In the forest surrounding the Castellan Ruins, over a hundred players were already in position.
Most of them were split into five-person parties, forming around thirty teams in total. Like a pack of famished wolves waiting for dinner, they crouched quietly in the grass, behind trees, and under bushes, eyes glinting green as they stared intently at the clearing ahead.
If anyone looked down from high above, they would find the entire area surrounded so tightly that not a drop of water could leak through—forget kobolds, even if a rabbit tried to slip past, it would have to cross thirty-plus checkpoints first.
At first, Bruce and Momozi were reluctant. Bruce pouted and turned his head aside, while Momozi rolled their eyes with a look that plainly said they didn't want to go.
However, they couldn't withstand the tempting offers showered on them by the chatter of the other players:
“Lure the mobs over, and you two will get a twenty percent cut of all the loot dropped after the battle!”
“If you lure a big wave, we'll even leave a few low-health kobolds for you to get the last hit on!”
Hearing this, the two exchanged a look, immediately having a change of heart. They nodded as fast as they could, replying, “Deal! We're in!”
With practiced ease, the two executed the same mischievous maneuver as before, only this time, they were even more provocative—
Not only did they slap every kobold they saw, but they also kicked over their roasting campfire and even landed a parting kick on a dazed kobold right before running off.
This immediately kicked the hornet's nest. “Waaaaagh—!!” Over twenty slapped kobolds bared their teeth in fury, their green lizard faces turning as dark as cucumbers. Brandishing spiked clubs and sharp stone chips, they gave chase behind the two like madmen.
“Holy crap! We overdid it! Why are there so many chasing us?!” Bruce was scared out of his wits, his short legs churning at top speed as if greased.
Hearing this, Momozi's mouth twitched uncontrollably. While sprinting at full speed, they yelled back, “You have the nerve to say that?! Who told you to be so insufferable! Slapping them was one thing, but you just had to kick them before leaving!”
“How was I supposed to know they'd take it so personally?! And Momozi! You act like you didn't kick one too!”
“...”
As the two bickered, countless small stones rained down upon them from the pursuing kobolds behind.
“Holy crap?!”
The two turned their heads to look and nearly had their souls scared out of their bodies. They accelerated into an even faster sprint, with over twenty howling kobolds hot on their heels.
Meanwhile, at the ambush site of the hundred-plus players:
“Why aren't they here yet?”
“Don't rush. Bruce and Momozi only left a short while ago.”
“What if they lost the mob aggro along the way?”
“No way. How do you lose aggro when luring a mob?”
“Hard to say. Momozi got killed by a kobold groin-grab before, so they might have some trauma.”
“...Fuck, can't you wish for something good?”
“I'm just worried!”
“Shh—keep quiet, there's movement!”
In the distance, a chaotic chorus of footsteps and furious roars drew nearer.
Everyone instantly tensed up, gripping their weapons tightly and holding their breath.
Then, they saw two sprinting figures—
Bruce and Momozi were charging toward them like madmen, running with the speed of people chased by a ghost.
Behind them, dust billowed as a large mob of creatures brandishing spiked clubs howled in hot pursuit.
One, two, three, four... over twenty of them!
“Waaaagh!!!”
The kobolds brandished their spiked clubs in fury, issuing shrill screeches as though dying to tear those two obnoxious fools to pieces.
Sprinting all the way, the two dashed through the woods and leaped over dirt pits, finally spotting the clearing ahead just as their stamina bars hit rock bottom.
And surrounding that clearing were over a hundred pairs of glowing green eyes hiding in ambush.
“We made it! Charge!”
Moving like the wind, the two plunged straight into the center of the clearing.
Howling loudly, the kobolds followed right behind them.
And then, they froze.
Because from every direction, a massive swarm of humans suddenly emerged.
Densely packed, wall-to-wall humans.
“It's kobolds!”
“Time to get to work!”
“Holy crap, there are only twenty-something? How do we split this?”
“One hit per person should be enough to share, right?”
“Cut the talk, charge!”
Eyes bloodshot, the players brandished their weapons and charged forward with feral howls.
The scene looked just like a pack of wolves that had starved for three days sighting a flock of sheep.
At this sight, the fierce, menacing kobolds froze on the spot. Their eyes bugged out, and their weapons dropped to the ground with a clatter as sheer utter bewilderment swept over them.
Wait, where did so many humans come from?
We were just chasing two annoying guys, was all this really necessary?
“Woof?” the lead kobold squeaked out in confusion.
And then it understood—because a Fireball was flying straight at its face.
Boom!
The Fireball slammed beside its feet, blasting out a crater.
The kobolds finally snapped out of it, screeching as they tried to scatter and flee.
However, to their horror, they found that humans were everywhere. There was nowhere to run.
“They're panicking!”
“Great chance! Use skills to separate them!”
“Don't crowd! Keep your formation!”
“Fuck! Who stepped on my shoes?! Shine my leather shoes! (French accent)”
“Unbelievable! Which jerk cast that Fireball? It blasted my ass! Can you aim your skills better?!”
“Sorry! My hand slipped!”
“How the hell does your hand slip at an eighty-degree angle?!”
The battlefield instantly descended into chaos.
Yet chaotic as it was, the players maintained a clear strategy—separate the kobolds first to prevent them from grouping up for a counterattack.
And so, thirty-plus five-person parties locked onto their targets and began encircling them.
“This one's ours!”
“That one's for us!”
“What about the biggest one?”
“Hiss, I just used Appraisal on it. That one's actually Level 9! Two levels higher than the other kobolds.”
“Level 9?! Holy crap! It's that juicy? Then our team claims this one!”
“Count our team in too, don't even think about hoarding it all for yourselves.”
Amid the players' quick chatter, the kobolds were rapidly split into twenty-odd micro-battlefields. In each circle, a single kobold faced a gang beatdown from at least five players, while higher-level kobolds had to face more than a dozen at once.
They tried to resist, swinging their spiked clubs in an attempt to counterattack.
However, they soon discovered a cruel truth: two fists could not match four hands, let alone when facing a dozen hands on the other side.
“Stab its butt!”
“I'll chop its legs!”
“Don't kill it yet! Let me land a hit to leech some EXP!”
“Quick, quick, quick, it's trying to run!”
“It can't run, people are blocking it from behind!”
Surrounding the kobolds, the players poked and stabbed with laughter and jokes. Even when a player took a direct hit to the shoulder from a spiked club and lost a huge chunk of health, they still charged forward in high spirits with feral howls, feeling not an ounce of pain.
One kobold finally managed to break free from its enclosure, but after taking just two steps, it ran straight into another team of players.
“Yo, one delivered itself right to our door?”
“Brothers, extra meal!”
Kobold: “...”
It closed its eyes in utter despair.
A few minutes later, more than half of the kobolds lay dead on the ground, disintegrating into ash and leaving behind scattered pieces of loot.
The remaining few put up a desperate last stand, but they were clearly broken, barking in terror and flailing their weapons instinctively without any rhythm or order.
Before long, the last kobold collapsed stiffly in terror, going completely still.
With that, all twenty-plus kobolds were wiped out.
The entire battle took less than ten minutes.
Watching from afar, Nan Cheng and his group were dumbfounded, collectively sucking in a sharp breath: “Hiss—this is way too brutal!”
“Let us observe three seconds of silence for these poor kobolds.”
Meanwhile, in the middle of the clearing, the players were catching their breath, though their expressions betrayed their lingering dissatisfaction.
“That's it?”
“I haven't had enough fun yet.”
“Me neither. Before I could even finish casting my skills, the kobolds were all dead.”
“Twenty-something is way too few. There aren't even enough for one per team.”
“Exactly! Bruce! Momozi! You two go again!”
“Yeah, yeah! Go lure another wave! Make it fifty this time!”
“Is fifty even enough?”
“If fifty isn't enough, lure a hundred!”
Bruce: “...”
Momozi: “...”
Rate on N.U.
