Chapter Fifty-Eight

There were not many like Zhao Ping. The village they gave their lives to protect was still breached in the end. Yet, their desperate struggle bought precious time, allowing the villagers to escape. While the villagers hid in the mountains, they soon heard a thunderous roar and saw a tide of troops surging from the direction of Black Tiger Stronghold toward their home.

Fear and bewilderment seized the villagers, and soon they saw a detachment of cavalry heading straight for their hiding place. “We’ve been discovered!” Many villagers instinctively wanted to run, but then remembered that two legs could never outrun four. The old village chief calmed the panic—there was no escape anyway.

A player soon dismounted at their hiding place, facing the trembling villagers. He reached out a hand and gently said, “Fellow villagers, do not be afraid. Black Tiger Stronghold has returned.”

The old chief was stunned, his reaction dulled by age. Li Wa stepped forward with urgency, “Go help Teacher Zhao, I saw he was injured!” The player nodded. “Come with us, I’ll take you home.”

Meanwhile, the NPCs pillaging and burning in the village also heard the thunderous sound. “But it’s not raining…” one muttered, puzzled, as the metallic friction of armor grew louder. Regimented white-clad figures materialized, silently encircling the NPCs. No one spoke; the NPCs stared at the fully armored, impassive players, a sudden wave of dread welling up inside them.

They dropped what they were doing, gripping their weapons tighter with inexplicable fear. Suddenly, a bright red battle flag came into view, and shouts erupted: “Loose!” A storm of arrows blotted out the sky, turning the village into a grave and etching a final scene into the memory of many NPCs.

After the barrage, some NPCs flung the bristling corpses from their spears to the roadside. These were elders or sect leaders from the five sects. An old man with a white beard laughed boisterously, “So this is all Black Tiger Stronghold amounts to!”

But then they noticed a gap in the encirclement. Those around them watched silently. “Is this a way out?” Before they could react, the ground began to tremble. An elder looked up and saw a monstrous figure—an armored heavy cavalryman. More and more heavy cavalry appeared, their hooves pounding like the drums of death.

The master of the Shape Sparrow Sect nocked an arrow, aiming at the lead cavalryman. He released—the powerful arrowhead pierced the chestplate, shaft sticking out, but the horseman’s pace did not falter.

The sect master tried to shoot again, but it was too late. He could only cross his arms, shielding himself with his bow. The next moment, he felt himself lifted—then, like a hawthorn on a candied skewer, he was impaled on a lance.

The lead cavalryman charged forward without slowing. On the battlefield, some tried to resist, but met the same fate as the sect master—impaled, helpless on the lances.

One leader tried to defend, but realized the cavalry was not charging at him. As soon as he relaxed, a second lance pierced his chest. The heavy cavalry cut through the survivors like an unstoppable flood, their overwhelming power utterly crushing all opposition.

The clash of weapons, the grinding of armor, the thunder of hooves—these were now the death knell for the doomed. The sound of flesh being pierced, the final cries of the dying, soon drowned out all else.

When the dust settled, the villagers returning from the mountains saw the ironclad cavalry cleaning their lances, auxiliaries clearing the battlefield, and in the instant their eyes met those of the bloodstained cavalry, the village chief’s heart clenched, as if staring into the eyes of a satiated tiger. He could not stop trembling.

In fact, some players who had just claimed their first kill had already ridden out to throw up.

Soon, news reached Cheng Yuan in Black Tiger Stronghold that the invading sects had been completely wiped out. Comparing casualties, Cheng Yuan could only scoff—pathetic. The five sects had inflicted barely any losses, none fatal, and all recoverable with rest. Cheng Yuan sent the battle report to the long table for both players and NPCs; both groups were stunned. Players marveled at how weak the sects were, while the NPCs wondered—are we really this strong?

Cheng Yuan, nonchalant, waved his hand and said, “They’re so weak, I see no reason to waste strategy on them. No need to recruit such rubbish—why not wipe out every sect in Youzhou?” The NPCs felt a chill of terror, but the players were unmoved; after all, the game had been open less than a year—these NPCs were just data to most.

Even the more sentimental players hardly cared. Who could feel for people they’d never met, especially leaders of such mismanaged sects? At Cheng Yuan’s command, the remaining sects—some watching, some already terrified—suddenly found the army turning on them.

Within a month, the sects of Youzhou suffered catastrophic defeat. Altogether, there were little more than a hundred and twenty sects in Youzhou. Black Tiger Stronghold’s strength, able to contend with five at once, had already instilled fear. When the iron hooves of war reached their lands, their first thought was not to resist—why court death against such overwhelming force? Those who had witnessed the carnage firsthand began packing up to flee as soon as they saw Black Tiger Stronghold’s troops were not withdrawing.

Yet even so, they were pursued. For sects a bit farther away, the army appeared at their gates just as news arrived—there was no more after that.

The upheaval in Youzhou soon spread to neighboring provinces. Players looked up in astonishment. “Is this what happens if you don’t follow the main quest? Isn’t this supposed to be a martial arts game? When did it turn into a war game?” “Did the game version change? Has the era shifted? Has the very genre changed?”

For a massively popular sandbox game with tens of millions of daily users, Cheng Yuan’s revolutionary gameplay quickly spread via streaming platforms abroad. An American player, burly as a tank, set aside his painstakingly forged “Mjolnir,” glanced at his knock-off “Avengers” squad, and felt like a complete fool.

He was not alone—players worldwide felt misled, some even complained the translation team had chosen the wrong name.

Inside a sect, Li Tianxiang gazed at the building before him, wiped his mouth, and sighed. The star chart had already told him that this sect would be destroyed within hours.