Second basement level of Zero Wing's headquarters in Silverwing Town.
The underground hall, roughly half the size of a football pitch, was lined with row upon row of NPC elderly, infirm, and injured—over three hundred in total. The sight left the hundred-odd Tier 3 experts of Zero Wing assembled in the hall utterly baffled.
"With the situation outside so tense, shouldn't we be scrambling to prepare for battle? Why has the Guild Master summoned all of us—Tier 3 main-force members—to gather here? What exactly is the point?" A lean, tall Tier 3 man who had reached Level 115 wore the badge of a Zero Wing main raid team probationary member. He stared at the crowd milling about the hall with undisguised confusion.
As a former vice-leader of a well-known adventurer party, he had not been with Zero Wing for long. He had only become a probationary member of the main raid team after Shi Feng and the others had departed for the Eastern Continent, so he had little idea how deep Zero Wing's reserves truly ran.
But he knew very well how powerful those Holy Sculpture monsters were. Once they reached a critical mass, storming a city wall was as effortless as a bulldozer leveling open ground.
Now millions of Holy Sculpture troops were charging straight toward Silverwing Town, and instead of reinforcing the town's defenses, the Guild Master had pulled every single Tier 3 main-force fighter off the walls and ordered them to stand here—waiting for over two hours—doing nothing but staring at these broken, elderly NPCs.
It was madness.
Plenty of other Tier 3 members in the hall shared his bewilderment. Silverwing Town was no small settlement—there were countless points to defend. They still needed to coordinate the guild's remaining Tier 3 fighters and Tier 2 members. Time was already in desperately short supply, and yet they had been made to waste over two solid hours here.
Some even wondered whether Shi Feng had simply given up on Silverwing Town. To Zero Wing's inner circle, the town might be nothing more than a guild base. But for those of them who had lived there long-term, it was home.
While the murmurs of complaint spread, Youlan and the Melancholic Smile suddenly walked toward the staircase entrance, each taking up a position on either side. They gazed silently at the young man descending the steps, their faces showing unconcealed respect.
"Guild Master, all Tier 3 core members holding a title of Viscount or above have assembled. They've all signed confidentiality oaths. Between the personal guard quotas they hold, we should be able to absorb every one of these NPCs," the Melancholic Smile reported in a low voice as Shi Feng reached the bottom of the stairs.
"Good. Let's begin." Shi Feng nodded.
The matter of the Water of Life was originally something he wanted to keep as secret as possible—the better to quietly recruit promising injured NPCs. But Divine Realm had already changed so drastically that secrecy no longer mattered.
At Shi Feng's word, the Melancholic Smile began calling the neatly lined-up NPCs forward one by one, distributing vials of Water of Life. The Zero Wing members watched in mounting confusion.
"What is she even doing?"
"That life energy is incredibly dense!"
"Why are these NPCs so emotional?"
Many of them had heard of the Water of Life, but very few had ever actually seen it.
They watched as the Melancholic Smile handed out bottle after bottle, each one brimming with vital energy. Every NPC who received a vial transformed before their eyes—from listless husks into figures radiating hope and vigor. More than that, each one was overcome with gratitude toward the Melancholic Smile, swearing oaths of fealty on the spot. The spectacle left the Zero Wing members stunned.
They could all tell that these NPCs were not player-hired guards. They were free NPCs—autonomous beings who would never normally show a player that kind of gratitude, let alone pledge unconditional loyalty.
Yet before the Zero Wing main raid team probationary members could even process what they were seeing, pillar after pillar of aura erupted from the NPCs' bodies.
These were the same individuals who had seemed far weaker than ordinary Tier 2 NPCs just moments ago. Now the pressure each one radiated was enough to make even the Peak Realm Tier 3 experts in the hall feel their hearts clench. The weakest among them exuded an aura that could unsettle a Tier 3 powerhouse.
Over three hundred NPCs released their auras simultaneously, flooding the hall. In an instant, the hundred-odd Zero Wing probationary members found themselves pressed back against the walls, staring rigidly at the NPCs, faces pale with gravity.
Because they could feel it—if these NPCs so much as wanted to, they could annihilate every last one of them in the blink of an eye.
And the auras of the strongest among them were like bottomless abysses, incomparable to any ordinary Tier 3 NPC. Facing those few felt like being swallowed by a quagmire; even the ambient magical elements no longer answered their calls.
"Magical Domains?!"
Youlan's beautiful eyes went wide, unable to believe what she was seeing.
She had known that Shi Feng and the Melancholic Smile had summoned these old, sick, and broken NPCs for a reason, but she had never imagined the result would be this staggering.
Not only had over three hundred "crippled" NPCs been instantly transformed into terrifying powerhouses, but four of them possessed Magical Domains. It was simply inconceivable.
A naturally manifested Magical Domain was something only Tier 4 NPCs could achieve—the great divide between Tier 3 and Tier 4, and the very reason Tier 4 crushed Tier 3 without effort.
It was precisely because of that divide that the Hand of the Sacred Heart had never dared approach Silverwing Town too closely. After all, the town was guarded by Kaidy Teland, the Tier 4 Magic King who had ascended to the fourth tier. Before her, Tier 3 players were utterly powerless.