In a desolate wasteland outside the Ancient Divine Ruins, large hordes of dark demons and demonic beasts had gathered, forming a dense black mass numbering over fifty to sixty thousand.
Apart from these dark creatures, there were also some players clad in black cloaks, their bodies emanating a faint bloody aura. A single glance at them was enough to send a shiver down one's spine. Even some players who did not wear black cloaks to conceal their identities had names glowing a dark crimson, clearly indicating an astonishing number of player kills—they were definitely not ordinary expert players.
The equipment on these players was also quite impressive. Although they had only recently reached Level 50, more than half of their gear was already Level 50 Darksteel and Mythril Rank equipment. Some even had half their loadout consisting of Level 50 Mythril Rank gear, which was absolutely top-tier in the current game.
"Hunter Gale, let's make this clear first: our Crimson Horn Guild will only assist you in killing Zero Wing's people. We won't charge forward to be cannon fodder ourselves." A tall, imposing man with two short swords hanging at his waist glanced coldly at the phantom image beside him and said indifferently.
"Rest assured. As long as Zero Wing's people dare leave Silver Wing Town, I will have the dark demons and beasts rush them. All you need to do is seize the opportunity to take them out. But don't forget, my goal isn't merely to make them lose just one level," Hunter Gale Trailhunter replied with a smile, offering a reminder.
The reason they had chosen to cooperate with the dark guild Crimson Horn was not only because of Crimson Horn's great reputation within the Dark Night Empire, but more so because the guild possessed a special kind of poison.
This poison was called Soul-Devouring Venom. Once smeared on a weapon and used to strike a player, it would corrode their soul. Upon the death of such a player, their level would drop by two or three levels, depending on the depth of the poison. The deeper the poison, the more severe the penalty upon death—ideally, they could lose three levels and suffer a prolonged period of weakness.
During this weakened state, the player would be unable to grind and level up.
It was precisely because of this that they chose to cooperate with Crimson Horn, allowing Crimson Horn's members to farm Glory Points and accumulate Battlefield Titles.
"Leave that part to us. Once we take them out, I guarantee they won't be able to recover their peak form anytime soon," the cold-eyed man said with great confidence. "If there weren't so many guilds in this area, I'd actually love to have a go at Zero Wing's top players myself. I hear they're quite skilled and absolutely loaded with loot—any single piece of equipment they drop would make those super guilds green with envy. But it seems that's not going to happen now."
As he spoke, the cold-eyed man shot a glance at the six players behind him, all clad in black cloaks that completely concealed their features, and felt a surge of displeasure.
Because the ones handling Zero Wing's top players this time were those six players.
None of them belonged to dark guilds, but they were all dark-faction players, and they commanded significant fame in the Dark Night Empire. They were known as the Dark Hunters adventure team—a group that even Crimson Horn preferred not to provoke.
The Dark Hunters adventure team was full of eccentrics, every last one of them a dark-faction player. But that wasn't the most important thing. What truly mattered was that the Dark Hunters' strength was far from ordinary. Not long ago, a twenty-man squad from their team had wiped out the main thousand-man force of the first-rate guild Imperial Hegemony in a regional Dungeon...
Among those twenty, eight were Tier 2 Classes, with stats and fundamental attributes that were absurdly powerful. Even Imperial Hegemony's Guild Master Situ Zhaixing—a Level 51 Tier 2 Assassin—had been taken down.
One had to understand that a Tier 2 Assassin was nothing like a Tier 1. Their survival skills were far more formidable, and even against other Tier 2 powerhouses, three to five working together might not be enough to keep one cornered. Yet this Tier 2 Assassin had been killed—and killed by a single member of the Dark Hunters. The sheer power on display had shaken the entire Dark Night Empire at the time.
After all, Situ Zhaixing was no ordinary expert. He ranked 305th on the Storm Rankings—a major powerhouse who stood at the forefront among Perfection-realm experts, more than capable of handling ordinary peers of the same realm.
And yet he had been dispatched by the Dark Hunters with clean, decisive efficiency.
Before this, the Dark Hunters had amassed an impressive string of victories as well, though those had circulated only within the dark factions and had never been publicly known to the major guilds.
Among them, Red Demon, the leader of the Red Horn Guild, had once been taken down by the Dark Hunters.
In his view, the Dark Hunters' players weren't human. He'd encountered plenty of players from dark factions before, but those players were at least somewhat humanoid. The Dark Hunters' players, however, once they activated their power, dropped all pretense of maintaining human form and became true monsters. Their fighting style was completely different from that of regular players.
And the six who had come this time were all Tier 2 class users. If it really came to a fight, even without the help of the evil demons and demonic beasts, the six from the Dark Hunters could make life miserable for Zero Wing's main raid team members.
"Since all our people have gathered, let's proceed according to plan. First, surround Silverwing Town and the Ancient Divine Ruins. But be sure to maintain your distance from Silverwing Town—they've constructed a Magic Tower there. The tower's attack range is determined by its height, and based on our calculations, its maximum attack range should be around fifteen hundred yards."
"You'd best avoid operating within that range. If you die, that's on you."
The members of the dark factions nodded in agreement upon hearing Lie Feng Zhuihun's warning.
Siege weapons were no joke—a single blow carried the power of peak Tier 3, and it was an area-of-effect attack. Aside from invincibility-type magic skills, who could possibly withstand it?
Well, someone had. But none of them believed they possessed Black Flame's strength to go head-to-head against a siege weapon's attack.
Once Lie Feng Zhuihun finished speaking, everyone mobilized. The evil demons and demonic beasts, following his orders, began closing in on the Ancient Divine Ruins and Silverwing Town.
The appearance of the evil demons and demonic beasts was quickly noticed by every player at the Ancient Divine Ruins.
"So many evil demons and demonic beasts! There must be at least fifty thousand of them."
"Is the Beast Emperor going to make his move?"
The people gathered at the Ancient Divine Ruins stared at the dark, overwhelming army of evil demons and demonic beasts closing in, each one swallowing hard. Even though they all knew the Beast Emperor was targeting the Zero Wing Guild, watching those monsters approach still left their hearts pounding with unease and worry.
"Good! They've finally arrived!" The executives of the various superpowers watched the encircling evil demons and demonic beasts with great satisfaction. "Now let's see how Zero Wing keeps acting all high and mighty."
As long as the Beast Emperor was willing to fight Zero Wing, whether he succeeded or failed, it would put considerable pressure on the Zero Wing Guild. That would give them an opportunity to grab a share of Silverwing Town's stocks — unlike before, when they hadn't even had a sliver of a chance.
The army of evil demons and demonic beasts was now less than a thousand yards from the Ancient Divine Ruins.
Meanwhile, in Silverwing Town over three thousand yards away, a magic tower began charging up. The surrounding mana surged wildly toward the enormous magic crystal mounted on the tower.
In less than two seconds, the giant magic crystal on the tower fired a beam of black-and-white light straight into the sky. The beam pierced the heavens, clearly visible even to the players at the Ancient Divine Ruins.
"What is the Zero Wing Guild doing?" Everyone looked on in bewilderment.
Just as the crowd was puzzling over what they were seeing, a colossal pillar of black-and-white light came crashing down from the sky, slamming directly into the center of the evil demon and demonic beast army. It expanded outward in all directions, relentlessly devouring everything in its path. Every special elite-level evil demon caught in its range was annihilated on the spot. Even the Leader-level ones that survived were left with devastatingly low health, and the Grand Lord-level evil demons and demonic beasts were left severely wounded...