately. What if they had more Strongholds in future? How would they defend those?

“We don’t have time to discuss this any further,” Wandering said. “We have to work out which Stronghold they are focusing one, otherwise, we will just have to lose one. If we try to treat both Strongholds equally, we might not be able to keep either one.”

“Ask for some support. We’ll need some allies for this,” Lu Li said helplessly.

He didn’t want to do this. Drizzle Court wanted to establish a Stronghold for Peerless City this week, and Lu Li had just promised to help Grand Hegemony. Now, he had to shamefully renege on those agreements.

Drinking Alone had just made the announcement, but before everyone had the chance to be happy about it, they were informed that Ruling Sword were no longer supporting them. Fortunately, they understood Lu Li’s predicament, but their hopes of taking the new map was now more remote.

“How about this? You guys give up on taking the new map this week. No matter what Eternal Kingdom does this week, they will definitely reveal their intentions. Next time, Ruling Sword will fully support your attack on a Stronghold, but you guys can help us this week…”

This was absolutely shameless, but Lu Li wasn’t afraid of that.

Drinking Alone was speechless.