Chapter 1427: Chapter 1427 End

Everyone was caught off guard by the turn of events. It was somewhat expected that the Starfire Team would kill the two vice-presidents of their guild, especially since they were surrounded by Starfire’s forces.

The surprise attack that led to the death of the enchantress didn’t come as a surprise either, given her legendary strength, especially the video of her fighting in the depths of the chaotic star world that went viral on the internet. Her awe-inspiring skills and valiant figure were the envy of both men and women.

Moreover, now that she had acquired a weapon comparable to a current Divine Artifact that could also increase her attack movements, it was like adding wings to a tiger.

What left the audience speechless was how convincingly the Starfire Team had disguised their ploy, to the point where it went completely unnoticed.

Witnessing the ‘roaches’ spring up from the ground full of vigor, surrounding and attacking the United Army guild members should have been a ghastly sight. But now, it was filled with a comedic sense, leaving people torn between laughter and tears.

Amid the bittersweet laughter of the audience and the bitterness of the two guilds’ United Army, their teams were wiped out.

The two guilds were ashamed, feeling unbearably humiliated by the favorable situation turned sour. Although they were strong, they were not overwhelmingly so. Had they possessed the strength of the Starfire Team, they believed they would never have been put in such a situation.

However, their most elite troops were surely conserved within the guild headquarters. Only the more aggressive members would empty the guild’s coffers for a first kill.

Besides, emptying the coffers wouldn’t guarantee the first kill, which is why the first challenge was so brutal. Who knows what the second challenge might bring?

In reality, most teams, including the Starfire, didn’t field their strongest lineups, preserving their strength for later battles. Everyone knew that the race for the first kill would be a marathon, not a sprint. It was a test of endurance, not just momentary victory or loss.

Of course, there were the more aggressive players, who went all out in hopes of achieving a higher ranking. However, even they knew their chances of clinching the first kill were slim.

Those who truly aimed for the first kill would not foolishly reveal their trump cards so soon.

The Starfire Legion rapidly scoured the battlefield, collecting numerous special crow feathers, which were premium materials for casting Feather Fall Technique and Flying Technique.

They didn’t miss a single useful part of the crows, dismantling everything. The crow meat could also be used to feed their beast armies.

Naturally, the human-like Legions couldn’t be dismantled – the System, no matter how real, wouldn’t allow dismemberment of humanoid, intelligent beings on the battlefield, unless under exceptional circumstances. But these intelligent beings all had their own Armor, weapons, and personal belongings.

Thanks to Li Yao’s Special Troops skill, his Legion wasn’t limited to collecting mere scraps of war spoils like a common Legion would. Led by Li Yao, his troops would strip the intelligent beings to their underwear, leaving nothing behind like Geese Flying Leaving Feathers.

They gathered a considerable amount of loot, which could be used directly as supplies in this world without logistical support. They relied solely on war resources to sustain the army.

Regarding the corpses, Li Yao surprisingly did not instruct the Legion to take them to the war space energy conversion pool; he had another use for them.

After clearing the battlefield, Li Yao withdrew the Spirit from his fire eagle and said, “Prepare for the next one. In less than an hour, the remaining eighth line of defense should be breached, and we will have another tough fight on our hands.”

“Understood, leave it to us.”

The members of the Starfire Team immediately scattered, throwing a Smoke Scroll at intervals, and soon the entire outpost was engulfed in dense fog.

The audience could only see vague figures in the rolling mist, knowing that the Starfire’s forces were fervently setting something up, but what exactly it was remained unfathomably unclear.

The audience cursed in frustration, exasperated by the starfire’s inscrutable tactics. Though they were only able to watch others compete for the first kill due to their level being too low, they still enjoyed a god’s-eye view of the event. Starfire’s obscure and confusing activities made them itch with curiosity, wanting to know exactly what they were up to.

But complaints aside, securing the first kill was entirely up to the players’ discretion.

So they had no choice but to minimize Starfire’s feed and turn their attention instead to more exciting parts of the battles.

By now, apart from a few lucky guilds, most of the competition for the composite channels had reached a fever pitch.

And as time passed, more and more teams were making it into the second checkpoint.

After entering the second gate, all teams were given time to rest and reinforce. They could summon new troops and make strategic adjustments as needed.

In the area of Channel 91, guilds were gradually breaking through the eighth line of defense, yet they did not act rashly.

Everyone knew of Starfire’s dominance; even those in the rear ranks were fearful of Starfire’s ability to seize the outpost with a flip of their hand.

Moreover, their late arrival indicated that their strength was ostensibly inferior to the guilds that had arrived earlier, regardless of whether they were hiding their true capabilities.

Hence, they all wished to wait until the remaining four eighth-line teams made their appearance, then jointly seize the outpost before determining life and death, mirroring the way Starfire and other guilds had captured the outpost hand in hand.

As Starfire’s progress bar reached a third, all four guilds had emerged, with the strongest among them left with only half of their troops, the weakest with a mere twenty thousand.

Together, their combined forces were about a hundred thousand strong, effectively overwhelming Starfire in numbers. Additionally, Starfire had demolished a third of the city walls to capture the outpost, which made it impossible for them to rebuild in time.

This meant that Starfire lost the protection of the city walls and virtually any advantage of defending. Climbing onto the city walls would only expose more weaknesses, and in the open field, the United Army had the numbers to crush Starfire.

Having lost the majority of the roaches, eliminating the frontline would turn the battle into a slaughter for Starfire, leaving no chance for hidden troops to intervene.

With the eighth defense line occupied, this meant that those in the rear temporarily lost the right to vie for the passage.

To gain access, they would have to wait for the monsters to recapture other eighth passageways and, only then could the rear troops launch an offensive to seize them. The passageways would only become accessible to the rear troops once the teams in the second gate were defeated.

Therefore, many teams did not lose heart. With the main instance being as challenging as reality and with so little information available, failure was inevitable.

By securing a strong defensive position, there would always be a chance to enter the channels.

Thus, the rear troops did their best to occupy a high defensive point and waited for an opportunity…