Chapter 638 - War of Nations
There were many strong players who had participated in the Global Ranking competition. However, strong or weak, was an abstract value. Even during the first ladder climbing phase, the enemies that Zhang Yang faced were B class Inheritance players. When a B class Inheritance player meets an S class player, the result would be likely one-sided. An intense battle is unavoidable when two sides use their Transformation skills. However, Zhang Yang stood undefeated.
After several more fights, Zhang Yang collected enough points and met Sun Xin Yu in the random roll player assignment. It was inevitable since she too was climbing up the ladder.
Sun Xin Yu smirked when she saw that Zhang Yang was her opponent. Being a hard-headed woman, she would not let Zhang Yang defeat her easily. The two burst out with their Transformation skills and eloped to another world in an intense fight. Unlike normal PvP arenas where players could join the room to spectate the fight, ranking battles are held in private arenas. The most intense battle between the two strongest players in the world could not be seen. In the end, Zhang Yang won the battle, even though there were several times when he almost got his head lopped off.
Sun Xin Yu took the defeat proudly and bade Zhang Yang farewell. Zhang Yang had admitted to himself that perhaps the only player that could defeat him was Sun Xin Yu. That would place Sun Xin Yu as the second-best player in the world. Thus, Sun Xin Yu’s true rival was only Zhang Yang and Zhang Yang alone. The other players around were nothing but scrap that sullied the ground before her. After several more rounds, Zhang Yang and Sun Xin Yu were matched with each other again. Zhang Yang nodded his head with satisfaction. Only by improving herself intensely would she be gaining ranks to fight him again.
There were only 160 players that could fight in the Global Ranking battle. With that number, it was hard to fight a matched rank. There were times that Zhang Yang would have to wait for more than 30 minutes just to be matched with someone. As the rank goes higher, it would take a longer time to find a match. Hence, the speed of Zhang Yang collecting more points had become extremely slow.
However, unlike many other match-making games, ‘God’s Miracle’ allows players to roam around the world to fight monsters while waiting for the system to find a match. When the system finds an opponent, the system will teleport both players to the battle arena. Once the match ends, the player will be sent back to where they were before. Hence, it was a good time to train. Naturally, no one in their right mind would apply for a match and fight a boss. When the system forcefully teleports the player away in the middle of a boss fight, it would be extremely inconvenient for the player’s teammates. However, after several match-making sessions, players themselves would get the hang of it. They would know how long would the system take to find a match. By then, if a player knows that they have enough time, they would go ahead and fight a boss, depending on the situation.
5 days after Zhang Yang joined the Global ranking battle, he had reached the top 20 ranks. From there on, the players he was matched with were all A class Inheritance holders. Naturally, the fights intensity was tweaked up by a notch. However, it was not much trouble for Zhang Yang. If he felt a possibility of him losing, he would just activate the Phoenix’s Transformation skill and own the player! The combination of both Zhang Yang and the Phoenix was the firepower of an S class and B class Inheritance in a single character! In a 1v1 fight, perhaps no one could fight him.
A few more days later, Zhang Yang’s undefeated killing streak had players dubbed him as the "Inhuman", or even "Devil’s Incarnate". On the other hand, Fatty Han had been relying on the Phoenix’s strength to defeat his foes. However, the Phoenix itself was not overtly strong. Its strength could only be used to a certain extent when Fatty Han has no PvP skills. As a result, Fatty Han had only managed to hug the Phoenix’s legs up till the top 60 ranks. Any higher and Fatty Han would face a little too much trouble. He might have the firepower of a cannon when he and the Phoenix use their Transformation skills, but his skills were so bad that even though he was steering the cannons, the man could not aim properly to save his own life!
Although the system had written the words "fair" and "equal" in the patch notes when the officials launch the individual ranking system, it was, in fact, unfair and broken in many ways. The most prominent fact was the cooldown reset for all skills. Players could buy themselves a ton of powerful skills and used them in the fight since cooldown was not a concern for them. It was not fair in a way that poor player or players without proper support could not properly gauge their skills. It was not a good way of gauging a player’s ability. Despite the bold fact, many players did not care about it. In their own opinion, it would be a thrilling fight when all skills could be used immediately!
10 days after the first rank match, Zhang Yang had successfully planted his feet in the first place in the Global All Rounder ranking board. Almost everyone, especially those who were not from China, felt it extremely odd when the Global All Rounder Champion is ranked 17th in China’s All Rounder Rank, 6th in the China Warrior Rank, and 3rd in the China Guardian Rank.
Usually, when a player is a Global Champion, he should be the champion for all the other ranks, including his own Region. However, Zhang Yang had purposely kept himself lower in all of the Regional ranks. If others wanted to challenge him, they would have to start from the 18th rank! Everyone in China understood that Zhang Yang does not want to fight for fame in his own nation. However, understanding and looking at the results are two different things. How could a person be a Global Champion when he is only ranked 17th in his own nation?!
Once the ranking board was released to the public, nobody could say a word…
When the ranking boards were refreshed, Zhang Yang, Sun Xin Yu, and Han Ying Xue – the real professional players had been enlisted, replacing all the previous winners. This time, it was China who dominated the Global Ranking list. The first and second places were taken by Zhang Yang and Sun Xin Yu respectively. All in all, there were a total of 18 players from China who had been enlisted in the top 100 global players. The previous dominators, the Europeans had been pushed down to only 15 players. On the other hand, the boastful India Region was being pushed to the third. Their pride was completely extinguished. Hourglass Figure was pushed down to the third place, lacking only 14 points to the second place. Perhaps, even Han Ying Xue, who was ranked 4th could defeat her in the next Global Ranking list.
Naturally, the Japan-Korea region was still the weakest amongst all other regions. Previous, they had 5 players in the Global Ranking list. After the second refresh, they were shortened down by 4 players. Out of the 4, their best player was ranked at 46th!
With Zhang Yang emerging in the Global Ranks, the Japanese and Korean player had reminisced about the cruel past and were enraged. Just like that, they started a Nation War, with the intention of sacking Morning Town and entering China Region via the Ten Barren Sea portal and kill their way in.
The officials had revamped the Nation War system and added a reward and penalty. The attacker can issue a declaration of war and attack any major city. As such, the attacker’s victory will be rewarded with all players Level +1 while the loser will receive a Level -1 penalty. The penalty for destroying one city will the same as destroying all eight cites. However, the more cities destroyed, the more Honor points will be awarded to the attackers. Honor points can be used to exchange non-tradable equipment and items. It was not a good way to earn a fortune via Honor points.
A Nation War can be declared once every 30 real-time days. During the cooldown period, any city raiding would not be registered as a Nation War; no rewards will be given even if the attackers manage to kill all eight major cities in the entire Region.
The Nation War system was a little rigged. The defender would not receive any rewards for a successful defense. On the other hand, the attacker’s side – the one that calls for the Nation War, will not receive any penalty for losing. The system was made that way to encourage players to start a world war as frequent as possible. Staying passive in the shadow would do no good.
Ever since Japan-Korea Region players had successfully retaken their own Territory in the Chaos Realm, they were at great enmity between the China players. One thinks that the world belongs to then, while the other thinks that the universe belongs to everyone. It could be said that players were extremely emotional and they were not thinking straight when they started the war.
There were conflicts between China and Japan-Korea region before, but the intensity of those wars was not too great. The most intense war that ever occurred was when Japan-Korea region players had charged into the China’s Ten Barren Sea. It was not considered to be an all-out war since the number of participating players were less than Level 100 and were not up to the required number. However, the most recent Nation War had more than 50 million Level 100+ players! It was more than enough to meet the requirements of a Nation-wide War.
On the 10th day of Spring of the month of March, Japan-Korea region player had initiated ‘God’s Miracle’s’ first ever Nation War. With 40 million players, they took down Morning Town easily, destroying the town’s portal with ease which caused many players to unable to teleport to the place.
After Morning Town was destroyed, Japan-Korea had positioned 10 million players to block the entrance to the Ten Barren Sea, in case reinforcements from Chaos Realm came to help. The remaining 30 million players then rushed into the China region in formation to destroy cities to wipe their slate clean of shame.
The news of the war spread like wildfire to all China’s player’s ears. No matter what they were doing, be it training, raiding a dungeon, or banging someone’s brain out in bed, all players took the news to heart and vowed for revenge.
Zhang Yang, Snow Seeker, One Sword Stroke, and other guild masters that were on amicable terms with each other sat down to have a serious discussion. After a quick meeting, everyone decided to dispatch a large portion of their guild member to attack Morning Town and retake the Territory. All players with Flying Mounts were summoned back, not to provide reinforcements, but to attack Winst Castle and attack Japan-Korea region directly at their major city.
By then, even though Japan-Korea region had more than 40 million players attacking China, only 1% of them had flying mounts. Their progress was slow. On the hand, they had also sortied their higher-Level players to attack as well, leaving most of their major cities empty and exposed to invaders. Even though there were many players lingering around the place, they were all but lower level players who were crushed instantly.
Zhang Yang assembled his troops, taking all players with flying mounts with him and left the remaining forces on the ground to meet the oncoming players. By the looks of it, before the Japan-Korea could reach their major city, Zhang Yang would have reached their major city first.
10 of China’s elites of the elites guilds had grouped up together in a hidden valley between mountains, 30 kilometers outside of Winst Castle. All of them had Flying Mounts, hence, the defenses of Winst Castle had little to no effect on them. On the other hand, they were all flying at the highest altitude possible for them where not a single player in Japan-Korea region could spot them. It was possible to spot them in the sky, but that requires a player to look into the sky with clear intent and squint their eyes hard. The other way of spotting them was if other flying players happened to bump into them. However, literally, all players with flying mounts were sortied to attack China.
Since the Nation War was started without warning, there was no strategy to properly counter their attack. There were only around 3,500 players, although they were the strongest of the strongest around China, and as many as 1,500 C class Inheritance holders, not everyone had their Transformation ready to be used.
"How do we fight when there are only so few of us?" asked many guild masters.
Zhang Yang took the commander position and explained, "There’s no need to kill players to win a city raid. As long as we can kill the high ruler of the city, it’s our victory. During a city raid, the ruler’s level is not fixed at a certain level. The Level of the ruler will be the average level of all players within the city, +30 Levels. From my calculations, I think the boss should be Level 145. It should be a Mythical tier with around 500 million HP. We’ll gather 20 players with the strongest class Inheritances and attack the main target. On average, each of our DPS should be 100,000, 20 of us should be 2 million DPS."
Everyone listened with their full concentration while Zhang Yang continued. "It’s really that simple. All we have to do is to attack the palace. 20 of us will take 5 minutes to fight the boss while the rest of us will guard the entrance. After the boss is dead, we will retreat. Any questions?"
Everyone could not believe what Zhang Yang had just explained. It was too simple!
The truth? They were more than capable to complete the task. Flying mounts granted them the ability to skip most of the defensive formation and directly attack the palace. However, there was one more threat. The Dragon Riders in the major cities. They would require luck to ambush the palace from the sky. After all, the Elite tier Dragon Riders do not behave like their level. In fact, their difficulty could be greater than the ruler in the palace! If everyone is preoccupied by the Dragon Riders, it would be a complete waste of time that might lead to failure.
"There’s only over 3,000 of us. There’s no way in but to ambush." Sword of Light agreed with Zhang Yang. "Time waits for no man. Let’s get going."
All guild masters nodded and informed their own guilds about the strategy. With Zhang Yang taking the lead, all players soared to the sky and hastily went over Winst Castle, undetected and entered the portal that led to the Japan-Korea region.
"GO GO GO! DON’T STOP!" Zhang Yang cried. With great speed and silence, everyone made sure their mounts made no noise as they entered the first major city of the Japan-Korea region, Hansung Castle.
On the other side of the world, news was relayed to Zhang Yang about the enemy who were making their way towards the Level 80 maps. Their target was Emerald City. In truth, they wanted to target White Jade Castle because of their hatred for Lone Desert Smoke and Zhang Yang. White Jade Castle was the main city of Lone Desert Smoke. However, they had changed their target because they knew about Queen Serena, the god-like entity resides within the castle. It would be suicidal to launch an attack.
Unlike the incoming enemies, Zhang Yang assault party had flying mounts. They were much faster than the enemy. In just 4 hours, they had entered the airspace of Hansung Castle and dived straight into the castle. One by one, the assault party dove past the magic cannons attack range and entered the interior sector, and into the royal palace.
Right then, the defensive squadron of the Hansung Castle started to retaliate against Zhang Yang. As Zhang Yang feared, the defensive force were the powerful 3,000 Dragon Riders!
Zhang Yang no choice but to implement their last resort plan. With 1,000 players deducted from the assault party, the remaining 2,000 players swept past Dragon Riders and headed straight into the royal chamber.
In reality, a ruler would be hidden from sight. However, in the game, unless there are specific events the require the king to be at some places, the ruler of the will definitely be in the royal chamber, waiting to be killed! While the Dragon Riders were preoccupied, the ground forces were left to deal with Zhang Yang’s assault team. However, no one could match the speed of the flying mounts. With little trouble, Zhang Yang’s assault party managed to make their way into the royal chamber. 20 strongest players activated their Transformation skills and entered the chamber while the remaining forces stayed behind to prevent anyone, players or NPCs to intrude upon the battle.
"Assassin!"
"Protect the King!"
Behind the 24 giant pillars, a total of 48 fully armored Elite tier soldiers, with ridiculously high levels, came out and attacked Zhang Yang’s party.
"Take down the guards first!"
A small part of the 20-man party split off and drew the attention of the guards, allowing the remaining players to directly attack the king.
Even though they were China’s strongest attacking squad, the number of players were just too little. 3,500 players were not enough to fight against an army of NPC soldiers of a major city. However, all players had placed their unrelenting faith in Zhang Yang’s plan. Rush in, attack, and run! With no seconds to spare!
Mounts were disabled in an interior environment; hence all flying mounts were forcefully disembarked from their masters. Players like Zhang Yang, Sun Xin Yu, and Wei Yan Er still possessed flight capabilities for their Inheritance Transformations granted them wings.
Shush! Shush!
All unoccupied players rushed towards the boss and attacked with all their might. 20 players are not exactly a crowd, but they were still the best among the best. Besides Zhang Yang, Sun Xin Yu, and Han Ying Xue, the rest of the 10 players were all A class Inheritance holders, and 7 players were B class Inheritance holders. Fatty Han and Zhang Yang had the Phoenix pets, dealing particular high damage.