Chapter 3: The Enemy's Scheme

At this moment, on the other side of Li Bin's territory, within the eerie and shadowy vampire castle, several high-level players waited in the blood-hued great hall for the castle master to appear.

Soon, a group of warriors clad in bone-forged armor, their eyes gleaming coldly, emerged from deep within the fortress. Following them was a young woman with waist-length blue hair, a lively smile on her face. She wore an opulent black princess gown and carried a long demonic sword. At her back fluttered a phoenix war banner ablaze with spectral azure flames. She strode to the center of the hall and, her voice chilly, demanded, “What’s going on? Weren’t you supposed to be on your way to Ghost Butterfly City?”

“Miss Elise, we ran into some trouble on the road,” replied a cautious player, cloaked in black and wielding a giant reaper’s scythe.

“Naraku, doesn’t your Death Lord skill allow you to recruit undead troops in the wild? With you leading, how could there possibly be trouble?” Elise asked, clearly skeptical.

“It’s true, Miss Elise,” another player answered—a woman with silver hair and jet-black eyes. “We kept running into ambushes from a single team along the way. Their hit-and-run tactics have done considerable damage to us.”

“Yes, Miss Elise, those people are really formidable,” added a minotaur player with flowing brown hair, hefting a massive battle axe.

“Naraku, Amanda Wind, Light,” Elise declared loudly, “I entrusted the command to you three because of your abilities, yet now you tell me you’ve encountered a team you can’t handle? What am I supposed to say to that?”

“Miss Elise,” a mysterious mage in black, face concealed, suddenly interjected, “You should hear about what they encountered. It might be useful for your subsequent strategies.”

Elise respected this enigmatic mage. Waving her hand, she said, “Go ahead then. What exactly did you encounter?”

“Harpylike undead creatures? Stealth assault teams? All level seven? And led by level nine monsters?” As she listened to Naraku and the others’ account, Elise’s expression grew increasingly grim.

At last, she rose and paced a few steps. “Geyou, what do you make of this?”

The mysterious black-robed mage kept his head bowed as he replied, “There are only two possibilities. One, Ghost Butterfly City has lost all hope and is sending out its final troops in a desperate struggle. Two, their master is about to return, and these forces are paving the way.”

“And which do you consider more likely?” Elise, faced with such grave news, could not afford to be careless.

“I lean toward the latter,” Geyou replied calmly. “I’ve just received intelligence: a holy city has appeared 150 kilometers south of the Hillstone Quarry. Its war banner is nearly identical to the one we saw at Ghost Butterfly City.”

Geyou’s words forced Elise to reconsider. Her entire campaign was predicated on Li Bin’s absence from Ghost Butterfly City. If he returned at the helm of his army, not only would she fail to seize new territory, she might well lose all the troops her master had brought from the Novice Continent.

With this in mind, Elise stood decisively and ordered in a commanding voice, “Bone Shard, your resistance to light magic is high. Lead a team to scout the new city. If the enemy makes no move, don’t attack. If they do, harass them.”

“Yes, ma’am.” From behind Elise, a skeletal warrior immediately stepped forward, gripping a flaming bone blade. His entire body gleamed with polished bone, though bits constantly flaked off. His gaze was hollow, a single-winged bone protrusion on his back. After saluting Elise with a wobbling gait, he departed.

Elise did not chastise Bone Shard for his lack of courtesy. Instead, she issued a further command: “It takes at least four or five days to march from the holy city to Ghost Butterfly City. I’m giving you three days. Within that time, I expect all enemy forces outside Ghost Butterfly City—especially that level-seven unit—to be wiped out.”

Naraku, Amanda Wind, and Light voiced no objection. All three were seasoned veterans, having fought their way off the Novice Continent and wandered the continents ever since, each with secret troops at their command. If not for concerns about depleting their forces and missing out on the spoils of this campaign, they were confident they could have taken out that troublesome unit at the very first encounter.

Given three days, they believed they could clear out any remaining enemies near Ghost Butterfly City.

In fact, Naraku, Amanda Wind, and Light didn’t even require the full three days. After rallying a large contingent of players to act in concert, within a day and a half, not a single undead patrol could be found within ten kilometers of Ghost Butterfly City.

Only Shuimu Tian’s forces remained, stubbornly resisting in the various mine tunnels. But with the imminent fall of Ghost Butterfly City, they had little interest in sacrificing their strength over minor resource points. According to their plan, everything would be settled after the city was taken, and the spoils divided accordingly.

What none of the players—including Naraku—expected was that while they reported their success in opening up the roads around Ghost Butterfly City to Elise, Shuimu Tian also relayed their movements to Li Bin.

According to Li Bin’s plan, as soon as the players and the vampire castle’s forces launched their assault on Ghost Butterfly City, Shuimu Tian would lead his hidden troops out from the mines, quickly surrounding the occupied Hillstone Quarry and cutting off the players’ retreat.

But as he lay low in the tunnels, Shuimu Tian noticed something odd—unsure whether to report it to Li Bin or handle it himself.

As the players advanced, many of their subordinates were inexplicably slain, their corpses abandoned on the spot. These bodies were swiftly converted by the vampire castle’s forces into level-three skeleton soldiers or level-four ghost warriors, then sent back to the castle.

By Shuimu Tian’s reckoning, the castle had already received four or five companies of skeleton soldiers and three or four companies of ghost warriors at this rate.

Had these troops been under Li Bin’s command, they would long ago have been transferred to Shuimu Tian for the final battle preparations. Yet once they entered the vampire castle, they vanished without a trace.

This aroused Shuimu Tian’s suspicions. After some thought, he decided to write a letter to Li Bin, reporting his findings.

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No more words about Elise—she is under the command of Disya; Naraku was contributed by reader Demon-Armored Emperor; Amanda Wind by reader Coffee Cat; Light by reader Dragon King Solar Eclipse Sword; Geyou by reader Dark Blood Shadow Moon; Bone Shard by reader Jieya.

The characters have been released. Their fates are in your hands!