The grand and solemn conference hall fell silent with the arrival of Mu Yun and the others. Every pair of eyes fixed on the Zero Wing members standing behind her.
"No way! Level 62?"
"How does Zero Wing have so many experts above Level 61?"
"Are these people really players from Zero Wing? I thought Zero Wing's top experts were Huo Wu and Ke Le?"
The Hundred Flowers Palace members whispered among themselves as the Silent Blade and over a dozen others walked in, their gazes filled with disbelief.
There were plenty of Level 60 players present, but the gap in experience between Level 60 and Level 61 was enormous. Right now, the entire Dark Night Empire had only around twenty publicly known experts who had reached Level 61. Even accounting for hidden experts, that number wouldn't exceed fifty, and the majority of them belonged to the empire's three great superpowers.
Zero Wing had sent over a dozen people who immediately accounted for nearly a third of the Dark Night Empire's level leaderboard. Among them, a full ten had reached Level 62 — effectively sweeping the top ten spots on the entire empire's rankings…
Level alone didn't necessarily mean much, but the dazzling equipment worn by these Zero Wing members was every bit as impressive as the three people Fei Xin had brought along.
Standing together, the aura radiating from this group of over a dozen clearly surpassed that of Fei Xin's trio by a significant margin. Even the guild executives present felt a tremendous sense of pressure, let alone the rank-and-file members outside — it was no wonder the commotion had erupted.
"This is Zero Wing? They're even more formidable than the rumors suggest!"
The wild-looking man carrying a massive war blade stared at the Silent Blade and Man Gu with surprise in his eyes. His gaze settled especially on the young man at their head. Despite using a high-level observation skill, he couldn't extract any information about this young man at all.
The only thing he could determine was a single name — Ye Feng.
"Somewhat impressive, I'll give them that. No wonder they're bold enough to claim they can handle Hundred Flowers Palace's affairs." Fei Xin, standing nearby, glanced at Shi Feng and the others with a flat expression. "Too bad they came all this way for nothing!"
A guild's strength wasn't demonstrated solely through a handful of top experts.
Zero Wing may have brought more top experts than expected, but when it came to defending guild territory, the real deciding factor was the coordination of large numbers of ordinary experts and numerous elite teams.
The wild man with the war blade nodded slightly, clearly agreeing with what Fei Xin had said.
From the outside world's perspective, Hundred Flowers Palace had been at its peak before, but that wasn't actually true — it had only possessed roughly two-thirds of its true strength. The reason was that Fei Xin had been operating in the Holy Hill Kingdom all this time, and the forces under her command alone accounted for a full third of the palace's might.
Now that Fei Xin had returned, it meant Hundred Flowers Palace had been restored to its full strength. Its combat power had increased by fifty percent compared to before.
With such power, withstanding Star Ring's offensive shouldn't be a major problem. After all, Star Ring's primary target was the Undying War Souls.
After a brief round of discussion, the Hundred Flowers Palace's executive meeting officially commenced with the arrival of the palace's guild master, Hua Ying Yue.
"So she's Hua Ying Yue?" Shi Feng looked at the graceful woman seated in the guild master's throne, her face veiled, and felt a twinge of surprise.
Hundred Flowers Palace was one of the rare guilds in the virtual gaming world dominated primarily by women, and Hua Ying Yue was the most formidable guild master in the palace's history. She had led Hundred Flowers Palace to develop into a quasi-super-first-rate guild — not quite super-first-rate, but possessing strength approaching that level.
However, this Hua Ying Yue's identity had always been shrouded in mystery.
The reason it was called mysterious was that Hua Ying Yue had almost never appeared before the public eye. People knew she existed, but virtually no one had actually seen her.
Many speculated that Hua Ying Yue was in her thirties, perhaps even forty. Yet through the All-Seeing Eye's observation, this Hua Ying Yue was clearly a young woman around twenty years of age — even younger than Mu Yun, with a beauty that matched Mu Yun's own. As for her level, it was equally impressive: a Level 61 Tier 2 Assassin.
As Shi Feng quietly observed the Hundred Flowers Palace executives, the discussion among them was in full swing.
Opinions on the current situation were split into two camps. One faction advocated accepting Zero Wing's help, but with reduced shop and land operating rights, preferring to pay with other resources instead. The other faction argued that Zero Wing's help was unnecessary, since Fei Xin had returned and the palace's greatly bolstered combat power was sufficient to withstand Star Ring's aggressive encroachment.
The two factions were led by Mu Yun and Fei Xin respectively, and the debate raged on without resolution.
"Fei Xin, I know that Star Ring hasn't officially been recognized as a super-first-rate guild yet, but in terms of actual strength, they're already on par with — or even surpassing — the Undying War Souls. Right now they've already started targeting us specifically because they want to deal with the Undying War Souls without interference. They're clearing obstacles from their path, and this fight against us is no minor skirmish. Relying on our palace's strength alone, it'll be very hard to go up against Star Ring!" Mu Yun said slowly.
"That may be true, but there have been precedents — three guilds roughly on par with first-rate guilds that managed to hold off a superpower's offensive. Just like how Zero Wing held off the Miracles Guild in the Black Dragon Empire." Fei Xin glanced at Shi Feng seated in the guest position and smiled lightly. "I'll admit that we don't have Zero Wing's Basic Combat Mana Armor or the Mana-Breaking Crossbow. However, we hold an absolute terrain advantage, and we have Blood Source Potions in large quantities — potions perfectly suited for field combat. There's no reason we can't drive Star Ring out of our territory, just like Zero Wing did."
Blood Source Potions were a special berserker potion — a unique alchemical concoction that Fei Xin had acquired. When a player drank one, their level shot up by five, their base attributes increased by twenty percent, and most importantly, their constitution surged by a full forty percent, all lasting for a full three hours.
The only drawback was that once the effects wore off, the player dropped one level and suffered weakness for twelve hours. It was precisely because of this that the potion was a forbidden substance, one that would never be used unless absolutely necessary.
If they deployed large quantities of Blood Source Potions in a field battle against Star Ring for territorial control, the combat effectiveness would likely surpass even Zero Wing's Basic Combat Mana Armor and Mana-Breaking Crossbow. After all, they could have thousands of experts using the potions, whereas Zero Wing had only a few hundred fighting at the time.
Fei Xin's words left Mu Yun silent. The others present also found her reasoning persuasive — after all, Fei Xin had used those very Blood Source Potions to carve out a massive stretch of territory in the Holy Hill Kingdom with only a small contingent of guild members.
Moreover, since Star Ring's goal was to deal with the Undying War Souls, they couldn't afford to keep fighting Hundred Flowers Palace indefinitely. The same logic had applied when the Miracles Guild targeted Zero Wing.
If Zero Wing could hold off the Miracles Guild, why couldn't Hundred Flowers Palace do the same?
And their numbers far exceeded what Zero Wing had when they faced the Miracles Guild.
Just as the crowd was quietly discussing Fei Xin's proposal and finding it rather appealing, a system notification chimed in the ears of every Hundred Flowers Palace member.
Guild System: Star Ring has seized the Founding Token of East Valley Town. East Valley Town is no longer under the jurisdiction of Hundred Flowers Palace. Guild prestige has decreased by 2,000 points.