White River City.
The buzz that the Sky Burial Guild had just stirred up hadn't even reached its peak yet before the players of White River City had already forgotten about it. Everyone was talking about Zero Wing instead.
"Zero Wing really lives up to being White River City's number one guild. They actually managed to claim the First Clear on the Hell Difficulty of the Frost Prison dungeon that quickly."
"That's right. I heard that up until now, no guild has managed to score the First Clear on a Hell Difficulty hundred-player dungeon. Even those super guilds didn't dare to take on the challenge, but Zero Wing did—and they succeeded. Their main raid team's strength has to be at the pinnacle of the Divine Realm. I have no idea where Zero Wing found so many experts."
"Found them? You've got that wrong. A good buddy of mine is a member of Zero Wing's main raid team. I know exactly what level he's at. When he first started playing the Divine Realm, his skill was actually a bit worse than mine. Ever since he joined Zero Wing, his improvement has been jaw-dropping. He can already reach the fifth floor of the Trial Tower—he's one of the top players in White River City now."
"No way."
"What do you mean 'no way'? I'm already regretting joining my current guild. Sure, I'm a core member, but compared to him, the gap is enough to make me want to cry."
As the sky grew darker, more and more players packed into Blue Moon Bar. Whenever the conversation turned to the Zero Wing Guild, many couldn't help but sigh with emotion.
Back then, Zero Wing had been nothing more than an obscure little guild in White River City. Now it had become the undisputed overlord of the city, and on top of that, it was the focus of attention across the entire Divine Realm.
Many players who were already in other guilds deeply regretted their choices. Had they joined Zero Wing back then, their standing would surely have risen along with it.
Quite a few elite players in other guilds quietly made up their minds to leave their current guilds. Joining Zero Wing—even if it meant paying a hefty compensation fee to their old guilds—was still better than having no chance to ever stand out.
And in Star Moon Kingdom's capital city, the news of Zero Wing's First Clear on the Hell Difficulty hundred-player dungeon caused an even greater sensation. Players who had originally been planning to join the Sky Burial Guild changed their minds and turned toward Zero Wing instead.
"How on earth did Zero Wing pull that off? That was Hell Difficulty!" Yan Xue still couldn't believe it was real.
They had never attempted a Hell Difficulty hundred-player dungeon themselves, but they had gathered quite a bit of intelligence from the super guilds.
Hell Difficulty not only boosted the monsters' stats slightly, but more importantly, it imposed a mental suppression that prevented players from performing at their normal level. Even if every member of the raid was an expert who had reached the fifth floor of the Trial Tower, their strength would still drop by twenty to thirty percent under that mental pressure—let alone the fact that they'd also have to face far more powerful bosses.
That was why all the major super guilds had abandoned the idea of attempting Hell Difficulty and gone after other hundred-player dungeons to earn guild prestige instead.
Yet Zero Wing had done it…
And in one fell swoop, they had shattered all the momentum the Sky Burial Guild had worked so hard to build.
"Hei Yan really is no ordinary person. To be able to hide his strength this deep." Wu Xia studied the compiled intelligence with great interest. Every file was about Hei Yan. "Our Sky Burial's intelligence network may not compare to those of the super guilds, but it's still far stronger than an average first-rate guild's. Yet there's practically nothing on Hei Yan. It's as if he just materialized out of thin air."
"But we don't need to dwell on it too much right now. We've already recruited a fair number of elite players. All that's left is to rapidly level up and gear up, and properly prepare for the mission the Guild Master assigned. Once we complete the mission and become the overlord of Star Moon Kingdom's capital, Zero Wing won't be a concern anymore."
Star Moon Kingdom's capital was not something an ordinary NPC city could compare to.
The game was all about resources.
And the Divine Realm's resources in each region were limited.
As the capital of an entire kingdom, the resources controlled by Star Moon Kingdom's capital naturally surpassed those of any other city in the kingdom. On top of that, it boasted convenient transportation. Whenever players from other kingdoms or empires wanted to visit the Star Moon Kingdom, there was only one place they could teleport to—Star Moon Kingdom's capital. From there, they could then teleport to other locations throughout the kingdom.
This alone was enough to create an enormous gap between it and other cities, to say nothing of the high-level area dungeons near the Star Moon Kingdom's capital. Those were far more numerous than what any other city had to offer.
Outside the Star Moon Kingdom, the major guilds across the entire Divine Realm had also turned their attention to Zero Wing, particularly the first-rate guilds and the super guilds.
"Zero Wing Guild? Isn't that the up-and-coming guild that the Dragon Phoenix Pavilion failed to wipe out last time?"
"A First Clear on a Hell Difficulty hundred-man dungeon—that must have been orchestrated by some big conglomerate behind the scenes. We'd better send people to investigate thoroughly."
Meanwhile, inside the Twilight Echo guild headquarters, one of the veteran first-rate guilds, chaos had erupted.
Originally, they hadn't cared about Zero Wing at all—just another farce staged by Watercolor Rose. But now things were different.
Zero Wing, where Watercolor Rose had landed, had actually seized the First Clear on a Hell Difficulty hundred-man dungeon. That was a dungeon even the super guilds had been powerless against, yet Zero Wing had pulled it off. That was proof enough that Zero Wing possessed formidable strength—at the very least, their main raid team was operating at the pinnacle of the Divine Realm.
The Twilight Echo members refused to believe that Black Flame deserved credit for assembling such a team. Before all of this, nobody in the virtual gaming world had ever even heard of the man. The only plausible explanation was that Watercolor Rose had built it herself.
"I said it from the start—Watercolor had enormous potential, but you all insisted on driving her out of Twilight Echo. If she were still here, with our guild's resources, we could have fought to become the next super-first-rate guild. Now what do you have to say?" a righteous-looking middle-aged man declared angrily.
"Elder True Martial, there's no need to get so worked up. We had no choice back then—it was her parents' decision, and there was little we could say against it," a noblewoman nearing forty tried to calm him. "But now everyone has seen just how much potential that girl Watercolor has. Everyone understands what this means. This little farce has gone on long enough—let's go bring her back."
At the Twilight Echo elder council, Glorious God of War's expression was positively livid.
He had never imagined that Watercolor Rose could reach such a level—that she had stubbornly grown from a small-time guild into one significant enough for even Twilight Echo to take seriously. And now, trying to continue pressuring her? Just listening to what the elders were saying made it clear that was out of the question.
"Elder True Martial, what about you?" The righteous-looking True Martial Elder turned his gaze toward Glory Echo, seated upon the guild master's throne, and asked in a cold voice.
It had been Glory Echo who had pushed hardest for the decision back then—the decision to strip Watercolor Rose of her Honorary Elder title. Now that Watercolor Rose's strength had been thoroughly demonstrated, Twilight Echo was not the personal fiefdom of any single person. If Glory Echo tried to block this now, he would be opposing the entire elder council.
Glory Echo, who had remained silent the entire time, raised a thick eyebrow and spoke with an air of detached indifference: "Since everyone feels this way, naturally I have no objections. However…"