Chapter 195 Contest Of Authority
"I’m afraid that unless we have at least two or three full parties worth of reinforcements we won’t be able to do anything." Yu Lan said with a sigh.
"Even so, we won’t just roll over and die without putting up a fight." Su Cui said.
"We’ll all follow your lead, Nana. Even if we can’t make it out of here in one piece, we have to take down as many of them as we can with us." Jia said with a smirk on her face.
"Heh, it looks like they are preparing to fight. Though, I wouldn’t call this much of a fight." Savage said as he took a step forward with a long spear in his hand and chains wrapped around her right arm and hand. The spearhead was jagged and looked vicious in nature.
Savage had a burly build with dark brown eyes and a rough looking appearance about him. He wore dark blue plated armor with gold patterns traveling throughout the exterior area. On his head as a metal helmet that hid his short black hair.
"I agree, it isn’t much of a fight. I’m beginning to think that it was a waste of time for this many people to come here." Haishe said as he glanced over in Silent Steps’ direction.
Silent Steps glared at Haishe with a cold look in his eyes and said, "If you have a problem with the way I run things, then you’re welcome to leave Fatal Touch any time you’d like. However, you should be prepared for the consequences."
Haishe remained unfazed by Silent Steps threats and replied, "Need I remind you of your recent failure inside of the Chaotic Dogma Realm? Hmph, you couldn’t even handle a simple task and now you’re wasting your time on a bunch of women. No wonder you failed your mission. I should have been sent instead."
"You want to say that again?" Silent Steps facial expression darkened as he stepped forward to confront Haishe.
They stood there face to face and neither of them was willing to give the other any face. Just from the look of things, it was easy to tell that the two of them really did not get along with each other.
Although Silent Steps was the official leader of the Fatal Touch organization, there were still a few influential members who held just as much power as he did. One of them was Haishe.
Haishe despised the way Silent Steps ran things and wanted nothing more than to see him stripped of everything. However, Silent Steps still had the support of many key members that solidified his position as leader. But, after his most recent failure, he was slowly losing support and Haishe was gaining favor.
"Tsk, if you two are going to fight then hurry up and get it over with." Savage said in an annoyed manner as he turned back to face towards Silent Steps and Haishe. He had better things to do than to stick around this place. In fact, he agreed with Haishe that this was all just a waste of time to settle some personal grudge that they did not even know about.
However, since Silent Steps was the current leader of Fatal Touch, he held the highest level of authority present. Due to that reason, Haishe would never strike the first blow against Silent Steps. Unless Silent Steps attacked him first, Haishe was unable to attack him.
When Luna saw that Silent Steps and his group were having some sort of disagreement, she secretly rejoiced. Not only would this buy them time, but if a fight actually did break out between them then their chances of escaping from this place would increase by leaps and bounds!
This was a chance! At the moment, Owl and the remaining four players that was originally caught in Luna’s trap were still fighting off the elite plant monsters. The number of plant monsters had decreased down to seventeen in total. The fact that Owl and the others were still alive and had managed to eliminate thirteen elite monsters showed that they were not total pushovers.
But, in the end, Owl and the rest of his group were struggling to survive while Silent Steps’ group was infighting.
Luna felt that they may be able to use this chance to take care of Owl’s group. The only problem was that even if they did manage to kill off the rest of his group, the elite monsters would then turn their attention towards her and her party members.
But, even if that did happen, Luna believed that they could somehow use that to their advantage. As for how... she had yet to think of that part.
The good thing was that Owl and his group had no idea how to lower the plant wall that was blocking the exit.
"Hm... If we can find a way to make it to the Venus Flytrap, we can release the plant wall. That could potentially buy us the time we need." Luna said.
She then asked, "Yu Lan, how many full skill rotations do you have left?"
"I still haven’t really had time to recover my MP since our last fight, but I still have enough MP to go through my full rotation three more times. However, I won’t be able to do much after that." Yu Lan said.
"Good, that should be enough. Starry, Su Cui, you two focus on keeping them distracted. Since Jia is the fastest, she will be the one to make a run towards the Venus Flytrap. Do you remember where it is?" Luna said.
"Leave it to me, Nana! I remember its exact location." Jia replied in a reassuring manner. As soon as she finished speaking, Jia hid behind Luna before activating Stealth and disappeared from sight.
"Distract them? But I-" Starry was just about to complain but was cut off by Su Cui before she could even finish speaking.
"Starry, stop being so scared. I won’t let anything happen to you. Just stay close and swing as if your life depends on it." Su Cui said as she put her hand on Starry’s shoulder and gave a thumbs up.
Since Owl’s group was still fending off the elite plant monsters and Silent Steps was still face to face with Haishe with Savage and the other players spectating the two, Jia was able to slip away unnoticed.
Luna could see that they were extremely confident in themselves as they chose to completely ignore them. It was as if Luna and her party were unworthy of their full attention. However, Silent Steps’ negligence would lead him to his own downfall.
"You dare question me in front of so many people! Careful Haishe, that could be seen as a direct challenge of my authority." Silent Steps said in a cold tone of voice.
"I would not dare to do so, boss." Haishe said in a mocking and sarcastic manner.
At the moment, there were four players closer to Haishe’s side and three near Silent Steps. As for the two players spectating and Savage, they did not appear to be on any particular side. It was obvious at a glance that Haishe held the upper hand numbers wise.
This also demonstrated how truly divided Fatal Touch’s members were. Yet, they were still able to maintain a fearsome reputation despite their internal struggles. It was said that if Fatal Touch was not in such disorder and disarray, they would easily be a guild listed in the top ten.
Luna and her party were slowly easing their way closer to the Owl’s group. A few moments later, she gave a slight nod as Su Cui and Starry finally made their move. The two of them rushed towards the nearest player as he tried to avoid the incoming vines from two elite plant monsters.
Su Cui moved with quickened steps as she leaped forward and pulled her arm back. At the same time, a powerful flame engulfed both of her fists as she struck out at the player and slammed her fist into his body while he was being pinned down by the plant monsters.
Luckily, she did not have to worry about aggroing the monsters since their attention was already focused onto another player and she made sure to stay clear of attacking it.
"You dare!" Owl shouted as she saw Su Cui had attacked one of the players of his group.
As for Starry, she trailed behind Su Cui. Since she was a plate wearing class, her speed was much slower than Su Cui who was a fighter class. She did just as Su Cui said and stuck close to her. She charged forward while trying to ignore her fears and rammed right into another nearby player with her shield. It caused that player to stumble backward and be caught in a vine trap.
Savage turned his head to see what was going on when he heard Owl shouting.
"Hm? Oh, it looks like they’re making a run for it." Savage said in a casual manner as a large grin appeared on his face.
Silent Steps continued to stare at Haishe with a cold look in his eyes.
"Hmph, you’re lucky this time. Next time, I won’t be so forgiving. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to, Haishe." Silent Steps said he spoke with a high level of disdain present in his voice.
However, Haishe simply smirked in response to Silent Steps threat. This, in turn, caused Silent Steps to become even more infuriated. Luckily, there was someone for him to take his anger and frustration out on. He unsheathed his daggers as his eyes locked onto Luna.
"Remember, you can kill whoever you’d like, but the healer is mine alone." Silent Steps reminded them as he vanished from the spot he stood in. Soon after, the others began to make their move as well.
"Yu Lan, now!" Luna said when she saw that they had finally been discovered.
When Luna gave the signal, Yu Lan held the wand in her hand out as a stream of water began to pour from it. At first, it was only a simple stream of water, however, two seconds later the water started to surge out like a tidal wave.
"No you don’t!" Savage said as he gripped the spear in his hand tightly before throwing it towards Yu Lan. It was on a flight path headed directly for her head.
However, just before the spear was about to pierce through her skull, it stopped and ran into some kind of barrier that enveloped Yu Lan and prevented the attack from harming her.
It was an advanced version of Mana Shield that temporarily prevented the disruption of the user’s actions while in the middle of casting a spell. It was a skill called Barrier of Focused Minds and was one of the more useful PVP skills for mages.
By the time water stopped pouring out of Yu Lan’s wand, it had already created a tidal wave that wanted to wash away everything before it. As it crashed down, Yu Lan had already begun to cast her next spell. Its cast time was practically nonexistent as the entire water started to freeze over and form a solid block of ice that trapped the attacking group inside.
"It will only hold for three seconds, we have to move now!" Yu Lan said as she and Luna had already begun to make their way towards Su Cui and the others.
"We don’t have much time then... What’s taking Jia so long?" Luna said as a frown appeared on her face and she furrowed her brows... Even though her mobility was greatly restricted while stealth, she should have already messaged them when she arrived in position.