The Great Thief

“You’re late, and that’s not a good habit,” the captain said coldly.

“Sorry, we’ve been attacked by too many Horde adventurers while taking out 16 campsites. We wasted too much time in the process and couldn’t get here on time. I’m terribly sorry.” Lu Li acted as if he felt guilty and would gladly die to make up for what he had done.

“What? Sixteen campsites!” the captain cried out in awe as his eyeballs bulged out.

Lu Li’s two hundred men seemed like a huge group, but in the eyes of NPCs, they were nothing more than a joke. Two or three NPCs were enough to wipe out this crew of 200. It was hard for the NPCs to imagine that they had taken down 16 campsites with this number of people.

Even the NPCs themselves had only taken down a few campsites.

What the honest captain didn’t know was that the campsites that they had taken down tough ones. Not only were the enemy NPCs strong, but there were also Horde players around to help, so it was natural that their battles lasted longer.

The campsites that Lu Li and his crew took down were either tower points with NPCs that had run away, empty barracks or infirmaries holding injured soldiers.

Either way, Lu Li and his crew picked the easiest camps while the captain and his team dealt with the tough ones.

Shamelessly, Lu Li accepted the look of admiration from the captain and asked him to take them to find Bygraves.

“Later on when we start our final attack, our men will try our best to create some chances for you, but the opportunity will only occur once. There’s not much time left for us. If it is possible, find some friends to help defend the adventurers. Although their strength is unimpressive, the numbers are too limited,” the captain said.

It appeared as though the six hour faction war was approaching its end.

Lu Li and Water Fairy exchanged glances, then proceeded to assign their forces for the final battle. Ruling Sword, Peerless City and Drizzle Court combined to create force of a hundred thousand players. Their movements were like fireflies in the dark, glowing and attracting attention as they went.

After Sorrowless heard of their movement, he felt threatened and immediately assigned more people around him.

Dawn wasn’t the sort of game where professional players wouldn’t die. It was normal for them to die hundreds of times when they explored a dungeon for the first time or in the Wild. In matches, Lu Li and Sorrowless had died multiple times in multiple ways, but no one liked dying without putting up a fight first.

Shortly after, Sorrowless changed his mind. Why should he be afraid of them?

Even if the Alliance players all gathered together, there was no reason for the Horde faction to be afraid. Statistically, Horde always had the advantage in terms of numbers.

Under the instructions of Glory Capital, the Horde players moved too.

The forces were more complex on the Alliance side; the three guilds that Lu Li represented were just a portion of the Alliance faction. The other Alliance guilds also moved after they saw that Glory Capital had begun to take action.

Within a short span of time, the battleground of Hillsbrad saw many changes. The forces of both factions were assigned to face against each other.

Random players also wanted to be a part of the war, and the atmosphere for the final battle swept across the map.

Lu Li and Water Fairy had never expected things to roll out so smoothly. The faction war would probably take a long time to draw to a conclusion. With the whole Alliance fighting behind Lu Li’s back to give him a chance, no one would suspect that he was trying to complete a quest, even if he aimed straight for the enemy faction’s commander.

They would only think that he was incredibly manly, always targeting the top of the power chain of the enemy faction.

Last time, it was Sorrowless, but this time, Sorrowless wasn’t important enough. Instead, he wanted to take down their commander and bring them to shame.

There were plenty of soldiers surrounding Bygraves already, but as the battle began to unfold and the Alliance continued to output more soldiers and resources, Bygraves had to send out multiple waves of reinforcements.

In the end, he only had around a hundred men with him.

As long as Shandris didn’t come with a team of her own, these hundred men should be more than enough to defend against the adventurers.

Lu Li wouldn’t be Lu Li if he didn’t try to cause trouble at this time. He requested the captain to take his men and charge against Bygrave’s forces.

The captain believed that they could still wait a little as the battle hadn’t reached the most critical point. Perhaps if the Horde faction fell into a further disadvantaged position, Bygraves might send out even more men from his side to help. The task would be much easier with lesser numbers. As a commander that had been assigned on a short basis, he wanted to expand his victory at minimal loss.

“Have you ever seen a commander with less than a hundred men?” Lu Li asked.

The captain opened his mouth, but he couldn’t find anything to argue with Lu Li. Even he himself had 100 men with him, let alone someone like Bygraves.

“If the battle was to worsen for the Horde, there will only be two scenarios,” Lu Li explained, “Bygraves could take his remaining forces into battle. In this case, it would be easy to attack him in the crowd, but it would also be hard to kill him.”

This was true. Although the environment would become complex, all the nearby Horde soldiers and players wouldn’t stand around to watch as someone else aimed for their boss.

The captain nodded his head and asked, “Then, what’s the other scenario?”

“Alternatively, he could bring back his forces and keep them tight to focus on defending. In that case, we would have an even lesser chance to get our task done.”

Lu Li was a lot smarter than a little NPC from the system and was also talented in leading.

The captain just wanted to win with sheer numbers, but he had forgetten about some other details.

“That…seems to be right. How do we attack now?”

The captain was easily persuaded. Lu Li was also someone that Shandris asked him to cooperate with, so he easily handed over his authority.

“For now, we’ll watch first,” Lu Li said as he gazed in the enemy camp’s direction.

Just as he finished speaking, a large pack of Thieves appeared within their vision and pounced towards the Horde tents.

One by one, Orc soldiers rushed out of the camps to engage with these Thieves, and some chased after the Thieves who tried to escape.

“Now’s the time! Charge with me!”

Lu Li didn’t just let the NPCs go in first to die. Instead, he charged in first himself. He had a lot of health with overwhelming Attributes, and also had a small team of healers to support him, so he really didn’t worry to much about his safety.

‘Charge’ and ‘charge with me’ were two different concepts.

Even the captain, who didn’t have too much intelligence, felt passion lighten up with him. He hastened to join Lu Li to charge towards the Horde tents.