Chapter 537 - Lurkers
Poison Fang Swamp.
Numerous players from Club guilds were sprinting forward. In their field of view, they could see Swamp Hunter Leipu running in the same direction.
This was the problem with wild bosses. Because of their random spawn locations, they had no fixed area where they resided. The Swamp Hunter could move about in any area of the Poison Fang Swamp. Any aggroing skills could pull Swamp Hunter Leipu to any part of the map.
However, it wasn’t easy to do. If a player could effortlessly pull the wild boss all around the map, wouldn’t it be easy to kite the boss around forever?
This was why the three Blue Brook Guild players that had managed to steal the Swamp Hunter Leipu were in a difficult situation. It took a lot of effort for them to deal with the boss chasing them from behind. As a result, the speed at which they were escaping wasn’t fast. If the pursuers wanted to catch up, the pursuers would catch up to them in no time. It was just that the guild members had received different orders from their guild leaders. Not one of them had any intention of catching up to the boss. Instead, they stayed behind and observed, while diverting a part of their attention to keep an eye out for players from other guilds.
“If you have the chance, you can try and take them out. But remember, you must stay hidden!” Two players from Herb Garden, Octagon Aniseed and Sword Bean, received these orders from their guild leader.
These two characters were named after herbs and were core members of the guild, so the guild leader had great trust in them. One of them was an Assassin, while the other was a Ninja. Both classes were adapt in ambush and assassination. With the poor terrain of the Poison Fang Swamp, it was the perfect place for their classes to shine. As they tracked down the boss, they set their sights on a Battle Mage from Misty Castle.
Battle Mages wore leather armor and only had mediocre health and defense. Because of the movement speed buff from the Neutral Chaser, the Battle Mage moved quite fast, but to trigger the buff, the Battle Mage had to constantly attack targets. Thus, the Battle Mage had to attack monsters constantly in an attempt to maintain the movement speed buff from the Neutral Chaser. He exposed himself a lot, possibly because of his guild leader’s orders. However, this pursuit didn’t require high movement speed, so the movement speed buff from the Neutral Chaser wasn’t necessary.
“No good. He’s attracting too much attention. If we kill him, he might not notice us, but the others definitely would. This isn’t good for us.” Octagon Aniseed said to Sword Bean.
There wasn’t enough time to deploy open accounts, which was why Arisaema ordered them directly to go on this mission. Even if they hid their guild tag, their names were too obvious. Even if their names weren’t exposed, the spies hidden in their guild could easily search their name up. This was why Arisaema specifically gave orders for them to leave the guild if they were revealed.
“Let’s go for another target then.” Sword Bean agreed with Octagon Aniseed’s opinion. Right when they were about to reposition themselves, a flame appeared in their field of view. It originated from underneath the Battle Mage.
Being veterans, they could tell that the Battle Mage had triggered an Inferno Trap planted by a Thief.
The elites from Club guilds usually possessed extraordinary skills. The Battle Mage immediately reacted by jumping backwards after triggering the trap. Although he still took some of the damage, it was way better than having to take the full brunt of the trap’s damage. Inferno Traps didn’t have the ability to limit a character’s movement. But its continuous damage could be fatal. Even though the Battle Mage avoided the trap, he was still set ablaze after taking the initial damage and his hit points continued to drop.
The damage was far from being fatal though. The Battle Mage immediately became more cautious after setting off the trap. He did a 360 degree sweep of his surroundings, surprising Octagon Aniseed and Sword Bean, who hastily ducked under cover.
When they finally popped their heads up again, the Battle Mage had retreated to the safety of a tree. He had his back to the tree to prevent himself from being flanked. A Ninja suddenly appeared on top of the tree and slowly slid downwards with a Body Disappearing Technique. Just as he was about to reach his target, he abruptly dropped. By the time the Battle Mage noticed the descending Ninja, it was too late. The Ninja knocked him off balance with a Body Bind Technique. At the same time, an Assassin charged out from another direction. Judging from his movement that was filled with killing intent, Octagon Aniseed immediately recognised the most fearsome technique used by the Assassin class: Life-Risking Strike!
Assassins didn’t have much health to begin with. Life-Risking Strike sacrificed the health of its user to deal damage to the enemy. It wasn’t capable of one-shotting most classes. But the mage class was worse off than Assassins. Although Battle Mages were famous for their close-combat abilities, they were still fundamentally mages, who were well-known for being squishy targets. The Life-Risking Strike from the Assassin didn’t blow the Battle Mage away, but the blood that came pouring out of his back showed the extent of the damage dealt by the strike.
The Battle Mage was still alive after the attack. He managed to turn around, but just as he was about to take a look at the Ninja’s name, a gunshot could be heard around the area and a bullet shot through the Battle Mage’s right shoulder. The Battle Mage spun around and the visual angle that he was about to gain was lost. The Ninja wasted no time to sneak behind the Battle Mage and threw a flurry of Ninjutsu and blade techniques at his opponent. As for the Assassin, he was under a long period of exhaustion after carrying out the Life-Risking Strike. Strong moves carried great risk.
“Incredible marksmanship!”
Octagon Aniseed and Sword Bean knew what was what. Although the Assassin and the Ninja were the main damage dealers, the mysterious gunshot was the one that truly showed skill. The timing and the location of the shot was precisely calculated, but it was still wasted effort. Even though the Assassin and the Ninja weren’t seen by the Battle Mage, they had been seen by the duo.
“Someone has the same idea as us.” Octagon Aniseed and Sword Bean murmured to each other. They sent a message to their guild leader, asking for an investigation on the two characters.
“Should we go after them?” Sword Bean asked Octagon Aniseed after sending the message.
“No, that shooter is still around…” Octagon Aniseed looked, but he couldn’t spot anything unusual. They could guess the direction of the gunfire by listening to the gunshot, but they weren’t sure if the shooter was still lurking about as they couldn’t detect any movements.
“Those two, I don’t recognise any of them!” Sword Bean said. Elites of a guild were more or less known. Even if they didn’t know them personally, they would still recognize them.
“Neither do I.” Octagon Aniseed shook his head.
“Could they be open accounts?” Sword Bean asked.
“Whose open account could they belong to for them to have arrived so fast?” Octagon Aniseed countered.
Sword Bean gave it a thought and agreed with him. They became more cautious after witnessing others having the same intent as them. At the same time, they felt lucky that they didn’t make their move on the Battle Mage. That would have exposed them. They were the victors of this incident: a competitor had been taken care of, while they were able to remain in the shadows.
And the other three? They had exposed themselves at the cost of taking out a competitor.
Misty Castle was the first to know when one of their own was killed. The guild leader didn’t betray any reaction after learning of the news. He knew that the group that went out to track down the Boss was up to something.
If they could silently eliminate all their competitors, the boss just might fall into their hands.
Misty Lock adjusted his view, sweeping across the players of each guild, and spotted a player sneaking off from the crowd.
“What are you doing!”
What Misty Lock didn’t expect was that several guild leaders shouted the same thing at the same time and they were looking at the same direction.
“Huh? What? Me?” The player took awhile to recover from the shock of being shouted at by so many guild leaders, “I’m not trying to do anything!”
“You want to leave?”
“No….”
“From now on, nobody leaves!” One of the guild leaders shouted. From Misty Lock’s point of view, these guild leaders must have received intelligence that one of his members was killed. Wasn’t it a little too obvious? Despite thinking about it, he was still unsettled. One of his players had died and with so many pairs of eyes watching, he couldn’t send out any reinforcements. He could only depend on the men that he had sent out earlier on. But with one man down, how could he not be anxious?
“Hmm, not bad. I’ve received some new info, the results were good.”
On the other side of the map, Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim received news from Wei Chen after assassinating the player from Misty Castle.
“With them restricting each other, our job will be simple.” Ye Xiu replied.
“Then move faster.” Wei Chen replied.
“You can’t hold on any longer?” Ye Xiu asked.
“Shut your f*cking mouth. It’s a lv65 field boss, why don’t you take it out for a walk!” Wei Chen cursed.
“Seeing that you have the leisure to reply, you seem to have free time on your hands!” Ye Xiu said.
“........” Wei Chen immediately made it known that he was very busy.
“That was a nice kill!” Another discussion ensued in Lord Grim’s team.
“Haha, everybody listen to my instructions. Let’s continue!” Ye Xiu said in the chat.
“Yes yes.” Wei Chen’s bros replied in a straightforward manner. They didn’t hold a grudge towards Ye Xiu despite their previous conflict. When they learned that Ye Xiu was friends with Wei Chen, they saw him as a friend too. And since they were friends, they had no problems listening to Ye Xiu’s commands. No Glory player would have the confidence to claim that their tactics were better than God Ye Qiu.
“We’ve taken out one from Misty Castle. Herb Garden is next. Those two move together and they seemed to be quite happy peeking at us just now. Good things should go in pairs. Let’s kill the both of them!” Ye Xiu exclaimed.
“Roger that!” The gang shouted.
“This time, the ones from Tyrannical Ambition will do the job.” Ye Xiu said.