Reign of the Hunters

Chapter 159 First Blood? First Five?

Everything was proceeding extremely smoothly, as though the First Blood for the first boss of Castle Ruins had Upwards Ho!’s name on it. Mi Lu was feeling excited. Even though he had already experienced a number of First Bloods, he couldn’t help but feel moved each time a new First Blood came out. It was an emotion that even seemed to affect his limbs, causing them to slightly tremble.

“Maintain this pace, do not relax! Clerics, take note of your MP! Drink a potion if you have run out of MP! If you ran out of potions, take some from the Priests who have extra!”

The boss’ HP bar became smaller and smaller. When the boss had about 2% remaining, Mi Lu was already extremely exhilarated. Even his usual, steady voice was full of excitement, “Steady, steady! Everyone, you don’t have to give me face, give it all the damage you can deal! Don’t be afraid of OT-ing! I’ll take responsibility if you do!”

Even though the current situation was extremely nerve-racking, Mi Lu’s words still caused quite a number of people to silently chuckle.

“Congratulations to Guild Wolf Pack for achieving First Blood on Gru, the first boss of Castle Ruins (Normal Difficulty). Guild Prestige Points x300, Global Prestige Points x4000, Gold x1500. Let us remember the names of our heroes...”

Just as Gru, the first boss, had a sliver of HP left, an announcement sounded out in the world channel and following the announcement was a long list of player names. The abrupt appearance of the announcement caused Mi Lu to be taken aback. He stood rooted in place, as though his mind and thoughts had been blown far away.

It was not just Mi Lu. Quite a number of players were stunned into silence, stopping whatever they were doing. It was as though someone had poured a bucket of cold water over a bunch of fireworks that were about to set off, and the surroundings became dreadfully silent.

Looking at the situation, Ye Ci felt an ill omen. Things would really start to go downhill if their party were to be wiped out due to everyone’s carelessness. She exclaimed, “Hurry up and take him down! If we’re wiped out now, 200 DKP will be deducted from everyone!”

As expected of Ye Ci, who was an existence akin to a god in the eyes of all Upwards Ho! players. Even though everyone was feeling lost, they quickly regained their attack rhythm and the first boss soon fell in less than 10 seconds.

A system announcement followed soon after. “Congratulations to Guild Upwards Ho! for achieving First Five on Gru, the first boss of Castle Ruins (Normal Difficulty). Guild Prestige Points x200, Global Prestige Points x3000, Gold x1200. Let us remember the names of our heroes...”

Even as the world channel announced their guild name for achieving First Five, the entire party was feeling extremely down at this moment. The excitement for achieving First Five was not felt at all. Everyone remained where they were, either standing or sitting wordlessly. It was obvious that this was a massive blow to their confidence. Ye Ci turned to look at Mi Lu. Even though Mi Lu did not look despondent, it wasn’t hard to understand how uncomfortable he felt judging by his pale face.

These emotions must not be taken lightly.

Naturally, Ye Ci understood this point very well. An invisible pressure would quickly loom over the entire guild if it was not managed properly. When that happened, it would be a herculean task to raise morale.

“What’s this? We’ve gotten First Five! Are you all not happy?” Ye Ci found a nearby rock and sat down, grinning at everyone.

In response to her words were sighs and silence. It was evident that Ye Ci’s banter was unable to raise any morale in her party members at all.

“No one is going to check the loot? If you guys aren’t going to do it, I will! All of you know that my luck isn’t very good, but I’m always passionate about that! So, don’t blame me if anything goes wrong...” Standing from her seat, Ye Ci clapped her hands together as she stepped towards Gru’s corpse.

Seeing that she was about to reach the corpse, Bai Mo grabbed her arm and sighed, “My dear cousin, can you stop hitting everyone when they’re down? Do you think that it’s so easy to bring down a boss? If you add your bad luck to the equation, I think there will be a lot of people who will be unable to eat in peace.”

Bai Mo also knew that this situation must not continue. Exchanging a glance with Ye Ci, the two of them decided to put up a bit of a show.

“It’s precisely why I don’t understand! We’ve already gotten First Five and you all still have no appetite? Just what do you all want?” Ye Ci started laughing.

“Isn’t it because we had just missed out on a First Blood? Why are you not disappointed in the slightest? Don’t tell me you’re a spy sent out by Wolf Pack?” Bai Mo started to joke as well.

After he had pointed out the knot that was in everyone’s hearts, people slowly started to join in the conversation. “Guild Leader, we were so close to bagging that First Blood...”

“That’s right, it was just by a few seconds.”

“It’s all my fault. If I had called for everyone to assemble earlier...” Mi Lu blamed himself.

“No, I’m to blame. If only I was punctual...”

“No, it was my fault...”

In a short moment, the entire party had emerged from their negative state and became a self-blaming session. Although the feelings of regret and resentment remained, it was still much better than that half-dead state they were in just now.

Seeing that everyone was in a hot debate, Ye Ci started to signal for everyone to quiet down. She laughed and said, “I know that our guild, Upwards Ho!, is a small guild and we need every First Blood we can get. However, don’t treat this like a mission. Getting First Blood is good, but First Five isn’t bad either. Even if we don’t get First Five, taking down the boss is also something to celebrate.” Her smile seemed to calm everyone down. “Everyone, don’t be so extreme and readjust your mindset. Wolf Pack is the best guild in the eastern continent with talents abounding, there’s no harm in losing to them once. Competition is what makes the game fun! Furthermore...”

Pausing for a while, she successfully managed drew everyone’s attention to her, “Even if we are unable to get First Blood on any of these bosses, so what? Don’t tell me that makes us all inferior to others? Of course not, Fate will not treat us badly if everyone does what they should be doing.”

At her words, everyone lowered her heads in thought and started to rethink their mindset. It did not take long before a few optimistic players had gotten over it and started to happily converse with others.

“Miss Gongzi, which class did you use to interrupt the first boss’s skill?“ Just then, Sir Ditty, the guild leader of Wolf Pack, sent Ye Ci a private message.

Ever since Sir Ditty had fought alongside Ye Ci at Blue Light Coast against Tang Dynasty, they found themselves strangely alike in temperament. Although they each had their guild’s interests at heart, it did not stop them from being friends.

“Then what class did you use to interrupt the boss?” Ye Ci narrowed her eyes, answering his question with her own, knowing that this wily fox was here to find out what she knew.

“I asked you first.”

“I’m a girl, you should give me some respect by answering my question.”

“Alright then, we used Druids.”

“My side used Priests.”

“Ah? You can interrupt the first boss’s skills with the Priest?”

“That’s right, so Druids can do the same? I didn’t know that.”

Two wily foxes started a whirlwind debate till the point that even their tails were about to be swept away. However, Ye Ci was snarking inwardly: Bullshit, she had never heard of another class that was able to interrupt this boss’s skill aside from a Dark Cleric even in her past life. This bastard was lying!

Actually, wasn’t she the same as well?