MMORPG: The Elementalist

“Shadow Razors!”

Right in front of countless horrified Demon Faction players, Leon’s Barrier and Defense Shield were shredded like pieces of paper, by a flare of golden ray that suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

Everything happened in a flash that Leon, having felt his Barrier and Defense Shield entirely shattered in that short moment the golden ray flashed before his eyes, rushed into Black God’s strike zone without putting his defense back up…

The same golden ray stopped in front of Leon for a moment, then morphed into a cute shape of a heart… So cute that it made Leon’s heart thump.

‘Shit! It’s not cute at all!’

Surprisingly, it was a Shadowfox!

At this moment, Leon felt as though his heart was about to be frozen by an icy breath…

‘Oh shit!’

Not giving Leon any more chance to act, the Shadowfox morphed into four identical golden Shadowfoxes right in front of his face.

Shadow Clone activated!

Meanwhile, Black God who was frantically fleeing earlier, stopped his movement. Dark Vajra suddenly turned around, pressing its ferocious face against the wounded and pale Aeromancer.

“Die, worm!”

A second ago these were Leon’s words; now it was Black God’s. Three searing Underworld Wisps gnawed at Leon, the damned Aeromancer who was still fiercely pursuing him just a few moments earlier.

Behind them, Barca, Black Widow and the rest of the Demon Faction players watched poor Leon’s final moments in horror. The time when his defense got entirely negated, when that Shadowfox hit him like a punching bag with its Shadow Clone attacks, and when Black God rammed him with his powerful magical attacks…

He endured all of Shadowfox’s Shadow Clone attacks and Black God’s multiple attacks without any defense. It was brutally fatal.

The Aerobeast that was shielding Leon was also forcefully pulled back into its dimension.

Boom!

Leon’s corpse fell from the sky and landed at the feet of Barca and Black Widow, who were enveloped by Qin Ruo’s shadow…

After having defeated Leon with Qin Ruo’s help, Black God was now feeling less pressured and stopped fleeing. With his regained spirit, he turned toward Barca and Black Widow.

Two versus two, but Black God had the upper hand.

It was two Elementalists on this side.

However, they had a Warrior and an Elementalist.

The tables were turned…

Black Widow felt tremendous pressure. She once fought Qin Ruo at the Monsters Mountains herself. Thus, she understood how strong Qin Ruo was. During the siege upon Moonrise City, Savior and Death Jesus also lost their fights against him. To her, Qin Ruo was a devil.

Thus, she started to anxiously and carefully scan the areas up front, plotting for an escape plan. Qin Ruo and Black God had now joined arms. She and Barca stood no chance against them and only death awaited if they stayed.

As for Barca, he too was incredibly shocked. This was his first time facing off with Qin Ruo. After that Tier 5 AoE Magic Assault, he had activated his Elemental Perception: Earth. Using said skill, he understood that he was in no immediate danger—Winter Demon Qin Ruo appeared to be disinterested in his field of perception.

Yet, a heavy tension was pressing on him. He laid an eye on the corpse lying at his feet… His pupils could not help but shrink a little.

Leon was a Tier 5 veteran. Yet when facing Qin Ruo, he tasted defeat almost immediately. He did not think that he, being a newly ranked-up Tier 5 Terramancer, would have a better fate if he butted heads with Qin Ruo.

Furthermore, he also witnessed that Shadowfox’s ambush speed, magic penetration and stun abilities with his own eyes…

Defense Magic was nullified in mere seconds and powerful stuns. It was these two that took away both Leon’s offensive and defensive abilities, resulting in fairly effective fatal blows by Black God.

To top it all, Qin Ruo himself had not even made a move yet.

All he did was just allow his pet to work together with Black God and that was all he needed to do to put their strongest member to sleep with the fishes.

“…”

Without moving other muscles, Barca took a deep breath and tried to calm down. Other than that golden little beast, he could also detect another man hiding in the shadows—one whose presence also brought nerve-wracking pressure on him. He quietly asked Black Widow, “So, what do we do now?” His voice was dry and sore, completely out of ideas on what to do next.

Black Widow carefully consider their chances for a short while. Then, she involuntarily said, “Retreat!”

Even though this was a humiliating move, it was a fact that Qin Ruo defeated Leon under everyone’s nose without anyone noticing.

If they were to remain on the battlefield, they would just be wasting their lives getting defeated anyway—which would then give them more bragging rights to Qin Ruo and Black God.

As for the other Demon Faction players who came all the way from Sin City to watch the show? They were all Tier 4 players. They too stood no chance when facing veterans like Qin Ruo and Black God head on and would be of no help at all.

Flapping their wings, Barca and Black Widow retreated…

To prevent Qin Ruo and Black God from pursuing them, Barca even cast a Tier 5 AoE Magic Assault, engulfing several hundred radius meters of the surrounding area in a Gravity Dimension. The tremendous strength of the gravity strength forced Qin Ruo, who was still in Aquamorph, to deactivate his stealth mode.

***

Qin Ruo rematerialized on the other side of Dark Vajra’s shoulder. He had no other choice but to watch Barca and Black Widow retreat…

It was actually, rather unrealistic to chase after a group that had Tier 5 veterans. Besides, there were also countless players from the enemy leagues in the area. It would be more trouble than it was worth.

Black God was fleeing away from them for quite a while. Although he wanted to go after them, rational thoughts won him over. Thus, he decided to just let them go too. Then, he laid his eyes upon that little golden beast that was carrying loot from Leon’s corpse.

“Chi chi!”

Poochie did not seem to be affected much by the Gravity Dimension. Each step it took was about ten meters while carrying a piece of Chromatic equipment in its mouth. It leaped onto the gigantic Dark Vajra’s shoulder, and then onto Qin Ruo’s shoulder to ask for praise and credit.

Qin Ruo shook his head with a wry smile.

‘This little critter seems to have forgotten that it was Black God who delivered the fatal blow. Not him.’

Thus without hesitant, he took the equipment and brought it toward Black God. However, the latter quickly replied in annoyance, “I’m warning you, kid! Don’t you dare to mock me with this toy! If you didn’t come today, good ol’ Black here would be sleeping with the fish here. If I receive this equipment, then there ain’t gonna be no place for me in this game no more. F*ck! Keep this to yourself. Do you think I don’t have plenty of this myself?”

“…”

Qin Ruo shrugged and without any objection, slipped the equipment into his Ring of Honor.

After seeing this, Black God finally let out a sigh of relief.

“Little Qin, if you ever got into any trouble just let me know! Thankfully you showed up or else, I’d have lost my honor today.”

“Sure! There would certainly be something I’ll need your help with in the future. However, being surrounded by three winged elite players is not really something to be embarrassed about. Especially not after the fact that they couldn’t take you down even after trying for that long. It wouldn’t be you who are losing honor really.”

“Whatever, let’s not talk about this anymore. It’s too embarrassing. Next time I would never come here alone ever again. If I ever get ambushed again, I wouldn’t know if I have enough tears to shed.”

After lamenting, Black God looked around at the Demon Faction players following after Barca and Black Widow who were fleeing toward all directions from where they stood. A thought occurred to him—he summoned the leaderboard for the Party Honor Points.

Then, quickly, he looked at Qin Ruo and said, “Splendid! Fallen Angels has now reached Top 3, with a total Honor Points of 617… Looks like I’ve lost in our competition. Little Qin, how about we take down a few more of these pesky buggers around the city gate together and retreat after we’ve cleared the Clan Mission?”

Qin Ruo understood what he meant by the “competition”—it was the competition to be the number one Clan. Even though he did not have any desire to take it seriously, after the racked up Honor Points rising higher and catching up to others, everyone in the Party had fired up to work toward that goal!

It was time to resume and keep up the pace and earn more Honor Points!

Thus, Qin Ruo glanced over at Sin City which was within a thousand meters. “Right here?”

‘It’s kind of risky. That last time, that winged trio retreated after I took down Tiger Cub. Now, taking down Leon has sent Barca and Black Widow, and also the other mountains of Demon Players, running on their tails… There’s a chance that the Five Leagues of the Demon Clan would be provoked and execute a coordinated attack on us.’ However, Qin Ruo had to admit that the enemy players right in front of his eyes were indeed carrying good equipment and killing them would yield a lot of Honor Points.

“Come on. We’ll just kill a wave or two. It’s going to be a waste if we let so many preys go, right?” Black God suggested.

“Okay. But we’ll only be here for three minutes! And we’ll pull back if we see reinforcements.”

After pondering a moment, Qin Ruo concluded that they would assault within a time limit. Three minutes was the amount of time needed for their foes to utilize the warp portals to travel from Sin City. Plus if they were to use Demonic Wings to hasten their trip, then it would much easier. They would just retreat the soonest they saw these winged players, before they could engage a Combat Status with them.

“Hell yeah!”

Black God was pleased with his decision.

Although three minutes might not be a lot, it was enough time for him to destroy the fleeing enemies around Sin City to appease his anger. Besides, he also knew that if he had Qin Ruo by his side, the Demon Faction would have to send at least two veterans to be of any threat to them. If anything, hurting their resources after Angel Faction’s fall was always a good idea to him.

***

After sending their pets away, one of them activated Aquamorph while the other initiated Shadowmorph. In a flash, both of them chased after the enemies who were running to the opposite direction of where Sin City was at. (Shadowmorph: An ability that makes the user invisible to other users while leaving only the user’s shadow on the ground)

The first ambush… Qin Ruo was able to locate and attack the enemies agilely, swiftly and accurately using Aqua Wings and Water Elemental Perception—the primary reason he could lead his Fallen Angels reaching Top 3 on Angel Faction’s Party Honor Points Leaderboard.

Before Black God was able to arrive at the scene, Qin Ruo had already released several Frostburst upon his enemies…

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

After the skill was in effect, a huge area was then covered in ice frost and snow mist. Qin Ruo and Poochie then started their assault on the enemies who were outside of the range of the Frostbursts. Enemies’ cries of agony could be heard from all direction.

“Shit!”

When Black God arrived, he was only there in time to defeat a few unlucky left-overs who were anxiously running away.

Qin Ruo had annihilated most of the enemies in sight.

Glancing over at the leaderboard again… Fallen Angels was now rising again… catching up to Netherspirit’s Claw by merely a small margin.

Looking at Qin Ruo, who was airborne and disappeared into thin air again, Black God facepalmed with a deep sigh. He then sent a private voice message to an old friend. “Carefree, is Netherclaw sobbing yet?”