After we accepted the quest, all the NPC soldiers rose to their feet, grabbed their broken weapons and looked at us with hopeful eyes. They looked ready to depart at any moment. The NPC guard captain lifted his own broken sword and declared, "It is time, warriors of Sangharama City! We will enter b.l.o.o.d.y s.h.i.+eld Domain with the braves of Sky City and accomplish the task our king has entrusted us with!"

The NPCs started marching slowly toward their destination. They weren't moving particularly fast, but it looked like they would be using the small mountain path not far ahead of us. It should take us straight into b.l.o.o.d.y s.h.i.+eld Domain.

"Let's go. Make sure to protect the NPCs, or the quest might fail, and we might even lose Reputation because of it," I said.

Lin Yixin nodded and ordered, "You lead the way while I cover the rear. Beiming Xue, Sister Mingyue and Lian Xin, stay with the NPCs and prepare to deal with anything that comes your way!"

"Mn." All three girls nodded in unison. Now that things were getting serious, even Lian Xin set aside her prejudice toward Lin Yixin for a moment and focused on the task at hand.

……

The Armored Ice Qilin Horse neighed as I summoned the Phantom Wolf King. Side by side, we walked in front of the party as the light of dawn shone down on us. A thin fog was suspended in the middle of the forest, and morning dew dripped occasionally from the leaves. As we stepped on the watery ground, the Phantom Wolf King growled as if it had picked up the scent of a powerful foe.

A short while later, a red fog suddenly appeared at the front and put the girls on high alert. However, it was only 10 meters thick, and our vision returned to normal after we pa.s.sed through it. It was probably a barrier or sorts—more accurately speaking, the line that prevented players from entering an unreleased map—but it did nothing to stop our advance.

Suddenly, Beiming Xue cried out, "Big bro, watch out! There's a mob in the bush in front of you!"

"Oh?"

I spurred my mount forward as the Phantom Wolf King leaped into the bush. The next moment, a screeching thing was pulled out of its hiding spot and thrown into the open. The mob was a three-meters-long centipede with a colorful exterior and terrifying appearance. It immediately engaged the Phantom Wolf King in battle after it recovered its bearing.

I raised the Cyan Netherworld Sword and hit its back with a ferocious Burning Blade Slash. One Spiraling Arrow Blade from Beiming Xue and two Ice Spiral Matrix from Lian Xin later, the centipede let out a death scream and died. A Level 190 dread-rank mob wasn't enough to threaten our party anymore.

Swhoos.h.!.+

After healing the Phantom Wolf King to full with Instant Heal, Murong Mingyue gazed to the distance and said, "Hmm, all the bushes around us are moving unnaturally. I bet you that they are full of centipedes. Lu Chen, why don't you lure them all toward us? We need to kill ten thousand mobs to complete Azar's quest anyway, we might as well use them to grind that quota. Also, both you and Beiming Xue need the kills to replenish your divine energy, and the experience of Level 190 dread-rank mobs is adequate. We'll be killing three birds with one stone."

"Yeah."

The lowest-leveled player in our party was the Level 168 Lin Yixin, and second lowest player the Level 169 Murong Mingyue. Lian Xin was Level 173 and the highest-leveled player of all of us. Since the party's average level was above 170, we felt zero pressure aggroing hordes of Level 190 dread-rank mobs at once and killing them all, not to mention that dread-rank mobs yielded a sizable amount of experience.

I ordered the Phantom Wolf King, "Go get them, little wolf. But don't hang around to fight, okay?"

The Immortal Rank boss pet's powerful AI came alive in that moment. It understood my order and ran toward the mob without needing me to control it. It jumped back and forth the bushes to aggro the centipedes, but didn't linger long enough to be attacked. If it happened to move too close to a mob, it knew to dodge their melee attacks and escape to safety. It wasn't long before the barking wolf returned with what looked like a black sea of centipede mobs.

The girls looked dumbfounded by the sheer amount of mobs that were crawling our way. I said, "Sis, put Restore on me. I'm going ahead to capture the threat. Beiming Xue, Lian Xin, attack the moment the mobs get into range. Yiyi, come with me!"

"Mn."

I abruptly charged forward and fired Thousand Ice Slash and Burning Blade Slash at the mobs. Next, I used War Crush and attracted almost a hundred centipedes at once. The reason I was able to do this was because the centipedes had a small hitbox, and thus could be packed tightly like sardines. I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised by this outcome.

Swhoosh swhoosh...

Occasionally, I spotted purple haloes around my skills that stunned the centipedes who survived my attack. It was the Broken Blade property of the Necklace of the War G.o.d's Broken Blade, of course. The pa.s.sive gave me a 7% chance to stun a target for 7 seconds, and it was very useful against a big horde like this.

"Roar roar…"

The Moonchaser Tiger growled as Lin Yixin cut it from the sides. She raised her sword and saw a pillar of ice growing from the blade. Then, after a shroud of flames surrounded it, she slammed her weapon right in the middle of the mobs and saw the AoE skill and her splash effect dealing an insane amount of damage. Suddenly, she tossed her sword into the sky, and it shone brightly like a bomb that was about to explode. Then, the light condensed into a translucent, blue-colored blade, and it crashed against the ground and dealt damage to all mobs within 20 yards of it!

At the same time, two pink-colored words appeared on the combat log: "G.o.d's Tear”, the sight shocking all of us.

Beiming Xue asked while shooting the mobs with Spiraling Arrow Blades and Evil Spirit Volleys, "Sister Lin Yixin, was that your Divine General Skill, G.o.d's Tear?"

"Yep!" Lin Yixin replied cheerily while sending a couple of centipedes flying across the air.

Murong Mingyue was puzzled. "Isn't G.o.d's Tear a map-wide attack + account deletion skill?"

"Not anymore…"

Lin Yixin explained, "I received a phone call from Eternal Moon Corporation's headquarters yesterday. They informed me that G.o.d's Tear's effect was changed because the Northern Alliance players such as Blade of Kings and more complained that it was too powerful. So, they nerfed it and made it a small AoE skill similar to Lu Chen's Ancient Seal and Candlelight Shadow's Outer Flame."

I said, "That's good news, actually. The original G.o.d's Tear was an OP but very situational skill, but now you can use it whenever you want to, and I don't have to worry that Yiyi's account will be deleted again."

Lin Yixin nodded in agreement. "I know right? An AoE offensive skill is just perfect for killing mobs~~"

Murong Mingyue giggled. "Hoho, it looks like our chances of sweeping b.l.o.o.d.y s.h.i.+eld Domain clean just increased. Very good, very good!"

"Let's continue…"

……

I tossed down three 100x100 yards Icy Cyclone Domains to slow the centipedes, and at least 2000 of them had been affected by it. As the main tanks, Lin Yixin and I ran back and forth to avoid as many attacks as possible, but even so, our HP continued to drop at an insane rate. After all, a single centipede mob could deal over 4000 damage, and they were so numerous that we were attacked at least a dozen of times at a time. Thankfully, Murong Mingyue's healing power was up to the challenge. Her Pool of Life kept Lin Yixin and I healed almost all the time, and I myself could lifesteal HP from my enemies. All things considered, the grind went fairly smoothly.

Thud thud thud...

Lian Xin ran back and forth between the edges and hurled Ice Spiral Matrices and Dimensional Storms at the screeching mobs constantly. Her Ice Spiral Matrix was especially deadly as the ice blades shredded the centipedes into pieces.

Beiming Xue was also throwing every skill at her disposal when she said, "Sister Lian Xin, you're pulling too much aggro to yourself. Why don't we run rings around the center so that big bro and Sister Lin Yixin could hold the aggro better?"

"Mn.:

The two intelligent girls started running rings around the centipedes and forcing the latter to trample over each other. Lian Xin also slapped down a lot of Gravity Traps and Origin Force Fields to slow their advance and improve the party's safety even further.

Pop...

Burning Blade Slash dealt at least 50k damage per hit. Level 190 dread-rank mobs like these didn't have much HP to begin with, so they died quickly and dropped layers upon layers of equipment drops and magic stones. We were currently too busy to pick them up though.

The battle lasted about 15 minutes. At the end of it, 2000 centipedes had been killed and turned into s.h.i.+ny stones and equipment, many of them top-tier Spirit-grade.

Murong Mingyue was eating Magic Consumables repeatedly to restore her MP. Even with her Magic Attack and MP, the sheer amount of activity was starting to strain her.

I checked my equipment and noted that I had lost around 3% durability. The problem with battles like this was that they ate away at equipment durability as if you had poured acid on them. At this rate, we might have to pick our fights very soon. Still, I managed to kill a ton of mobs and gained 7 Divine Energy Points from this battle, so it was all worth it...

"Let's sweep the battlefield as quickly as possible and continue our journey. We haven't even encountered any undead so far!"

"Yeah."

I dismounted and began picking up the loot. I ignored everything below Gold-grade because such items were almost worthless in terms of money, no matter how good their actual stats were. I also made sure to pick up equipment that added Attack, Tactics and Magic Attack because they were the kind of stats most players sought after. These days, Defense or HP–oriented equipment were almost always worth less than offensive equipment.

After packing dozens of top-tier equipment into my bag, I moved back to the forefront and continued acting as the point. The NPCs were looking at us with respect and awe obviously because they were impressed by our slaughtering of the centipede horde.

……

After we pa.s.sed through the small gra.s.sy area, we saw an unnaturally red forest. Leaves that should be bright green were purple red in color, and even the cathaya trees were covered in a red hue. I now understood how the map came by its name.

"Big bro!" Beiming Xue suddenly cried out softly. Her succubi ears were standing up in full, and her red eyes were staring intently in a particular direction.

I knew that Beiming Xue must've noticed something again. She was definitely qualified to be called the eyes of the party; her senses were still sharper than mine even after I activated Dark Pupils!

"There's a mob over there!"

Beiming Xue said while pointing at a blood-red bush. Judging from its unnatural movements, something was swimming their way toward us.

Lin Yixin moved her Moonchaser Tiger next to me and said, "I sure hope it's not another giant centipede. I've already seen way too many bugs in a day…"

"It's not…" I replied while shaking my head.

She looked at me in confusion. "How are you so sure?"

I gritted my teeth before replying, "It's, it's because centipedes don't make wet thumping sounds…"

Murong Mingyue's mouth fell open. "Wet thumping sounds? Isn't that the sound unique to February 14th?"

Beiming Xue, Lian Xin and Lin Yixin immediately faced toward me in unison. "What does she mean?"

My face was deathly pale. How the h.e.l.l am I supposed to answer that?