The sudden turn of events threw Magnus’s raid group into chaos.

  “Stop DPS! Tanks, get aggro!” Magnus and Gorgon_Viper roared in their respective party channels.

  That single mass aggro-wipe had cost them four players. Gorgon_Viper felt the loss keenly; Gorgon_Inferno was his team’s top damage dealer, with an output equal to three or four other players combined. Fortunately, two of their priests had a resurrection skill, but it could only be used after combat ended.

  Before long, Roland and Gorgon_Stone, both top-tier tanks, had locked down the Captains’ aggro once more. The scare had made them cautious. The Blackwind Tactician used its threat-wipe ability twice more, but with the guilds now prepared for it, they avoided any more major screw-ups or casualties.

  Five minutes later, the boss fell, and the survivors finally got their points. The priests resurrected Gorgon_Inferno and one other player, and the raid turned its attention to the next mob. They only rezzed two because the skill had a thirty-minute cooldown, and they couldn't afford to wait.

  After a brief moment to recover, they charged the second bandit encampment.

  By now, over thirty different raid groups were engaging the large mobs, each team numbering between thirty and fifty players. As more of the level 25 Crown NPCs joined the fight, the player horde’s clearing speed increased dramatically, and their losses dwindled.

  By the time the vanguard of the attacking army reached the outer perimeter of the Blackwind Brotherhood’s main fortress, there was one hour left on the event timer. Their numbers had been culled to just over five thousand.

  Lila and her guild stood ready, defending the north and south gates of the stronghold.

  Kael stood alone on the watchtower at the eastern gate, calculating the distance to the approaching enemy. A buff icon was active on his screen.

  [Watchtower Buff]:

  Attack Speed +30%

  Minimum Attack Range +15 yards, Maximum Attack Range +20 yards

  The minimum range penalty meant he couldn't fire on enemies within fifteen yards of the tower's base. He watched the enemy front line draw closer, unslung Galeharrow from his back, and held it at the ready.

  On the battlefield, Magnus and Gorgon_Viper’s group was on a roll.

  “Magnus, how many of these mobs have we cleared?” Gorgon_Viper shouted over the din of battle.

  “Who the hell knows!” Magnus yelled back, launching a spell. “All I know is our teams are holding the top thirty spots on the leaderboard!”

  “Hell yeah! This is awesome!”

  “This is the last one! After this, we’re running straight into those girls at the gate!”

  As the final bandit mob was wiped out, the path to the fortress was finally clear. The scattered raid groups began to converge, forming a single, massive horde that surged toward the Blackwind Brotherhood’s walls.

  Across from them, Lila and the hundred defenders of Crimson Bloom watched the sea of thousands of players approach, an overwhelming tide of steel and spell effects. They couldn't help but swallow nervously.

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  How can we possibly win this?

  As if in answer, a deep, powerful drumbeat echoed from within the fortress.

  DUM… DUM-DUM… DUM-DUM-DUM…

  A warm surge of power flowed through the hundred defenders.

  [System]: You gain [Thunderclap Drums]. All five core stats +200.

  It was the equivalent of gaining 4000 health, 400 attack power, and 100 defense. Simple. Brutal. Exactly the kind of buff you’d expect from a bandit clan.

  Seeing their stats spike so dramatically, a glimmer of hope returned to the women’s eyes. Lila seized the moment. “Hold the line, girls! We only have to survive for forty more minutes! Victory is within our grasp!”

  The attackers, who had been fighting NPCs for over an hour, felt a fresh surge of adrenaline at the sight of actual player opponents. A crude voice from somewhere in the mob roared over the din.

  “Charge! First one to the gate gets the best loot!”

  The shout was met with a deafening roar of approval. “YEAH! Let’s go get ‘em!”

  “CHAAAAARGE!”

  The horde surged forward.

  “Hey, look. There’s someone standing on that watchtower,” Magnus noted, his eyes drawn to the undefended eastern gate.

  Gorgon_Viper squinted. “Huh. Didn’t even notice him. That’s a player, not an NPC.”

  Magnus gestured at the lone figure. “He’s drawing his bow. What’s he going to do? Shoot all five thousand of us by himself?”

  Gorgon_Viper laughed mockingly. “Who does he think he is, Apollo?”

  “Haha!” The two of them shared a laugh.

  From the eastern watchtower, a single, lonely arrow was loosed. Most players, their eyes fixed on the gates, didn't even see it. It flew high and far, a tiny speck against the sky.

  Then, suddenly, the single arrow multiplied into a storm of thousands, raining down on the center of the attacking formation like a plague of locusts.

  -8633

  -25455

  -15646

  …

  A massive chunk of the player horde—players who were buffed by two stacks of the Sunfire Bell and accompanied by powerful NPCs—was instantly deleted.

  The players on the flanks were still charging forward, screaming their battle cries. “KILL ‘EM ALL—!”

  Then they realized the noise around them had lessened considerably. They glanced toward the center of their formation and stopped dead, their eyes wide with shock.

  A square area, roughly thirty-five by thirty-five yards, had been wiped clean of life. Where moments before thousands of players had been packed shoulder-to-shoulder, there was now only a carpet of corpses.

  “What happened? Was it a trap?” The players near the edge of the kill zone froze, terrified of suffering the same fate.

  Unlike the confused masses, Magnus and Gorgon_Viper found the scene horrifyingly familiar. They locked eyes, a shared terror dawning in their expressions. A single name escaped their lips in a choked whisper.

  “Dawnbreaker!!”

  They weren’t the only ones. A ripple of recognition and fear spread through the crowd.

  “It’s Dawnbreaker!!”

  They were either his past victims or witnesses to one of his infamous rampages. Anyone who had seen Dawnbreaker’s ultimate skill, [Phantom Barrage], never forgot it.

  Moments ago, they had been thankful he wasn’t on their side, competing for points. Now, they wished desperately that he was, even if it meant giving him half their score.

  Standing on the watchtower, Kael stared down at the devastation, momentarily stunned himself. He hadn’t realized the tower buff also increased the area of effect of his skills. The AoE of his ultimate had grown from 15x15 yards to a massive 35x35.

  That one shot had killed over six hundred players and NPCs, netting him more than 3,600 points.

  Eight seconds passed.

  His skill was already off cooldown, but the players below were still frozen in place.

  Why aren't they moving? Kael wondered. He was focused on racking up points, not on psychoanalyzing his enemies.

  Since no one was advancing on the eastern front, he glanced at the other two gates. They were still within his maximum range.

  He immediately leaped from the twenty-yard-high tower.

  -1600

  The fall damage was negligible. Time was everything.

  He landed at the base of the southern watchtower and looked up. Climbing it would take a good thirty seconds, a waste of precious time. Instead, he activated a skill from his [Warp Emblem].

  Blink.

  With a faint shimmer, he instantly reappeared at the top of the southern tower.

  He drew his bow again.

  At that moment, Magnus and Gorgon_Viper were in front of the southern gate, frantically trying to formulate a new plan. Suddenly, they looked up. A dense cloud of arrows was already blotting out the sky directly above them.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?! How is there another Dawnbreaker over here?!”