“What?! Even you were defeated by him?”

In Netherspirit’s Claw’s core channel, there was a faint of self-derision and disbelief in Dark Dragon’s voice, mixed with strong dissatisfaction at the same time. “Two Tier 5s…

“You can’t even handle a punk who just reached the advanced level for three hours; both were disabled and one of you even died… You had your pets finished off… Sh*t! I have nothing to say to the two of you!” The more he spoke about it, the more Dark Dragon sounded agitated. His anger became increasingly obvious!

Thousand Face kept quiet.

His silence made Dark Dragon erupt in anger!

“What the f*ck is going on?! Explain yourselves to me!

“Trying to be all righteous like that brat Dark Annihilator? Sealing up your abilities to fight someone else? Argh!!!” Towards the end of his lecture, Dark Dragon could no longer comprehend their failure, and his angry tone turned into roar, scaring the few players who wanted to defend Thousand Face into shutting their mouths respectively. They would not dare interfere with a veteran’s anger.

“Forget about that brat, Ron… I never expected you to also make a mistake like that! Who do you think you are? An ordinary member of Netherspirit’s Claw? You’re a bloody Netherspirit’s Claw Field Commander! Losing to a nameless punk, do you know what that means?”

Dark Dragon’s voice grew louder, allowing others to easily picture his red lecturing face and neck. “You advanced to Tier 5 a few days early, yet you still lost to him!

“A few days ago, you were all ambitious… What? Never lost in any PKs when it comes to Elementalists?! Why the long face today?!

“What about the Thunder Hawk? Don’t use it if you don’t know how to!” Dark Dragon’s angry roar exploded like falling pearls as he berated Thousand Face, who was on the other end of the channel, till he could not even lift his head…

When it came to such matters, it could not be helped if Dark Dragon got super mad!

Since the end of the Graveyard of the Gods event, Dark Dragon had assigned others to beat Qin Ruo up on behalf of him to put himself in a positive light. But he never thought that not just once, but twice, all the people he sent out would come back defeated…

Buttcold who took the initiative to attack…

Dark Annihilator who was unwilling…

From then, he had accumulated a stomach full of anger, but he also had to admit that the previous two attempts were obviously bound to fail!

When they were grinding to level up to advanced Tier 5, and Netherspirit’s Claw started to have more Tier 5 Champions, Dark Dragon came up with a better revenge plot.

However, he did not expect something like that to happen at such a crucial period! Dark Dragon was so furious, he almost tore Thousand Face and Ron apart…

Two Tier 5 Champions!

Getting themselves all beaten up until one had to escape while the other died…

If the matter spread to the forum, Netherspirit’s Claw would lose so much face! Dark Dragon’s scar would be brought up once again—with two Tier 5 Champions defeated, how would other people see him now???

That aside, the one thing Dark Dragon cared about most was…

There were many players like Qin Ruo, who crazily advanced in levels at a high speed like the tip of an arrow on fire. Their abilities also rose in levels quickly, and these Tier 5 invested Champions gave him great unease—in the very near future, Tier 5 would no longer be a novel term. Players who were labeled Supreme Champions would slowly be crowded out by this large group of Tier 5 players; once everyone was familiar with Tier 5 skillsets, returning to their past glory and superior identity would be quite impossible.

To lose that identity was something Dark Dragon found extremely hard to accept…

To be on the same level as those rookies… Would there be a new round of competition? That damned Pet System!

***

In another part of the Buried City, three men stood silently between a large pile of bones at the entrance of a house, at the corner of a street.

Listening to Dark Dragon’s noisy roars of anger, inexplicable emotions filled Netherspirit’s Claw’s big boss, Netherclaw’s head. It caused him to sigh in his heart. Unwittingly, Netherclaw stared deeply in a certain direction of the Buried City.

It was the location of Darius’ Eternity Peak…

Thousand Face, Qin Ruo… Majestic Hero and Black God… were all in that direction of the Buried City.

“Enter!”

A soft ray of light flashed through and Netherclaw stepped into the house in front of him. Behind him, two people looked at each other and entered the house right after him.

…

After Dark Dragon finished his hysterical ranting, the mood was slightly more peaceful in the channel. He then started pointing out where Thousand Face was lacking during the battle. “A Field Commander like you could have actually made a choice like that when dueling Qin Ruo… Don’t you understand what it means to attack the enemy’s weakness with your own strengths? Are you still the Thousand Face I know? Didn’t you mention that you wouldn’t ever PK anyone anymore once you reached advanced Tier 5?!”

“Just looking at the Thunder Hawk, its advantages are huge! Compared with Qin Ruo’s Pet, the Thunder Hawk has high attack speed and long-range attack as advantages… Qin Ruo’s Pet only has Spell Break, which could be a hindrance to you. Its other nonsense short-ranged attacks aren’t even a threat to you!”

“Pet-wise, you have a clear advantage; as for abilities, are you worse than Qin Ruo? Huh?”

Dark Dragon’s temper may have been huge, and he could be quite petty, but when it came to battle experience and dueling, not many people were stronger than him in H&G. Otherwise, he would not have stood out among hundreds of millions of players a month ago and become one of the thirty Supreme Champions.

Dark Dragon’s abilities were indisputable. He had every right to criticize Thousand Face!

“Thousand Face, your Dark Gold equipment were mostly embedded. Qin Ruo only had half a set of Legendary equipment. Logically speaking, your overall equipment attributes should not differ much… Am I correct?”

“…I was quite muddled then.”

As Dark Dragon listed out his detailed calculations, Thousand Face, who was at the end of the channel, was dripping in sweat…

His equipment was superior, his Pet was superior; moreover, he was a Terramancer who held the most superiority out of all other Elementalists, and he had surprise attacks as an advantage; the other party’s Pet was inferior, and he had lesser time to familiarize himself with his new skills since he had just entered Tier 5…

Putting it all together, Thousand Face found himself pretty pathetic!

As Dark Dragon reminded him of the details, he started to recall what happened during the battle. Thousand Face finally understood how ridiculous his mistakes were and that his loss was unjust!

“About that, let me fill you in. Qin Ruo has Angelic Wings.”

This time, many others started to take pity on Thousand Face’s circumstance and started to interrupt as well as remind him.

Yet, before they could speak their minds, Dark Dragon coldly cut them off, “To have Angelic Wings display its superiority greatly depends on the environment… Within an underground corridor, Angelic Wings have no advantage there… You guys just felt that fusing with a Divinity would make you stronger…”

Everyone kept quiet.

Shortly after, Dark Dragon stabilized his tone. “Thousand Face, I don’t care if you’ve messed up. I’m not lashing out at you today to destroy your reputation, but as the Clan’s Field Commander, I need to discipline you. Next time, you aren’t allowed to make such a lowly mistake!”

“Yes, I understand.”

Thousand Face’s voice transmitted over.

“It’s good that you understand, but it’s still not enough… Tell me every single detail of what happened.” At that moment, a deep, familiar voice rang in the clan’s core channel! There was a hint of anger and dignity in the person’s voice.

For a while, the channel fell silent.

However, Thousand Face dared not drag time. He responded and began to recount the whole process in detail, starting from when he received Carefree’s transmission to cross fires with Qin Ruo.

…

In a large hall somewhere in the Buried City, Netherclaw slowly raised his eyebrows and frowned!

Before the three individuals, an exaggerated and sinister three-headed silhouette appeared. It exuded a frightening and powerful aura—it was the Three-eyed Cerberus. In the wide and gigantic hall, hundreds of Level 66 Twinhead Hellhounds formed a semi-circle a distance away. They waited sternly and locked their eyes on the three intruders who just entered.

However, Netherclaw was not concerned by those few people. It was due to something Thousand Face had revealed.

…

“Thousand Face, you made a few mistakes in the underground maze.”

“Please correct me, boss.”

“Firstly, you shouldn’t have even thought about working together with Black God… That was something that didn’t make any common sense. They would’ve asked you to scram if you had sought them to form a team…”

Thousand Face was silent.

“Secondly, since you already decided to join hands with Ron, you shouldn’t have stopped your partnership in the middle; don’t change your decisions so easily because of others; it’s very dumb.

“Thirdly, calm your emotions… Once you dueled with Qin Ruo, you lost yourself. You are our Field Commander. You represent the Netherspirit’s Claw clan, the Netherspirit’s Claw League…”

Netherclaw’s tone gradually grew stricter, giving Thousand Face a very ominous feeling.

“In that situation, what you really needed to do was study the everything carefully before you moved! Understand your strengths and the enemy’s weak points, then win at any cost!

“The problem was, you cared too much about your reputation and forgot the more important problem… Because of that… I’ll be sending another brother to replace your duties as Field Commander… Unless, you can reengage Qin Ruo and defeat him… Clean off your dirt.”

Netherclaw’s announcement caused an uproar in the channel!

The Clan Leader actually decided to strip Thousand Face off his Field Commander position!

“What do you think?”

“I accept!” Thousand Face answered with determination. “I will defeat him!”

“Very good, I’ll be waiting…”

After he was done speaking, Netherclaw’s voice left the core channel.

…

While the two Netherspirit’s Claw bosses were lecturing Thousand Face, the victorious Qin Ruo, who had just been through his most stressful experience, was also getting coached by Majestic Hero and Black God…

Thousand Face’s strengths were pointed out by Black God. Paired with his innate magical beast, the Thunder Hawk, the pair could have actually beaten Qin Ruo from a distance since the very beginning!

Thousand Face, who possessed countless Tier 5 Magic Scrolls naturally had the utmost advantage. His winning possibilities were huge! They discovered this when they realized Thousand Face’s Pet was the Thunder Hawk.

Yet, who knew Thousand Face’s self-esteem would cause him trouble. Not only did he give up his greatest advantage, but he even allowed the Thunder Hawk to deal with Poochie in that state. Although his plan was not bad, he coincidentally fell into Qin Ruo’s trap!

In the end, he was put down by Qin Ruo!

After the entire comparison, Black God said to Qin Ruo, “You were really lucky.”

Qin Ruo smiled bitterly and did not refute. He also did not have the strength to refute because he had constantly reacted to whatever that came his way. Once they were over, he would forget about them. Such battle situations were not his forte because he did not have much experience in battle. He was incomparable to experienced Field Commanders and bosses who had been through hundreds of battles…

“All right, let’s not talk about this anymore. Qin Ruo, your room for growth is tremendous. The next time you encounter Thousand Face, there won’t be much of a problem if you take more caution. Time is limited, so let’s talk about the current mission. The Lich’s Secret Dungeon will be divided into two… Shall we split this?” Majestic Hero looked at Qin Ruo and suggested that they partied up.