At the very least, He Wuning and Yi Luo still remembered that they had a nominal commander. The moment they saw the gate to the second stage, they didn’t rush forward. Instead, they reluctantly stopped and turned back to glance at the milk tea car.
Tang Yu climbed into the driver’s seat and gave them a hand signal. Only then did the two of them nod slightly, turn around, and enter the slaughterhouse training camp’s second stage.
The second stage was a bit harder than the first. The enemies here were no longer groups of fodder mobs, but minotaur butchers wielding gleaming bone-cleavers.
Probably taking into account the difference in monster size, the camp in the second stage was also taller and more imposing than the first. At least it had wooden supports and could barely be called a building, rather than just a shabby tent.
Seeing this group of very familiar monsters, Yi Luo couldn’t help showing a trace of nostalgia. “I remember the first time we entered a dungeon to rescue someone, this was what we fought, right?”
“Yeah,” He Wuning replied. He raised his blade and met an oncoming cleaver head-on with a solid clash. Lifting his brow slightly, he kicked the minotaur butcher away and said thoughtfully, “But they seem weaker.”
“Back then, fighting them was kind of troublesome, but now…” Yi Luo swung his long staff, smashing the minotaur in front of him backward. Then he switched weapons, pulling out an assault rifle. Bullets swept rapidly across the area ahead, clearing out a stretch of ground.
He laughed lightly. “Ever consider that it’s not them getting weaker, but us getting stronger?”
“Never thought about it,” He Wuning shot him a glance. “Because the Voice of the World already explained that when former gatekeeper bosses appear in greater numbers, they’re weakened to a certain extent for balance.”
He quietly turned his head away. “Though I don’t think it was really necessary.”
Yi Luo: “…”
They drove the minotaurs away from the entrance to make space for the team behind them, bickering as they pushed forward and closed in on the second-stage camp.
The enraged minotaur butchers let out thunderous roars. Taking heavy strides, they surrounded the two bold fools who didn’t take them seriously at all.
These monsters still retained the imposing stature befitting former gatekeeper bosses. Each step shook the ground—but it was mostly just bluster.
The main force advanced behind the two of them. By the time the milk tea car, guarded at the very rear, slowly entered the second stage, the two of them were already crouched atop the second-stage camp.
Yi Luo leisurely reloaded and fired. His bullets kept the minotaurs below the towering camp at bay, but he didn’t seem particularly eager to finish them off.
The moment the milk tea car entered the second stage, the two above the camp lifted their eyes at the same time and looked toward the commander inside the car.
Ji Ou: “…”
For some reason, even though they hadn’t said a word, the look in their eyes made him suddenly feel a shame akin to arriving late to a meeting.
“They’ve already reached the top of the camp. You can act now,” Rong Jiu said, looking at Ji Ou and nodding at him encouragingly.
“Once is unfamiliar, twice you’re used to it—besides, I drew all these cards myself anyway…” Ji Ou muttered to himself, as if trying to convince himself with this nonsense. He took a deep breath and, using He Wuning’s blue dot on the virtual battlefield as the coordinate, threw down another nuclear blast card.
The combat department members who had just been on high alert now wore expressions as relaxed as if they were watching a show, calmly letting the aftershocks of the explosion wash over them one by one, all putting on the air of people who had seen the big wide world.
Ji Ou said, “I really feel like those two have led us astray.”
“At least they’re on our side. Seeing them act like that, the only ones getting mad will be the other side,” Rong Jiu said as he glanced ahead. Everything was going smoothly. In just a short while, with zero casualties, they had already pushed into the third stage.
He wondered whether the monsters would finally make a move.
“Now it hasn’t really started yet.”
He said this in a low voice.
Ji Ou froze for a moment. “Huh? But this is already the third stage. There’s only the final stage left. We’re about to break through the slaughterhouse training camp…”
“But everything we’ve killed so far has been system-generated monsters,” Rong Jiu said, hands in his pockets. When he analyzed the situation seriously, he looked surprisingly reliable. “According to the intel provided by the Voice of the World, monsters that don’t carry fragments are just system-generated mobs. Our real enemies haven’t appeared yet.”
“Besides, if I were them, I wouldn’t show up right now either.”
Rong Jiu chuckled softly. “Losing a level-10 dungeon isn’t important at all. What really matters is seizing the time to use the ‘Oracle’ to attack the fallen zones of the game and expand new territory. Still…”
He checked the time. “From entering the dungeon training camp until now, it’s been exactly ten minutes. We’re already at the third stage. Even if the final boss of the third stage takes a bit longer—let’s give it the respect a final boss deserves and say ten minutes.”
“That means we can clear an entire dungeon training camp in twenty minutes with just three cards.”
“By that calculation, at most an hour and a half is enough to wipe out all of their level-10 dungeons. We’d even have cards left over.”
Tang Yu added with a cheerful smile, “Earlier, just to be safe, our team completed all the challenge missions for every dungeon. If everything goes smoothly, maybe after today, there won’t be any dungeons left in the level-10 wilderness zones.”
Ji Ou sucked in a sharp breath, suddenly feeling a surge of confidence. “So… does that mean we’re actually really strong?”
He Wuning and Yi Luo had already rushed nonstop toward the third stage. Surrounded by the main force, the milk tea car advanced slowly like an invincible war chariot.
“We’re extremely strong,” Rong Jiu said, lifting his gaze and letting out a soft, cold laugh. “And we’re going to make them realize that.”
Ji Ou realized he couldn’t quite keep up with his pace of thought. Even though he felt he might get laughed at, he still asked honestly, “Why? Wouldn’t it be better if we just snuck in and cleared it quietly?”
As expected, Rong Jiu looked at him as if he were a little fool, then replied, “Of course it’s because we don’t just want to break the dungeon training camp—we want to use this chance to hit them harder.”
He pointed at the cards in Ji Ou’s hand. “We’ve rarely had an advantage like this. Once this event ends, it’ll be very hard for us to have this kind of firepower again.”
“And besides—”
The corner of his mouth lifted as he patted Ji Ou’s head with an affectionate yet infuriating gesture. “They probably never imagined we could draw a hand like this. That’s what they call fools being blessed by luck.”
Ji Ou: “……”
“In short, we need to create an illusion for them,” Rong Jiu said with a confident smile. “Make them think our initial indiscriminate bombardment was just us getting carried away because we drew good cards. In the next stage, don’t use a nuclear blast.”
“Use this one instead.”
He tapped the card in Ji Ou’s hand. Ji Ou froze for a moment—this was the only card in his luxurious hand that wasn’t particularly powerful: a summon for a giant monster.
Ji Ou opened his mouth, then finally asked unwillingly, “Why?”
“To pretend we’re out of nukes,” Rong Jiu shrugged. “After all, we used them very freely earlier, without hiding anything.”
He sighed. “You still don’t look like you get it. Fine, I’ll simplify.”
“First, we show strength and shake them, make them think we have an absurd number of trump cards and could very well clear all the dungeons—this part is actually true, of course, but they probably wouldn’t dare imagine we’d have cards this good.”
“When they start to feel a sense of crisis and grow anxious, we suddenly show weakness. Let them think we’ve made a mistake. Give them hope—make them believe they can stall us at the first dungeon training camp.”
“Of course, that’s a trap.”
Ji Ou nodded blankly, then couldn’t help asking, “But what if they keep their cool and don’t take the bait?”
“Then we’ll do exactly what they expect—mercilessly punch straight through this dungeon, and while we’re at it, take all the other dungeons as well,” Rong Jiu said with a faint smile. When he smiled, there was always a hint of mockery about him. Even though it wasn’t aimed at Ji Ou, it still looked extremely punchable. “At worst, we’ll just have wasted one not-very-useful giant-monster card.”
Ji Ou couldn’t help scratching his head. “I don’t know why, but I suddenly feel like… we’re the villains.”
“What are you saying?” Tang Yu said with a smile from the driver’s seat. “We’re righteous Blue Star allies.”
Yi Luo and He Wuning had already charged into the third stage.
The minotaur head chef gripped the huge ladle in his hand, staring them down menacingly.
He Wuning had just raised his blade when a shadow suddenly fell over his head. He looked up and saw only a massive green foot coming down. His expression changed instantly, and he rolled on the spot to get out of the way.
Yi Luo laughed. “What are you doing? That’s a monster we summoned. Friendly-fire immunity.”
He Wuning scowled. “Even if it’s on our side, I don’t want to be stepped on.”
Yi Luo looked up.
The green-skinned giant, wearing nothing but a rag around its waist, roared as it entered the field. It was even taller than the gatekeeper boss, the minotaur head chef. Swinging its massive palm, it slapped the head chef flat to the ground, casually snatched the weapon from his hand, and began flailing about in a completely unstructured frenzy.
There were fewer minotaur head chefs than the butchers in the second stage, and they were spread out. With the green-skinned giant rampaging like this, quite a few monsters were sent flying in all directions.
But despite its imposing presence, the giant’s HP was dropping rapidly—it clearly wouldn’t last long.
He Wuning frowned slightly, looking puzzled. “Why aren’t they using that?”
Yi Luo raised an eyebrow. “Who knows? Probably the strategist’s cooking up some kind of scheme.”
The milk tea car remained parked at the rear of the formation. You couldn’t make out the faces of the people inside, and it was even harder to know what kind of mischief they were plotting.
Suddenly, the ground shook violently. He Wuning felt something and looked up—an enormous minotaur descended from the sky, holding a gigantic soup ladle, and smashed it straight down onto the milk tea car.
He Wuning hesitated for a second, then raised his blade uncertainly. “That’s… not one of our teammates, right?”
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The author has something to say:
Rong Jiu: Fools are blessed by luck.
Ji Ou: It’s because of that mouth of yours that your coworkers hate you.
Rong Jiu: ……
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