Hero Bell

Vaughan hurried to the outskirts of Orenburg. The moment he saw Tom and the others, he couldn’t help asking, “Is everything you said in your private message true? Do the monsters here really drop items that increase the free attributes gained when you level up?”

Tom gave him a faint smile. “What would I gain by lying to you? Besides, you can kill a few monsters yourself and find out. What would be the point of me lying?”

Vaughan nodded. Tom probably wouldn’t deceive him over something like this.

The thought had him bursting with excitement.

Items that could increase the free attributes he gained when leveling up!

As long as he could farm enough of them, his Strength would soar to an incredible level. By then, he would have a much better chance of killing Liu Xuan.

Vaughan immediately wanted to charge into the city, but Tom stepped in front of him first.

“Wait a second.”

Vaughan glared at him. “What is it?”

“The monsters inside are all level twenty or higher. Even if you can farm them by yourself, how long will you have to wait to recover your health after every fight?”

Vaughan thought about it and realized Tom had a point. “What are you suggesting?”

“We can work together like we used to.” Tom smiled. “There are nine of us in total—seven healers and two damage dealers. With us supporting you, you can focus on farming the monsters without worry.”

“What are your terms?”

Vaughan didn’t believe Tom would be so kind without wanting something in return.

“A seven-to-three split for the items we farm.”

“Seven for me and three for you? Fine.”

Tom’s teammates looked as if they had just heard the funniest joke in the world.

“Of course the seven is ours. We brought nine people. Giving you thirty percent is already more than fair.”

Vaughan let out a cold laugh. “Hmph. I can find a few teammates of my own. Without me, you won’t have an easy time fighting those monsters either. You’d probably need half a day just to wear down one of them. With that kind of efficiency, you might as well accept thirty percent under my terms.”

“You can find teammates, but I can’t?” Tom sneered. “If I call off our cooperation and make the information public, how many people do you think will come here?”

Vaughan scoffed. “Those people are hardly qualified to compete with me for monsters. They’d be lucky just to make it here.”

Tom shook his head, looking completely confident. He clearly wasn’t worried that Vaughan would refuse.

“Our healing team can escort them here. It’ll be troublesome, but it’s not impossible. Vaughan, think carefully. Do you want to cooperate with us, or do you want us both to lose?”

Vaughan flew into a rage, but he truly had no way to deal with Tom. In the end, he could only grumble, “At most, sixty-forty. I take sixty, you take forty.”

“Fifty-fifty. Otherwise, there’s no deal. I’ll make the information public right now.”

“You…” Vaughan clenched his teeth. “Fine! Fifty-fifty!”

Tom flashed a smug smile. “Vaughan, you’re not losing out, you know. The nine of us are only taking half.”

“Spare me the sarcasm. If we’re going to fight, then get started already.”

“No problem. Let’s go!”

The group then entered Orenburg. The moment they spotted a group of monsters, Vaughan charged ahead without hesitation.

He was genuinely in a hurry.

Still, as a hidden class, even if he was no match for Liu Xuan, dealing with mere level-twenty monsters was easy for him.

Watching Vaughan effortlessly kill the Destroyers, moving far faster than they could themselves, Tom and his teammates were all extremely excited.

Since they had so many healers, several of them had enough time to chat while keeping Vaughan healed.

“If we finish farming all the Destroyers in this entire city, we’re going to take off!”

“Have you considered that these Destroyers might respawn?”

“They respawn? Then couldn’t we farm here for the rest of our lives? Every time we level up, we’d gain several hundred or even over a thousand attribute points!”

“Hahaha! Who could possibly stand against us then?”

“I’m a little curious. The people from Huaxia have already cleared this battle, so they should know exactly what the Destroyers drop. But since they cleared it so early, doesn’t that mean they can’t farm attributes here? Wouldn’t that make clearing the battle faster actually worse?”

“Maybe it’s a catch-up mechanic specifically designed for those who’ve fallen behind. Huaxia is ahead, so they get an experience bonus, while those of us lagging behind get attributes to farm. Otherwise, wouldn’t the people in the lead stay ahead forever?”

“At least this system has some humanity.”

Tom hadn’t thought much of the earlier comments, but when he heard his teammate say, “At least this system has some humanity,” he suddenly felt that something was wrong.

As someone who had managed to seize power from Vaughan, Tom was no fool.

This damned battlefield had humanity?

If it had any humanity, so many people wouldn’t have died!

Besides, the announcement had made it perfectly clear: the Ascension Battlefield had been established to select the strongest forces and races. If that was the case, it was only natural for the strong to keep widening their advantage. How could the system possibly take pity on “the weak” like them?

“Something’s not right. There must be something we don’t know yet,” Tom murmured.

The teammates beside him hadn’t heard him clearly and looked at him in confusion.

“Boss, what are you spacing out for?”

“I…”

Before Tom could voice the doubts in his heart, a tremendous roar suddenly rang out from the sky.

They had never heard anything like it before, yet the sound made their legs tremble and their hearts pound with fear.

At the same time, a massive shadow swept across the ground, as though something were passing overhead.

Everyone looked up and saw an enormous, fiery-red shape soaring through the sky.

“That… that’s… a dragon?!”

Someone stammered the words out.

Indeed, the creature flying overhead was a colossal dragon covered in red scales.

After passing over their heads, it circled once before flying back.

Only then did Tom and the others notice that someone was sitting atop the dragon.

The figure wore exquisite, ornate silver armor, and magical gemstones were set into the helmet. Only a pair of eyes could be seen.

A dragon knight?

There was a dragon knight in this battlefield?!

Just as everyone stood frozen in shock, the knight atop the dragon shouted, “I’m here to help!”

The red dragon raised its head and let out a roar of its own.

“Roar!”

It then lowered its head, opened its jaws, and unleashed a torrent of blazing flames toward the city.

As the red dragon swept over the city, the flames “cleansed” several streets in one pass. The Destroyers couldn’t withstand even a second in the inferno, all of them turning to ash.

Not a single item was left behind.

Everyone stood there with their mouths hanging open, too stunned to speak. Vaughan was the first to recover.

He cried out in despair, “Stop killing them! Stop! We don’t need your help!”

But the knight on the dragon seemed not to hear him at all. He had already ridden the dragon all the way to the opposite end of the city.

The giant dragon suddenly landed on top of a building. With its claws, it violently tore open the roof, revealing the teleportation portal inside.

Then it unleashed a blast of flames.

The screams of the Destroyers rose one after another. Contrary to the rule Liu Xuan had heard back then—that the portal had to be defended for three hours—the teleportation portal closed after only a brief burst of dragonfire.

The giant dragon took flight once more, sweeping back and forth across the city and “mopping up” the streets with its flames. The other teleportation portals were closed one after another in the process.

Vaughan stared blankly at the scene, muttering over and over in a daze, “Stop killing them… stop killing them…”

Only after not a single Destroyer remained anywhere in the city did the giant dragon finally fly back and land in front of Vaughan and the others.

The knight atop the dragon looked down at them from on high. “You lot are far too weak. You never should have come here to take such a risk.”

Tom swallowed hard. Tilting his head back, he saw the other man’s absurdly long name:

[God's Eternal Favorite, Peerless Spear, Savior of the Empire, Red Dragon Knight, Hero Bell].

Fuck!

Who the hell said there was any humanity on this battlefield?

It doesn’t give the weak even the slightest chance to survive!