Chapter 1042 Reappeared Shady Trick

Camping corpses was a task that required skill.

To protect the players’ fragile hearts, there were many ways to revive they could choose from—revive on the spot, at the nearest city, nearest carrier, or special designated coordinates. They could even not revive and just go offline. Also, they could revive a maximum of ten times every six days. Therefore, camping someone’s corpse was pretty difficult.

In his previous life, the fact that Han Xiao was okay despite being completely ruthless was mostly thanks to this kind of reviving method.

However, even with so many difficulties, the players never got tired of camping the other players’ corpses. The more common methods were kidnapping, forcing carriers to stop, and so on. In combat mode, there were restrictions to logging off for the players, and they would be punished for forcefully exiting the game. Hence the kidnapping method. They would bring the target to the nearest revive point and surround the target. Forcing carriers to stop made the player revive on the same spot whether they chose to revive on the spot or the nearest carrier. Nonetheless, none of these methods could perfectly deal with the reviving mechanism. Even if all locations were blocked off, the target had to be at least online and not log off.

Hence, the only requirement for camping someone’s corpse to succeed was… that the target had a lot of pride.

And from the ID of this pal who made the post, which was [Daddy Is Proud What Are You Going To Do], Han Xiao could clearly feel his unrestrained sense of manliness.

In the post, this [Daddy Is Proud What Are You Going To Do], who was an army player, explained what had happened to him.

“Just some time ago, I was doing a solo errand mission in the free competition zone and came to a transit planet. I met a group of stranger players from another organization, and the moment they saw me, they attacked me without saying anything and killed me.

“I asked them why, but they dared to tell me that they just didn’t like my face! I don’t know about the others, but there’s no way I could put up with that. So, I revived on the spot and fought with them head-on, not intending to give up. These pieces of sh*t then actually really killed me time after time and finished all my revive counts for today. After that, they even private messaged me to mock me, f*ck!

“I was minding my own business, and out of nowhere, I got beat up. Who did I mess with‽ I’ve already posted the ID of these sons of bi*ches. My brothers, all of you are my fathers today. Please respond to my summon and help me greet their family. Let these *ssholes enjoy the bath of positive energy!”

Han Xiao looked at these IDs, which were clearly all American players of the Demon Race.

He then continued reading the comments and realized that this post had already become a sea of joy.

[Fast Horse: Shocking, agitated dude calls people father at the scene (っ°Д°;)っ]

[Human Hammer: I, your daddy, will avenge you!]

[Cold Sister: Senior keyboard warrior of thirty years reporting for duty!]

[I Can’t Take It Anymore: When it comes to scolding people, count on us.]

Other than these chaotic replies, there were also army players who were complaining about experiencing the same thing. It seemed this had happened to quite a lot of people.

However, not everyone was so stubborn. More people were just attacked by a group of players from other organizations out of nowhere. Furthermore, it was not just the Americans; there were players from other countries too, and not all of them were guild members. It was almost like people were hunting the army players.

Han Xiao pondered about the reasoning behind this.

He felt that this was probably a butterfly effect he had caused. In his previous life, everyone was scattered without the Black Star Army. Now, the Black Star Army was the biggest player faction.

The winds howl around the highest peaks.

From the responses of the players, this most likely had nothing to do with NPC organizations and was completely initiated by the players. Maybe some people were hostile toward the army players, or maybe the foreign big guilds worked together secretly. There were only so many possibilities.

Currently, tens of millions of players were swarming into the Flickering World and onto the universal stage. They started attracting the attention of all kinds of organizations. Tens of millions of people was just a droplet of water in the vast sea to a Star Field, but if they were all Immortal Grade B Supers, it would be a force that could not be ignored.

As a part of the universe’s ecological system, the players’ actions now would affect the others too. Han Xiao’s intelligence network had shown that more and more organizations were beginning to study the players, and even more were trying to use the players. The three Universal Civilizations had also moved the recruitment and studying of players up the schedule.

The fact that foreign players were willing to leave their own factions to join the Black Star Army attracted more attention as well. Many organizations were very curious about the source of influence Black Star had among the Immortals. Although Black Star was famous indeed, why was the top choice of so many Immortals the Black Star Army? They could not figure it out.

However, many players joined other factions too, so although the situation surrounding the Black Star Army was interesting, it was not too big a deal. If Han Xiao really had all the players in his army, the dynasty would probably have come to his door to question him the very next day.

“The other organizations did not target the army, but their players actually started causing trouble first.”

Han Xiao carefully read all the replies and discovered that the biggest group of people who hunted his players were American, Japanese, and Korean players.

Also, when they attacked the army players, they avoided killing any army soldiers, so it was clearly targeted at the players.

Suddenly, he had a thought and started searching in the forums. As expected, he discovered some anonymous posts that were censored due to the aggressive language used, which were about the players of the other organizations bragging about killing army players and expressing that they were indeed targeting the Black Star Army. They were also very arrogant, mocking the Chinese players they killed by name.

“Interesting, so that’s how they’re going to play.”

Han Xiao suddenly understood the reasoning behind this.

He was not unfamiliar with this method. This had happened among the players in the previous life too, also during Version 4.0.

This was a very shady method. The people behind this were undoubtedly the big clubs. Basically, they secretly gathered some of their local players to hunt the players of the target faction. Then, these players would be told to taunt and provoke as much as possible, as aggressively as possible on the forums, to trigger the rage of the target faction players, starting an insulting war. Afterward, they would then let people secretly guide the focus of the situation to race, nationality, and area discrimination, causing hatred.

The goal of this was to control their local players’ faction preference by creating collective hatred.

Since the players these clubs could directly control were very few compared to the normal local players, who made up the majority, someone in his previous life thought of this extremely shady and low idea to influence the normal players’ preference in picking factions.

For example, a faction had a million players, among whom there were 800,000 Chinese players and 200,000 American players. The American clubs would then start hunting the Chinese players, provoking and taunting to make the Chinese players retaliate and insult them too. They would then guide the topic into the hatred between the nations.

This way, the 200,000 American players in this faction would, of course, not be happy, so they would join the internet war. The clubs would then keep fanning the flames and making the situation worse.

The result would be, a lot of these 200,000 Americans would quit this faction out of their anger toward the Chinese players, and more American players would not want to join this faction. This was just one of the methods the big clubs used to manipulate the faction preference of their local players. They created hatred, and using that hatred, they increased the unity of the players of their country.

The reason for this was very simple—the clubs did not want their local players to work for the factions that the clubs of the other countries were in. They only wanted their local players to work for the factions they were in.

To normal players, the more players in one faction, the stronger the competition. But to clubs, local players represented cheap labor. Be it during normal developments or national wars, as long as the clubs made announcements, the normal players would most likely respond and become free manpower.

Normal players wanted to enjoy the game freely, which the professional players had to respect too. However, clubs and official guilds were commercial organizations; their goal was to gain achievements in the Pro League and make a profit.

Therefore, after Version 4.0 started in the previous life, with the Americans in the lead, some clubs started to manipulate their fans at all costs, using all sorts of dirty methods. This led to the forums’ environment becoming contaminated to a certain extent, so the mainstream factions of the clubs of the other countries would be weakened, and they would become stronger… Simply put, they were robbing leeks from others.

Only clubs of a very few countries did not take part in such things, and the Chinese were one of them.

The Chinese had always been united, and now that most of the Chinese players were in the Black Star Army, there was no need to use such shady methods at all.

“Tsk, the first reappearance of this trick, and it’s aimed at me. Plus, it’s from the clubs of multiple countries.”

Han Xiao thought about it and understood what these clubs were thinking.

It was basically because the foreign clubs did not want the army players’ forces to keep getting bigger. Otherwise, the army would have too many advantages among the factions. Not only would that reduce the development space of the other faction, but it would also give the Chinese clubs free manpower, which was basically sending money to the enemies, to these foreign clubs.

“Just as I expected, the army is too outstanding, so the Chinese clubs became targets. Although these foreign clubs are not targeting me, if I let them continue doing this, my leek farm might shrink.”

Han Xiao did not panic at all. Rather, he smiled.

“Isn’t this a perfect opportunity to strengthen the sense of belonging of the new army members that is delivered to my doorsteps?”

Why were the Alliance and the Horde so united? One reason was their background story and the game setting, but the more direct reason was that the players of the two factions were fighting each other all the time.

Creating a shared target—this was a great way to rapidly increase the sense of unity of a group!

“Discrimination is a factor in the real life. I indeed can’t deal with that right now, but I can target those main factions that you foreign clubs are in.

“You’re manipulating players through nationality differences, so I shall make use of the difference between factions.

“When the foreign clubs gather people to hunt the army players, their factions won’t reward them. Therefore, to them, this is just a matter between the players.

“However, if I announce a Bounty Mission, stating that as long as the army players kill the players of your factions, they’ll be rewarded, what will happen?

“At that point, your local normal players might even beat you up!

“How can those people secretly hired by the clubs compare with the eight million warriors of our army‽

“You wanted to play dirty? You asked for it!

“Hehe, since you people can’t be satisfied with peacefully developing your forces and play these dirty tricks all day, let me add more wood to the fire and make your business more popular.”

Han Xiao grinned wickedly, sat up from the lazy throne, opened the faction interface, and started drafting the Bounty Mission.

…

At the same time, on a private player chat channel, the high position members of the professional clubs of many countries were online.

Among these were America’s Devil and Key; Japan’s Hydra, Amaterasu, and Werewolf; Korea’s Kimchi and Triple Star Bomb; Italy’s Classical and Pizza; and Southeast Asia’s Red Bay, Island, and Titan. Many of the regular attendees of the international tournament were in this channel.

At this time, the topic these people were discussing was indeed related to the Black Star Army.

Just like Han Xiao guessed, as more and more players of the various countries changed factions and joined the Black Star Army, these guilds who were not planning to change their factions could not put up with it anymore. They secretly worked together and planned to restrain the Black Star Army’s rapidly growing player base.

“… The people on our side are moving according to plan. The public opinion part is still in preparation. The players’ emotions need time to be developed,” a high ranking member of the Key club said.

“The circumstances are actually beneficial to us. China has managed to win two consecutive years. This is their pride, and they have this sense of superiority, so the public opinion will not be tough to manipulate. Steer the topic in this direction, toward how the normal players of the various countries are targeted because the teams of their country did not achieve optimal results, then let the Chinese players insult us. This way, more anger can be created.”

“Actually, tricks like this are not difficult to see through. The players are quite smart…”

“Don’t worry. Players will be players. Once it gets to their head, reasoning won’t be important. The Pro League is a great conversation topic. It’ll be easy to trigger their emotions.”

“Let’s hope it works. We’re all in different factions. The biggest threat now is the Black Star Army. There are way too many players there. If we don’t weaken them, the Chinese clubs will have way too big an advantage.”

“It’ll be best if we can isolate them.”

As for the stand of the Black Star Army, it was not within their consideration. To them, all of this was just between the players. The NPC factions were just the background.

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