Reign of the Hunters

“You’ve been knocked off your mount.”

The 2 system notifications appeared as Ye Ci fell off from Ol’ Four’s back. The biggest difference between a combat mount and a normal mount was that it could be rode into combat and it would not disappear if its owner was knocked down.

Ye Ci’s little red horse was a very good example. If she was attacked by someone while riding the horse, she would immediately be knocked off of it, and the horse would disappear. It would only reappear when Ye Ci summoned it when she exited combat status. Ol’ Four was very different from that. Even after Ye Ci was knocked down, it would not disappear, as it was a combat mount, and it would carry out the most basic defensive actions. This meant that it would automatically attack the last person who had attacked its owner.

Mallow had actually been trying to hit Ye Ci with a number of his abilities. He was shocked when Ye Ci resisted the effects of 2 of them. Just how high was the level of this Huntress? She was immune to 2 of his skills! Staggering Blow and Bash however, were able to connect, and Ye Ci fell down from Ol’ Four. She stood shakily with her head lowered. She was being Stunned.

What Mallow had not expected was that Ol’ Four did not disappear even after Ye Ci had fallen from his back. He had not even paid much attention to Ol’ Four, and instead immediately used Bone Shear on Ye Ci... But before his dagger could sink itself into Ye Ci’s body, his vision went black, and he received a system notification, “You have died.”

Mallow was baffled. He had not even noticed that he had taken damage, and had not been notified by the system that he had been attacked either. How did he die? He could not even choose the method of his resurrection upon death, nor could he see his corpse. He appeared immediately in the city that he was bound to.

He stood dumbfounded in front of the Goddess of Fate NPC that had resurrected him. Why was he here? Wasn’t he still in a Guild Battle?

“How did I die? How the fuck did I die?” Mallow immediately shouted out in the guild channel, “I’ve been sent back to the city! Is that a bug? Wouldn’t I have the choice to revive myself in battle when I died? Why am I back in the city?”

He received no reply from his guildmates.

“Crimson, what the hell happened?” Mallow began to call out to Crimson Twilight.

“Crimson is unable to talk to you at a moment.” Replied a player called MinMinMinMin, who was currently a corpse. “He’s running for his life.”

“What? What is he running away from?”

“There’s a dinosaur chasing after him...” MinMinMinMin replied.

Mallow was puzzled. Hadn’t he Stunned Gongzi You? Even if a lot of the ranged players were killed, there were still enough of them left. Couldn’t they kill Gongzi You? What were they doing?

The following was what happened at that time:

Just as Mallow was about to stab Ye Ci in the back, Ol’ Four immediately turned around and bit down on him, and then swallowed him whole. The players present were horrified by what happened. Mallow was swallowed whole, just like that, by a dinosaur!

Players from Upwards Ho! were quite far away from the scene, and did not know what had happened. The Full Moon’s Night players, who were just a stone’s throw away however, could see everything clearly. Their eyes bulged, and they had even forgot to channel their spells.

But there were still players who were able to react, and they struggled to finish channeling their spells, raining down high damage abilities on Ye Ci.

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Ye Ci could only watch as her HP rapidly dropped. There was still 5 seconds before the Stun duration was over. She could not heal herself with potions or scrolls, there was nothing she could do. Her heart sank. It seemed that she would die on this day.

Just as the thought flashed across her mind, she felt a warmth enveloping her body, and her HP soard. Even then, the value of her HP bar was unstable, and was rising and falling rapidly. It was a torturing 5 seconds. It was like she was struggling between the thin line separating life and death.

When the Stun duration was over, Ye Ci immediately used a scroll that increased her magic resistance by 30% and chugged down a Health Potion. She then dashed straight at Ol’ Four.

Mounting a steed in combat was a child’s play for Ye Ci, whose character possessed high Balance and Agility. She was fast to mount Ol’ Four. She turned around, and saw Fruit Jelly and Icy Cold LIttle Hands healing her up while swiftly repositioning themselves. Both of them were females, but from how good their positioning was, it was obvious that they had improved by a lot. Although it was not perfect, the improvements were obvious.

Just then, when Fruit Jelly was channeling a spell, she staggered and fell onto the ground, and a Rogue appeared behind her. Ye Ci raised her crossbow and fired a Viper Stinger and cast Rapid Fire on the Rogue.

Her luck was good. She dealt 4 critical strikes in a row,, slaying the Rogue instantly. Icy Cold Little Hands had a good situational awareness. They immediately began moving towards Fruit Jelly with another Cleric once she noticed that Fruit Jelly was Stunned. She cast healing spells at Fruit Jelly as she ran, helping Fruit Jelly to survive the 8 seconds of Stun duration.

The ranged players of Full Moon’s Night had already scattered at this point. They’d discovered just how ferocious Ol’ Four was, and deduced that he could deal a lot of AOE damage but could only deal very mediocre single attack damage, and they began to scatter. The scene when Ye Ci killed a dozen of them instantly was deeply engraved in their minds.

A Hunter can be so tough, huh...?

The most common stereotype that players had about the Hunter class was that it was a class that was very strong when it came to single attack damage, but was quite mediocre when it came to handling massed enemies. This meant that Hunters could have a very high damage output when fighting against BOSSes but would be easily overwhelmed by massed monsters. This T-rex pet however, had directly complemented a Hunter’s lack of AOE abilities.

The Hunters present in the battle had all decided to get a T-rex as their pet after witnessing how tough Ol’ Four was. When the recordings of this Guild War was uploaded online, Hunters with a T-rex as their pet became a trend in Fate. Of course, that was something that would happen later.

At this moment, Ye Ci was chasing the ranged enemy players around with Ol’ Four, and then heading back to the Clerics of her own guild when her HP was too low. Ol’ Four was obviously hungry at that point, and began a strike. It ended up just eating the corpses of the players to satiate its hunger.

This caused a wave of nausea among the players. What the hell were the devs thinking when they designed this game...?

Ye Ci’s attack had tore a gaping hole in the Full Moon’s Night’s battle line. The guild members of Upwards Ho! immediately jumped down from their fortifications and engaged their enemy in combat.

The cries of battle filled the air. Ye Ci could only dismiss Ol’ Four and summoned Ol’ Three to carry on the fight as the former refused to fight after receiving no food from Ye Ci.

The Guild War ended at 11am.

The system announcement immediately rang out, “The Guild War between Full Moon’s Night and Upwards Ho! has ended. Please refrain from attacking each other.”

The names of players from both sides turned green, and the combatants had no choice but to stop the fight while waiting for the system to announce the victors. Since Full Moon’s Night had not succeeded in breaking through the defences of Upwards Ho!, the victor in this battle would be determined by the system.

The entire process took 1 minute. In that minute, players from both sides could not leave the map. They glared at each other, and after some of them decided to carry on the fight, a verbal battle erupted in place of a physical one.

Ye Ci sat against the encampment wall while patting on Ol’ Three’s head. Trash talking had always given her headaches.

Fortunately, the 1 minute passed quickly. The system notification rang out over the curses and name calling of both sides. “Result of the Guild War: Full Moon’s Night suffered 289 casualties while sustaining 0 damage to their fortifications. Upwards Ho! suffered 106 casualties, and needed 46,872 gold coins to repair their fortifications. Upwards Ho! lost to Full Moon’s Night with a slight disadvantage.

It was an expected result.

Ye Ci knew for a fact that although Full Moon’s Night was unable to cause many casualties within the ranks of Upwards Ho! players, it was not cheap to repair the fortifications of a guild encampment. With that, the difference between the losses sustained by both guilds was huge. Based on Ye Ci’s calculations, if Upwards Ho! had taken a longer time to fight back, they would’ve lost without a doubt. She was correct. If they’d gone online earlier, if only the morale of Upwards Ho! members was not that low, the situation would not have been that bad.

The members of Full Moon’s Night were delighted. They were immediately transported out of the map. Although they’d gained nothing much out of the Guild War, at least their reputation would be greatly improved. The morale of Upwards Ho! members dropped to a new low after their loss.

“Both victory and defeat are common fare in a war. There’s nothing to be sad about it. Prepare yourselves, we’re going into the Frosty Wasteland Inner Sanctum tomorrow.” Ye Ci did not mind the defeat. What she was worrying more about was: What the hell are they going to do about the encampment fortifications that were already 80% damaged?

Timely Rain was really timely. He sent Ye Ci a message, “Our guild has some savings from selling materials and some equipment. It was meant for the members’ salary. I guess we could use it to repair the fortifications first?”

Although Ye Ci had preferred to repair the fortifications first, she did not immediately make the decision. She sent a message to Bai Mo and asked for his opinion. After all, it was important to win over the hearts and minds of the guild members, and it was not something that she was good at. Bai Mo was quick to reach a decision, “Phoenix Claw, give out compensation to the guild members who participated in the Guild War today. Pay them accordingly to the length of time they participated and their number of deaths.”

This was the first time Upwards Ho! had officially given out salaries to the guild members. But this had also shown how bad the guild’s financial condition was. Bai Mo sighed. “The guild needs money... The guild needs more money.”