Soon, four players stepped forward and said in unison, “We give up.”
These four players were all elite players groomed by a major guild. They managed to make the achievements they had mostly because of the resources unfairly given to them by the guild, although their abilities were outstanding too.
Hence, they dared not take the gamble. They did not dare think that their guild would continue to nurture and groom them if they failed to complete the quest and were removed from the first tier.
However, the remaining few solo players were still hesitant. After all, even without a guild influencing their decisions, losing that much EXP at once was not something they could accept easily.
Liu Ming was the only one who did not hesitate much. He said, “I’ll take on this quest. City Lord, just tell me the quest’s details.”
After hearing Liu Ming’s words, Lotter City’s City Lord smiled and said, “Floating Cloud, you’ve agreed, just like I expected. I knew you’d fight and go to battle for the Light Alliance.” Immediately after that, the City Lord spoke in a different tone. “However, you cannot complete this quest on your own. I better announce the quest’s details after they’ve made their choice.”
After a while, the few remaining players finally gave their answers.
In the end, only three players chose to accept the quest with Liu Ming. The remaining players felt that the risk of losing more than five levels at once was too great.
Afterward, the players who had voluntarily given up on the quest exited the City Hall’s main hall one after another, leaving Liu Ming and the other three players alone in the main hall.
At this moment, the City Lord of Lotter City slowly said, “I’m very glad that you have chosen to stay behind, but I have one last thing to say. You still have time to abort the quest. Once you officially start the quest, you will no longer be allowed to give up.”
As soon as the City Lord said his piece, a player nicknamed ‘Brother Dog’ immediately said eagerly, “If we wanted to leave, we would have done so a long time ago. Why would we wait until now? City Lord, please hurry and tell us how we should go about completing this quest.”
Although the other two players remained silent, it was evident they thought the same as Brother Dog from the look of approval on their faces.
However, Liu Ming simply smiled without expressing any opinions.
A look of displeasure flashed across the face of Lotter City’s City Lord. However, in the end, he nonetheless said, “In that case, I shall not keep you in suspense anymore.”
“The king has ordered for those not invaded by the Darkness Camp to send some elites to investigate the few main cities that have lost contact. The elites are to find out if these main cities have already fallen into the Darkness Camp’s hands.”
“However, I’m worried that once I send out the main city’s elites, the Darkness Camp will invade Lotter City. Hence, I thought of you, Adventurers. But don’t worry. All you have to do is explore the main cities and find out the overall situation there. You don’t have to fight and confront the Darkness Camp’s leaders and powerhouses directly either.”
After hearing the City Lord’s words, the players, excluding Liu Ming, heaved sighs of relief. Liu Ming was the only one who knew that the quest would not be that simple since it was labeled a Legendary Battle Quest.
Even if it was just a simple reconnaissance quest, all sorts of accidents were bound to happen when the time came. However, Liu Ming had no intention of reminding the other three players about this. The fact that they failed to understand this point showed that their so-called high level of playing was limited.
After discovering this, Liu Ming let go of his plans of becoming teammates with the three of them.
…
After officially receiving the quest from the City Lord, Liu Ming left the other three players and chose to go to a more remote main city, making it his quest target.
This time, all the main cities were selectable targets, except a few that were nearer to the capital.
Besides, according to the City Lord, he would still continue to select a few suitable adventurers and send them to reconnoiter some of the main cities that had lost contact until the reconnaissance quest was actually completed.
Even as Liu Ming left, the City Lord hinted that Liu Ming could find a place to hide first if he really was unable to complete the quest.
When others completed their quests, Liu Ming could also complete his. However, the rewards he gained wouldn’t be very lavish.
If the other three players heard that there was such a good thing, they would definitely choose to do this.
However, Liu Ming felt that such a task with free rewards was too degrading and it was not like him to pin the hopes of completing the mission on others either. Hence, Liu Ming rode the Purgatory Nightmare towards the north of Lotter City and attacked without hesitation.
…
Although the Darkness Camp looked horrifying, only Kelop City, which was led by a cultist City Lord, was in such a dire state. The other main cities were, at most, caught off-guard.
Although the main cities were caught off-guard and had suffered huge losses, the main cities’ City Lords quickly killed the cultists after recovering from the shock.
The major cities that were somewhat free naturally had to respond to the king’s order and send some people to the fallen cities to complete the quest. Hence, Liu Ming encountered several batches of players, who had also taken on the reconnaissance quest, when he was halfway through his journey.
After having a few conversations, Liu Ming finally found two suitable teammates.
The three of them embarked on the journey together and soon arrived at their destination, Cara City—which was about 350 kilometers away from Lotter City.
As soon as Cara City’s outline appeared in front of the three of them, they knew that the city was almost destroyed.
At this moment, black clouds rolled in the sky above Cara City, turning everything within a 50-kilometer radius into a land of eternal darkness.
Anyone who was not a fool would understand that Cara City had completely become one of the Darkness Camp’s main cities. There were no other possibilities. However, a so-called reconnaissance quest naturally would require them to do more than just taking a glance from afar.
In order to truly complete the quest, they would have to infiltrate the city and find three key pieces of evidence in the city to prove that they had completed the mission.
…
After Liu Ming and the other two players changed into the camouflage equipment issued by the City Lord, they split up and headed towards the city’s City Hall, as well as other important buildings.
Along the way, Liu Ming was almost ignored by the groups of low-level undead creatures that passed by, thus saving him plenty of effort. However, that was all the camouflage equipment could do. Only the low-level undead creatures and magical beasts could not tell that Liu Ming and the other two were wearing camouflage equipment.
The Darkness Camp’s NPCs, who were slightly more intelligent, would be able to tell that Liu Ming and the others were from the Brilliance Camp. This was why the mission was considered very risky.
Besides, apart from the high-level NPCs, the ones who truly posed a threat to Liu Ming and the others were the players from the Darkness Camp.
Attacking the high-level NPCs required some logic, but the players would not use any logic. They would just attack and kill at will. However, Liu Ming had, fortunately, always been lucky. Hence, he did not encounter any mishaps along the way to Cara City’s City Hall.