Chapter 148 - 6 against 4

Gu Fei was happily running toward the hilltop when he noticed that there was someone beside him who was heading in the same direction. Turning his head to look, he saw that it was Sword Demon. "Hey!" He pointed his sword to Sword Demon as a form of greeting and said, "Let's go killin'!"

"Listen!" Sword Demon blocked Gu Fei's advance.

"What?"

"We'll likely head straight into an ambush if we rush to them like this," Sword Demon replied.

"That's perfect! Saves us the time to find them; we can kill all the enemies in one go," Gu Fei was currently experiencing an adrenaline rush and carelessly thought that all sorts of PvP maneuvers were useless before his absolute strength.

"Calm down. I know your Attack Power is high, but can you really face over ten enemies at once?" Sword Demon rationalized.

"If you s.h.i.+eld me for a bit…" Gu Fei began to say, thinking of his coordination with Svelte Dancer yesterday.

"I may be able to s.h.i.+eld you once, but there won't be a second time," Sword Demon frankly said. Gesturing around them, he added, "Take a look."

Plains surrounded them, so they could immediately see the many teams of Cloud Herder mercenary group heading their way from various directions. Furthermore, Foe-herder was now provocatively pointing his claymore toward Gu Fei and Sword Demon.

Even if they rushed up the hill and eliminated Foe-herder, they would end up getting surrounded by the other members afterward. Uncaringly, Gu Fei lifted his Moonlit Nightfalls and accepted Foe-herder's taunt. "We'll kill as many as we can!" With that, he continued his charge up the hill.

Sword Demon tried to block Gu Fei once more, yet his speed was no match for the latter. Despite being a Thief, Sword Demon's boots were not top grade. He knew that he would not catch up to Gu Fei even if he activated his Fleetfoot, so he could only helplessly follow him from behind.

Foe-herder remained unfazed when he saw that the two men had continued their charge toward him. With the enemies just three meters away from him, Foe-herder parted his two hands holding a claymore each and placed them on both sides of his body.

"Dual-wielder! He already went for his Job Cla.s.s Advancement as a Berserker! Be careful!" Sword Demon shouted after Gu Fei.

When a level 40 Warrior advanced to a Berserker, the first skill he or she would learn was Dual-wielding Mastery, which would allow him or her to dual-wield weapons. Nonetheless, equipping weapons on a dominant hand and a non-dominant hand had some differences. While no changes would occur to the weapon that was equipped on the dominant hand, equipping a weapon on the non-dominant hand would only allow a player to access 20% of the weapon's Attack Power. This percentage would only increase when the respective mastery for the skill reached a higher rank. This skill was similar to Gu Fei's Spell Mastery, so players did not need to grind its proficiency. As long as they reached the appropriate level, they could level up the skill's rank from the relevant NPC over by the Warrior Encampment.

Foe-herder was at level 40 and he had a non-dominant left hand. Therefore, the sword in his left hand could only unleash 20% of its Attack Power. However, the Dual-wielding Mastery skill affected not just this.

"Cyclone!" Although Foe-Herder's current posture of hanging his claymores by his two sides was different to a Warrior's regular stance when unleas.h.i.+ng Cyclone, Gu Fei could still tell his intention just from seeing half his body's posing.

What surprised Gu Fei was not the fact that a Warrior had activated this skill during a PvP; instead, it was the fact that Foe-herder had activated the skill early. Having fought with Warriors many times, Gu Fei no longer needed to take a defensive stance against it. Using his fast speed and high damage output advantages, he managed to instkill many opponents in the past just by guessing when they would start their attacks. At this moment, however, Foe-herder activated his Cyclone about three meters away - a distance Gu Fei had no means of attacking the other.

This small detail already decided the gap between an expert and an average player. Many Warriors could not use Cyclone against Gu Fei, yet Foe-herder's Cyclone was even starting to spin.

The change that Dual-wielding Mastery brought could directly be seen through this Cyclone alone. The speed of Cyclone produced by two claymores being held parallel to the ground was fiercer and gustier than the speed of regular Cyclone.

Players had long noticed this aspect of the skill and they had of course tried using both hands to unleash Cyclone before, but they ended up returning to using single weapons to perform the skill when they realized that their off-hand weapons did not generate any Attack Power. Putting this aside, there was also a possibility that a Warrior might unluckily push his or her opponent outside the Cyclone's attack range with their off-hand weapons. As a corollary, the attack from the dominant hand would get wasted.

At present, with the non-dominant hand finally able to generate Attack Power, this Cyclone was able to display the advantages of dual-wielding weapons.

Gu Fei's pupils contracted. He could tell at a glance that this doubly fast Cyclone was not something he could block! Nonetheless, Gu Fei still positioned his sword before him as he knew that doing something was better than just waiting for his death.

...And what awaited him was extreme pain!

The sword met the claymores and, as Gu Fei had expected, failed to block Cyclone. Grating against his body, Foe-herder's Cyclone successfully flung Gu Fei outward with a whoosh.

Sword Demon chased after Gu Fei's flying figure and cus.h.i.+oned the latter's fall by positioning himself behind Gu Fei. "I'm alive!" Gu Fei gasped in astonishment as he stood up.

"His left hand holding a claymore only dealt 20% damage," Sword Demon told Gu Fei. Having known Gu Fei for quite some time, his fellow mercenaries wholly understood that Gu Fei did not spend much time researching about the game's mechanics like them.

Gu Fei sighed in relief. Although he was not that knowledgeable of the game's mechanics, he at least had an understanding of this sort of concepts after playing Parallel World for over a month. It would indeed be an overkill if just 20% of a Warrior's Attack Power could instkill someone.

However, the two did not have the time to ponder about this matter for long since a fiery glow began to emerge right above their heads, the ground beneath their feet became warmer, and the piercing sound of objects traveling through air echoed about.

"Quickly dodge!" The duo simultaneously shouted as they bolted away.

Descending Wheel of Flames, Blazing Tree of a Thousand Inferno, Double Shot, Homing Projectile... The opposing teams that that had gotten into firing range of Gu Fei and Sword Demon began unleas.h.i.+ng their long-range attacks on the two.

Although the two managed to dodge the first wave, the second wave was already upon them. The next batch of flame wheels appeared above them; the Olympic rings of Descending Wheel of Flames that Gu Fei had previously disdained effectively widened the spell's current AOE.

Relying purely on his extremely fast movement speed, Gu Fei barely dodged the flame wheels. Sword Demon was not as lucky, though, and one flame wheel managed to hit him full force. Thankfully, the average Mages did not have Gu Fei's or Drifting's high Spell Damage, so that one flame wheel failed to instkill Sword Demon. He was still ablaze when he ran after Gu Fei.

"We can't continue like this; let's split up. Rush out of the encirclement from the 156, 217 direction," Sword Demon said as he activated Fleetfoot and headed toward a different direction.

As another flame wheel began to form above Gu Fei's head, he quickly ran for his life. He used Descending Wheel of Flames to instkill many players before, yet he was currently being forced to flee by this very same spell. Was this what others meant by retribution?

Gu Fei ran onward as he took note of the flame wheel's progress above his head. After a bit, he could only sigh, "I'm finished!"

Two flames wheels had already appeared to where Gu Fei was heading. By the time he ran to that area in front, the flames wheels had begun their descent to the ground. Although the two spells could not instkill him, Gu Fei's HP was currently not full, so the current magic a.s.sault would mostly likely kill him.

This was what facing an expert mercenary group meant. Gu Fei was not the only one who could calculate in advance where a spell would hit. Since the opponents currently had more manpower, their coordinated strikes managed to include the most conservative as well as the most extreme estimation of Gu Fei's possible movement, covering all the routes he would likely take.

"How depressing!" Gu Fei thought of Royal G.o.d Call's look of antic.i.p.ation when he asked him to avenge their deaths. And yet, here he was, about to die in an even more embarra.s.sing manner than them.

Knowing that the flame wheels would hit him, Gu Fei raced forward as he fervently hoped that his remaining HP would be able to survive the spells' damage output. He kept on running as he waited for the system to announce his fate, yet no further movement occurred above his head. Unexpectedly, Gu Fei managed to escape the spells' AOE with his mad sprint.

Glancing backward, he felt stunned by what he saw.

Sword Demon on Fleetfoot did not break out of the encirclement; instead, he bore the brunt of Descending Wheel of Flames and charged toward the pack of Mages, eliminating two Mages with his practiced footwork and skill in a split second. The flame wheels above Gu Fei dissipated because Sword Demon had forcefully interrupted with his a.s.sault the Mages' spell-casting. With the Mages scattering about to dodge the still burning Thief's attack, the Archers behind them sent forth a cloud of arrows toward Sword Demon. Given how tightly knitted the arrows were, Sword Demon naturally failed to escape the bombardment and subsequently turned into a beam of white light. "Listen to Young Master's orders…" Sword Demon sent this private message to Gu Fei right before he disappeared.

Gu Fei froze in place for a bit. Checking the mercenary channel, he saw that Young Master Han had sent out this message: "Head toward 164, 189…."

Gu Fei did not think more about it and just headed toward the indicated direction.

"174, 201."

"189, 176."

"201, 176."

Messages incessantly flashed on the mercenary channel as Young Master Han constantly sent Gu Fei a fresh batch of coordinates, allowing the latter to move forward without getting hit by any of the enemies' attacks. As Gu Fei left the chasing players further and further behind, the players in front of him tried to block off his path of escape. Unfortunately for them, the route Young Master Han had guided Gu Fei to allowed the latter to escape them unscathed.

Foe-herder, who remained atop the hill, watched Gu Fei's movement and found it to be very perplexing. The route Gu Fei had taken completely avoided any form of obstructions or any incoming mercenaries from Foe-herder's side. It would be understandable for Gu Fei to successfully avoid all of them if they were in an open plain where everyone's location was visible. Presently, however, they were attempting to intercept Gu Fei from places he should not be aware of. And yet, he was still able to successfully circle past them.

This… There must be someone giving him directions! Actually, the first thought that came to Foe-herder was: There's a spy! He suspected that the instructions he had sent on the mercenary channel were being revealed by a spy to the enemies. However, he very quickly dismissed this theory. If that was really the case, why would the two previously risk their lives to rush up the hill to kill him?

A breeze swept through the hilltop from a nearby forest. Foe-herder suddenly looked at the hill across him. Although that hill was not as high as this hill he was on, that place was well-covered by tall trees. If someone was atop a tree… Although the field of view over there could not match his current position, commanding from over there with an overview of this map's terrain would not be difficult!

So that's how it is! Foe-herder was delighted with his discovery and he immediately sent a command: "Team 3 and Team 7, head over to that hill within the forest near you. An enemy should be hiding atop a tree over there. Hurry!"

Receiving this order, Team 3 and Team 7 promptly made their way toward the hill by the forest.

Young Master Han, who was atop the tree, saw the two teams heading his direction as he continued to direct Gu Fei. "Oh. So you finally found out…" he muttered to himself.

The score right now was 6 against 4.

An Imperfect Ending

After receiving the order from Foe-herder, the two teams of Cloud Herder mercenary group headed straight to the hill within the forest.

Finding a hidden person among the dense leaves and branches in the verdant forest was not easy, but none of them gave up searching - even making the Archers and Mages climb up the trees - since Foe-herder was certain that someone was hiding somewhere on this hill.

Young Master Han remained unfazed by what was happening around him and merely continued monitoring Gu Fei who was currently trying to avoid being spotted by the other six enemy teams. Giving another set of instructions, he finally sighed, "Your current position is a blindspot for that hill. Also, I want you to remember these few places." Young Master Han quickly sent him a few more coordinates and said, "Move sequentially through these coordinates; they should help you for a while, but everything will be up to you after that." Pausing for a bit, he said almost to himself, "There are still… eleven minutes left. Hang in there."

"What's the matter?" Gu Fei gleaned from Young Master Han's tone of voice, which resembled someone relaying their last will, that something was not right.

"I've been discovered. But don't worry; we will still be in the lead with 6 against 5 kill points even if I get killed. You just have to survive these eleven minutes!" Young Master Han replied in earnest. In his peripheral vision, he could see that two Archers had already climbed up the nearby trees and were now looking all around them.

"Over there!" one of the two Archers spotted Young Master Han and quickly indicated his location to the rest of the search team.

"Run. Keep running and take advantage of your speed. Definitely do not engage them." As Young Master Han finished saying this, a ball of fire and an arrow hurtled through the air toward him. Despite Young Master Han's amazing skills as a Priest, his HP was really low. This was due to his unique way of adding points that was unlike the other Priests who would focus on an Endurance build. Thus, Young Master Han was only able to endure two volleys of the enemies' concerted attacks before he turned into a stream of white light.

The score changed once more to 6 against 5. Victory and loss now obviously lay in that final kill point. Foe-herder was very willing to sacrifice all his troops for this final kill point from their last opponent since it would mean the elimination of the entire Young Master's Elite mercenary group.

Foe-herder sighed. It was no wonder that all his attempts to surround the Mage earlier had been met with failure. He had originally thought that it was due to his instructions being vague, which resulted into his teams being unable to properly encircle the Mage. He should have suspected earlier that someone on the opposing side was secretly giving the Mage directions. Foe-herder was a little frustrated, but he felt better knowing that there was only one opponent to deal with in these final ten minutes.

Foe-herder lost sight of the Mage's figure after the latter went over a small knoll in a distance. Nonetheless, determining which way the opponent had gone to was easy. With this thought in mind, Foe-herder quickly directed his men to head over the small knoll.

"Team 4 and Team 5, circle around that knoll from the left. Team 1 and Team 2, take the right. Team 6 and Team 8, head over the knoll as well. Team 3 and Team 7, head toward the forest in the 4 o'clock direction." Foe-herder sent out these commands as he a.s.sured himself, There shouldn't be any further problems this time. While he was daydreaming of success, the figure clad in black robe suddenly appeared at the top of the knoll after clearly going past it a short while ago. "That guy's at the top of the knoll! Surround the whole knoll!" Foe-herder immediately ordered.

"Roger!" all the members replied. 

Gu Fei, who was standing atop the mound, was visible not only to Foe-herder but to every enemy spreading and surrounding the knoll in its entirety as well.

"Listen to Young Master's directions…" The final words Sword Demon had left Gu Fei as he sacrificed his life for the latter rang in his ears at this moment.

"Since that's the case…" Gripping Moonlit Nightfalls in his hand, Gu Fei told himself firmly, "This sword is not a weapon to slay people; right now, it is a booster that will provide me additional 20 points to Agility for my goal to evade the enemies."

Waving to everyone approaching the mound, Gu Fei retreated through the knoll's other side and began his mad sprint for freedom. The coordinates that Young Master Han had provided him were clearly displayed on the mercenary channel. "The first one…" Gu Fei muttered to himself as ran toward the first set of coordinates. 

Although both sides of the knoll were already surrounded by the Cloud Herder mercenary group's men, they were unfortunately a lot slower than Gu Fei. The opposing group's four fastest Archers failed to block Gu Fei in time, so they proceeded to fire off arrows on Homing Projectile toward him.

Four arrows on Homing Projectile flew toward Gu Fei. Holding Moonlit Nightfalls with one hand, he fished out Sacred Flames of Baptism with his other hand. He looked backward to take note of the distance of the arrows to him. When the timing was right, he suddenly pirouetted and knocked off the four arrows hot on his heels with his swords.

The attacks hampered Gu Fei's speed and allowed the enemies to close the distance with him by quite a bit. Sadly, all skills had cool-down time, so the four Archers could temporarily not shoot arrows on Homing Projectile. When they fired off arrows on Snipe instead, Gu Fei easily shook them off with a few change of directions.

The four Archers were extremely regretful at this point; they would not have used Homing Projectile altogether had they known that this would happen. They should have taken turns in interfering with Gu Fei's progress, which would allow them to catch up to him eventually. Who would have thought that it was possible to knock off four arrows on Homing Projectile like that, anyway? When the four shot out their arrows, they had already a.s.sumed that Gu Fei would be a goner for sure.

It was too late for regrets now, as Gu Fei had already left them in the dust. Those with slower speed, such as the Warriors and Priests, did not even consider chasing after the Mage who had insanely fast speed. In just a short while, Gu Fei had gotten out of the encirclement and left everyone far behind.

Foe-herder knew that things were going south when he saw Gu Fei successfully evade his men's pursuit.Given the Mage's monstrously fast speed, it was impossible for Cloud Herder mercenary group to form any sort of encirclement to deal with him.

Enclosing and capturing Gu Fei with his speed would require Foe-herder to set up a net across a wide area and to limit his s.p.a.ce gradually. Their attempted encirclement just then was akin to letting a bird leave its cage or a fish to get out of the fis.h.i.+ng net and return into the sea. Trying to encircle him again… would ten minutes be enough? No. Only nine minutes were left now.

Foe-herder's forehead began to sweat profusely. He no longer dared to deploy his men so casually like before. While attempting to get a read of Gu Fei's destination, he quickly organized his mercenaries into new groups based on their speed. The slower teams would exert pressure from the front to cut off all possible retreats for Gu Fei; meanwhile, the faster teams would close in from the sides in a wing-like formation. The goal this time was to enclose and keep Gu Fei in a huge pocket.

Unexpectedly, Gu Fei had rushed out of one segment of the enclosing wing and suddenly veered off into another direction. This one move of Gu Fei instantly caused the two-wing formation to fail forming the pocket that Foe-herder had just strategized.

"How is this possible?! Could there still be someone secretly guiding him?!" Foe-herder exclaimed in his astonishment. However, the score that the system had calculated was irrefutable; there really was only one person left in the opposing mercenary group at this point.

Foe-herder tried forming a new formation again, but just as his fresh plan was about to succeed, Gu Fei had once more unpredictably changed his direction.

Foe-herder was now utterly flabbergasted. He was clearly doing the entrapment, yet he could not help but feel that he was the one being entrapped by an even bigger net. 

He would have to change his tactics in order to shed himself off of this unseen, bigger net, and to properly entrap Gu Fei. While it was possible for him to come up with a new plan to force Gu Fei into a corner, he simply did not have time to do so at the moment. After all, there were only six minutes left until this match's end.

The entire mercenary group was in a mess right now. Originally, none of these men thought that this six-man mercenary group was worth their attention or time. All of them thought that this round would be the same as yesterday's match, where they could easily tour about the PvP arena and leave it with a 'perfect' score. And yet, the unexpected happened and they were now in such a disheartening situation. The opponent only had to survive these six minutes and his group would achieve victory. No... That was not right either, as only five minutes were left now.

Gu Fei took note of his surroundings as he ran and spotted a few heads occasionally popping up here and there. Someone was still standing atop that faraway hill; he reckoned that the person was the Berserker from before. Gu Fei restrained himself from rus.h.i.+ng over to exchange blows with the Berserker and continued to rigidly follow the path that Young Master Han had set for him through the series of coordinates.

Although he still felt dissatisfied with Young Master Han's method of doing things, he decided to heed Sword Demon's words and curbed his desire to PvP.

Time slipped by. Gu Fei finished running Young Master Han's coordinates with only two minutes left to the PvP match. At the moment, he found himself atop a small hill with the members of Cloud Herder mercenary group heading in his direction in a disorderly fas.h.i.+on.

Gu Fei felt somewhat anxious… With only two minutes left, he did not wish to risk their win by rus.h.i.+ng toward the enemies and meeting a similar fate to his dead comrades. That would be too much of a disappointment, after all. If it were just him alone, he would long revel in slaughtering the enemies, consequences be d.a.m.ned. But right now, the fate of the mercenary group was heavily resting upon his shoulders… F*ck! Did I fall for Young Master's tricks yet again? Gu Fei thought to himself as he ran toward a direction where no enemy was visible.

One minute… Thirty seconds… Ten seconds….

Foe-herder finally sat down on the ground in dejection, "We lost… But it's such an unmerited loss!" All the Cloud Herder's members bellowed helplessly as they were sent out of the PvP arena. 

With this, the second round of the mercenary PvP tournament was concluded. Young Master's Elite mercenary group eliminated Cloud Herder mercenary group with a score of 6 against 5.

"Where are they?! Where the h.e.l.l are those cowards from Young Master's Elite?!" Beyond the teleportation array outside the Hall of Mercenaries, the Cloud Herder's members gathered together and incessantly cursed up and down the street, trying to find the members of the mercenary group that they had just lost to.

When he exited the teleportation array, Gu Fei was immediately dragged off by Sword Demon to a secluded corner, where the other members of Young Master's Elite were huddling. With curses reverberating everywhere, they, especially Royal G.o.d Call, could not help but show a distasteful expression on their faces. 

Young Master Han listened for a while before shaking his head and saying, "The tactics we have used this time are still imperfect. We should have covered our faces during the match just now."

Everyone remained silent for a good while in the face of his statement.

"F*ck! How can this still be considered a win!" Royal G.o.d Call was the first to explode, resentfully saying, "With your command and coordination with Miles, we totally had the ability to take them down. Why did we have to fight them like that?!"

Although they won, the way they had achieved it was neither beautiful nor satisfactory. Cloud Herder mercenary group's unending curses were a testament to this fact.

Young Master Han smiled coldly before replying, "Our goal is to win this whole mercenary PvP tournament. To do that, we have to rely on a battle strategy that affects the outcome of everything instead of depending on tactics that can only win us one match."

Royal G.o.d Call was taken aback, "What strategy?"

"You'll find out very soon," Young Master Han answered mysteriously.

"Fleeing about until the time runs out is not the least bit challenging!" Royal G.o.d Call cried indignantly.

"Challenging? Why don't you eat ice cream in a blizzard or take a p.i.s.s in a rising gale? That's very challenging," Young Master Han remarked dryly.

"What do you mean by that?!" Royal G.o.d Call angrily yelled.

"A meaningful ending or a meaningless challenge, which will you choose?" Young Master Han asked.

"There are some challenges themselves which are very meaningful to me…" Gu Fei suddenly interjected.