The Early Appearance of the Kingdom of Glory

For experts like Dead Fish Eye, even if he had nothing at all, it would not be difficult to recognize him by the arrogant vibes he gave off. In Lin Jie's previous life, he had also been impressed by Dead Fish Eye's abilities and had once held deep admiration for him.

However, seeing him in action before his eyes was still much better than just hearing about him. His arrogance now seemed like a small shortcoming compared to his deeds. After all, wasn't it logical that the strong should show pity for the weak and help them out? This was befitting of one's status as an expert.

Lin Jie pointed at himself, looked into Dead Fish Eye's thoughtful eyes and smiled. "I guess you are contemplating if it will be faster to just kill this insolent fellow standing in front of you now."

"Yes, but not now." Dead Fish Eye removed his mask and revealed an ugly face. His mouth had occupied almost all of the space beneath his nose. This large mouth made his face look extremely unsightly, coupled with the pair of dull-looking dead fish eyes, his appearance was just plain ugly.

"How about having a bet with me?" Lin Jie did not make any comments at his looks. In his previous life, Dead Fish Eye's photos had been exposed before, and Lin Jie merely thought that this chap just looked rather untrammeled…

"Each of us will score one point for killing one player, one point for making them spawn Bronze equipment, but 20 points for killing the Overlord and 10 points for each of the Overlord's spawned equipment. We can compare scores after that, and the loser will have to grant the winner a condition. Deal?"

Dead Fish Eye's pupils shrank. "I don't kill players."

"You will," Lin Jie's face broke into a smile, "if you agree, I will recommend you a place to find pretty girls."

Both of them stared at each other for a full 30 seconds before Dead Fish Eye consented in a deep voice, "Alright."

Boom!

The ground shook and trembled, and a fissure appeared. Trees and mud quivered as if they were the dander from a person suffering from dandruff and were about to be flicked off.

Swarms of players were approaching the place.

"The competition starts now." Dead Fish Eye took out a bottle of poison from his bag and smeared it on his daggers. The strong sulfuric reactions made a loud bursting sound, numbing the eardrums of people standing around.

As Dead Fish Eye disappeared using Stealth Move, Lin Jie grabbed onto a tree and activated the Feather Drop Gem. He descended behind the 'giant'. The Rogaland Mountains before his eyes continued to quiver, and great amounts of earth were being pushed out from the crevices between boulders. With a thunderous roar, a pair of hands and a pair of legs probed out from the boulders!

The enormous Mountain Giant stood up, shook his shoulders and trees fell down from the sky all around it.

Mountain Giant: Level 12 Overlord, Health Points 180,000.

As a Level 12 Overlord, the Mountain Giant had an unbelievably high amount of health points—all these pointed to the fact that it had an extremely high drop-rate!

The Heavenly Shield stared determinedly at the Mountain Giant in front of them, gave a big wave of his hands and ordered, "The Warriors cannon fodder, get in order and number yourselves! Mana jobs, get ready to launch your attacks, I want you all to give your very best! Start drinking Health Potions once your Mana levels drop below 80%!"

Their battle strategy was very simple: overcome strength with numbers! As the Mountain Giant did not know how to attack in crowds, conquering it by large numbers of attacks all at a go would be suitable. In any case, all the players gathered there were just low-leveled newbies, it wouldn't affect them much even if they were to die. Those players would at most just drop back to Level 1. They could then returned to the scene and become the baits to lure away the overlord's aggro repeatedly until it was finally killed!

"Get him!"

"KILL!"

The Ironwall Empire seemed very bonded. As the guild's role model, The Heavenly Shield carried a huge shield and stepped out of the crowd, facing the Mountain Giant. He stretched his neck backward in a painful arc and shouted loudly, "Oye, you B*STARD!"

The Mountain Giant heard the insult, and its right hand crashed down like a falling cable car! The force was comparable to that of a Category 7 typhoon. All the players present almost could not hold their balance.

"The Leader has set such a great example, now let's attack with all our might!"

"Drink the magic potions!"

How did the scene look like when hundreds of Mages activate their Fireball skills all at once?

It was as if a blazing arch of clouds appeared out of nowhere and lit up the entire sky! To increase their efficiency, the Ironwall Empire's active attackers consisted of only Mages!

Hundreds of Fireballs were blasted at the Mountain Giant's fragile crotch area, and this caused an additional 15% weak point damage. Though many of the players were secretly wondering how big the d*ck of a Mountain Giant would be, they still chanted on fervently, determined to burn it down. After a round of attacks, the Mountain Giant's HP levels were finally decreased by 5%.

At that moment, the Mountain Giant raised its hands slowly. The Heavenly Shield stood still in front of the army, one hand raising his heavy shield in mid-air, posing in a 'rather die than surrender' position. In actual fact, he was indeed dead, what the players saw now was just his corpse. The corpse was rooted strategically in the whole army's field of vision, boosting the whole team's morale. The Shield Specialists in the army felt extremely motivated by this scene—look, our leader had already died before us and set us such a good example, why should we still hold on to our reservations and doubts?

"It's time to CHARGE!"

The whole team's morale reached its peak. The Shield Specialists charged forward without sparing a thought for their own lives while the Mages chanted on furiously without stopping! Within all this chaos, The Heavenly Shield's body remained rooted to the ground, a solitary figure of heroic tragedy.

Lin Jie almost couldn't hold back his laughter when he saw this scene.

When players died, and their souls were released from their bodies, their corpses would drop down lifeless on the spot, waiting for the players' souls to reclaim them and hence be revived in the game again. If so, why did the corpse of The Heavenly Shield remain standing? The answer was simple; The Heavenly Shield did not release his soul from his body! In other words… The Heavenly Shield was skiving off. As the leader of a large guild, maintaining a high level was very important to him. Thus, he reckoned that he had done his duty by dying once, setting a 'good example' to the rest of the guild members.

As the saying goes, 'the human heart is like a needle in the sea.' On the surface, one might appear to be very noble and made others believe that he was putting his words to actions, but in actual fact, he might just be putting on an act in order to take advantage of you.

Until now, the damage points which sprang out from attacking the Boss were still too meager to mean anything. The Mountain Giant would simply crush up all the players it came into contact with. Even if it did not know any crowd attack strategies, the trees dropping off his body had helped to smash tens of Mages to their deaths.

At that moment, a black figure appeared within the midst of Mages. His dagger slit across the throat of a Mage silently and then disappeared again. As a tree came crashing down upon him, that Mage actually stood still and was crushed to his death without any sign of struggling, as if he was unable to recognize what would happen to him.

The black figure made a move! After searching for a while on the dead body of the Mage, he changed his appearance to that Mage within the blink of an eye. Following that, he made his way through the crowd of Mages and started killing the Mages around him discreetly, his daggers as swift as the scythe of the real Grim Reaper.

This black figure was obviously Dead Fish Eye in disguise. He was definitely not as strong now when compared to his peak in Lin Jie's previous life. However, all the various Crowd Control skills he owned had come in handy at this moment and allowed him to maximize his abilities.

The number of fireballs dwindled, and the Boss's HP levels were decreasing slower than before.

"F*ck, what's happening? This Boss has Binding abilities?"

"Damn it, how come I was unable to move anymore?"

"Me too! This seemed like the effect of the Outraged Roar of Warriors!"

There was a commotion growing within the team. The Heavenly Shield creased his forehead in frustration—was there misinformation about the Boss? Yet this was impossible—the Mountain Giant was a monster which could only attack people physically, that was a certain fact!

What went wrong exactly?

"Damn!" Another Mage died—he was Tantalizer of the Heavenly Clothes, the leader of the Mages team in the Ironwall Empire. He cursed loudly, "The hell with Outraged Roar, you idiots! Some Bandit has ambushed our team and froze us using the Anesthetic Poison!"

Everyone was shocked beyond belief.

Ambushed a team of which consisted a few hundred players? Who could do it?

———

Lin Jie raised his brows when he saw this scene. 'Good chap, Dead Fish Eye is indeed an expert! To show such high abilities during his early days of playing the game. This is something only an expert could do.'

Their competition score up till this moment was this: Dead Fish Eye had killed 47 players, while Lin Jie had killed none.

However, it seemed like Dead Fish Eye was faring worst and worst, as he had not been able to make any moves for the past few minutes…

The reason for this was simple—even though Dead Fish Eye's disguise was good, he was still caught by the Ironwall Empire's players. Angered, they changed their attention and started aiming their attacks at Dead Fish Eye instead.

However, he had not leveled down yet, which most probably meant he was still alive.

Lin Jie sat behind the Mountain Giant and chillaxed while he listened to the shouts and sounds of attacks from the battle scene not far ahead. He even took out a loaf of bread from his bag and started munching on it as a tidbit.

All giant-type monsters had a critical weakness point, akin to the "vital gate1" of the human body. A giant's vital gate would be randomly refreshed and be located on a certain private area of its body, for example on its inner thigh or its gum, etc.

Lin Jie was quite lucky. When he jumped to the back of the Mountain Giant, he had discovered where the giant's critical weakness point was located; on its ass…

When the Mountain Giant's HP levels decreased to a maximum, it would enter an immune state, and at that time it could be killed by attacking its critical weakness point. This was why Lin Jie had felt so confident that he would win the bet with Dead Fish Eye.

So what if he was an expert? Ultimately Lin Jie still had seven more years' worth of gaming experience than him.

Even the dumbest pig would be enlightened after seven years.

Dead Fish Eye's HP levels were recovering slowly. As he saw Lin Jie's score, he was finally able to heave a sigh of relief. As the famous poem line goes, 'killing a man in every ten steps, the gallant knight traveled thousands of miles; he departed without leaving any traces, burying his name and fame along with his deeds.'2 It seemed that poem had been written with him in mind!

As The Heavenly Shield saw more of his fellow Shield Specialists teammates being killed continuously, he felt too embarrassed to continue skiving at a side. He revived himself and returned to the battlefield, taking over the role of cannon fodder personally. His actions were noted by many other players, who subsequently increased the might of their attacks. One Mage even drank down a rare Berserker Potion, which he had gotten from completing a mission, and started blasting huge fireballs at the Mountain Giant.

"Leader, we received news that a guild called the Kingdom of Glory announced that they are clearing players off this map." Silver Shield's face tone changed several times and seemed rather angry.

The Heavenly Shield had just revived. After hearing this news, he immediately flew into a rage. "Kingdom of Glory? Give the order for the Bandits and Hunters teams to block them!"

"Yes!"

Lin Jie's eyes turned cold. 'Kingdom of Glory?'

If he remembered correctly, the Kingdom of Glory, Mage Heavens and the Dark-robed Knights would only rise to power one month after the game was launched. 'Did history change?'

If so… The Heavenly Shield would most probably be powerless against them.

Indeed, shouts and screams were heard far away. The Kingdom of Glory marched forth with irresistible force and were impeded by none. Ironwall Empire's Bandits and Hunters teams dissolved like paper in water when they met the players from the Kingdom of Glory.

Seeing this, the Mountain Giant made use of the opportunity to strike. The Mountain Giant's edge lied in its ability to attack continuously for prolonged periods. They had been pretending to be mountains for too long, and hence it took time for them to restore their body mechanisms and agility. The Mountain Giant raised its leg up high before stamping 20 plus Shield Specialists of the Ironwall Empire to their deaths.

Behind them, the vanguard of the Kingdom of Glory had already arrived.

The Heavenly Shield gnashed his teeth in anger and announced, "Give up on the Boss, we focus on fending off these b*stards first!"

Lin Jie noticed that the numbers of players killed by Dead Fish Eye began to rise steadily again. That cunning chap had slipped into the midst of players from the Kingdom of Glory and was killing players around him left and right happily.

"Best to choose the lesser of two evils. I will help you all out for once." Lin Jie's eyes gleamed as an errant thought crossed his mind. 'If the Ironwall Empire survives, can it be used to counter the three alliances?'

'Perhaps… it's possible?'