Chapter Eighty-Five: Guild War Intelligence

To think these big shots are still concerned about the axe dropped by the Dragon King of the East Sea—what a stroke of luck! Once the red name disappears, I’ll just teleport back to the city and put it up on the auction house for a sky-high price. Heh.

“The axe is still here. Once the red name wears off tonight, I’ll put it on auction.”

“So the artifact master is still at large. Turns out the legends about the Sovereign Seas guild were just empty boasts—this proves it.”

“I’m honestly impressed by how far they can stretch the truth. I wonder if they’ll get slapped in the face at the speed of light?”

“Their faces must already be swollen.”

“I used to think the Sovereign Seas guild was a mighty dragon crossing the river, but I guess I overestimated them.”

“With this level of strength, they still want to challenge the Stormcloud guild? Tomorrow’s guild war is going to be a total stomp.”

“Definitely. If they can’t even handle the Six-Armed Bodhisattva alone, how could they possibly win against the entire Stormcloud guild?”

“I just wonder what format the guild war will take in this new world.”

“No idea. There’s been no announcement on the forums. The two guilds must know, though. How else would they prepare?”

“Brother Tianxia, any idea what format the guild war will be? If you know, spill the beans.”

“I haven’t checked yet, still doing a dungeon. I’ll look into it once I’m done, and if there’s news, someone will post it on the forum.”

At this, Zhang Shan remembered he’d meant to check the guild section for any news about the upcoming guild war. The chaos stirred up by the Heaven-Slaying Dragon Blade and the Dragon King of the East Sea had nearly made him forget.

He continued grinding monsters as he opened the guild section, and sure enough, there was information about the guild war.

Guild Challenge.

Challenging Guild: Sovereign Seas Guild.

Challenged Guild: Stormcloud Guild.

Challenge Time: Scheduled for tomorrow night at eight, lasting one hour, to end early if either side fails or surrenders.

The challenger must pay a one million gold challenge fee, which will be refunded if they win, along with gaining ten percent of the opposing guild’s total contribution points.

If the challenged guild loses, they forfeit ten percent of their total contributions; if they win, they claim the one million gold fee and also take ten percent of the challenger’s contribution points.

Winner takes all—the operators aren’t taking a cut.

However, the challenge carries risks: if you lose, the one million gold goes to waste, and you also lose ten percent of your guild’s total contribution points.

The defending side has it a bit easier, risking only contribution points.

But as guild levels rise, losing ten percent of total contributions will be a hefty sum.

For now, though, the loss isn’t too severe.

Participant Limit: Each side can field no more than two hundred members.

A power ranking will be set up for the battle, with each side having its own list showing members’ combat performance during the guild war.

Challenge Format:

It’s a battle of banners—each side has three battle flags, and if all are brought down, that side loses.

If time runs out and the defending side still has any flags standing, the challenger is deemed to have failed.

Both sides have a resurrection point. The first time a player dies, they revive after one minute; the second time, after three minutes, and so on.

Near their own flags, members receive attribute boosts: first-level flags grant a ten percent boost, second-level flags twenty percent, and so forth—up to ninety percent with ninth-level flags.

A level one flag has one million health, level two has five million, and each subsequent flag increases health fivefold.

Flag level matches the guild’s level.

Damn, if a guild reaches level five, a flag would have over three hundred million HP! You could leave it undefended and it would be nearly impossible to break. And if a guild reaches level nine, who could imagine how high that HP would climb—it’s unfathomable.

This guild challenge mode gives a massive advantage to higher-level guilds. Once a guild hits level five, who would dare challenge them? It would be like handing over free money.

To upgrade from level one to two, a guild needs one hundred thousand contribution points. The Stormcloud guild currently has over ninety thousand, and already has one guild building. By tomorrow, they’ll reach level two. Sovereign Seas is truly unlucky, challenging a level two guild with a level one.

Three flags totaling fifteen million HP—just standing there waiting to be cut will still take quite a while.

If the Dragon King of the East Sea knew this was the outcome, he’d be beside himself with regret.

This guild war is in the bag. No matter what trump cards they have, even a scroll that wipes out the entire map wouldn’t help.

Even if players are killed, the flags remain. They’d still need to chop them down, and with a one-minute respawn on first death, that’s hardly enough time to fell a flag.

It’s not like they’d have multiple such scrolls.

Zhang Shan had always thought the Dragon King of the East Sea was brimming with confidence because he had an ace up his sleeve. As for what that card was, it wasn’t hard to guess.

It definitely wasn’t equipment—nothing game-breaking had appeared on the rankings.

Nor was it a skill; something like the Wrath of the Stars, for instance, couldn’t be used anyway, since no one’s mana pool was high enough to cast it.

Even if they’d lucked into some extraordinary special item to boost their mana, it would only be usable once, and such ultimate skills had a twenty-four-hour cooldown.

Zhang Shan guessed it was probably a scroll, like the silence scroll he’d looted from a priest, which could silence a mage for five minutes.

Maybe the Dragon King had gotten his hands on a powerful scroll, perhaps one that dealt massive area damage and could wipe out a group in an instant.

Of course, it could be something else, but it didn’t matter. There’s no way they could rely on a scroll to bring down all of Stormcloud’s flags.

A boss with ten million HP takes Zhang Shan’s team half an hour to kill; these three flags total fifteen million. With two hundred people attacking non-stop, it would still take twenty minutes—and not everyone’s output matched Zhang Shan’s.

There was no need to worry about tomorrow’s guild war. For now, it was best to safely clear the red name.

After closing the guild section, Zhang Shan looked up ahead.

Damn—the Wolf King.

Not far away, the massive Wolf King stood imposingly.

Zhang Shan quickly backed off to put some distance between himself and the Wolf King.

Damn, he’d been so absorbed in reading about the guild war that he’d nearly run into the Wolf King—how close a call!

If he’d run into it, he’d be sent back to the city, and with over seven hundred infamy points, he’d be stuck in the penalty zone for more than seventy hours—just the thought was terrifying.

Clearly, in the future, he’d need to stay focused while grinding, especially when flagged as a red name.

It was just too dangerous.

But running into the Wolf King was also a stroke of luck. A red boss that drops gear is almost impossible to find.

Since they’d taken it down once before, doing it again would be no problem.

First, though, he’d check with Stormcloud Saber to see how their dungeon boss fight was going. It was taking ages—could they be about to wipe? Is the dungeon’s hard mode really that difficult?