I Want to Take Him On One-on-One

After sliding all the way to the bottom of the cliff, Liu Xuan glanced at the corpse of a strange creature resembling a pangolin beside his feet and casually picked up the five silver coins it had dropped.

The little monster had been struck dead by lightning in midair while he was descending from above.

All he could say was that the creature had terrible luck. Who told you to spawn right beneath me?

He had also discovered that when the [Thunder Aura] activated in midair, if the heavenly lightning happened to strike a target directly below him, he wouldn’t feel anything at all as the bolt passed through him.

Hmm. Another piece of useless knowledge added to the collection.

After looking up to confirm his direction, Liu Xuan headed toward Moonlight City, which lay not far away.

The closer he got, the more something felt wrong.

From the cliff, the city had looked more or less fine. He had initially assumed that at worst, it would be in a state similar to Orenburg, with the city gates destroyed and sections of the walls damaged.

But now that he was closer, he saw that a gap more than twenty meters wide had been torn through the northern city wall.

Starting outside the city, a trail that looked as if some enormous creature had crawled across the ground stretched all the way inside.

Everything along the path had been mercilessly flattened, including that section of the city wall.

Liu Xuan crouched beside the broad trail and touched the soil. His expression turned rather strange.

“This trail looks fresh?”

The soil in the trail was new, as if it had only recently been overturned.

Then, not far away, he spotted several crushed plants lying across it. They were still remarkably fresh and had definitely been flattened only recently.

In other words, Moonlight City hadn’t been damaged during the invasion eight years ago. It had been destroyed only recently.

“Damn it! Could those destroyers have deliberately wrecked the place while retreating?”

Liu Xuan’s face darkened. The situation on their battlefield had completely broken away from the predetermined plot and embarked on an entirely different path.

Although the destroyers had retreated farther north, allowing Liu Xuan to complete the four-stage campaign ahead of schedule, they had also left behind a huge mess, increasing the difficulty of the second round of the promotion defense battle.

He was certain that the Moonlight Cities on the other battlefields were definitely not in this condition.

…

On the U.S. Battlefield No. 1357, Vaughan had more or less recovered from the trauma of having his monsters stolen by an NPC.

He had already seen what happened to the Asian countries after losing their promotion defense battles. He absolutely refused to end up like that in the future, working for the Chinese for generations to come.

So he was doing his best to pull himself together and improve as quickly as possible.

Just after hacking a swamp frogman to death, Vaughan’s eyes lit up, followed by an outburst of delight.

Beside the frogman’s corpse lay a pair of drab gray gloves radiating a green glow.

“It dropped! It finally dropped!” Vaughan shouted excitedly.

These were the [Rare] gloves he had been farming for ages. Their special effect increased Strength by 5%.

Considering that they were green gear dropped by a regular monster, it was easy to imagine how difficult they had been to obtain. But he had finally managed to get them.

Vaughan was practically beside himself with excitement.

“Looks like fortune is finally smiling on me. God must have chosen me to bring an end to Liu Xuan’s legend!”

At this point, he was betting on one thing: when they met, Liu Xuan would still be defending alone.

Fighting alone meant that he wouldn’t be able to benefit from many of his teammates’ buffs.

Meanwhile, Vaughan was stacking Strength with everything he had. His equipment also focused on Strength, and if he could obtain a few more Strength-enhancing buffs, he would have at least 300 Strength—possibly even more—by the time they met.

Liu Xuan probably wasn’t going for a full-Strength build, was he? (P.S. Liu Xuan currently has 293 Strength.)

That meant he still had a chance to kill him.

Vaughan’s confidence came from the fact that Liu Xuan could never know about his execution skill, which was calculated solely based on Strength.

The skill’s resolution directly deducted the target’s HP. Armor, damage reduction, and shields were all useless against it.

…

Seeing that Vaughan had obtained the equipment he wanted, his teammates came over to congratulate him as well.

“It finally dropped.”

“Can we go level up now?”

At that moment, Tom suddenly came running over in a panic.

“Vaughan, something terrible has happened!”

Because Bell had ruined their previous cooperation, the relationship between Tom and Vaughan had fallen apart once again. The moment Vaughan saw Tom, he frowned and snorted.

“Last time, you told me something good was coming, but the good thing disappeared. And now you’ve come here to tell me there’s bad news?”

Tom replied, “I guarantee that this time, the bad news is definitely real!”

“Huh?!”

Was that even something a person was supposed to say?

“Anyway, listen to me. You remember that dragon-riding NPC from last time, right? He suddenly came over and said that he had already captured Moonlight City in the north, one of the targets of the four-stage campaign. He asked whether we still intended to attack Dawn City. If we didn’t, he was going there himself.”

Vaughan froze. It took him quite a while to sort out what he had just heard.

“You’re saying our main quest is about to be speedrun by an NPC?”

“That’s more or less what I mean…”

“And this NPC even went out of his way to tell us that we’re too slow?”

“That wouldn’t be an incorrect interpretation…”

Vaughan exploded with rage.

“Humiliation! This is an utter and complete humiliation! We have so many living players, yet we’re being looked down on by an NPC. This is completely backwards!”

Tom gave a bitter smile.

“If you don’t have the strength, people are naturally going to look down on you.”

“No! I won’t accept this. Go tell that NPC I want to fight him one-on-one.”

Seeing Vaughan wave his fists as if he really intended to pick a fight with Bell, his teammates and Tom were stunned for a moment. Then everyone suddenly burst into laughter.

“Hahahaha!”

“You’re killing me! Do you even stand a chance against him?”

Vaughan’s face flushed red with anger.

“Don’t hold me back! I’m going to fight him one-on-one!”

But his teammates held him down with all their might.

……

Liu Xuan followed the enormous drag mark into the city. He had only taken a few steps when a sudden tremor came from beneath his feet, as if something were about to break through the ground.

He hurriedly backed away, but before he could get far, a green, spherical worm burrowed out of the ground and automatically exploded the moment it appeared.

The blast was surprisingly powerful. Even with [Heavenly Man] active, Liu Xuan lost more than a thousand HP.

“Those destroyers planted ‘mines’ while they were retreating?”

At this point, who exactly were the monsters, and who were the players?

Liu Xuan encountered several more attacks afterward. The explosive worms were not necessarily hidden beneath his feet.

Some were concealed in the shadows of the ruins, packed densely across entire walls. Even the noise he made while passing by on the other side of a wall could trigger them, making them impossible to guard against.

Who knew how many of the things they had hidden throughout the city?

Liu Xuan initially considered clearing out all the “mines” himself before the others arrived. But after thinking it over, he changed his mind.

Why not use these things to defend the city?

The destroyers had tried to ambush him? Then he would use their traps to ambush everyone else.

He retraced his route to the outskirts of the city and circled around Moonlight City.

The walls in the other directions had also suffered varying degrees of damage. Moreover, since the city was many times larger than Orenburg, it was theoretically highly disadvantageous for their few thousand people to defend.

However, if all they needed to do was delay the enemy until Liu Xuan dealt with the enemies at Dawn City and returned, it should not be a major problem.

As for the specifics, he would still need to consult someone who knew what they were talking about.

Liu Xuan immediately sent Zhang Meng a description of Moonlight City’s condition. Zhang Meng was still on the way there.

After a while, the other party replied with several question marks.

No, how did you get ahead of us?