Chapter 259 - A Vicious Cycle of Death
“Stop with your nonsense and give me a hand!” Young Master Han’s focus was on the rest of The Black Hand mercenary group that was heading toward this mountain’s vantage point and did not even register Drifting and the other players presently with him.
“Drifting, let’s have a deathmatch!” Royal God Call quickly issued this challenge as he rushed forward before stopping in his tracks and asking, “Wait. Which one are you?”
Being an expert gamer himself, he easily figured out what was going on and knew that the many Driftings before him were the products of a duplication spell of sort. Still, Royal God Call reckoned it would be satisfying to vent his frustration on all the four Driftings.
“Bullsh*t! You clearly know which one it is!” Gu Fei shouted, irked.
Royal God Call’s question was really silly. Anyone with half a brain would be able to tell at a glance that Gu Fei had the real Drifting pinned down upon seeing the three duplicates struggling on the ground without anyone pinning them down! It would be too undignified of the real Drifting to fake this one so thoroughly.
After adding two and two together, Royal God Call cheerfully ran over to Gu Fei. He then chortled at Drifting, “Pffft! What a pleb. To think I’d see the day you would be in this state!”
Gu Fei felt like cursing the idiotic brat! He only had meager Strength as a Mage. Currently, Gu Fei was exerting all of it to keep Drifting pinned down. If his arm slackened even a bit, it would naturally result to Drifting managing to complete his incantation!
Royal God Call was still laughing with mad glee when the enemy Thief rushed in and Right Hand of Cool fired off an arrow. Royal God Call recovered himself enough to return fire at Right Hand of Cool after dodging the latter’s arrow. He was quick-witted enough to recognize that engaging a Thief in melee was disadvantageous despite being an expert and decided to focus on contending with Right Hand of Cool at long range.
“D*mn!” Gu Fei was infuriated by Royal God Call’s act of abandoning him. He had no way to deal with the Thief as his hands were still covering Drifting’s mouth. Gu Fei was absolutely disgruntled for getting himself into such a quandary now that Royal God Call was no longer around to lend him a hand. If he freed Drifting’s mouth, he would still be in trouble in the event that the latter completed his incantation.
Fortunately, ‘some’ members of Young Master’s Elite were rather reliable in times of crisis like this. When Royal God Call was lured away by Right Hand of Cool, War Without Wounds bodily slammed the Thief using Charge and plunged his claymore to the enemy’s waist diagonally just as Gu Fei was about to be stabbed by the Thief.
A pain-filled scream escaped the Thief’s lips as he was hurtled outward with the collision. He was right beside the mountain side, so he ended up tumbling down the steep slope; his scream echoed all the way down to the base of the mountain. Those on the mountain momentarily stopped their fighting to look down the mountain.
“That’s very cruel,” Left Hand of Love remarked.
“Yeah!” Sword Demon nodded his head in agreement.
“It’s too much!” Royal God Call quipped.
“It’s not intentional,” War Without Wounds feebly explained. He used Charge at that moment since he deemed it to be the most suitable method to alleviate the situation.
In the distance, the rest of The Black Hand mercenary group heard the bloodcurdling scream of the Thief tumbling down the mountain and stopped in their tracks to talk about it.
“What was that?” someone asked with trepidation.
“Sounds like a ferocious beast.”
“Could it be a pet?”
“Parallel World has pets?”
All discussed the matter as they continued climbing up the mountain.
While the rest were viewing the Thief’s journey to the foot of the mountain, the infuriated Gu Fei remained occupied with keeping Drifting pinned down. He could only do this for fear of the latter successfully casting Blossoming Crimson Lotus.
The others listened to the Thief’s scream echo about for a bit before realizing that they were in the middle fighting with one another. Left Hand of Love was currently beside Sword Demon, so the two promptly began exchanging blows in rapid succession. Royal God Call was beside Right Hand of Cool, and both pulled away from each other before firing arrows at each other back and forth. War Without Wounds returned to Gu Fei’s side to help him get rid of Drifting, yet Royal God Call anxiously shouted, “No! Leave that guy to me!”
“Go to f*ck*ng hell! It’s crunch time!” Gu Fei could no longer hold himself back from cursing Royal God Call. He was always minding his language due to his profession as a teacher back in reality, but life happened to deal him a poor hand this time around. Gu Fei’s sudden use of foul language only highlighted his struggle at the moment, so why would War Without Wounds not lend him a hand?
Royal God Call seemed to have vowed to take down Drifting himself. When he saw War Without Wounds ignoring his cry to stay his hand, he decidedly yelled out, “Young Master!” Ignoring Right Hand of Cool, he fired off an arrow on Snipe at the pinned Drifting.
“Wa ha ha ha! Trash! You’ve finally been defeated by my hands. You are still miles from being up to my standard!” Royal God Call was feeling very elated at an unimaginable level for having the chance to insta-kill Drifting, although the latter had already lost some HP from Gu Fei’s slashes and had been unable to put up resistance with his pinned-down position. Left Hand of Love was firing arrows at Royal God Call all this while, but Young Master Han was timely bestowing Heal on Royal God Call in response to that.
Against the combined might of six elites that included a Priest, Left Hand of Love and Right Hand of Cool were not foolish enough to fight a losing battle. Right Hand of Cool fired off a final arrow on Homing Projectile toward Royal God Call before making his way down the mountain, while Left Hand of Love tried to disengage from his fierce fight with Sword Demon but to no avail. The Thief Sword Demon possessed faster movement speed than his, after all. With the idle Brother Assist providing additional support to Sword Demon, Left Hand of Love met his demise soon after.
Right Hand of Cool’s fast movement speed brought him almost one third down the mountain in a short duration. Royal God Call wanted to give chase, but Young Master Han stopped him from doing so. “The enemies are almost here. Let’s get out of here!” The Black Hand’s players were indeed closing in on them as they spoke.
Gu Fei did not even have time to munch on an apple as he followed the rest down the mountain. Drifting sent him a message at this point, glumly saying, “I can’t believe you did that!”
“I’ve got no choice; your Magic Attack Power is just too high,” Gu Fei replied.
“The next time you do that, I’ll bite your hand off!” Drifting said.
“No, you won’t. You’re the number one Mage; there’s no way you would do such an ungentlemanly behavior.” Gu Fei chuckled. He felt slightly bemused by this. Would Drifting have been able to sound the word ‘lotus’ while biting him just then?
Young Master’s Elite rushed down the mountain. This mountain peak assault could be considered as a success, since they managed to earn themselves 3 kill points. Drifting might be OP, but he was still just a point to the system.
The six men once more hid in the land depression after descending the mountain. Gu Fei took this chance to rest and recuperate. As Gu Fei was about to fish out a piece of fruit, he recalled that his left palm still had Drifting’s saliva from covering the latter’s mouth. Feeling disgusted, he temporarily return Moonlit Nightfalls into his dimensional pocket and used his right hand to eat the fruit, instead.
“Where to now?” Brother Assist asked.
“Nowhere. We’re going to wait here,” Young Master Han answered.
“Huh?”
“When they can’t find us on the mountain peak, they’ll have no choice but to continue their search for us on the ground. Since this is a blind spot to that vantage point, they’ll be forced to search again in the areas they’ve searched before. Leaving two or three players on the mountaintop, they will descend to the ground once more, and then—”
“Seriously? It can’t be that easy, right?” They could tell where Young Master Han was going with this. Using this blind spot by the foot of the mountain, they could trap The Black Hand in a vicious cycle of death. Young Master’s Elite would keep killing the few members The Black Hand would leave behind while the rest searched for the six of them, rendering this whole match in a loop.
“Wouldn’t that let us wipe them out after several rounds of this?” Royal God Call asked, feeling incredulous.
“If they were NPCs, we would surely wipe them out like so,” Young Master Han stated, saying, “Since they are actual human beings, if they have the brains, they’ll surely guess our intention to attack them once more.”
“That’s true.”
“They cannot split their force evenly, and leaving three or five men atop the mountain is akin to gifting us free kill points—after all, even the number one Mage Drifting was unable to fight us off—so what sort of action do you guys think they’ll take?” Young Master Han asked. As they expectantly waited for him to tell them the answer, he said, “Stay tuned!”
“F*CK!” all felt infuriated when Young Master Han left them hanging.
Actually, Young Master Han did not intentionally keep mum about this. He just had no way of guessing what sort of desperate measure the enemies would take now that they were currently stuck between a rock and a hard place. His unfamiliarity with the opponents provided him no avenue to grasp their way of thinking. He had of course thought of several actions that they would likely take, so he could only wait and see what their decision would be before employing an appropriate countermeasure.
The Black Hand’s players panted from the effort of rushing back to this mountaintop from the distance, yet the six men were already long gone. They looked at every direction from the mountain peak and only spotted a lone figure blankly kneeling in a patch of grassland below. Upon inquiring, they learned that it was Right Hand of Cool. He ran down the mountain as they struggled to climb up.
Any average mercenary groups would lose their patience when faced with this sort of fighting style that seemed to toy with the opponents, but The Black Hand’s mercenaries were tempered through repeated missions set by the absolutely wicked system. This was nothing when compared to the ‘abuse’ that they had suffered from the almighty system.
As expected, The Black Hand was smart enough to guess that Young Master’s Elite would attempt another sneak attack. They knew that it was necessary to leave people to serve as lookouts on the mountain, but leaving three or four men was not enough, so they instead had everyone stay behind.
“Everyone, stay. Xiaoyi, Xiaoxi, Xiaoying…” The Black Hand’s group leader casually chose several men, “You guys, choose a forest each and carefully search through it. Report back immediately if you discover anything.”
“Roger!” The members acknowledged the command, went down the mountain, and headed toward different directions.