Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales

The mercenaries weren’t dissatisfied. Actually, they admired Lu Li even more.

It was pretty much exactly because of this that Lu Li was able to lead Ruling Sword to this stage. If it was up to him, Crippled Black Ant, he certainly couldn’t do it. That’s why he struggled to even lead a small group of mercenaries. This was a difference in leadership skills.

Other people weren’t so insightful. Some naively felt like they made a bigger contribution than they actually did.

“What does he actually mean?” Unforgettable Maple mumbled as he left the respawn point confused. If he wanted to trap him, did he need to pay such a large price?

“You didn’t realise what those few people were screaming?” Floral Paralysis reminded him as they walked together.

Floral Paralysis was one of the two celebrity competitors of Azure Guard. He had pretty friendly relations with Unforgettable Maple. This was the catalyst for the cooperation between Majin Temple and Azure Guard. The other celebrity competitor, Stellar Union Silver Radiant, didn’t come when the 80 had been picked randomly from 200.

“Give it a feel down there, are your balls still there?” Unforgettable Maple suggested, even more puzzled than before.

“Ok no, just listen. What I was talking about was phrases like ‘mercenary brothers’, ‘help Ruling Sword repel’. These two phrases show that this clearly meant they weren’t Ruling Sword’s people,” Floral Paralysis explained in frustration, feeling like the conversation wasn’t really getting anywhere.

“Yeah, definitely not all the people here were Ruling Sword’s,” Unforgettable Maple replied, coming back to his senses.

“Heard that there was a list in the mercenary hall before. Someone hired a dozen or so people to help them protect a city, would it be them?” Floral Paralysis reminded.

“Then it should be mercenaries. Drizzle Court and Peerless City has too much on their own plates. However, something still isn’t right, it’s still not right,” Unforgettable Maple rambled, grasping his hair. All this difficult thinking resulted in nothing.

“What is not right? Do we still want to fight?” Floral Paralysis asked.

“Why is the difference in power between before and after so big? Why did they let us breach their walls? What game is Lu Li playing at?” Unforgettable Maple questioned, not paying attention to the little guys. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Lu Li’s methods just weren’t logical.

“Do you think those mercenaries were really amazing?” Floral Paralysis asked. He wasn’t that nervous anymore. After all, there was still a bit of time for this battle, and the wall had already been broken through.

“Why did they have to hire mercenaries? They don’t lack the numbers. Why did they let us breach the wall? The power they displayed was pretty much comparable to ours. The could have at least protected the wall to make sure it’s fine. What is actually going on? Also, how did Lu Li know that we were fighting as allies to attack the Black Sea Coast?”

“Sister Maple, can’t we just forget about it? All this thinking is just frustrating me,” Floral Paralysis complained. He had been annoyed to death by all his ‘whys’.

“What if he knew beforehand? Jade Flower Lover assisted us, and if he didn’t know, then maybe it was Jade Flower Lover that was being used by Lu Li. However, whether he knew or not, there was still no point in arranging for all these mercenaries,” Unforgettable Maple wondered, deep in thought. He was going crazy.

He was a relatively confident person, and sometimes he couldn’t accept the fact that his thinking was causing him to spiral downwards.

“If he lost the stronghold, those mercenaries wouldn’t get much compensation. If he held the stronghold, then those mercenaries would get enough pay. Why would he have to pay the mercenaries like this? It’d be much cheaper to use his own people. So, what is he planning to get from these mercenaries?”

“What do those mercenaries have? They can be used by their hirer to do things, do quests, protect a city, go down into Instance Dungeons, fight— something’s not right. His own people can do those things…”

“Oh right, I get it. Floral. Bro. Floral. Where’re you going?” Unforgettable Maple called out. Floral was nowhere to be seen.

On the frontline, the noises of battle rose to the skies!

Floral Paralysis left behind his brothers he had brought and had already rushed on ahead.

Maple was finally starting to know what Lu Li’s master plan was.

It all seemed to have a reasonable explanation. Lu Li never really wanted to attack the Barrenlands, nor did he really know about who the enemy would be. He was just waiting for someone to come.

No matter who it was, at least it would help him test the mercenaries’ quality and power.

Then, according to the outcome, he could absorb these mercenaries into Ruling Sword as members. He didn’t use his own people to protect the city. But of course, he was going to get the best mercenaries to become his own. It was a very simple principle, yet no one had tried it before.

Some people probably really never thought of it, others thought it’d be too hard to implement, some thought that the mercenaries couldn’t be trusted, and still some others thought it wasn’t worth it to absorb these so-called top mercenary players. Actually, the main reason was that they couldn’t do it as ingeniously as Lu Li had done it. He had never admired Lu Li as much as this before.

“Floral, come back. We’re giving up,” Unforgettable Maple shouted. The players slowly retreated, leaving stronghold battlefield earlier than expected.

Actually, the city wall had been broken. If they really wanted a chance at victory, now was the opportunity.

However, Unforgettable Maple had been so mentally damaged by all that calculating and had already lost confidence. He didn’t want to drop more equipment, and so he simply gave up the opportunity to attack. He felt like he still gained something from this battle.

Lu Li hadn’t brought people out to chase them. Everyone’s relationship with each other was pretty good, so what was the point of going all out to kill every last one of them? Let alone the fact that Innocent Child, at that time, was very grateful for Sister Maple.

With the retreat by the Alliance forces, the system declared that the Black Sea Coast had been successfully defended.

In Grey Valley Stronghold, Sugar Pear silently looked at that stronghold, still standing tall like a giant. He turned his head around and looked at some dispirited friends including a representative from the board. He finally showed a bitter smile.

As for the Barrenlands Stronghold, Sorrowless wasn’t there anymore.

There was only West Whitehill sitting on the border of the city wall, his legs on the outside of the vast wall.

Like before, it was the area outside the two arrow towers, where Sky Moon raised his head slightly, as if he was looking at how much the clouds had moved in such a long time.

Drizzle Court was protecting their own stronghold.

Peerless City was protecting their own stronghold.

Glory Capital was protecting Stranglethorn Valley – Wings of Dawn had simply never auctioned this piece of land, and they similarly cheated Jade Flower Lover. They got a new map of Thousand Needles.

Un’Goro Crater fell into the hands of Grand Hegemony. This up and rising club lost Hillsbrad Hills last week. However, they bounced back with Grand Hegemony, and it turned out they were successful again. But they just didn’t know if they’d lose a Stronghold again.

The ones who snatched away the Hillsbrad hills from Grand Hegemony were Blood Red War Flag – and it was the guild that Jade Flower Lover was in.

As she was still in Blood Red War Flag, Jade Flower Lover actually didn’t suffer any loss.