The Great Thief

Every year around this time, the Guild War went into full swing between two or so Major Guilds that were considered to be powerhouses.

This year Ruling Sword and Gangnam Royals were the main powerhouses.

One was a seasoned Guild that had been dominated the gaming community for more than ten years. The other was an upcoming guild that had only recently risen to the top this year. They seemed to be even stronger than Peerless City, who had also been considered a powerhouse in the recent years.

At least Peerless City waited a two or so years before challenging the top dogs in the community. Ruling Sword had appeared out of nowhere and began wreaking havoc in the guild scene.

Over the past few days, the most talked-about guild was Ruling Sword. Even people that didn’t play or follow the game knew about them.

"Established this year...."

"They’re a group of ten or so players who completed all the First Clears in dungeons and defeated all the other major guilds to win the Shadow Cup Championship. When the tournament was over, they established their guild and after a few days of recruitment, they were considered to be one of the best..."

"They’re strong-willed and Lu Li is arguably the best player in the game right now. He killed both Dancing Star Dream and Heart of War from the Gangnam Royals. Thieves are so overpowered; I wish I had created one instead of a stupid Warrior...."

"This is an all-out guild war. There are hundreds of players from each guild fighting again each other."

"I don’t think Ruling Sword is showing any signs of letting down. It feels as if they’re completely overwhelming the Gangnam Royals."

"I heard that players from the Gangnam Royals get reimbursed for their time and effort if they die on the battlefield. However, Ruling Sword doesn’t have that incentive for their players, but each and every one of them put in all their effort to win. I wonder what they’re feeding their players these days; it’s as if they’ve all gone insane and are not afraid of dying at all...."

"No crap – just take Lu Li as an example. If your guild master was willing to risk his life and go in to solo kill the opposing guild leader, how could you not put in the same effort?

"The craziest guy is probably Fat Monkey. I heard that he’s been hunting down players from the Gangnam Royals for two days straight. I think he’s even more into PVP than Moonlight; no wonder his playstyle is so reckless and wild..."

"You don’t understand. Moonlight has died more than three times, yet he’s still running around killing everyone...."

"Fat Monkey is just a wrecking fireball; how dare you compare him to my idol Moonlight?! But, my favorite member in the guild is Lonesome Flower – he’s good looking and acts cold towards everyone except for his little sister."

"Oi, why are you guys fangirling over them? Can we get back on topic and talk about who’s going to win...?"

"What’s there to talk about? There are players from the Gangnam Royals that are quitting the guild and you can tell that they’re more scared than anyone in Ruling Sword."

In reality, there were also players that quit Ruling Sword. Square Root Three had compiled a list of all the players that left from the day that the war was declared. In a span of three days, more than 100 players had quit.

There was even a player in the Elite group that wanted to break his contract.

There were all sorts of people in life and they all had their reasons for doing certain things. Ruling Sword did not make the process difficult for that person and nullify his contract immediately. However, he would never have the opportunity to join again.

The guild was better off without people that would hide away during the tough times.

This hadn’t been an evenly-matched battle from the very beginning. The reason why Ruling Sword managed to last for so long was because of the support of their alliances. The most supportive guild was Drizzle Court, who had allowed thousands of PVP enthusiasts from their guild to join Ruling Swords.

This was a secret that got out very quickly. Since there were so many players, it was impossible to hide it.

However, there was nothing that the Gangnam Royals could do about this. They didn’t have the power to criticize Drizzle Court or declare war against them either. Declaring war against them would be foolish because Drizzle Court was a formidable major guild and Water Fairy was itching to fight.

Although Peerless City wasn’t in an alliance with Ruling Sword, their friendly relationship with Drizzle Court led players such as Vegetarian Mosquito to join the fight. They wore masks to hide their identities and killed off members of the Gangnam Royals in several maps.

Besides them, there were also another group of mysterious players.

Lu Li had no idea where these people come from. He speculated that they were groups of players that had once been oppressed by the Gangnam Royals and wanted to seek revenge. There were also several groups of mercenaries that killed for equips.

Usually, there were events during the Christmas period meaning that provided more things to do for the casual players. However, for the players who were actually invested in the game, this was the day that marked the beginning of the most important tournament of the year.

Ruling Sword applied to join the League Tournament and paid the entry price of 700 gold.

Every member participating had to pay 100 gold each; this was the new rule set by the tournament committee. Many guilds complained, but money wouldn’t stop them from applying for the tournament.

Ruling Sword were the Shadow Cup Champions and could be seeded so that they wouldn’t have to play the qualifiers. However, the team needed to develop chemistry again, and they didn’t want to give up the ticket money. As such, they decided to fight their way through the qualifiers just like any other guild.

The first match was a single elimination match.

The tournament was based on cumulative points earned through kills and winning the match. For example, if there were five other players in the single-elimination match and Lu Li managed to kill all of them, he would gain a point per kill, as well as an additional five points for winning the match.

If Lu Li was killed, the enemy team would gain one point.

If two players were defeated from Ruling Swords and five players were defeated from the opposing guild, Ruling Sword would receive five points and the enemy would receive two points.

At every new stage of the tournament, the points would be reset and the teams seeded based on their cumulative points from the previous stages.

"Do you want me to go first or you?" Lu Li asked Moonlight. They were undoubtedly the two best PvP players in the guild. Based on the tournament rules, it was more advantageous to send out your best player in the first round.

"I’ll go," Moonlight volunteered without hesitating.

The application fee was a considerable amount of gold. The reason why the tournament decided to have an application fee was to weed out the players who only wanted to join for fun. They only wanted teams that were confident enough to make it deep into the tournament, but there were also going to be teams that joined because they had too much spare money lying around.

The first team that Ruling Sword was up against was a prime example of this. It was obvious that the enemy Mage was geared up with overpowered equipment, but had no game mechanics at all.

Without losing much HP, Moonlight finished off his opponent quickly.

For teams that were looking to make it deep into the tournament, it would be extremely unfortunate to be matched up against such a powerful team in the very first round. However, most casual teams joined in order to have some fun and meet the professional players that they idolized. Being matched up against Ruling Sword in the very first round was a pleasant surprise for them.

From now on, they would be able to brag about the time they were matched up against Ruling Swords and how they lasted more than three hours fighting against Moonlight.

Moonlight regretted the decision to be the first to join the fight. What kind of competition was this? They were up against total noobs.