Chapter 262 - Have a Taste of their Medicine
Thinking that his ruse was successful, Monologue under the Moon felt elated to see Gu Fei on this mountain peak. He was the first one to rush up the mountain, and his teammates climbed up following him. Monologue under the Moon kept his eyes glued to Gu Fei, hoping to savor the change in the latter"s expression. He and his men would feel more confident if Gu Fei"s face revealed a hint of fear or surprise.
Unfortunately for them, Gu Fei only had that placid smile on his lips. Counting the players before him, he could not help but say to Monologue under the Moon, “Seventeen? Why didn"t you bring an even number of men?”
Didn"t he see the three men on the other side of the mountain? Monologue under the Moon stood rooted to the spot until the three men finally made it to the peak as well. Gu Fei nodded his head when he saw the newest arrivals, “Twenty. So you did bring an even number of men.”
Monologue under the Moon could not fathom Gu Fei"s thoughts, but now that all his twenty teammates were present, he no longer felt scared of this one Mage. With a wave of his arm, the twenty men spread evenly and surrounded Gu Fei. Everyone was pumped up; after getting tricked by their opponents time and time again, they finally got the chance to vent their frustrations.
“Twenty men… Is that the limit you"ve set for me to challenge?” Gu Fei sent this message over to Young Master Han.
“Do whatever you can! Don"t go crying for help if you can"t deal with them; no one is going to come and save you,” Young Master Han replied apathetically.
Gu Fei collected himself and asked the person before him, “Are there more?”
“What do you mean "more"?” Monologue under the Moon asked back, puzzled.
“Are there more people coming?” Gu Fei clarified.
Monologue under the Moon was too shocked to respond, which Gu Fei took in as a silent agreement.
“Alright. Facing twenty men is quite difficult. Don"t blame me for not showing mercy!” Gu Fei told the people present.
What sort of joke is this?! Monologue under the Moon felt confused when his heart trembled. He clearly had the advantage in this fight with his twenty men, yet fear still gripped his heart. “ATTACK!” Monologue under the Moon attempted to clear the unsettling feeling inside him by starting the fight.
“Descending Wheel of Flames! Descend!”
“Blazing Tree of a Thousand Inferno! Arise!”
The Mages in the twenty-man team cast their favorite AOE spells to begin the a.s.sault. It was impossible to dodge AOE spells in this kind of encirclement which did not give much room for mobility. If Gu Fei wanted to evade all the spells, he would have to break through the enemies" encirclement. However, Monologue under the Moon and company would never be kind enough to let him do so. The spells were almost upon Gu Fei by now. Back when he had been fighting Carouse, this was precisely how he had died without being able to put up a fight.
The saying that "The present cannot be compared to the past" had never been truer, though. Now that Gu Fei had the Blink skill, tactics employing encirclement were no longer a problem for him. As flames were about to break out from above and beneath him, Gu Fei raised his arm, uttered an incantation, and teleported himself behind an enemy.
This was quite similar to the traditional children"s game of "handkerchief toss1". Twenty men formed a circle, with Gu Fei tossing the handkerchief, and everyone wondering who was he actually behind. There were naturally crafty children who would toss the handkerchief without the others knowing, pretending to carry on searching for a target until they completed a full circle. All the while, the target would be foolishly sitting without knowing that he had actually been targeted!
Gu Fei did not bother with this sort of machination and simply depended on his speed. The moment he disappeared from everyone"s sight, he already appeared behind an enemy without giving anyone a chance to react. Gu Fei wasted no time. Shoving the man toward the encirclement, he sent a sword slash for good measure.
Like pus.h.i.+ng a man into a burning furnace, Gu Fei specifically chose someone who seemed to have low HP. He added in a slash for fear that the combined Mages" Spell Damage would not be enough to instkill the man.
The man instantly morphed into a beam of white light in that blazing fire. All the enemies" hearts chilled at their teammate"s death, but they quickly recovered themselves and continued attacking Gu Fei.
Monologue under the Moon also did not get fl.u.s.tered for he was mentally counting, That"s one spell down.
According to their intel, Gu Fei"s mana was only enough for him to cast about four spells. Monologue under the Moon truly believed that depleting Gu Fei"s mana was the key to dealing with him. While it seemed cruel to sacrifice his teammates for an enemy Mage"s mana, this was hardly an issue in the mercenary PvP tournament, as the penalty for dying was currently not being enforced. No one would actually mind sacrificing a little bit of experience points and similar rewards at the end of the match if it meant winning the overall PvP in the grand scheme of things.
Gu Fei extended his sword and swiftly deflected an arrow on Homing Projectile that an Archer had released when Gu Fei was still inside the encirclement and had managed to home in on him despite his Blink. He then took several steps backward to distance himself from the other players.
Everyone thought that Gu Fei was trying to escape when he began retreating. One of the Thieves was even seized with anxiety at the thought of being unable to catch up to Gu Fei once he fled, possibly born of hearing that Gu Fei had very fast movement speed, so he activated his Fleetfoot to chase after him.
Perfect timing! Gu Fei thought to himself. Seeing the Thief rush toward him, Gu Fei took a step forward, turned his body to the side, and extended his leg out. His hand found its way to the man"s back and gave the latter a push.
“Ah!” The Thief staggered after being tripped up by Gu Fei, but this Thief"s inherent nimbleness did not cause him to fall down. The Thief"s staggering brought him in the direction of the slope ahead and he soon found himself tumbling down the mountain edge.
His scream reverberated everywhere, causing Young Master Han to send Gu Fei a message: “What in the world is going on up there?!”
“I just pushed someone down the mountain,” was Gu Fei"s calm reply. The remaining eighteen men stood rooted to the spot as they listened to their teammate"s terrible scream on his tumble down the mountain.
“Kill them off properly! Can they even die from being pushed down the mountain?” Young Master Han was unhappy. Although he told Gu Fei to challenge his limits, his real intention was to have Gu Fei completely annihilate the twenty men.
“Seems like he"s dead,” Gu Fei replied.
The system suddenly announced another kill point for Young Master"s Elite. The man who had rolled down the mountain promptly died from that one push. Considering the many b.u.mps and beatings the Thief had to suffer before he died, it seemed Gu Fei was not lying when he said he would be merciless on dealing with the enemies.
“Keep pus.h.i.+ng them off the mountain, then!” Young Master Han did not care how the men died as long as they were killed off, as they were also busy on their end.
The ten-man squad that had taken the dilapidated-wall route finally managed to locate the three members of Young Master"s Elite at the end of their journey. They were elated and awed by their boss"s accurate judgment of the situation. “You"re all surrounded!” Some of the men seemed to have watched too many Hong Kong films2. Shouting at the three enemies, they pulled their bowstrings toward them.
“The f*ck are you shouting for?! Just attack!” another man ridiculed.
The Black Hand"s ten members were treating this encounter very offhandedly, as if the three men before them were not worth their time. Their claim to have the three surrounded was mere lip service and not something they had actually done. What was there to surround, anyway? Given that the three men did not have fast movement speed, they could easily catch up to them if they attempted to escape.
A Warrior, a Priest, and a Knight… It might take time to dispose of them, but that was it. Only the Warrior had combat strength in this team, and that bit of strength was not enough to defeat their ten-man group. The ten men happily reported their success in locating the targets on the mercenary channel, boasting that they would quickly take the enemies down.
The ten men brandished their weapons, fired arrows, cast spells, and so on. The arrows were the first to reach the three men; War Without Wounds stepped forward to meet the arrows head on as Young Master Han steadily bestowed Heal on him. Brother a.s.sist also granted War Without Wounds Blessing of Resilience to increase his physical defense.
“Blazing Tree of a Thousand Inferno—” A Mage tried to chant a spell to burn the three men down, but an arrow flew out of nowhere and struck him on his temple. “Arise!” Although he managed to spit the last word and fire blanketed the area, the Mage was nevertheless killed off by that arrow on Snipe. As always, Royal G.o.d Call picked off the weakest among the opposing group.
The Mage"s spell dealt no damage to anybody since he had been killed off, while Royal G.o.d Call"s one arrow unnerved the remaining nine men. This was when a figure leaped from the land depression amid a cloud of dust and deeply plunged the dagger in his hand into another enemy. War Without Wounds also took this chance to employ his well-practiced sequence of attacks that had him activating Charge before canceling it into Cyclone; he dove within the opponents" ranks and whirled about with his claymores. Royal G.o.d Call continued sending arrows toward the enemy men in the distance.
Young Master Han leisurely bestowed Heal in one corner when necessary, while Brother a.s.sist drew near the enemies to aid Sword Demon. War Without Wounds was still spinning about, so even his teammates could not get to him.
Black Index Finger miscalculated when he thought that Young Master"s Elite had split up into one man, a pair, and a trio to accomplish their tasks and did not consider the possibility of Sword Demon and Royal G.o.d Call regrouping with the others once they exited the forest. After Gu Fei eliminated The Black Hand"s lookout team on the mountain peak, the two were naturally free to roam the map.
Those of The Black Hand who had originally thought that they could easily eliminate the three men of Young Master"s Elite were now experiencing the opposite with the addition of the other two. With the group"s top-grade equipment, exceptional skills, and seamless coordination, Young Master"s Elite was instead the one to decimate the enemies in no time at all.
The team leader grinded his teeth at the sight of his men being killed off one by one. Although he already called for help on the mercenary channel, it would still take some time for the others to reach them since they had gone to different directions. They had once more been tricked, and they had completely fallen for Young Master"s Elite"s ruse this time! Boss Black! You wanted to take advantage of the enemies" separation from one another to conquer them, but it is actually us who ended up tasting our medicine, was the team leader"s bitter thought before he died. He felt very disappointed of Black Index Finger for making yet another fatal mistake.
“Done!” War Without Wounds dusted his hands off after putting the claymores inside his dimensional pocket.
“Miles, how are things on your end?” Young Master Han sent Gu Fei this message, but he got no reply. He was evidently in the middle of an intense fight, so he neither had the time nor ability to reply to him.
It would be perfect if Miles could dispose of all those men on the mountain peak! Young Master Han thought to himself, but he knew not to expect anything. It was already a blessing that Gu Fei could fend off twenty men at once, so expecting him to kill all of those men in such a short time was pus.h.i.+ng it. Since the opposing group has people on the mountain right now, it"s going to be inconvenient to separate… The problem is that the others will soon arrive here… As Young Master Han was pondering on this, Royal G.o.d Call rushed toward them after firing his fill of arrows and yelled, “There are still some enemies over there; let"s go take them down!”
“Where?” They climbed out of the land depression and looked in the direction that Royal G.o.d Call had indicated. Four men were standing with uncertainty at the base of the mountain.
“Looks like that"s the mercenary leader; what a haul!” Young Master Han mused.
Black Index Finger and his three men, who had reached the foot of the mountain earlier, were planning to catch up to Monologue under the Moon"s team and see for themselves just how formidable the legendary Mage was when they received another team"s message about discovering the three men of Young Master"s Elite; this team then confidently promised to quickly eliminate the three enemies.
But before Black Index Finger could send words of encouragement over, the ten-man team began crying for help. Although Black Index Finger and his men made it halfway up the mountain, they did not know how the team had fared since they could not see the ten men"s location from their position. As such, they decided to head toward the team"s reported coordinates, yet they only saw their opponents" kill points rising fast and their headcount correspondingly dropping as they ran over.
By the time Black Index Finger and company made it to the base of the mountain, the ten-man team had already been decimated.
The players who had died promptly reported to them that there were not three men present in the location but five. Each of them was super strong, so the ten men were simply not enough to deal with them!
Black Index Finger thus instructed the three with him to stop. While Black Index Finger considered himself as an expert, he did not think of himself as a peak expert. He had known from his research of Young Master"s Elite that its members were made up of the famous gamers Sword Demon, War Without Wounds, Royal G.o.d Call, and Brother a.s.sist! Young Master"s Elite... They were truly elites in name and form.
There were a total of five formidable opponents, and there were only four of them. I may be an expert, but the three with me are just above average! Black Index Finger shamelessly thought to himself. The self-confidence he had meant nothing at this stage, so Black Index Finger could only tell the others to stop and to rendezvous with the other teams fast, instead.
He might not have chosen to advance, but the five men of Young Master"s Elite had taken the initiative to do so, instead.
The five men climbed out of the land depression and strode over to the four men with murder in their minds.
Chapter Notes:[1] A traditional Chinese game similar to "duck, duck, goose", except that the picker will place a piece of cloth or handkerchief behind someone, and no one is allowed to look behind.
The job of the picker is to find a target, drop a piece of cloth, and make a full circle around. The target in return will have to pick up the cloth and return it to the original owner before he/she completes his/her trip around them.
[2] Basically, Hong Kong has many popular cop films where this line is commonly used.