Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

As long as Gu Fei was around, there would always be something occurring that players could never imagine happening. This was exactly what was happening right now as a blinding flash of electricity sparked on the ground, intermingling with the blazing glow that came with the flames. Gu Fei’s body came hurtling out in the air, first escaping the fiery embrace of the Blazing Tree of a Thousand Inferno on the ground. He brushed past several Descending Wheels of Flames as he flew forward, but they were not enough to insta-kill him.

The Homing Projectiles that were hurtling toward Gu Fei from every direction turned skyward, unerringly pointing toward him to the very end. Even though Gu Fei did not die to the Descending Wheel of Flames, he did not have much HP left after brushing against those flames that he could entrust for damage. Pulling out his Chinese Sabre with his left hand and his sword in his right, he first began to swat away the incoming Homing Projectiles that were gliding toward him from in front. In the meantime, the Homing Projectiles that were flying in from behind Gu Fei were actually slower than the speed that he gained when he repelled himself off the ground with his Palm of Thunder, so none of those would be catching up to him too soon.

The players who were lying in wait amidst the reeds were all dumbfounded, watching as Gu Fei leaped out from the sea of fire in such an inconceivable manner. Gu Fei borrowed the repulsion from his Palm of Thunder so as to lengthen the time he spent in mid-air so that he could avoid as much of the Blazing Trees of a Thousand Inferno as possible, but the skill’s repel effect was not actually that fast in its repulsion. Now that everyone could see that Gu Fei was about to land back on the ground, a group of Mages was already prepared to receive him, rapidly unleashing their flames to heat the place where Gu Fei was landing like it was a branding iron in a furnace, with every intention of turning him into ash the moment he plummeted back down to the ground.

In the end, at the very second right before Gu Fei crash into the ground, he cast a single Blink. The row of Mages that were huddled in the reeds had been happily waving their magic staves when they suddenly saw a black blur in front of their eyes. That figure that was still about 6 meters away from them was suddenly right before them in an instant. Gu Fei had long since kicked out his two feet and had managed to send two Mages tumbling to the ground. Audaciously stepping on these two players as he normally did, he darted forward and cleared another two meters. At the same time, he did not even turn his head around as he lashed out with his Chinese Sabre in his left hand and slashed with his Moonlit Nightfalls to his right, cutting down two Homing Projectiles that were flying right at him.

“Blow him up! Keep at it!!!” It was unknown who was the one that shouted this, but the Mages discourteously began to keep casting their AoE spells at him. Even those who were in close proximity to Gu Fei had completely disregarded their own lives and were prepared to sacrifice themselves to take him down.

“That’s how that guy does things alright..” This sort of method where ‘the ends justify the means’ was essentially Young Master Han’s calling card, and Gu Fei had already expected this to be the case, which was why the direction that he had escaped in this time was not to where Svelte Dancer was at, but the exact opposite. Gu Fei’s leap this time sent him deeper into the heart of the encirclement; he was going straight toward the log cabin.

From the time he started running, the downward strike with his Palm of Thunder that propelled him to fly forward mid-air, and the Blink before continuing his way after sending two players sprawling to the ground, barely a handful of seconds had passed, and a good number of the Homing Projectiles had not caught up with the speedy movement speed that Gu Fei possessed. At that moment, not only were these arrows nowhere near him, they were even flying toward him successively. The speed of the arrows themselves was nothing too fast to begin with, so as long as they were pelting him one after another, Gu Fei was very confident that he could bat each and every one of them away. Presently, he was making a beeline straight for the log cabin, so at least the spells that the Mages were casting would not be able to connect with him.

But how was he supposed to have guessed that the log cabin’s floor would slowly begin heating up the moment his foot stepped in, and that was when he saw that there was already a small pack of Mages who were hiding inside the cabin.

“Sh*t!” Gu Fei could not help but curse. Young Master Han might not have any idea how Gu Fei had managed to escape in such a situation, but he did not underestimate his capabilities at the very least. He had also gone the extra mile to include the possibility of Gu Fei breaking out from such desperate circumstances. Furthermore, Young Master Han had already expected Gu Fei to run for the log cabin the moment he could escape. Given it was the only location where he could run to safely take refuge and avoid the encroachment of the AoE spells.

“DIE!!!” The Mages all yelled in unison, waving their magic staves. In the end, they watched as Gu Fei stepped onto the wall and propelled himself up in the air, making a single leap right for the table in the corner in front of him, taking another step on the wall after getting on the table, keeping his body sideways as he somersaulted up to the ceiling of the cabin.

“Do you think you’re Spiderman?” Someone from within the group of Mages spat, but someone else had already realized the trouble they were in as he shouted, “CRAP!!!”

When that man uttered out that cry, none of them had any recourse to save themselves. The log cabin was not particularly large, and several Mages’ spells were already enough to cover it in its entirety. They had originally been prepared to perish together with Gu Fei, but after all the jumping around he had done, the man was now up on the ceiling of the cabin, and the position that he had taken up was even higher than where their Descending Wheels of Flames would form.

Descending Wheel of Flames would take a bit of time to form into shape. Would players take any damage if they were to come into contact with it while that was happening? Some bored players had tried testing this before, and they concluded that no damage would be dealt in such a manner. Thus, Gu Fei had used this short span of time before the Descending Wheel of Flames even ignited into form and leaped past the flaming wheel and getting himself on the ceiling.

Gu Fei was not Spiderman, so there was no way that he could stick himself onto the ceiling, but his execution was well timed to the point of it being almost extreme. Just as he made it past the Descending Wheel of Flames, each of the flaming wheels came rushing to the ground once they were fully formed. While Gu Fei was that bit slower in his descent, probably less than a second apart. But that was all he needed to avoid being damaged by the Descending Wheel of Flames.

“At least there’s still our Blazing Trees of a Thousand Inferno! He will have to land on it, eventually,” The Mages knew that they would most definitely end up dead, so the only hope they held onto was for Gu Fei to drop into the inferno before that happened. In the end, right at the moment when Gu Fei was about to make contact with the ground, he kicked a leg out to the wall once more and sent himself flying above everyone’s heads. He borrowed someone’s shoulders and kept himself off the ground.

“What the hell!!!” The player who had been stepped on was naturally dissatisfied to be used in such a manner. He struggled, hoping to throw Gu Fei off him, but there was, in fact, no need for him to try so hard. All the spells were completed, and the player found himself burning into a flash of white light. In that instant when he disappeared, the player abruptly felt more weight being exerted upon his shoulders.

“G*DD*MM*T!!!” The Mage had seen Gu Fei borrow his shoulders and leap up once more before he died.

Blazing Tree of a Thousand Inferno does not last longer than 5 seconds, so could this guy really be thinking of challenging gravity, looking to land on the ground after 5 seconds? The Mage was curious about the answer to his question, but alas, he was already dead, along with those comrades he had been fighting side by side. Everyone had appeared back in the spawn point, asking the same question in unison, “Is he dead?”

Nope! None of them were able to get the answer to their question at the moment, but the answer was no.

After using that Mage’s shoulder for support, Gu Fei had leaped up in the air once more. There was not much space up on the ceiling; it was but a single log cabin, so the beam of the structure was quite prominently exposed. Gu Fei had aimed toward this target in mind and grabbed onto the beam with one hand and pulled himself up. He was hanging in the air before kicking both his legs out: the Homing Projectiles had finally arrived, and Gu Fei was kicking these arrows down from mid-flight. The 5 seconds had very quickly passed, and the inferno below him simmered down. Gu Fei let go of his hand and landed on the ground. With both his arms and legs free, he now had a much easier time dealing with the Homing Projectiles flying his way.

Gu Fei heaved a sigh of relief. The log cabin only had a single entrance, and he felt that he should be fairly capable of handling the situation with great ease unless these players were able to disassemble the cabin. Gu Fei had no idea if the system would allow this to happen or otherwise. In any case, since I’m already here, how about I complete this quest first? Gu Fei thought to himself, intending on speaking with Guillermo. But just as he turned his head around to look, he found Guillermo standing in the corner of the cabin, its face burnt black to a crisp and smoke emitting from its head.

“No way, are you dead?” Gu Fei yelled. How could this NPC be attacked? To actually be burnt to such a degree, this is such a weak NPC!!!

“I’m still alive,” the weak NPC feebly replied.

“Oh, it’s good that you’re alive. The Vigilante Corps had sent me to get you,” Gu Fei quickly progressed the quest as Guillermo looked like it was ready to die at any moment.

In the end, before the NPC could even say another word, Gu Fei saw a series of glowing flames appear from the window as Gu Fei quickly twisted himself to let it pass. It was a cast of Repeating Fireballs that came hurtling into the log cabin as several more Repeating Fireball came flying in from outside the door.

“Ah… I’m finished this time…” Gu Fei had tried his best; he had escaped the sea of flames, leaped away from the array of AoE spells, swatting away all the Homing Projectiles fired his way, but with several casts of Repeating Fireball zooming toward him right now, Gu Fei recalled something from long ago.

It was back when he had just joined Young Master’s Elite mercenary group, and they were out on their first quest to kill the Bandit Leader Sooto. Gu Fei could still remember what Young Master Han had planned back then, intending to barricade the BOSS inside its small hut and rely on a Mage to whittle its HP down with Repeating Fireballs. Because the Repeating Fireball has a minor explosion effect, it would cause a bit of AoE damage, and in a tight space like the hut the NPC was in, there was no way for it to avoid the damage.

Gu Fei could swat away Homing Projectiles or extinguish single Fireballs, but when facing a spell like Repeating Fireballs, and not just one series of it, Gu Fei was ultimately just one man, and he had his limitations. Gu Fei was positive that there was no way he could extinguish so many Repeating Fireballs, so this time, he truly had no way out.

At least the quest would be completed, right? Gu Fei quickly moved closer to Guillermo. The explosion effect from the Repeating Fireballs was not really high after all, so Gu Fei felt that he should at least still be able to survive for a bit.

“Hey, I’m someone from Yunduan City’s Vigilante Corps,” As the sound of the fireballs exploding was reverberating in the cabin, Gu Fei found himself shouting at Guillermo, only for the NPC to remain slumped on the floor, not making a sound. Gu Fei pulled it up to take a look, and even though NPCs were technically just programmed code, they would still breathe and their hearts would still beat in the game. Furthermore, they might even be more life-like than actual players sometimes. Take how players would die in white light and not leave their corpse behind, yet an NPC would often be turned into a corpse upon death. By the time Gu Fei had propped it upright, Guillermo was already a corpse and was no longer breathing nor did it have a heartbeat.

“No way, you’ve actually died before me?” Gu Fei was extremely dejected when he discovered Guillermo had actually died to the Repeating Fireballs exploding around them before he did.

“To think you would even kill the NPC. You’re too cruel,” Gu Fei sent this message in the mercenary channel.

“Eh? What are you talking about?” The person replying was War Without Wounds.

“What are you busy with now?” Gu Fei tidied his clothing even as he prepared to receive a generous explosion of the Repeating Fireballs that will likely send him to his grave, chatting with War Without Wounds, the one person whom he had the least contact with during this City Wars event.

“Busy assaulting the city, of course! Let me tell you, I’ve also grabbed the mission to Honor-kill you, heh, so why don’t you come over and sacrifice yourself a bit, and let me kill you this once?” War Without Wounds had seized this opportunity to shamelessly ask this favor.

“Honor kill? Oh d*mn, how could I have forgotten about that whole thing!?” Just as Gu Fei thought of this very feature, a wave of Repeating Fireballs had blasted into the cabin, exploding the room, causing dust to billow everywhere while sparks of fire flew upon impact. Gu Fei was still alive. The belt which the Werewolves had rewarded him provided him a little bit of HP regeneration, but in his current predicament, the amount he was regenerating was simply unable to keep up with the damage he was being dealt with, so the best it could do was help Gu Fei buy some time. Gu Fei darted to the side of the door and poked his head out to look: How peaceful! The reeds were swaying gentling in the breeze, and no one appeared to be outside. But he could just imagine that the very moment he took a step out, he was certain that he would be subjected to another array of spells and salvo of arrows from a concentrated pack of players.

Aside from digging himself an underground passage, there was essentially no way for him to get out. Wait a minute… Underground passage? Gu Fei’s eyes glistened. He suddenly noticed how the log cabin’s fireplace was connected with the chimney, and it led straight to the roof of the cabin. It was not particularly spacious inside, but it should at least be wide enough to hide someone in it. He would at least be able to take cover from the Repeating Fireballs if he were to hide inside. Perhaps, if he were to wait it out for a while, he might even find a chance to turn the tables!

While Gu Fei was pondering all this, the Repeating Fireballs were still being thrown into the cabin endlessly. Gu Fei saw his HP continue to drop, so he swiftly made his decision and crawled over on all fours before plunging into the fireplace.

“Hmm? There’s a piece of paper here. Could it be a quest thread?” Gu Fei had suddenly discovered that a crumpled piece of paper had been tossed inside the fireplace, and it was much cleaner and complete than the one Sword Demon had found. In a glance, he could tell it was a far more outstanding clue, so Gu Fei bent over and picked it up. Uncrumpling the paper, Gu Fei took a look and read the one sentence: [Thousand Miles Drunk died in this chimney.]

“F*CK ME!!!” Gu Fei realized he was in trouble and he next heard something that sounded like the ear-splitting roar of a rocket launching. He lifted his head, and he had no idea just how many Repeating Fireballs were being sent down the chimney, flying toward him. Gu Fei hurriedly rolled out of the chimney, and the fireballs bombarded the fireplace, while the fireballs coming from the door and window whizzed in. This time, Gu Fei finally saw his HP deplete till it reached zero….

“Ahhhhhhhhh…..” A Mage from Colored Clouds was howling like an idiot all of a sudden. By the time the people around him cast a strange glance at him, the Mage excitedly blurted somewhat incoherently, “I did it! My mission to Honor kill Thousand Miles Drunk was completed!!!”

“What? You killed him? Holy hell, did we really succeed?” The silence in Colored Clouds permeated for a good moment when cheers suddenly erupted. What Gu Fei had guessed was essentially correct; all the ambushes in place in Yunjiao Lakeside were all set up by Young Master Han, and he had handed the spyglass he possessed over to Gu Xiaoshang, who had positioned herself over by the western hill, in charge of commanding all the troops there.

They had been stationed there for quite a while, but Gu Fei had not shown himself for the longest time. The players from Colored Clouds were obviously somewhat annoyed during this time, but their guild leader was still as impassive as ever, so the comrades from Colored Clouds remained united, and they continued to patiently remain vigilant and hold their position. Now that their target had finally appeared after keeping watch for all this time, they had successfully killed him, and even managed to achieve an Honor kill to boot! It was well worth the effort. Waiting to spring their ambush this whole time had been absolutely worth it! Colored Clouds’ guild channel was in a state of celebration, everyone reacting as happy as if they had just won the City Wars event itself. Gu Xiaoshang was also cheering in jubilation as well. The reward for the City Wars? The contribution score the system would assign to them? These were of course worthwhile, but there were many ways gamers could gain enjoyment from the game, and being rewarded by the system was not the only method. The system’s regulation and setting were absolute, but how the game should be played depended entirely on the players themselves, and the rules of the game was no more than a reference. Perhaps the game had good rules, but that did not necessarily mean everyone liked them.

“Perfectly executed!” Gu Xiaoshang commended all the players who participated in this operation. Even though they had sacrificed a portion of their manpower, but to have been able to clash with Thousand Miles Drunk and only lose the handful of players could essentially be considered as a huge victory. Their fellow comrades that had been sacrificed were happily cheering over by the encampment as well, believing that their deaths had not been in vain.

An Honor kill on Thousand Miles Drunk! This news rapidly spread and became known by all. After all, plenty of players out there had picked up the mission to kill Thousand Miles Drunk as well, and the moment the deed was done, everyone was immediately informed of the kill, and the system had even informed everyone which guild and which player had been the one who completed the kill.

Colored Cloud, the guild who had not participated in the alliance of guild leader protection this time, had single-handedly slain Thousand Miles Drunk.

Furthermore, all the guild leaders who had gathered together in the Chinese cabbage patch out of fear toward Thousand Miles Drunk were all feeling somewhat embarrassed, none of the guild leaders relished the sensation, especially after seeing some in their own guild channel who praised Colored Clouds without any hint of scruples.

This was especially true for the four large guild leaders. They had been fighting this whole time, yet none of them were able to get any favorable results. Traversing Four Seas had stacked up the rocks under the city walls, piling them all up till they ended up causing an avalanche that buried countless players alive; Carouse had handed Gu Fei the opportunity to accomplish the feat of fighting back a thousand man army, even though that was hardly the actual truth of the situation. Meanwhile, Cloud Herder had been the first guild leader that had been Honor killed, and that earned a very striking reputation as well; The Black Hand Syndicate did not suffer any huge disaster, so Black Index Finger could be considered the luckiest survivor out of all the four large guilds gathered presently, and even that sounded like it was quite the insult.

The four guilds had managed to earn greater publicity during this City Wars event, though none of it was favorable. Conversely, Colored Clouds was in the limelight this time round, and even the love saint Oathless Sword felt his heart sour a little. His own guild was a lot stronger than Colored Clouds, so Oathless Sword could still demonstrate machismo in front of Gu Xiaoshang. But Colored Clouds could now use this opportunity to demonstrate how they had improved over time, becoming the number one guild out of every guild in Yunduan City in just one step, and that put him in quite the awkward position.

Oathless Sword’s worry was a little exaggerated, but he could not help it; it was said that love is blind, after all.

The four men were seated down in a corner, all of them speechless, each of them brooding over concerns of their own. After some time, Foe-herder was the first to speak up, “I would never have thought that Colored Clouds would actually succeed…”

“The array that they had set up was rather thorough, and they had even done us a favor,” Brave Surge was referring to the guild leader Skygazing Under the Tree. Taking down those men was nothing more than lifting a finger to help for Colored Clouds, but it was apparent that Carouse would be all the more dedicated toward their apprehension, which was why they had extended a friendly hand toward Brave Surge and gave him the tip off.

“There’s something… Actually, I’m sure this is something everyone’s already aware of, but have difficulty sharing out in the open,” Black Index Finger suddenly mentioned.

The other three guilds immediately took the hint. They knew what Black Index Finger was referring to, and so they quietly nodded their heads.

“What do you think those 300 men are ultimately trying to accomplish?” Black Index Finger asked.

The incident where 300 players from Colored Clouds ended up quitting the guild was logically something that only Colored Clouds and the people who had left the guild would be aware of, but the reason why these four guilds were also aware of this fact, was very obviously due to the fact that they had all planted their own spies inside Colored Clouds. This sort of information was held close to their hearts, given how difficult it would be to announce something like this. Even the four men gathered had no idea how many players each of them had planted as spies. Admitting that they had knowledge of this occurrence was essentially confessing that these guilds had done something like sending spies of their own. By this point, none of these guilds were hypocrites any longer as the four began to discuss what Colored Clouds could be planning.

———————————————

A swathe of jubilation and celebration could be witnessed outside Yunduan City, but sheer terror had gripped the players inside Yunduan City. There were far more players in Amethyst Rebirth than Extremely Heaven Defying, so the chances of them stumbling upon the infiltrators was naturally much higher. The ladies did not really have much experience when it came to PK-ing in any case, so they were all very easily beaten as a result. 8 ladies had already found themselves killed off, and going by the testimony given by these ladies who were killed, there were only three or two players who attacked them, yet they were significantly stronger, able to kill them off in just two moves or three. Even when there were NPC guards near the ladies when the attacks happened, not a single one of the NPCs even reacted to the assault.

The players from Colored Clouds were naturally clever in this aspect, careful to not reveal their full strength with the attacks. When they saw that they were up against some frail ladies, they casually sent just a few men to take them down. 8 ladies had already been killed in such a fashion, yet nobody had any idea that the enemy they were up against were working in 30-man teams. However, the fact that the NPC city guards did not react in the least helped illuminated many a question.

July very quickly related this matter to Sword Demon and discussed these incidents with him.

“They are not gunning for you and your friends. They should be targeting us, those who are on the city defender’s forces,” Sword Demon concluded.