“If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t have made it here at all,” said Ban Xing De Hu Li (Half-Awake Fox).
Looking back on their journey, the team members now regarded Nie Yan with complex and admiring expressions, almost blindly following his orders. Nie Yan’s commands were executed exceptionally well.
Nie Yan had led them all the way here, fully proving his abilities.
Someone like Nie Yan was destined to become a legend.
“Brother Nie Yan, are you really not interested in joining our guild? The Holy Roman Empire is a guild with a solid reputation among all the guilds. If you were willing to join us, I guarantee our treatment would be no worse than that of other guilds. If you really can’t decide right away, you could at least take an honorary Elder position within our guild—no need to do much, just keep in touch more often,” Ban Xing De Hu Li asked tentatively. He noticed Nie Yan wasn’t wearing any guild insignia, so he assumed Nie Yan wasn’t part of any guild, and he still refused to give up.
“Still, I’d rather not,” Nie Yan declined with a smile. He understood Ban Xing De Hu Li’s intentions—to bind him to his boat first, then gradually change Nie Yan’s perspective until Nie Yan fully belonged to the Holy Roman Empire. Becoming an honorary Elder of the Holy Roman Empire would indeed bring many conveniences, but there was no such thing as a free lunch in this world. Nie Yan didn’t want to waste his time on guild affairs.
“Oh, then I guess that’s that,” Ban Xing De Hu Li replied with noticeable disappointment.
“But we might have opportunities to cooperate in the future,” Nie Yan added. In this virtual world, countless economic miracles had emerged, making it a true second world and a rising industry in the eyes of countless politicians. Back then, when Cao Xu’s power reached its peak, he had acquired five large guilds and his enterprises spread across Carol City, Nisuo’de City, and Radiant City, covering dozens of projects and virtual assets worth hundreds of billions. Nie Yan wanted to surpass Cao Xu even more—either by completely defeating him or by growing powerful enough to make Cao Xu hesitate to act recklessly. Only then would Nie Yan feel secure and prevent the tragedy of his past life from recurring. Alone, he couldn’t accomplish this. He needed to gradually develop his own network of connections, and Ban Xing De Hu Li was a promising contact.
“You’ll always be welcome,” Ban Xing De Hu Li replied, assuming Nie Yan meant they might team up for future instances. He had never considered Nie Yan as an independent force.
Nie Yan didn’t clarify, instead focusing intently on luring out and killing one Scorpion Lioness after another.
“Seven Nights, expand the search area and head southeast! Watch out for traps, especially swamp pits,” Nie Yan instructed. Seven Nights was currently the third-ranked rogue in the team, a young man in his early twenties who was fairly handsome. At the moment, Ban Xing De Hu Li didn’t value Seven Nights highly, but the young man had great potential and would gradually grow into the top rogue of the Holy Roman Empire, becoming a crucial figure within their elite squad. Although Seven Nights was rather quiet, his personality was gentle, and Nie Yan had a favorable impression of him, so he couldn’t help but show a bit of favoritism when giving orders.
“Understood.” Finally, it was his moment to shine. Upon hearing Nie Yan’s command, Seven Nights headed southeast without a hint of doubt.
As a fellow rogue, Seven Nights deeply admired Nie Yan. Nie Yan had ignored the other two rogues in the team and had been quite polite to him, which thrilled Seven Nights. He couldn’t help but think that after this mission, he must ask Nie Yan for advice on how to play a rogue well.
Nie Yan had no idea that this slight difference in attitude had stirred such strong emotions within Seven Nights.
“Why search southeast?” Ban Xing De Hu Li asked in surprise. Logically, the Scorpion Lion King was right ahead—why go out of their way to expand the search area?
“You’ll see in a moment,” Nie Yan replied with a smile.
A few minutes later, Seven Nights reported, “I’ve found an ancient lighthouse, but there are several Scorpion Lions guarding it!”
“Go light it up. Use stealth to circle around the back and enter without being noticed by those Scorpion Lions!” Nie Yan instructed, thinking to himself that Seven Nights had moved quickly.
After a while, a faint light flickered at the tip of the distant, dilapidated lighthouse.
The light grew brighter and brighter, eventually shining brilliantly, piercing through the thick layers of dark mist and reaching their location.
Under the illumination, much of the dark mist hovering over the Ogemat Mire had been dispelled.
The gloomy mood that had weighed on the group due to the dark mist lifted significantly.
Now Ban Xing De Hu Li understood—the lighthouse might play a crucial role in defeating the Scorpion Lion King!
“Well done,” Ban Xing De Hu Li said to Seven Nights.
It was rare for Ban Xing De Hu Li to praise his subordinates, and Seven Nights was overjoyed. He was grateful to Nie Yan for giving him the opportunity to shine.
“Alright, the lighthouse is lit. Let’s continue. There are three elite Scorpion Lions near the Scorpion Lion King. We need to lure them out one by one and eliminate them,” Nie Yan explained. This was one of the challenges of an expert-level instance—it demanded high skill from the players, but Nie Yan had his own strategies for dealing with it.
Upon hearing Nie Yan’s words, Ban Xing De Hu Li’s heart skipped a beat. In hard and expert-level instances, the final boss, the Scorpion Lion King, was usually only elite-ranked. But in this expert-level instance, there were three elite Scorpion Lions guarding the Scorpion Lion King!
The difficulty of this expert-level instance was evident. Ban Xing De Hu Li felt uneasy—assuming they could defeat the three elite Scorpion Lions, would they even stand a chance against the final Scorpion Lion King?
However, by this point in the expert-level Ogemat Mire instance, even if they wiped here, the gear they had already obtained would more than compensate for their losses. At this stage, they could afford to go all out.
Most of the team members shared this mindset, and thus they relaxed their caution.
These three elite female Scorpion Lions were the queens of the entire pride, and their strength was not to be underestimated.
After luring out and killing all the regular female Scorpion Lions, only the Scorpion Lion King and the three elite female Scorpion Lions remained. They weren’t far from each other, wandering leisurely across the open grassland, sometimes strolling, sometimes lying down to rest.
The team scattered among the swamp bushes, sitting on the ground to recover their health and mana. Only when their conditions were fully restored would they dare to confront the elite Scorpion Lions.
While the others rested, Nie Yan did not stop. He wandered around the clearing, searching for suitable attack positions.
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