The Great Thief

However, Drinking Alone also knew what option they had to pick.

Even with the help of Ruling Sword, they didn’t have a great chance of taking the Stronghold, let alone attempting it without their help.

If they helped Ruling Sword defend, they wouldn’t just be asking for help anymore. This kind of reciprocal transaction would also help to improve cooperation between the two guilds. After consulting with the club executives, Drinking Alone decided to fully support Ruling Sword.

They carefully selected nearly 20 of their top players to join the defence of Grey Valley.

Lu Li had decided to focus on the Black Sea Coast. He had basically handed over Grey Valley to his allies with 20 players from Grand Hegemony and 20 players from Peerless City. The rest of the players in Grey Valley were naturally filled with Ruling Sword players.

The Black Sea Coast was to be personally defended by Lu Li, who would face whatever they were plotting.

In Grey Valley, Wandering and Sky Moon were defending together. There were more and more signs pointing to the fact that Lu Li’s guess was true. For example, Eternal Kingdom had fought a Wild Boss last weekend, but Glory Capital didn’t seem to contest it as much as they normally would. There was also an ore mine controlled by Glory Capital, but some Eternal Kingdom Life Profession players had appeared there. Eternal Kingdom hadn’t been able to get through the Ahn’Qiraj Temple, but last week they suddenly managed to clear the Instance Dungeon…

If they weren’t looking, they would have missed all these clues, but they were able to notice all these things because they were now aware.

It was likely that Glory Capital had completely suppressed Eternal Kingdom in the last few months to force them to submit to them. They probably searched everywhere for Eternal Kingdom’s activities, farming their monsters, taking their materials, stealing their Bosses and attacking the players.

However, those activities slowed at the start of the month.

It was likely that they had started negotiating at that time and had made some progress, because they later became like family.

The reason why it wasn’t immediately announced was likely because Sorrowless wanted to use the secrecy to attack Ruling Sword. He would attack the Grey Valley Stronghold while using Eternal Kingdom as a shell to attack from another angle.

As Lu Li stood on the wall of the Stronghold, he silently looked at the group of players opposite from him.

All the players had their faces concealed. Why would they do this if they didn’t have anything to hide? Since when was Eternal Kingdom sensitive about the identity of their players?

But compared to Lu Li’s surprise, the players standing on the ground were even more surprised. Why was Lu Li standing on the wall and commanding the defense of this Stronghold? Shouldn’t he be facing Sorrowless in Grey Valley?

Other than the one time when Sky Moon was assigned, Lu Li would always personally face Sorrowless. Having just Wandering or Sky Moon wasn’t enough. They weren’t able to defeat Sorrowless because they lacked the mental fortitude.

Not everyone was like Fat Monkey, who was fearless before Sorrowless.

However, since Lu Li was in front of them, that meant that he wasn’t in Grey Valley.

“Why, are you surprised?”

Lu Li was very pleased with this atmosphere. Even if he didn’t know who these players were, he could imagine their facial expressions.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Midnight Ghost said as he removed his bandana.

“Hey, isn’t that Ghost? Who is that next to you then?” Lu Li asked.

“None of your business,” Midnight Ghost said calmly.

“You are an Eternal Kingdom Club Party Leader, the highest position among the combat professions. But now, you aren’t standing in the chief position. Surely you weren’t acquired by another guild? The once brilliant Eternal Kingdom now beaten to a pulp by Glory Capital… I can’t believe you guys were so thoroughly defeated…”

“Sure, we are allied, but we definitely were not acquired.”

The person standing next to Midnight Ghost removed their bandana. Sure enough, Sorrowless’ face was revealed.

Now that they had reached this situation, the surprise was lost so there wasn’t a need to hide anymore.

Lu Li had never been one to talk nonsense. On this occasion, he had uncovered things that both parties wanted to keep secret, and had also humiliated the Eternal Kingdom players. The result was that the Eternal Kingdom players’ moral plummeted.

Lu Li had mentioned the greatness of their predecessors were and how far they had fallen. The players couldn’t have but been dissatisfied with their high-level executives.

Sorrowless certainly understood the sinister intentions of Lu Li, so he stopped Lu Li from continuing.

“Hey, isn’t that Sorrowless? How come you’re here in the Eternal Kingdom team? Surely it wasn’t Glory Capital who got acquired in this situation,” Lu Li taunted as he continued smiling.

“I hope you don’t intend to defend this Stronghold today with your mouth,” Sorrowless snorted and pointed his Magic Staff at Lu Li before yelling, “Attack!”

The explosions of the chariots firing filled the air. Lu Li immediately called for Azure Sea Breeze to raise his giant shield, which blocked a lot of the damage. However, Lu Li could also hear Azure Sea Breeze’s cry of distress as this dramatically reduced his equipment’s durability.

The players who were attacking brought many spare equips. Azure Sea Breeze had also brought a dozen shields, and many of them had been borrowed from Ruling Sword’s Club’s Warriors.

“It looks like they have sent quite a few people to Grey Valley as well. They actually wanted to take both Strongholds. They must be fearless,” Lu Li sneered at the players as he organised a counterattack. Even though he only had half the chariots, he still intended to kill as many players on the ground as possible.

“Wandering will be fine.”

Despite their tumultuous relationship, Azure Sea Breeze had more confidence in Wandering than anyone else.

“Neither Blood Dagger nor White Westhill is here. Sorrowless must be pretty depressed by now,” Lu Li gloated.

He didn’t even want to consider for a moment what would have happened if Wandering didn’t say anything. They would have had their worst line up defending the Black Sea Coast. It probably wouldn’t have lasted for much longer than 10 minutes under Sorrowless’ siege.

In that situation, it would have been Lu Li who was depressed.

Sorrowless really had no chance of taking the Black Sea Coast. Although he worked hard to break through the walls, he wasn’t leading Glory Capital’s strongest players which meant that he couldn’t fight through Lu Li’s players. Moreover, Sorrowless’ players already had low morale, which made the fight even more difficult.

The words that Lu Li started with had a serious impact on the Eternal Kingdom players.

They didn’t know why Sorrowless had brought a group of players to be among their ranks. They were told by their leaders that it was just some help. Even if Sorrowless denied it, the seed of doubt was planted by Lu Li and it was something really hard for them to shake.

The Black Sea Coast’s defenses were also far beyond what they had imagined, which further exacerbated the difficulty of Sorrowless’ offence.

The Black Sea Coast was eventually successfully defended. Grey Valley was also defended under the leadership of Wandering and Sky Moon. When White Westhill didn’t see Lu Li, but saw the faces of Peerless City and Grand Hegemony, she could already anticipate how the Black Sea Coast fight would end.

Glory Capital had lost once again!