Dawn had barely broken when Hill hurriedly went to find Falan.
He wanted to go down to the ground and ask the Black Rose people about what had happened.
Falan looked at him speechlessly. "You really do look like you're dying for gossip!"
"Gossip is everywhere. Everyone talks about it." Hill sounded perfectly justified. "Don't you want to know how they managed to lose their city? Their city wasn't large, but they had three times as many people as Black Rose!"
Adrian smiled and poured him a glass of juice. "Don't worry. I'll go see whether any of them want to head to that Alliance City. If anyone does, I'll invite them aboard. We were going there to see the situation for ourselves anyway."
Hill's eyes lit up, and he nodded happily.
Falan certainly would not easily allow him to leave the ship. It would be best if the players came aboard instead. He quickly arranged the hall.
A U-shaped sofa that could seat over twenty people stood in the room, with several crystal coffee tables placed in front of it, covered in juice and snacks.
Finally, a semicircular booth sofa for four was set up at the front. Falan shook his head and went over to sit there.
Adrian returned not long after leaving.
He told Falan, "Teacher, they want to come. Let's descend a little lower. They'll leave the city and come over right away."
Falan summoned the crystal ball again and placed it at the front.
Once the airship descended, everyone from Black Rose came aboard.
Hill stood and nodded to them in greeting.
Perfect Baldhead spoke first. "Mr. Hill, we meet again." Looking at Falan seated at the front, he added, "Thank you, Master Falan, for allowing us to travel with you."
Falan nodded. "Make yourselves comfortable. We wanted to go over and take a look anyway."
The Black Rose members happily took their seats.
Hill silently counted heads. "Xiao Liuliu, A Deer, Old School Striking King, Cunlü, Qu Qingyan—this is the Priest group. I remember there being male Priests too. Didn't they come? Perfect Baldhead, Demon Sword, Dream Awake, Don't See You, Fang Tianhua, Nanfeng, Idle One, Ababa, Luo Sanquan—these are the Knights, the ones who led the Charge during the battle. Zi Ling, Myriad-Heaven Net, Vast-Heaven Hammer, Good Girl, Old Man, Nie Xingchen, Romantic Drunk on the Red Dust—these are the Swordsman captains. Finally, Rainfall on the Mortal Realm and Qian Yuyu, the two Mages."
Only two Mages had come. Had everyone else flown over on their own?
After thinking it over, Hill still asked, "Did everyone else stay behind to guard the place?"
"Sui Chen stayed behind with some of the Knights and Priests."
"The others wandered off with the Swordsmen to Keslote. Jijiyaya led the Mages in flight! They went straight to Alliance City," Xiao Liuliu answered gently.
Falan turned to look at Xiao Liuliu as the airship prepared to rise.
Adrian, who had been standing outside the door, hurried inside. "Teacher, someone from William's side wants to board the ship."
The players all turned around and looked excitedly at the Knights waiting outside. "It's Spencer! William's current captain of the guard!"
"Are they going to Alliance City to supervise the battle? Eunuch Lu is going to lose a lot of face this time!"
"I wonder whether the original military supervisor was screwed over by them. If an NPC really died, their merit points would probably get deducted until they were dead last, right?"
Hill stood up. This Sky Knight of the Spencer Family was one of William's cousins. After William's original guards had mostly been stationed in various places, he had become the captain of the newly formed guard unit.
After Falan nodded in agreement, several Knights entered.
Glancing at the players watching them like hawks, Spencer politely greeted Falan. "Good day, Master Falan. Thank you very much for your assistance."
Falan nodded in return. "Good day, Knight Spencer and everyone else. Please follow Adrian downstairs to rest."
Spencer glanced at the players again, then nodded. "Thank you for the trouble."
Adrian led the group downstairs.
The players suddenly erupted into discussion.
"Why did Hill stand up?"
"Isn't an Archmage ranked below a Sky Knight?"
"A Magus and a Sky Knight are on the same level! Mr. Falan didn't even move!"
"This is telling you that Mages will always be the bosses!"
Even Hill, who had not wanted to pay them any attention, glanced at Rainfall on the Mortal Realm, who had said that.
"Bullshit! That's because Mr. Falan is an Alchemy Grandmaster! Boss my ass!" Baldhead cursed.
"Just wait until the arena opens! I'll kill you a thousand times!" Demon Sword cursed as well.
Hill sharply caught the word "arena." It seemed this game definitely would not be ending anytime soon. Measures like an arena, meant to prolong a game's lifespan, were already being prepared.
But that topic could wait. Those were matters for the future. What interested him was whether this really had something to do with Lu Huayu.
Under Falan's pained gaze, he stood with a smile. "Please help yourselves to the food on the tables, ladies and gentlemen of the Undead."
Xiao Liuliu stood and replied, "Thank you, Mr. Hill."
"Don't mention it. Please sit while we talk!" Hill sat down as well. "The journey is still long, so there's no need to keep up all those formalities.
Besides, I'm truly very interested in how Alliance City fell.
After all, you even wiped out a Legendary. How could Alliance City, with more people than you, lose so suddenly?"
Old School Striking King suddenly burst out laughing. "My god! Is this the danger of a femme fatale? The destructive power of a little white lotus!"
"Isn't Liang Xingzhu more of a green tea bitch?" A Deer asked sincerely.
"A little white lotus! The kind who's best at pretending to be weak. The 'how could I live without you' type!" Cunlü replied to her. "A green tea bitch is more like me."
"Pah, you're just slutty!" Old School Striking King sneered.
"Oh my, still better than being a shrew like you." Cunlü smiled.
The men fell completely silent.
Hill thought about it and said nothing. They would get to the point eventually. It was just that Falan, listening from the side, did not look too pleased.
Xiao Liuliu brought the conversation back on track. "Their Alliance City was made up of five families. One of them was the Allure Family, whose leader was named Lu Huayu. He had a girlfriend called Liang Xingzhu, and they were supposedly preparing to get married. She belonged to another family called Grudgekeeper.
"Grudgekeeper had originally ranked eleventh in merit points, so they had no choice but to merge with Asking Sword, Young Wanderer Under Heaven. Asking Sword ranked fourth in merit points.
"That was how Liang Xingzhu entered Asking Sword.
"She was a girl who spoke gently and handled things thoughtfully, so she was very popular in Asking Sword. Within a month, she had become part of the family management."
Old School Striking King interrupted, "Bullshit. It was just that Asking Sword's idiot leader had his eye on her. The future guild leader's wife—oh, what a pitiful man."
Xiao Liuliu gave her a helpless look. "Asking Sword is on good terms with us. Could you leave him a little dignity?"
Cunlü said with a grin, "In other words, Young Master is good at everything except seeing clearly!"
The men beside them all started laughing. This juicy gossip had probably given them more than enough entertainment since last night.
Only after they finished laughing did Xiao Liuliu continue. "To help Lu Huayu gain control of the Alliance, they contacted the Doomsday Family nearby.
"But Doomsday could not simply interfere and offend so many families for no reason.
"So Allure wanted to create some chaos, then have Lu Huayu step forward and invite Doomsday to restore order.
"With a powerful outside ally, and one they themselves had invited because they could not handle things properly, only Lu Huayu, who was friendly with Doomsday, would have the final say in Alliance City afterward."
She smiled as she took a sip of juice.
Baldhead continued, "The five families took turns defending. The Knights and Mages would receive notices when they logged in, telling them when and where to stand.
"That idiot Young Master thought Liang Xingzhu spent a long time online and had a meticulous mind, so he let that woman distribute Asking Sword's rotation schedules."
Cunlü interrupted, "He was blinded by lust, that's all. There were so many old members, yet he insisted on handing it to a woman who had only been in the guild for a month."
"She had been in Grudgekeeper for quite a long time, though!" Romantic Drunk on the Red Dust suddenly chimed in.
Hill silently glanced at him. How had they managed to keep such a massive piece of gossip hidden until now?
Seeing Hill look at Romantic Drunk on the Red Dust, Baldhead said with a grin, "Romance saw it. Did Mr. Hill see it too?"
Hill nodded. "I heard their conversation. Was that girl a spy from the beginning?"
Baldhead laughed. "We weren't on good terms with Grudgekeeper, and we wanted to watch the show, so we kept it secret. Ordinary family members didn't know either.
"By the time we learned that Grudgekeeper had merged into Asking Sword, it was no longer appropriate to say anything.
"We originally thought that woman would at most leak a few secrets. We never expected her to pull off something this big."
Xiao Liuliu continued, "When Asking Sword was changing shifts with the family before them, she directly deleted the position schedule and logged off.
"By the time Young Master found out, he was already panicking. When he finally found the schedule on his side, three Legendaries had already attacked their way in.
"During rotations, the family assigned to defend would place the Elemental Crystals themselves.
"The Mages were in complete chaos. The commander reacted a little too slowly, and they failed to control the defensive magic array properly. Two Legendaries smashed it apart together.
"The other families were all offline. Of course they could not hold the line by themselves.
"Apparently, William's military supervisor saw that things were going badly and directly destroyed the Mage Tower before leaving.
"We still don't know whether something happened to him. If he died, all five families in Alliance City would have their merit points reset to zero."
Hill shook his head. "Then Lu Huayu didn't get a good ending either?"
"Exactly!" A Deer laughed herself silly. "He really screwed himself over too. That's what they mean by plans never keeping up with changes, hahaha!"
The five families rotated their shifts like that, while also scheming against one another. No wonder the Noble Coalition had chosen them as their target.
That Legendary had probably discovered it after observing them for a day and informed Dionysio long ago.
It had originally been a great achievement, but in the end, it could only be used to clean up the mess left behind by the Legendary who had carelessly died at the hands of the Black Rose Family.
"Did you tell them about Lu Huayu?" Adrian, who had already returned and taken a seat beside them, asked.
"Of course!" Baldhead said righteously. "We couldn't let our friends not know how they died, could we?"
Hill felt that anyone capable of becoming a family leader had rather thick skin. He had gone there to gloat, hadn't he?
Sure enough, all his family members started booing him. "Give it a rest! Young Master hates your guts!"
"He directly asked Young Master in our public channel whether he knew Liang Xingzhu was Lu Huayu's fiancée," Qian Yuyu, who had not said a word until then, told the curious Hill.
Even Falan looked at Perfect Baldhead in astonishment. That skin was truly thick beyond belief.
The contract was finally signed.
I don't know what to say. I can only offer my most heartfelt thanks to all my readers.
Also, please allow me to deeply bow to the fans who came here from ljj for my sake. Thank you for going through the trouble of following me to Qidian.
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Before you continue