When Lin Xie, the commander of the Demon Emperor's Palace's team, issued the retreat order, Fan Muran, watching everything from afar, nearly dropped her jaw.
"They won?"
When the Demon Emperor's Palace had first set foot on Dragon Heart Island, it had sent shockwaves through the entire island, forcing every major superpower to tread carefully. Their greatest feat was propping Battle Blood straight to the number-one spot by sheer force.
And Lin Xie's ace team had beaten the main forces of those superpowers into submission — not a single group dared challenge them head-on.
It could be said that on all of Dragon Heart Island, aside from the main squads of the top few mega-guilds, no one dared pick a fight with the Demon Emperor's Palace's ace team.
When she had heard the Palace was sending this very team over, she had nearly despaired.
Against Battle Blood, the Blade of the
Yet now
One had to understand — the top three most monstrous experts on Dragon Heart Island might be able to hold their own against the Palace's ace team, but only through guerrilla tactics in the wild, wearing them down bit by bit. A direct clash? Practically impossible. Lin Xie, Mo Xie, Mu Han — these were no ordinary experts. Lin Xie in particular possessed strength that undeniably placed him in the top ten on Dragon Heart Island. He could probably single-handedly wipe out the Blade of the Firmament's main squad.
After Lin Xie gave the order to pull back, the rest of the Demon Emperor's Palace members felt a bitter taste rise in their throats.
Usually they were the ones chasing everyone else around. Now they were being beaten into fleeing by a single man. If someone had told them this before they entered the passage, they would have dismissed it as a joke.
Because such a thing was simply impossible.
Their strength was formidable — they had sixteen Tier 3 experts holding the line, two of whom ranked in the top twenty on Dragon Heart Island. Mu Han might not crack the top twenty, but he was solidly in the top thirty. That kind of lineup would be hard even for a mega-guild to assemble, and even if they could, no one expected them to be sent running through the streets.
Yet here it was, actually happening — and not even against a mega-guild's ace squad, but against
If word of this got out, the Demon Emperor's Palace's reputation on Dragon Heart Island would be utterly shattered.
Still, none of them hesitated for even a second. Almost every member immediately turned and scattered, refusing to engage Shi Feng's doppelgänger in the slightest, focused solely on escape.
Their decisiveness caught even Shi Feng slightly off guard.
It would be one thing for ordinary players to retreat so cleanly, but for the Demon Emperor's Palace's elite of the elite, fleeing like this was a deep humiliation. The stronger an expert, the prouder their ego — they would rather die standing than live on their knees. Besides, dying only meant losing a single level, and with the guild's backing, they would be back in fighting shape in no time.
What Shi Feng hadn't anticipated was that the Demon Emperor's Palace was unlike other superpowers. As a force rooted in the Demon Purgatory Great World, the competition there was so fierce that outsiders could scarcely imagine it.
Losing a level and a piece of equipment could very well knock them from the upper echelons straight to the bottom.
Why?
Because opportunities were scarce and fleeting.
The higher one's level and the greater one's strength, the higher the chance of stumbling upon a life-changing opportunity — especially for frontline experts. A single death could cost them a chance to vault to the heavens overnight.