Edge of Eternal Song Forest, Blood Dance Legion Camp.
We all rushed into the camp. In my arms, Xinran's face was deathly white, and her breathing was incredibly weak at this point.
“Your Majesty, Your Majesty!”
Xue Wei shouted as she ran toward the commander tent. A beautiful succubus warrior opened the tent flap and walked out, and it was none other than Princess Sophia herself, the supreme commander of the Blood Dance Legion.
“What's wrong, Xue Wei?” Sophia asked with a frown.
“Your Majesty, look!”
“She's…” Sophia stared at the unconscious Xinran for a while before shuddering. “Heavens! I've heard of her legend while I was honing myself in the Netherworld. She's Lady Wind Singer in the flesh…”
After that, Sophia actually dropped to one knee in front of me. “My lady?” she asked softly.
I hurriedly replied, “Xinran was struck by Alvis's holy spell, and her life is in grave danger right now. Can we please treat her immediately, Your Majesty? I'm worried that it'll be too late if we delay any longer!”
“Ah?”
Stunned, Sophia hurriedly turned around and ordered, “Guards, tell the great witch doctor to come over immediately!”
“Yes, Your Majesty!”
The guard climbed up a skeletal warhorse and rode away.
Sophia allowed me to enter her tent and put Xinran on top of a bamboo bed. A short while later, an elderly undead in magician robes walked in, put a hand above Xinran's forehead and summoned his magic. A few seconds later, the glow ended and he opened his eyes again.
“Your Majesty, there is an extremely powerful seal inside Lady Wind Singer's body. Not only did the holy spell reinforce the seal, it severely burned her insides. I'm sorry, but I can't do anything about this holy energy!”
“What? What do you mean 'I'm sorry'?!”
I grabbed the front of his robe, put my sword to his throat and shouted angrily, “If you let her die I'll dismantle your bones myself!”
The great witch doctor let out a helpless sigh. “Young warrior, I want to save Lady Wind Singer as much as you do, but I don't have the most critical ingredient that is necessary to save her life, the Frost s...o...b..ll. If someone could retrieve it, I could use its petals to dispel the damage done by the holy spell.”
My eyes lit up. “Oh? The Frost s...o...b..ll you say? Where is it? I'll go find it right away!”
The great witch doctor nodded. “Princess Sophia should know where it is!”
“Mn!”
Princess Sophia nodded seriously before staring at the unconscious Xinran. When she noticed that the latter was clutching a Devil Suppressing Gemstone, she shuddered uncontrollably and said in a deeply moved voice, “Lady Wind Singer brought us the Devil Suppressing Gemstone! With this item, we can rebuild the Violet Empire anytime we want! Helping the Wind Singer is no longer a responsibility the Violet Empire can avoid!"
She then looked at me and said, “Young warrior, the Frost s...o...b..ll can be found at the icy plains to the north of Floating Ice City. There, you will find a ten-thousand-year-old Frost s...o...b..ll in a valley called Hundred Flower Valley. It is a dangerous place where wild animals and strange creatures roam free, but you still must find it and bring it back to us!”
Ding~!
System Notice: Do you accept the quest [Frost s...o...b..ll]? (Current Quest Rank: )
I accepted it without hesitation!
Ding~!
System Notice: You have accepted the quest [Frost s...o...b..ll]! (Current Quest Rank: )
Description: Head to the icy plains situated at the northmost area of Floating Ice City and find the Hundred Flower Valley. Then, procure the Frost s...o...b..ll and bring its petals back to Princess Sophia for a generous reward. Be warned that a dangerous threat is hidden deep within Hundred Flower Valley. You should find some companions to help you before making your journey. Party size limit: 5!
……
Very good, it is a quest that can be done with a party of five!
I shot one last glance at Xinran before exiting the camp in silence.
The sky was just turning bright when I was outside again. At the time, I had no idea how big of a commotion I had caused in Floating Ice City.
Beep!
I received a message from Xu Yang: “f.u.c.k man, Floating Ice City is going to be noisy for a while…”
“What's wrong?”
“f.u.c.k, you didn't know?” Xu Yang turned on his chat window and laughed. “Dominating Heaven Blade gathered over two thousand elite players to search for you in Frost Forest, but Wind Fantasy responded by gathering a thousand or so Snow Cathaya elite players and attacked him! It was a ferocious battle!”
I was astonished. I knew I told Lin Yixin to do whatever she wanted, but this was still more hot-headed than what I usually expected from her. Intercepting G.o.ds of Destruction with an army of her own? There truly was nothing in this world she was afraid to do!
Xu Yang laughed before continuing, “After that, boss thought that we couldn't let our ally fight by themselves, so she ordered Gui Guzi to attack G.o.ds of Destruction from behind with over two thousand Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls elite players, and Du Thirteen to attack from the sides with over a thousand b.l.o.o.d.y Mercenaries elite players. In the end, Dominating Heaven Blade's men were driven to Wild Pheasant Ridge and annihilated there…”
I couldn't help but let out a laugh myself. “Hehe, I see that everyone is giving it their all today!”
“h.e.l.l yeah!” Xu Yang laughed. “But aren't you the same? There was a video of your fantastic battle against Dominating Warrior G.o.d's 50-man party on the forums, you know. Who would've thought that you would annihilate them single-handedly? Hahaha, I'm sure that there's no one in the world who will dare to look down on our guild after this!”
I nodded. “Mn. Anyway, I'm going to tackle the latter half of this quest. You should go back to whatever you're doing!”
“Okay, do your best!”
“Yeah, you too!”
……
After ending the call with Xu Yang, I quickly contacted He Yi and said, “Boss, add me to your party, will you?”
“Okay!”
A beep later, my party list was filled with the names of all the members of the Frost Cloud workshop: Me, He Yi, Murong Mingyue and Beiming Xue. It was a crazy powerful party to say the least.
“So, how was it Lu Chen? Is that loli okay now?” Murong Mingyue asked with a smile. It seemed like she had learned everything about my quest.
I answered, “Mn. But she's grievously injured, and I need to complete a quest to rescue her.”
“Oh, I see!” Murong Mingyue giggled. “Sigh, it looks like this loli is the only one who can dial up the heroism in our Lu Chen besides Eve!”
I rolled my eyes at her. “What are you talking about? I would do the same for all of you!”
“Hmph hmph, I wonder. Anyway, share us the quest already, will you? What rank is it?”
“!”
“Ah?!” He Yi exclaimed in astonishment. “That high? Are the four of us really enough to tackle this quest?”
I pondered for a moment before answering, “MT shouldn't be a problem with me and Eve around, but our DPS is a bit lacking. Lil Beiming alone won't be able to dish out enough damage, so we need another melee or ranged DPS that's at least on par with her. Otherwise, this won't be an easy quest even for us. Without enough damage, we won't be able to hold our own ground or minimize the damage taken from mobs.”
He Yi smiled. “That is a difficult request. Right now, there are only a handful of people in the entire Floating Ice City who are the equal of Lil Beiming. Lu Chen himself is one, but who else falls under that criterion?”
Murong Mingyue replied, “Well, I can think of one person, but I have no idea if she'll deign to join us or not. She is as beautiful as the sun after all~~”
“f.u.c.k, just say it already, sis. Who are you talking about?”
“I'm talking about the Fruit Knife G.o.ddess, Lin Yixin of course!”
“Ugh…”
“What's wrong? Lost your nerve already?” Murong Mingyue giggled tauntingly.
I gritted my teeth. “Of course not, I'm just asking her to partic.i.p.ate in a quest, right? It's not like she's not going to get her share of experience. Plus, our guilds are allies, it's perfectly normal for the elite players of our guilds to grind levels or organize events together, right? I'll contact her immediately.”
He Yi giggled. “Then go!”
“Okay!”
……
I brought up my friend list, clicked at Lin Yixin's avatar and selected the voice call option. A couple of minutes later, a sweet voice came from the other side of the call. “h.e.l.lo? What's your business? Speak quickly, I'm busy you know!”
“f.u.c.k!” I rolled my eyes at her. “Busy with what?”
“Camping Dominating Heaven Blade's corpse, duh. Just you wait, I'm going to murder him until he's completely out of the Heavenly Ranking. He won't ever dare to mock our alliance again after this!”
“Right, corpse camping, of—wait, who did you say you were camping? Dominating Heaven Blade?” My mouth fell open. “f.u.c.k, are you sure you want to do this?”
“Why not?” Lin Yixin giggled. “I'll camp anybody I can kill even if it's Candlelight Shadow himself. This is nothing!”
“Well, it's still boring to camp a body, right? Why don't we do something a bit more refres.h.i.+ng instead?”
Lin Yixin sounded a bit excited. “Ooh, what is it?”
“You can join my party and help me complete a quest~~”
“OMG, you're so shameless! How is that refres.h.i.+ng? If that's refres.h.i.+ng then I should call Qingqing buying a fried dough stick for breakfast an unprecedented event already!”
“No, this is different, this is a rank quest with a 5-man party size limit! So? What do you say? Don't say I didn't warn you, but this quest might just reward us with an Outstanding Dark Gold–grade weapon or even an Outstanding Purple Gold–grade weapon!”
“Ah?!”
I could see a struggle breaking out behind her purple eyes inside the video call window. She was clearly tempted by the offer. In the end, she said without hesitation, “Party me now!”
“Okay!”
He Yi pa.s.sed the party leader position to me, and a ding later a system notice popped up:
System Notice: Player “Wind Fantasy” has joined your party!
……
“Okay, done! I've successfully invited Beauty Yi to our party!”
“Alright!”
He Yi smiled. “It's getting late, so share the quest with all of us already. Let's try and finish this before dinner is over!”
I was dumbfounded by her optimism. “That is unlikely since this is an rank quest. We'll be lucky if we manage to catch supper by the time it's all over.”
All the girls let out a cry of surprise when I shared the quest with them. It was because they noticed that the coordinates were much, much farther away than what they were expecting. It was at the northmost area of the map, and it would take at least two hours to reach it on foot!
“Oh no, it's too far away…” Murong Mingyue sounded a little shocked.
But Lin Yixin simply smiled and said, “It's nothing. When we get there it'll be the perfect time to grab lunch…”
“Right…”
Murong Mingyue was surprised by how calm Lin Yixin sounded. Logically, she shouldn't be. But Lin Yixin, like me, was an expert. It was normal for people like us to run one or two hours to complete a quest.
