Chapter 235: A Conspiracy Brewing

Qin Ruo ignored the terrified faces arrayed before him as he walked over to one of the Bandits and, before their shocked gazes, planted one foot upon the corpse.

Taking them all in with one sweep of his cold eyes, he barked, “Who sent you?” His voice carried the promise of murder, as certain as the demise that had befallen their comrades a moment ago. Faced with the proof of such absolute power, the enemy players were stunned speechless.

From what he’d seen thus far, Qin Ruo was gradually beginning to work out the identity of his attackers.

Clearly they had little knowledge of his abilities, so they probably were not from a Clan that already had some existing grudge against him. However, in response to the failure of the first ambush, they’d immediately sent even more people, who showed no sign of retreat in the face of the aggression he’d displayed.

This told him that they weren’t simple thieves out to make an easy buck—making an enemy of a strong player wasn’t worth an item or two of equipment.

As such, Qin Ruo was almost certain these people had picked up another player’s contract at the Mercenary Guild, and were selling their strength for money. It was the only explanation that fit all the events of today.

But this only made matters more curious. He could not have made that many enemies… Was it Godslayer, Ron, Crackpot, or some other fellow whose feathers he had unknowingly ruffled, who had gone to the Mercenary Guild to put a price on his head? How much had they thought he was worth, exactly?

Just then, a Berserker walked out from the crowd. Seeing him, Qin Ruo felt his heart skip a beat. His daunting visage faltered for a moment.

He was only Level 41, so he could not get any details about other Tier 4 players. Based on the man’s gear, he was probably a Steel Berserker.

Both his helm and bracers were Gold Equipment, while everything else was Dark Violet. The weapon he carried was very unusual, and somehow familiar… He felt he had seen it before in the Silentdeath Jungle, during his unfortunate encounter with Camus, and the memory filed him with rage!

The Berserker pointed his weapon at Qin Ruo. With a deep voice, harsh with fury, he roared, “Get off of him!”

Qin Ruo was startled for a moment, but then he smiled brilliantly, though a dangerous light played in his eyes. “Well, sure… but is that a request—or a threat?”

“Whichever you please,” the Steel Berserker snapped in reply. He was trying his best to regain the initiative in this face-off, so he couldn’t allow himself to be provoked by Qin Ruo so easily, or else they’d no longer have any hope of intimidating their merciless opponent.

Qin Ruo gave a long sigh at that, and pretended to ignore the Steel Berserker and the thirteen players behind him for a moment. “Alright,” he said at last, “I’ll indulge this plea of yours… for all your sakes.”

He paused for a moment, then added, “But you seem to have forgotten the rules of the Mercenary Guild.”

When he said this, the Steel Berserker before him tensed.

‘Mercenary Guild? He’s seen right through us!’

Qin Ruo laughed coldly. “Since you’ve accepted the job of killing me, you should all brace yourselves for the humiliation of being wiped out by my hand. At a time like this, you would beseech for something from your hated enemy? Don’t you think that’s kind of pathetic?”

Judging from their expressions, Qin Ruo was now completely sure that they were all contract killers, as he had thought.

“Attack!”

Realizing that they had been figured out, the Steel Berserker gave a great roar, went into his Berserk Fury, and charged at Qin Ruo. At the same time, several other warriors who had been waiting for this signal also activated their combat abilities and, like a volley of arrows leaving the bowstring, they dashed for him with single-minded intent.

The spellcasters, their magic long-held at the ready, rushed forward a few more steps so that Qin Ruo would be in range of their spells.

In an instant, all fourteen of them were in full attack!

‘Impressive teamwork.’

Qin Ruo laughed inwardly, but in truth he was not the slightest bit impressed! Since he had already decided to massacre the lot of them, obviously he would not allow them the advantage of first strike.

Swiftly taking control over the five Frostramparts from Xiaoxiao, in combination with six of his own making, he sent them forth like a row of banners, sliding them in between the incoming warriors.

Crash!

Smash!

The warriors following the lead of the Steel Berserker seemed to have learned something from the defeat of the ones who came before them, and showed some respect for the power of the Frostburst attacks: immediately they struck out at the approaching Frostramparts—but that was exactly what Qin Ruo had wanted them to do.

As the Frostramparts were split in two, or broken apart into smaller pieces, Qin Ruo reached out with his will and took control of them all. Eleven Frostramparts had now become seventeen!

Thud!

Twelve Frostramparts Formation, established!

An eerie chill blanketed the warriors caught within this enclosure, and they found to their horror that their bodies had suddenly been coated with a thick layer of frost, slowing them down dramatically, their hands and feet numb with cold. They were trapped.

Further away, those Elementalists who had come within spellcasting range of Qin Ruo were also hit by this frigid blast of biting cold.

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In the space of a moment, seventeen unevenly sized pieces of icy Frostrampart slid up before them. There was a terrific explosion, and the last thing they saw was everything going white.

***

By the time the snowstorm had passed over Killer Bee Valley, the six Tier 3 players still watching from a generous distance away, were at a complete loss for words. Sixteen people, and not a single one of them had even managed to come within reach of Qin Ruo before they’d been instantly wiped out, leaving sixteen fresh corpses to litter the valley.

Even Xiaoxiao was startled. She had never imagined Qin Ruo would be capable of such viciousness: lashing out for the kill, each enemy eliminated before he could even get within arm’s reach of him.

“Are there no consequences for murder?”

Xiaoxiao had never even heard about Honor Points before, so she didn’t understand why Qin Ruo was not showing the notorious Red Tag, despite having just slaughtered sixteen players in cold blood.

“Of course there are.”

Qin Ruo gave a bitter little smile. It had taken a heroic effort to amass over forty Honor Points ¹ upon the Mythical Battlefield—and just like that, he had suddenly lost a third of them.

Well, as long as the matter had been taken care of.

The bodies of the first four attackers had already disappeared, and he watched as the more-recent sixteen corpses wavered and then faded away, leaving behind three pieces of equipment.

So they had finally given up on the hunt.

Qin Ruo let out a sigh. Truth be told, he had been worried that they would just keep on coming. In that event, they would really have had to think about going elsewhere.

It was a good thing that there were not many players who took on these sorts of jobs, otherwise there might be a much larger party coming for him. Besides that, people in this line of work tended to avoid difficult prey. Though he’d defeated the first group, they’d nearly managed to break through his Darkfrost Shield, and so they might have imagined themselves to have a fighting chance—but that last display should have put them in their place, good and proper!

To have thrown away sixteen Honor Points at the drop of a hat, a player in your typical sort of League could never imagine performing an act like that.

Little did he know, this matter wouldn’t be solved with something as simple as stripping off three items and costing twenty players their levels.

***

While waiting for Xiaoxiao to pack away the three pieces of equipment that their enemies had been forced to leave behind, Qin Ruo glanced over at the six Tier 3 players who had been traveling with their first four attackers. If any of them had a spine, this one look from him sent a shiver through it.

Never mind that Qin Ruo seemed like a nice-enough guy, they now knew he was not one to be trifled with. He had proven himself a merciless butcher—one who could commit murder without receiving the dreaded Red Tag.

Lowering their heads, the six of them beat a hasty retreat from Killer Bee Valley.

***

Bailey Town

There was a tavern no one ever paid much attention to, and into this tavern burst a Steel Berserker, fresh from the Resurrection Point. Caught in the grip of a terrible fury, he stormed over to the table of the only patron in sight.

*Thud!*

A dish was knocked aside, scattering spiced beans everywhere. The one sitting at the table gave a start, and then rose to their feet in a rage.

“What the hell is wrong with you!”

“I’ll tell you what’s wrong!” Paying no heed to the clan emblem upon the other man’s chest, the Steel Berserker grabbed him by the sleeves.

“Talk! Why didn’t you tell us what we were really getting into? You’ll tell me the truth right now, or I’ll hound you to the end of your days! You’ve cost me and twenty of my men their levels! Damn you and your whole bunch of foreign mongrels!”

Startled by the Steel Berserker’s ferocity, the other man changed his tone entirely, sputtering assurances and promises, coaxing him to calm down and explain what had just happened. As soon as the Steel Berserker mentioned how sixteen of his people had been instantly taken out, but no red tag had appeared on their target, the Pharaoh Clan member squinted his eyes.

“He had that many Honor Points? Has he been to the Mythical Battlefield recently?”

“I couldn’t care less about your battlefields. You listen here: I have five people who have lost equipment, and twenty who’ve lost levels! I’m not finished with you until you’ve given us something in return!”

“Alright, alright. I’m canceling the contract, and I’ll pay you the full penalty, as well as an additional eight thousand gold. Don’t scoff, it’s not like the equipment you lost was anything amazing. Let’s not make such a big deal out of… alright, I hope that’ll be good enough for you.”

Seeing that this had calmed the Steel Berserker down somewhat, the man from the Pharaoh Clan looked around furtively for a moment, then leaned in to whisper, “Are you absolutely certain that no other players have been to Killer Bee Valley?”

From the intent way that the man was watching the Berserker, one could tell that this question was of the utmost importance.

“Ridiculous! I have people standing watch at the valley’s entrance right now. There hasn’t been so much as a single fly.”

The Pharaoh Clan member slapped his thigh in sound approval. Mission accomplished!

“What? What happened?” The Steel Berserker could only watch in bewilderment as a wicked smile spread across the face of the Bandit across the table.