Chapter 540 – Chaining Traps!
Seeing all his team members teleport away, Nie Yan recalled Lil’ Gold. He entered stealth before dashing off. Even if he didn’t use an Unknown Transfer Scroll, no one could stop him from escaping!
Only a short moment after Nie Yan and the others departed, Crazy Magic, Raven, and the others arrived on the scene. The surroundings were in disarray. Alliance of Mages’ forces were routed. Crazy Magic’s eyes twitched in anger. So many elites had been slaughtered just like that. Dropping five levels and three pieces of equipment, he felt like his heart was bleeding out.
“What were the casualties on our side?” Crazy Magic asked.
“Over 200 dead. Adding all the previous losses, our casualties have already surpassed 500,” Maple Sky replied. The final battle hadn’t even started, and they had already lost one sixth of their forces. If Asskickers United’s advantage grew any larger, they might as well just give up.
Raven knitted his brows. “Just a moment ago, Nirvana Flame appeared with his Golden Dragon. Didn’t you say he was still back at the castle?”
“Perhaps the information was wrong. However, my people had clearly seen him at the castle five minutes ago. Even if he rushed over here at top speed, it would still take at least 15 minutes. Don’t tell me it was teleportation…?” Crazy Magic’s heart trembled.
Raven nodded. This was definitely a possibility! He guessed they used something like a Group Transfer Scroll to teleport over. The Alliance of Mages players’ hearts sunk. Asskickers United’s ambush had gone off without a hitch. There was no telling if or when they would try again. If something like this happened a few more times, by the time they reached Asskickers United’s castle, they would lack the manpower to even fight them head-on!
While Crazy Magic was figuring out a way on how to deal with Asskickers United, the Thieves deployed by Alliance of Mages had already arrived at Asskickers United’s castle.
The 30 top Thieves divided into six squads. Each relied on their own skill to approach the castle as they prepared to stir up trouble for Asskickers United’s players. According to the information provided by Crazy Magic, the area around the castle was booby-trapped. Groups of players in twos and threes leisurely sat on the open space outside the castle. Their vigilance was quite low.
The top Thieves couldn’t help but feel Asskickers United was overestimating themselves if they thought a few traps could stop them. However, what happened next seemed like something out of a nightmare.
When five Thieves happened to pass through a patch of thickets, a brilliant light radiated out from between the trees.
Of these five Thieves, three were from Alliance of Mages, one from Divine Protectors, and one from Bloodfiends. The three from Alliance of Mages were fairly familiar with each other. The Divine Protectors Thief felt a bit isolated. As for the Bloodfiends Thief, he was cold and detached, caring for no one but himself.
This Thief was precisely Underworld, one of the five Thieves from Bloodfiends who had ambushed Nie Yan previously. He moved forward while maintaining contact with the other four.
「Since Asskickers United dared to ambush Alliance of Mages, they definitely have countermeasures in place. Crazy Magic probably has a leak somewhere. Everyone, be careful,」Underworld warned his compatriots. He coldly looked at the four Thieves up ahead, and purposefully lagged a good distance behind.
Seeing the three Alliance of Mages Thieves chatting and laughing merrily, the Divine Protectors Thief coldly snorted and walked over toward a nearby path. This path was covered in thick shrubbery.
As he pushed aside a branch with his hand, he suddenly felt something off. Looking towards the distance, he spotted an arrow trap installed on a nearby tree. A thin thread was stretched taught across the shrubbery below his feet.
When he moved through the shrubbery, he had tripped the thread. With a whoosh, a bolt was loosed from the crossbow and came flying towards him.
A cold light streaked through the air.
The Thief narrowed his eyes. It was a trap! However, if Asskickers United believed such a simple trap could kill him, they were really looking down on him.
With a Gale Step, he sidestepped and evaded the bolt.
He believed that was the end of it. However, it was only the beginning!
The bolt flew into a bush, striking a wooden pole.
An ignition rune happened to be engraved in the wooden pole. After being struck, flames leapt into the sky, instantly trigerring an explosive rune carved on top of a nearby tree. With a loud bang, the rune exploded, causing a shockwave to sweep out.
The traps were linked! The Thief’s face paled. In the moment the explosive rune was set off, he dodge rolled to the side. But what happened next was even more frightening. His movements had triggered even more traps. A hail of arrows came flying at him from every direction.「Boom! Boom! Boom!」Even more explosive runes were set off.
The five Thieves immediately bolted away in every direction. Countless explosive runes and other offensive totems were layered on top of each other. The explosions were even more spectacular than the ones seen in Hollywood movies. Two Alliance of Mages Thieves barely evaded the initial explosions, only to still end up dying to the subsequent blasts. They didn’t even get the chance to drink a health potion.
Of the three remaining Thieves, Underworld was the first to make it out with his life. The might of these explosive runes left him a bit rattled. A single explosive rune wasn’t that powerful. With their skill, dodging was extremely easy. However, faced with such a powerful chain of explosions, dodging became extremely difficult. Underworld was fairly lucky. He had remained much further behind than the other four. At the first sign of trouble, he immediately fell back. Looking at his four teammates, two Alliance of Mages players were blasted to death. The remaining two were scared witless and running around like headless flies.
Seeing the situation wasn’t looking good with explosions going off all around him, the sole remaining Alliance of Mages Thief drank an Intermediate Health Potion and dove into a small clearing. Suddenly, the ground beneath turned into quicksand as he was slowly sucked in.
All of a sudden, he discovered everything within a 30-meter radius was a quicksand trap!
This was an Advanced Quicksand Trap! The area of effect was huge! He had once seen this kind of trap selling for 100 gold each in an NPC shop. It appeared Asskickers United spared no expense!
He attempted to pull his leg out of the sand in a panic. However, his body wouldn’t budge. He could only despair as he slowly sank further and further down. In the end, he died of suffocation.
If someone had attempted to pull him out, perhaps he would’ve survived. Seeing this scene from afar, the Divine Protectors Thief didn’t dare to go over. He turned around and fled, eventually discovering a running stream. He quickly dove into the water, thinking he was finally safe. Asskickers United wouldn’t place explosive traps in the water, right?
With a rumbling sound, water started splashing around.
As the Thief swam around in the water, he suddenly heard the sound of an explosion, causing his heart to sink. Before he could do anything, an explosion swept over him from below, knocking all the air out of his lungs. Feeling a sweet taste at the back of his throat, he spat out a mouthful of blood. His body became numb as he slowly sank into the water.
He had set off an Underwater Goblin Mine!
At this moment, seemingly triggered by the explosion of the mine, a green liquid started spreading out in the water. When he came into contact with this liquid, an intense stinging feeling washed over him. A string of damage values floated up above his head. He was also inflicted with paralysis. Before long, his skin turned darkish red as he turned into a corpse.
The Thieves Crazy Magic deployed had gotten a taste of how frightening these traps were. Nie Yan spent almost 500,000 gold on these traps alone. Ordinary traps were easily evaded by Thieves. However, these traps were closely linked with each other. Evading them wasn’t easy at all. Once you triggered a single link in the chain, all the other traps would go off in a torrent of wind and flames. No matter how skilled you were, these omnipresent traps would easily take your life.
The six Thief squads had all met with the same tragic fate. Out of the 30 Thieves that were dispatched, only 11 barely escaped with their lives. The traps Nie Yan installed had left an unreasonable impression on their minds. This was the first time they had seen traps set up this way.
Nie Yan was extremely meticulous when setting up these traps. He had specialized Engineers look over the data and area of effect every trap. After which he linked the ones that synergized together so that their might would increase by manyfold. Of course, this endeavor cost quite a bit of money. Perhaps Nie Yan was the only one who would be willing to spend so much to set up these linked traps.
After the Thieves sent word back, Crazy Magic was dumbstruck. He initially believed traps were ineffective against top Thieves. After all, with their extremely high Reflex stat, it wasn’t easy for them to fall for traps. Even if they did fall for a trap, the amount of damage they received was much less than other classes.
However, of the 30 Thieves he sent over, only 11 returned alive. Before they even encountered any players from Asskickers United, over half of them had already died. Just what was going on? How did Asskickers United set up these traps? Why were they so powerful?
Crazy Magic didn’t know what to do anymore. Nie Yan had already calculated every move. Recalling everything that happened so far, from the moment they entered the Realm of Death and Asskickers United’s 200,000 players escorting their Armoured Catapults over to Moonlight City, they had been led by the nose from the start. Asskickers United could slowly stall for time while having their top Thieves whittle away at their strength. Everything was under their control. Meanwhile, Alliance of Mages wanted to end the battle quickly, but it seemed like they would be destroyed before even reaching their destination, suffering ambush after ambush. This was a complete tragedy.
Under this circumstance, what was Crazy Magic supposed to do? He was backed into a corner with no way of getting out.
The gradually rising casualties caused Crazy Magic to become anxious. Could it be that this battle in the Realm of Death would be the downfall of Alliance of Mages? If the enemy was simply stronger, he would have nothing to say. However, the thought of losing like this left him with an extremely bitter taste in his mouth.
Nirvana Flame, do you dare to fight head-on, fair and square?