MMORPG: Rebirth of the Legendary Guardian

Players had all the right to spend every single second, fighting for merit points. But, wisdom sometimes trumps strength. Reviving on the spot would only give you 20% HP for a start. It’s not safe to roam around with such low health. The battlefield may look empty, but the place was filled with invisible Thieves lurking about, preying on the weak. Suffice to say, if you are newly revived, the first few seconds where you sit down to heal would be the most dangerous period. Since you can only revive yourself for a total of three times, the remaining players would be extremely cautious about their lives, while Thieves would have their eyes and ears wide open. Professional players had something else in mind, besides obtaining equipment, they wanted to get Titles. Those rewards can never be discarded after gaining levels, unlike that of an equipment. It would be something that you can wear on your name tag till kingdom comes! Plus, it’s cool!

At that stage, no one was willing to take risks, hence, high leveled players tend to avoid each other, aiming instead for stragglers and errant weaklings. At most, they would only withdraw from the area respectfully.

That would be the norm, but things were different for the little brat. That little kid did not care about her odds, the ire of others, the incredulity of her actions. None of that mattered to her, she simply pounced on anything that stirred. Thanks to her efforts, Zhang Yang’s little band had gathered up into an unstoppable force.

Zhang Yang would be in the air, attacking players as they move forward. Many players obviously thought they would be able to defeat them by swarming up to them in large numbers, but were inevitably defeated by Zhang Yang and his party.

Booooo----

The horn of war was blown, and could be heard several kilometers from the castle. The metal gates opened up and a neatly organized formation of NPC soldiers marched out from the small castle gates. One by one, platoons came out and formed a bigger formation in the field outside the castle. One more horn was blown, and a handsome, middle-aged man rode out of the castle on a dark red horse. The soldiers made way for the man and he stood at the front of the front line. The man wore a suit of armor that gave out a bright, golden luster. He wielded a normal sized battle hammer on his right, and a bloodied red shield at his left. The cape on his back fluttered in the wind, further adding onto the image of strength to him and his army behind.

[Moucander, King of Emerald Kingdom] (Ascended, Humanoid)

Level: ???

HP: ???

Defense: ???

Attack Power: ???

Skills: ???

Note: The King of Emerald Kingdom. For 12 years, he ruled, he fought, he endured.

The boss has finally made an appearance.

”Kill the boss! EQs! EQs!” cried players when they saw the tag ”Ascended”. How much was a Violet-Platinum worth, during this stage of the game? If a Violet-Platinum equipment could be sold for several hundred thousand, how much would a Ascended equipment be? After all, an Open World high-level boss’ first kill would be accompanied by a server announcement, so, who would not be jealous?

When the boss finally made his appearance, players lit up with joy. However, they were so blinded by greed and ambition that they failed to notice the army behind him.

During that moment, the army of White Jade Kingdom had finally arrived. However, the final ”trump card” was not there. Queen Serena and her elite team of dragon riders were nowhere to be seen.

After a short exchange of verbal assaults, armies from both sides let out a deafening battle cry, and like two great tsunamis, the two enemies clashed with each other, head to head. Players had taken the chance to join the fray and quietly meted out the final hits to farm Merit Points. Be it as they may, no one could compete with Zhang Yang in terms of efficiency.

He had a flying mount to begin with. His movement speed was unmatched at the moment. Like a heavily armored, flying brick of an assassin, he remained hidden in the shadows, sneaking in from where no one could see him.

The flying snake shot down to the earth at breakneck speed and spat its poison attacks. Players with HP lesser than 9,000 would be instantly killed by Zhang Yang. On the other hand, Zhang Yang’s {Blast Wave} could wipe out a large area of players. Whenever there were concentrated clumps of players, their numbers would work in his favor, triggering his {Blast Wave} over again and again. Even though the damage dealt by {Blast Wave} was low, it was enough to land the final killing blows.

On the side note, he was the General if the White Jade Expedition Army. The NPC army would grant Zhang Yang 1% of the Merit Points. His Merit points were rocketing at such a speed that he had already surpassed 200,000 points in a blink of an eye.

With NPCs sortied out in the field, the power levels were on an even scale. The battle continued on, as blood was spilled, and bodies were dropping. If Zhang Yang were to turn back, all he would only be greeted by the sight of an endless red. The greens were all submerged and dyed in the blood of both players and NPC soldiers. The blood fest continued on for another two hours, and even though players had joined the fight, their numbers were still at a stable 400,000 or so. By then, most of the NPCs had already fallen. When their numbers run out, the boss should finally step in.

A sea of players rushed towards the last boss, even though they knew that the boss was a Ascended tier level. Their reasoning was that, if each of the 100,000 players could at least deal 100 damage to the boss, the total would go up to 1 million damage. A few rounds of that should easily solve the problem! Or so they thought…

On the other side of the battlefield, players from Emerald Kingdom had hated the fact that they could not switch sides to attack the boss. Some of them were shouting many kinds of proposals, but only one got through.

”Guys! It doesn’t matter which kingdom wins. How about we think of the bigger picture? Players of Emerald Kingdom shall make way for players from White Jade Kingdom to kill the boss without any interruption. We hope that you would do the same for us when the boss for White Jade Kingdom appears later! If we could cooperate together, it would easier to defeat the bosses!”

The proposal immediately gained everyone’s agreement, but it was only a premature decision. Before Queen Serena appear, no one would be willing to give up their one and only boss to the opposite side.

”Wait!” cried Zhang Yang, stopping Wei Yan Er from rushing over. ”Calm down. Do you remember when we first fought the Mythical tier boss? The dungeon had a pile of Mythical tier equipment for us to use, then. Even so, it was a miracle for us to survive the battle! Ascended and Mythical equipment are three tiers apart. The boss is not someone we can just defeat with sheer numbers. Wait for Queen Serena and let them fight it out. We cannot and never would be able to survive a hit from the boss! Let the two Ascended bosses fight it out, and then we’ll attack from behind.”

The little brat sulked when Zhang Yang had stopped her but calmed down when she listened to Zhang Yang’s explanation. Then again, even if players from Emerald Kingdom verbally agreed to let them fight the boss without interruption, would they hold on to their words? There were many who shared the same line of thought as Zhang Yang. Instead of rushing in like retards, they stood back and observed.

”Fools. You dare to attack a king?!” Moucander muttered and swung his hammer into the air. In an instant, the air around literally cracked. The air where he struck his hammer then made mirror-like cracks that hovered in the air. When the players had stupidly rushed through the cracks, they broke and dealt massive damage to those who ran through the cracks.

‘-155,324!’

‘-167,283!’

…

All players within a hundred radius from the boss were instantly inflicted with damages of more than 150,000! All players were killed faster than the attack from a magic cannon blast. After the attack, no one was standing. No one made any noise. No one survived.

…

Such power can only be that of an Ascended tier boss.

Players that were rushing from behind immediately held their steps and turned around to flee. No one, not even the strongest tanks could take such a hit and still survive! The boss’ first attack was already an AoE attack type, with at least a hundred-meter wide radius. How could anyone survive such an attack, even before landing a single hit on the boss?

When Moucander laid down the first strike, he had let out a loud battle cry and gained the bloodlust. He charged up front and chased after players to kill. With his powerful attacks, he had no need to even reach the players to kill them. All he needed to do was to swing his hammer in the air, and he could deal destructive attacks on everyone within the vicinity of a hundred meters. To make things worse, the skill’s cooldown time was merely 10 seconds!

Almost immediately, all the players from White Jade Kingdom turned tail and ran with haste. Some unfortunate players who had just waited 30 minutes to revive were killed instantly when the boss’ attacks were within their respawn locations. Those ill-fated players had no idea what killed them and had to spent another 30 minutes waiting. Some were even instantly kicked out, because they had already ran out of tries.

In such a chaotic scene, no one could even uphold the agreement proposed by the Emerald Kingdom players. Verbal agreements meant nothing, when players from White Jade Kingdom were running away like sheep. During this commotion, reasoning made no sense anymore. Greed ruled the battle ground when players from Emerald Kingdom started to ”reinforce” their king and kill the players. Now, White Jade Kingdom was actually running out of players.

Moucander’s devastating attack and its ridiculously short cooldown time could possibly have turned him into a world class boss. To defeat a boss of such caliber, a large number of player would have to join hands and charge in with sheer numbers, and among those vast number of players, they had to have decent skill and equipment! That, or, players would be wiped out before they can even approach the boss!

That, or the [Forbidden Scroll]!

”Dummy! What should we do? If we let this go on, our forces will be completely annihilated!” cried Han Ying Xue.

Zhang Yang looked down and then turned back. ”Right now, all we can do is to hang on until Queen Serena gets here. That’s no other way!”

Even though Zhang Yang had a [Forbidden Scroll] in his inventory, he had no intention of wasting it on the boss. The scroll would be extremely effective against players or NPC armies! It would be a complete waste to use the scroll right there and then.

As the situation continued to worsen, One Sword Scroll, Greensleeve Prince, and Snow Seeker had started leading their troops towards Zhang Yang’s party. Somehow, in their opinion, if they were to stand behind the world’s greatest tank, things would be fine.

Zhang Yang could not help but frowned. If he had unlimited {Shield Walls}, he could at least put up a fight with the Ascended boss. But now, there is literally nothing to do besides waiting for Queen Serena to arrive and babysit them all.

”Haha! Fools! Know your place! Die and rot in hell!” Moucander laughed as he rode his super-speedy mount and chased down more players, wiping them out by droves with his hammer. His movement speed was just a little over the speed of Zhang Yang’s flying mount!

Eventually, the number of players of White Jade Kingdom dropped from 400,000 to 200,000. The power balance had been shattered. If Moucander were to stop and return to his castle, players of White Jade Kingdom would still retreat as far as they could, since the number of both sides differed too greatly.