2785 Next Level Fight

Hundreds of NPCs charged at the Zero Wing army. Most consisted of tier 3 NPCs with a few tier 4s in the batch. The Evil Beast and monsters were already a lot to handle. These few hundred NPCs would have no problem wiping out a 10,000 man army not to mention their measly 1,000 man legion.

"Dammit, what do we do!?"

"Stay in formation! Don't you see that the vice guild leader hasn't given an order yet."

The Zero Wing army stared at the back of their vice guild leader. She stood at the very forefront of the army standing still with Glorious Will stabbed in the ground. Her majestic beautiful figure resembling a war goddess.

Watching Gentle Snow inspired courage to the guild members. For a few of them this was the first time getting to work in a large scale operation like this with the guild's core upper echelon.

They held their ground waiting for the inevitable clash.

400 yards

300 yards

200 yards

When there was less than 100 yards between the NPCs and Zero Wing everyone started preparing their attacks. Suddenly a silver ripple of energy covered the city.

This startled a few players but then they noticed something unbelievable. The NPCs have frozen. It seemed like there was no life in their eyes what's so ever.

"What's going on?"

"Did the game glitch?"

Shi Feng smirked at the situation from above. "Perfect job Ember." This was no glitch, but the result of the Pyrite Spirit Gems. They are capable of manipulating the souls of NPCs. Of course a lot of preparation, resources, and sometimes sacrifices were needed to use it effectively.

If players wish to use the gems to help their personal guards they would need very high quality spirit gems among other things. Unfortunately the success rate is very low and could easily do harm.

So in the eyes of the common public, Pyrite Spirit Gems were worthless.

It was only until two rival First Rate Guilds went to war. Both guilds were peak First Rate Guilds having around the same number of tier 6 and 5 players in their command and similar quality war weapons.

One day, one of the guild's tried to capture a main ranked city from their rival. But that city had its own knights division and a hero guarding it. The hero had been tier 5 and the strongest of the knights were a step away from tier 5 as well. Even a Super Guild would fail to capture such a city.

But the invading guild had a brilliant idea. They used the Spirit Gems to temporarily weaken the NPCs, not even the hero was spared from the effects. The guild then systematically captured the city, albeit barely and with plenty of sacrifices.

Ever since that day the various powers had stocked up on Spirit gems to deal with annoying NPCs and guild cities.

Luckily for Shi Feng, Ember is capable of activating the magic arrays by herself, and she herself was a powerful power source. If he didn't have Ember he would've had to sacrifice some tier 3 players and manage the array himself. He also would have needed something around half as strong as a Titan Heart to act as the power source.

Unfortunately he had only been able to collect around thirty gems. This amount will only be able to stop the Evil God Temple NPCs for a couple dozen seconds, and will have very little effect on tier 4 and higher NPCs.

Seeing their comrades having their souls frozen the tier 4 NPCs sneered at the group and charged forward. Something like this will only last a few seconds.

But before they could do anything they noticed a magic array under the feet of a lithe figure. The array gathered a terrifying amount of mana and released a dazzling light. The mana was quickly absorbed into the cool looking greatsword this lithe figure held.

Gentle Snow then raised Glorious Will and slammed it downward.

Myth of Light

Bronze Combat Technique- Inferno Cut

A giant energy of light that caused the surroundings to catch fire hurreled its way towards the charging NPCs.

It was too late to counter such a devastating attack with a tier 4 curse or similarly powerful attacks. They had no choice but to use defensive skills, spells, and techniques to protect themselves.

Like a giant tidal wave, the slash of light and fire completely devoured the NPCs and pushed them back causing many of them to become heavily injured.

"Whoa! Our vice guild leader is just as amazing as the guild leader!"

"Vice Guild Leader Snow has always been my goddess. The Snow Goddess is amazing as always!"

That attack had not only pushed back her enemies, but it also greatly deformed a large part of the terrain. Trying to destroy the land of a city is extremely difficult even for tier 4 level attacks due to all the arrays reinforcing the city.

Gentle Snow had easily accomplished that though. Every player dreamed of wielding that kind of power.

Snow didn't spend the time admiring her work, she quickly commanded in the group chat, "all units, deploy the magic breaking crossbows! The array won't affect the NPCs for long."

Zero Wing members then took out their magic breaking crossbows and fired into the crowd of NPCs. The magic breaking crossbows can easily overwhelm tier 4 players, not to mention these weekend NPCs. Zero Wing members had a blast as they launched one arrow after the other taking the lives of countless Evil Beast, Demons, and Evil God Temple NPCs.

Shi Feng looked down from the airship with a satisfied grin. "Snow is really a monstrous prodigy. She perfectly combined her skill with the combat technique and nearly used a skill technique. If I'm not careful she might surpass me."

Players have only recently obtained powerful physiques and minds, so the concept of skill techniques is still foreign to them.

When players use a skill and combat technique at the same time, it's usually meant to enhance one or the other. But when they perfectly fuse them it can create an entirely new attack and it's called a skill technique. In order to even start attempting such a move players have to have perfect mastery of their combat technique and a 90% skill completion rate or higher.

Players also need a very strong physique and good mental clarity. When mastered, skill techniques can help a player transcend tiers. In the past any tier 5 player worth their money and claimed to be able to challenge tier 6 players had been able to do a few skill techniques.

He had only recently started practicing to perform a skill technique and even though he had made significant progress Snow had slightly surpassed him, how could he not be impressed.

Seeing that Snow had control over the situation, Shi Feng looked over to Violet Cloud and Alluring Summer who were standing next to him. "Summer, take command of the airships and surround the city and start firing at the monsters."

"Violet lead, lead the array team and activate the Void Field magic array when the army has obtained all of their aggro."

"You can count on us, guild leader."

Shi Feng then set his sights on Wind Hunter and flew off. Feeling Shi Feng's gaze, Wind Hunter felt chills down his spine. "Lord Byrne, please help me get rid of the heretic, he's the one leading the army. His death would severely wound this army," Wind Hunter said respectively to the elderly man down at the plaza.

Lord Byrne is the tier 5 NPC stationed at Ancient Rock City. He is why the various superpowers are completely helpless and don't even dare to attempt capturing the city.

As an NPC Lord Byrne won't help when dealing with players since Beast Emperor was responsible for activating the Evil God's Temple in the Orc Empire and not another NPC. But the situation has gone beyond that.

These ingrates are certainly impressive for pushing us so far, and I can sense one of our sacred treasures in the presence of that one flying over here." As he was rubbing his white beard his face shifted to a beastly look. "In the name of the Evil God, I shall punish these non worshipers!"

Lord Byrne then raised his staff and started reciting several incantations. Nearly a dozen magic arrays had appeared around him.

When Shi Feng saw this a Trace of shock colored his face. "This NPC can triple speed cast tier 5 spells! What a monster."

The higher the tier, the more complex spells become. Regular magical players already have trouble casting tier 3 curses. In his past life, any magical class player capable of triple speed casting spells at tier 4 and above were very rare and stood at the peak of their respective class.

In the current God's Domain, any magical class that can double speed cast their tier 4 spells are considered apex magical class players.

Shi Feng knew he had to take this seriously, luckily he still had Heavenly Dragon's power active making his attributes higher than ordinary tier 5 players of the same level.

He unsheathed the Abyssal Blade and Crown Sword and started channeling the ambient mana to them. Shi Feng then activated Gale Domain massively increasing his speed and transformed into a blur.

How fast! Lord Byrne was genuinely shocked to witness Shi Feng's speed. He could hardly keep up with him.

In the blink of an eye Shi Feng was only inches from Byrne, magical class beings feared close combat the most. He raised his two swords and swung down on Byrne who hadn't finished his spells yet.

Duel Simplified Holy Devour

The simplified Holy Devour he had created during his tier 4 promotion quest is stronger than Light Shadow and easier to use, so he was capable of applying it to two weapons at the same time easily unlike the regular Holy Devour.

Both red flaming swords carried tier 5 power and felt dangerous. Lord Byrne quickly moved his staff using a defensive combat technique with it.

When the two clashed an explosion occurred in the air and the shock waves even cracked the ground.

Both Lord Byrne and Shi Feng only moved a few yards away from each other.

Damnit, he actually knows a bronze defense technique. I have to end this quickly. Shi Feng flew like a bullet at the NPC.

"Fool!" A smirk graced Lord Byrne's mouth when he saw Shi Feng recklessly charge at him. Shi Feng hadn't stopped his spell casting. Every mage should be capable of casting their spells even when being attacked or else they're not considered true mages.

Lord Byrne waved his staff in front of him, the ambient mana seemed to freeze as he did.

Tier 5 spell - Dark Spear

Tier 5 spell - Red Railgun

Tier 5 spell - Blood Fire

These were some of the fastest tier 5 spells in the game, when they launched all three spells disappeared from the watching players' eyes.

Shi Feng showed no intention of dogging as he flew straight at the spells. While Wind Hunter sneered at him for his foolishness, the three devastating spells almost hit him. Suddenly arcs of electricity surrounded Shi Feng as he disappeared. All three spells hitting nothing but air.

Tier 2 Taboo skill - Instant Strike

Shi Feng appeared in front of Lord Byrne and swung the two swords in his hands.

Secret Technique- Lightning Flash

Space trembled and made way for the 17 sword lights as the deadly blades cut at Lord Byrne. But the Evil God's Envoy was no easy opponent, he slammed his staff at the sword lights. As he did, Byrne instant cast a tier 4 curse that covered his staff in a black ice.

Tier 4 Curse- Black Freeze

Before the 17 sword lights and staff could connect, the previous spells that Byrne had cast finally left the city's perimeter and the watching players finally noticed the spatial distortions and void fragmentations the spells caused. The three spells also caused massive destruction tearing apart the land and creating storms of wind as they passed.

The players that were sent to observe the battle and happened to be in the direction the three spells headed towards lost nearly a quarter of HP despite not getting hit. Low tiered players lost more than a quarter.

Shi Feng's and Lord Byrne's attacks finally made contact. Another explosion occurred blowing away multiple trees and buildings. The watching players couldn't believe their eyes.

"Is Black Flame some kind of monster!? He's actually fighting a Tier 5 NPC head on!"

"What kind of fight is this? Can players really fight such a battle!?"

Just the few moves the two had exchanged already caused untold devastation. The area where they were battling turned black and stormy due to the massive force of their attacks. If a tier 3 player was in the vicinity of this fight they would die for sure.

As Shi Feng continued to trade blows with Byrne he couldn't help but reveal a bitter smile. Even after combining Heavenly Dragon Power, Gale Domain, Instant Strike, and Lightning Flash, he can still keep up with my speed. What a monster.

Shi Feng had focused on utilizing his speed so as to not endanger his guild members fighting below. Fights between tier 5 leveled beings can easily kill tier 3 and lower players just by being in the vicinity. If he used his strength attribute to the fullest the after effects of his fight with Byrne will kill most players in the city.

On the other side, Lord Byrne grew very frustrated. Some puny tier 4 human was actually pushing him back, if it wasn't for the fact that he had received the Evil God's blessing, he wouldn't be able to keep up with his enemy's speed.

"Swordsman, show me your strength!" Byrne yelled out as he pulled away from Shi Feng. He then started to instant cast spell after spell at his opponent as he flew further into the sky.

"Let me test my new strength!" Right now Shi Feng was truly happy. He had just recently entered the True Domain Realm and hadn't yet been able to test his new prowess. As a tier 5 NPC Byrne was already in the Domain Realm, and his techniques and utilization easily surpasses players.

Both figures transformed into streaks of black light clashing repeatedly in the sky. Each clash created shock waves that shattered space and created cracks in the air.

Lord Byrne will constantly try to create some distance between them and fire his spells. Shi Feng was forced to respond with combat techniques which were faster and required no preparation, he couldn't activate his skills fast enough to create an opening. Luckily he can use an advanced combat technique with every action, or he would've been at a major disadvantage.

"Why is Black Flame so strong?" Wind Hunter balled his fist in fear and frustration. The fact that Shi Feng can fight head on with a tier 5 NPC terrifies him. He called up his friend list, "Little Sound, gather all the tier 5 Evil Beast and Demons and prepare to leave."

"Leave? what about the city?"

"Screw the city, our lives are more important." Wind Hunter didn't think Shi Feng could beat Lord Byrne but he definitely won't stay to find out. Not to mention Gentle Snow is insanely strong too, so who knows how this war could end up. "Make sure to properly store the experiment. The boss will have our heads if anything happens to it."

Wind Hunter cancelled the call and started to fly down to the HQ. he suddenly stopped when he noticed a delicate looking cleric girl in his path.

"Excuse me, but you need to stay. My guild leader has ordered me to make sure that you don't leave, so I will greatly appreciate it if you don't cause any trouble," Violet Cloud said in a very sweet tone.

"You must be Zero Wing number one healer Violet Cloud. And what if I don't want to," Wind Hunter shot back. In reality he was actually very cautious of Violet Cloud. Of the three healing classes, clerics were the most troublesome for Evil Temple players.

Violet Cloud had a thoughtful look on her face as she raised a finger to her chin as if she were seriously thinking of something, "I guess I'll be forced to beat you half to death and make you wait."

Hearing this Wind Hunter started laughing maniacally. "I guess you're not aware. Of all of Beast Emperor's apostles I'm the battle maniac!" He then unsheathed his greatsword and boundless evil energy flowed from his body. "Come and show me just how you intend to beat me half-"

Before Wind Hunter could finish his sentence he saw a four meter figure dressed in a raggedy black cloak and wielding a jet black scythe appear behind Violet Cloud.

It was almost as if her shadow had come to life.

Mana Technique- Reaper Stand