The Great Thief

Lonesome Flower had never felt so cool!

As a Mage, was it normal that he didn’t like PVP?

For most players, this was quite normal as everyone had their own playstyle. However, for Lonesome Flower of Ruling Sword, it was anything but normal. He was often within the top three of Dawn’s Level Rankings and was the highest-level Mage. Even Sorrowless would pay attention to what he was doing occasionally.

He was also one of the core players of Ruling Sword’s First Clear team. As long as there was valuable Mage equipment, he would have priority in receiving it.

Most players thought that his equipment would be better than Sorrowless’, but this was impossible. There was no one who knew how much money had gone into Sorrowless’ equipment, especially given the size and strength of his guild.

However, for some reason, Lonesome Flower didn’t know how to PVP!

In fact, most elite PVE players wouldn’t fare too badly in PVP. After all, both were tests of skill and technique. If you could fight a Boss, then you could probably fight other players.

However, Lonesome Flower seemed to be the exception. He was an otaku with social anxiety, so he would get nervous around people.

Now, he was standing next to his sister with his arms open to continually cast Blizzard over the Horde players’ respawn location, baptizing them as they revived.

His equipment and level were both very strong, so the damage from this skill was horrifying.

Lu Li didn’t even need to do anything. He just watched as these poor casual players died and revived repeatedly.

Glory Points were awarded for these kills, but these were also awarded to the killer’s accomplices, so they weren’t in a hurry to take them. Most of the players simply watched as their opponents were destroyed by the area of effect skill.

The battle didn’t last long. After all, the Horde players had lost all the resource points.

After the System prompted Lu Li that they were victorious, they were immediately sent out of the battlefield. Lu Li then quit the lobby and started queueing for the next round. This was in the interest of time, as it took quite a while to get into the battlefield. The matching process wasn’t always going to be so quick.

The next match was once again in the same location.

However, this time, their opponents weren’t just a mix of random players. They were a full party which was more appropriate for this team of professionals.

From the matching menu, you couldn’t see the name of the players, but you could see their composition. After the battle started, it would keep track of the number of kills, deaths, assists, damage dealt, damage received and Glory.

“Why isn’t it a team of random players again?” Lonesome Flower was somewhat upset. He had enjoyed the feeling of destroying those players.

His kill count was several times higher than Moonlight’s. His sister, March Rain, looked at him with respect but seemed to be surprised that her brother was so bloodthirsty.

“This is very normal. The System will intelligently match us with better opponents as we win,” Her Tears explained. He had been playing in the battlefield recently and knew more about the system.

This so called intelligent match-making was only for teams of five or more players. The data of their battles would be recorded and used to determine their next match, which would likely be another team that was very close in strength.

Lu Li and the team had defeated the previous team in quite a short time, so this match was likely going to be much harder.

However, it would have been quite difficult to find another team that was close to them in terms of strength.

This match was filled with players that were at least level 55. It seemed that they were a group of Elite players from a guild. When they exited the gate, they hopped on their mounts and rushed to the Gold Mines, Sawmill and Blacksmith.

Between this and the last match, they hadn’t changed their strategy. Lu Li still committed most of their forces to contesting the Blacksmith. The Blacksmith was located right in the centre of the map, so if you controlled this base you could easily get to the other 4 locations. It was quite a strategic position, which meant that the fighting was most intense there. Lu Li’s main attack on this location was to ensure they took control.

When Lu Li arrived at the Blacksmith, he didn’t even have a chance to start capturing the flag before he saw a Mage rushing in on an ostrich.

The ostrich was a mount from the Blood Elves, which ran quite strangely but wasn’t that fast. Its speed was similar to the ordinary mounts so both the Mage and Lu Li arrived at about the same time.

Lu Li didn’t bother capturing the flag, and instead jumped off his mount and ran straight towards the Mage.

The Mage was obviously not an unskilled player either. While retreating, he summoned a Water Elemental and just as Lu Li made contact with his dagger, his Ice Shield was already covering him. He then started harassing Lu Li as his teammates arrived to provide backup. Given their combat experience, it was clear that these players had been playing on the battlefield for quite some time.

The battlefield was different from an arena fight; the battles here were much more scattered.

As several players were attacking Lu Li, he had to step back and retreat to this own camp.

“Drifting, get around them. Nuo Yu attack their healer!”

Lu Li obviously wouldn’t just passively retreat, so he started instructed other more-survivable players like Drifting Rain to go in and for Nuo Yu to hold off the other team’s healer.

The scariest thing for a commander when fighting in a battlefield was when the players didn’t listen to the commands and only wanted to kill players instead of targeting the healer.

Fortunately, Lu Li was the leader of Ruling Sword and such a thing had never happened before. Before long, the poor Druid Healer had died and the rest were finding the fight much more difficult. Moreover, Ruling Sword had two more players at the Blacksmith than the other players.

“Sawmill! We need help at the sawmill! We’re getting pushed out!” Fat Monkey’s voice yelled out over the channel.

Given the tone of his voice, it seemed like he was going to die but they couldn’t be sure.

“Mu Qiu, Memories and Nuo Yu, guard the Blacksmith. Everyone else, come with me to the Sawmill. What is happening at the Gold Mine?” Lu Li asked as he summoned his mount to ride up.

Flying mounts or other similar means of transport couldn’t be used in the battlefield, which meant that Lu Li couldn’t turn into a crow and fly into the Sawmill. Lu Li had to use his mount to run all the way to the Sawmill, but this was alright as there were some that couldn’t afford a mount and had to run on foot.

“The Gold Mines are fine; they only sent two players,” Wandering replied.

It seemed that their focus had been to take the Sawmill, then prioritize the Blacksmith and abandon the Gold Mines.

“There is a Thief in the Barn. What should I do?” White Traveller asked.

“Don’t let him capture the flag. Lighty, go!”

Lu Li looked at the positions of his teammates on the map and saw that Moonlight was close enough to provide support. If both of them were defending, it wouldn’t be a problem, even if there were two Thieves. However, Lu Li guessed that a Thief was sent to the Barn just to try their luck. It was unlikely that they would ordinarily be able to capture the Barn.

“Dammit, I don’t want to be protecting a flag,” Moonlight protested.

“If you can kill the Thief in the Barn, then go to the Blacksmith or the Gold Mine. I assume they will go after those after they revive. Hey, Mr. Mage, why aren’t you dead yet?” Lu Li asked. It

seemed strange that Fat Monkey, who was defending the Sawmill, hadn’t died yet.

“Please, I wouldn’t die even if you killed me. I just used my items, but the second time they almost had me,” Fat Monkey said as he pointed at a Shaman from the other team.

Lu Li was stunned by the Shaman’s Thunderstorm, which could summon a lightning bolt to deal damage to all nearby enemies within 10 yards, pushing them away and reducing their movement speed by 40%. This skill wasn’t very common, and it could only be used for an Elemental Shaman that had trained in that element.

“How haven’t you been pushed down this cliff? You should be dead or at least disabled.”

“I blinked to a safe location, and avoided the fall.” Fat Monkey said proudly.

He was a player that competed professionally; what was so noteworthy about doing that to some ordinary player? However, Lu Li couldn’t be bothered saying that to him and just went to deal with the Shaman with a rotation of skills. He then summoned his mount and left.

He hadn’t received any other calls for help, so he went back to planning their next strategy as he went towards the opponent’s Farm.

The Arathi Basin was a valley with mountains of varying heights. There were a few fertile farmlands in the Eastern Kingdoms, and these were generally closer to the Horde’s camp.

There would generally be players left behind at those areas. He didn’t know how many, but they definitely would be there.