Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

“Tell everyone to get ready, it’s time to haul in the catch,” Young Master Han said.

Gu Xiaoshang nodded and sent the word out to her men.

“Just remind Oathless Sword once will do,” Young Master Han said.

Gu Xiaoshang chuckled, “I’ve already done that.”

————————————————————–

Disaster was about to strike Oathless Sword, but his heart was all aflutter, and it was obviously because Gu Xiaoshang had sent a message of concern to him. The people around Oathless Sword found it extremely admirable when they discovered that their guild leader Oathless Sword was still able to smile so naturally despite his circumstances. Traversing Four Seas had been routed to a point where it was unrecognizable that they were still a guild, and it was useless no matter who was doing the talking. Gu Fei had not even managed to acquire 100 kills appearing and disappearing mysteriously all over the place, but after that pyramid of huge rocks they stacked had collapsed, the rocks that eventually rolled in every direction caused Traversing Four Seas to lose a third of their forces. However, this catastrophe had yet to end. The study of physics had made it known that the greater the mass of an object, the greater the inertia involved. As such, these huge rocks were also rolling along quicker and quicker as they gained greater momentum rolling downhill at this time!

“Oathless Sword, we need to leave quickly,” someone beside Oathless Sword reminded him, and this player was one of the closest friends he had.

“Thousand Miles Drunk’s about to appear,” The joy Oathless Sword was still holding onto from receiving Gu Xiaoshang’s message had finally ended, as he now understood that it was Thousand Miles Drunk who was being valued here.

“Oh, who sent this information?” Everyone began to take in their surroundings vigilantly.

“Xiaoshang told me,” Oathless Sword could not help but chuckle to himself when he mentioned her name.

These intimate friends of his naturally knew about Oathless Sword’s ‘illness’ when it came to that person, and that was when they realized why Oathless Sword was able to smile like that. A single bead of sweat streaked down each of their faces: No wonder he’s able to smile so sweetly.

“But no matter how you put it, we’ve got to leave this place first,” Someone said. Oathless Sword was currently positioned too close to the battle. Even though the disaster with the huge rocks had rippled out to affect even the spectators, Oathless Sword had yet to come into direct contact with it yet. However, everybody could tell it was only a matter of time before they reach them seeing how all the rocks tumbled indiscriminately. As such, this had prompted all these players around them to begin their evacuation away from the battlefield!

“Let’s go!” Oathless Sword concentrated hard to not think about Gu Xiaoshang as he led his men and start to withdraw as well.

Looking all around, Oathless Sword saw many of his guild members running helter-skelter. It was only at that moment when he thought of their distress and wanted to say something to console everyone in the guild channel, but he had no idea what he should say. As the saying went: A rout was like a landslide. What words could he say that would help tidy up the mess?

Oathless Sword was completely out of any schemes by this time, when he suddenly heard his comrades beside him yell, “There’s an Assassin!” A whole crowd of players quickly came running over and draw close around Oathless Sword in his defense. A single black figure appeared in front of them at the same time, and the player it struck immediately turned into a shaft of white light. Having created a path straight to Oathless Sword, this figure did not relent in its assault at all. Dashing right in, it soon became apparent that the player’s sacrifice before had mitigated most of the damage. Oathless Sword fell to the ground from the impact of the blow, but he did not die from it.

Heals from Priests showered upon Oathless Sword. When talking about a squad with a balanced job class composition, the group of players that tightly surrounded Oathless Sword was no doubt the most elite bunch. They had people with the ability to detect Stealth, which was how they had anticipated Sword Demon’s sneak attack and were able to rapidly deploy themselves to protect Oathless Sword. Were it not for the overpowered Shadowmist Assault that Sword Demon possessed, there would most likely have been no need for any of them to lose their lives in this attack.

However, losing that one person did not really shake these men much. Their eyes were all gathered on Sword Demon, and the person who first announced that a Stealthed player was near quickly reminded everyone, “Be careful, there’s still another one here in the 4 o’clock direction!”

The clock position method.

The greatest advantage that came with using such a method was that the 12 o’clock direction was different for everyone. At this time, even though Sword Demon also knew how to interpret the clock position method, as well as hear who was the one called out his 4 o’clock position, he had no idea which 4 o’clock direction this was, because he had no idea what was the 12 o’clock direction that Oathless Sword and his men would habitually take reference from.

In the meantime, their Mage had already tossed out an AoE spell right in the 4 o’clock direction that they knew.

As the fiery glow ignited, a lone figure had similarly darted out from the affected area. Yan Xiaozhu had no choice but to abandon her Stealth at this time, the look of slight amazement was affixed on her face. This was not the first time she had been exposed to a skill that could detect Stealth, but this was definitely the first time that she came across something that would so accurately determine her position in the process.

“Sword Demon, is there a need for us to do this?” Oathless Sword glumly asked.

Of course, Sword Demon had no deep animosity toward Oathless Sword, so he pulled off the cloth that covered his face as he smiled at Oathless Sword, “It’s all part of the content that the game has put out, so I hope guild leader Oathless will not take offense to this.”

“I know, but we’re already good friends. Meeting in such a fashion would really make things a little awkward,” Oathless Sword had pulled out the relationship card.

However, Sword Demon did not appear to be moved. Instead, he solemnly reminded Oathless Sword, “Guild leader Oathless, you better not pull your punches, otherwise our victory would hardly be seen as elegant.”

“Sword Demon bro—”

“Guild leader Oathless,” Sword Demon interrupted what Oathless Sword was saying, but he sounded earnest. “If you keep on talking like this, the skill I just used would have finished its cooldown.”

At the end of the day, Sword Demon was an honorable and principled person. He would hardly have been moved if Oathless Sword had really wanted to attempt to bribe him with any sort of benefits, but playing the relationship card and appealing to his emotions would have poked a pretty critical soft spot of his. But while Oathless Sword had originally wanted to take the time to have a chat, Sword Demon was also using this time to earn more time for his Shadowmist Assault to finish its cooldown. However, directly revealing this hand to Oathless Sword had also expressed his intention to continue with this mission that he had gotten at the same time.

Oathless Sword found the way Sword Demon conduct himself to be very admirable, so he nodded, “Then I’m sorry, we’ll have to offend each other like this.”

They were not exactly afraid of Sword Demon. While that ghost-like skill of his was really frightening, but because Sword Demon had just revealed that it was on cooldown, everyone immediately used this opening to pounce on him. None of them believed that they would be able to avoid that indomitable skill he possessed, so their best option here was to finish off Sword Demon before his cooldown ended.

As all of them dashed forward, Sword Demon turned around and ran off instead. Aside from Blink, there was nothing else out there that could allow a player to instantaneously catch up to him, considering the movement speed that he possessed. Oathless Sword and his squad were soon in tears after taking several steps on their chase. Sword Demon might conduct himself very honorably, but this style of fighting was anything but honorable. Now that he had run off like this, everyone will have to spend quite some time giving chase, and that would be giving him time to finish his skill cooldown. Whoever was the fastest to chase after Sword Demon would undoubtedly be the first to die in the moment he counterattacked!

Despite being an elite squad from Traversing Four Seas, their numbers were not great, so there was no way that they could try to execute a large encirclement and trap Sword Demon within. They tried to call out for additional support in the guild channel to no avail, seeing as everyone was busy escaping with their own lives and could hardly care to take note of the messages appearing in the guild channel. At the end of the day, it was still Gale Force and Youthful Reflection, the two core members of the guild, who were more concerned with the bigger picture pertaining to the guild. The moment that they saw that these cries of help came from Oathless Sword, they quickly responded, “What’s the situation!?”

“We bumped into Sword Demon. That guy is attempting to kite us to death. Quick, bring some men over and assist us.” Oathless Sword quickly said as he sent a set of coordinates along with it.

Youthful Reflection had just died all by himself and was sent back to the encampment, but there were many other players from Traversing Four Seas who had similarly died and respawned, so he quickly began reorganizing the squads as he soothed emotions. Gale Force had not died yet, plus he was leading a small squad of his own that was currently in the process of evacuation as they avoided the rockslide disaster in the area. The moment he received Oathless Sword’s message, he immediately raised his arm and hollered, “The enemy has revealed themselves. Everyone, to me!”

Oathless Sword, Youthful Reflection and Gale Force were the three core players of Traversing Four Seas. The three of them each had different unique characteristics, which were having a huge ego, coming up with half-baked schemes and combativeness, respectively. These formed the three pillars of the guild and of course, the three of them had each gathered a bosom squad of their own who would often be found together be it grinding, questing or PK-ing.

Meanwhile, each squad’s personality differed greatly in accordance with the unique characteristic of their leader. Oathless Sword was their guild leader, so it would be more convenient for him to utilize guild resources, easily allowing him to gather a team of elite experts by his side. And adding to his habit of a burgeoning ego, his squad was the one with the greatest sense of self-importance, but they naturally also possessed the ability to walk the walk and talk the talk. Then there was Youthful Reflection; the squad of men he led was influenced by his leadership, each of them was full of ideas. Ignoring just how viable their schemes and stratagems ultimately were, they were simply very imaginative when it came to creating ideas. As for Gale Force, the squad he had gathered was just a bunch of ruffians who enjoyed sparring and PK. Oathless Sword’s squad was theoretically the most elite when comparing in-game stats and the ilk, demonstrating a high level of coordinated proficiency; which meant they were indeed the strongest out of everyone in Traversing Four Seas when they were fighting BOSSes or anything the system threw at them. However, when talking about PKing and other situations that required high adaptability to a myriad of changes, even Oathless Sword’s squad would be quite afraid of the combat strength that Gale Force’s squad possessed.

Upon hearing that Gale Force and his men were rushing over, and they were not too far off in the distance either, Oathless Sword finally let loose a sigh of relief as he told the people around him, “Gale Force is coming over now, so hang in there everyone! If you really can’t hold on any longer… just try and drag things out as best as you can.”

Everyone clearly understood the meaning behind what Oathless Sword had said. ‘If you really can’t hold on any longer… just try and drag things out as best as you can’ meant they should all be prepared to be meatshields and protect him in the worst-case scenario. Everybody nodded, none of them especially unhappy with what he meant. After all, these men were all quite close with Oathless Sword, and they know Oathless Sword was not afraid of death. The main issue was his worry about the impact of the assassination mission that Gu Fei had gotten a hold of, and wondered if dying as a result of this would harm the guild in any sense. If this was an individually motivated action on Thousand Miles Drunk or Sword Demon’s end, Oathless Sword would definitely have egotistically offered to have a duel to decide the matter. Getting slain by Thousand Miles Drunk in one to one combat was hardly anything shameful. On the contrary, daring to take the initiative to challenge Thousand Miles Drunk to a duel was something worth publicizing.

Sword Demon continued to run even as he took note of the position of Oathless Sword and his men. Was he trying to drag things out for his Shadowmist Assault’s cooldown to end? That was indeed one such possibility, but Sword Demon’s style of fighting was nothing so monotonous. A strong skill and his own lethality was but one method, while the existence of possessing such a skill and the threat it held against the enemy would work to restrain them. Take the current situation for example: no matter how much Oathless Sword and the others repositioned and ran, there would always be someone standing between Sword Demon and Oathless Sword protecting him, and that was all thanks to the work of Shadowmist Assault restraining them. If that was not the case, the dignified Warrior Oathless Sword would never have acted so reservedly when going up against a mere Assassin.

Sword Demon led them all circling the place twice, and discovered that none of their positions was messed up because of it. In a sense, this elite squad of Traversing Four Seas could also be said to be the most elite bunch in Yunduan City, so taking on all of them solo would be extremely difficult. Were it not for his Shadowmist Assault, Sword Demon probably stood no chance going toe to toe with them. As he contemplated this at breadth, he kept searching for an opportunity to strike. The cooldown for Shadowmist Assault had already ended, but Sword Demon did not immediately use it. Firstly, he had no intentions for the enemy to grasp his cooldown times, and secondly, no matter how powerful that skill was, he still had to find the right chance to unleash it. If he were to dash right in with the skill and insta-kill someone, would he not just be sending himself to his death when he ended up getting surrounded by the enemy once Shadowmist Assault ended?

With both parties chasing and fleeing respectively, it was like Yan Xiaozhu had been collectively forgotten and had been left standing there all alone by herself. Oathless Sword and the others did not recognize her, and none of them even knew that she was actually a highly ranked Thief on the leaderboards as well. All they saw was that she was a lady and just assumed that she was someone insignificant. Evidently, this was not the first time that Yan Xiaozhu had experienced such treatment, but she was still feeling very despondent over this. She was now hellbent on showing these people a bit of her prowess.

Accompanying everyone’s movements, Yan Xiaozhu suddenly activated her Fleetfoot and closed in on the squad. The old veteran Sword Demon felt such a move was far too rash on her part; he simply could not believe that this group of experts that ran with Oathless Sword would actually completely forget that there was still a lady here, so he quickly called out, “Be careful.”

“Take that!” Yan Xiaozhu was rather delighted. But sure enough, Oathless Sword and his squad were already prepared. The moment they saw the lady sprinting over, all of them suddenly slowed their pace down and turned around to counter her charge with their own. With someone flanking her from both left and right, Yan Xiaozhu had not even realized what was going on when she suddenly found herself surrounded in their midst.

No one even spoke a word to her as their Mage tossed his AoE spell over straight away. Yan Xiaozhu immediately sought to evade the incoming spell, but the people who kept her surrounded held their position without budging an inch. The squad had quickly gotten into position and formed up this encirclement motion that they were familiar with, effectively blocking all possible paths for her to retreat. There was no more time for Yan Xiaozhu to change her trajectory of movement anymore, so her only option was to pounce upon a target and fight it out. As soon as she neared the target, Yan Xiaozhu waved her hand out in a sweeping motion and dispersed a fog of green powder.

None of these men, which included Oathless Sword, had ever seen such a skill before, so they were not in the least bit prepared for it. The player who got hit with the powder went rigid, as his sight instantly went dark. This man immediately opened his mouth and reported his current condition to everyone, “I’ve gone blind!!”

“Blindness? Is that Yan Xiaozhu?” Someone exclaimed. Traversing Four Seas’ information network was nothing to be scoffed at, and they took special care to collect information on the various experts in Parallel World. Beyond just attempting to recruit them, they could also use it to recreate them as hypothesized enemies. Even though none of them had met Yan Xiaozhu in person, they were all aware that this female Thief possessed a skill that no other player had gotten a hold of to date: Blindness.

This was a simulated world after all, so this one Blindness really left its target sightless. Of course, would that not mean that the target would have no means to defend against the impending flurry of cuts? The applicability of this skill made it very strong, and plenty of Thieves were envious of it.

Even though Yan Xiaozhu had blinded someone, because that man had been positioned to block her from getting past, she did not have enough time to make her escape from the encirclement before the AoE spell from that the Mage connected. Everyone could see just how well coordinated the players in this squad were from this one spell, landing upon that area with such precision that it fitted the entire circle of men that enclosed the area perfectly. These men had positioned themselves so accurately that not a single one of them suffered even a single digit of damage even as Yan Xiaozhu stood in the fire and burned inside.

Nevertheless, a single spell was not enough to kill off Yan Xiaozhu, and by abusing the fact that the man in front of her was blinded, she very deftly circled right past him. That was when she heard the sound of piercing wind coming from behind her as an arrow from an Archer came speeding right for her. Yan Xiaozhu was not Gu Fei, so she was unable to determine where the arrow was coming from, much less have as quick of a reaction to dodge it. She subconsciously wanted to duck the moment she heard the sound, but her movement was not executed cleanly. The arrow managed to find its way into her shoulder, and this shot caused her to stagger from the blow. Thus, it could be seen just how powerful that one shot had been.

Oathless Sword had temporarily forgotten about Sword Demon at this time, and just as they were about to slay Yan Xiaozhu, Sword Demon figured that he had no choice but to make his move at this moment, so he came streaking out with his Shadow Mist Assault. No matter how powerful his targets were, none would be able to survive this attack of his, insta-killing the target on the spot. Sword Demon now found himself in the midst of Oathless Sword and his circle of men with few options left. As such, he decided to dart right over to Oathless Sword and make an attempt for his life without a moment of hesitation.

This method of besieging Wei to rescue Zhao ¹ would have no choice but to force the hand of the other party, which meant Oathless Sword’s squad had to give up on trying to kill Yan Xiaozhu as they returned back to redirect their efforts on Sword Demon. Sword Demon knew that escaping from this encirclement after forcing his way in like he had done was not going to be an easy task. And sure enough, just as he had expected, the enemy very swiftly closed in on him and surrounded him most efficiently. Oathless Sword personally led the attack, barking out a burst of cool laughter when everyone reminded him to be careful, “That skill he just used would surely have a bit of cooldown, am I right, Brother Sword Demon?” It seems like the foolishly egotistical personality of their leader was rearing its ugly head once more.

It looked like Sword Demon had not wasted his time with his demonic training after all. At this moment, he found himself in a one versus many scenario, and he was still able to put up a semblance of a fight against them. Except, he was not yet skilled enough to evade everything that the encirclement threw at him. So he could only focus on avoiding the deadly attacks while bearing the lighter attacks, doing his very best to buy for time as he searched for a chance for him to escape from his current predicament. Sword Demon was definitely not someone who would give up after being forced into a dangerous position.

When Yan Xiaozhu saw how Sword Demon was being surrounded, she quickly turned around and came to make a rescue attempt. Oathless Sword casually pointed at a player and got him to deal with the lady; Yan Xiaozhu might be highly ranked on the leaderboard, but aside from the Blindness skill that was unique to her and the other decent equipment she had on, the experts on Traversing Four Seas’ side were not too shabby either. The PK skill for these two followed the same style that the players would possess, so neither held the upper hand over the other. Thus, the outcome of their fight was undecided in that short time that passed when the two clashed.

The coordination of Oathless Sword and his squad was tight-knit, and there was hardly any space for someone to make a break from it. Sword Demon carefully dodged and retaliated, remaining attentive as he held on. I’ll endure until the cooldown for my Shadowmist Assault ends. Since Oathless Sword is just right in front of me now, I’ll be able to kill him in one fatal blow, Sword Demon thought to himself quietly.

However, while Oathless Sword was egoistic and arrogant, he was no fool. After displaying several minutes of his prowess, he immediately backed away and began shouting over to the man who was busy contending with Yan Xiaozhu, “Come on over and let me substitute you.”

When Sword Demon saw that the little plan that he came up with would not have any chance of coming to fruition, all he could do was secretly sigh to himself. Going one against many and meeting this level of experts, the strength I currently possess is just not up to par yet!

Just as he was feeling helpless about his circumstance, his ears picked up Gu Fei’s voice, and it steadied the anxiety he was feeling in his heart, “Sword Demon, you better leave some for me!!!!”

Oathless Sword had just pulled away from the crowd and had gone to take on Yan Xiaozhu. The moment he heard that voice, he turned back and saw Gu Fei coming out from the side where the evacuees originated, killing his way through. Oathless Sword could not help but yelp as he very nimble returned back within the safety of his squad. This time, he no longer dared to act all arrogant as he quickly gave the command, “Quick, gather round and block him!!”

At the same time, he sent out a message to Gale Force, “F*ck, why aren’t you here yet!? Thousand Miles Drunk is already here!!!!”

Gale Force was rather dispirited as well, “How can we compete with him when it comes to movement speed?”

“Hurry!” It was now Oathless Sword’s turn to be anxious. Very anxious.

Gu Fei rolled up his sleeves and lifted his sword as he came barreling in, asking, “Is that all?”

The people that were surrounding Sword Demon moments before had already gone to surround Oathless Sword closely. Sword Demon wiped his sweat, “To any average human being, this much is plenty.”

“Hehe.” Gu Fei smirked as he took a step forward, which caused Oathless Sword and his squad to involuntarily take a step back. Gu Fei pulled out a banana and peeled it, consuming the fruit as Oathless Sword and the others suspected if this was some ultimate move, their eyes vigilantly trained on Gu Fei.

Yan Xiaozhu was flustered, running over in a huff, “Why are you still eating a banana? Go and get them!”

“I gotta replenish my mana first!” Gu Fei answered.

Everyone felt faint when they heard this, even as Oathless Sword and the others further felt they were about to go crazy. They had been far too intimidated by Thousand Miles Drunk’s presence that they had forgotten that seeing Gu Fei consume a banana was actually as simple as replenishing his lost mana. Actually, even Yan Xiaozhu was also aware of this, right? However, she had also thought that eating a banana in the current circumstance was completely incongruent with what was happening, and it was completely because Gu Fei’s consumption of the fruit here was far too supercilious!