Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

“What’s the situation? What’s happening? Let me see!” Two men were standing atop a roof several streets away from that street. They were the Priest Young Master Han and Knight Brother Assist; the latter was wearing an anxious expression as he yelled at the side.

Young Master Han heard him and casually handed the spyglass over to him, looking thoughtful.

“Who the heck would start drinking so early in the morning?!” Brother Assist swept his gaze past the man’s right hand, which was lightly swirling a glass of liquor, when he took that spyglass over. They were at the tavern where he had been drinking liquor, so Young Master Han directly took the glass along as he went up to the roof. It was about 6:30 in the morning, so most of the patrons in the establishment were there to rest up; at the moment, not many were drinking in the tavern.

“An alcohol aficionado, of course!” Young Master Han answered as he raised that glass and quaffed it at one go.

“Are you planning to return this thing back?” Brother Assist took her eyes off the spyglass and asked.

“I already forgot who owns it,” Young Master Han answered.

“Tut tut…” Brother Assist adjusted the angle and asked, “Where are they?”

Young Master Han lifted his hand and jerked his head in a direction, and Brother Assist hummed before asking, “Hey! Where are they? Didn’t you say that there’s a whole bunch of them?”

“That was then. They’re all dead now,” Young Master Han replied.

“Was it Miles? He’s really getting stronger and stronger…” Brother Assist’s heart trembled slightly as he said this. It was no more than two minutes since Young Master Han last saw the two parties clash.

“You should already know this, but when going up against such commoners, he has never once gotten serious before. The phrase he often says, ‘Easy as pie’ isn’t just a jest; he’s sincerely stating the facts,” Young Master Han replied.

“Is that guy Broken Water Arrow?” Brother Assist asked.

“Yeah!”

“What stance is that?” Brother Assist was wondering when he suddenly yelled, “He’s on the offensive!”

In that moment when he shouted that, the spyglass was no longer in his hands as Young Master Han snatched it over and began to observe the clash.

“Bro!” Brother Assist felt like crying yet no tears came out. He was barely able to get a few glimpses in when all was well, but the spyglass was gone the moment something exciting happened; Brother Assist felt as if he were being bullied like a miserable and shabby scholar. Speaking of which, he was a Dark Knight, so he should not have difficulties taking down a Light Priest, but the problem was that he did not have the guts to do it. Even though the man before him was a Light Priest, his heart was at a frightening state of black.

Back on that street the two men were watching, the fighting had indeed resumed.

Surprisingly, it was neither Gu Fei nor Broken Water Arrow who had made the first move but Sword Demon, instead.

Gu Fei and Broken Water Arrow were focused on each other, causing this situation to turn into a duel. Sword Demon was determined to make his existence known, so he suddenly activated his Shadowmist Assault and dashed brusquely toward Broken Water Arrow.

However, Broken Water Arrow did not seem to be perturbed by this sudden attack. In that instant when Sword Demon acted, he made his move as well and swiftly took a step to his left.

Gu Fei sighed. While the distance that Sword Demon’s Shadowmist Assault could cover was what gave the skill its destructive power and impetus, it was also one of its weaknesses. Considering that this charge was not instantaneous like Blink, no matter how quick his movement speed was, it would never be quicker than a stab from an arm extension.

When encountering such a high-speed movement and the two-second invisibility for the first time, people would probably find it difficult to defend themselves effectively against it. However, after experiencing it once and being able to mentally prepare themselves for such an attack, Gu Fei and other kung fu practitioners like him would not find it to be as scary as that first time. It all depended on how Sword Demon would modify his attack, predict a response, and utilize that two-second of invisibility.

All that would require experience and technique; it was something that took Gu Fei 20 years of cumulative and methodical learning to cultivate such a standard. For a gamer like Sword Demon who had only played around with a mouse and keyboard in other MMOs, forget about playing for 20 years, Gu Fei did not even think there would be much of a difference in skill between Sword Demon and any random aunt that sold onions by the roadside.

Seeing the action Broken Water Arrow had taken, Gu Fei already knew better than to be too optimistic with Sword Demon’s attempt.

Even though Broken Water Arrow was focused on Gu Fei, the fact remained that he did ignore Sword Demon’s presence. Gu Fei even realized that the position Broken Water Arrow had chosen from the start seemed to be a precaution against an attack from Sword Demon. The man already had his eyes on Sword Demon the moment the Thief made his move, following his every action closely and precisely. In the time it took for Sword Demon to surge forward to him, he had consecutively taken two steps to the side – a clean dodge behind a pile of sacks stacked by the side of the street.

Sword Demon initiated his ambush from behind one of these piles, and Broken Water Arrow used this very same method to delay his attack. Sword Demon’s target was no longer in his sight, and the shortest path he would take toward him would result in him running straight into the sacks. As such, he would have to run in an arc or cut in at a certain point, forcibly extending the distance he had to cover. This in turn gave Broken Water Arrow more time to take another step. It was also very possible that the increased distance would be too much for the skill to last until he reached his target; that would indeed be a true tragedy.

However, there was no way Sword Demon would make such an amateur mistake now that he had a good understanding of how skills in Parallel World worked. Gu Fei was confident he had enough time, seeing how he continued his assault.

Activate my Invisibility, dash forth after rounding the corner, and attack his flank! That was what Sword Demon was thinking, yet he did not expect that, just as he was about to carry this sequence of actions, the pile of sacks suddenly began tumbling off one by one.

“F*ck!” Gu Fei could not help but yell out. He did not expect for Broken Water Arrow to do that. Gu Fei specialized in combat that utilized all sorts of technique and potential adaptations, yet he had never once thought of simply using the environment and items around him for a fight like what Broken Water Arrow was doing right now.

Sword Demon was all the more surprised by this unexpected development, but he was lucky that the falling sacks did not pin him down. He quickly dodged to the side, wasting more distance and duration of his skill in doing so. Wanting to double back, he saw that these sacks were now littered all over the ground and how Broken Water Arrow was still pulling away from Sword Demon by standing far away at the base of that wall. Sword Demon regretfully cancelled his skill, for he knew that he did not have enough time with the skill to reach Broken Water Arrow anymore.

“Dodge quickly!” Gu Fei shouted hurriedly. He did not think that Sword Demon would actually stand there and not even move after cancelling his skill. Just as those words left his mouth, a cold glint from Broken Water Arrow’s crossbow flashed. After having successfully distanced himself from the attack, the man had finally managed to maintain his balance and raise his right hand to fire the crossbow, attacking in that moment when Sword Demon paused.

Sword Demon tried his best to dodge this shot, but he of course failed to do so. He quickly turned around and headed toward Gu Fei – a crossbow bolt stuck fast on his forehead. Gu Fei gave a long sigh. He had witnessed too many instances of people getting insta-killed, mostly by his own hands, that he was already used to such an outcome; he really believed that a bolt from Broken Water Arrow’s crossbow would instantly finish off Sword Demon. Alas, it appeared that his attack was not that powerful.

“Hide to the side!” Gu Fei pushed Sword Demon behind a sack pile. Sword Demon was depressed, but he knew that he was of no help here. He was the dignified number one expert in MMOs of yesteryear, yet he now found himself to be in a state where he was unable to intervene in a confrontation between two experts in this game. What pain he must be feeling! The slighted Sword Demon shrank back behind the sack pile, even forgetting to pull off that crossbow bolt that was still stuck on his forehead.

Broken Water Arrow stood where he was, seemingly uninterested in chasing after the kill on Sword Demon. His crossbow was pointed toward Gu Fei once more as his left hand was back to covering his right index finger.

“Hey…” It was Coco’s voice that came through the party channel this time. “Should we help him?” Coco was a Thief, so she was capable of using Stealth. She was actually standing on the same street but was watching the fight at a relatively safe distance. The original plan was for Xi Xiaotian to come in and aid Broken Water Arrow in fending off Gu Fei, yet now it appeared as if the tables had turned, which was quite the blow to their self-esteem.

Sword Demon’s self-esteem was indeed severely wounded this time, but Gu Fei remained as calm as ever. “Do you think he needs any help right now?”

“I don’t mean him; I’m talking about you two, bro!” Coco clarified.

“Don’t disturb him; let the man concentrate…” Sword Demon quickly said. Broken Water Arrow’s crossbow was still pointed toward Gu Fei, yet the man was still chatting with Coco.

“Do your best!” Coco shouted.

“Shoot already. Why aren’t you taking the shot?” Gu Fei asked Broken Water Arrow as he shrugged.

“Where’s your Blink? Why haven’t you Blinked?” Broken Water Arrow answered with a question of his own to Gu Fei. The man did not shrug but just stood firmly against Gu Fei.

“Guess,” Gu Fei said. After using the spell plenty of times, his Blink has improved to the point he could reach a maximum distance of six meters. Broken Water Arrow was at least ten meters away right now. It was not that Gu Fei did not wish to use it, but that he was unable to completely close up the gap with a single cast. It seemed that Broken Water Arrow had predicted that this was his biggest trump card, though, as he was being cautious toward it. Naturally, this meant that Gu Fei should not let the man see through his intention.

His reply of ‘guess’ apparently agitated Broken Water Arrow a little. Blink was not a spell in common circulation, and the officials were particularly strict toward safeguarding the information of such high-level skills and spells. Broken Water Arrow had no idea about the spell’s cooldown or the distance it could cover, so he had problems judging why Gu Fei had yet to use the spell.

“Speaking of which, could the reason you’re not shooting at the moment be the fact that you’ve run out of bolts?” Gu Fei suddenly asked.

“You guess as well,” Broken Water Arrow retorted word for word, but he was inwardly shocked because Gu Fei had indeed hit the nail on the head. His ‘Six-shot Repeating Crossbow’ followed the make of a revolver, holding a total of six crossbow bolts within its repeater, where every pull of the trigger would automatically fire and load the new bolt housed within the magazine. With only six bolts within, every pull of the trigger sent forth a bolt. Meaning, he had enough for six shots in a single use. After the six bolts were expended, he would have to reload the crossbow, and with the need to remove the empty magazine for a loaded one, and the process of this was far more troublesome than the nocking of arrows on a bow.

At the moment, he had already fired three shots; Broken Water Arrow did not expect Gu Fei to be such a difficult foe that the shots he fired at that distance before would actually miss its target. Furthermore, the attack power his equipment provided was not particularly high; it was fortunate that he was going up against a Mage, so he believed he would be able to slay Gu Fei if he used these shots in conjunction with his skills.

Snipe! Utilizing this skill would increase the speed and damage of his bolts, and Broken Water Arrow was a little remorseful that he had not used it from the get-go. Gu Fei barely avoided that first bolt he fired; perhaps, there was a high possibility that the bolt would have found its target had he used Snipe with that shot. Meanwhile, the other two shots he had sent after was used as a means of misinformation. He knew that Gu Fei was an expert, so the man would have likely adapted to his attack speed by now after experiencing it once. He was hoping that Gu Fei would get used to it further before finally increasing the speed of his final three shots he still held to get a confirmed kill!