Chapter Ninety: A Massive Surge in Attributes from the Buff

“Suppress them with fire!”
“Suppress them with fire!”

This time, the blue side took a far more cautious approach. After all, they held the numerical advantage, and the two surviving heroes had begun to think about preserving their strength, so the battle dragged on for a long while.

Huang Yunshuo unleashed his rage skill three times in succession. The rocket launcher’s durability had already dropped to sixty; the barrel glowed red-hot, and even the cooling matrix was struggling to keep up.

“After this fight, I have to go to a supply point.”

Fewer than fifty red soldiers remained, surrounded by more than four hundred blue troops. Huang Yunshuo did not even have time to snatch a few last hits before they were wiped out.

“As expected, the bigger the advantage, the more outrageous the casualty ratio becomes.”

Shaking his head, he recalled that in the first battle the two sides had been evenly matched, and the casualty ratio had been four hundred fifty to six hundred—not too terrible. In the second, when the numbers were uneven, it had become roughly three hundred to six hundred, reaching one to two.

It was easy to foresee that in later battles the casualty ratio would become even more absurd, until in the end the red-side NPCs would basically be annihilated on every appearance, while the blue-side NPCs would emerge completely unscathed.

Attack buff: twenty-six percent.

Seventy-three to eighty-two—this was Huang Yunshuo’s current actual damage. If he landed the full eighty-two, a fully healthy player could usually be taken down in two blasts. Very satisfying.

Huang Yunshuo, in his role as champion warrior, went to negotiate with the two NPC heroes and once again talked them into farming wild monsters, while he cheerfully continued to snatch the last hits from the mobs.

He was hoovering up the spoils without a moment’s pause: after finishing off the NPCs, he would finish off the monsters; after finishing the monsters, he would kill several dozen enemy players to unwind. Huang Yunshuo very much wanted to tell those idiots running around aimlessly that this was the proper stance of a high-level player in a MOBA instance.

Because their numbers were now double what they had been before, clearing the thirty hyena nests again put far less pressure on the NPC side. Huang Yunshuo saw infantry with low health automatically retreat behind the healthier soldiers and finally relaxed, putting all his attention into stealing last hits.

Jing Xu obtained Huang Yunshuo’s permission and, together with Morning Dew and Cold Frost, began picking up the drops from the ground.

He had already learned from Morning Dew and Cold Frost that when the instance was finally settled, the primary criterion would be the points ranking, with gathered materials and a jumble of other factors only coming afterward.

Judging from the fact that Huang Yunshuo’s points were now nearly twice as high as Morning Dew and Cold Frost’s, those materials hardly mattered anymore. When the time came, Huang Yunshuo would just ask the two of them for a little so they could claim the basic reward.

They could keep the extra for the bonus payout.

As the third wave of NPC reinforcements was about to arrive, Huang Yunshuo ran to a large supply point nearby to repair his rocket launcher, and also stocked up on several bottles of mana-restoring spray and some healing spray.

At last, the players were beginning to wake up to the situation. Farming monsters had left them with heavy losses, almost more trouble than it was worth; if they died by accident, the extra materials would even drop. It seemed the real future lay in following the NPCs.

Unfortunately, Huang Yunshuo now held enough authority over the NPC forces that a single word from him sent the three heroes to split off a hundred infantry and block the players from behind, forbidding them from getting close.

“That bastard. Let’s report him!”

“Aren’t we on the same side? Why are we not allowed to come over and fight? He’s taking all the materials and points!”

“No wonder his score is so high. What a jerk.”

The players were extremely dissatisfied. By now nearly two thousand of them had gathered, and they surged against the hundred NPCs blocking their path.

The three NPC heroes were enraged. With a single command, all 1,050 NPC soldiers turned their bows and blades around and, in one charge and one volley of arrows, killed more than a hundred players on the spot, leaving five or six hundred of them barely alive. The sight terrified the rest senseless, and they no longer dared come near.

“Hahaha, you idiots!”

Huang Yunshuo laughed until he nearly split apart. Damn it all.

Being stupid was one thing. When you saw us struggling against the enemy NPCs in the first round, you could at least have come over and pretended to help. Too bad you didn’t.

Then don’t blame me. I, Huang Yunshuo, am a very petty man. As for the points and materials on this side, apart from the few players who were with me from the very first wave and actually helped deal damage, the rest of you can forget about getting even a crumb.

This round left even less suspense. After the third wave of red NPC troops was wiped out, the blue-side NPC force still had a full nine hundred men remaining, and the casualty ratio had already reached one hundred fifty to six hundred—one to four.

In the next round, with fifteen hundred men on this side, they would probably annihilate the enemy without even losing a hundred.

“Keep farming monsters. After the next battle ends, we’ll push straight through from one end of the lane to the other.”

Huang Yunshuo suggested this to the three heroes.

The NPC army began sweeping the neutral map’s monsters continuously. Huang Yunshuo did his best to snatch the last hits, and the buffs on his body kept stacking higher and higher, while all the dropped materials and copper coins were cheaply distributed to the others.

After the fourth clash, the result was pretty much what Huang Yunshuo had predicted: out of the fifteen hundred blue troops, fourteen hundred and fifty remained. They lost only about fifty men before wiping out the red NPC force entirely.

After all, there were still many archers left after every battle. Fifty remained after the first round, and another hundred were preserved in the second and third; by now, the blue side alone had three hundred fifty archers. With a volley of arrow fire suppressing the field, the red soldiers focused by the barrage were almost certain to die. Huang Yunshuo did not even have time to finish them off.

With such powerful ranged support, plus infantry numbering twice that of the enemy, the advantage was simply overwhelming.

“Attack, agility, and health buffs are all maxed out!”

Huang Yunshuo checked his current attributes.

Attack: 85-98

Agility while equipped with the rocket launcher: 87

Health: 300

In addition, his strength buff had stacked to forty layers, bringing his strength to 150. Unfortunately, strength increases did not count toward attack power here; otherwise Huang Yunshuo’s attack would have been even higher.

With 150 strength, he could now punch an NPC soldier flying on the spot. Ordinary players had it even worse—a single punch could send them flying seven or eight meters, with the damage unchanged, but the knockback effect utterly explosive.

“Either this wave or the next one, we push all the way through. Hurry up and finish so I can rest a bit.”

Huang Yunshuo thought.

At four o’clock, the monster siege would begin, and before that the hurricane helmet would also have been provisionally repaired. Its usable time would become four hours, meaning they could play from four until eight. It was obvious the whole process would be anything but easy.

After the three instance runs were finished, he would need to rest while waiting for the alloy battle armor to be completed by Wang the Blacksmith. Once he got it, he could log off and sleep.

By the time the fifth wave of NPC troops arrived, the blue-side NPC force had swelled to more than two thousand men, including four hundred fifty archers. One volley of arrow fire swept forward like a passing swarm of locusts.

The fifth and sixth waves of red NPC troops were instantly slain. The blue army, now two thousand six hundred strong, halted beyond the range of the red side’s heavy crossbows at White Stone Plaza and stood at the ready, prepared to launch an attack at any moment.

The NPCs’ consecutive victories had utterly shattered the morale of the red players. Along the route, they were repeatedly swept by Huang Yunshuo, Morning Dew and Cold Frost, and Jing Xu, each leading contingents of more than a hundred archers.

The blue players were beating the drowning dog mercilessly, somehow forming teams of various sizes—dozens of people here and there—to PK red players all over the map.

At this point, the red territory had basically become the blue players’ kingdom. Five thousand red players were jammed into White Stone Plaza, unable to get out. If they wanted to leave, they had to take the routes along both sides; going through the center meant enduring the baptism of the blue NPC archers’ rain of arrows.