This kind of statement did not even count as bluffing. Of course, Feng Bujue did not expect the man to fall for it. He was just running his mouth. Shiva smiled in response and saw it as a joke. “In this kind of situation, you can still joke. Ha… I guess that is what’s unique about you.”
“No, psychologically speaking, I am building a psychological barricade,” Feng Bujue replied as he fired another shot.
“Is that so? This, I am hearing for the first time.” Shiva still evaded it with ease.
“That’s because I just made that up,” Feng Bujue said. “As long as I add in the term psychological, it makes me sound educated and mysterious, doesn’t it?”
“Humph… The joke shall end here,” Shiva said as his gaze changed. The next second, the six plates of the Heavenly Hourglass appeared and charged from behind to surround Feng Bujue, moving alongside the man. There was another weakness to this weapon that Feng Bujue had not realized. When the stone plates left the sight of the controller, they would become less sensitive. In this chase, Shiva had to place his focus ahead, so the stone plates were only arriving now. Even though they were late, at least they had arrived. The appearance of these stone plates meant that the chase was over. Feng Bujue also understood that it was pointless to run anymore. He would not be faster than these floating objects. At this point, he could only bet on a fight.
But he had lost the protection of Mr. Freeze’s armor, and Body Enhancement Spell could not be used for long, so how could he fight evenly with the player who was ranked second on the combat ranking? He did not have much time to think about this question because the first wave of lasers had started.
At that moment, Feng Bujue stopped moving, bent down, and kicked and somersaulted behind him. While facing away from Shiva, he approached the enemy, and the elbow strike came flying. Feng Bujue’s reaction was definitely a surprise. Under normal circumstances, the chance of the pursued player running away or evading was higher, but Feng Bujue went to attack from behind, turning defense to offense.
But Shiva was no simple character. He could evade the beam from the gun, much less this close quarter attack.
One sucked in a breath, and with a crack, Feng Bujue’s elbow snapped. Shiva chose to use his punch to aim at the man’s elbow, and to his surprise, his own fingers shattered.
“Looks like I have underestimated your fighting skill too…” Shiva calmly put his arms away, turned around, and followed up with a kick. After being stunned, Feng Bujue halted in midair, but the inertia kept him moving forward. When he saw what Shiva had done, he quickly reacted. Borrowing the force from the man’s punch, he forced his body to turn in midair and used the residual inertia to twist toward the direction where his enemy kicked. Shiva did not expect Feng Bujue to be capable of such acrobatics.
Brother Jue used this extremely strange evasion to brush past Shiva and land behind him.
“If not for seeing it in person, I really would have no idea one can evade a spinning kick this way.” Shiva smiled. “Interesting, this is getting interesting…”
Shiva suddenly realized that Feng Bujue was not as weak a fighter as he previously thought. It seemed that he did not unleash his entire expertise when he was fighting Todd because he had the bomb tied on his body. Actually… Feng Bujue himself did not know how he did what he did. This kind of lucky movement was not to be repeated again.
“If it’s that interesting, I have more to show you!” Feng Bujue said and activated Kyaaa!, whose cooldown had just ended, and he selected fighting mastery. After the brief tussle, Feng Bujue had a guess of Shiva’s physical level. He was at least thirty percent stronger than when he was in Body Enhancement State. With this kind of difference, and the man being under the protection of the Sorcery Weapon, deactivating the buff meant suicide. So, Feng Bujue used the skill to temporarily force the man back, buying time for him to down some potions to maintain Body Enhancement Spell.
Of course, in the battle earlier, Shiva had made some sacrifices. Feng Bujue’s left elbow was broken, and Shiva’s right fist did not fare any better. After all, the elbow’s bone was thicker than fingers. With that punch, Shiva’s right fingers, hand, and palm were all wounded. They were either shattered or broken completely.
Even though this was just a game and the sensation of pain was minimized, the human instinct to protect the body was hard to overcome. It was like a spot appearing on the skin. Everyone knew they should leave it alone, but people would be itching to poke it. Shiva had plenty of virtual fighting experience, but he had not reached the state of ’abandoning life and death, approaching the state of gods and demons’. Therefore, instinct made the choice for him. He used his relatively weaker left hand to face the attack from Feng Bujue.
In that moment, Shiva added a small trick. He silently added a skill to the punch. Even though the skill was weak, it was a multiple consumable skill that he had obtained when he was low level. He had kept it in his skill bar and used it now. The effect was to increase the power of a punch by twenty percent. On the surface, it did not look like it mattered whether he used this skill or not, but instinct told Shiva that this punch from Feng Bujue might be a trick. Earlier, Todd thought that he had the strength advantage, and that was how he was swindled by Feng Bujue. Shiva did not want to repeat that mistake. He was wiling to add in some more preparation, just in case.
This was the difference between an expert and a normal player; it was the same across all fields.
The devil is in the details.
Many small elements would collect to become a big difference. To get to the top, one had to be cautious of everything.
Bang!
The punch connected with the palm, and it made the sound of two beasts knocking against each other. Two seconds later, Shiva’s face was colored in shock. He could clearly sense a large wave of force rushing into his left arm. His bones were shattered one after another. The added strength from the skill was swallowed up like a boat in a storm.
“How is that possible?” Shiva gasped. Feng Bujue could not answer him because Brother Jue himself did not know what skill he had just unleashed. If he knew, he would have been cheering for joy because, in that crucial moment, he had randomly activated a powerful active skill.
———
Name: Tiger Pushing Mountain (Fifth Style of Iron Palm)
Skill Property: Active, One-time use
Skill Type: Fighting
Effect: Use the strong and brazen power of the palm to heavily injure the target.
Exhaustion: Fifty percent of maximum Stamina Point
Learning Requirement: Fighting D
Remark: Iron Palm came from the Xiang Xi Iron Palm Clan. They were martial masters. The person hit by this strike would die from internal injuries as the palm strike shattered their internal organs. The fifth style tiger pushing mountain—in the beginning, one is standing upright, with qi gathered in the dantian. Then one raises a single arm before the chest with the palm facing forward and pushes the force forward. One can call out “ah” to aid in releasing the power. The palm should be pulled back afterward. The palm strike is as heavy as a thousand kilos, pressing through the enemy, adding layer upon layer, until it pushes through the enemy’s body.
———
“Hahaha! Scared‽” Feng Bujue said with a haughty look. “This is the second style of Rocking Wave Palm, Roaring Seas.”
At the end of the day, he was a clever person, he would not say too much to expose himself. No matter what the enemy’s reaction was, he jumped back to draw open the distance first.
“I still haven’t shown you skills like Flow of the Sea, Raging Tides, Sweeping Current, Swallowing Tsunami, White Waves, Crushing Sands, Deeping Lagoon, Turning Mountain, Consuming Wave, Nine Days of the Storm, Ripples of Serenity, Rotten Stone, Bloody Sea, Sky and Heaven…”
He rambled through everything, not stopping to even take a breath like he was reciting some poem.
“If this style doesn’t finish you, I still have other skills, like the Eighteen Fists of Bowing Dragons…”
“Enough, enough…” Shiva said twice. He quickly swallowed a large health potion and used another Max Potion. Max Potions could be bought at the official shop, and the effect was similar to the one in Pokémon. “Stop talking nonsense. We both know that even if you can occasionally unleash a skill like that, you still won’t beat me. How about this? You surrender now and help me save some medicine. After the scenario is over, if you’re willing, Brother Jue, I will invite you to Brahman as one of our main players.”
“What‽” The first reaction for Feng Bujue was annoyance. He took out Mad Moxxi’s Bad Touch and the small Freeze Ray Gun, which had earlier he put back in the inventory. With one hand in each hand, he raised them toward Shiva. “Do you think I am someone who would bow down to others?”
Shiva was rankled and roared, “Are you ’****’!”
“Oh yes, I am deeply mentally unstable.” Feng Bujue laughed gleefully.
Shiva was stunned when he heard that. He thought, The f*ck… How did he know that I was calling him retarded?
“Phew…” Shiva took a deep breath and said darkly, “Don’t think I’m afraid of you…”
“Of course, you are not afraid of me. You just think things got a lot more complicated.” Feng Bujue had seen through the man. “If this continues, you will have nothing left to deal with Seven Kills, right?”
“I’d advise you to stop meddling into…”
Ratatata, pew pew…
Before Shiva finished, Feng Bujue fired.
“Hahaha…” A maddening and over the edge laughter exploded out of Feng Bujue. “Even though you say you don’t want it, your body couldn’t resist being so honest! Hahaha!”
What the… Shiva rolled to find cover and avoid the fire as he gasped internally. How come the system didn’t censor such horrendous statements!