Game of the World Tree-Chapter 536

【 SANDSTORM 】

The howling wind roared like a pack of wolves, sweeping fiercely across the land.

The guild flags atop the encampment walls flailed violently, with some even snapping clean off their poles under the relentless gusts. The sky had turned a murky shade of gray. Dust and gravel swirled madly through the air, pelting the tents with a constant, rattling hiss.

A sandstorm had arrived…

In the Desert of Death wherein an endless expanse of yellow sands stretched across the horizon, sandstorm like these were a common occurrence.

In fact, ever since the Desert of Death map had been unlocked, players had encountered their fair share of them.

However, none had ever seen one this intense.

Beneath the relentless fury of this sandstorm, the very sky seemed to collapse in on itself. The world dimmed to a deep, unnatural gloom as sand and jagged pebbles whipped through the air like arrows loosed from invisible bows.

Although it was broad daylight, the sun had vanished behind a swirling curtain of dust, and the landscape lay shrouded in a shadow that could’ve easily passed for night.

→⟐←

The designated tent area of Heart of Nature.

Li Mu remained inside his tent, listening to the roaring wind lashing against the fabric.

He glanced at the in-game system clock, then walked to the entrance. Carefully, he lifted one corner of the tent flap…

Immediately, the wind surged in with a deafening rush, carrying dense clouds of sand that slammed against his face like a torrent of rain.

In an instant, his skin stung sharply, and a suffocating sensation overwhelmed him.

After coughing several times, he quickly shut the flap and lowered his pain sensitivity settings.

In just that brief moment, a thin layer of sand had already accumulated on the ground inside his tent.

Spitting out the dust that had blown into his mouth, Li Mu couldn’t help but curse:

“This damned weather… what a waste of time.”

If there was one thing the devs of Elven Kingdom truly did well, it was replicating reality. But sometimes, in their pursuit of absolute realism, they seemed to neglect enjoyment to the point of inconvenience.

Take this sandstorm, for example…

Typically, a sandstorm of this magnitude could last half a day or more.

And during that time, players couldn’t go outside at all.

Otherwise, they’d get a firsthand experience of what “suffocating in a sandstorm” really meant.

With one misstep, they could easily end up dead and respawned back at the World Tree.

Well, it couldn’t be helped.

No matter how powerful the players have became, they still had to breathe like everyone else.

And in this kind of extreme weather, breathing the air outside was nearly impossible. Even Silver-ranked players couldn’t survive long in it as they’d suffocate just the same.

Actually, there had already been instances of players dying in this manner beforehand.

Li Mu sighed and shook his head in resignation.

It had been two days since the orc attack their camp.

After launching their failed assault, the orcs seemed to have lost their nerve. In the following days, they remained holed up inside Sandstorm City, refusing to come out at all.

So the players had resumed their prior strategy which was targeting the nearby tribes instead.

Li Mu had originally planned to lead his guildmates out today to search for another tribe to raid.

But now, it looked like that plan had fallen through due to this sandstorm.

Thus, the players had no choice but to hunker down in their tents, teleport back to the Elven Forest through pre-dug tunnels, or log off and wait until the storm passed.

Still, that wasn’t so bad.

With accelerated thinking, players could find a thousand ways to kill time in their tents.

Either binge watching videos, playing cards, doing homework, chatting, writing novels—whatever they liked.

With a 1:4 mental acceleration ratio, they could enjoy nearly triple the time for free.

But Li Mu had something else on his mind…

“The loot’s getting scarcer, and the whole group’s cohesion is already starting to wane. We can’t afford to stall any longer.”

He shook his head again.

The war had already been raging in-game for several months.

By now, this large-scale war campaign had lasted more than two weeks already.

During that time, high-value quests and plentiful loot had kept the players united and motivated, thus their morale kept growing stronger with each battle.

But as the war dragged on, things were starting to hit their limit…

Especially the players’ enthusiasm.

At their core, their passion was driven by rewards.

And now that there were fewer orc tribes left to attack, it was only natural that their excitement was beginning to fade.

What’s more, while the last battle had been a resounding success, many players hadn’t even gotten the chance to participate.

For them, it hadn’t been fun at all…

With all these factors piling up, the past two days had seen a surprising development in the player encampment as players had begun to leave the frontlines one after another.

Li Mu hadn’t expected this.

While their victorious battle had repelled the orc army, but it had also drained the players’ sense of unity.

Of course, there was an easy solution to this dilemma.

That is, they just needed to find another orc tribe to raid.

As long as there were bigger rewards on the table, players would choose to stay, just like they had a few weeks ago.

But the problem was, they had attacked the surrounding tribes far too hard lately. Therefore, most of the nearby tribes had already been looted clean.

The few that had somehow escaped being pillaged were now retreating deeper into orc territory, especially after their main offensive had ended in failure.

And so… the players’ spoils were growing increasingly scarce.

When the loot no longer satisfied their needs, it was only natural for some to choose to return to the Elven Forest or the underground to grind mobs.

Why stay here twiddling their thumbs?

Why not take this chance to go back to the Elven Forest for a bit of fun?

They could just return in time for the final showdown, right?

That was the mindset of many players.

The problem was, disbanding the group was easy—but regrouping again would be a different story.

This place was too far from the Elven Forest, and with the interference from Uller’s spatial restriction, even though the players had dug a five-kilometer-long tunnel using Crypt Spiders and successfully built a teleportation array in the north, its range and reliability were… underwhelming at best.

If the elven legion army truly dispersed now, there would be no way for them to gather back in the short term.

And now, this massive sandstorm only made things worse.

Thinking about all this, Li Mu sighed again.

Just then, a flurry of urgent knocks suddenly sounded outside his tent.

Startled, Li Mu called out instinctively, “Who is it?”

A fit of coughing came from the outside.

Cough, cough, cough…

“It’s me, Brother Mu! Ji Gang!”

Transformer Ji Gang?

The guildmaster of Autobots?

Li Mu blinked in surprise, then opened the tent flap.

Immediately, a figure wrapped in a cloak and face mask—both dusted in sand—slipped inside.

The wind surged in with a swirl of yellow sand.

Li Mu quickly shut the flap behind him.

Ji Gang pulled off his cloak and removed his mask, shaking the sand from his body as he grumbled,

“This sandstorm is insane…The sand outside is already half a meter deep. If this keeps up all day, we’ll be buried alive by tomorrow!”

“Yeah, it’s wild,” Li Mu agreed with a nod.

But he didn’t seem particularly worried.

After all, in a magical world like this, being buried in sand wasn’t exactly a crisis, as there are spells that could easily clear the debris.

“Here, have some tea to warm up.”

Li Mu pulled out a pouch of floral tea from the Elven Forest and poured a cup for Ji Gang.

Ji Gang’s eyes lit up as he eagerly took it.

“Haha! I knew you’d have the good stuff, Brother Mu!”

Li Mu chuckled.

“Alright, cut it out. Weren’t you and Little Salty Cat playing Werewolf just now? What made you run over here all of a sudden?”

“Well,” Ji Gang said sheepishly, “we were playing, but the topic suddenly shifted to the upcoming battle plans, and I had a few ideas. I thought about just dropping them in the chat, but then I figured it’d be better to discuss them face-to-face with you. Heh… plus, I wanted to surprise you!”

Battle plans?

Face-to-face discussion?

Li Mu raised an eyebrow in surprise.

But before he could say anything, another round of knocks echoed outside the tent.

“Ah, they’re finally here!”

Ji Gang downed the floral tea in one gulp, then wrapped a homemade “face mask” around his head and opened the tent flap.

Moments later, a stream of players bundled in cloaks and jackets began filing in one after another.

In the blink of an eye, the modest-sized tent was packed tight with more than a dozen people.

And their usernames?

All of them were familiar to Li Mu.

Little Salty Cat, HootyBird, Dōngdōng, Demacia, Stir-fried Tomato…

They were all covered in sand and dust, looking weather-worn and travel-weary.

Well, not all of them.

There was one exception—Little Salty Cat.

Unlike the others, who were practically caked in yellow sand, she appeared spotless, as if the sandstorm hadn’t touched her at all.

A closer look at her gear revealed the reason:

The dazzling magical robes she wore shimmered with a soft glow, which was a telltale sign of activated enchantments, likely protective spells that could repel dust and deflect the harsh elements of the storm.

When you’re rich, you really can do whatever you want…

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Li Mu thought, feeling a little bit of envy.

Little Salty Cat was the first to squeeze her way over, dragging HootyBird by the arm and grinning as she greeted Li Mu.

“Hehe, Brother Mu! Hope you don’t mind the intrusion!”

Right behind her, Dōngdōng pushed in, eyes wide as she scanned the tent while practically drooling.

“I heard there’s floral tea from Miss Alice here? Where is it? Pfft… damn weather filled my mouth with dirt.”

Demacia came in next, wiping his mouth and coughing as he spat out sand.

“Serves you right. Who told you not to wear a mask? Lucky you didn’t choke to death,” Tomato shot back with a dramatic eye-roll.

More high-ranking members from the major guilds followed, cramming themselves into his tent.

“Make some room, hey—you stepped on my foot!”

“Man, this place is so tiny…”

Li Mu’s tent, once quiet and calm, suddenly turned into a bustling hive of chatter and laughter.

Li Mu: “…”

He blinked at the unexpected gathering of top guild members, momentarily dumbfounded.

“What are you all doing here?” he asked.

“Hey, we got to talking about the upcoming battle plans while we were playing, and everyone started tossing around some new ideas…”

“This is your fault, Bro! If you were playing with us, we could’ve just discussed it in the chat.”

“Seriously, who talks about war strategy during a game of Werewolf? You people are insane.”

“Speaking of which, why didn’t you join us, Brother Mu?”

“Hehe, probably because he’s bad at it. And he’s a streamer, too!”

“No way—don’t tell me there’s a streamer out there who doesn’t know how to play Werewolf? In this day and age?”

Li Mu: “…”

The dozen or so players started bantering back and forth, the conversation rapidly veering off-track.

Finally, Li Mu clapped his hands to bring their attention back.

“Let’s get back to the point,” he said firmly.

The players exchanged glances, and eventually, Dōngdōng stepped forward with a mischievous grin.

“Brother Mu, how about we make a big splash once the sandstorm ends?”

“A big splash?” Li Mu raised an eyebrow.

“That’s right! Once this sandstorm clears, we go on the offensive—let’s launch a full assault on the orcs!”

Dōngdōng pumped her fist with enthusiasm.

¹ 狼人杀 – The Werewolf game is based on the The Werewolves of Millers Hollow boardgame, in turn an adaptation of Mafia, a classic Russian party game. In the Werewolf game, each player is assigned a role that belongs to either of the two camps: the Werewolves or the Villagers, the latter including ordinary townsfolk and special characters such as Fortune Teller, Hunter, Witch, etc.