Volume 4: People who challenge the light Chapter 4: Corpse King Challenger
"So what should we do now? Should we raise the banner of the 'Resistance Alliance', gather allies, and openly launch a counterattack against the Church of Light?" The light players have the support of the Church of Light. If we want to compete with them, we should also establish our own organization to expand our influence.
Long Xing Tianxia shook his head. "The time has not come yet. It is not appropriate to openly fight against the Church of Light. Many players, especially those professional players with higher levels, are very realistic. Even if there are mission rewards as temptation, if our dark camp does not show enough strength to compete with the light camp and make them feel that there is hope of success, it will not attract many experts to join. After all, being on the losing side is also a blow to the players' self-confidence, and it will also affect the reputation of professional players in the industry. Instead of this, they might as well choose to be neutral and not participate in this ultimate mission. As long as they have the strength, they can still have a good development through other means."
"So what should we do now? Should we keep silent and accumulate strength in silence?" I have too little gaming experience and I don't know the mindset of other gamers. This is one of the factors that restricts me from becoming a "leader-type" player. Coupled with the limitations of my own personality and experience, I can't come up with any good ideas on big things. I am destined to only follow others and run errands for them, without the ability to take charge on my own.
"Of course we can't be so passive. Blindly retreating will only encourage the arrogance of the Church of Light, and in the eyes of outsiders, it will affect their confidence in our dark forces. I think on the one hand, we should organize a small-scale elite force to take the initiative, create some trouble for the Church of Light from time to time, increase our visibility and influence through some small local victories, show our strength to other players, and show our determination to persist in the struggle; on the other hand, with the opening of connections between the four continents, we must start to solve our internal problems after being promoted to the fifth-level profession, and first integrate the undead wizards and magic knights of the three continents to avoid becoming a loose sand and being defeated by the Church of Light one by one. Only by consolidating the position of our dark forces and gaining a firm foothold in the initial struggle with the Church of Light, will it be possible to further develop and form a 'resistance alliance' to attract players of other professions to join." I think this is the real intention of Long Xingtianxia to discuss with me.
"You don't want me to unite the necromancers of the three continents, do you?" I was startled and asked tentatively. This is too much of a compliment to me. Although I may be called "the best necromancer in the world" in terms of strength, I am not good at socializing. Except for Skynet and Night Bonfire and Sky Star, who I have dealt with in the elite competition, I don't know any other necromancers and have no relationship with them. I don't have the confidence to investigate, visit and persuade them to join one by one.
Long Xing Tianxia seemed to see through my thoughts. He smiled slightly and waved his hand. "This kind of guest liaison work is not something that can be completed overnight. There are many ambitious people who will not be so easily inferior to others. Just find someone else to do it. It would be a waste of your talent to do such a thing with your strength. To fight against the Church of Light, we must have several top elite masters. In many cases, strong individual combat power has a great impact on morale and external public opinion. Among the currently known dark professional players, only you and me, as well as the Desert Eagle, Night Bonfire, and Sky Star of the Southern Continent are relatively strong. And the only ones who are qualified to compete with the Supreme Honor are you and me who also hold artifacts. Therefore, our main energy should be invested in improving ourselves as much as possible. Only when we become stronger and our reputation will be higher and higher, will we have enough power to influence and attract others to join."
I couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. Compared to trying to persuade others to join me, I would rather endure the loneliness and concentrate on leveling up. With such eloquence, I wouldn't be so miserable in reality and always be semi-unemployed.
When I returned to the base, Xue Wuxia, Afeng and other key members of the Tongxin League were already waiting for me. I originally thought that since I had decided to fight the Church of Light to the end, before the Church of Light had an absolute upper hand and the situation was still unclear, in order to avoid involving the Tongxin League and affecting Afeng's revenge plan, I was ready to temporarily leave the Tongxin League. However, before I could say anything, Xue Wuxia came forward to announce a resolution made after discussion by all members (I was absent from the meeting as a party involved): No matter what choice I made, the Tongxin League would firmly support me. Although it was alone and had no ability to fight against the huge power of the Church of Light and could not publicly support me, it would still do its best to protect my safety. Any hostile actions against me by any player would be regarded as a challenge to the Tongxin League and would be retaliated accordingly.
This comforted me, and I felt that I had made so many contributions to the formation and development of the Tongxin League, and I had won their support at a critical moment. You know, with sufficient financial support and some experience in construction, the development of the Tongxin League has now entered the right track, and its overall strength has been greatly strengthened. Not only is the staff full, but the average strength is also not weak, and there are many talents; through team leveling and organizing masters to "hunt", it can support the daily expenses of the mercenary group, and there is a surplus to pay appropriate remuneration to members at all levels; after the test of the last group battle, the planning and setting were re-done, and the defense capability of the garrison itself was also improved a lot; in addition to the ally of the Longteng Mercenary Group, it also contacted several other small and medium-sized groups for mutual assistance; even without my help, it has enough strength to develop. But this resolution dragged the Tongxin League into a dangerous war. Facing the powerful Church of Light, no one could have predicted the extent of danger they would face, and they might even suffer a catastrophe, making everyone's previous efforts come to naught. This is a gamble that seems to have more losses than gains at the moment. If we consider it from the perspective of interests alone, it is impossible to make such a choice rashly. As a mercenary group with a certain reputation and a certain scale, we can stay out of it, or at least wait and see the developments for a while.
I returned to the "Dead Space" and started leveling up like crazy. According to Long Xing Tianxia's plan, the two of us must strive to advance to the fifth-level profession as soon as possible. Only by possessing a powerful strength far above the average level can we take the initiative in the struggle.
After more than ten days of hard work, my Dark Knight Corps has expanded to more than 40 people, and I have also subdued more than a dozen Black Warriors. As long as I work hard for a few more days, I can get the qualification points full and be promoted. However, an unexpected event disrupted my plan, forcing me to engage in an unusually "crazy" action.
I had just successfully subdued a dark knight and was about to look for the next target when the system suddenly prompted: a target with more than 15,000 zombies was found, meeting the conditions for challenging the Zombie King. According to the zombie rules, the challenge program was automatically started, and as the fifth Zombie King, I had to go and accept the challenge.
How is this possible? It's too incredible. Although I've been busy hanging out in the high-level undead creature area recently and haven't paid attention to the situation over there, I went through a relatively thorough "sweep" at the beginning, and taught a lesson to all the thousand-year-old zombie kings that might threaten me, eliminating the threat invisibly. According to the speed at which they subdue their subordinates, it's impossible for them to grow so fast in just two months. Is there really a "fish that slipped through the net"? Or has a "genius thousand-year-old zombie king" appeared, with a growth rate far beyond the normal?
Although with my current strength, the combination of the "Crown of the Corpse King" and the "Robe of the Dark Demon" has doubled my mental power compared to before. Apart from the four old guys ranked above me who can pose a threat to me, I don't take other zombies including the Millennium Corpse King seriously. But I was unexpectedly interrupted at this critical moment when I was rushing to increase my qualifications, which made me very unhappy. After all, those who are qualified to challenge the Corpse King are not weaklings. It will take a lot of effort to get rid of them alone, and running back and forth between the two places is also very time-consuming.
I rode Taotao and hurried to the low-level undead creature area. The black warrior was too slow and was left behind. I brought all forty-three dark knights with me, ready to clear the area after my victory. The opponent had more than ten thousand zombies. In order to establish my authority, I decided to slaughter them all and make an example of them, so as to scare away those restless thousand-year-old zombie kings, so that they would not come to cause trouble when I wasn't paying attention.
I approached the zombies' territory and sensed the target's location. I felt that its mental fluctuations were a little strange. It didn't look like an ordinary thousand-year-old zombie king. But when I think about it, it's impossible for an ordinary guy to challenge a ten-thousand-year-old zombie king. Before I saw it, I had already issued a declaration of war through mental fluctuations: "I, the fifth zombie king Ah Dai, challenge you on behalf of the five zombie kings!"
I didn't receive a response, so I secretly complained that had run into an rude guy. Fortunately, I would soon be sending him to the west, so I didn't need to worry about it. However, when I appeared in front of the target, I was shocked. The challenger was not the ugly thousand-year-old zombie king I imagined, but a real dwarf player. To be more precise, it was a dwarf undead wizard who commanded more than 10,000 zombies. This was simply unbelievable. I carefully sensed it several times, and yes, the target of the challenge was the dwarf wizard in front of me.
The dwarf wizard seemed very confused by my sudden visit, and stared at me in confusion. What he held tightly in his hand was not the magic staff commonly used by necromancers, but an axe. It seemed that this guy's second profession should be a warrior. Facing me riding on Taotao and staring at him, he couldn't help but step back a few steps. More zombies blocked his way and asked through mental fluctuations: "What is the Fifth Corpse King? What on earth are you and what do you want to do?"
I could see that he was quite nervous, but I was also a little at a loss. If I was facing a thousand-year-old corpse king, I would kill it without hesitation. However, the challenger in front of me was a player, a player whose profession was a necromancer like me, and whose innate skill was "summoning the undead". This was really embarrassing.
To be honest, his strength is not strong. His identity as a dwarf limits his ability to have too high a mental power. It is hard for me to imagine that a dwarf would choose the profession of a necromancer. They are natural warriors and craftsmen. Magicians are definitely not suitable for them and they don't have much future. If he fights me, with the "Touch of Death", I am confident that I can quickly get rid of him, but the consequence of doing so will be the loss of 5% of his mental power limit. For a necromancer, especially a dwarf necromancer, I believe this will be a considerable blow. As colleagues, our common enemy is the Church of Light, and we should never kill each other.
But he has violated the zombie law and must accept my challenge, unless he is willing to give up the more than 10,000 zombies he has conquered and never set foot in the zombie territory again. However, I believe this is more painful than reducing the upper limit of mental power by 5%. The challenge mode has been turned on. It is either him or me. There is no third ending. If I violate the law and neither kill him nor sacrifice myself, what awaits me will be the joint pursuit of the four old guys. There are nearly 400,000 zombies in total, which can be exhausting to death.
"What's your name?" I asked. In the "Dead Space", people usually communicate through mental fluctuations and rarely need to speak.
The dwarf wizard was stunned and pointed at me, "You...you...you are also a player?"
I touched the "Crown of the Corpse King" on my head. It was this thing that covered most of my face, making me look eerie. In addition, I was riding a strange-looking skeleton horse and was in the mysterious "Dead Space". At first glance, it was indeed not easy to tell my identity.
"Of course I'm a player. I just announced my name. My name is Ah Dai. What's yours?"
The dwarf wizard looked at me blankly, as if he had not recovered from his surprise. He answered casually, "My name is Xinbitiangao, and you are Ah Dai...wait..." He suddenly remembered something, "Could you be the famous 'Number One Wizard in the World' Ah Dai?"
It seems that he is not ignorant, as he knows my name. I looked at his yellow skin and black eyes and asked, "What country are you from?" Conversations in "Tianxia" are generally conducted through an automatic translation system, and it is difficult to determine a specific nationality through the language.
The dwarf chuckled, "Just like you, we are all Chinese."
This is even more troublesome. They are colleagues and compatriots, and they have no grudges against each other. When facing a powerful enemy, they should share the same hatred. It is really not easy to kill them.
"You've heard that the Church of Light has declared war on us, what are your plans? Have you ever considered changing your allegiance and career?" Long Xingtianxia used this question to test me at the beginning. I just borrowed it to test his bottom line. If he has rebellious intentions, then there is no need to worry about anything and I can just kill him and be done with it.
Xin Bi Tian Gao suddenly had a bitter face. "The Necromancer is my own choice. I made a bet with my friends that I must perform well. If I change my job, it would be like admitting defeat. I will never give up. So, in order to deal with the future attacks of the Church of Light, I have been desperately taming zombies these days. I plan to accumulate a large number of zombies, and then try my luck in the high-level undead creature area to see if I can tame a few stronger guys to improve my strength."
