The expedition faced the deadly risk of infection by the Madblood Clan, so the dukes hadn't brought the Holy Blood Legion along. They had only chosen elite fighters like Maxim and Kudell to accompany them to the seal site. The remaining Holy Blood warriors were still aboard the Lightchaser, providing cover for the foreign warriors advancing across the ground.
However, all the vampire players in the expeditionary force had received a summons for a "race quest," which had clearly weakened the players' fighting strength somewhat.
Commanders like Happy Stick had to head to the Holy Blood Seal because they were vampires, but the good news was that Old Soldier of the Qing Dynasty wasn't one, so he could take over command. Besides, the players' combat system had long since been honed in the Black Calamity. They only needed a clear objective, and coordination between guilds flowed as smoothly as mercury.
Murphy's instructions to the players before he left were rather subtle.
He told them to get as close as possible to the main body of Zero Hive, but not to attack the mysterious area almost connected to the Life Greenhouse right away. Instead, they were to wait for the "right moment."
As for what that "right moment" meant, even Old Soldier of the Qing Dynasty, the stand-in commander, wasn't entirely sure.
But he could guess that it probably had something to do with whatever actions Lord Qin would be carrying out at the Locust Wall in the rear.
The number of swarms already identified in the Gray Desert was frankly absurd. If the rear didn't make some noise to force Zero Hive to divert the necessary forces, the Holy Blood Legion and Gray Expeditionary Force alone couldn't break through this "composite swarm defense line" in a short time.
But ordinary