Ye Kong left the Gray Fog Village and made a mad dash to the other end of the Dark Mist Forest.
"The remaining game time I have today on my VR helmet is less than half of the daily limit."
The Theus City Illusory Realm was the main cause of this, as it had taken up way too much time. The mirror image, especially, cost him a few precious hours, which meant that his "time limit" was quickly approaching—the time that Ye Kong had set for going offline.
For this reason, Ye Kong had to find a relatively safe place to log out of the game and go offline.
Currently, eight hours had already passed (four hours of real-world time) since the launch of "Demon Realm," so according to the limitations of a "D" grade helmet, in actuality, Ye Kong still had six hours of game time.
However, there was something important Ye Kong had to settle in the real world. Plus, he had to set aside enough game time to participate in the special story event happening later that night—the Luna Lake incident!
Right now, there were still several hours before the Luna Lake incident started. If Ye Kong used up his daily quota, he would miss out on the story event.
Both his heart and his brain were telling him that it was time to go offline and take a break.
The best spot to log out of the game was the border between the Dark Mist Forest and Luna Lake because Luna Lake just happened to be conveniently located at the other end of the Dark Mist Forest. If he logged out there, it would be much more convenient for him to take action when he logged back in.
"Huh?"
While Ye Kong was sprinting through the forest, he suddenly raised his eyebrows and came to an abrupt stop. Then, he tumbled forward into the undergrowth while activating his Swordsman class innate skill—Aura Suppression.
In a flash, Ye Kong had vanished without a trace, completely blending into the surrounding environment.
After Ye Kong had performed this series of actions, in the next moment, there was a sound from another patch of brush not too far away—
Rustle, rustle...
A Sentinel covered in armor pushed the brush aside as he stepped through. His companion followed behind him, and based on what the youth was wearing, he was most likely a Ranger.
"D*mn it. For close to an hour, we've been looking for that guy while trying to level up in this forest!"
"Yeah, exactly! Where did that lacuna run off to? There's no sign of him here!"
The Sentinel's name was goldenpomelo, and the Ranger's name was sleeplessnight. They were both members of the Yokai Legion Guild, and under their team leader's orders, they had come here to look for a Swordsman player called lacuna in the Dark Mist Forest.
From what they heard, this lacuna had ruined one of the Yokai Legion Guild's important plans!
Their guild leader, aotabo, had flown into a rage. He put out a top-priority order to track down this player and kill him repeatedly until he had dropped back to level zero and lost all his equipment, never able to leave Qingmu Town for the rest of his life!
He needed to show other players the terrible fate in store for anyone who dared to cross the Yokai Legion Guild!
All of this was in retaliation for what that lacuna did—he had smeared the Yokai Legion Guild's reputation!
It should be known that reputation was extremely fundamental to a guild.
If the Yokai Legion Guild lost its reputation, it would become extremely difficult for them to recruit new members, as nobody would want to join a guild that they didn't take seriously. It was the same as it was in the real world—if a company was exposed in a serious scandal, their stock prices would plummet!
The relationship between aotabo and Ye Kong had gone beyond a purely personal grudge. It was now affecting the future development of the Yokai Legion Guild. Hence, aotabo decided to hold nothing back. He would use everything at his disposal to erase Ye Kong and salvage the guild's reputation!
Thus...
Ye Kong was to be executed as a deterrence!
As Ye Kong hid in the undergrowth, he took the chance to open up the in-game forums. At present, players were only able to access the forums of their starting area, so forums were separated at a city-state level.
For this reason, the only forum Ye Kong could access was the "Qingmu Town" forum, which he chose to enter.
In an instant, a huge number of posts flooded his eyes—
"Yokai Legion on the move, wherever they go, nothing can survive!"
"Live broadcast! Live broadcast! The encirclement operation of the Yokai Legion Guild!"
"The Yokai Legion Guild members are moving out en masse, but what could be the reason?"
There was a large number of posts with such titles on the front page, and they were constantly bumped to the top by other users. Ye Kong chose one at random to open and, looking at the comments on the post, found that it was predominantly filled with discussion threads—
"What's the reason for the Yokai Legion Guild's collective operations? Requesting a rumor-monger to share some news!"
"Rumor-monger reporting for duty. Let me tell you, the Yokai Legion Guild is acting out in revenge—Those who cross the Yokai Legion can never escape their punishment!"
"Previous commenter, you need to elaborate. We onlookers don't know the full truth."
"Get your popcorn and drinks, take a seat in the front row, and enjoy the show."
Most of the posts were similar to this one. The discussion centered around the Yokai Legion Guild's objectives, yet nobody posted the name "lacuna" anywhere, which made the speculations grow even more heated!
The entire Qingmu forum was flooded with posts about this event. The first few pages were occupied by discussion threads about the same thing, which made Yokai Legion Guild's objective seem even more inscrutable.
"It looks like the members of the Yokai Legion Guild have been put under a gag order."
Giving this some thought, Ye Kong came to understand the guild's intentions. "They're deliberately keeping my name a secret so the news about the situation 'blows up.' They're using this mystery to draw in the players' attention. Then, when they find me and successfully carry out their hit, they can expose the whole truth of this affair!
"When that happens, the Yokai Legion Guild's reputation will definitely grow, as they use my corpse as a stepping stone to reach greater heights...
"They can carry out their revenge and grow their reputation by leaps and bounds, killing two birds with one stone. It fits with aotabo's modus operandi. If I had to describe him, I wouldn't call him simple..."
Ye Kong shook his head and focused his gaze back on the forums. "In the Qingmu Town forums, that group of posts was mostly posted an hour ago—It would seem that they spent a few hours hunting mobs, allowing most of their members to reach level two. Perhaps a rare few of the upper echelon players are already at level three. This amount of strength is indeed enough to threaten a level four player.
"Aotabo has been very shrewd with his calculations. He knows that the gap between levels four and five is very big, and can't be crossed in the span of a few hours. So while I was stuck at level four, they took this time to successfully catch up to my level."
The Sentinel and Ranger in front of him were both level three players. Apparently, they were fairly high up in the guild's hierarchy and were confident in their strength, daring to hunt mobs while looking for Ye Kong as a two-man team.
If Ye Kong ventured to show himself, they would immediately notify the rest of the guild, and the other members nearby would rush to their aid. When that happened, Ye Kong would be caught in their trap, completely surrounded by the Yokai Legion Guild!
Ye Kong lowered his head, and his lip curled into an icy sneer—
"Heh, you think you can step over my corpse and use me to further your reputation, getting in the way of me saving Ye Bai...
"Then I'll crush you underfoot first!"
Fwah!
Ye Kong shot to his feet and walked straight toward the two players, but they had their backs to Ye Kong and didn't sense him approaching. The scariest part was that Ye Kong's movements didn't make a sound! Not even his footsteps!
Ghost Walk!
Ye Kong was under the effects of Aura Suppression, and though he lost his "visual" concealment, he had retained all other concealment effects. This meant that as long as he could get into his opponent's blind spot...
He was like a ghost!
A ghost that was even more fearsome than any Assassin!!!