The moment Fish fired her shot, Xiaoyun and Phantom also dove into the fray!
Aside from Li Nian, who was completely content to watch the spectacle, every “expert” on the field had been pulled into the battle.
The Assistant rabbit slipped into view. Phantom’s magic staff whipped through the air, spawning veils of smoke to block sight, exploding balloons, and razor-sharp throwing knives in quick succession.
Though these distractions didn’t put as much pressure on Li Hua and the Tycoon as Fish’s gunfire and Old Zhou’s close combat did, Phantom’s relentless harassment still drained a great deal of their attention.
As for the ability Xiaoyun displayed, it made both the Tycoon and Li Hua’s skin crawl.
The woman held a huge black umbrella, hummed a melody that was gentle yet tinged with chill, and danced lightly on the rain threads suspended in the air.
From beneath her skirt and her umbrella, there came a steady drip—various severed limbs and organs falling out with a patter.
Stitched hands and feet, writhing entrails, rolling eyeballs, and desiccated skulls...
A physiologically disturbing number of corpse fragments finally stitched together into a monstrous humanoid form as tall as three stories.
“Come on, Frankenstein... devour them. Make them part of you!”
Under Xiaoyun’s soft song, the creature joined the battle and launched a fierce assault on the Tycoon and Li Hua.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Li Hua immediately rotated his dice to bias the monster’s hammer strikes, while the piggy bank under the Tycoon’s feet erupted in waves of golden light.
Together, the two of them perfectly blocked the creature’s attacks.
But every time that golden light flickered, the sharp clinking of coins could be heard.
Pain repeatedly contorted the Tycoon’s face—clearly this defensive mode came at a steep cost.
More importantly...
Sustaining this depletion like this was unfavorable for him and Li Hua.
Even though the Tycoon was already a Fourth Tier expert, stronger than the others present and with Li Hua—the Hai City Game Master—assisting...
They were, in truth, being besieged.
“I could finish these brats off in one go if I wanted, but doing that in reality would make way too much noise,” the Tycoon said, manipulating Hayek’s Invisible Hand with one hand while wielding the Unicorn’s Broken Horn in the other, trading ranged attacks with Fish and Phantom. “Brother Li, can we expect reinforcements?”
Li Hua observed constantly, twisting dice and spinning disks to alter probabilities as both defense and support for the Tycoon, his expression grave.
“We’ll get backup, but the fastest Order can send will probably be Second-Tier or First-Tier... What about your Jiang’an Hall?”
“What are you talking about, Brother Li? If Jiang’an Hall had anyone at Third Tier, do you think I’d be doing all this myself?” the Tycoon replied with a helpless laugh.
Li Hua exhaled. “Then it looks like we can only count on friends from other groups?”
“Oh? You mean—”
Li Hua didn’t answer the Tycoon directly. Instead he raised his voice.
“Friends from the Night Watchmen, if you’re here, please help!”
“If this keeps going, we won’t be able to contain it!”
When Li Hua finished, both the Tycoon and Fish and the Free Alliance members showed surprised expressions.
Answering Li Hua’s call...
Was a cluster of geometric cubes falling from the rain and a round-faced girl with streaked white hair wielding a long blade.
Bang!
Old Zhou used his crutches to brace against the incoming cubes, then narrowly blocked a blade aimed at his face.
But the stitched monster near him wasn’t so lucky;
it was buried and suppressed under a mound of cubes.
“More experts?” Old Zhou said, surprised, then he forcefully tossed the newcomer away.
The person who had slashed at Old Zhou landed on top of another container. Behind her, Robin—clumsily carrying a drawing board—clambered up.
“Night Watchmen’s Snowy Owl and Robin. Gambler, sir, we weren’t planning to intervene, we literally just arrived!” Snowy Owl shook rain from their blade and said with a smile.
“No matter. We’re grateful for the help!” Li Hua and the Tycoon both nodded in acknowledgment.
The Night Watchmen and Order did not share the same principles. While the Night Watchmen were also relatively righteous and possessed considerable strength, they did not enforce strict rules or try to establish rigid regulations among players the way Order did.
This organization focused on minimizing players’ impact on the real world—erasing traces of player activity, monitoring major organizations and powerful players to ensure none suddenly went berserk, massacred civilians, or caused large-scale real-world destruction. Thus, compared with the Marauders who liked killing players, the Night Watchmen were far more opposed to the Psychological Society, who hunted ordinary people and tried to shove them into the game.
Of course, the Night Watchmen didn’t entirely ignore disputes among players. While it wasn’t strictly their duty, nothing forbade them from stepping in.
Their members generally followed simple chivalrous principles when handling internal conflicts among players—“draw the sword to help when seeing injustice” and “protect the weak and innocent.”
So...
Although Li Hua and the Tycoon couldn’t exactly be called the weak party, when Order was clashing with the Marauders and the Free Alliance, choosing a side wasn’t a hard decision for many Night Watchmen members.
But once these two newcomers appeared, everyone tacitly halted their attacks.
Both sides had reached a delicate balance, facing off on edge.
None of the experts present were confident of a decisive victory.
Or rather, even if one side believed they could win, they couldn’t count on a clean, complete triumph!
Besides, such a chaotic fight could easily drag on...
Members of the Marauders and Free Alliance feared Order reinforcements from other cities arriving!
When it came to foundation and backup, nobody wanted to provoke Order—the massive colossus.
Order’s and the Night Watchmen’s members also didn’t want to see a hasty large-scale battle erupt in the Jiangcheng city area.
Especially since Jiang’an Hall and Order’s ordinary members were arriving on the outskirts as reinforcements—they could easily become pawns in a fatal, all-or-nothing struggle.
At this moment, both sides were developing second thoughts—after all, there was still the elevated road clash in South City tomorrow, and the Psychological Society’s madmen hadn’t shown their faces yet.
But...
Things had already reached this point. Everyone wasn’t so much waiting for the other to strike as they were waiting for a way out.
And at that moment, a clear, cold voice rang out from the direction of the river.
“Oh my, I already arranged a time and place with everyone. Are we really going to decide life and death right here?”
Sitting on the bow of a half-sunken, blazing cargo ship.
Through the curtains of rain, a girl crossed her legs and perched on the upturned prow, her smile mocking and disdainful.