Virtual World: Close Combat Mage
chapter-86

Chapter 86 - Attack Commencing

The plan to eradicate Past Deeds began to be implemented methodically. The manpower allocation, grouping, attack route, and field research needed time and preparation.

Dusky Cloud and the gang were old hands at this, so Sword Demon did not need to instruct them himself. The only worrying factor in all this was keeping the plan under wraps. All their efforts would be wasted if Past Deeds caught wind of this. However, Dusky Cloud and his buddies thumped their chests and assured him of their respective guild mates’ loyalty.

Meanwhile, the spy that they had sent over to Past Deeds’ side kept them updated to the guild’s every move. The players of Past Deeds were currently grinding, questing, or generally enjoying themselves, completely oblivious to the trouble headed their way.

After every player taking part in the scheme had been screened under an hour, the representatives of Yueye City’s various small guilds gathered in Will-low’s house once more to report their numbers.

“Here’s what I got in my guild. Seventy-four players made up of 13 Warriors, 11 Mages, 11 Archers, 10 Priests, 14 Thieves, 10 Knights, and 5 Fighters.” With Dusky Cloud starting things off, the rest also reported their player compositions. Will-low faithfully recorded the figures by the side. Collating the various guilds’ numbers, the final tally was 465 players.

In total, they had 83 Warriors, 76 Mages, 79 Archers, 65 Priests, 80 Thieves, 61 Knights, and 21 Fighters.

Sword Demon felt relieved upon seeing the final breakdown. He had initially been worrying about them not having enough players to form one or two groups out of the planned five, as that would have made enacting the plan to isolate and suppress each of the job classes impossible. Dusky Cloud and the lot were indeed experienced gamers; their guilds forwent numeric superiority in favor of a balanced job class composition. Hence, except for the guilds’ sparse amount of Fighters due to the job class’ unpopularity in Parallel World, the rest of the six job classes were comparatively even in numbers.

Actually, the problem about the Fighter job class was not the job class itself but rather its higher degree of motion requirement, which the average players needed time to get used to.

When the game officials added this criterion to the Fighter job class’ description, many people conscientiously avoided choosing the job class. Since they could only own one account in Parallel World, they naturally did not want to squander that one chance by owning a difficult-to-handle job class. In fact, hardly any of the current level 30 Fighters in-game could pull off their job class’ skills that required them to perform bombastic acrobatic moves.

This caused several Fighters who had been attracted to their job class by its combo attack ability to cry rivers of tears in dismay. They firmly believed that the game officials had overestimated the capability of a real brawler.

“This is the amount of people we have at the moment,” Dusky Cloud said to Sword Demon, “Those that we managed to get online are included in this tally as well.”

Another advantage of having these guild leaders do the preparations for the upcoming fights was their power to persuade the offline members to come online. This move effectively bolstered their forces by another fifty plus people. Meanwhile, the Past Deeds’ players were still unaware of the storm brewing; telling their own offline players to come online would be too late and too difficult to achieve when the fighting finally commenced.

The next step to their plan was the forming of groups. While this might seem easy, it actually required a lot of work. After all, it was not ideal to gather the four hundred sixty-five players at once and divide them accordingly, as it would be too conspicuous to others. The only way to do the dividing clandestinely was to write it down first. If listing down all the four hundred sixty-five players at once was already an insurmountable task, it was hard to imagine just how tedious things would be for the different guild leaders, as they were obliged to jot down the different levels and job classes of their guild members. Celestial Pig, the runt, crassly asked whether listing down the players’ equipment was needed or not, causing him to receive a ruthless beating from the guild leaders who were already stressed out. Dusky Cloud whacked him the hardest; he had the most men, so his workload was the greatest.

It took them another hour to accomplish the task of assigning their guild members into six groups – one group higher than their previous estimate. Sword Demon had made the plan with four hundred players in mind, with each group having eighty players. That number was more than enough to eradicate the thirty to forty Past Deeds’ groups. With the current four hundred sixty-five players, each of the six groups would have seventy-seven players instead. Although each group was three players less of the originally planned eighty, it was not a big deal at all.

Everyone had gotten more spirited as the plan started to take a definite shape, and the tasks became lighter as a corollary.

Finally, the time to inform the participating players of their group allocation arrived. Nobody yelled these instructions on their guild channels to prevent information leakage, choosing to message each member privately instead.

“Player A, add Player B as a friend. Listen to his/her orders later,” was the only sentence uttered. The guild leaders were thrown into a tizzy, sending a message out singly and fielding the questions from their members. Celestial Pig once more had it the easiest, as he had the least men to inform. Dusky Cloud, in contrast, was still the most pitiable among them, as he had the most members to notify.

“Hang in there, everyone!” Sword Demon encouraged them sympathetically.

Every guild leader was exhausted beyond belief after accomplishing this stage of the plan.

“I think I’m going to throw up,” Dusky Cloud said, “I never knew privately messaging many people is this hard.”

“Are we done with our preparations?” Sword Demon asked.

“Big Boss Sword Demon, please don’t make us confirm everything once more,” someone wailed miserably.

“Only the group leaders have to confirm with each member they’re bringing,” Sword Demon said.

“Stop complaining and just confirm everything once more. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so get your m*th*rf*cking a*s*s into it!” Dusky Cloud declared. He was among the group leaders for this operation. No one else dared to complain anymore after hearing his passionate words, as they all knew very well how much work he had done thus far. Once more, they opened up their friends list and privately messaged each group member according to Will-low’s sorting.

Out of boredom, the players not chosen as group leaders for this operation started to make funny faces at the six leaders busily messaging people. These bored players imagined that they were watching a monkey show right now.

And with this, the final phase of their operation was completed. The players’ expressions inside the room steeled. After all their work, the success of their attack now hinged upon what would happen from here onward. Their fighting spirit was at an all-time high; their lips set in a tight line.

“Okay, get ready!” Sword Demon announced.

All nodded their heads, clasped their comrades’ hands, and patted each other’s back.

“Alright, m*th*rf*ck*rs! Let’s roll out!” Dusky Cloud bellowed. Everyone left Will-low’s house in high spirits.

“Miles, it’s time to depart from Youye Valley,” Sword Demon messaged Gu Fei.

“Oh?” was Gu Fei’s only reaction, as he did not know the particulars of the plan.

“We’re about to take care of Past Deeds once and for all,” Sword Demon explained.

“Directly overwhelming them from the get-go?” Gu Fei asked, as he began to make his way out of Youye Valley, “What’s going on?”

“I’ll explain everything when we head back. Take care!” Sword Demon replied.

“The coordinates moved! 27149’s coordinates changed!” A few players of Past Deeds quickly shouted Gu Fei’s newly updated coordinates on the guild channel.

After receiving this news, Vast Lushness promptly sent a message to Young Master Han, “We’ve seen movement!”

“Roger that,” Young Master Han replied, “You guys should get into position.”

“Alright!” After Vast Lushness sent this reply, she issued orders to her fellow guild members.

Past Deeds’ top brasses had long finished assigning their guild members to man each of the ten locations. Seeing that Gu Fei was on the move, a few of them already made their way toward their respective positions.

Under Vast Lushness’ orders, the rest of Past Deeds’ online members in Yueye City covertly headed toward their assigned locations.

“The team by Youye Valley, don't make a move right away. Wait until 27149 leaves the map before blocking the entrance. Those who accidentally cross paths with him, act like everything’s okay!” Vast Lushness emphasized.

Gu Fei fought his way out of Youye Valley with Coward’s Savior in tow. The spot where the two had stayed and roasted meat previously had a lower respawn rate for monsters. It was only after Gu Fei had dominated the respawn rate of several monsters that he started to have an easier time dealing with the monsters in the valley.

Since Gu Fei never added points toward Intelligence or learned AOE spells before, he currently possessed neither the necessary AOE spells nor a great amount of mana to sustain a long period of grinding at this high respawn rate map. While Gu Fei could contend with the level 50 monsters, it was still not efficient for him to grind levels inside the valley.

Nonetheless, Gu Fei had spent almost seven hours in Youye Valley in relative peace, merely fighting monsters and eating his fill of meat. He was also accompanied by a kung fu aficionado who was more than happy to discuss the martial art with him. Hence, when it was time for him to say goodbye to the valley, Gu Fei actually felt some reluctance inside.

“Are all of you in place?” Vast Lushness asked on the guild channel to confirm the placement status of the Past Deeds’ members.

“Archer Range in position.”

“We’ve got the Warrior Encampment surrounded!”

“Thieves’ Union is covered as well.”

The status of the various groups was being updated with each passing moment on Past Deeds’ and on Sword Demon’s side. Both sides remained focused. Finally, the sentence “Youye Valley has been blocked off” was sent out.

“Begin the massacre!” Young Master Han said to Vast Lushness.

“Good luck!” Vast Lushness replied, not knowing that Young Master Han’s words had a different intention altogether.

“Begin the massacre!” Sword Demon said to his newly met comrades, which was precisely the real intention of Young Master Han’s command.

The Past Deeds’ players that had been sent to Yueye City’s various spawn points found themselves surrounded by many players. However, this did not bother them. Whenever Past Deeds moved in such a grand scale, many curious onlookers would often gather near them. In fact, their hearts thumped with elation at the sight of these onlookers, thinking of showing off to them.

It was only when the gathered ‘onlookers’ had taken out their weapons and rushed toward them that the Past Deeds’ players realized that something was off.

By the time they realized that something was amiss, half of them had already been annihilated.

Sword Demon had overestimated the number of Past Deeds’ players present. Past Deeds had only managed to rally a maximum of thirty players to each of the nine locations in Yueye City.

Hence, the numerical superiority of the seventy-seven players easily covered the difference in quantity that they had against the Past Deeds’ players.

Right now, different types of battle unfolded in front of every spawn point.

The mass of Warriors in front of the Thieves’ Union clashed noisily, their weapons clanging like thunder, against their opponents.

Outside the Mage Academy, a sudden wave of arrows peppered the Past Deeds’ members from every direction until they could no longer find their bearings.

Cries of anguish reverberated from the mouths of the Past Deeds’ players outside the Archer Range as countless Thieves had suddenly materialized beside them and frenziedly stabbed them with their daggers.

Mages had lifted their right hands outside the Warrior Encampment and countless wheels of flames descended from the sky, engulfing the area in a sea of fire. Since there was an extra group out of the originally planned five groups, the Past Deeds’ members situated in the Warrior Encampment had the privilege of being the first target of this extra group.

In the blink of an eye, the Knights’ Barracks and Fighters’ Dojo were seized, albeit the assault on these spots was not as showy as those on the other spots.

The real battle had just begun after this initial assault. It was still unknown whether everything would proceed as planned or not.