Fierce Assault

Right then, Long Ming was the first to leap out of the truck. Using the vehicle as cover, he swiftly raised his carbine to return fire. Wei Zhang and the others quickly vaulted down from the left side, spraying fire frantically toward the mountain slope. Just then, however, a tumbling boulder slammed into the truck. The entire vehicle tilted sharply to the left, on the verge of rolling over. "It's going to flip!" Qin Ye and his companions yelled in terror. Fortunately, everyone threw their weight against it to brace the truck. After its left side tipped up briefly, the vehicle settled back into balance. "Stay down, don't move!" Long Ming shouted to Qin Ye and the other benefactors while continuing to return fire. Qin Ye and his companions dropped flat immediately, clutching their heads and not daring to look up. By now, Zhao Chen and Xu Lie had also leapt down from the cab. Long Ming and the others leaned against the truck, firing back furiously at the players on the mountainside. Bang! Bang! "Aargh!" One by one, the players on the mountain were shot dead. The ambushers were equipped with very poor weapons; evidently, they had only entered the game to hunt players and loot backpacks. Their skills were mediocre as well. Consequently, within a few minutes of exchanging fire, more than half of them were killed or wounded. "Holy shit, how is their marksmanship so accurate?!" Panic showed on the faces of the ambushers. Then they yelled toward a man dressed in camouflage fatigues with a black cloth covering his face, "Brother Yanqu, we can't hold out much longer!" Lin Yanqu looked around, seeing his companions fall one after another. Panic seized him too, and he hurriedly shouted, "Retreat!" The surviving players immediately turned to flee. Seeing them try to run, Qin Ye issued a furious order. "You think you can just run after ambushing us? Not a chance! Kill them! Leave none alive!" Hearing that, Long Ming and the others broke from their cover behind the truck and charged forward with blistering speed, firing as they pursued. *** Outside Observatory Base City. On a towering mountain peak, an extended telescope poked out from lush foliage. A man in green combat fatigues, with small eyes and a round face, lay flat on a tree trunk, peering through the telescope at a distant bridge while murmuring to himself, "Brothers, let me tell you! The player count for this instance has hit three thousand, and all three major guilds are here. In order to fight for that quest reward, they're definitely going to tear each other to pieces." "Holy crap, that intense?" "Are they out of their minds? For a single quest, how many people will die, and how much money will be lost?!" "What the hell do you know? Can that even be measured in money?" "Exactly! Start fighting already, I want to see rivers of blood!" "Just imagining it gets my blood pumping." Bullet comments flashed continuously across the external livestream interface. "Brothers, I, Sun Zhou, am going all out this time. I will definitely bring you front-line footage of the action," Sun Zhou whispered into his stream. "Streamer's awesome!" numerous watching players responded excitedly. Then Sun Zhou said nervously, "Brothers, look quick! The people from the Sin Abyss Guild have entered the city." "Where?!" "Streamer, switch the camera angle!" Comments flooded across the stream screen. Although Sun Zhou couldn't see the outside comments, he professionally tapped his wristband a few times, switching the stream to his personal field of vision. Through Sun Zhou's eyes, the viewers immediately saw a grand convoy of vehicles rumbling in from the distance, with a heavy machine gun mounted atop the lead vehicle. "See that? A heavy machine gun! That's the power of a major guild." "Streamer, you're way too far away!" "Yeah, get closer!" "Brothers, these folks are professionals. I'm taking enormous risks just secretly filming this. Big brothers, big sisters, for the sake of all my hard work, please send some gifts! Your humble host would be endlessly grateful." Sun Zhou begged for gifts from his viewers even as he continued his clandestine broadcast. Upper City, Mirage Sea Villa. Qian Wu sat reclined on an elegant mahogany chair, resting his chin on one hand as he watched the projected livestream before him. In the projected footage, Qian Wei had also arrived at Observatory Base City with a retinue of subordinates. Any players encountered along the way were slaughtered effortlessly like dry weeds before a gale, utterly incapable of slowing their advance in the slightest. "Lord Qian Wu, Young Master Qian Wei is truly remarkable. To fight his way into Observatory Base City so quickly without a single casualty—it seems victory is destined to be his," Butler Akain said with a smile. "Mhm." A faint smile appeared on Qian Wu's face; he was quite satisfied with Qian Wei's recent performance. At that moment, a man with a pale face, sunken eyes, a bone-deep scar across his left brow bone, and an aura of danger exuding from his entire body gave a raspy warning: "Lord Qian Wu, people from the Star God Guild and the Sin Abyss Guild have entered as well. Defeating both sides to claim victory won't be so easy. Furthermore, as far as I know, Miss Luobing has gone in too. She certainly won't hand the quest over to the young master." "I know," Qian Wu replied calmly to Lu Ran. Seeing this, Lu Ran quietly stood aside without saying another word. First-floor hall of Xingyuan Star Café. Mila, Xiao Qi, Cao Jie, and several others were watching the projected livestream. In the stream's footage, a shrewd, short man with a pencil mustache hid in a rushing river, poking his head out occasionally to steal glances at the bridge ahead while whispering into his stream: "I'm currently in the river outside Observatory Base City. This bridge is one of the only routes leading to the Observatory. So far, I've seen three teams cross the bridge, and over a dozen solo player teams have died on it." "Truly the sneakiest streamer out there!" "Too damn slick!" Bullet comments kept popping up one after another. Xiao Qi watched the stream and said enviously to Mila, "Sister Mila, when will we be able to join an all-out assault on the Observatory instance?" "That's a bit tough. Even though more and more invitation scrolls for the Observatory instance are dropping, the prices remain very firm. With the invitation letters we've gathered, even entering once is barely manageable! That's why the guild won't launch an assault until preparations are thoroughly in place." "Then what about the safe box quest?" "Don't worry about that for now. Even if we could get in, setting aside whether we could win, even if we did win, it probably wouldn't be our turn to complete that quest," Mila told Xiao Qi. "Understood." Xiao Qi nodded. Klote Mountains, Pan Mountain Highway. Long Ming stood on the hillside, raising the M24 sniper rifle in his hands to aim into the distance. By now, Lin Yanqu was fleeing desperately as if he had seen a ghost. Long Ming pulled the trigger. Pfft— Lin Yanqu dropped to the ground at the sound of the shot. Gazing at the fallen body, Long Ming's eyes flickered slightly, lost in thought. Seeing that the last player had also been cleared out by Long Ming, Zhao Chen and the others said, "All taken care of. Let's pull back!" "Wait!" Long Ming pulled the trigger again, firing a follow-up shot. "Aargh! Fuck!" A scream of agony rang out. The fallen player gradually dissolved into white light and vanished. Zhao Chen and the others hadn't expected the guy was actually playing dead. "All right, let's go." Long Ming slung his sniper rifle and turned to leave.