Windfall Town was the closest town to the City of Stars, with nothing but the Windfall Plains lying between them. At an ordinary player’s traveling speed, the trip took about an hour.

So there was usually a fair amount of foot traffic here, and a lot of the players who leveled up on the Windfall Plains chose to come in and restock.

Today, though, the place was downright “deserted.” One sweep of the eye, and there was not a single player in sight.

What was going on?

Ye Tianxie was about to go find out when his communicator rang, and Zuo Pojun’s voice came through. “Second Brother… how did you get to Windfall Town? Didn’t you say you’d already made it south to the City of Heaven’s Sun?”

“I teleported, obviously. What’s strange about that? Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of a teleport scroll.” Ye Tianxie’s mouth twisted. The map of the Lost Continent was every bit as big as the map of Huaxia, if not bigger, and there was no modern transportation on it. So, for the players’ convenience, most towns worth the name had their own Town Portal Scrolls. Hold a scroll for a town, and you could go straight back to it.

Otherwise a single round trip from the City of Stars to some far-flung town would be enough to make a player vomit blood, and a huge share of his playtime would get eaten up on the road.

“That’s not right. That’s not right at all!” There was open astonishment in Zuo Pojun’s voice now. “Windfall Town’s portal is shut off — I just tried it. There’s no way to teleport straight into Windfall Town. Second Brother, did you really get back there with a Town Portal Scroll?”

Ye Tianxie showed a trace of surprise. “Of course I did. Otherwise I couldn’t have gotten here from the City of Heaven’s Sun this fast even if I’d flown… You just said Windfall Town’s portal is shut off? What does that mean?”

Zuo Pojun’s head was swimming. Something impossible had happened around Ye Tianxie again. He was certain the portal into Windfall Town was shut off — he had tried his own Windfall Town scroll several times over just now, and every single time he had been told the teleport was unavailable. And Ye Tianxie had no reason on earth to joke about a thing like this. He turned serious. “It’s the honest truth. Because… Windfall Town is in the middle of a city defense quest right now, and it’s the Red Leaf Pact that grabbed it. While a city defense quest is running, the town’s portal shuts off. That’s a hard rule.” He paused, and then he could not stop himself from asking one more time. “Second Brother… did you really, really get back there with a Town Portal Scroll?”

“Is that so… I did come back with a Town Portal Scroll. Never mind, it’s no big deal. Probably just the System slipping up. Is this city defense quest a hard one? Why is there… not a single player anywhere?” Ye Tianxie looked around him as he asked.

“Because the Red Leaf Pact has run into trouble,” Zuo Pojun answered.

“Trouble?”

There was a lot more to a city defense quest than defending a city.

What a power or an alliance needed most in order to grow was, beyond question, more ground and a wider reach. The Lost Continent had rulers at every level, and a player could not occupy those cities and towns just by saying so, however much strength he had… not unless he was strong enough to stand against the Lost Continent’s own governments. So if you wanted to expand, taking on a city defense quest was a key step. And only guilds and alliances could take one on.

A low-level guild could take only a low-level city defense quest. Once its players’ average level was higher, it could take on bigger quests in higher-tier towns. A high-level guild could take the defense quests of large towns and even small cities, and higher still, the defense quests of major cities or even a main city.

Completing a city defense quest earned EXP that raised the guild’s level… and, most important of all, once the quest was done, that power or alliance had the right to set up a branch of its own in the town. On top of that, any one city could have only a single defense quest a month, which meant that whoever took a town’s quest first and cleared it had the next month to build there in peace — and a month was plenty of time to dig in.

There was an unwritten rule in the virtual gaming world: whoever grabbed a defense quest first, cleared it, and settled in had made that town his own turf, near enough. If another power wanted to stick a foot in once the month was up, that counted as something close to an “invasion,” and the power already there would block it every way it could. And when a power had “taken” a town, if its standing there rose high enough over time, the townspeople would show it goodwill and make it welcome. If it did not, they might drive the power out instead.

If the defense failed, that power could not take the same town’s defense quest again for two months. Other powers were free to take it.

Once a power accepted a town’s defense quest, it had to keep the town safe for one full day. Over that day, the System would send monster hordes against the town at least four times… Generally speaking, beat all four of those monster assaults cleanly and the quest counted as complete. But that was only in general…

The rules had one more clause, and it was not a friendly one. If some power or alliance came to attack the town during that same day, and the defenders lost and the attackers broke in, then… the attackers became the final victors, and they would be the first guild or alliance to plant itself here, exactly as if they had cleared the defense quest themselves. The one condition was that all four monster assaults, or more, had to be beaten off — by whichever side.

So a city defense quest was less about defending against monsters than about defending against other player powers. On the whole, though, players attacking a town was not a common sight, because one thing was certain to follow from it: those two powers came away with a blood feud and were enemies from then on. With the sheer size of Huaxia’s player base, the guilds and alliances of the Huaxia battle region were as thick as fish in a river, and the competition never let up. Everyone knew that if you couldn’t gain one more friend, you were at least better off not gaining one more enemy.

Windfall Town was a very small town. A thousand players were enough to hold a place that size. For the small and midsize guilds and alliances that ran to a few hundred members, or even a few dozen, this lowest tier of defense quest was a real struggle. But for a power like the Red Leaf Pact — top ten in Huaxia for renown, with deep foundations and real strength, and better than a hundred thousand players gathered up in the space of a few days — it was a piece of cake.

For this defense quest the Red Leaf Pact had fielded two thousand players in all, and over the course of the morning they had beaten back the four monster assaults with ease. And then they ran into the “trouble” Zuo Pojun had mentioned.

There was no cap on the size of a guild alliance. As long as you had the standing and the strength, you could recruit as many people as you pleased. By any normal reasoning, nobody should have been willing to offend a giant like the Red Leaf Pact, whose numbers ran to tens of thousands and past a hundred thousand. For a small guild to offend them was suicide; the handful of powers on their own level, and the very few larger still, had no reason to bother, since offending them meant no small amount of trouble either. But today, of all days, one power hit Windfall Town the moment the monster assaults were over.

Wings That Shroud the Sky!

“…The thing is, the Red Leaf Pact is strong, but it wasn’t careless. They’ve been watching everything around them the whole time to keep any power from attacking. Wings That Shroud the Sky played it very slick this time, though. All morning they sent scattered little squads of players out onto the Windfall Plains, pretending to grind levels, and pushed steadily south while they killed monsters, so the Red Leaf Pact’s lookouts never gave them a second glance. Then, in the southern part of the Windfall Plains, about ten minutes ago, their players joined up fast and marched on Windfall Town. Five thousand or so of them. Do the math and they ought to be arriving right about now. The Red Leaf Pact had an easy time holding off the monster assaults, but they still lost a hundred-odd players who died and went back to the City of Stars, so they’re down to under two thousand. Their people have already called headquarters for reinforcements, but with Windfall Town’s portal shut off, getting there takes an hour at the very least. And Wings That Shroud the Sky sent nothing but elite players this time. There’s basically no way the Red Leaf Pact holds.” Zuo Pojun laid the whole thing out for him.

“Windfall Town isn’t much of a place. Why would Wings That Shroud the Sky risk offending the Red Leaf Pact over it? The Pact may not match them, but it’s nothing to sneer at either,” Ye Tianxie asked. As the name Wings That Shroud the Sky left his mouth, a strange light flashed through his eyes.

“Windfall Town is small, but it’s the closest town to the City of Stars, and the location is superb. It’ll be carrying heavy player traffic for a long time to come, so plenty of powers were fighting over its defense quest, and the Red Leaf Pact was the one that came away with it… Knowing Yun Sihai’s temperament, it’s no real surprise he’d do something like this,” Zuo Pojun said. He was still puzzling over it… Windfall Town’s teleport system was shut off, so how could Ye Tianxie get back there with a Town Portal Scroll? If other players could do it too, there’d be no point defending the town at all… players from any power could just portal in, and then what the hell was anybody defending?

“Pojun, how do you know all of this in such detail?” Ye Tianxie asked suddenly.

“Heh…” Zuo Pojun let out a sly laugh. “With Big Sister’s methods and her reach, which of the powers, guilds and alliances that count for anything doesn’t have somebody of hers inside it? Finding out what they’re up to is child’s play… Second Brother, the Red Leaf Pact and Wings That Shroud the Sky are about to start fighting. Are you planning to…”

“I’ll go join the fun. You don’t need to come over. I won’t be long.”

He set the communicator down, and a smile spread over Ye Tianxie’s calm face — cold, and carrying something grim in it.

How could a man who nursed his grudges the way this one did keep his foot out of it at a moment like this… and all the more when it was Wings That Shroud the Sky, who had crossed one of the lines he held most absolute!!

As for why he had been able to come back here with a Town Portal Scroll…

(End of Chapter 261)