Forum Turmoil

Upon entering the Official Forum, Su Yu immediately saw a bright red, bold Pinned Post—"1V100! Mysterious Player Sweeps Through Tyrannical Skycutter Guild, Ending Gives Much Food for Thought."

Opening the post, Su Yu saw a complete third-person video of the Skycutter Guild charging an entry fee to enter the village, getting into a dispute with ordinary players, and ultimately being slaughtered.

The player who posted the video had thoughtfully described the entire sequence of events in great detail.

At the end of the post, he called out: "The Skycutter Guild's evil deeds have reached an intolerable level! They dared to block the village entrance and charge fees on the very first day the servers opened. What about later? Will they directly monopolize the game's resources?"

"We must stand up and boycott the Skycutter Guild! The Skycutter Guild must apologize! They must compensate the players who suffered losses!"

The post had been published twenty minutes ago and instantly set the Official Forum ablaze.

A large number of players replied in support:

"Support! We can't allow big guilds to do whatever they want!"

"I was there. The Skycutter Guild is absolutely disgusting!"

"They treated ordinary players like this over such a tiny profit. A guild like this must be erased from the game!"

"My friend just became a probationary member of the Skycutter Guild, and he was even bragging to me about it. I'm pulling him out right now! I'm drawing a clear line between him and those bastards!"

"But that guy who took on 100 people alone was insanely awesome! Even if he did have a BUFF given by an NPC."

"If it were me, even with a BUFF, I wouldn't dare offend a big guild like Skycutter!"

The players discussed the matter fervently.

In just twenty minutes, the video post had received several thousand replies.

Su Yu scrolled through them and discovered that only a small portion came from actual players. Most were ordinary internet users who could not afford a Game Helmet and could only spam the forums.

However, that did not affect everyone's verbal condemnation of the Skycutter Guild.

Soon, the entire forum was filled with posts cursing the Skycutter Guild.

The forum administrators were happy to fan the flames. They pinned the video post and marked it in bold red text.

The forum was filled with angry denunciations.

However, after looking through the posts on the first few pages, Su Yu noticed that Skycutter Guild members had arrived in force. Quite a few had begun dispelling the rumors on the forum:

"Wait, does everyone have this wrong? The people charging fees in the video aren't members of our Skycutter Guild!"

"I'm a member of the Skycutter Guild, and I'm even the leader of an elite squad. I've never heard of anyone in our guild doing something like this!"

"Exactly! Our Skycutter Guild cares deeply about our reputation. Anyone who played Demon Realm should know that we have always been committed to maintaining a healthy game environment. How could we possibly do something so despicable?"

"I played Demon Realm. I can testify that Skycutter is a respectable guild."

"Someone must be impersonating us."

Skycutter Guild members flooded in one after another, and a great number of rumor-dispelling posts quickly emerged on the forum.

These posts worked quite well. Many onlookers began to believe them. Rather than continuing to attack the Skycutter Guild, they quietly waited to see how things unfolded.

Before long, the Skycutter Guild would probably produce decisive evidence, and the entire incident would die down.

Meanwhile, Su Yu had already finished his takeout.

He let out a soft breath. "That old bastard Skycutter Sword does have some skill. If this keeps up, he'll settle this mess soon enough."

"No, I can't let them get through this crisis so easily. I need to think of something. I've got it!"

Su Yu's eyes shifted, and a plan came to mind.

He took out his phone, checked it, and nodded. "It's already been half an hour. Crimson-Eyed Black Dragon should be online by now. I'll contact him."

Su Yu put on his Game Helmet and entered the game.

Nolan Village Cemetery.

A large swath of white light flashed, and Crimson-Eyed Black Dragon and dozens of Emperor Blood Guild members resurrected there.

The moment Crimson-Eyed Black Dragon logged in, he immediately checked his death log.

When he saw the name of the person who had killed him, Crimson-Eyed Black Dragon could not help crying out, "Fuck! It was Kexing! Kexing was the one who killed us!"

Behind him stood the Emperor Blood Guild's other three core members: Giant God Soldier, Sky Dragon, and Winged God Dragon.

Giant God Soldier was a young man with a cold expression. After checking the death log, his face turned ugly. "So it was the expert who took down the Level 4 boss. We didn't die unjustly."

Sky Dragon was a cute red-haired girl, and she looked utterly bewildered. "No way? I just watched the video post on the forum. Didn't he only kill us because he got a BUFF from a High-Level NPC?"

"That explanation is all lies!" Winged God Dragon, a glamorous blonde woman, brushed back her hair and said,

"There was roughly a two-and-a-half-hour gap between Kexing killing the Level 4 boss and killing us. Even a High-Level NPC couldn't possibly give him a BUFF that lasted that long. There is only one answer: Kexing really has the strength to kill us instantly!"

"He was just lucky!" Crimson-Eyed Black Dragon looked disdainful. "Everyone's levels are low right now. Once our levels rise and we get properly equipped, I'll show Kexing what real cruelty is!"

"Enough. Server time is precious. We've already wasted half an hour, so we can't keep wasting time. Let's go level up."

Crimson-Eyed Black Dragon waved his hand and led the guild members out of the cemetery.

But before he had taken more than a few steps, he suddenly received a system notification: "Ding! Player 'Kexing' has requested to add you as a friend."

Crimson-Eyed Black Dragon's expression immediately froze, and he came to a stop.

Noticing that Crimson-Eyed Black Dragon had stopped, Winged God Dragon and the other core members turned back to look at him. "Zhen Hong, what's wrong?"

"Uh... it's Kexing. Kexing actually added me as a friend!"

Crimson-Eyed Black Dragon stared at the name "Kexing" in the system notification, his eyes nearly bulging with blood.

"Hah! Didn't you want to make him 'see what real cruelty is'? Go on, show him!" Winged God Dragon immediately egged him on.

"Exactly! Uncle Zhen Hong, you can't chicken out!" Sky Dragon said with an innocent smile.

"Fine." After thinking for a moment, Crimson-Eyed Black Dragon clicked the "Accept" button.

However, the instant he accepted, his hands moved with the speed of a lifelong bachelor as he rapidly typed a long message:

"Boss Kexing! It is an honor to have a spot on your friends list! I am deeply sorry that my brothers and I caused you some unpleasantness earlier. I hope you can forgive us!"

At the sight of this, Sky Dragon and Winged God Dragon were practically dumbfounded.

"Zhen Hong? This is the cruelty you were talking about?"

"Uncle Zhen Hong? Could you possibly be any more humble?"

With black lines covering his face, Crimson-Eyed Black Dragon waved them off. "Go away, go away! What do little girls know!"

Then he turned his back to them and stared intently at the private message screen, waiting for Kexing's reply.