[3145: Huh?]

Server 3145 is in the top three, what’s going on?

Players from various servers within the large-scale Roaming Zone were full of confusion. Lower-ranked, fringe servers simply avoided opponents like this, while players from the dominant fire servers who usually ruled the Divine Fragment Rankings felt a strange sense of frustration.

Large-scale Roaming Zones were rare, but encountering one meant the rewards were incredibly generous. Not only could it boost their own server’s stability rating, but the ranking rewards were also extremely rich.

To put it simply, as long as they stayed in the top ten and collected enough fragments, the individual rewards would be very substantial.  

Many fire servers didn’t even make it into the top three, and yet Server 3145 did. Instantly, countless eyes locked onto them.

“How did that server get up there? Looks kinda familiar.”  

“Who cares how they got up there. They must have a ton of fragments. Players from fringe servers aren’t that good. They’ll be easier to fight than other teams.”  

“But they probably came in as a squad. If we don’t know how many there are, we better be cautious. There could be other teams lying in wait too.”

—-

In a corner of the Roaming Zone, Slack Bro and Rich Bro finally realized that the number of small groups they were running into had dropped.  

At first, running around outside could still bait a few people, but now it was nearly impossible to find anyone. It felt like the whole Roaming Zone was getting emptier.

“Once we get on the leaderboard, others will start noticing us. If the four of us are together, people will think we’re a small team.”  

Little Bunny 123 closed the leaderboard interface. Getting on the board meant strength, but it also made others more wary, and their “black eats black” ^[1] ambush tactics wouldn’t work anymore.  

“The veterans who regularly play in the Roaming Zones probably figured it out by now.”

Zhou Sui: “We don’t have to be a team.”

Little Bunny 123 picked up on his straightforward meaning.  

“We don’t have to be.”

Rich Bro: “Huh?”  

Slack Bro: “What?”  

‘What the hell? We were just starting to enjoy this bloodbath and now we’re disbanding?’

—-

All the major fire server teams in the Roaming Zone were watching Server 3145’s movements, only to realize they’d gone quiet after making it into the top three. They weren’t making any moves to climb further up.  

That made it difficult for other top-ten server players to read their intentions. But as the number of Divine Fragments on the map reached 999/1200, some fire server players started getting antsy.

There was no way they were just going to sit comfortably in the top ten. After all, this game mode was ultimately about the fragments—the more you collected, the better the rewards.

Once all 1200 fragments were found, the roaming mode would end. But whoever snatched the most would receive the highest reward in the final tally.

In the lush forest of the Roaming Zone, undercurrents were stirring.  

In the bushes and undergrowth, many players were starting to move.

Like seasoned hunters in the forest, they were searching for prey. The sound of feet brushing against the forest floor mixed with the wind.

Players from Server 455 were hiding in a dark corner of the woods, watching others pass by. When a player from Server 3145 showed up in front of them, the commander of the 455 squad was the first to raise his hand in signal.

Anyone who had been watching the rankings wouldn’t ignore that server number—3145.  

Especially since when that number appeared, there were no other red dots on the nearby minimap.

“No red dots. He’s alone!” said one of the 455 scouts.

The forest was dense with trees. On the eastern side of the minimap, only one red dot appeared.  

Slack Bro noticed a red-dot team approaching from another direction. He turned his head and saw a group of people eyeing him like lions in the brush.

He gave a slightly awkward wave.  

“Hi?”

That one word shattered the silence.  

The 455 commander swung his hand down:  

“Attack! He’s got no teammates!”

The 455 players didn’t bother returning the greeting. Before they even got close, they started launching skills.  

The forest terrain was rough, and players started emerging from the underbrush like ghosts. The red dots on the map suddenly flared to life.

Slack Bro thought, Holy crap, they are this close? He quickly cast several skills on himself and bolted up a steep slope.

“You little punks, I swear I’m gonna outrun all of you!”

The swordsman triple-jumped up the hillside.  

The 455 squad’s attacks all missed—they had just thrown their skills, and he was already gone.

“Damn, this guy can really run!”  

“He’s a swordsman, and he’s got a movement speed buff—watch out for his teammates!”  

“With how desperately he’s fleeing, there’s no way he has teammates.”

In an instant, rustling echoed through the forest—the fleeing swordsman was way too eye-catching. He leapt and bounded up the hillside, running full speed without slowing, diving straight into tall grass whenever it blocked his path.

His wild dash made such a commotion in the Roaming Zone that many players who were hiding and observing the situation like cats in the bushes were drawn in by the noise and movement. One by one, they looked toward the 455 players chasing after the lone 3145 player.

With 3145 sitting that high on the leaderboard, who could resist going after a lone player from that server?  

Even if it was the powerful fire server 455 doing the chasing, wasn’t there still a chance to steal the kill?

The 455 commander quickly noticed red dots approaching from all directions. At first it was just a few, but the longer the guy kept running, the more players were being drawn in.  

He instantly sensed something was off:  

“Shit! He runs like hell!”

The Daoist’s AoE crowd-control skill was ready. Just as the swordsman leapt to climb another slope, the Daoist flung a binding talisman. Light effects circled and locked around the swordsman, slamming him to the ground.

“Got him locked down!” the 455 commander shouted—but before he finished speaking, a barrage of skills suddenly shot in from the distance!

Other players had made their move to steal the kill!

Amid the chaos of flying skills, a shield landed cleanly on Slack Bro. He quickly activated a bunch of damage-reduction skills and rolled straight into the underbrush. The 455 players couldn’t land the kill and instead got blocked by a storm of attacks.  

When they looked again, the 3145 player had vanished.  

Worse yet, they had taken some damage from being too close to the action.

“Did you get the kill?”  

“No! Who got the kill?!”

—-

Voices from different teams rang out in confusion, unaware that more people had mixed into the red dots on the minimap.

Zhou Sui and Little Bunny 123 were standing up in the trees, blending in with the leaves as they observed the players being lured from all directions.

Their four-man squad was only good for the “black eats black” ambush playstyle out in the wild.  

But once they got on the leaderboard, they’d be put in a passive position—every player would start paying attention to them, either avoiding or targeting them.  

That’s why sticking together in a group of four was no longer ideal for either luring or creating chaos.

The best plan now was to split up… and Slack Bro, capable of roaming solo, was the perfect decoy.

The minimap’s range was limited. While Slack Bro was baiting people, the other three kept just outside the map’s detection radius, tailing him.

They were waiting for exactly this kind of moment—fewer people around made for better ambush opportunities.

Slack Bro, barely alive, muttered: “Guys, they might not even end up fighting each other…”  

Little Bunny 123 glanced at the red dot distribution on the map. “We just need to fan the flames a bit.”

Zhou Sui’s eyes drifted to Rich Bro nearby—he was already ready.

Rich Bro patted his chest: “Leave it to me, bro!”

—-

The 455 commander led his team scrambling out of the bombardment zone. He was sure that swordsman hadn’t died—he’d seen a shield on him just before.  

But now, a crowd had gathered, and red dots filled the map. He couldn’t find the player again, and had no way of figuring out how many 3145 members were actually in the area.

“3145!!”

Someone suddenly shouted—and a blur with the 3145 tag flashed past them.

The once-calm crowd erupted into chaos. Skills rained toward the direction of the ID’s location.

In the densely packed crowd, some bystanders had been observing quietly. But the moment skills flew, everyone moved.

Red dots on the map blurred together. Now the 455 team couldn’t even tell whether the swordsman had died.  

They couldn’t pick him out from the mass of red dots, and couldn’t even guess how many players the 3145 group actually had!

The forest, dense with trees, became a mess. Players hid behind trunks in small groups, flinging skills without hesitation into the unknown.  

The 3145 number flashed briefly—then the forest exploded with chaotic light effects, leaves flying everywhere, and layers of skill sounds blurring together.

At this point, forget finding the enemy—they could barely make out where their own teammates were.

The 455 commander made a snap decision: “We’re pulling out. A brawl’s about to break out.”

He realized he’d fallen into a trap. They had been cautious about how many players the 3145 team actually had and only made a move when they saw someone alone. But now, with everyone crowding together, all potential enemies were just red dots—and the rest of the 3145 players could easily hide among the chaos.

There were just too many people!

The first instinct of the 455 players was to retreat. Large-scale brawls were too messy to handle. But just as they started to pull back, a figure darted past them—ghostlike and swift. As it zipped by, they caught a glimpse of the number 3145 above its head.

“There’s someone beside us!”  

“What are you looking at? That’s a pet!”

Charging through the 455 crowd came a green, grass-covered quadruped the size of a person, its hooves thudding rapidly on the ground. The only striking thing was the big “3145” number above its head!

The 455 commander locked onto it for a better look—and realized it wasn’t even a player.  

It was a horse! A beastmaster’s pet!

Pets could be named and set to display or hide their names. Right now, this one was proudly sporting the name “3145” and running wild through the crowd. But in the thick of things, all players from a distance could see were moving numbers—and it was nearly impossible to tell them apart by font size or color.

Someone shouted “3145!” and everyone turned to look.

“Crap—run!” the 455 commander yelled.

It was almost as if the pet had done it on purpose. Just as it reached the edge of the 455 crowd, a number of lurking squads in the distance immediately began firing off skills at the group.

Digits flashed through the jungle. Players who had been watching cautiously were now forced into the fight. The peaceful Roaming Zone instantly turned into an all-out battlefield.

In the grass, Slack Bro—already hiding with a sliver of HP—grinned:  

“Rich Bro, that pet of yours is something else!”

Rich Bro proudly looked toward the dark green blur weaving through the forest, so fast even he couldn’t track it:  

“Of course! That alpaca cost me 20,000 gold to capture—totally worth it!”

Worried the fight wouldn’t start?  

Plenty of ways to make sure it did.

Even if Rich Bro’s pet died, it didn’t matter. The real problem was for the 455 players stuck in the center. Skills began flying at them from all directions. Their escape route was cut off, and several of them took hits because they couldn’t dodge fast enough.

By the time the others realized the “3145” number was just a pet, it was too late. The battle had already begun. Now, no one could find the real 3145 player—only 455 players were visible, and they were bleeding.

Seeing the top-ranked 455 team taking damage, the rest of the fire server players jumped in.

A fight had already broken out. Everyone was in it now—what better time to steal some kills?

The entire situation devolved into chaos. The supposedly vulnerable 3145 team made a clean exit—leaving the 455 players as the new targets.

Player numbers all blended together.  

Up in the trees, Zhou Sui finally moved.

From the start, he’d had his eye on one particular player in the 455 group—someone always positioned at the center of their formation.  

And in Roaming Zones like this, if a team clearly focuses on protecting one person, there’s only one reason:

That player is carrying a ton of Divine Fragments.

A sealing paralysis skill landed instantly, locking the 455 commander in place!

As Zhou Sui blurred past, the commander saw the number 3145.  

This time—it wasn’t a pet. It was a player.

The 455 commander hurriedly used a cleanse skill and called for a healer.  

But in the chaos, the attacker stayed locked on.  

As soon as the cleanse was used, the attacker blinked forward and unleashed a combo.  

The commander tried to retreat, but in the mess of attacks from every direction, he couldn’t get out in time—and the scythe-wielder was already upon him.

[You have killed a player from the 455 server and obtained 20 Divine Fragments!]

A perfect cycle of surgical eliminations.

“What’s going on?!”  

“Boss is down!”  

“They’ve got more people—hiding in the crowd!”

The rest of the 455 players scrambled to find the one who took their commander’s head. But there were too many moving numbers. It was the perfect “hide in plain sight” strategy.

All they saw were clumps of other server IDs.  

In this cross-server zone, everyone was marked red. That made it nearly impossible to spot anyone from 3145.

While others were searching blindly, the four 3145 players were casually flipping through the leaderboard.

Which servers were the soft targets?  

It was written in plain sight.

And with many of these players grouped together, it only took one glance to see which cluster belonged to which server.

“This one! From Server 12! Killable!”  

“And this one, Server 66—high rank!”

After finishing off the fire server players, Zhou Sui returned. Little Bunny 123 had already sent him a list of high-point servers, complete with server numbers and player coordinates. From his perch in the trees, this seemingly idle healer had kept himself hidden the entire time—occasionally tossing out a heal to stay useful, but in reality, he’d been watching everything, gradually mapping out the positions of nearby players.

The game automatically splits up teams that queue together. The reason the fire server always seemed to have more players was because it had the highest population—more players meant more solo-queued individuals slipping into the same instance. But even so, no server could field too many players in one zone. The system’s matchmaking wouldn’t allow it.

That was why Zhou Sui targeted tightly packed groups first, rather than low-health stragglers. Popular servers had more players, and in a Roaming Zone like this, the smaller the number on top of a player’s head, the more likely they were to regroup and form deadly packs later on. Three were easy to kill. But if they got to six or seven—it’d be a problem.

Only when the teams were scattered and numerous could a chaotic battle be handled.

So long as they broke apart the strong servers early on, those groups wouldn’t be able to control the pace of the late-game fight.

Meanwhile, Slack Bro was sneakily flinging skills around the battlefield, and Rich Bro kept hiding while his pet stirred the pot and snatched kills.

[Amidst surging winds and gathering clouds, Server 3145 bravely seizes the championship!]

When the system announcement popped up, players across the instance were shocked. They scrambled to check the leaderboard—at some point, Server 3145 had taken the top spot. But even now, they had no idea where the 3145 players were hiding—or even how many there were.

Are these people ghosts?  

In and out without a trace—where the hell are they?!

Little Bunny 123 stood still up in the tree, casting buffs now and then, while watching Cycle of Eternity disappear back into the crowd.

He stayed motionless, eyes lowered slightly, silently observing the battlefield. Everything below was perfectly reflected in his gaze—especially Cycle of Eternity, who was weaving fluidly through the fray. The terrain was mostly grass and forest, and there were plenty of other players, but Cycle of Eternity stood out.

Amid the chaotic fighting, the weapon master kept repositioning, dodging splash damage from stray skills. If you looked closely, his movements weren’t random. Every sidestep followed the flow of his body—clean, instinctive, and uncannily smooth, as if he’d walked this battlefield a hundred times before.

It was a tactical kind of movement, lowering his presence—like a fish gliding effortlessly through water.  

And when the time came… he could strike like a fisherman reeling in a catch.

Little Bunny 123 watched him silently. His lowered gaze seemed to reflect only that lone figure—  

…And something in his heart seemed to click into place.

Zhou Sui locked onto the nearest player. His weapon morphed into a scythe—the easiest to use in this scenario. After layering on Serpent Venom Water and Incense Ash Fire to weaken the enemy’s defenses, he only used two main skills. While the enemies were busy getting chipped away by splash damage, he waited for the right moment—and then finished them off cleanly.

“Watch out! There’s an assassin!”  

“Assassin my ass! Who can move around like that in AoE spam?!”

Zhou Sui noticed the growing awareness around him. After killing one target, he immediately melted back into the crowd. He buffed himself up and used nearby trees to break line of sight. With Incense Ash Fire breaking defenses and Serpent Venom Water’s ticking damage, many players didn’t even realize they were low until it was too late—they dropped before they knew what hit them.

Some players caught on quickly, alarmed by their teammates’ sudden deaths. They scrambled to put up defenses—but the strikes from the shadows came too fast, too quiet.

Out of nowhere, a healer’s skill hit them.  

Then, their screen dimmed—  

They’d been blinded by a support control skill.  

And just as the blindness landed, another strike followed from the opposite direction.  

The second they used Dispel—

The screen blinked.  

They were gone.

“I just cast the blindness skill,” Little Bunny 123 suddenly spoke up.

Zhou Sui snapped back to focus and looked up toward the source of the voice.  

“Can you hold them?”

Little Bunny 123 lowered his gaze to briefly meet Zhou Sui’s. He didn’t call out a location, but Zhou Sui still managed to pinpoint him precisely. Zhou Sui’s hearing was sharp—within this chaotic battlefield, sound effects from skills were often more useful than eyesight in tracking information…  

Little Bunny 123 thought, His hearing hasn’t dulled at all.

He replied, “Just lock on. I’ll follow your lead.”

With confirmation, Zhou Sui turned and moved out without hesitation. As he started walking, he caught the faint rustle of leaves from above.  

The healer’s movements were light—but clearly, he had started tailing him.

The two of them moved in sync, maintaining a small distance. When Zhou Sui locked onto a target and layered Incense Ash Fire, a cloud of blindness powder followed from behind.  

The blindness landed just as he attacked—  

Proving the other had perfectly matched his timing.

Blindness compensated for Zhou Sui’s lack of rapid cooldown on crowd-control skills. Once this gap was filled, his target acquisition speed became nearly unstoppable.

“How’d he die?”  

“How would I know—I was dodging skills myself!”  

“3145! I just saw 3145!”  

“That was a pet! Open your damn eyes!”

In the chaotic forest brawl, players could barely keep up with what was happening.  

Skills flew from every direction—mostly from players of other servers. The roar of battle, swirling leaves, and dust clouds filled the air. And yet, something invisible seemed to be moving through it all.

Some players sensed that something was off and tried to retreat, but with skills flying wildly all around them, there was no escape.  

Those stuck inside the crowd couldn’t get out, and the players circling the forest perimeter—clueless to the actual situation—kept blindly flinging skills into the mix.

By the time they realized what was going on, their teammates were just… gone.  

An eerie, absurd sense of sudden, inexplicable death spread among them.

Amid the chaos, the leaderboard rankings shifted rapidly. The red dots representing players on the zone map dwindled.

Then came a crisp chime, and a system notification popped up in the large-scale Roaming Zone:

[Divine Fragment (1200/1200) collected — Roaming Zone will now close!]

When the zone closure announcement dropped, many fire server players were still dazed. They opened the leaderboard and shivered at the final settlement screen—  

Server 3145 had taken first place with 340 fragments, more than a hundred fragments ahead of second place—completely crushing the rest.

What the hell is going on with this server???

Even more confused were the players who’d died without even knowing how.

Zhou Sui didn’t concern himself with what the others were thinking.  

After exiting the zone, he immediately received his rewards. As the player who’d collected the most fragments, he earned a large treasure chest.

He opened it. A dozen or so tree-nourishment items (tree food) tumbled out—  

Several were purple-tier, rare and expensive. Without blinking, he dumped them all into Incense Ash Fire’s bottomless pit and watched his EXP bar tick up a few segments—  

Still not enough to level.

He turned to his teammates.  

“Keep going?”

Little Bunny 123 was counting his rewards too. “No objections from me.”

As for Slack Bro and Rich Bro—why would they object?  

This massive treasure chest was a rare drop!

The four quickly reached an agreement and queued up for another Roaming Zone.

This time, they entered a small-scale Roaming Zone, which was a much easier map for a four-player team. Their previous strategy of detouring and picking off stragglers had been time-consuming. This time, with fewer fragments and fewer player groups, they wiped out a few small parties and then—

Switched to ambush mode.

They chose a fragment-rich area to stake out.  

Little Bunny 123 stood watch over the fragment pile, while the other three hid nearby and waited. Anyone who tried to grab a fragment would be interrupted by the healer, and the rest would pounce on the would-be looters.

In a Roaming Zone, the zone won’t close until all fragments are collected—  

So they didn’t collect. They just waited for others to come.

To make their trap more convincing and lower suspicion, Little Bunny 123 even suggested changing outfits and equipment skins.

Seeing the lone healer with the fragments, the players in the small Roaming Zone rushed toward him—  

Only to get ambushed before they even got close.  

And since the zone couldn’t close, more and more groups kept taking the bait.

Over and over, it happened.  

Only four players, but they wiped out squad after squad like this.

The confused players only ever caught a fleeting glimpse of the 3145 server tag—  

By the time they realized what was happening, they’d either been crowd-controlled by a beastmaster’s pet or ambushed by that unpredictable weapon master.  

They vanished into thin air without ever figuring out how it happened!

In short—whether lured, baited, or ambushed—not a single one of them escaped.  

The fire server players in the Roaming Zone kept falling for it: one lone player would lure them in, and the moment they took the bait, they either dropped dead mysteriously or got dragged into a group fight with no way out.

By the time the battle dragged on, players started becoming wary whenever they saw 3145.  

They grew suspicious of every beastmaster pet and would shout “hold position!” the second they spotted that number.

But when they didn’t act, 3145 would switch tactics—  

No more baiting. They’d charge in and drop someone with a clean, devastating combo.

When the zone finally closed, 3145 was once again sitting firmly at the top of the leaderboard.  

Other players stumbled out, dazed and confused.

As soon as one Roaming Zone ended, another would begin.

Zhou Sui and his team only grew more skilled as they played. If they started out a bit restrained, by now they were just brazen.  

They adapted their strategies based on the type of Roaming Zone—  

Sometimes they would ambush jungle paths, sometimes they would jump into ongoing fights to sow chaos, and when the zone was emptier, they’d lie in wait to instantly gank passersby.

At some point, 3145 started overtaking all the fire servers on the leaderboard, sitting at the top in every match.  

People everywhere started paying attention.

“What’s going on with 3145?”  

“Why does that server ID sound familiar…? Weren’t they in the Tiandi Temple instance too?”  

“I’ve run into 3145 too! How many players does this server even have?”  

“I only saw four… wasn’t the Tiandi Temple team four people too?”  

“No way it’s just four! My server said there were eight! Stop misleading people with bad eyesight!”

As more players exited the Roaming Zones and returned to the main game world, they started flooding the world chat.  

Since the Roaming Zones didn’t show specific player IDs, no one actually knew how many players were really from 3145.  

Now that they were reading conflicting reports—  

They were even more confused.

It was worse than trying to figure out what the fire servers were doing.

Some people swore they’d seen a weapon master using a bizarre playstyle.  

Others insisted they were ambushed by a stealth assassin with a blindness debuff.  

Some reported seeing two beastmasters causing chaos with their pets.  

And others even mentioned running into two sword-wielding warriors sprinting around.

The more people talked, the more the list of reported classes grew.  

The number of suspected players from 3145 skyrocketed.

At least the fire servers were a known quantity—everyone expected them to be strong.  

But 3145? What the hell was going on there?

Wasn’t that server supposed to be a fringe ghost town!?

“I was in that big match—you know team 455, the ones who specialize in Roaming Zones? Their shot-caller vanished mid-fight.”  

“Literal disappearance! I was there too. That match? 455 dropped straight to sixth place—and that game had multiple top-ranked teams!”

Roaming Zones were the worst places to run into players you couldn’t figure out—  

And every time someone faced off against 3145, it ended badly.

Either you chased them and mysteriously died…  

Or you were quietly looting fragments only to get smacked out of nowhere.

Soon, world chats across multiple servers lit up as players shared their horror stories.  

Some of the uninformed ones were completely lost.

What the hell is going on!? This is one of those backwater servers ranked out of 3200! Aren’t those supposed to be dead zones!?

“Can’t you just gank them while they’re few in number?”  

“Hell no! Don’t chase any of them, even if it’s just one person! If you chase—you die!”

Plenty of players who’d been wrecked came online to warn others.  

Word of mouth spread like wildfire across every server.

As for the 3145 server, a poor unlucky solo player accidentally got dragged into the Roaming Zone.  

The moment he entered, he saw six or seven red dots on the map converging toward his location.  

When he noticed the message “[No teammates in this round],” he thought to himself, ‘I’m screwed,’ and figured he might as well stand still and accept his fate.

But to his surprise—  

He stood there without moving… and the other players didn’t dare move either.

He cautiously took a step forward—  

And the next second, all those players turned tail and ran.

The 3145 player, who was fully prepared to die, froze in place: “?”

‘What’s going on?’

‘Why did they run the moment they saw me?’