"Charge! If we don't charge, we'll be drinking rice water for dinner!"
Scar lost his resolve to avenge his comrades. Coming and going in a hurry, he fled the battlefield with his only two remaining companions.
With the cavalry no longer harassing them, the players—in Mero's fury-reddened eyes—didn't even bother to form a defensive line. Instead, they arrogantly surged toward his own troops in a chaotic swarm.
In fact, the three Guild Leaders wanted to form a line. But the players were high on the thrill of battle. No one could restrain them now. The three Guild Leaders could scream until their throats bled, but their orders fell on deaf ears.
The players, selectively deaf to command, had only one thought in their minds: Kill. Kill until we're satisfied.
Even the hounds, influenced by their Beastmaster owners, howled and pounced on the enemy alongside their masters.
"Pocky!"
The player Seth_Black, half of his face missing, let out a guttural roar. His starter pet, the spotted hound, had just been speared to death by an enemy.
He was angry.
Seth_Black was truly enraged.
As a player, he could accept being killed by mobs or bosses countless times. But he could not accept his hound—whom he already saw as a partner, a pet that couldn't respawn—being killed so easily.
"Fck your mother!"
Face covered in blood, Seth_Black raised his hand axe and buried it deep into the face of the mercenary who killed Pocky.
"You son of a btch!"
Seth_Black had never been this angry, not even in real life.
He didn't stop hacking until the mercenary's face was a ruin, panting heavily as he finally lowered his arm.
"Madman!"
The mercenaries would rather let their formation collapse than face that blood-soaked lunatic.
"Kill them all!"
Just as the players and the Second Sons collided like two torrents of steel and blood, a deafening roar erupted from nearby.
Some players looked toward the sound. A group of over a hundred people had emerged from the flank of the battlefield, their glowing ID tags proving they were fellow players.
"It's the Royal Kingsguard!" a player shouted.
That's right. The player leading them was Zhao Xiaotian. Sticking close to him was his Vice Guild Leader, Salty_Egg.
Just as their guild was preparing to leave Pentos for the "bandit suppression" mission, his good Second Uncle, Zhao Wuji, had taken the thirty Zhao family bodyguards and a dozen poached players to form his own guild, explicitly stating his lack of trust in his nephew.
Although he lost over a dozen players, Zhao Xiaotian and Salty_Egg worked their magic. Before departing, they somehow convinced three smaller guilds to merge with them, expanding their numbers to over a hundred.
Zhao Xiaotian and Salty_Egg had been high on confidence lately, but the constant server-wide announcements from other guilds were stinging their pride. They were frantically searching for bandits around Pentos.
But fate is funny like that. Some people don't even have to look, and mobs just deliver themselves to their doorstep—big ones bringing little ones along. Others search like madmen but can't even sniff a bandit's fart.
Perhaps the gods of this world finally decided to intervene. Just as the two were disheartened and ready to head to their destination to farm quietly, a scout came galloping back with news.
"There's a fight ahead! Hundreds of people!"
Hearing there was a brawl to join, Zhao Xiaotian and Salty_Egg were overjoyed. They immediately led their men to the scene.
Hurrying as fast as they could, they finally made it in time to join the battle.
Facing unkillable opponents, the Second Sons—already suffering from low morale—couldn't withstand a sudden, fierce attack on their flank. They broke instantly, fleeing in a swarm that no order could stop.
"Damn it! Don't run if you're a man!" the newly arrived Kingsguard players shouted in frustration.
"Let me get one hit in! Just one hit, I beg you! I'll let you hit me back!"
"Hehehe, run faster! If I catch you, I'm gonna hehehe~"
Watching the chaotic horde of players, the mercenaries of the Second Sons were on the verge of tears.
"Did these lunatics crawl out of the Seven Hells?!"
"Spare me! Spare me! I'll give you this warblade from Braavos, a gift for my lord, just spare me! Seven blessings to you, the Old Gods bless you, the Lord of Light bless you, the Drowned God..."
Kasporio, pulled off his horse by a fleeing mercenary, was kneeling on the ground in a wretched state. His leg had been broken by the stampede of deserters.
Player Pillar_Bro—Zhang Quan, Salty_Egg's roommate—took the warblade. The hilt was inlaid with gems, clearly expensive. Zhang Quan nodded in satisfaction.
Then, under Kasporio's incredulous gaze, he slit the man's throat with his own blade.
"Idiot. Even if I don't spare you, it's still mine!" Zhang Quan spat on the Second Sons' third-in-command, who collapsed to the ground, clutching his neck and struggling in vain.
"Devils! They are all devils!"
Ben Plumm, still on his horse, wiped the sweat from his forehead. Thanks to being somewhat respected by the mercenaries, he hadn't been unluckily pushed off his mount.
Looking back at the collapsing Second Sons, Ben didn't look back again. He fled the battlefield with a few trusted men, abandoning the company.
"You traitors! May the gods forsake you!"
Mero roared, his eyes red with fury. He swung his longsword and charged into the player ranks alone.
After hacking down three players with brute strength, the Titan's Bastard was pinned to the ground by a swarm of players. In endless humiliation, he was stripped of his armor and every valuable item on his body.
One player even stripped Mero completely naked, just to prove to his friends that his character model was "bigger" than the mercenary captain's.
"Argh!"
After Mero had been thoroughly "studied" by the players, the Titan's Bastard was finally hacked to death, cut by cut, amidst endless humiliation.
The players surrounding Mero's corpse then crookedly donned his armor. Some wore the helmet, some the chainmail, some grabbed the vambraces or gauntlets. Looking like a motley crew of bandits—no, worse than bandits—they excitedly chased after the mercenaries scattering all over the hills.
This game of "you run, I chase; you run again, I chase again" lasted until sunset. The players, their mouths practically dripping with oil from the loot, finally let the few lucky, exhausted survivors of the Second Sons go.
Through the System interface, Viserys watched the entire battle with a dark expression. He edited out the footage of the players surrounding Mero to "study human anatomy."
He kept only the hot-blooded combat scenes and posted them to the newly established official forum.
Those indecent scenes... if netizens saw that, they'd think my game is unhealthy. Seriously.
Viserys closed the System interface with a scowl. The players, looking more like bandits than bandits and more like vagrants than vagrants as they waddled in their mismatched armor, vanished from His Grace's sight.