Chapter 15: The Severe Situation

Time passed and it had been several months since Zhou Tian attacked the NPC village. After the event, Zhou Tian's territory enjoyed a rare period of stability. Both Zhou Tian and the NPCs were quietly gathering strength, in preparation for the next war.

Judging by the atmosphere, it was believed that their situation would remain unchanged for a considerable period. Until one side fully prepared to instigate trouble, it was unlkely for Zhou Tian's area to experience any warfare.

However, although Zhou Tian and the NPCs had no intention to wage a war, the intrusion of a third party inevitably caused some fluctuations in the situation of Zhou Tian's territory.

Zhou Tian didn't prepare much defense against the NPC village. Although he didn't witness the final situation, his previous experience on the battlefield led him to conclude that his last action had severely damaged the NPC village. Judging by their situation, he believed they would remain passive for a considerable period, as they had yet to recover their vitality.

In fact, Zhou Tian was not wrong in his assessment. Despite suffering serious losses at the hands of the Beastmen, the NPC village had not made any radical moves. The tension was palpable, yet they were only preparing for battle, never once instigating a war.

However, even though Zhou Tian had anticipated the NPCs' reaction, he still underestimated their desire for revenge.

Indeed, given the current world conditions, the major forces of the NPCs already faced immense difficulties just resisting the pressure from the monsters. Under such circumstances, no other NPCs would intervene if a small village suffered some losses and appealed for help.

Yet, while Zhou Tian anticipated no other NPC forces interfering in his dealings with the NPC village, he completely overlooked a crucial point. Apart from their own forces, the NPCs could also mobilize the players.

Players constitute a unique group. Monsters rely on them for reproduction, while NPCs utilize players' combat power to diminish the strength of the monsters. In this way, players with their unique status have come to stir things up like a shit-stirring stick. Any matter involving them inevitably brings unpredictability.

As such, while the presence of players means Zhou Tian has more opportunities to earn merit, he honestly doesn't want these players to get involved. After all, players enjoy too much freedom. High-level players can easily enter the domains of lower-level creatures. Killing players will certainly bring merit to Zhou Tian, but if he accidentally provokes high-level players, his current strength is obviously insufficient to cope with them.

Nevertheless, regardless of Zhou Tian's unwillingness to get the players involved, the NPCs have already acted, making his opinion irrelevant.

Those NPCs had underestimated Zhou Tian before and suffered in their confrontations with him. Now, when Zhou Tian felt assured he had the NPCs under control, a small maneuver by them made him realize that the NPCs weren't as weak as he thought.

Since the NPCs themselves lacked the ability to deal with the Beastman Clan, they directly used a task assignment method to make players fight Zhou Tian. While it's unrealistic for players to obliterate all Beastmen, a massive attack from a large number of players would undoubtedly affect the Beastman Clan's recovery speed, thereby allowing the NPCs to recover first.

The NPC's intentions were plainly obvious. However, even if Zhou Tian understood their intentions, how? In response to the NPC's actions, Zhou Tian had no choice but to cooperate with them.

The arrival of players was inevitable and Zhou Tian couldn't influence their decision. Instead, after a large number of players poured into their area, Zhou Tian had to be careful not to cause too much chaos. If he wasn't careful, he might draw the attention of the players.

Having been a player himself, Zhou Tian understood that if something newsworthy happened in the game, bored players, necessary or not, would rush to see it. If such a situation occurred, considering Zhou Tian's current power, the players would probably wipe out his forces in just a few rounds.

He could not miss the merit presented by these players, but he also had to think of ways to avoid drawing attention by making too big moves. Without a doubt, these NPCs had posed a problem for Zhou Tian. If he couldn't handle it properly, he might find himself in big trouble.

Facing such a situation, Zhou Tian prepared his response as soon as the players showed up.

The first thing Zhou Tian did was to rearrange the patrol locations of his Beastman warriors. Although he was somewhat wary of the players, it would not serve as a reason for him to send his men to their deaths. To avoid danger, Zhou Tian would certainly send out spies. However, in this process, he also needed to ensure that his Beastman warriors wouldn't run into players too much. Otherwise, if his Beastman warriors suffered heavy casualties at the hands of the players, he would be playing into the hands of the NPCs.

Rushing to make arrangements, Zhou Tian had no time to prepare. Under the arrangement of the NPCs, groups of players were showing up near his territory in droves.

In fact, perhaps the NPCs themselves weren't certain who their enemies were! So, the missions given by the NPCs seemed rather extensive, merely involving killing Beastmen. As a result, not only was Zhou Tian's territory visited by players, but the entire area inhabited by the Beastmen saw a several-fold increase in player numbers within a short period of time.

However, likely because Zhou Tian's territory was nearest to the mission completion location, his area was the hardest hit by the players.

Just on the first day, while Zhou Tian refrained from acting rashly and observed, he didn't expect that the actions of the players would reduce the number of his Beastman warriors by hundreds. This happened even though Zhou Tian had prepared accordingly. According to the information he had received, the number of Beastman warriors who had died or been injured had already exceeded ten thousand during this one day, and even Beastman chiefs had suffered over a dozen casualties.

Due to the characteristics of Monsters, the Beastmen leader could replenish the Beastman chiefs within a day if he was willing to do so. However, there was a big difference between veteran Beastman chiefs and new members, not only in terms of strength but also the power they held. Despite the possibility that the Beastman leader could replenish the lost troops afterwards, the overall combat power of the Beastman Clan was inevitably weakened.

After seeing the performance of the players on the first day, Zhou Tian became even more reserved.

In just a single day, the players had reduced the strength of the entire Beastman Clan by 30%. It could be imagined that if this situation continued, when all the Beastman bosses had been replaced several times, the overall strength of the Beastman Clan would surely be affected!

Of course, while the overall situation of the Beastman Clan did have a certain relationship with Zhou Tian, it wasn't something Zhou Tian currently needed to worry too much about. At this moment, Zhou Tian was primarily troubled by his own territories.

Losing a hundred Beastman warriors at once wasn't an unacceptable loss for Zhou Tian, at least it wasn't enough to shake Zhou Tian's foundation. However, though the players didn't pose a real threat to Zhou Tian at this moment, Zhou Tian had already seen their threat to him based on their current behavior.