"Slowly step back. Keep the attacks going. Be careful of the AOE skills! Silencers, don't just stand there. Move around and keep your attacks going!"
The tactics were being countered one after another, causing the commander to lose faith and confidence, but he still tried his best to give the most suitable orders.
Although the party failed to silence the two bandit leaders' [Powerful Sweep], they could still escape the pinch by sacrificing several Warriors to cover the others' retreat.
There were more than 200 members in the party, so a few dying would not affect the overall combat power and the members were resolute enough.
[Encourage]! Windy Boots' effect!
Mohai understood the players' tactic very well. He also made his move the moment the commander gave the order to step down.
[Encourage] and the skill from Windy Boots were activated together, boosting the bandit leaders' movement speed.
"Sh*t! Silencers, be careful!"
The commander was shocked by the sudden boost of movement speed.
The two bandit leaders, whose [Powerful Sweep] was still available, were protected in the middle. The Silencers still could not get a clear look at them and were unable to cast [Silence] to stop the bandit leaders.
The dozen of Silencers also knew what Mohai was trying to do. They were about the bandit leaders coming after them.
The two bandit leaders then unleashed [Powerful Sweep], and given the low HP and Defense of the Silencers, they would be killed instantly.
"Scatter out! Look for a clear shot!"
The Silencers were forced to scatter left and right, unable to outrun the bandit leaders anymore. What they could do was scatter out and search for an opening to cast [Silence] at the bandit leaders.
The bandit leaders might be fast, but it was not difficult for the Silencers to search for an opening when they scattered out.
"Look out. The Ghost is coming!"
At the same time, the Silencers who scattered to the left suddenly felt something moved in front of them. It was the Ghost.
"Silent that thing! Don't let it self-destruct!" the commander shouted when he noticed the arrival of the Ghost.
'Isn't the ghost with the bunch of bandit leaders? Since when did it come over here?'
"Hehe, it's too late!"
Kaboom!
The Ghost giggled and exploded.
In the blink of an eye, the Silencers on the left were all wiped out.
There were two types of self-destruction that the Ghost could perform: one active and one passive, which would activate when his HP was low. Active self-destruction could be disrupted by [Silence], but passive self-destruction could not.
That was the reason why ShawnWoo lost to the Ghost when it appeared. The players were not familiar with his skills yet back then. The Fortune Alliance would not make the same mistake as ShawnWoo. They knew how to stop the self-destruct with [Silence].
Therefore, Mohai did not send the Ghost to self-destruct at the start of the battle since it would only make the Silencers silent the Ghost and rendered it useless in the battle.
The Ghost only showed itself at the start of the battle. As the battle continued on, he used the rocks and snuck to the left side of the battlefield.
Under Mohai's command, the bandit leaders captivated the attention of the Fortune Alliance soi they did not notice that the Ghost had snuck to the left.
When the Silencers were forced to scatter, the Ghost locked onto one of them and activated his self-destruction ability.
By the time they noticed the Ghost, it was already too late.
"Kill them!"
Half of the Silencers were killed by the explosion, and even though the Fortune Alliance had more than 200 members around, they were no longer a threat to Mohai.
Without the Silencer's [Silence], the force of [Powerful Sweep] grew exponentially. Furthermore, there was the Ghost who could self-destruct infinitely at a fixed interval.
"Listen to my command. Don't be nervous…"
The commander tried to fight back, but Mohai had seen through his every move and used it against the commander. After the remaining Silencers were killed, the entire party of Fortune Alliance was quickly wiped out.
The Fortune Alliance was rich, hence their members were well-equipped. Mohai cleaned up the battlefield and led his men away.
…
"Boss, this party is similar to the last one. Are we skipping this one?"
The group ran into another party again and the Ghost, who was on a killing spree, got confused when Mohai told them to leave this one.
"Not now. Let's search for the next target." Mohai shook his head.
This second party was also from the Fortune Alliance, and Mohai could not just target that guild alone. He had to be fair. He did not plan to spare all the big guilds. If he targeted a single guild, he would be able to shame the guild and make them after-meal jokes, but the guild might retaliate and disrupt his plans.
"Okay." The Ghost nodded. If the boss said no, he would just obey.
A while later, Mohai found a party from The Richest. "We will take this party down instead."
"Great!"
Under Mohai's command, the bandit leaders charged towards the party from The Richest.
"The Elite bandits?"
"They are so dead!"
"Kill them and it's free loot for all!"
Similar to the Fortune Alliance, The Richest was not afraid of the Elite bandit leaders as well.
They did not waste time searching for the bandit leaders, but since the bandit leaders brought the fight to them, they would not run away either.
The players were eager to have a shot at killing the bandit leaders for their equipment. With more than 10 bandit leaders, they ought to get something good.
However, it was wishful thinking and the thought lasted less than 10 seconds in their minds.
They soon realized that the Elite bandit leaders were more than what they could handle. The party also had more than 200 members, but they died even faster than the Fortune Alliance's party.
After wiping out The Richest's party, Mohai headed to the next without pause.
This time, it would be the Huaxia Empire's leveling party.
The Huaxia Empire was the first guild in the Huaxia Area. Although their main forces were not in Guggenheim because this beginner city was not within the main development area, their members were still on par with the Fortune Alliance and The Richest. In terms of combat power, they might even be slightly stronger than the other two.
However, a bit more strength would do them no good either as Mohai wiped the Huaxia Empire out in a flash.
After wiping out the leveling parties from the three major guilds once each, Mohai stopped being picky and attacked everyone indifferently.
In less than four hours, all three guilds lost four to five leveling parties each.
Every party had 200 plus members and the guild lost more than a thousand members. Aside from the XP, the gear that they lost upon death would add up to a considerable amount. In the early stages of the game, even the three major guilds who were extremely wealthy would take hits at their pockets.
"What are you going to do, DemonMarshal? I personally think we shouldn't waste manpower and time on this, but the players at the forum are looking at us like some after-meal joke. If we don't do anything, we can't explain ourselves to the members either."
At The Richest's side, BrightMoonOfYesteryear was discussing the matter with DemonMarshal.
"What are the responses of the Fortune Alliance and the Huaxia Empire?" asked DemonMarshal after some thought.
From the perspective of the administrative roles, the two of them had to be long-sighted and look at the big picture. The loss of XP and equipment from their members' deaths were nothing to them.
However, like what BrightMoonOfYesteryear said, the morale and reputation of the guild would surely be affected after the group of monsters killed so many of them.
Even if The Richest did not do anything this time, nothing serious would happen though that was temporary. As things piled up, the tiny matters would add up into a big problem in the future and the potential damage caused would be irreversible.
"GoldenCoast really wanted to kill those Elites. He told all his members to gather around the Monolith Stronghold and standby for the assault on the group of bandit leaders. Same goes for Huaxia Empire," said BrightMoonOfYesteryear.
"That's so him. Let's send our men there too." DemonMarshal sighed.
GoldenCoast was not really going after the group of bandit leaders, but it was almost night, and getting that many members to gather would take a lot of time. He just wanted to calm the players down.
He would lead the players to circle around the Monolith Stronghold and then leave without doing anything, so no one could blame the guild for not doing anything.
After all, it was difficult for players to move around at night and the monsters were a lot stronger. More importantly, after leveling for a whole day, the guild members were tired and it was really not beneficial to go after the bandit leaders.
If GoldenCoast ordered a retreat then, it would look like he had done his part and the choice to retreat was inevitable. He would be able to preserve the members' morale and keep the guild's reputation up. Furthermore, everyone would lose nothing except for an hour of leveling.
DemonMarshal actually wanted to do the same thing but in a less obvious way. However, when he heard what GoldenCoast was doing, he knew that the man shared the same thought.
"The three guilds are here! Those Elites are dead!"
"Hahaha, they killed me twice, huh? They'd better start running."
"We can finally level in peace tomorrow."
The three major guilds assembled their members to launch an attack at the bandit leaders. It was probably the biggest operation that the players' guilds had carried out since the start of the game. The three major guilds' actions captured a lot of attention in Guggenheim.
However, such a big operation cost the three guilds a lot of time and when all the members gathered. It was already 11.30 at night.
They then spent another 20 minutes traveling into the Monolith Stronghold.
"It's so dark that I can't even see what's over there."
"The monsters are really stronger than they are in the daytime."
It was night in the game and it was the first outing under the moon for many of the players.
It was inconvenient to move around at night, and after leveling for a whole day, the players started to complain when the sky turned dark.
"Look! What's that?"
A red blazing light flashed all of a sudden further away. The players from all three guilds noticed the commotion and were surprised.
"It's finally beginning."
Meanwhile, in the other secluded corner of the Monolith Stronghold, Mohai grinned when he saw the red blazing light in the sky.
On the other hand, the Ghost was rather nervous. "Boss, do you really want me to do something this important? I'm afraid that I might mess up."