Chapter 538: Reconnaissance

Translator: Atlas Studios  Editor: Atlas Studios

Outside the Royal Capital of Darkness, at the Bloodstain Wasteland.

As the map beside the main city, the Bloodstain Wasteland had been explored very thoroughly. Even if it were the tree roots, which could only recover some health points, they had all been dug out to make potions. Therefore, few players would come to this map anymore.

‘There are generally no monsters in the surrounding maps of the main city, so it is still quite safe to hide here.’ Lin Jie held his breath and made use of the three boulders to cover him as he hid his traces to explore the surrounding situation. At such a moment, the Silver-Feathered Eagle, which had been with Lin Jie for a long time, was handy. The Silver-Feathered Eagle replaced Lin Jie’s eyes using Spirit Vision and was observing the Royal Capital of Darkness from the sky.

The Silver-Feathered Eagle was a flying unit, so it would naturally camouflage itself and not be easily discovered. If Lin Jie went to probe around blatantly, he would probably die from the concentrated attacks from just appearing for a while.

“Eh?”

From the Silver-Feathered Eagle’s line of sight, Lin Jie suddenly realized that a group of people had suddenly gathered around the main city and simply started to clear the surrounding monsters. Normally speaking, not many people would bother about the low-level monsters around the main city, so their abnormal actions instantly caught Lin Jie’s attention.

Those players were quite strong. Although their gear was far from being as good as Guild players’, the power conveyed from their muscles, which were exposed, was forbidding. There was an Orc in the back of the team, which left Lin Jie astonished.

That was a red Orc, different from the normal green-skinned Orcs. It was a person who had excellent luck and obtained a hidden race! That person was as tall as 250cm, and with a clench of his right hand, his fist looked as large and heavy as a heavy hammer. From afar, he looked just like a giant!

That red-skinned Orc was Dark King, Dark Craze, who had accepted the Dark Gold escort mission. Although there was nobody beside him, Dark King, who had opened the team point of view, could see that Eller was carefully in Stealth Mode.

‘Such a cautious NPC is cooperating with my team… This escort mission is simply giving rewards for free!’

“Hehe, congratulations Brother Dark King, you’re about to obtain a Blood Vigor Pedicle! That is a Dark Gold physical strengthening item! Even our Blood-Sucking guild leader would find it difficult to obtain such an item.” The person who spoke was an Orc Hunter, and on his hideous and ugly face was a toady smile.

Dark King said calmly, “I have not received the mission reward yet, don’t let your guard down.”

“You’re right.” This time the person who spoke was a slim Undead Bandit. It could be vaguely seen that her figure was quite good, but her rotten body of an Undead was unsightly. It was difficult to imagine why she would choose to become an Undead. Her tone and actions were extremely calm, so it could be seen that she was quite skillful. “This time, the mission difficulty is Dark Gold. There are definitely not only these monsters on the way, but there might also be other NPCs in ambush.”

“Hehe, Graceful Snake, you came and accepted my mission so actively. It’s most likely for those NPCs, right? The special feature of Undead creatures makes you capable of obtaining nutrients from corpses. As compared to us Orcs, who spend so much hard work doing missions in exchange for a few physical strengthening items, the Undead are simply too fortunate.” Dark King licked his lips.

That woman named Graceful Snake was a member of the organization Scarlet Mercenary. Initially, Scarlet Mercenary’s creator had wanted to imitate the Guild’s Brotherhood, but they had fallen flat on their faces and were directly annihilated by the Blood-Sucking guild in the end. However, this organization had nurtured quite a few strong mercenaries, and Graceful Snake was one of them.

Graceful Snake’s face, which was a bloody mess, squeezed out a cold smile. “How would it be that easy? Most NPC corpses don’t even have nutrients, and nothing can be absorbed from players’ corpses, so I’m just trying my luck by helping you. Maybe, I might be able to encounter some robbers from the Guild and gain a few attributes since who knows how many times more well-off the Guild NPCs are compared to us?”

The Guild players farmed mostly monsters like Undead and Ogres in the wild, and those monsters were based on the Tribe players. Meanwhile, it was quite different for the Tribe. Although the monsters farmed in the wild were mostly Dark-type, like Undead, Devils, and so on, when carrying out missions, they directly faced Guild NPCs most of the time. When they killed Guild NPCs, the profit was much higher than killing wild monsters. Therefore, all players in the Tribe liked to do missions more.

Dark King smiled and said, “It can’t be helped, our Tribe is considered as the peripheral map in the whole land in The New Age, just like the China border in the past. Would any soldier be willing to come here to fight? Not to mention if there are really that many Guild NPCs, then all of us should delete our accounts and play the Undead race. It’ll really be a spectacular sight of us devouring the corpses!”

Just as he finished his sentence, a ray of light suddenly fell from the sky!

Ten tall and strong Paladins, wearing golden armor, descended from the sky. They were Paladins from the Holy Church, and the leader waved his long spear. Under the radiance of Holy Light, the messenger, who was in Stealth Mode, was instantly exposed. The messenger’s body emitted a smelly burnt scent—he was suffering painfully from being corroded by the Holy Light.

“Nine Level 45 Elites, one Level 45 Gold Boss, kill them!” Dark King immediately checked the Paladins’ attributes. Instantly, Dark King led the eight team members he brought and advanced forward to deal with the team of Paladins.

Such a scene did not escape Lin Jie’s eyes.

‘Paladins? Killing a messenger? And an Undead messenger at that?’ Lin Jie’s eyes lit up. After observing for so long, although there was quite the number of messengers in the Royal Capital of Darkness, their grades were all shallow. Thus, the information they had on them was negligible. Now, Lin Jie had finally encountered a high-grade messenger that even Paladins had been dispatched to kill!

Having Paladins to kill it meant that the messenger’s grade was not low. Consequently, the information the messenger had was naturally all the more precious! Also, Paladin robbers, which were respawned in the progress of a mission, were the best cover-up for Lin Jie.

‘However, these few people are not easy to deal with.’ Lin Jie frowned slightly as the players were quite powerful! In that team were two experts, and one of them was even guarding beside the messenger all the time, that red-skinned Orc with the strongest physique. The other was that Undead woman!

‘Undead female Bandit, I’ll call her that temporarily, should be the Bleeding branch of Bandits. The battling method of such a Bandit is stacking all kinds of Bleeding skills and cause the target to die from the loss of blood gradually. Her attacking style is extremely experienced and vicious, and her weapon is actually an axe, which normally only Berserkers would use!’ Lin Jie observed the battle carefully.

In that team, the others’ abilities were average; only the Undead female Bandit and Orc Warrior were extremely powerful. The number of high-end players in the Tribe was not less than in the Guild, and there might even be more! That was because Living jobs were developing poorly since basically all the items were related to increasing one’s strength.

The scenes of the battle by the Undead Bandit could be said to be magnificent. Graceful Snake held two one-handed jagged axes, and the angle of each slice of the axes was extremely tricky. Most of the time, she went with the strategy of her teammates attacking fist, and she made use of the interval of the enemy units’ attacks to make a move.

One could only see Graceful Snake chop towards the Paladin’s throat and then with a horizontal pull, the sawtooth on the axe instantly tearing open and exposing the flesh within. The Paladin was then also inflicted with poison.

Bleeding, Slice and Dice, Agile Attack, as well as Deathbone Strike. After a series of Bleeding skills were activated, the Graceful Snake used Blood Infection, and the harmful abnormal state on the target, namely Bleeding, was transferred onto other Paladins. Each Paladin’s received Bleeding Damage per second filled up the place, and the Damage Dealt was as high as 600 points per second!

If it were a normal player in the Guild, even if the female Bandit went away after finishing her series of attacks, the player would be easily killed by the Bleeding Damage per second, which lasted for around 12 seconds.

That team of Paladins was easily wiped out, but no items were dropped. Graceful Snake excitedly squatted down and just directly started eating the corpse. Such a bloody scene made shivers run down one’s spine.

Lin Jie stopped sharing his pet’s line of sight and took a deep breath. ‘I must instantly kill everyone when the Paladins appear. But with the strength of that Undead female Bandit, it might be difficult to do it. If that’s so, then I will just control them and immediately escape after killing the messenger! However, to execute this plan, I need a good terrain…’

Therefore, Lin Jie started his long journey of tracking them.

With so many people following along, the messenger’s destination must be somewhere very far. The NPCs blocking their way would also get stronger and stronger, only then would it be good timing for Lin Jie to make a move.

Meanwhile, the reason why Lin Jie dared to use the attacking method of assassination was due to the gun behind him—the enhanced Silent Killer! Ever since Fire Bomb had obtained the blueprint for Silent Killer, he had been submerged in researching it, and after one month, he had finally thought of the way to alter the Silent Killer.

Silent Killer (Sub-Legendary)

Requires: Level 40, Strength: 800 and above

Attack: 387-755

Strength: +100

Endurance: +100

Armor Penetration: +40

Armor Ignore: 28%

Additional effects: 5 Consecutive Shots, Continuous Silence, Dragon Breath Bullets.

Reinforced effects: Silencer (50% noise produced from your attack will be reduced, and aggro produced will decrease). Elongated barrel (Your attacking range is increased by 15 yards). Infrared blasting device (You can melt bullets, maximum: 250, and an additional effect will be produced).

The equipping condition of Silent Killer was definitely harsh, demanding 800 and above points in Strength for a Level 40 player—that was simply asking for the impossible! As a fire gun, such a high-strength stat restriction destined that it could not be used by the job Hunter. However, Lin Jie’s Strength was over 1,000 points and was enough to equip the Silent Killer!

Once he grasped the Silent Killer, Lin Jie could feel a scorching aura from it instantly. That fire gun seemed as if it could not wait to shoot out its bullets and feed on blood to its heart’s content.

Holding the Silent Killer, Lin Jie traced Dark King and the others while searching for a chance. The map had already slowly entered a moist and muddy swamp from the Bloodstain Wasteland in the beginning. That swamp was the Level 65 map [Deathknell Swamp], where many swamp monsters and Devils would be spawned.

The Deathknell Town was in the center of the Deathknell Swamp.

‘That’s a good place to make a move,’ thought Lin Jie.

‘The levels of the monsters in the Deathknell Swamp are very high, so almost no players would go there to level up. Those people are also struggling to clear the monsters. If they were coincidentally ambushed by Paladins when dealing with the monsters, such a scene would definitely be…’ Thinking till here, Lin Jie silently looked around at the monsters in the surroundings and let out a smirk.