Chapter 279 - 253: Escape (Part 1)
Chapter 279: Chapter 253: Escape (Part 1)
And so, everyone continued to resist.
They all wanted to delay their exit.
The later you left, the safer you were.
After all, the moment the nobles appeared, the encirclement would activate.
The strongest attacks would come in the first few waves.
In contrast, it was quite safe here in the Virtual Space.
They had to hold out for as long as possible.
The rebels heard Jiang Xuanye and roared back in fury:
"Fuck you! You major families are no better! Your Jiang Family deserves to die!"
"Damn right! First, we kill the nobles, then we come for you major families!"
"The Wei Family, the Jiang Family, the Lu Family—we have a score to settle with all of you!"
"Look, there’s one from the Zhao Family! Get revenge!"
Zhao Chi was already severely poisoned, his skin erupting in large blisters.
But he was still doing his best to dodge.
Hearing their words, he knew he had become a target too.
Although furious, Zhao Chi could understand where they were coming from.
The nobles were a source of universal outrage.
Commoners were furious with them but didn’t dare to speak out.
Whenever the rebels managed to kill a noble, the common folk would secretly cheer.
The major families weren’t popular, either.
Each family was a minor power in its own region.
They often bullied and oppressed the commoners at the bottom.
People resented the nobles, but there were few of them.
The common folk at the bottom rarely encountered nobles, but they ran into members of the major families every day.
With so many members, it was inevitable that every family had scions like Cao Feng and Xiao Rui.
For them, throwing their weight around and bullying others was a daily pleasure.
In commerce, ordinary commoners stood no chance against the families’ influence.
They were squeezed so hard by the families that they had no room to survive, forced to depend on them and endure their oppression.
You could say the nobles were at the very top.
The families were in the middle.
And the commoners at the bottom had the lifeblood sucked out of them by both the nobles and the families.
The only way the families were better than the nobles was that they couldn’t just kill commoners whenever they pleased.
The families themselves were still considered commoners and were bound by the law.
The nobles, however, were not.
The nobles were above the law.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
CRACK!
Another cloud of gunpowder smoke billowed out.
Only six people remained in the center.
Yan Hu had transformed into a tiger man. He dashed about, mauling a rebel to death.
The bow and arrow in Jiang Die’s hands glowed white, the light from her arm blinding as she unleashed an endless volley of sharp arrows.
Zhao Chi repeatedly activated Paradise Fury, buffing everyone with Encouragement Technique and Thunder Light Technique.
The others were holding up fine.
But Jiang Die couldn’t help but let out a low growl, "Damn it, just die already!"
After saying this, she glanced at her own State in some surprise.
[Name] Jiang Die
[Morale] 52%→74%
[State] Movement Speed +22%, Terrain Adaptability +11%
"Hmph!" Jiang Die shot Zhao Chi a look. "I don’t need your buffs. How hypocritical."
"Hypocritical my ass! Shoot the healer first!" Zhao Chi’s skin was melting as he pointed a finger to the sky.
A flash lit up the sky.
CRACKLE!
The Thunder’s power was nothing compared to the earlier Thunderbolt, but the instantaneous strike could still cause half a second of paralysis.
Those rebels were strong; Zhao Chi’s Thunder Light Technique wasn’t guaranteed to interrupt their Skills.
But it could still create a minor hindrance.
Seeing the Thunder Zhao Chi had called down, Jiang Die turned her Arrow in the same direction.
The medic on the opposing side cursed, "Fuck!" and quickly began to heal himself.
Lang Hu charged up behind the medic and bit his head clean off.
But that was as far as he got.
Lang Hu, deep in the enemy’s ranks, was caught by a Fire Element and died in the resulting explosion.
Zhao Chi’s skin was rotting away. Though he endured the excruciating pain, trying to buy more Time, his muscles were also dissolving.
He struggled to hold on, but in the end, consciousness could not overcome physical reality.
Soon, he melted into a pool of blood and bone.
Jiang Die’s Arrows were incredibly fast.
But they were reflected back by an enemy Skill, and Jiang Die’s own body was instantly riddled with her Arrows.
She finally got to experience the power of her own Arrows firsthand.
The others were also killed off one by one.
Seeing that everyone inside the arena was dead, the dozen or so rebels present also vanished in a flash of light.
Only the terrified audience remained, trembling in their seats.
Zhao Huai and Zhao Jiao had been watching the arena nervously the entire time.
They wanted to enter the arena to help, but an invisible barrier on the low wall held them back.
Zhao Jiao said, "It’s no use! We can’t get through!"
Zhao Huai sighed. "We’re not part of the rebellion. We don’t have the clearance."
Zhao Jiao stared into the arena. "Forget it. It’s over. They’ve all logged out. Should we leave too?"
Zhao Huai shook his head. "No, we can’t. If we go out there, we’ll just be throwing our lives away. Besides, it must be chaos out there. We might not even find Zhao Chi and end up getting ourselves killed."
Zhao Jiao frowned.
Logically, Zhao Huai was right.
This was a war between the rebels and the nobles, and the rebels had clearly come prepared.
The battle outside was bound to be incredibly fierce.
Although the two of them were competent enough, in a battle of this scale, they were nothing more than cannon fodder.
It was safer here in the Virtual Space.
"It’s up to his own luck now."
Zhao Jiao sighed and slumped into her seat.
Zhao Chi also felt his entire body go limp.
Pain wracked his entire body.
But in the next moment, the pain vanished.
Only to be enveloped by a wave of heat.
A giant pillar of fire shot down from the sky at an angle. Above it, a Fire Dragon soared.
’I’m out!’
’This isn’t the Virtual Space! I’m back in the real world!’
Zhao Chi dodged with all his might.
The pillar of fire roared past him.
Zhao Chi felt his hair curl from the heat, the smell of burning filling his nostrils.
Fortunately, the Fire Dragon’s target wasn’t Zhao Chi, so it didn’t Attack again.
But three Elves nearby were caught in the blast.
Their fair skin instantly turned crimson-black as they ran about screaming, wreathed in Flames.
Suddenly, with a sound of beating wings, five Blood Race Dukes in black robes appeared in the sky.
They flew to the Fire Dragon’s side and began to Attack relentlessly.
"ROAR—"
From the west, a Venomous Flying Dragon flew in, its tail continuously firing off cone-shaped, dark green venomous barbs.
THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!
The venomous barbs struck the Sun Knights, who were bathed in golden light, but the Holy Knights paid them no mind.
Riding their Sun Warhorses and wielding their Sun Knight Spears, they charged toward a group of Hell Black Knights.
The Hell Black Knights were wreathed in Hellfire, their facial features dark, empty voids.
They all seemed to be laughing.
As if laughing at the Holy Light Paladins for overestimating their own strength.
As they laughed, the crimson-black Hellfire flared, melting the surrounding gravel.
Suddenly, a torrential downpour began.
The bodies of the Hell Black Knights immediately hissed, giving off bursts of superheated steam.
Looking up, he saw...
Two Water Dragons were approaching, beating their wings.
The trail of water left by their wings was endless.
It soon submerged the feet of the surrounding High Tier Elves.
The High Tier Elves immediately leaped onto the rock Puppets behind them, switched targets, and focused their fire on the Water Dragons in the sky.
A few Beastman Shamans breathed a sigh of relief and began to heal the Beastmen riddled with arrow wounds.
BAM! BAM! BAM!
Two giant beastmen, each over ten meters tall, appeared.
One of them crushed a Beastman underfoot, then brought its thick metal club crashing down, instantly shattering the rock Puppet beneath an Elf.
Shards of rock flew everywhere.
A piece landed beside Zhao Chi, sending up a huge splash that drenched him.
Zhao Chi cursed inwardly as he ran.
’What the fuck is going on?’
’I’m surrounded by High Tier Magical Beasts.’
’But it’s obvious these Magical Beasts are the subjects of various Lords.’
But Zhao Chi couldn’t tell who was fighting whom.
’Logically speaking, weren’t the nobles’ summoning channels supposed to be sealed?’
’How can the battle still be this chaotic?’
He couldn’t see Lang Hu or Jiang Die, or any of the others for that matter.
’They’re probably hiding nearby, or they’ve already escaped.’
’After all, compared to these High Tier Magical Beasts, we’re all as weak as ants.’
But Zhao Chi also felt a sliver of relief.
’Good thing I’m so weak. The battle is raging, but no one is paying any attention to me.’
’Or rather, they’re just ignoring me completely.’
Zhao Chi kept his head down and ran for his life.
As he fled, he scanned his surroundings.
It was just after 7 PM, and the sky was a deep blue.
The area was a wreck, littered with rubble and ruins.
The towering Virtual Arena was gone, replaced by a deep, scorched crater.
The Virtual Space and the virtual training grounds were separate; the Virtual Space was more like its own pocket dimension, not physically located inside the arena building.
The people still inside were safe.
Inside the crater, numerous charred bodies gave off a sickeningly sweet, burnt smell.