Sudden Attack

In the current stage of Fate, the maps that were already made available to players consisted mainly of maps in the 5 continents, namely the North, South, East, West and Middle continent. No players would be spawned in the Middle Continent, and access to the continent was limited to lvl60 and above. No level limitations were imposed on the 4 other continents, and when players started their game, they could choose a continent of their own, or spawn in a random continent.

There were no races that were unique to any continents in the current stage of the game. Players in different continent could choose their own races as they created their characters. The map distribution in all 4 continents were the same, and their maps were similar as well. Despite having different dungeons, the difficulties of said dungeons were the same. A player's choice in choosing a continent would not affect his gameplay experience in any way. What mattered the most is what happened after a player chose his continent.

Among the 4 continents, the the Eastern and Southern continents were allies, while the Western Continent was an ally of the Northern continent. There were allies, and there were enemies. In theory, players would only be able to move around in their own continent before they reach lvl60, and gameplay at the pre-lvl60 stage was mainly PvM. Once players have reached lvl60, they could move to the Middle Continent. At that stage of the game, PvP would become a common occurrence.

This of course, was all a theory. In truth, Fate did not restrict the movement of players. A player is always free to move between friendly and hostile continents as long as they have the capabilities to do so.

It was also a known fact that the Hidden Quests were the most intriguing part in Fate's quest system. If a certain Hidden Quest was completed by players, it might even unlock a secret passage that leads to an enemy city, opening up a path for invasion. The passageways that led to cities varies with the difficulty of the hidden quest. If a player was able to complete a hidden quest of the highest difficulty, there was a possibility that the player could open up a way to the enemy's royal capital.

That was not the scariest part. If a city was successfully invaded by a hostile force, only the city's economy would be affected. Players could restore the city to its former glory by completing daily quests in that city. If the royal capital of a continent was occupied by the enemy, the entire continent would be in jeopardy.

First of all, the morale of NPCs in the entire continent would plunge, and any NPCs who died would never respawn. If a player received a quest from an NPC in the capital, and the NPC was killed, the player will never be able to complete his quest. In Fate, the penalty imposed on a player for failing to complete his quest was high. It might affect the attitude of other NPCs towards the player, and the player might even be shunned from the city.

Other than that, the fall of the royal capital would bring a huge impact to the economy of the entire continent. Rewards received from quests would be drastically decreased, and the prices of items sold in shops owned by NPCs would soar. An even more outrageous condition was that a lot of common items that would usually be sold in the shops would disappear from the market. This condition would last until the morale of the NPC's recovered and the city itself stabilized.(something like "until the morale of NPCs had recovered).

But when would the NPCs recover their morale? Nobody knows.

And lastly, the most rage-inducing effect: the loot drops from dungeons and monsters were reduced by 50%. Where did the other half disappear to? Was it confiscated by the system? No. They were allocated to the to the victor of the war. In other words, no matter how good you are at the game, or how hard you worked to complete a quest, you're doing it for somebody else.

Of course, there were many other consequences for losing an intercontinental battle that were not announced by the officials. Players had to figure it out themselves.

But, with the 3 outrageous conditions imposed on the losing side, would any players be willing to "explore" the hardships of losing their royal capital? There shall never be such a player. Not today, not tomorrow, not in a million years.

Right after Sir Ditty made his announcement about the invasion, players from the Eastern Continent swarmed towards Champion City, regardless of what they were doing, regardless if they were exploring a dungeon, or if they were even above lvl20. This placed a huge burden on the server hosting the Champion City map.

Ye Ci of course joined in the fray. Since ancient times, the prosperity of the people depended on the wellbeing of the nation. Although Fate offered services for players to migrate to other continents, not many were willing to do such a thing. After all, who would want to put all their efforts to waste by starting anew?

Ye Ci thought to herself as she made her way to the Jagged Peak: Somebody in the Western Continent must've completed a high level Hidden Quest! They wouldn't be able to reach Champion City otherwise. But how did they complete such a high level Hidden Quest? Setting the difficulty of such a quest aside, the process of completing the quest was a tough one.

What scared Ye Ci the most was the ability to keep such a quest that consumed a tremendous amount of resources and manpower a secret. How did they do it? There was no news at all about such a thing in the official site nor was there any news on the forums. Their ability to maintain secrecy was just extraordinary. This was something that the Eastern Continent was lacking.

There was an NPC on the Jagged Peak. She was a child who makes kite. When a player pays the child with gold coins, the child would send players to any nearby maps with her kite.

Despite being relatively near to the Mausoleum of Blades, Champion City was separated from Ye Ci's location by a lot of deep ravines and gorges. The fastest way to reach Champion City was with the help of this NPC named Lily. The terrain however, was rather hostile. It was almost impossible for Ye Ci to reach the peak had she not brought the Cat Claws along.

Translator's Note:

Cat Claws: A unique grappling hook made by Pea Cake of Upwards Ho!

Since Ye Ci was a reincarnator, she was not unfamiliar with the map despite not knowing the area very well. She quick to spot a route to the Jagged Peak. A girl sat with her back leaning against a small wooden cabin with a small campfire in front of her, and a huge kite laid by her side.

Ye Ci greeted Lily and she smiled and looked up at Ye Ci, "Heh, big guy, you're tall."

That's right. Lily was a Gnome. Gnomes were a race adept in engineering and machines created by Gnomes were always state-of-the-art.

"Hello Lily, I would like to go to Champion City."

"No problem, 100 Gold." Lily was welcome to the idea of making business, it's just that the price wasn't that cheap.

Handing over 100 gold, it did not take long before Ye Ci was gliding through the skies with the help of a kite. To be honest, it would be an excellent place for sightseeing if it weren't for the fact that the altitude the kite was in was simply too cold. At present, Ye Ci felt that she was about to be frozen solid by the chilling air. Unable to bear with the cold, she resorted to the use of a cold-resistance potion from her backpack, downing it before she was able to move her limbs.

The kite was swift and it did not take much time before Ye Ci could glimpse Champion City.

Champion City was undoubtedly the largest city, or capital, in the eastern continent; occupying more than half of the map with its land area alone. From a bird's eye view, Champion City was a tapestry of grandeur. Exquisite buildings lined the streets and it would definitely be a sight to behold in most cases. However, at present, Ye Ci could only see a field of densely populated people.

Ye Ci opened her game settings, and turned on the PVP mode. Red and green lights immediately illuminated players within the city. It was a friend or foe indicator. The players in red were enemies while players in green where allies. Players would be able to distinguish friends from foes in a PVP battle using such a configuration.

As she approached Champion City, Ye Ci took out the few remaining Black Iron Bombs from her inventory. These things dealt horrendous damage to Tang Dynasty the last time, and Ye Ci hoped that it would have a greater impact on the battlefield this day. After all, the enemy players in Champion City were even more tightly packed than the Tang Dynasty players the other day.

Ye Ci lit the fuse of one of the bombs and threw it at the spot with the most red blips the moment she streaked pass Champion City. A bright flash and a thunderous boom followed right after. Ye Ci's screen was flooded by the Kill Glory points she was able to harvest with that Black Iron Bomb.

Now that's what you call Glory Farming! Ye Ci thought to herself as she readied another Black Iron Bomb. She threw the bomb at the largest concentration of red players, and the result was just satisfying.

Ye Ci's two bombs could truly be called a surprise attack. Currently, with the average level of players being 30, they had absolutely no idea that a flying system would be released in the future. Thus, no one would ever think of what might go on above their heads. Furthermore, Ye Ci's manner of riding a kite over and dropping two weapons of mass destruction to attack them turned the entire situation even more chaotic.

Not only would dropping bombs onto the ground like this reap the lives of many, it would also leave large craters in the ground. Unlike the countryside, the streets inside the city also had boundaries. The two bombs Ye Ci dropped happened to split the pavement in two, and the players on either side of the craters had no way of crossing, instantly adding on to the already chaotic scene.

Western continent's commander-in-chief, Absalom, was hollering in the command channel: "What's going on? How did so many people die instantaneously? What's the matter with the western and southern defense lines, weren't they proceeding smoothly? Xinhua Dictionary, Wenshan, what's going on at your end?"