My Players Are So Fierce

As they got closer to Kadman City, the two “sentries” Ah Yuen and Three to Five Pecks who remained on the cart were chatting happily when they saw their own NPC jump over. They immediately stood up and ran over to join Murphy.

The vampire’s eyes rolled, and then he addressed the two small players in the tone of an NPC giving a quest:

“In ten more minutes, we’ll reach Kadman City.

Perhaps I should explain to you the taboos about that city, to prevent you from encountering unnecessary risks there. Additionally, you must come with me to have an audience with my elder, Lady Tris.

She is a rather ‘unconventional’ vampire, so I must clarify some things in advance.”

The “ding” sound triggered the quest ‘One Day Tour of Kadman City’, causing the two small players to immediately perk up. They then followed the prompts to start shouting in the game group for the other players to come online.

The main quest for the new area had been activated.

Stop slacking off, hurry up and come do the quest!

Their call was extraordinarily effective, and within five minutes the small players had risen from their slumbering state. Eleven small players surrounded Murphy, ready to listen to the NPC’s boasting.

The five who had died in the ambush battle in the woods would be able to revive tonight, allowing them to appear directly in Kadman City and saving the two-day, two-night rush, causing a momentary pang of envy.

It was evident that the players had a great interest in the first “main city” to appear in the game.

One by one they stood on the cart, taking out the looted monocular telescopes to gaze at the city, occasionally offering their own opinions.

Murphy had intended to take this time to lecture the players on the local culture and customs, but before he could open his mouth, the second carriage in front suddenly shook.

To Murphy’s surprise, Lady Femis, who should have been sleeping “beauty sleep” in her coffin, had actually appeared on her own, jumping onto the roof of the carriage in a manner unbecoming of her elegant demeanor.

“Look! The rich loli has respawned!”

Electronic Succubus shouted in the crowd, and the players clicked their tongues in admiration.

Over the past two days, they had figured out the respawn patterns of these NPCs. Because she was a proper vampire, Lady Femis would only appear after nightfall.

This NPC’s personality was very cold.

However, if you behaved properly, humbly, and complimented her beauty, she would casually guide the players in using spirit abilities. Several players who were good at acting had already learned the basic “Spirit Blast” skill from the Young Lady.

Although a person’s spirit talent was determined at birth in this world, the players clearly belonged to the “cannot be explained by common sense” category.

Not only could they clearly perceive spirit energy, but they also learned spirit techniques very quickly, which made the Young Lady inwardly click her tongue in admiration.

Although it didn’t show on the surface, she had actually become interested in Murphy’s unique group of servants.

Murphy said that these warriors were mountain folk from the north that he had gathered in Morland Village, but the Young Lady didn’t believe a word of this nonsense. However, since Murphy was unwilling to explain, she wouldn’t ask directly.

In any case, the existence of these people posed no danger to the Blood Vulture Clan.

When Murphy saw the Young Lady appear on her own, he knew something had happened. He quickly went over and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Spirit energy is abnormally converging! The speed is very fast, a massive amount of spirit energy has already enveloped the surroundings of Kadman City and even formed tides. The spirit connection between me and the Blood Vulture Passage has been continuously disrupted or blocked these past two days, perhaps due to this.

Something must have happened in the city!”

The Young Lady’s expression was very unpleasant. Feeling unsettled, she spread her large blood wings in the overcast environment and hovered in place. She then looked down at Murphy and said, “I’ll go back and check first. You all, speed up!”

“Got it.”

Murphy’s expression turned serious as he nodded. He watched as the Young Lady folded her wings in midair, then made a jumping start to accelerate into subsonic speed, disappearing from everyone’s sight in the blink of an eye.

“The rich loli flew away!”

“Wow, her wings were so cool! This dog developer is too skilled, right?”

The small players caused an uproar.

Some even tried to record this segment using the built-in recording function of their game helmets, while Murphy had already rushed to the front cart and shouted to Maxim:

“Hurry! Speed up, something’s happened in the city!”

The loyal servant immediately changed expression, cracking the whip to urge the horses pulling the cart to go faster. However, less than a minute later, Murphy also sensed what the Young Lady had meant about the spirit energy disturbance.

As a spirit apprentice, he could clearly feel that the ambient spirit energy in the surrounding environment was converging and increasing at a terrifying rate, like an invisible storm brewing to its final stage, it would be a tornado-like catastrophe powerful enough to destroy and flatten everything!

For those who could sense spirit energy, the direction of Kadman City felt like there was a huge, spinning atmospheric pressure.

The force of that power was so oppressive that it made Murphy’s breathing heavy.

“Wh-what the hell is this?”

He endured the pressure brought by the chaotic surge of massive spirit energy, panting as he looked towards the city, his ominous feeling growing ever more real.

He actually didn’t have any special feelings for this city.

But the problem was that Tris was still inside, so no matter what…

“Damn it! The sky is falling!”

Meow King’s bizarre shout completely shattered Murphy’s fantasy.

The vampire and his loyal servant abruptly looked up to see that the overcast sky today seemed to have been ripped open.

Indescribable black energy, like wisps of smoke, gushed out from the fissure that had suddenly appeared in the sky. Those strange things took physical form in the material world, with flickering starlight still vaguely visible within them.

It was like a dark nebula appearing in broad daylight.

Murphy didn’t know what it was, but the Kadman City before his eyes was now enshrouded by that black material from the sky, like physical objects being dragged in a black storm.

The vampire expanded his field of vision to the maximum.

He could even see that the statue of Salrokdar at the top of the tallest Blood Vulture Spire was being disintegrated into chunks of rubble that defied gravity, swirling in the dark purple light storm.

But this was only the beginning.

Half a minute after the sky cracked open, a meteorite wrapped in black flames came screaming down from the horizon.

Amidst the shocked shouts of the small players, it smashed heavily into the center of Kadman City. One chunk after another of dimensional meteorites continued to fall, causing the dark nebula pouring down from the sky to ignite towering flames as it engulfed everything.

In just a few minutes, the medieval-style mighty city before the players’ eyes looked like a third of it had been wiped off the ground by a child’s hand.

Black fissures were generated in the quaking earth and viciously slashed through the city, swallowing the collapsed buildings down below, as if taking them entirely into this doomsday scene of the gates of hell gaping open.

The thunderous impacts of the meteorites brought terrifying muffled booms, along with raging winds kicked up by the massive collision and annihilation of spirit energy, causing the horses pulling the carts to panic tremendously.

Murphy could see many frantic vampires flapping their wings fleeing from the city, but they would quickly become entangled and enveloped by the dark wispy energy from another realm, like tiny insects crashing into a spider’s web, struggling feebly before being completely devoured by the powers from beyond.

“Tris…”

Murphy uttered her name softly, then clenched his fists, rising to charge towards the horses but was blocked by Maxim.

The loyal servant could not simply watch Murphy rush headlong into this catastrophe that no human force could possibly stop. However, the vampire used an uncanny yet nimble sidestep to break free, jumping behind the horse and swiftly drawing his sword to slice through the harnesses.

He firmly slapped the old horse’s neck, causing it to whinny and charge forward.

Murphy knew he had to get back before the situation further deteriorated! He had to enter that city, no matter what demonic force was causing this havoc.

Because Tris was still in there!

That wretched monster girl who had saved him over a month ago, and depended on him for survival during his most vulnerable time alone in this other world…she was still in the city.

He could convince himself it was him taking care of Tris, but the fact was, Tris had protected him through those most helpless times after first arriving in this realm.

“Don’t die!”

Murphy gritted his teeth and screamed inwardly:

“I won’t let you die! I’m coming back, I’ll be by your side soon! Hold on!”

“The dog planner is messing around again!”

The small players watching this “cut scene” were dumbstruck. The leading pigeon in the crowd bit his fingernails and screamed:

“We just got here and haven’t even entered the city yet, and they’re pulling this? It’s obviously that opening CGI taste! An entire city just gets wiped out like that? So intense.”

“The graphics are insanely amazing, I feel like this is a real-time rendered CG scene, with money burning up every single frame.”

“Hehe, I recorded it. I’ll post it on the forum later so those five unlucky guys can drool over it properly.”

“But with the promised main city gone, what are we supposed to do next?”

The players erupted into a clamor. Then the eagle-eyed Cheche suddenly shouted:

“Look! NPC! Lord Murphy rode off on a horse towards it!”

They turned to see Murphy riding the old horse charging towards the beleaguered Kadman City being ravaged before their eyes. He was then swallowed up by the black raging winds carrying power from the Astral Realm that surged forth, disappearing as if into a blinding sandstorm.

“Quest! It must be triggering a quest! Maybe even the main quest line!”

Onboard Joy Stick shouted, saying:

“Let’s go! Who can drive a cart? Hurry and follow him! Damn, looks like we’ll need to learn how to ride horses after this.”

——

At this moment, in the chaos like the end of the world engulfing Kadman City, Tris’s dilapidated manor had already collapsed into the fissures in the ground.

Clad in a red jacket, Tris’s hair was disheveled as she gripped a spirit-imbued blade of light, clutching her abdomen, struggling to move her steps outward along the wall.

Behind Tris were two grotesquely misshapen beasts. The slain corpses, as they fell to the ground, began dissipating into black and gray spirit energy from the Astral Realm, intensifying the foul stench in the quaking, dust-filled manor.

These true denizens from the other realm had been flung into the material world when the Astral Realm rift opened. In the midst of Kadman City being crushed and pulled towards the Astral Realm, these ferocious creatures were taking full advantage of the chaos to gorge themselves.

Unfortunately, these two had chosen the wrong opponent.

Though a good-for-nothing before, Tris used to be an elder, so dealing with two mindless beasts was no pressure. However, the spirit energy going out of control caused Tris’s old injury to flare up.

With each step she took, her whole body trembled.

“Thump”

Tris’s feet gave out and she fell in front of the kitchen.

She leaned against the dust-covered wall, gasping for air, looking at the city outside the collapsed walls of the manor, now completely enveloped in black smoke and flames.

“That little brat promised to come back in seven days. I opened a bottle of wine to indulge myself, counting down each day. But here we are on the eighth with still no sign of him…I’m about to die here!

Without even anyone to collect my corpse.”

The wretched monster girl complained bitterly.

She dissipated the spirit blade in her hand, reaching to grab the steam-powered 800 refrigerator that had fallen beside her, struggling to retrieve the last half bottle of wine from inside.

Verbally cursing little Murphy’s disloyalty, Tris actually welcomed this development. With Murphy’s cleverness, he must have heeded her parting advice before leaving.

Perhaps her dear Murphy had already fled north, crossing through the northeast of Transia into the Kingdom of Nordtov. Though living in those northerners’ homes with miserable weather was no picnic, it was still better than staying in Transia to die.

“Hmm, he must have left, right?”

Tris took a deep swig of alcohol to dull the searing pain of her wound.

But then she turned to see the bread Murphy had left for her scattered everywhere from the earlier quake, revealing a hint of sadness on her pale face:

“It’s good that he left.

Only by getting far away from this good-for-nothing harbinger of misfortune could that little guy fully enjoy the life he fought so hard to reclaim. From now on we’ll go our separate ways. I’ll be content if he can manage to send a letter my way sometime.

If there’s even a postman who can deliver letters to the Astral Realm, that is.”

She made a little quip, then tilted her head back amidst the crumbling ruins of the manor to look at the sky, now completely covered by the black wispy spirit energy.

Flickering starlight-like dots could still vaguely be seen, the mysterious chaotic Astral Realm having opened a passage to the material world.

Tris could clearly feel the foundation of Kadman City being destroyed.

This city would either be pulled into the Astral Realm, or worse, entirely torn apart at the boundary between realms. But this was an attack that had been brewing for a long time.

After all, the Astral Realm had remained stable for hundreds of years, so these kind of cataclysmic disturbances could not happen without warning.

To accomplish this, the perpetrators must have devoted unimaginable manpower and resources. And the “Nocturne” barrier meant to protect the city had failed to activate, so something major must have happened within the Blood Vulture Clan itself.

But who…?

Tris’s pained expression turned contemplative, then quickly became indifferent.

Who cares who did it!

Today, Kadman City was doomed to face calamity!

The Blood Vulture Clan would also suffer devastating losses, perhaps even total annihilation. The scene she had awaited for over a hundred years was now unfolding without any warning.

“Ha, which passing astral deity is venting their anger on me, Tris! Hahaha…”

The decadent Tris tilted her head back and gulped down a huge swig of wine. Staring intently at the changes in the sky, she muttered:

“This is retribution! Salrokdar, are you watching? This is the retribution you damned creature deserves! Everything you built over the past 400 years will be destroyed today, in just a few minutes.

You have earned all of this!

Yes, yes!

I know I can’t escape either.

I too will die here. But what does it matter? I’ve gotten to witness all this before my death, and the only one who cared about my miserable self over the past hundred years, my dear little Murphy, has already left.

My darling little Murphy…

Live well out there in the world.

When you receive news of my death, don’t be too saddened. For your miserable elder, it is only a release. A clever, adorable little guy like you will surely find others to rely on.”

“Boom”

Another thunderous roar, and the ground beneath Tris’s manor was torn open completely.

Amidst the surging black and gray wisps, the clear whimper of some creature could be heard from beneath the collapsed ruins. Covered in dirt, Tris struggled to pull her legs out from under the bricks. She wanted to move but was sealed off by the polluted spirit energy on all sides.

There was nowhere for her to go.

So Tris relaxed completely.

She raised the last bit of wine in her hand, as if bidding farewell to the entire city.

“Good night, Kadman City. Farewell, Blood Vulture…little Murphy…if you can hear me, whatever you do, don’t come back! This city…is already beyond saving.”