Chapter 49. The Appearance of a Legend (2)

‘Let’s keep watching for a little more.’

As a temporary guild member and not a proper one, mercenaries had practically no voice. They just did what they were paid to do.

In fact, most mercenaries were just mid-level users that were barely above ‘beginner’ level. Higher level users had better things to do.

The reason mid-level users were working as mercenaries was that they could earn several thousand golds if they find a place to ‘lie down’(die) after fighting for a while.

This was much more profitable than hunting somewhere dangerous.

If a Gold Rush member saw Sanghyuk, no, Blake, there would be a red hologram floating above him. This hologram was that of the guild mark, and this was how guild wars worked.

Mercenaries were temporary guild members by contract, so this was a natural thing.

Vice versa, users of Gold Rush would have similar guild marks floating above their heads so it wasn’t so difficult to recognize each other.

“Watch your surroundings. We don’t know when and where Gold Rush will appear.”

Even after they moved to Ice Valley, Kim Sunghoon kept warning the group members.

He was leading two parties, and guilds usually grouped two parties together to make a single group.

Any more than this would be detrimental to their mobility, and any less than this would make the group too weak. This was why groups were usually comprised of two parties.

Sometimes, it would be comprised of a single party of elites, but that was only used in special circumstances.

Right now, Skies Above Skies were concurrently being beaten back by the relatively stronger Gold Rush.

‘The four groups of Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta groups swiped the battles, didn’t they? The alpha team was the most powerful. But I’m not there anymore… would they have become weaker?’

In his previous life, Blake belonged to the Alpha group that was comprised of the most elite members.

In his memory, the Alpha group was an invincible group that did not know defeat. Even the ‘First Team Above Sky’ that Skies Above Skies had come up with was completely smashed by the alpha team.

‘Oh yeah, now that I think about it, First Team Above Sky shouldn’t even be made yet. If I remember correctly, there were no mercenaries in the First Team…… would they let me in if I do good? I think it would be much more interesting then…….’

Thinking about various things, Blake was watching around the surroundings with the other members of the group.

But at that moment…… something he didn’t expect happened ahead of him.

[It’s Gold Rush!]

‘Huh? Gold Rush appeared here?’

As far as he knew, there was no Gold Rush workshop around here. If Gold Rush appeared here despite that, it was likely that it was a force that roamed around hunting for members of the Skies Above Skies guild.

‘Roamers… they should belong to either the Delta Team or the Epsilon Team…… Whew, looks like I will have my chance to rampage here.’

Roaming around at random may get the patrol team annihilated if they weren’t careful. Especially here in Ice Valley where Skies Above Skies was predominant. It was likely that enemy roamers were of considerable strength.

[Everyone get ready for ba-]

Before Kim Sunghoon’s words were even finished, Gold Rush started running towards them. In this case, it was probably the enemies who found them first.

Fortunately, they hadn’t discovered it too late, so Kim Sunghoon and others of the A-4 group could prepare themselves for battle. However, the first to strike was Gold Rush.

*Flash! Flash!*

Naturally, the first skills to come out on field battles were crowd control skills also known as mez (mesmerizing) or CC skills.

In battles between small forces, victory or defeat was sometimes decided from the moment the first CC skill.

So, the degree of effect of the CC skills used by Gold Rush would decide the flow of battle.

What was fortunate was that only one of the two CC skill Gold Rush used was an area of effect skill. If both of them were area of effect, their team might have been annihilated without even fighting.

*Crrrack!*

Around 5 users from Skies Above Skies had their feet frozen due to the CC skill. This could be considered good countermeasures. Especially since Skies Above Skies immediately used their own CC skills as well. The battle could be considered 60 to Gold Rush’s favor and 40 to Skies Above Skies.

‘Start recording!’

Obviously, Blake didn’t get caught up in that CC skill either. In fact, he even had room to start recording a video right now.

‘I’ll grab on to the viewers from BJ Gale with Blake!’

*Srrrr, clang!*

Having started recording, Blake pulled out the Ogreslayer and looked ahead.

Gold Rush and Skies Above Skies had clashed properly with their CC skills. In this situation, formations or tactics didn’t mean much.

No, in fact, battles on a small scale like this usually had nothing to do with formations or strategy anyway.

Unless the initial crowd control skills worked wonders, most battles became chaotic.

‘Rule number one of chaotic battles…… abandon your allies!’

Blake had experience with several chaotic battles like this, so he knew precisely what he had to do in a situation like this.

*Ping, pa-pa-pa-pah!*

Blake used one of the Soul Skills of the Bladeknight, ‘Wild Dance of Swordlight’ and rushed into battle. Wild Dance of Swordlight slashed everything mercilessly, it looked like it would slash at his allies as well, but members recognized as ‘allies’ by the system were not harmed in any way so it didn’t matter.

*Slash!*

The only ones harmed were hostile entities; the Gold Rush users.

Abandoning allies didn’t mean abandoning them and running away…… but to forget about helping them out.

In a situation like this, offense was the most important.

*Slash, slash! Paaah!*

Blake wildly swung around his greatsword while avoiding enemy attacks as though he had eyes on the back of his head.

There were two reasons why such a movement was possible.

First was that he had an Ancient Knowledge specialized in chaotic melee fights, the Bladeknight’, and second was that his battle senses and insanely high VRA were like a sharp sword.

Among the skills of the Bladeknight, there was ‘Marginal steps’ and ‘Sixth sense amplification’, and Blake was showing utterly absurd movements with these two skills.

Also, he had already put two fusion cards into himself when Gold Rush appeared.

‘Burning heart’ and ‘Wings of wind’.

The costs of these two skills were 7 and 8 respectively and Burning heart increased his attack by a large amount in compensation of a reduction in defense, while Wings of wind increased movement speed and dodge rates.

Both of these were relatively expensive fusion cards that contained low-rank elementals. Of course, they did their worth and Blake would use them a lot in the future as well.

In his knowledge, there were only 2~3 fusion cards that specialize in personal buffing, and personal buffs worked in a way that cards with similar effects would be gobbled up by the better one so they did not stack.

*Fwoosh! Crunch!*

Another head flew into the air. A head separated from the body meant that HP became 0.

Mercenary ‘Blake’ of Skies Above Skies has defeated ‘Shashashah’ of Gold Rush.

There was no need to pick up any kill marks and the system would record a kill on the guild war automatically. Blake had already killed four.

Four consecutive kills. Only Blake was achieving actual kills. 5 from Skies Above Skies had died, and 4 died from Gold Rush, and those four were solely killed by Blake. And Blake was still sweeping the battlefield right now as well.

*Screeeech!*

Blake held the Ogreslayer at a tilted angle to deflect an opponent’s attack. The opponent widened his eyes, which said ‘is this even possible?’ but Ogreslayer was already piercing his body by that time.

*Sploosh! Crunch!*

Light particles scattered around. Blake was already covered from head to toe with light particles. It looked like he was glowing and not covered in blood. If it looked like actual blood, maybe he would have looked like some bloody demon.

Mercenary ‘Blake’ of Skies Above Skies has defeated ‘Genius Swordsman’ of Gold Rush.

‘Five.’

Blake counted in his mind as he rapidly turned around using Marginal steps.

*Bbbbooom!*

Magic attacks fell just where he stood. Gold Rush had already noticed that they might be wiped out if they didn’t kill Blake.

That was why they started focusing on Blake. However, with that happening, the other users of Skies Above Skies became a lot easier.

The kill number for both sides was equally five, and the remaining members were equally nine.

However, with Blake confronting around five members of Gold Rush all by himself, the favor of the battle switched instantly.

It was definitely Gold Rush who had the preemptive attack, and it was definitely them too who had the favor of battle initially. However, a single user had changed that.

Not only did he change it, but he completely reversed it.

It was as though a massive typhoon had just swept by the battlefield. No one could catch him or block his way.

Even users of Skies Above Skies were shocked beyond belief.

The final result was that Skies Above Skies lost 6 members (of which 2 were mercenaries) while 14 members of Gold Rush was annihilated. 12 out of 14 were killed by Blake.

Blake had shown amazing might from the get-go.

However, the legend had just begun.

***

Having finished the first battle, Sanghyuk saved the video he recorded this time around and checked up on it in the Dusk Pavilion.

‘Hawt dang, this one’s real good. The last one was so crappy since I had to cut out so many parts due to identity leaks…… but this time, I don’t need to do any of that.’

Sanghyuk liked this video very much. In the first place, he had put in effort to make himself look cooler by adjusting the angle of the battle.

That was how relaxed he was during battle – he even had the time to adjust the camera.

‘If I stack up five or six of these battle videos and release them through BJ Gale, that might be a shocker. Oh, I’ll need to make a guild as soon as possible. After I make a guild, I’ll tie BJ Gale and Blake on the same channel and register it as a shared account, then it might help me getting the live channel later.’

This was one of the reasons why Sanghyuk bothered to participate in this war.

Gaining viewership using cool battle footage and fulfilling the minimum conditions to acquire a live channel.

This was like killing three or four birds with one stone.

Having finished checking the footage, Sanghyuk stood up. He had a one-man guild to make. However, a message appeared through the mercenary-only channel for the Skies Above Skies guild.

[Sir Blake, can I have a word with you if you aren’t too busy?]

The message was naturally from Taemin.