The Great Thief

Ruling Sword defeated Brotherhood in the first match of the top 16, but this didn’t mean that they were guaranteed a spot in the top 8.

The rules were set such that top 16 teams were to have three random matches. Ruling Sword defeated Brotherhood and would be facing another two opponents at random. The same rule applied to other clubs and the final tally would determine who entered the next round.

From this match, Ruling Sword had obtained 9 points.

There were five from the one-on-one and another five from the group match, totaling 10 points. The group matches were self-explanatory and the one-on-one matches were calculated by number of kills minus the number of defeats.

In the one-on-one matches Lu Li and Moonlight killed all five opponents.

However, Moonlight also died before Lu Li, which deducted one point from Ruling Sword’s total and added it to the Brotherhood’s. This wasn’t the end for the Brotherhood either; they still had a chance to turn the tide around in the next two matches.

They wouldn’t be so lucky anymore in the next round though – there would be a set of three matches instead.

If Brotherhood ran up against Ruling Sword in the top eight, then they would be fighting against Ruling Sword all three times. One match would be conducted in the city of the Brotherhood, while the next would involve the Brotherhood coming over to the city of Ruling Sword. The third would be decided by random.

Offline matches, which had disappeared, were coming into a resurgence a century later.

A decision like this made the match a lot more complicated, but from a business angle, made the competitors more valuable in real life.

There was the interaction between competitors and their fans, and between the clubs and the city. The new way of running things was changing the foundations laid down previously by the old system. As someone who has reincarnated, Lu Li knew better than anyone else how beneficial this system was for clubs.

The match time for the top 16 had been dragged on for a lot longer; there was only one match each day.

Each included a huge audience, professional analysts, endless topics of discussion and all sorts of tactics behind the scenes.

Lu Li blocked an attack that almost landed on him with Gale Steps. He then rolled over behind a rock and by the time the attacker chased over, they were unable to find him anymore. They casted many spells at random but could only wait until the next time the System allowed them to track coordinates.

If someone was on the wanted list in Dawn, then those who took up the quest to hunt them down would be given the chance to look up the coordinates of their target every half an hour.

This search wasn’t available to multiple people at once.

No matter how many players took up the quest, the coordinate search service would be made unavailable once someone used it. Others had to wait half an hour to search the coordinates up. Lu Li was often hunted, so his coordinates were never a secret to anyone. However, it was rare for anyone to actually come for him.

Since the match from this afternoon, this was the seventh wave of players who had tried to kill him.

The first and second wave had less players and were all slain by Lu Li, but the numbers increased greatly from the third wave onwards, involving many players with decent levels and equipment. Lu Li’s only option was to run away.

“Help me find out what happened. Why are there so many people trying to kill me?” Lu Li messaged Square Root 3 hid behind a tree near the waist of the mountain.

Square Root 3’s reply came quickly without much of a delay.

“The situation is quite complicated, but it’s mostly because of your equipment. Some players think that you have something good on you and want to loot what you drop. These are mostly mercenaries and some are sent by the major guilds. They probably think that you’ll affect the balance in the upcoming matches…”

“Major guilds? Do you know which ones?” Lu Li asked.

Lu Li couldn’t do much about those mercenaries who cared more about money than their lives. However, if he knew which major guilds were hunting him down, he didn’t mind exacting his revenge. Anyone could be assassinated by him.

“There’s no way they’d use their own players. These are just random players that they’ve kept out of the guild,” Square Root 3 answered without much hope.

“Well, this is quite annoying. Send some players to protect me I guess.”

Lu Li felt helpless. Even though the life of a celebrity player seemed enticing, there were still some inconveniences that they had to deal with. The only thing going for Lu Li was that the System had raised the prices for players to search up coordinates, and the price was adjusted based on the value of the target.

For someone like Lu Li, it would cost at least ten thousand dollars to search him up once.

Dozens of Thieves from Ruling Sword positioned themselves around him. In the same map, Square Root 3 also placed down a few hundred-man crews to level up together. They would come over to assist in battle upon signal.

After dozens of minutes when everything was all sorted, Lu Li’s coordinates became available again for search.

A Thief who was on guard in the outer circle sent a signal in the chat.

“Boss, incoming. There’s about a hundred of them. It’s hard to tell which mercenary group they belong to; they’ve torn off their mercenary badge and have their faces covered.”

“Gather around. Kill them all,” Lu Li commanded without a second thought.

Lu Li wasn’t the slightest bit concerned with whether these people were targeting him or not. It didn’t matter if he killed the wrong players; this was how major guilds acted. They would rather kill everyone than miss their target.

It would be even better if everyone around Dawn knew that anyone who got close to Lu Li would be killed. Things would be much easier.

The Warrior that led the charge waved his axe around, his voice shaking from the excitement.

“They’re just ahead. Everyone be careful; don’t let Lu Li escape,”

They were a mercenary group who after watching the match in the morning, realized how valuable the equipment on Lu Li was.

They just had to kill Lu Li – any equipment from him was enough to fund their mercenary group for a long time.

With their great goal in mind, they spent ten thousand real life dollars to look up Lu Li’s coordinates. To ensure that they wouldn’t fail, they had hundreds of players run this mission.

In their sight, Lu Li was still leveling, as if he knew nothing about their appearance.

They had no clue how hard it was to catch Lu Li – all the seven waves before them weren’t capable of catching him at all. However, people always wanted to try their luck. They quickly forgot the invisible risks as they tunnel-visioned onto him.

“Attack!”

“Attack!”

Both voices sounded out at almost the same time from the different teams as the battle was sparked in an instant.