Players were mostly just ordinary citizens; commanding 170,000 people in a brawl was something they'd never even dreamed of. Forget players, how many officers, even pulled from the army, had ever commanded so many troops? An army corps was roughly 60,000 strong; 170,000 was the equivalent of three corps! How were they supposed to fight? Anyone in the game would be stumped by that question.

Sword Without Oath had snatched this empty title, and now realized he was in a bind. He could suggest they discuss it, but discussion would just be a brainstorming session. And if everyone kept silent, wouldn't he, as the leader, have to make the decisions himself? This was just a game; if advisors couldn't come up with ideas, you couldn't threaten to take their heads.

"Uh, well... let's first understand the system's tactics, and then come up with a targeted approach..." Sword Without Oath saw everyone waiting for him to speak, so he had to say something, even if it was nonsense. After speaking, he looked at Reflected Time. Reflected Time usually had plenty of ideas, but he didn't dare to take responsibility for commanding 170,000 people in a PK. He'd figured it out: Upward Spiral's move was very cunning, pushing Sword Without Oath into this position. No one would have a clue how to handle a 170,000-person PK. In the end, wouldn't Sword Without Oath have to come up with a plan? But how much could Sword Without Oath really understand? The plans he came up with would probably be no different from having no plan at all. Then the players would go into battle, collapse, and complain. Who would the complaints be directed at? Their commander-in-chief, Sword Without Oath, of course. If the guild leader was despised, how could the guild be doing well? The reputation of Soaring Across the Seas was bound to take a big hit!

Reflected Time understood this clearly, but he was helpless. As soon as Sword Without Oath finished speaking, Upward Spiral immediately chimed in, "President Sword Without Oath, you're such a great leader! Soaring Across the Seas is the top guild in Cloudrise City. Dealing with these little system lackeys is just a piece of cake, isn't it?"

Upward Spiral's words made some of the more decent guild leaders shake their heads, thinking he was going too far. If it was a piece of cake, they wouldn't have been beaten so miserably just now. Some of the less decent ones also saw that Upward Spiral was trying to put Sword Without Oath on the fire to roast, and were waiting with schadenfreude to see the show.

Sword Without Oath gritted his teeth and decided to go all in. Trying to save face at this time would only make things worse. He immediately said, "Everyone here is smart; we have 170,000 brothers right now, but we're all gamers. Who has ever commanded such a large-scale battle? If you really want me to come up with an idea, I don't have one. Let's just discuss it together!"

Sword Without Oath's words, in a sense, could be seen as an admission that he was not competent to be the commander-in-chief. Of course, he wouldn't say that out loud. What he hoped for was to gain everyone's understanding, then genuinely brainstorm together, and finally have him, as the commander-in-chief, take on the tasks of assigning personnel and coordinating schedules.

Sword Without Oath's idea was nice, but no one would give him such a big advantage. Upward Spiral smiled and said, "President Sword Without Oath is too modest, too polite. If you keep being so polite, then I might just take over!"

"Then you take over!" Sword Without Oath retorted, thinking Upward Spiral was still trying to mock him.

Upward Spiral nodded and said, "Then I'll do it!"

"Ah..." Sword Without Oath was stunned. How could Upward Spiral really dare to take on this hot potato? It seemed he already had a plan in mind, but he had pushed the commander's position to Sword Without Oath first, and now he was taking it back as if he had no choice. He was simply trying to make Sword Without Oath lose face!

I gave you the opportunity, but you couldn't do it, so I have to step in! Upward Spiral had now gained both a good reputation and the position of commander-in-chief, killing two birds with one stone.

Sword Without Oath looked blankly at Reflected Time. Reflected Time whispered, "Does this guy really have an idea?"

Sword Without Oath suddenly reacted, "Damn it, could this kid have found some kind of crucial task?"

When Reflected Time heard this, he realized it too. Commanding 170,000 people—they were convinced that no player had that ability. But Upward Spiral was so confident that he dared to take on this task. It was only possible that he had found a crucial task that could determine the outcome of the city war. Judging from the NPCs' simple actions and vows before the war, this city war itself seemed like a large-scale group quest, so it wasn't impossible that it contained some subplots.

"What about our people? Have any of the people we sent out to find quests found any clues?" Sword Without Oath asked anxiously.

"No, everyone is looking for NPCs in the resurrection points and camps. The quests they've received are mostly logistical support, handling supplies and things like that. Nothing seems crucial," Reflected Time said.

"Upward Spiral and his people started in the West Gate direction. Send some people over there to investigate," Sword Without Oath said.

"I'll take people there myself!" Reflected Time said.

"Alright," Sword Without Oath nodded.

Reflected Time quietly left from behind Sword Without Oath. He wasn't the guild leader, so no one paid much attention to his movements. At this time, Upward Spiral had become the new leader in the guild leader circle and was gathering everyone to listen to him speak.

"Everyone, since we're going to cooperate, unified coordination is essential. But we're not one guild, and the game doesn't have a world channel, so I suggest that we guild leaders form a team first. Then we can use the team channel to exchange messages, and then each guild leader can use their own guild channel to issue instructions to their members. What do you think?"

Everyone praised Upward Spiral's insightful idea. As soon as he took office, he came up with such a reliable plan. Many people also glanced at Sword Without Oath with disdain. Sword Without Oath was in tears. What insightful idea was this? They had used this method when they attacked Sunfall City, gathering all the mercenary leaders into one team for unified management. Some of the mercenary leaders who had participated in that event were present, but obviously, no one had a reason to suddenly say, "Soaring Across the Seas used this method before." Sword Without Oath only felt wronged.

"Well, next I think we need to understand our opponents more deeply. We lost too quickly on the West Gate side, so we didn't get any information about the system. What about you guys?" Upward Spiral asked.

"Same, same!" the players from the North Gate said. They had been too scared to move by a giant rock at the beginning, so it was better not to mention it.

Actually, even if they didn't say it, the people from the West Gate knew, since they could see it. Upward Spiral then said, "So! I think we need to organize some probing attacks to get a better understanding of the system's deployments and attack methods."

"Yes, yes, that makes sense," everyone nodded.

Sword Without Oath felt even more aggrieved. What kind of crap plan was this? How were you going to command and attack with these 170,000 people? Upward Spiral hadn't said anything about it yet.

Upward Spiral continued step by step, "This probing task will be entrusted to Drinking Madly. Everyone, take a short break for now."

The guild leaders felt even more grateful. What probing? This was actually going up to die and test the system's reaction. Although everyone knew that there was no penalty for dying, so Upward Spiral could be so generous and unrestrained, no matter what, they were going to do the dirty work. What could you say? Sword Without Oath couldn't bear to let Upward Spiral have all the glory, so he jumped out and said, "Our Soaring Across the Seas can't be idle either. We'll go too."

"That's great," Upward Spiral smiled, understanding Sword Without Oath's intentions, but he didn't say anything.

The other three sixth-level guilds were sixth-level guilds, but in terms of the quality of their members, they really couldn't compete with these two. So, when these two were bickering, they didn't say a word.

"President Sword Without Oath, shall we join forces and charge?" Upward Spiral said to Sword Without Oath cheerfully.

Sword Without Oath curled his lips, looking like he disdained to associate with Upward Spiral. He waved his hand and shouted, "Let's go!"

Wind Walker was embarrassed. Reflected Time had already left, and now he was the only one by Sword Without Oath's side. Sword Without Oath still wanted to put on an air of rallying his friends, making Wind Walker, the only one supporting the atmosphere, very sad.

Upward Spiral greeted the guild leaders behind him, "Then we and Soaring Across the Seas will test the system's attacks. Everyone, pay close attention to observing."

"Okay, okay," the guild leaders nodded repeatedly.

The two major guilds left and gathered their people. Upward Spiral sent a message to Sword Without Oath: "President Sword Without Oath, how should we fight?"

After thinking for a moment, Sword Without Oath said, "Let's take turns, using our own strengths. We'll use archers as the main force, and you'll use mages. Let's see if the system will treat us differently."

"Okay, that's settled. You go first?"

"Alright." Sword Without Oath thought of taking turns and testing separately not only to explore, but also to compete with Upward Spiral. Soaring Across the Seas' strong point was the archer formation led by sharpshooters, which was much more mobile than Drinking Madly's mage group. He believed that even if they lost, they would lose with more style than Drinking Madly.

He couldn't say this directly, but after returning to his own guild and gathering the sharpshooters, Sword Without Oath gave them a good pep talk.

This wasn't Sword Without Oath's personal grudge, after all. The rivalry with Drinking Madly was already part of Soaring Across the Seas' guild culture. When everyone heard that they were going to compete with Drinking Madly, their morale was high. Sword Without Oath nodded in satisfaction and transferred a batch of priests to support the archers in a two-layer team.

"Everyone, keep your distance and watch out for the boulders thrown by the catapults. Stop advancing as soon as you enter the attack range and start attacking," Sword Without Oath set the strategy.

"Let's go!!" Sword Without Oath gave the order and led the team forward with his sword. Although he wasn't an archer, as the guild leader, he couldn't just watch from behind. He was in the priest team, shouting to boost the morale of the troops.

The guild leaders had already conveyed the agreed-upon plan to their members. Everyone knew that Soaring Across the Seas was going to make a probing attack. It was rare to see Soaring Across the Seas gather such a complete archer formation on ordinary days, and it attracted many players to watch. The players used their Appraisal skill, praising the equipment of the sharpshooters of Soaring Across the Seas.

"As expected of a big guild, look at their equipment!!" This was the envious voice of most members of small and medium-sized guilds. As for those players who weren't even level 41, they didn't even have the chance to be envious; they couldn't appraise the equipment at all.

"Attention, attention! Watch the distance!!" Sword Without Oath kept reminding them in the guild channel. The first boulder that killed Black Rose was still on the ground! This stone was currently the farthest that any stone had landed, so players naturally regarded it as the catapults' maximum range. As they were about to enter this area, the people of Soaring Across the Seas became cautious.

"Spread out, spread out some more!" Sword Without Oath said. The sharpshooters spread out significantly. Only a hundred or so of them were attacking, so there was plenty of space. Each person maintained a distance that was enough to drop four or five large stones between them.

"Here it comes!!" Suddenly someone shouted loudly. Sure enough, the sound of mechanisms rang out on the wall. Large stones flew from the city wall with a whooshing sound, drawing arcs in the air as they smashed toward the players of Soaring Across the Seas. The people of Soaring Across the Seas were prepared, and with enough space to dodge, this time they didn't get smashed to pieces by the catapults like they did during the previous charge. More than a hundred sharpshooters accurately judged the direction of the stones and moved left or right, forward or backward, and none of them were hit.

"Good, keep going like this! Keep moving forward!" Sword Without Oath shouted loudly. The sharpshooters responded with loud roars as well. The catapults' attack speed wasn't high, and the stones were large targets, so it wasn't difficult to dodge them in this situation. Everyone realized that this kind of attack was very powerful against dense armies charging, but it seemed a bit mismatched for the current skirmish-like attack.

"Forward, forward, forward! Attention, we're about to enter the archers' attack range. Everyone, pay attention, prepare to attack!" Sword Without Oath excitedly commanded everyone to advance. Even he, a short-legged warrior, could dodge the boulders with ease, which made him very excited. Catapults had the longest range, followed by the archers on the wall, and then the mages. The range of the system's archers was the same as the players', and Sword Without Oath was prepared to have a good fight between his own archer formation and the system's wall troops.

They no longer cared about the catapult attacks, but at this moment, another wave of catapults sounded. Some careful players noticed that the sound of the stones flying out this time seemed slightly different. The sharpshooters of Soaring Across the Seas were looking up, preparing to see the direction of the stones and dodge, when they were suddenly stunned. This time, what flew out were not the giant stones that were bigger than a person, but countless head-sized stones.

The stones became smaller, which didn't mean they could fly faster, but the number increased dramatically. The system catapults didn't know how many stones of this size they had loaded into a single scoop, creating a storm. Head-sized raindrops smashed down overwhelmingly. The players weren't unwilling to dodge, but the stones were falling too densely. Whether they could dodge depended not on skill, but on luck.

This wave of shrapnel attacks made Soaring Across the Seas stagger. However, the stones became smaller, and the attacks were also weakened. The players still had life left after being hit by head-sized stones from such a height. The priests Sword Without Oath had sent up earlier finally had a chance to show off, and they healed everyone. The catapults' attack frequency wasn't that high, and the priests actually managed to pull everyone's life back up. But then the second wave of attacks arrived: more shrapnel, another round of staggering, and another chance for the priests to perform.

"Guild leader, this won't work. Our mana will run out sooner or later!!" A priest hurriedly advised Sword Without Oath.

Sword Without Oath was unwilling! Watching another wave of shrapnel scatter, looking at the guild brothers around him, he suddenly had an idea: "Everyone, hide behind the boulders!!!"

Everyone reacted. Some lay down, some squatted, and all hid behind the boulders. They only heard the sound of shrapnel hitting the boulders. Everyone touched the wounds on their heads where they had been hit by the stones and felt terrified.

"Are we still going forward?" everyone asked Sword Without Oath.

"What are you afraid of! There's no loss if we die. Use the boulders as cover and keep moving forward!!" At Sword Without Oath's command, everyone jumped out during the interval between catapult launches and continued to move forward. As soon as they saw the shrapnel flying down, they quickly hid behind the boulders again.

Finally, relying on this method, Soaring Across the Seas approached the attack range of the enemy archers on the city wall. As the first arrow flew over, Sword Without Oath loudly ordered, "Attack!!!!!!"

The target of Sword Without Oath's attack wasn't the archers on the city wall, but the warriors and knights below the city wall. These infantrymen were now also within the attack range of the sharpshooters of Soaring Across the Seas, but they still stood still.

Soaring Across the Seas' purpose was only to probe, so they weren't trying to create any perfect archer formations. Everyone found an opportunity and shot at these infantrymen. The infantrymen were already prepared. The front row retreated and the back row advanced. They planted the tall shields, and the arrows' attacks had no effect. The system archers on the city wall were hidden behind the city wall, only revealing half their bodies even when attacking. Sword Without Oath commanded the archers to attack a few more times, but they didn't see any results.

Just as they were at a loss, several screams suddenly came from beside them. Sword Without Oath looked over and saw a group of masked assassins suddenly appear in the middle of the Soaring Across the Seas formation. Each of them targeted a sharpshooter, mercilessly using their killing moves.

No matter how strong the sharpshooters were, they weren't good at close combat. Many people instinctively ran to create distance between themselves and their opponents, but then they were attacked by the archers from the city wall. Under such attacks, the sharpshooters were eliminated one by one. Sword Without Oath was anxious, but at this moment, stealthed assassins also appeared beside him. Sword Without Oath's close combat experience was certainly rich. After fighting, he immediately knew that these assassins were very strong. Probably few players could beat them in a one-on-one fight.

Sword Without Oath barely managed to defeat the assassin attacking him, relying on several priests taking care of him as the guild leader. The other sharpshooters weren't so lucky; they were killed one by one. Some tried to retreat, but they were attacked by the catapults' shrapnel after only a few steps. Sword Without Oath sighed. He knew that this probing attack could only end here.

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The six hundred and sixty-sixth chapter updated on Saturday was really awesome!