MMORPG: The Elementalist

Cerberus was like a wise and far-sighted old man, albeit one with exaggerated muscles all over his body. Its back faced the waterfall and its three heads faced three different directions on the opposite side of the waterfall.

The head on the left had a pair of blue eyes, which radiated with a flickering ominous light. Its gaze was fixated on an approaching Bowmaster in the distance, and from time to time, its gaze shifted to observe the second Bowmaster farther away. Its disposition revealed that it had a slight disdain for humans. Meanwhile, the eyes on the right head emitted a violent and cruel green ray of light. Its magical gaze tenaciously fixated on a pile of black shrubs 500 meters to the right of the forest. It would occasionally let out an oppressive snarl, which carried a warning, exposing half of its terrifying white teeth. That kept the 11 players, who were hiding behind the shrub, on their toes and made them exceptionally restless!

“Could it be that it’s discovered us?” Bizarre Blade asked as he swallowed the spittle in his agitated throat with much effort.

Under normal circumstances, Brony and his group would not have paid any heed to the guy who had forced the allocation of things…Yet at that moment, Brony subconsciously replied, “It should be… impossible… Plus, we specifically took a detour off the route…”

“So that was just a coincidence?” someone from the back echoed, feeling extremely uneasy.

While not many of them were actually convinced by what had been said, they all hoped that it was true. If the Boss was truly powerful enough to come over and kill them, none of them would survive.

“Look…what’s the Boss’ middle head looking at?” Bizarre Blade suddenly reminded.

Right after the reminder, one by one, Brony and his group members began to take notice of Cerberus’ middle head. Its appearance and movement were somewhat abnormal, its eyes seemingly searching for something.

“Little Tiger,” Bizarre Blade called out, “look at what the Boss is doing!”

Little Tiger, Hall of Heroes member, was a Level 45 Bowmaster.

Bowmasters had much better vision than players of other Classes. Having heard what was said, Little Tiger immediately focused his eyesight through a small crevice in the shrubs and observed Cerberus carefully.

“Strange!” The Bowmaster known as Little Tiger quickly discovered that the middle head’s line of sight appeared to be chasing something as its scarlet gaze swept back and forth across the deep forest. Its gaze revealed a trace of vigilance and murderous intent.

What was it looking at?

Little Tiger’s movements became slightly rigid; following the middle head’s gaze, he turned to look in the same direction and actually saw the non-League players. His entire expression turned sluggish, and he thought to himself, ‘It can’t be that outrageous, right? Could it be that Boss is able to see those players who’ve hidden themselves more than 150 meters away?!’

While he was lost in thought, Cerberus suddenly let out an earth-shattering roar!

On the left, the first Bowmaster responsible for luring Cerberus was less than 60 m away from the Boss, and Cerberus could no longer tolerate the existence of these lowlifes who continued to provoke its majesty!

Roar!!!

It raised its three heads at the same time and produced a big, angry roar! With the Boss at the center, the surrounding air seemed to be shocked by some kind of violent soundwave, and it vibrated intensely! This actually gave it a certain terrifying aura as the king of magical beasts!

Almost everyone was taken aback by the mighty Cerberus right then! However, the occurrence did not affect the Bowmasters who were fully prepared…

The Bowmasters were also the only exceptions on the field—exchanging 5,000 gold coins for less than five million points of experience. It was a good deal, and the Bowmasters were not willing to mess up the assignment. Naturally forcing himself to move, the first Bowmaster did not allow the situation to affect his next movement.

He immediately turned around and rush into the depths of the forest, howling!

Three loud thunderous roars burst forth! Soon after, quick vibrations could be heard from the ground. With its huge black body, Cerberus was shockingly fast, like a high-speed bullet train. It had shortened the distance of 70 meters to less than 60 meters in an instant. At his speed, the Bowmaster running in front was like a newborn baby.

Cold sweat suddenly broke out all over the Bowmaster’s back!

The shockwave from the beast’s roar was rapidly closing in behind him. It seemed like Cerberus would be able to pounce and swallow him up any time now… At such a speed, it was about to catch up to the little baby.

Did Cerberus also have the skill of speed?

Qin Ruo furrowed his brows as his gaze suddenly turned to the right, where Brony and his group had started to act. However, after they witnessed the hellish speed of Cerberus, Brony and several Elementalists decided to stay behind. On the other hand, Bizarre Blade and four Netherspirit’s Claw warriors rushed out together, led by the daring Bowmaster, who was the first to rush to the front.

“Wise choice.”

Qin Ruo smiled a little as he stood tall on the tree. A Water Element strip similar to the Vampire Leech’s antenna nimbly shrunk back. However, unlike the former, Qin Ruo’s “antenna” was composed out of the Water Element, and it was transparent as well as colorless. In comparison to the Vampire Leech’s antenna, his was thinner and less likely to be noticed.

From the time Brony and his group started making preparations prior to setting off, Qin Ruo had been familiarizing himself with the different abilities of the Intermediate Level Aquamorph. One of them was transformation, and he gradually mastered some tricks. Moreover, with the help of Elemental Perception: Water, there was no need to have too many deliberations, thus mastery of the skill came quickly.

At the same time, Qin Ruo’s Elemental Perception: Water allowed him to see Cerberus, the Bowmaster, as well as Brony and his group’s every move. Brony and his troops were positioned on the right side of the waterfall. They were about a hundred meters away from the waterfall. Once they reached the creature’s habitat behind the waterfall, it would be necessary to swim through close to 50 m of water. Off the record, it could take anywhere from 18 seconds to 20 seconds at least, or even more than that!

However, based on Cerberus’ speed, the two Bowmasters would not be able to outrun it for more than 10 seconds… then go back and kill it. Altogether it would take about 25 seconds for the whole operation based on how successful the second Bowmaster was in luring the Boss. Hence, if several the Elementalists in Brony’s group entered the waterfall, it was estimated that Cerberus would have also caught up with them; they would be totally useless apart from being the .easiest cannon fodder.

It would be wise to let the warriors and Bowmasters, who could move slightly faster, to enter the hole.

Qin Ruo ducked a little, and a green leaf was caught in between the fingers of his retracted arm. He had just used his transformation ability to pick it off another tree 20 m away. Twenty meters!

According to Qin Ruo’s understanding, it was the skill with the largest range in his Water Element transformation skillset. If it were any farther away, he would not be able to do it, as the arm would become thinner and unsuitable for forceful action. However, to be able to reach his current level was already very good.

Qin Ruo smiled, and cold air swiftly flowed out from his fingertips! The green leaf, which was covered in a layer of the Water Element, immediately became stiff under the cold air. It was completely frozen into a thin and hard blade. Exerting some pressure, the green fragments slipped from his fingertips with a soft, crisp sound!

“Let’s see who can get into the waterfall faster and obtain the treasure of Cerberus.”

*Swoosh!*

Gripping onto a tree trunk more than10 m away, Qin Ruo flew and dangled in the air as another arm was acutely whipped out and tightly wrapped around another tree trunk farther away…

It was originally an instinctive action due to the inertia produced. Nevertheless, Qin Ruo had just grasped the new transformation ability as well. It was almost like someone who just learned how to walk but already started to run, which may appear simple, but it was actually easy to lose balance.

He began to relax one of his arms without realizing, and the weight of his body was suddenly taken up by the other Water Element arm. At that moment, a weak feeling simultaneously surged from both his heart and arm… ‘This is bad!’

He had been too engrossed, losing his depth perception in the process; he had forgotten to measure the distance. Sh*t!

Seeing that he was about to fall from a height of more than twenty meters, Qin Ruo felt anxious and could not care less about the rest. He transformed his armed straight away and violently swept it around. Falling from such a height, he was unsure how much HP would be lost. If he died, it would be disastrous!

Even the Bloodthirsty Tree did not make him fall to his death; if he were to be killed by one of the saplings due to a mistake on top of it all, Qin Ruo reckoned that he would go mad.

Fortunately, his Water Element arms managed to directly grab the trunk of a big tree nearby. With a tight grip and release of one arm, his body immediately swung to the side.

Bang!

“…Ouch.”

As Qin Ruo hugged the trunk, he screamed internally for his poor nose.

It was precisely during this momentary loss of focus that he caught a glimpse of a few people out of the corner of his eye. They had already rushed out of the forest into the waterfall. Looking at the splashing water on the other side, Qin Ruo felt worried and immediately flung out a very long Water Element arm…

Having learned his lesson previously, Qin Ruo was a lot more cautious. As the wind swept past his body, his mind was very collected. He was not immersed in the thrill of the great speed, instead, he concentrated on the distance between himself and the tree trunk ahead. During the undulations, at the end of the high swing, he seized the opportunity and swung his arms out in a timely manner!

His speed was improving, while his actions were becoming more skillful and compact!

Phew!

When Qin Ruo gripped the last trunk, the waterfall was already in sight. Qin Ruo quickly calculated a precise parabola, exerted a downward force on his body and swayed hard, using the last trunk as a launch pad! His whole person was propelled out of the forest by that force, into the air and towards the waterfall more than twenty meters away…

“Ahh… Woo… Ahh… Woo… Ahh!!!”

Resounding screams pierced through the sound of the waterfall, and the few players who had rushed into the lake were shocked. Bewildered, they all stopped at the same time as they looked behind them. “Did you hear that?”

“Was that Tarzan, the Ape Man? Wow!”