Chapter Ninety-Eight: The End

Watching the front-line meat shields be peeled away by the Wind and Cloud Guild, one layer at a time, like bamboo shoots being stripped in spring, the Eastern Sea Dragon King panicked.

He had originally meant to hold position beneath the battle flag. With the stat bonus, he should have been able to coast all the way until time ran out and bring this pointless challenge match to a dignified close.

But the situation was already veering in another direction.

In truth, in a large-scale team battle, using a turtle strategy was suicide. If you just sat there taking hits, how could you possibly hold out?

This was no good. If they kept shrinking back and let the Wind and Cloud Guild beat them like rabbits, that would be far too humiliating.

"Disband formation! Go into melee with them! Fight them to the death! Cut down one if you can!"

The Roam-the-Four-Seas Guild quickly broke formation. Warriors launched a death charge, and the other classes followed close behind.

Soon, both sides were taking casualties.

"Hold steady. Find teammates on your own, form small squads, and finish them off as fast as you can."

Seeing his own side’s allies falling one after another, Wind and Cloud Under Heaven immediately ordered everyone to scatter into small groups and fight in skirmishes.

They would test each other’s damage and coordination head-on.

After disbanding the formation, the Eastern Sea Dragon King had kept his eyes fixed on Zhang Shan in the distance.

"Bring me a few tanky warriors. We’ll charge in and take down Six-Barrel Bodhisattva."

With that, he sprinted toward Zhang Shan. Once he got close, he triggered his charge skill and brought an axe down on Zhang Shan’s body.

That was a suicide move. There were plenty of teammates around Zhang Shan, and this was basically handing over a kill.

"Damn, the Eastern Sea Dragon King is charging Divine Weapon Bro! Focus fire and delete him!"

Before Zhang Shan even bothered to control Panda Cub or use a combo skill, a storm of damage from nearby teammates had already slammed into the Eastern Sea Dragon King.

With more than a dozen people attacking at once, plus Zhang Shan’s own damage, the leader of the Roam-the-Four-Seas Guild was on the ground again.

"Hahaha, that kill is mine! I dropped the Eastern Sea Dragon King!"

Wind and Cloud Cannon cheered triumphantly.

"Shut up and watch your positioning. Careful, they’re coming for you."

Sure enough, Wind and Cloud Cannon had not been smug for long before several warriors from the Four Seas Guild locked onto him.

"Damn it, you think you can go after our boss? Everyone in—hack him to pieces!"

Four or five warriors charged Wind and Cloud Cannon together. Blades flashed in a frenzy, and he was instantly sent to the floor.

His support team did not even get a chance to heal him.

So cool, and gone in three seconds.

Same class, same hunter, but he actually thought he was Zhang Shan. How could he dare draw aggro? That was just asking to die.

Zhang Shan and the teammates nearby quickly brought down those warriors, which counted as avenging Cannon.

The chaotic melee did not drag on for too long. In a battle involving several hundred players, as long as it was not a chase, a winner could be decided very quickly.

Both sides were suffering heavy losses. Overall, though, the Wind and Cloud Guild still held a slight advantage on the field, with fewer people down.

Even so, the battle remained brutally fierce. Although the guild leader, Wind and Cloud Under Heaven, was being desperately protected by a crowd of teammates, he still got hacked down by a swarm of blades.

Even Zhang Shan kept running into danger from time to time. Fortunately, he had Panda Cub under control, and at critical moments, he could smash one opponent to death with a combo. With the help of his other teammates, he managed to survive to the end.

The Roam-the-Four-Seas Guild had lost the overall battle. The remaining ten or so stragglers fled in panic, and Zhang Shan’s side did not chase them.

They turned immediately to the flag.

In a guild challenge, killing people was secondary. Once the flags were destroyed, everything was over. Why bother chasing after them?

There were still thirty or forty members of the Wind and Cloud Guild on the field, surrounding the enemy battle flag and attacking nonstop.

The Roam-the-Four-Seas Guild’s battle flag had one million health and one thousand defense.

Every strike from Zhang Shan dealt more than three thousand damage, and his teammates were putting out solid numbers as well.

"Hurry up and cut it down. If we can bring the flag down before they respawn and run back, we win."

"That might be a little hard. The dozen or so who ran off earlier have already come back. They definitely won’t let us cut the flag down in peace."

"Ignore them. Keep cutting. There are only a dozen or so. If they dare rush us, gun them down."

A dozen or so stragglers were nothing to Zhang Shan. Only a force of dozens or hundreds would make him back off.

A dozen people? And they wanted to charge him?

While Zhang Shan led the team in cutting the flag down at full speed, the battle flag’s health kept dropping, and the escaped remnants of the Roam-the-Four-Seas Guild were also growing anxious.

They could only watch helplessly as the enemy chopped at their own flag. It was infuriating. But if they rushed in, they would just be feeding kills. The dilemma was maddening.

"Boss Dragon King, do we still go in?"

"Nobody goes in. Let them cut it. End this sooner. This time it was my mistake. From now on, we’ll focus on leveling and gearing up. The game is still long."

System notification: The Wind and Cloud Guild has destroyed all enemy battle flags and won this guild challenge match.

Please check the guild section for your reward.

Once the notification rang out, the challenge map closed, and Zhang Shan and the others were teleported back to the guild base.

"Haha, we won just like that? It took us only about ten minutes to cut down all the flags. Our opponents were a bit weak."

"Pity the Roam-the-Four-Seas Guild’s contribution pool was so small. Ten percent only got us a little over a thousand points. What a bunch of ghosts."

"That’s not bad. They’d only been a guild for a little over a day. It was basically free loot. I’m jealous of the big shots who got to participate."

"Don’t be jealous of me. I was just running errands out there. I did almost nothing, and the fight ended."

"Passing by with five contribution points and a hundred gold in hand."

"Damn, the total was five hundred thousand gold. How did you only get a hundred? Were you just a spectator? Didn’t cut anyone down?"

"I got dropped twice. Where was I supposed to cut anyone down? I spent the whole match resurrecting and running for my life. Boo-hoo."

"Damn, Brother Six-Barrels, you accounted for almost forty percent of the entire combat power leaderboard. Just how many people did you cut down?"

Wind and Cloud Blade asked in amazement.

"No idea. Altogether, maybe sixty or seventy?"

Zhang Shan was not sure either. He had just kept firing nonstop. As for how many people he had actually cut down, he had never really bothered to count.

"Brother Blade, you actually had it pretty good. You took the side route and cut down a few people. We guys in the middle lane got hit by a scroll right at the start and all got flattened. How were we supposed to cut anyone down?"

"Exactly. In the final melee, whoever got unlucky and was taken down first basically had no combat value left."

"Heh heh, our rear support squad followed Brother Divine Weapon and still managed to rake in a bit of combat power."

"Pure dumb luck."

Zhang Shan checked his rewards. He had received more than one hundred and eighty thousand gold, and his personal contribution was just under four hundred.

A decent haul, all told.

At this point, gold was already trading at nearly one-for-one, so one guild battle had brought him almost two hundred thousand blue coins in profit.

Too bad guild challenges did not come often. From here on out, there probably would be very few stubborn fools willing to challenge the Wind and Cloud Guild.

This kind of income was hard to reproduce.

And the Wind and Cloud Guild probably would not challenge others either. First, there was a limit on challenge attempts: only one challenge and one defense per week.

Second, initiating a challenge required paying a fee. One million gold was not a small sum. Although Wind and Cloud Under Heaven was rich, he never spent money without reason.

Most importantly, challenges carried risk. This time they had fought in defense mode, but if someone came again next time, there was no guarantee the mode would be the same.

The announcement never said that guild challenges had only this single mode.