Outside the underground arena of Flame Dragon City, rows upon rows of high-end carriages and premium mounts filled the entrance.
Hundreds of guards clad in black armor were methodically verifying invitations.
"Isn't that the guild master of the
"What kind of mount is that thing? It's massive!"
"Holy crap! An Epic-grade visual effect!"
"This Dark Arena competition is something else — which teams are even fighting to draw this kind of crowd!"
...
Both the free players who had come to spectate from the Flame Dragon Imperial Capital and the guild members here to compete in the Dark Arena were stunned by the spectacle.
Mounts that were normally nearly impossible to see in the Flame Dragon Capital were everywhere now — warhorses, leopards, tigers, lions, kodo beasts, war wolves — so many varieties it was hard to take it all in.
Beyond the high-end mounts, upper echelons of major guilds — the kind of people you'd never spot even in the capital — had shown up as well.
But what drew the most commentary was weapons and equipment.
In the Divine Realm, Dark Gold-grade weapons and equipment were already considered divine artifacts by ordinary players. Yet here, among this gathering of major guild elites, Dark Gold-grade gear was as common as cabbage — only Epic-grade items could turn heads.
The reason so many guild higher-ups had come was that the Dark Arena was hosting its very first Auction Assembly today. This had piqued the interest of major guilds that otherwise wouldn't care much about the matches, since they wanted to see what treasures would be up for sale. After all, this auction was jointly organized by several host entities — if the merchandise turned out to be poor, it would be deeply humiliating.
On top of that, the Dark Arena had publicly advertised that Epic-grade items would be among the offerings.
Even in first-rate guilds, Epic-grade items were rare — some had only one or two, treasuring them as their guild's crown jewels to attract new players entering the Divine Realm and free players. If that was the case for first-rate guilds, let alone the rest.
The guilds invited to the Dark Arena were predominantly first-rate guilds, along with super guilds and super-first-rate guilds. Beyond those, there were a select few second-rate guilds, renowned adventurer teams, and top-tier free experts famous throughout the Divine Realm.
And anyone holding an invitation could bring others along.
Quite a few upper-level members of major guilds who hadn't received invitations had entered by tagging along with first-rate guild members.
So the Dark Arena was packed with guild bigwigs. For those guilds that had no Epic-grade items of their own, they were all eager to buy something to serve as their treasured artifact.
Right in the midst of this crowd of experts, a six-person squad appeared, standing out conspicuously in the throng.
"Whoa — which guild are those people from? Every single one of them is equipped with Epic-grade items! That's even more impressive than a first-rate guild's master!"
"No way, they probably aren't guild members. Look — none of them has a guild emblem."
Everyone who spotted the six-person squad was astonished in turn. Even many high-ranking members of first-rate guilds were burning with curiosity about their identities.
Every member of this squad had Epic-grade equipment, and their levels were staggeringly high.
A uniform Level 43!
In the
Having six people all at Level 43 meant they could all comfortably rank within the
"Weiyang-jie, so many people are staring at us. Should we pull our black cloaks up to hide?" Yun Zhongsha felt they were far too conspicuous in this crowd — it might attract unwanted attention from certain people and put a target on their backs, since Epic-grade items were simply too eye-catching.