The Great Thief

If this was Moonlight, then who was riding the Headless Paladin Warhorse?

There were only two players in Ruling Sword that had the Headless Paladin’s Steed. The first was the Boss Lu Li and the other was an Elite player Nuo Yu.

Ruling Sword’s two well-known fire Mages were quite easily recognized. Fat Monkey often wore a flaming red robe and a golden crown on their heads. Nuo Yu usually wore low-key black equipment and had a slightly longer blue Magic Staff. Both these players were likely carrying a number of exquisite equipment.

Since this person didn’t look like Nuo Yu, it was probably Lu Li.

Moonlight and Lu Li…

This was such an exciting moment for the players. These were legendary names that you could only see on TV. Now that they had appeared next them, there was no way they could easily calm down.

Arthur’s live chat was bubbling with excitement.

“This is fake, it must be. Why would Lu Li go to the battlefield?”

“Even if they needed to farm some points, surely Lu Li would have just sent someone instead of going themselves?”

“It might not be true, but who else could it be? Moonlight is already there. Arthur you’ve hit it big today. I’m going to other chatrooms to advertise for you. I’ll tell them you’re fighting alongside Moonlight.”

“Get in there! What are you waiting for? Go and fight!”

“Hug his legs and call him daddy!”

“Daddy!”

“Daddy Moonlight, wait for me! I want to go into the battlefield too!”

“You two idiots, that really is Lu Li. Look, Moonlight is following him into battle. Who else would be qualified enough that Moonlight would follow them? One of the other ones must be the Goddess March Rain. You should approach her, I beg you…”

The player that was asking them to call him daddy also reacted quickly to this revelation. He put on his equipment and started crying out daddy as he rushed out.

It was a pity that he could only chase them on foot and was soon left in the dust.

Lu Li turned back and looked dumbfounded. The eleven players were following him to the Gold Mine. There wasn’t even a single player capturing the Barn.

“You guys shouldn’t follow us. Send one team to the Sawmill and the rest to the Blacksmith. We will support you from the Gold Mines,” Lu Li said, acting as the temporary command from the battlefield channel. One of the problems with random teams was that it could be hard to coordinate, but surprisingly, everyone, even the one fool, obeyed his instructions.

In fact, he had underestimated his own influence.

He was Lu Li and the fact that he had lost first place on the Level Rankings did not affect his reputation. He was not admired because of his level and equipment, but because he once killed Sorrowless, then done it again and again in the arena. He had a long record of defeating powerful opponents.

Besides, he was also Dawn’s most respected Commander.

This was a very powerful idea. It could be said that almost everyone in this battlefield had seen Lu Li’s video. Within Ruling Sword, these videos were promoted to teach PVP and Instance Dungeon skills. As such, they all subconsciously viewed Lu Li’s commands as part of his teaching.

Since the teacher was speaking, they all listened because they knew he wouldn’t be wrong.

When he saw the group of players splitting up, Lu Li was somewhat relieved. If they all fought together, it wouldn’t matter how strong they were – they would still lose.

The Gold Mines were at a lower elevation as it was cut into the mountain wall. These mines were covered by a building and this was where the resource points were generated. For the sake of the game and ease of calculation, all five resource points generated the resources at the same speed.

At this time, both sides were rushing to the resource points at the various locations and whoever got there first could immediately start capturing the area.

Lu Li hadn’t even reached the Gold Mine, but he saw a Horde player riding a mount. This player stopped his mount before reaching the location. He had the situational awareness to realize that his teammates on foot hadn’t arrived yet and he couldn’t take on four players on his own.

Lu Li didn’t chase but protected Her Tears as he captured the location.

Her Tears cast Consecration around the area and began capturing the flag. Holy Light burned

on the ground, protecting him from any hidden Thieves.

System: Her Tears is capturing the Gold Mine. If you don’t act quickly, the Alliance will capture it within a minute.

After the Gold Mine’s flag had been captured, Lu Li stayed behind to protect the flag while the other three immediately rushed on their mounts to the next point. It seemed like they had all left the point alone.

The flag was located in a groove and Lu Li chose to take up a position near it. From his position, he could watch as players respawned and see if anyone was trying to capture it. Before long, someone started looking down at the mines from the mountains above.

It was a Mage and he was excited when he discovered that there wasn’t anyone here.

The excitement stemmed from the fact that capturing a resource point for free could turn the tide of a match. Even if it didn’t have such an exaggerated impact, there was still a sense of accomplishment for the ordinary players.

The Mage jumped down with a floating technique that was similar to a Priest’s. The difference was that this move required some materials to cast and it could only be cast on themselves.

Lu Li didn’t immediately attack the Mage.

The Mage was very vigilant; he first cast several skills around the flag. These were area of effect skills that didn’t have high damage, but were instant and didn’t use much mana. The Mage was likely trying to reveal any Thieves that were hidden there.

Lu Li watched as the Mage did all this in vain.

When the Mage finally felt like the area was finally safe, he then started capturing the flag. He could almost hear his name being announced when he successfully captured this point.

This process of capturing the flag was 30 seconds, which wasn’t a long time.

However, for this Mage, the 30 seconds felt like an eternity, especially in this eerily empty mine.

When the capturing reached 25 seconds, his uneasy feelings were confirmed as his channelling was cancelled upon being hit by a Sap from a Thief.

Damned Thieves!

This Thief hadn’t appeared before, so he probably wasn’t that strong. Even if he dealt with this Thief and then captured the flag, it wouldn’t make a difference.

The Mage was about to confidently turn around and deal with this Thief when he found himself now affected by Cheap Shot.

This time, it wasn’t a Sap, but a Cheap Shot. The hidden player now seemed a little bit stronger, but the Mage still sneered in his heart and waited for his opponent to show himself. Even if this rookie got the first attack, what difference would that make?

“Wait, why is he dealing so much damage? Wait, was that just a Shadowstrike?”

The Mage had just lost 500HP in one attack and quickly died after that. Lu Li had an advantage in a one-on-one and didn’t really need to strain himself. Once he got rid of the Mage, he went back to watching the position. The role of being a flag-keeper was quite boring.

After a minute, the System once again announced that the Alliance had occupied the Gold Mine.

In addition to the Barn and the Blacksmith, the Alliance now had three resource points which was one more than the Horde.

However, Lu Li was in trouble. He once again saw the Mage that had previously died, but this time, he was not alone. He had arrived with a Paladin and a Druid. This would be a difficult fight and he had no choice but to call for support.

“I need help at the Gold Mines. Is anyone nearby?”

“Yep, I’m here. I’ll come right away. Hold on, Lu Li,” Arthur, the streamer who had been constantly abused, responded promptly.

His live chat began to grow excited once again.

It should have been like this from the beginning. Arthur hurriedly rushed over as the number of viewers on his stream almost broke 50,000.

From 500 viewers to 50,000 – Arthur was now on fire!

His blood was boiling at the thought of saving the game’s number one player…

Arthur had no intention of paying attention to the chat and had turned it off. He was now desperately running towards Lu Li.

He was a Paladin that had gone for a balanced build.

This so-called balanced build Paladin meant that he could tank, heal and deal damage. It seemed quite comprehensive, but it really meant that he wasn’t proficient in anything. Fortunately, he had some situational awareness and when he saw Lu Li crowd-controlling the Mage, fighting the Druid and interrupting the Paladin, he chose to heal Lu Li.

Lu Li had lost a lot of HP and was quickly returned to full. He still had plenty of mana, so Arthur could continually heal him.

Lu Li kicked the Druid as he was casting a healing skill and slashed at his neck.

Slit Throat!

The Druid slammed into the ground as the skill was a critical hit. This might have partly been carelessness on his end because he had underestimated Lu Li. He thought that a three-on-one would be easy, so he didn’t heal earlier. By the time he did it, he didn’t anticipate for Lu Li to interrupt the skill.

The Paladin who wanted to capture the flag didn’t expect that his teammates would lose the fight.

In fact, the Druid’s Bear Form did make him tankier, but with weaker equipment and skills, the extra HP didn’t mean much.

In addition, there were no healers present, which was advantageous for Lu Li. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to kill a Druid, even if they were on really low HP.

After killing the Druid, he immediately rushed at the Mage who was still blinded.

The Horde players at the Gold Mines were quickly cleared out and the crisis had been averted. At this time, the System prompted them that Moonlight was capturing the Sawmill. More and more pressure was being exerted onto the Horde players, and the battle quickly came to an end.

After the match, Arthur sent a request to join Lu Li’s team, but this was ignored.