The Players' War

As an important force of the Kingdom of Cinders, the players naturally took part in this battle as well. Yet these closed beta players numbered only a thousand at present, completely unable to sway the overall outcome of the war. Their strength seemed to have skyrocketed quickly, but that was true only for exceptional cases. Elite players like Singo, Mantou, and Charlotte, who had reached level four and brushed up against the cap, were exceedingly rare—barely over a hundred across the entire closed beta population. Most players were stuck at level two, unable to advance any further. That was the norm. In this hardcore "game," ordinary players stood no chance against the monsters meant for leveling, such as dire boars and hill giants. They could only quietly grind out daily quests, serving as the common wage-earners of Elezerg. And this war against the "Frost Calamity" stood on a far more exaggerated level. According to the player interface, an adult frost giant held an average Challenge Rating of 8, practically equivalent to a mini-boss. What was worse, three hundred such frost giants marched in this war. Even the elite forces of the Kingdom of Cinders had to trade dozens of casualties on average just to bring down a single one. Because of this, Cassius had issued this quest exclusively to elite players who had reached level four. As for the rest? They were left to safely work in the city and contribute from behind the lines. Sending them into a meat grinder like this would have been pure feeding, making for a terrible gaming experience. Even so, some noob players inevitably followed in the footsteps of the top pros and slipped onto this chaotic battlefield. "Holy crap, why are there so many question-mark-level bosses?" "There are way too many elite mobs!" "Wait, that doesn't look like a boss—that's just a trash mob for this dungeon!" "Huh?" "You call this a fucking trash mob?!" Before the words had even faded, a wet splat rang out. The player who had asked that soul-searching question was instantly mashed into meat paste by a frost giant's club, his screen snapping to black before he could even react. "What a weak little thing." The frost giant scratched his head in mild confusion and kept running forward. Soon, however, over a dozen wyverns swooped down from the sky one after another, tackling him to the ground. After he managed to tear apart four of them with brute strength, a venomous tail stinger finally pierced straight through him, halting his heartbeat and ending his life. "Let these primitive, foolish giants witness the power of magitechnology!" Gangtie Kuangchao summoned an upgraded suit of armor. This Warden-model armor was even more massive than before, standing a full six meters tall and looking practically like a Gundam. The armor's left arm held an energy forcefield shield to deflect the chunks of rock hurled by the giants, while the magical ballista mounted on its right arm steadily fired magic missiles, suppressing several frost giants ahead with heavy firepower. "I've waited for this day for so long!" "Dedicate your hearts!" An artificer player named Tatakai activated his "omni-directional mobility gear," modified from transmutation spell runes. Rapidly firing his anchor grapples, he zipped straight toward the nape of a frost giant's neck and brought his blades slashing down with all his might. Swoosh! The skin on the nape split open, spilling blood. Yet instead of dying instantly as Tatakai had envisioned, the frost giant instinctively swatted the back of his neck with one hand, squashing him into paste. "Strange little thing..." the frost giant muttered, gazing in confusion at the human-shaped smear of blood across his palm. This frost giant was far larger than his kin, standing eleven meters tall. Among his tribe, he was known as "Big Guy" Keba, and his close-quarters combat prowess was second only to Chieftain Kasa. It was hardly surprising that Tatakai had mistaken this bootleg "Colossal Titan" for his target. "Hahaha, did you walk onto the wrong set or something?!" "Let me teach him a lesson!" Gangtie Kuangchao burst out laughing inside his cockpit. Piloting the armor, he unleashed several magic missiles from his right arm, scoring multiple hits on the frost giant's head. "Annoying iron lump! I'll smash you flat!" Thick-skinned and tough, Keba showed no fear at all, charging straight through the barrage of missiles. The frost giant raised his massive bone club high overhead. "Holy crap..." Looking up at the colossal silhouette that was about to engulf him, Gangtie Kuangchao felt a sudden sense of impending doom. He raised his left arm, directly engaging the forcefield shield at maximum output. Crash! Shatter! With a crisp crack, the forcefield shield shattered like brittle glass beneath the effortless blow of the bone club. Gangtie Kuangchao's armor was once again caved in deeply, turning into a heap of scrap metal amid an explosion. As for the man himself, he had long been crushed to paste by the bone club, merging as one with his beloved armor. "The guild leader got one-shotted again!" "What kind of damage is that?!" "Even a whale like Gangtie Kuangchao got instakilled! What tank could possibly take a hit from that thing?" While the battle on the ground raged with relentless fury, things in the air were far more manageable, requiring only that they dodge the rocks thrown by the frost giants. Singo and Mantou rode atop wyverns, sweeping rapidly over the battlefield. Looking down at the brutal fighting below, especially noticing Gangtie Kuangchao getting one-shotted, Mantou couldn't help clicking his tongue in amazement. "Just what kind of stats does that frost giant have? He tanked dozens of magic missiles and charged in to squash him in one hit!" Singo nodded. "The difficulty of this war quest is way too high. Even level-four players like us can hardly make a difference. Let's just look for trash mobs and stay away from the bosses." He pointed toward Kasa on the ground. "Especially... that one." The battle between Kasa and Duoluo still raged fiercely. Not a single living creature remained within dozens of meters of them, and the ground was churned to ruins by the shockwaves of their clash, each collision of their battleaxes unleashing tremendous ripples of force. A Redscale Conqueror from the Wangquan Guild, a player with the ID Dadao, wanted to try his luck. Taking aim at Kasa, he prepared to loose a sniper shot. Yet before he could even release the bowstring, the frost giant chieftain on the ground sensed it through his beastly intuition. Taking advantage of a brief pause while Duoluo caught his breath, Kasa suddenly hurled a rock straight into the sky. "Weakling!" "Who gave you the courage to meddle in this fight?!" The stone shot skyward like a cannonball, punching clean through Dadao and his wyvern alike, sending them both plummeting to the ground. Mantou swallowed hard and murmured sheepishly, "Yeah, you're right." In their eyes, all information regarding Kasa the Bonebreaker was displayed as crimson question marks that denoted extreme danger. If their clearance had been high enough, they might have seen the words "Challenge Rating: 16" floating above the frost giant's head. Scanning the battlefield, Singo finally spotted an isolated frost giant far from the center, possessing an ordinary Challenge Rating of 8. "That's our target, Mantou." "Same routine as usual: one of us draws aggro with crowd control, and the other deals the damage!" "Alright, just don't steal my kill later—" "Beat him first, then we'll talk!" In a corner of the battlefield, two wyverns streaked across the sky, diving rapidly toward the ground.