As soon as Jing Yang gave the order, the Black Water members across the four battlefields sprang into action, coordinating with Star Ring's players to target Zero Wing.
Unlike the first battlefield, where monsters had swarmed together, the other four battlefields held virtually no monsters at all. The two remaining Ghost Shadow Demons of Star Ring's Four Great Demons were positioned on the second and third battlefields respectively, while Black Water had none present. However, the total headcount on each of the four battlefields far exceeded that of the first.
On any one of the four battlefields, the combined forces of Star Ring and Black Water numbered over a hundred players. Every single one of them was at least at the Insight level — top-tier experts that any first-rate guild would kill to have. It was nothing like the first battlefield, where the total hadn't even reached forty. The disparity was night and day.
The second and third battlefields in particular were each led by one of Star Ring's monstrous demons — Mad Demon and Mind Demon respectively. Even the other superpowers wouldn't dare oppose them on the field.
"This is going to be rough for Zero Wing," Yi Luofei of the fff Guild muttered, clicking her tongue as she surveyed the two dominant superpowers across the battlefields.
Zero Wing had won the first battlefield, where the monsters had congregated. But the remaining four battlefields presented an overwhelming disadvantage. The second and third battlefields, each led by a demon commanding over a hundred Insight-level experts, would be enough to trap and grind down even a Domain master through sheer numbers.
Meanwhile, Zero Wing had dispatched anywhere from a dozen to twenty-odd players to each battlefield, with no demon of their own to anchor the force. Not only were they outmatched in raw power, but the Auction House Trial was fundamentally a competition to seize energy crystal balls. As time went on and more crystal balls rained down from above, numerical superiority would only compound. Zero Wing's position would grow worse by the minute.
"It really is a foolish move," Yan Tianxing said from the sidelines, watching Shi Feng in the first battlefield through the magical mirror in the sky. He let out a long sigh. "If Zero Wing hadn't provoked Black Water and Star Ring into joining forces, their chances of winning this trial would have been excellent. At the very least, they could have exploited the chaos — when the crystal balls first appeared, the superpowers would have inevitably clashed with one another. But now, not a single superpower wants to fight Black Water and Star Ring together. Zero Wing has lost even the chance to scramble for scraps."
This was the tragedy of guild development. Even if a guild possessed the strength to contend with a superpower, the other superpowers would never stand by and watch a guild ascend to their ranks. They would always band together to crush the upstart before it could solidify its position.
The guild he had founded in the past had faced exactly this fate. In the end, he'd had no choice but to abandon it and form an adventure team instead. Now Zero Wing was confronting the same wall.
Every faction present felt a twinge of sympathy. They had been on the verge of witnessing a guild with no backing whatsoever rise to become a new superpower — and now that chance had evaporated.
For the second-rate and first-rate guilds in attendance, the dream of ascending to superpower status and becoming a dominant force in the virtual gaming world had always been the ultimate goal. But that path was impossibly steep. Without a massive conglomerate or powerful connections behind you, it was nothing short of a pipe dream — an insurmountable divide.
Zero Wing had built everything from nothing, with no background at all, and had come within a hair's breadth of crossing that threshold. They had shown every upstart guild that the path existed and the light at the end was real.
And now that light was about to be snuffed out.
If even a monster like Shi Feng met this end, what hope did the rest of them have?
"Hahaha! Serves you right! So this is your day, Black Flame!" In the third battlefield, Yi Xiao Duzang — wearing Black Water's emblem — stared at the magical mirror overhead and couldn't help but burst into laughter.
He had waited for this day far, far too long. He should have been the overlord of the Star Moon Region, a figure destined to rise to the pinnacle. All of that had been destroyed because of Zero Wing. His plans had crumbled, and he had been reduced to a mere team leader under Black Water.
His hatred and fury toward Zero Wing ran bone-deep.
He had thought he would never live to see Zero Wing's downfall. But in this moment, the satisfaction was indescribable.
Without the Auction House in White River City, Zero Wing was doomed to lose the city itself. And without White River City — the stronghold they had painstakingly built — Zero Wing would regress by a massive margin. In an era where every second counted, falling back by even a single step meant being overtaken by countless powers, let alone falling back by a mile.
While Yi Xiao Duzang reveled in his elation, the Black Water team on the third battlefield merged with Star Ring's forces at the spot where energy crystal balls were about to drop, falling entirely under the command of Star Ring's Mind Demon.
The moment Mind Demon's team arrived on the battlefield, every other superpower instinctively pulled back. Even the various factions watching from the sidelines drew sharp breaths.
"So this is what Black Water and Star Ring joining hands looks like?" Chen Xue of the Bathing Blood Family stared at the assembled experts, his scalp tingling with dread.