Second World Chapter 289 - 289. Betrayal

After Scarface and the others joined their coalition army, they slowly retreat while enduring the joined assault from the two guilds and Jack's team. Strangely though, as observed by White Scarfs and Saint Edge's members, the coalition seemed to prefer avoiding Jack's side rather than theirs.
Silverwing saw Jack when they got closer with each other, he immediately came over and greeted him, "brother Storm Wind! What are you doing here?"
Jack turned to him with a confused expression and asked instead, "aren't you here as my reinforcement?"
Jack looked around and then asked another question, "where is John?" He had received the message from John so he thought the guy was with Silverwing's group.
"We came separately," Silverwing answered. While they were conversing, they did not stop their fighting with the slowly retreating enemy troops.
Scarface was at the back of the coalition army, he had Silverwing on his sight. He went over to him. He had tried to send messages to his spy in White Scarfs, demanding why he was not informed of their approach. He got the system reply that his message could not be delivered. He immediately understood what was the problem. Just as he had jammed the message system of his hostages, someone nearby his spy had used a jamming tool as well.
There was only one reason he could think of why such an incident happened. Someone in White Scarfs already knew about the existence of the spy. Whether they knew who the spy of or not, that was unknown. In any case, the spy's worth to continue hiding within the guild had been decreased. It's better to just fully use it one last time.
When the spy came to him with the interest to join his guild, Scarface gave him a condition to prove his loyalty, which was to continue to stay inside the guild and feeding him information. After all, how did he know if that person did not come asking to join because Silverwing had asked him to? To spy on Death Associates? Even if Scarface thought that the spy had proven enough, he would still need to do one last task before joining Death Associates, which was to murder Silverwing. He gave the spy the sign at this moment.
"Do it! Kill him!" Scarface yelled.
Everyone was confused at first. Especially Silverwing, because Scarface was looking and pointing at him when he yelled. He then felt a heavy force from behind. He could not endure the force and fell hard to the ground.
Silverwing was a level 20 Archer, although his gears were good, he did not have as high an HP as the Warrior or Knight class. He only had a total HP of 400. The blow from the back just now had scored a critical. Even with the high defense of his gear, he still suffered over 300 damage, which put his life at critical.
He had the chance to turn around and saw Grimclaw standing behind him. Grimclaw was a level 20 Knight, but he didn't use a shield. Instead, he used a large halberd which enhanced his offense. That halberd of his was currently lifted high, ready to be brought down to impale Silverwing, giving him a killing blow.
"No!" Bluedaze did not have the time to react, she wanted to cast heal, but her spell rune had not enough time to form before the halberd was brought down.
Sinreaper was too far away, he had pointed his staff and cast Mana Bullet when he heard Silverwing pained shout. However, the Mana Bullet disappeared after traveling its maximum distance without hitting Grimclaw.
Grimclaw's large halberd rushed down. Silverwing could only look helplessly.
A crescent light suddenly came flying, colliding with the halberd that was about to impale Silverwing. The force brought by the impact pushed the halberd swerving a large distance away. Grimclaw who was holding the halberd tightly, got pulled by the force. He staggered a few steps. When he finally regained balance, he looked at the source of that crescent light.
"You!" Grimclaw had already disliked Jack from the start. The bet where he was embarrassed and lost his rare sword during the Tutorial Period had caused him to hate the guy even more. In fact, Jack was largely the cause why he had decided to join Death Associates. He could not stand his leader becoming somewhat chummy with the person he hated and looked down upon.
Scarface did not just stand there. He had started casting after he gave Grimclaw the order. Three runes were forming on his staff. It was the Entrapping Mana Claw. He prepared it in case something went wrong, and something did go wrong. However, when the third rune was about to form, an arrow came over. He gritted his teeth to just suffer the damage and maintained his concentration, he had to finish the spell in order to make sure Scarface was killed.
Yet, when the arrow hit, the spell formation that was about to be completed still broke apart. He looked at Fierce Flame who had taken the shot in consternation. "Impossible! I'm fully concentrating!"
Jack also turned at her with an inquisitive look.
"I learned a new skill from a technique book for Archer," Flame explained. "It's called Disruptive shot. It can interrupt a magic user's casting."
"Rather wise of you to keep this trump card hidden," Jack gave her a compliment.
"Actually, I had used it when I fought with Queen Magenta. You and Scarface just didn't pay attention to it," she replied with a bland look.
"Oh…," was all Jack could say. But how could he pay attention to other people's fights when he himself was in an intense battle?
"Grrh.." Scarface was growling in frustration. Nothing was going as planned today. With unwillingness, he said to Grimclaw, "retreat!"
After Jack's hit pushed Grimclaw away, other members from White Scarfs had come swarming at him. Bluedaze had also finished casting and used heal on Silverwing. His opportunity had gone already. But at least he had proven his loyalty to Scarface, and from Scarface's order for him to retreat, Scarface had already considered him as his man.
Without any hesitation, Grimclaw repelled his former teammates' attacks and went over to where Scarface was. Scarface took out a scroll and used it. It was not an offensive spell, however, the scroll enveloped the legs of Scarface and his underlings around him, including Grimclaw, with soft green light. They turned and ran away. Their speed was faster than normal. The scroll's spell was to increase their movement speed.
Scarface rejoined Manager Steelhand, they urged the army to retreat faster after they saw that the dust cloud was getting nearer. The dust cloud was moving beside the forest now, but they still not yet saw the force that created that dust cloud. They could not afford to get assaulted by another large force again. It would be a disaster. They hastened their speed, thus leaving the slower classes, like magicians and fighters who were at the back of their troop, to fend for themselves.
They had truly suffered a huge loss in this encounter. None of the guild leaders could have predicted the outcome to be like this. They were basically only targeting a single player, with a possible one or two guilds in addition. If they could see this outcome now, they would have gathered their full forces from the start. It was too late for regret now. One thing for sure, all eleven guilds now engraved Storm Wind's name at the top of their lists as the enemy that they needed to vanquish.
Jack watched the retreating army, they did not continue on their chase. As the battle ended, the corpses of the players started disintegrating, items were dropped from them. Jack was admiring the incident when he heard a voice notification, "congratulations, for successfully killing 100 non-basic class players of the same level within three hours, you have gained the title of Outworlder Slayer."
'Title?' Jack asked in his mind after listening to the notification.
"Check it out, it should be in your status window," Peniel replied.
Jack opened the window without further ado. He looked for a while and found the description.
Outworlder Slayer (Title)
Increase damage by 15% against players. Reduce damage by 15% from players. Reduce the chance of getting status effect from players by 30%.
Jack whistled in delight. Bowler and the others looked at him, they thought he was whistling because of feeling happy after winning the battle. They smiled and felt good themselves, except for Fierce Flame who was still annoyed because she was being helpless and had been used to lure Jack to this place. Bowler and The Man felt no such guilt.
'This is good,' Jack was commenting on the title he had just gotten. 'I will be more deadly now when fighting players.'
"You need to equip it first," Peniel said.
'Equip?'
"Yes. A title is different from talent. Only one title will take effect, which is the one you equipped."
Jack looked at his window page again, there was indeed a title option under his name. He clicked on it, there was only one option since he only had one title. He equipped that title.
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