Virtual World: Close Combat Mage
chapter-156

Chapter 156 - Single File Formation

Although Carouse was known as Yunduan City’s second largest guild, its size and level were the same as Traversing Four Seas. Both guilds were at level 5 with seven hundred fifty members. Frankly speaking, the only worry that large guilds in Parallel World had was if the guild level was not high enough. As for the member count, many players would immediately fill up the available spots once the guild level rose. People were dying to join such large guilds at the first opportunity, after all.

Carouse was viewed as the second largest guild in Yunduan City only because it started slower than Traversing Four Seas and was always a few steps behind the latter at leveling up the guild, leaving Carouse at an unfavorable position whenever it was time to level the guild and recruit new members.

However, ranking the guilds was not just simply a race to being higher level. The day-to-day tasks and happenings in the guild were important as well. A large guild would not simply let its members waste away their spots as days went by, so replacing members was a common occurrence in a guild. Players that seldom logged on or were leveling too slowly to meet the guild’s demands would be kicked out, and the freed spots would naturally be used to inject new blood to further strengthen the guild.

This race to recruit capable experts was the main contest of struggle between the two guilds. Although Traversing Four Seas and Carouse were ranked as first and second based on the time they each leveled, the public was still unsure which of them was stronger and had better experts since the two guilds had never clashed before. Thus, a majority of the players were hoping that the guild versus guild tournament would determine for everyone which was the better guild between the two.

Since Amethyst Rebirth, a small guild with fifty-four players, had drawn such a formidable opponent, the specter of death was visible even on the ladies’ very expressions. Although they were not heavily invested to the match’s outcome, they still had some regards toward it. The small flicker of hope inside each of them wished for a miracle to happen. They managed to breeze through their two matches easily thus far, so they naturally felt a little sad to finally encounter a huge hurdle today. This was more or less what the ladies currently had in mind.

Concluding her presentation, July merely said, “Everyone, do your best.”

All the ladies and the sole gentleman nodded their heads. Gu Fei chose to remain silent, as Svelte Dancer approached him and said, “Plenty of kill points out there today, so I won’t lose to you for sure.”

Gu Fei laughed bitterly for a moment, “I’m afraid this might be our last chance to compete for kill points, so you better try your darndest.”

Svelte Dancer bewilderedly asked, “Why did you say that?”

“You actually think that we’ve got a chance to win today?” Gu Fei asked back instead, astonished.

“Why not?” Svelte Dancer felt shocked at his question, asking, “Haven’t you seen the forums?”

Gu Fei was confused by her question, saying, “Forums? I’ve skimmed through them. Why?”

“There is this six-man mercenary group called Young Master’s Elite that defeated Cloud Herder mercenary group with over seventy members. Don’t you know of this matter?!” Svelte Dancer gasped in surprise.

“Of course, I know about it,” Gu Fei replied hastily.

Everyone had already been drawn in by Svelte Dancer’s gasp. Young Master’s Elite might not be very famous, but that name held plenty of weight to Amethyst Rebirth’s older members. The ladies knew that that mercenary group had helped them resolve the matter with No Smile, so they were happy that Young Master’s Elite had made the headlines. Hearing Svelte Dancer suddenly mention this mercenary group, they eagerly pricked their ears to eavesdrop.

Svelte Dancer cleared her throat and swept her gaze over at everyone present, “Ladies!”

“Ahem!” Gu Fei coughed lightly.

Svelte Dancer casted a sideway glance at him before adding, “And someone.”

Gu Fei did not cough anymore, as being ‘someone’ was better than being labeled as one of the ‘ladies’.

Svelte Dancer continued to address the crowd, “Young Master’s Elite is a good example for us. The players in that group did not falter despite encountering strong enemies and instead tried their best to drag the fight out with their opponents. We are in a similar predicament to Young Master’s Elite in today’s fight, so we must actively learn from that group’s tenacity. Keep running if you can and drag as many enemies down if you cannot; do your best to cause an upheaval and sacrifice every bit of your strength for our guild to win this match.”

Svelte Dancer’s speech had an extremely rousing effect to the crowd. One after another, these ladies showed in their expressions how her speech had cleared the heavy mood permeating the air and had given them hope for victory. These ladies solemnly promised to put their all into this match.

The meeting ended in a positive note, and everyone was subsequently teleported into the PvP arena when the countdown was over. Svelte Dancer whirled her dagger in the air and yelled out a battlecry before sprinting out of sight in a cloud of dust. The other ladies followed suit by waving their weapons about, shouting battlecries, and proceeding to run toward the rolling hills and vast plains before them.

Gu Fei was once more at the end of the group and by himself. He felt like puking blood. When it came to matters of personalities, some things never changed and they were hardly worth talking about. They had no chance of winning this match at this rate, unless Svelte Dancer miraculously acquired the indestructible bodies of the five Saint Seiyas when they donned their golden zodiac clothes.

Gu Fei did not hurry to join in on the charge forward and casually went up a small knoll to survey the map’s terrain, noting that their effort might still come to naught even if they had Young Master Han’s expert guidance.

About seven hundred players were in this match between Carouse and Amethyst Rebirth, so this PvP arena was far larger than the ones Gu Fei had previously been into before. Getting into a vantage point and looking about, he merely saw more land stretching beyond the reach of his sight. How would anyone do any sort of high-ground commanding at this rate? It was exactly as what Young Master Han had said before: There were limitations to commanding from a vantage point.

Gu Fei descended from atop the knoll and bounded across the land. The size of the map and the time limit for the PvP match were truly complementary to the quantity of the participating players. With such a big map, we might eke out a victory if I kill every opponent I encounter, Gu Fei thought to himself. He gave up the idea of engaging the enemies head on to avoid alerting the opposing guild’s main force of his presence. Gu Fei walked along the edge of the map, hoping to first observe the enemy guild’s composition before making any further plans.

The guild channel was surprisingly ‘quiet’ when he pulled it out. The ladies’ desire to win this guild match was apparently pretty high for them to prioritize the fight at hand over chatting. However, focusing on a task did not mean that it would get accomplished brilliantly. In this case, the ladies’ lack of strength was still the prevailing truth.

Gu Fei continued to run forward. The guild channel was ‘quiet’ and the PvP arena was deserted. As Gu Fei was thinking that he might have entered an entirely different dimension, a message suddenly flashed on the guild channel from Svelte Dancer: “F*ck me!”

Gu Fei’s heart skipped a beat. Svelte Dancer’s high Attack Power and fast speed made her combat strength comparable to his, so having her around would somewhat increase their guild’s chance of victory. Could it be that she had been eliminated so soon?

Thankfully, the system did not send out any signal for a death and Svelte Dancer immediately followed-up her message: “These guys are far too comical.”

“What happened?” A rush of queries appeared on the guild channel.

“Have a look for yourself,” Svelte Dancer replied cryptically.

With her monstrously fast speed, Svelte Dancer’s mad dash to the front allowed her to see something that the others would only see after quite some time. Gu Fei was considered as the second fastest member in the guild, but he wasted quite a few precious minutes due to him walking to the edge of the map and climbing up a high hill. At this moment, not one person was visible in his line of sight.

Quickly making his way forward, he finally spotted human figures ahead and could not help but spit out, “F*ck me!”

At the very boundary of his sight, the members of Carouse had lined themselves up in one row. They were only a few meters apart from one another as they marched forward. Undoubtedly, this single row formation that Carouse had adopted with its nearly seven hundred participating members would cover the map from end to end. Marching in this manner to the opposite side of the map was equivalent to the guild thoroughly searching the entire PvP arena and not allowing one person to escape their sight. Truly, having plenty of people has many advantages! Gu Fei sighed to himself.

Still, this search formation might prevent any enemies from staying hidden, but it was clearly vulnerable to attacks. Just as he was thinking of this, July sent out a command on the guild channel, wanting everyone to gather in one place. It seemed that she was planning to harness Amethyst Rebirth’s full power to pierce through this formation.

The ladies’ speed varied, but gathering them did not require much time as they had been traveling toward the same direction. Gu Fei was currently on the opposite side of the ladies’ rendezvous point, so he was the last to reach their location despite his fast speed. Moreover, the fighting of the two guilds had already started without him.

Gu Fei ran up a nearby hill and took a look at the fighting of the two guilds below.

Since both guilds were clashing in just a specific area of the PvP arena, it actually seemed like Amethyst Rebirth had the superiority in numbers when all the ladies were charging toward a few enemies who were lining up in this single file formation. The players of Carouse were definitely inferior in terms of number in this skirmish, but their job class composition and fighting power were extremely balanced. Instead of fighting the ladies to the death, they chose to maintain their formation and defend against their assault. In contrast, the Amethyst Rebirth’s ladies’ lack of a good commander and group battle experience became more and more evident as the PvPing dragged on. For instance, the ladies’ battle positions were a mess.

Given that players had no immunity from friendly fire in Parallel World, the players’ stationary and mobile battle positions were often stressed upon. Right now, Amethyst Rebirth’s assault was akin to scattered sand battering a large rock: The Archers had their firing range blocked by their guildmates, the Mages could not unleash AOE spells due to how tightly packed they were, the Warriors that usually acted as vanguards of a battle formation to tank their enemies’ attacks were instead at the rear, and the Thieves that should be on Stealth and flitting in and out of the fight to deal bursts of damage to the opponents were instead at the frontline.

Carouse’s team steadily retreated to further upset the Amethyst Rebirth’s already fragmented battle formation as more members from either side of the single row formation began to stream in. At this rate, these ladies would not attain any sort of victory! It seemed that Carouse had a thorough understanding of Amethyst Rebirth’s flaws, which was why they had intentionally shown a weakness in their formation to bait the ladies into assaulting them.

Since the ladies thought that their battle formation’s weakness was insignificant, then it meant that Carouse’s ploy was a success.

Gu Fei could no longer bear to watch this, so he sprinted down the hill and hollered, “Retreat! Leave them all to me!”

None of the ladies was commanding, so they happily and obediently retreated to the side when they heard Gu Fei’s shout. As Gu Fei raised his Moonlit Nightfalls and chanted a spell, the opponents timely fired off arrows toward him to disrupt his spell-casting. At the same time, he heard a familiar yet aloof voice: “Use AOE spells and zone1 that twerp.”

Chapter Notes:

[1] In games, zoning is a term used when someone is keeping a target out of an area or away from another player/goal.