There was a half-hour break.
Both Lu Ran and Zhang Zheng were in the break room. By now, though, the room was empty except for the two contestants and the people accompanying each of them.
The minutes ticked by, one after another.
Up on the stage, the various officials took a short breather. They were casually discussing the two players who had emerged victorious so far.
This year’s competition could easily be called the most peculiar and unexpected one yet.
The two finalists? One was a Necromancer—a regular class that had never appeared in the Hundred Cities League before, let alone placed. And the other had also never shown up in the league’s history. Though it was a hidden class, it was the very first of its kind to appear: the Earthbound Immortal!
And from what everyone had seen so far, this Earthbound Immortal was incredibly powerful! Even Cong Shuang couldn’t stand against it. Zhang Zheng had bulldozed his way through every opponent to reach the finals.
In past years, someone with Zhang Zheng’s class would have been the top contender for the championship. But this year was different.
Aside from Zhang Zheng, there was still Lu Ran!
And based on everything Lu Ran had displayed so far, the championship was practically his already. Sure, the Earthbound Immortal was strong, but facing Lu Ran’s instant-kill Blood Spear and his bizarre invincible, no-damage state? It was hard to imagine anything that could beat him.
Down in the audience, the buzz was louder than ever:
“I’m so hyped! The finals are about to start!”
“What’s there to get excited about? Lu Ran’s obviously taking the crown.”
“Not necessarily—that Earthbound Immortal seems to have a silence ability. If Lu Ran can’t cast skills, how can he be invincible?”
“And Zhang Zheng probably has more tricks up his sleeve, right? I counted—he hasn’t shown all his skills.”
“Skill set incomplete? And Lu Ran’s is complete? Look at what skills he’s used—just one Blood Spear, that’s it!”
“One Blood Spear to rule them all! My Lu Ran-ge is definitely the best!”
Meanwhile, the major families and factions were keeping a close watch too.
At the Cong household, Cong Yu looked nervous, glancing at Cong Shuang from time to time.
Cong Shuang knew exactly what her sister was thinking. She said, “Don’t worry too much. Lu Ran should be fine—unless his invincibility gets silenced. But nobody knows if that state of his is even tied to his skills.”
Up on the stage, the four guild leaders were lounging around, waiting. Unlike everyone else, in their minds, there was zero—absolutely zero—chance of Lu Ran losing.
Then, suddenly, Yu Qingcang’s communicator buzzed.
That was normal. At his level, the thing practically never stopped going off all day. He was in a relaxed mood, watching the match, and didn’t want to deal with any work matters.
Still, he glanced at it.
And when he did, he paused slightly.
He said, frowning, “Something’s up.”
Hearing that, the other three turned to look at him.
Yu Qingcang continued, “The Imperial City defense is under the Heavenly Dao Alliance’s watch. They just reported that wild monsters outside have suddenly stopped spawning.”
Huh?
The other three blinked.
“Monster siege?” Liu Xinxin was the first to ask.
This wasn’t unfamiliar to her—or to the others, for that matter. In fact, it was familiar to just about every professional out there.
A monster siege was a periodic city defense event. No warning, no fixed schedule—it happened randomly, but rarely, with a very low trigger chance.
For professionals, a monster siege was a blessing. Why? Because the monsters that took part had random levels, but within the same level range, they gave triple experience!
The siege also came in difficulty tiers. The higher the tier, the more experience you could earn!
From the data gathered over the years, the difficulty ranged from easy to the hardest, with the highest multiplier being five times experience and the lowest being three times.
Every time a monster siege happened, professionals would be thrilled. Teaming up to farm mobs was incredibly efficient!
Plus, the wild monsters dropped items. The drop rate wasn’t boosted, but there were just so many monsters!
And the elite monsters and bosses among them gave even more experience, and if you were lucky, they’d drop some decent loot too.
It sounded like a city survival challenge, but really, it was basically a public benefit event! Especially in recent years, as everyone’s levels and combat power had risen, the difficulty of sieges had dropped significantly. It was absolutely a win for everyone.
“Sounds like a monster siege for sure. If I’m calculating right, it should start in about three hours, yeah?” Ye Hongyi asked.
“More or less. By then, the Hundred Cities League will be over. If Lu Ran wants, he can go farm some experience,” Lei Tai added.
“There’s only a few days left before the cross-server war. These next few days, Lu Ran really needs experience. Hitting level fifty would unlock the Abyssal Bone Dragon, and that would be a massive boost to his combat power,” Liu Xinxin nodded.
They didn’t think much of it. Monster sieges were just freebies.
But while the others took it easy, Yu Qingcang couldn’t afford to be careless. He opened his communicator, arranged defense protocols, and instructed Heavenly Dao Alliance members to prepare for any contingencies. The city’s defensive shields were also readied, just in case.
Because although monster sieges were a blessing, over the years, some smaller cities hadn’t been able to hold out against the siege’s intensity and had fallen. That happened—it was normal. In some smaller cities or poorly located ones, many high-level professionals didn’t want to stay. The loss of local talent was huge, and that was often why sieges failed.
But in the Imperial City? High-level professionals were everywhere. The Heavenly Dao Alliance’s headquarters was right here. There was no way anything unexpected would happen.
At the same time, news of this abnormality spread quickly among the crowd in the square.
“Wait, seriously? A monster siege?”
“Great news! We can watch the exciting finals and then head straight out to grind mobs—it’s a jackpot!”
“Haha… Party up, party up! Anyone want to join?”
“Any sisters who are also Lu Ran-ge fans? Let’s go together!”
“It’d be so awesome if we could farm with Lu Ran.”
“The timing is perfect—this is the datafied world giving us all a public benefit reward!”
Everyone cheered excitedly. Nobody was worried about any accidents. They just saw it as a city-wide perk—after all, it had been over a year since the last monster siege in the Imperial City. What a great opportunity!
After finishing his orders, Yu Qingcang glanced at the sky beyond the city walls. He looked around and felt something was off.
The clear sky seemed to have darkened. Around the Imperial City, clouds gathered in a massive ring, slowly churning and condensing.
“I wonder what difficulty this siege will be,” Yu Qingcang murmured.
“Based on what we’ve encountered and recorded, the highest is level four. It’s easy to tell—we’ll find out when it happens,” Liu Xinxin said thoughtfully.
Just then, the match time arrived. Backstage, Lu Ran and Zhang Zheng both received the notification to start at the same time. It was time to head in!
