Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

Chapter 220 - Young Master Han’s Orchestration

Gu Fei, Sword Demon, and Royal God Call expressed their shock on the mercenary channel when Young Master Han, War Without Wounds, and Brother Assist were killed off by the enemies. Their swift exit made the three of them wonder what had happened. They eventually got their reply from the three who were now outside the PvP arena.

“This is so depressing! We were ambushed!” War Without Wounds said.

“Good luck, you three!” Young Master Han said calmly. Based on his calculations, Youthful Reflection would attempt to tighten the bond between him and Gu Fei now that the latter had earned his utmost trust. He he... Trying to get chummy with Miles will only hasten your fall from the peak of heaven to the depths of hell.

“How are we going to fight this match now?” Royal God Call asked.

“Same as yesterday; Royal will draw a portion of the enemies’ firepower from afar, Sword Demon will attempt to close in on the enemies with his Stealth, and Miles will use the opportunity created to rush them.” Young Master Han designated the three’s roles as he savored the impending disaster that was about to consume Four Seas mercenary group.

The three stuck to the routes Young Master Han had given them before. Coming from three different directions, the three somehow managed to arrive at where the twenty men of Four Seas were situated without encountering any enemy ambushers. Royal God Call was atop a small hill, Sword Demon was behind a land depression, and Gu Fei was hiding in a nearby copse of trees.

“Shall I start the fight?” Royal God Call checked in with the other two men.

“Begin!” Sword Demon and Gu Fei answered in unison.

An arrow on Snipe streaked out from a certain hilltop.

Although the Four Seas’ members were considered to be elites, they were not the crème de la crème like Royal God Call. Furthermore, he was pretty well-acquainted with this lot and was well-aware of which player had lower and higher HP and defense. He picked the target he had the most faith in taking down and lucked out when the arrow on Snipe he had sent out triggered the Fatal Blow effect, insta-killing the target. This was what it truly meant to know a foe as well as one’s self.

These Four Seas’ men were immediately thrown into a mess by this kill; they were also aware that the Archer targeting them right now was Royal God Call. Just like how Royal God Call knew almost everything about them, they too had a good grasp of Royal God Call’s stat point allocation and equipment. Unfortunately, they had not been privy of Royal God Call’s equipment acquisition, so this one insta-kill had left them stunned.

“What’s going on?” Receiving the system notification about a member’s death, Youthful Reflection very quickly questioned the others. He was currently bringing the ambush team back to congregate with the main body after taking down the three low Agility members of Young Master’s Elite.

“Royal managed to insta-kill one of us with Snipe!” someone answered.

“How’s that possible?!” Youthful Reflection was also stunned. After he had learned that Royal God Call was a member of Young Master’s Elite, he had specially reviewed the brat’s combat strength; while his skill was decent, his Attack Power was not at such a high level!

Royal God Call fired off several more arrows in the time that they were reeling in shock. Unfortunately, besides Snipe, none of his attacks could inflict enough damage to insta-kill others. The Four Seas’ players were not as disorganized as High Cloud’s, and they swiftly moved to counter Royal God Call’s attacks – the Priest prepared to bestow Heal on his teammates, the Archers returned fire, and the Thieves entered Stealth to sneak up on Royal God Call from behind.

Royal God Call was an experienced combatant; using Eagle Eyes, he easily counted the number of players before him and when he realized that the nineteen players had turned into seventeen, he began to employ guerilla tactics on them. Despite not knowing when the two Thieves had disappeared from the enemies’ ranks, he was certain that their purpose for leaving was to assassinate him. Changing his position with every arrow he fired made it difficult for any of the two Thieves to get close to him. Since they were in a match, the restriction on time that had been placed on Stealth meant that the Thieves would forcefully be revealed after a short while.

As Royal God Call diverted the enemies’ attention to him, Sword Demon began to close in on the enemies under Stealth. Royal God Call’s previous attacks were a sort of signal for Sword Demon to begin his assault; concentrating his barrage of arrows on a certain person, Royal God Call somehow ‘mistakenly’ shot the player next to his target. The Four Seas’ Priest was focusing his efforts on Royal God Call’s main target, so the latter’s ‘misfire’ barely registered to him.

Sword Demon, who was now beside this ‘mistakenly targeted’ person, revealed himself with a swift stab. Sword Demon’s Backstab was executed after a brief pause. This delay in his attack was done to signal Royal God Call. When Royal God Call saw Sword Demon appear, he immediately fired off another arrow to the ‘mistakenly shot’ person, perfectly coordinating his attack with the briefly delayed Backstab in a way that the dagger and the arrow hit the person simultaneously. The Priest was evidently not skilled enough to grasp the split-second difference between the enemies’ attacks, so the man was killed off before his Heal could descend on him.

Sword Demon retreated after that one blow by activating Fleetfoot, and he quickly weaved through the enemies that that had begun to surround him. The Four Seas’ Archers rushed to fire a few arrows at him, yet the seasoned combatant Sword Demon already changed his path of retreat to the other side of their formation. When the Archers changed their target from Royal God Call to Sword Demon, their arrowheads somehow ended up pointing right at their comrades’ butts. In the time they took to adjust their positions to gain a clear view of the target, Sword Demon had managed to arrive at a nearby copse of trees that Gu Fei had just emerged from.

Gu Fei and Sword Demon were surprised to see each other like this.

Gu Fei immediately sprinted out of the tree lines when he saw Sword Demon retreat. What he did not expect was for Sword Demon to actually retreat in the same direction he would come from. As a result, Gu Fei’s advance got exposed to the enemies earlier than planned.

As for Sword Demon, he never imagined that Gu Fei would actually be in this copse of trees. Gu Fei should not even be in this location based on the last coordinates Young Master Han had given them on the mercenary channel. Otherwise, he would not have exposed Gu Fei’s position like this.

What Sword Demon did not know was that Gu Fei had privately received another message from Young Master Han.

Young Master Han was very familiar with Sword Demon’s combat style. Once he designated Sword Demon his coordinates and determined the enemies’ PvP formation, Young Master Han could easily predict Sword Demon’s preferred escape route. Thus, he secretly instructed Gu Fei to take this very same path to create such a situation where they would be facing each other like this.

If everything had happened according to his calculations, Youthful Reflection would have undoubtedly told his men to ignore the Mage. Still, the men of Four Seas would certainly realize that something was amiss if they saw Gu Fei charge toward them with a drawn sword while emitting palpable killing intent.

With a scene where Gu Fei was charging toward the crowd just as Sword Demon was retreating, it would appear as if he was intending to charge at Sword Demon, instead.

Since Youthful Reflection told them that Gu Fei had already defected over to Four Seas, the men fully assumed Gu Fei had come out to assist them in taking down Sword Demon.

Hence, the Archers, Mages, and other ranged job classes that had enough time to injure these two targets happily stopped their attacks. They were hoping to see a scene where their enemies would turn their weapons on each other as well as to learn which between the newly minted gaming expert and the renowned maestro Sword Demon was stronger.

No attacks came for Gu Fei and Sword Demon from the enemies. The two were very baffled by this, but neither of them chose to dwell on it too much and merely continued on their paths, very quickly passing each other.

Gu Fei did not attack Sword Demon and merely continued charging toward the Four Seas’ men with his sword raised instead. This was when these men of Four Seas realized that something was awry.

This realization came too late, though; Gu Fei had already blinked himself in the middle of their formation.

Gu Fei was naturally prepared when he charged toward them. Even if both sides were in a situation where they would have to clash abruptly, as a kung fu practitioner, Gu Fei could react react to the situation many times faster than others.

“Twin Incineration! Incinerate!” Gu Fei bellowed and swung the sword in his hand in a three-hundred-sixty-degree arc. This sword slash strongly resembled a flaming dragon as it flowed through the crowd and completed a full revolution around Gu Fei, killed off six of the surrounding men in one fell swoop.

Gu Fei’s purple sword created blurred afterimage as he swiftly wielded it in all directions with the Gu Family’s sword style, Zhao San Mu Si. Many of the surrounding people were struck by his sword, yet none of them could fathom how they were hit by it. Fortunately for these men, the damage inflicted on them by the sword was not high.

When it came to a group PvP, Gu Fei never sought to coordinate his attack with others – an aspect that he was inferior to when compared to experts like Sword Demon and Royal God Call.

Nonetheless, Gu Fei’s domineering strength made up for this as it let him break any opponents’ formation in one blitz. Every strike he made had the possibility of insta-killing or crushing others. Moreover, he had the ability to severely affect an opponent’s mental state, or in gaming terms, he was capable of applying the Petrify status effect on others.

This squad of almost twenty elite players completely fell into the trap that Young Master Han had set via the use of Gu Fei’s abilities. Taking into account the deaths they had incurred from Gu Fei’s Twin Incineration as well as Royal God Call and Sword Demon’s joint attacks, Four Seas had actually lost a total of eight men.

Royal God Call took the chance the chaotic situation had provided him to send an arrow on Snipe to an enemy, adding another kill point to his tally. Meanwhile, Sword Demon stealthily approached the enemies’ ranks once more. The remaining eleven men of Four Seas suffered from attacks in and out and could momentarily not decide which enemy they should deal with first. Gu Fei wildly slashed his sword from within their ranks as he shouted the incantation for Twin Incineration whenever he could.

The enemies were scared witless when they realized that they could not dodge Gu Fei’s sword strikes, and none of them dared to take him on. Twin Incineration was actually still on cool-down, so Gu Fei’s chanting could not generate it, but because Gu Fei had fast fighting tempo and had worn items that increased the proc rate of additional fire attack, his sword would incessantly blaze. The fiery glow of the additional fire attack and Twin Incineration looked somewhat similar, so none of the enemies could quickly differentiate the two. They only knew that Gu Fei’s Twin Incineration had insta-killed six men, so they all scrambled to get away from him.

The three members of Young Master’s Elite seized this chance to massacre their fleeing enemies until only two enemy Thieves remained of the original twenty-man team. The two Thieves had fast movement speed, so they were able to escape with their lives by activating Fleetfoot.

Royal God Call rendezvoused with Sword Demon and Gu Fei. They had fun tearing the twenty enemies apart, yet the simplicity of achieving such a feat left them confused. Four Seas mercenary group should be capable of superb coordination like a well oiled machine, so how was it possible for them to easily be taken apart like this?

How would these three men react if they knew that this incredible feat had only been possible due to Young Master Han’s orchestration?