Reinforcements from Asskickers United arrived in the village 30 minutes after the reports came in. An eerie silence hung over this place. It was deserted with corpses of both NPCs and players strewn everywhere. It looked like a complete massacre.
The perpetrators were clearly from the Evil Faction, because players from the surface generally didn’t kill NPCs as well.
A gust of wind blew through the village, kicking up a cloud of dust. It appeared quite bleak and desolate.
“Report the situation here back to Watchful Snail.”
“Understood!”
Before long, Guo Huai received word of the massacre. He clearly sensed this matter wasn’t simple. It would require a team of top elites to wipe out an entire village, both players and NPCs, within such a short span of time.
A group of players like this arriving in the Abernathy Great Grasslands was anything but good news.
Guo Huai immediately dispatched a team to investigate this matter, starting with questioning the players who had been killed by Blood Devil’s team.
Over the next few days, Guo Huai received another 15 reports of villages being attacked. The death tally reached 300 NPCs and 7,000 players.
After getting to the bottom of the situation, Guo Huai immediately contacted Nie Yan through the game capsule.
「What’s wrong?」Nie Yan asked. Guo Huai knew he was in the World of Darkness and would only contact him in case of an emergency.
「Recently, a group of 60 players from the Demon Tribe showed up in the Abernathy Great Grasslands. All Silver Wings. They’ve already wiped out 15 villages, killing 7,000 players and 300 NPCs,」Guo Huai said. He sent over all the information he had gathered to Nie Yan.
Before Guo Huai could say anything else, Nie Yan recalled a certain event from the previous timeline.「Is it the Blood Reaver Corps?」
「H-huh, how did you know?」Guo Huai asked in surprise.
「Those guys are rather famous. I didn’t expect them to arrive on the surface so soon,」Nie Yan replied. Truthfully, he rarely paid attention to the going ons in the underworld. It was just that the Blood Reaver Corps was simply too notorious in his past life. So, his impression of them was fairly deep.
Back then, when the Blood Reaver Corps started running wild on the surface, Nie Yan was only a Level 130 Great Thief. The Viridian Empire did have some Masters, about 70 or so. Meanwhile, the Demon Tribe had about 500 Silver Wings, and a single team, the Blood Reaver Corps, accounted for more than 10% of that with all 60 of their members being Silver Wings!
Apart from this, the teamwork of the Blood Reaver Corps was impeccable, and their strange battle tactics left the players of the Viridian Empire completely dumbfounded. Many Masters had fallen at their hands.
The Blood Reaver Corps had stalked the borders of the Viridian Empire and Satreen Empire for over two months, killing hundreds of thousands of players. No one ever survived their ambushes. The first to take action against them was the Viridian Empire, mobilizing 20 Masters to put a stop to them. A great failure. Losing five of their own and killing only two of the enemy, they became the laughingstock of the entire game. It wasn’t until Masters from the Satreen Empire suffered a similar fate that their reputation was somewhat restored.
The Masters from the Viridian Empire and Satreen Empire tried to corner the players from the Blood Reaver Corps on their own for more than a month without success. In the end, with no other option left, they teamed up. A force of 70 Masters and several dozens of guilds was what it took to lock down the position of the Blood Reaver Corps. In the battle that followed, both sides suffered immense losses, including seven Masters and 16 Silver Wings. After encountering this kind of setback, the Blood Reaver Corps finally retreated back to the Underworld.
Though they achieved their goal of forcing the Blood Reaver Corps back to the underworld, this was by no means a victory. The Masters of the Viridian Empire and Satreen Empire didn’t feel pride, but rather great shame.
Although Silver Wing was the highest rank class for the Demon Tribe, it was simply not on the same level as a Master. In terms of class bonuses, Silver Wings were strictly inferior to Masters. For the outcome of the battle to end up like this, rather than celebrating their victory, the Masters of the Viridian Empire and Satreen Empire opted to drown this disgrace with alcohol.
After this escapade on the surface world, although they had been defeated, the Blood Reaver Corps’ fame skyrocketed. They were known as the number one team under the heavens. No other team could compare with them.
The Blood Reaver Corps was founded by Blood Devil. The members of the team were all old friends of his that he’d been playing virtual reality games with for more than 20 years. Their average age was over 40 years old. They had no interest in founding a guild. In fact, the only reason they’d set up a gaming organization was for some extra income, something they did in a somewhat extreme way. They would hunt experts and strip them of their expensive equipment, then sell it for gold. Many guilds had suffered at their hands. They killed indiscriminately. This of course meant they made many enemies, most of whom had tried to surround and ambush them. But they always managed to escape, only to come back later and make the guilds behind these attacks suffer greatly. As time passed, this happened time and time again, even against the large guilds. In the end, no one dared to provoke the Blood Reaver Corps anymore. As long a certain line wasn’t crossed, they would turn a blind eye. After all, these fellows were too scary.
With the Blood Reaver Corps arriving on the surface, Nie Yan immediately felt an immense weight on his shoulders. Asskickers United only had 21 Masters in total. Dealing with the Blood Reaver Corps would prove a bit difficult, but he also couldn’t allow them to run around his territory freely. After all, he had a reputation to uphold.
The problem was locking the Blood Reaver Corps down. Finding any trace of them was incredibly difficult. Not to mention they were extremely tough opponents to deal with, completely different from the enemies Nie Yan faced before. The Demon Tribe had many strange battle tactics that were hard to guard against. A single lapse in judgement could lead to disastrous consequences. Moreover, if Asskickers United were to duke it out with them to the bitter end, the losses wouldn’t make up for the gains.
Nie Yan knitted his brows. These guys couldn’t be ignored, but he had to go about it with tact.
「Where are they right now?」Nie Yan asked.
「They’re currently making their way to the Satreen Empire,」Guo Huai replied after reading the latest report. He inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. Nie Yan and the others were in the World of Darkness. If these people stayed in the Abernathy Great Grasslands, he would definitely lose himself in worry. Luckily, since they were going to the Satreen Empire, they were Angel Corps’ problem for now. He couldn’t help but feel a sense of schadenfreude. Let’s see how Soaring Angel will deal with them!
「Pay attention to their movements. If they come back to the Abernathy Great Grasslands, report to me immediately! Have our players focus on their class advancement quests first!」Nie Yan said. Compared to the Blood Reaver Corps, Asskickers United was lacking in Masters.
Based on memories of his past life, Nie Yan knew the Blood Reaver Corps wouldn’t return to the underworld unless they were beaten back. This was because not only were they not penalized for killing the players of the Viridian Empire and Satreen Empire, but they also obtained a large amount of experience and Glory. In only two days, their red names would be cleared, and the loot they collected could be sold through various channels for staggering sums of money. With the Glory to raise their military ranks to 10,000-Man Commanders, or even Generals and Great Generals, and the gold to buy the gear offered to them at these higher ranks, the allure was there. Of course, they would have to continue killing to keep their military rank from decaying.
In the previous timeline, after getting a taste of the surface, the Blood Reaver Corps became addicted and didn’t go back.
If the Blood Reaver Corps wasn’t chased back to the underworld, they would eventually set their sights on the Abernathy Great Grasslands. If Asskickers United showed any weakness at that time, they’d be in for a world of pain.
「I’ve dispatched some Thieves to tail them. If no mishaps occur, we won’t lose track of them,」Guo Huai said. This kind of dangerous element had to be closely monitored at all times!
「Have them keep a safe distance, at least 150 meters, preferable even more. Those guys aren’t simple,」Nie Yan said. He had heard countless legends about the Blood Reaver Corps in his past life. He knew just how strong they were.
Nie Yan still felt his time right now was better spent in the World of Darkness. He had to keep in mind, though, that a major calamity in the form of the Blood Reaver Corps loomed over them, and they had no effective defense in place. If anything were to happen now, they were defenseless.
“Boss, should we go back?” Undying Scoundrel asked. He had also heard about the Blood Reaver Corps running amok in the Abernathy Great Grasslands.
“Let’s stay here for now. No use in worrying.” Nie Yan shook his head. The Blood Reaver Corps was definitely one of the strongest groups out there right now. They had to quickly raise their strength so they wouldn’t lose when both sides finally clashed!
Everyone was a bit worried about the situation in Okoron. However, with Nie Yan’s reassurance, they calmed down and continued grinding mobs.
“Let’s pick up the pace!” Nie Yan said. What made him depressed was that the Paternoster’s Warhammer quest was taking forever. The end was still nowhere in sight.
Nie Yan could only take things one step at a time.
They continued levelling in the World of Darkness while monitoring the situation on the outside. The Blood Reaver Corps had arrived in the Satreen Empire and slaughtered two small towns already. They were becoming more and more gutsy.
Angel Corps and the Century Financial Group naturally wouldn’t tolerate the Blood Reaver Corps running around so brazenly. They dispatched a large number of troops to surrounded them. However, the enemy seemed to know of their plans beforehand. Not only did the ambushes fail, but their members all over the Satreen Empire suddenly started getting harassed and targeted.
Nie Yan recalled the situation was also like this in the previous timeline. The Blood Reaver Corps definitely had connections in the Viridian Empire and Satreen Empire, or else there was no way their intel could be so responsive and accurate. Not to mention they would also need channels to sell the loot they collected. Players from the underworld had no need for equipment of the other faction, so it could only be sold to players from the surface.
No wonder the Blood Reaver Corps dared to rampage around the Viridian Empire and Satreen Empire without any restraint!
