The Great Thief

Of course, this situation was unlikely to last long. The players in Wings of Dawn were not stupid. Once they felt as though they couldn’t use this Revive point, they would naturally revive in a further location.

“I already told you not to call me by my real name. Why don’t you listen?” Wandering cried out as he shook his head in sorrow.

 Fortunately, Elevenless and the others had already revived at the further Revive Point. Otherwise they would have been really annoyed by that statement.

“Retreat! Get ready for their counterattack,” Lu Li instructed, calling everyone back. The Stronghold’s wall had been breached, which meant that their opponents could flood in if they wanted to. If they weren’t careful, Wings of Dawn could attack their Stronghold Crystal and still secure a victory.

By the time they rushed to the further Revive point, almost all the Wings of Dawn players would have been revived.

There was no real need to meet them face on in a fight like that anyway.

At this time, the Wings of Dawn players had finally been revived. A group of players were streaming out of the Revive point, but they all had a miserable look on their faces.

 Overall, they had just experienced just shy of 100 deaths, which meant that they had lost almost 40-50 pieces of equipment. In addition to the previous wars, each player had on average lost a piece of equipment over the course of these Stronghold wars.

 That was 80 pieces of equipment!

 The players that were part of the Elite Group and who were allowed to participate in the Stronghold war had particularly good equipment.

 If you took two players of equal strength, and one of them was a casual player, then they had to be more skilful. If the other was a club player, then there was no doubt that most of their strength would come from their exquisite equipment. This was determined by Dawn’s monetisation system.

Many of this exquisite Instance Dungeon equipment could only be obtained by guilds and powerful Mercenary Groups. This equipment was generally not for sale either.

This meant that Wings of Dawn had lost 80 pieces of exquisite equipment, and quite a significant proportion of those items were Epics. Dream 13 made a rough estimate. According to the current market prices, each item had an average value of 500 gold. This meant that the 80 pieces of equipment were worth more than 1 million dollars.

In addition to the bid for this Stronghold War, they had lost 3 million dollars.

 Three million dollars was no small amount. It was enough for him to get beat up if he tried to report this loss to the board of directors.

“What now?” Elevenless asked, also feeling a bit frustrated.

 They had already suffered twice. The first time was enough to make them depressed, so the second was unbearable. Ruling Sword seemed to have deliberately allowed them to breach the wall so they easily pursue them afterwards.

 He was afraid of another loss like that, and who knew if there were any more traps?

 “We can use our Thieves the scout them out and see where they are,” Dream 13 suggested, but he needed to lift their spirits first.

 In fact, he could have chosen to give up on attacking the Stronghold, since there wasn’t much time left anyway. They had no real hope of taking this Stronghold, but he knew that it wasn’t good to make such a decision, especially with all the losses in equipment they had suffered.

In the short term, the club might save some money, but their reputation would be damaged in the long term.

If they didn’t fight because they were afraid of losing, then what would the Wings of Dawn do in the future? Would they just always have to retreat whenever they saw Ruling Sword?

 If he caused the loss of a few dozen pieces of equipment, he might be embarrassed, but if he retreated now then he would probably get beaten up by his old man as well. His father was a firm and resolute man, who would dare to rush into battle even when the odds were against him. In this situation, he was actually evenly matched in terms of numbers, so how could he call a retreat?

 The scouts quickly began to report the location of Ruling Sword’s players.

 They were just by the breach in the wall. The scouts also reported on the chariot situation. After the second defeat, they had also lost all their chariots in addition to the lost equipment.

Although the wall had been breached, there were no chariots to rush in with.

 However, there was a better plan than using chariots. If they could make the gap larger, then the Wings of Dawn players could flood in without getting stuck. If the gap was bigger, Ruling Sword wouldn’t be able to contain the situation like they were doing right now.

The two sides began to confront one another again at the gap in the wall.

 This time, Dream 13 and Elevenless were no longer quarrelling with Wandering. In fact, they were completely silent.

Lu Li didn’t naively think that it was because they were afraid. He continually repositioned his players and played an active defense.

This silence was obviously the calm before the storm. The Wings of Dawn players were obviously desperate.

“Would you like the split up command of the troops? If they send some Thieves, it might get annoying,” Wandering asked.

“You can take two players to protect the crystal. If you need help, just ask. We’ll stop them from here.”

Lu Li thought about it for a moment, and felt like having insurance was better. Although this division would diminish their forces, the pressure by the wall was still significant.

Fortunately, this battle was still going, and time was running out for the Wings of Dawn.

The battle had started again, and Elevenless rushed in with the others following closely. This time they were prepared and several Mages cast skills together to instantly kill Elevenless.

 However, the remaining players were no longer able to fully block off the gap.

 Everyone was now committed to the fighting, and the gap was a key position being contested.

 “Wandering is gone! Force him to come out and face his death!”

Elevenless had soon returned after being revived and rejoined the battle. He initiated the fight by casting Whirlwind, killing two players from Ruling Sword.

“What arrogance,” Fat Monkey muttered as he pounced onto him. “You’re now fighting without Whirlwind and you dare to say things like that? Aren’t you useless without that skill?”

 Elevenless was quickly killed again by the ranged players.

 Berserkers were quite awkward in these kinds of sieges. They lacked manoeuvrability and weren’t tanky enough, so they were an easy target.

“Hey, it’s another Epic! Thanks Elevenless!” Fat Monkey laughed as he quickly grabbed the equipment, and cast Blink to escape the Wings of Dawn players. The PVP standards were getting higher, and because the Blackrock Spire Instance Dungeon basically prohibited Fire Mages, he had to fight other players who had experienced the Instance Dungeon to hone his skills.

 Here, Fat Monkey had grabbed a piece of Elevenless’ equipment, but the Wings of Dawn players had also killed Remnant Dream and took a piece of equipment from her.

There were many similar situations where equipment was being traded.

 Ruling Sword wasn’t overwhelming them like in the previous two wars. They weren’t just harvesting all the equipment.

The battle lasted for more than 10 minutes, and the Wings of Dawn finally pushed into the Stronghold. The Stronghold Crystal was not too far from the breach, and they could see it. The Wings of Dawn players were filled with bloodlust. If they destroyed the crystal, the Stronghold

 would be theirs.

 Oh…

 A long horn sounded, and Dream 13 suddenly realized that they had forgotten something.

The Ancient of Lore!

 Countless saplings jumped out from the thick bushes on both sides of the road and overwhelmed the Wings of Dawn players.

“Defend!” Dream 13 shouted.

It was another trap!

 Dream 13 wished that they could just fight normally. He felt like Lu Li was deliberately sabotaging themselves so that they could trigger the traps, one at a time.