Star Moon Royal City, Star Moon Restaurant.
Star Moon Restaurant was the only five-star luxury restaurant in the entire Star Moon Kingdom. Towering thirty-six stories high, it stood in the commercial heart of the city. Dine in the top-floor private suite, and you could take in the panoramic scenery of the royal capital at your leisure.
But even for expert players, the price of a single meal in the premium suites was something they couldn't afford.
The minimum spend here was thirty gold coins.
It was a place only noble NPCs frequented — players wouldn't dream of stepping inside.
Today, however, a female player in an elegant purple robe, gorgeous as a blazing flame, was seated in the top-floor VIP suite, savoring a gourmet feast. Every dish on the table was worth at least two gold coins — more than enough for an ordinary player to buy a rather nice piece of high-grade equipment.
Suddenly the door swung open, and a broad-shouldered middle-aged man walked in.
"Miss Liu Shishi, everything you asked for has been arranged. Red-named players, the major studios — everyone's satisfied with the compensation. All that's left is to watch Zero Wing get ground to dust," the burly man said with a cold smile as he approached the purple-robed woman respectfully.
This man was none other than Rong Guang Huixiang, the president of Twilight Echo.
After Shi Feng had provoked Liu Shishi, she had tasked Rong Guang Huixiang with finding a way to deal with the Zero Wing guild. But Rong Guang Huixiang hadn't had any ideas at first.
This wasn't Twilight Echo's home turf, and even if it were, there was nothing they could do about Stone Forest Town.
So he had brought in the major studios and red-named players to take on Zero Wing.
Those who go barefoot have nothing to fear from those wearing shoes.
Unlike guild members, these players couldn't be specifically targeted by Zero Wing. They didn't rely on Stone Forest Town to grind levels or kill monsters, so Zero Wing would have a hard time even finding them — and the manpower and resources it would take would only drag the guild down.
The red-named players in particular were all expert PvPers. Sniping a few of Zero Wing's core members at the right moment would be child's play. Add to that hit-and-run harassment, and Zero Wing's members would be completely unable to operate within the Star Moon Kingdom.
And Liu Shishi still had many more moves lined up. She wasn't worried about Zero Wing surviving.
"What about the Galaxy Alliance and Snake of the Body?" Liu Shishi asked softly.
"The Galaxy Alliance agreed. As for Snake of the Body, they were too stubborn to see reason. But I managed to get in touch with their former president. If you agree to help him, he says he can retake Snake of the Body." Rong Guang Huixiang had been quite shocked when Bai Qingxue had refused.
After all, Snake of the Body wasn't the powerhouse it once was. Following the internal split, the guild's situation hadn't been great. Several former partner corporations had abandoned it one after another, and the fact that it was still standing at all was a miracle. The guild desperately needed a large influx of capital to keep developing, yet Bai Qingxue had turned it down.
Liu Shishi had offered terms no less generous than what it would take to acquire Twilight Echo. On top of that, Bai Qingxue was the president and held a significant share of Snake of the Body's equity — her net worth would have skyrocketed tenfold.
But Liu Shishi was dead set on the Stoneclaw Mountains. Without bringing the two first-rate guilds of Star Moon Kingdom under her control, seizing the Stoneclaw Mountains would be far too difficult. So Rong Guang Huixiang had found the former president, Cao Chenghua. Cao Chenghua's influence ran deep in Snake of the Body — only the fact that several key elders currently supported Bai Qingxue had kept him in check.
But with the Kaiyuan Conglomerate backing him, Cao Chenghua would have a very real chance of reclaiming leadership of Snake of the Body.
"In that case, agree to it. I don't want to waste too much time in the Star Moon Kingdom," Liu Shishi said, nodding with icy indifference. Thinking of the arrogant Shi Feng from before, a trace of frost crept across the corner of her lips.
She wanted to teach that backwoods brute Shi Feng a lesson — to show him exactly what kind of power Zero Wing had provoked.
Meanwhile, deep within the Stoneclaw Mountains, Zero Wing's main raid force and the red-named players were locked in a fierce battle.
Banjiu activated Frost Aura, instantly plunging the temperature within a fifteen-yard radius to a dramatic low. Waves of freezing cold air billowed outward, and the speed of over a dozen red-named players dropped by forty percent. The damage Banjiu took immediately fell to a mere hundred or two hundred points.
These red-named players weren't stupid — the moment they felt their speed drop, they began putting distance between themselves and Banjiu. But the next second, their speed plummeted by another forty percent. No matter how fast they tried to run, they couldn't outrun Banjiu.