Virtual World: Close Combat Mage
chapter-143

Chapter 143 - The Incantation that Turns the Tide

“AH!” Svelte Dancer screamed as she hurriedly rolled away from Gu Fei to the side. Gu Fei dexterously used his one hand, which was planted to the ground, to tumble toward the side as well.

The flaming wheel slightly brushed against Gu Fei’s body on its way to the mound that they were originally on, looking like an upturned egg tart caught on fire.

“Run quickly!” Svelte Dancer called out to Gu Fei.

Gu Fei nodded his head. He had just realized that the fight today was different from his fights in the past. The ‘Bounty Mission’ he had previously accomplished was technically done through ambushing his targets. Even if he warned the targets prior to his attacks, the targets would still be caught by surprise and would never be able to deal with him in such a grand and proper manner like their opposing guild today.

With over forty players in the Unbeatable under the Heavens’ formation, the level of concentration that these players were showing right now was vastly different from the level of concentration of Gu Fei’s ‘Bounty Mission’ targets who were usually grinding on monsters or drinking inside the taverns. These current opponents treated anything foreign in their line of sight as a target to be eliminated. Would the usual level grinders have this level of alertness?

Svelte Dancer and Gu Fei ran as fast as they could for a few meters before looking backward and seeing that the opponents had already rushed toward the mound.

“Let’s try to break up their formation by luring the faster ones over to us!” Gu Fei said to Svelte Dancer.

The lady nodded her head as the two began to slow down. Had they continued to run at their full speed, the enemies chasing them would have simply been left in the dust. Would the enemies still give chase to these two given how fast they were at full speed?

And yet, no one seemed to be rushing toward them even though they were now running at a slower pace. The opponents unexpectedly remained calm and continued to maintain their formation. Ascending the small mound and making their way toward the two with a steady pace, they evidently did not intend to mess up their formation.

“They’re not fooled!” Gu Fei sighed. That was the difference between having a good battle commander and not having any at all. Would real armies and soldiers emphasize so much on following orders and commands if those actions were meaningless?

The two were not sure if they should continue to run or not now that their plan of breaking up the enemies’ formation had failed. The enemies continued to steadily edge closer to them as they stared blankly at the tidy formation.

“Use your spells to cover me. I’m going in!” Svelte Dancer said to Gu Fei as she took out her dagger.

“You sure you could pull it off?” Gu Fei asked this question sincerely, yet it instead ended up inciting Svelte Dancer’s fighting spirit.

“Just you watch!” Svelte Dancer hollered as she activated Fleetfoot and bounded toward the enemies.

“Ah! Slow down!” Gu Fei chased after her. His speed was regrettably nowhere near Svelte Dancer’s, so he was very quickly left behind by her. How the heck was he going to cover her at this rate?

It turned out that Svelte Dancer’s speed had also shocked their enemies, as the Archers with bows drawn and Mages with raised staves that were planning to launch long-range attacks remained rooted to the spot when the lone figure hurtled straight toward them on Fleetfoot at an unbelievable speed.

Truly, the proverb ‘An onlooker could see more than the involved party’ held some truth. In this current situation, the ones not directly in charge of things managed to see everything clearly. “Hurry up and attack! What are you all staring blankly for?!” shouted such an onlooker, snapping the Archers and Mages out of their shock to initiate their attacks.

But there were only few Archers in the opposing guild’s formation that was made up of forty-five men with its balanced assortment of the seven job classes, so they could not rain arrows on the target. Svelte Dancer nimbly whirled her dagger defensively, not allowing even one arrow to strike her. In the next moment, the Mages unleashed their spells. Since none of the Archers’ arrows scored a hit on the target, the Mages decided to cast AOE spells, such as Descending Wheel of Flames and Blazing Tree of a Thousand Inferno, instead of Fireball that had a slow tracking speed. The flames of the casted spells acted as a cordon between Svelte Dancer and the troops. She almost got bombarded to death by the enemies when she charged toward them, but she was able to stop herself in time just before she stepped into the AOE of the enemies’ spell. At the next moment, she saw a few flashes of white light from the enemies’ line; it seemed that Homing Projectile had been employed by the Archers on their arrows.

Homing Projectile’s speed, as well as its damage output, was not comparable to Snipe, yet its tracking effect was deadly. Svelte Dancer turned around to run. When compared to the other players, her movement speed was impossibly fast, but the arrows on Homing Projectile currently after her were still faster. Moreover, Fleetfoot was on its cool-down period right now, so she could only run at her normal speed, resulting in those projectiles to home close to her bum.

At this same moment, Gu Fei finally managed to catch up to Svelte Dancer who had left him behind. He burst into a bout of raucous laughter when he saw her rush toward the opposing guild’s formation only to hurriedly sprint backward.

“Cover! Where is my cover fire?!” Svelte Dancer criticized Gu Fei as she ran, even turning around to check how far the arrows on Homing Projectile were on her. One way of dodging these arrows was to maintain her distance from them until the skill lost its effect.

Gu Fei stepped forward and raised his Moonlit Nightfalls, swiftly cutting down an arrow on Homing Projectile. Analysis determined that an Archer’s attack was the easiest in-game skill to disrupt.

Theoretically speaking, the attacks of Archers were the easiest to disrupt because they had fast speed to compensate for this. Svelte Dancer glanced backward to note the direction of the arrows on Homing Projectile tailing her, only to receive a shock at the sight of Gu Fei easily disrupting the projectiles until only one was left.

If Svelte Dancer were the one currently deflecting the arrows on Homing Projectile instead of Gu Fei, she would only be confident enough to deal with one or two of them. Otherwise, she would not be running like this right now. With only the final arrow left, Svelte Dancer stopped in her tracks and turned around to strike it down.

Svelte Dancer assumed that Gu Fei could easily deflect the arrows because they were not targeting him. She believed this to be the only logical explanation for such a feat.

Meanwhile, their current predicament seemed to have no solution, seeing as the two of them were up against forty-five opposing players. “Help me block the arrows!” Suddenly, Gu Fei shouted this at her as she was pondering on the best course of action for them.

“Ah?” Svelte Dancer asked, stunned. Looking at Gu Fei, she saw him steadily pointing his Moonlit Nightfalls on to the enemies’ ranks unmindful of the several arrows heading his way.

Svelte Dancer did not have time to ruminate more about this and just quickly darted to Gu Fei’s side to defend him from the arrows. In an instant, she snapped four arrows with a wave of her dagger. Although two arrows embedded themselves into her body, Svelte Dancer managed to survive them due to her OP equipment.

“Blazing Tree of a Thousand Inferno! Arise!” Blocking that wave of arrows was sufficient for Gu Fei to finish his incantation.

Various spells had different rules for casting. For instance, the two AOE spells, Blazing Tree of a Thousand Inferno and Descending Wheel of Flames, required Mages to remain stationary while casting them. Otherwise, the spells would get disrupted immediately. Furthermore, spells were not bounded by a time limit, and the incantations would only be considered as complete once Mages finished chanting them.

Pronouncing the words clearly was a must as well. If the incantation was said in a rush, the system would not detect it. This was as good as not chanting an incantation to begin with. If Jay Chou were a Mage in Parallel World, he would most likely be the worst Mage there was.

Gu Fei’s speech was intelligible; his words were well pronounced and his chanting speed was suitable. Since the attacks in him were successfully blocked by Svelte Dancer, there was no reason for his incantation to fail. However, it was just one mage spell so the opposing side did not consider it a threat as they steadily advanced toward Gu Fei and Svelte Dancer while the enemy Archers, Mages, and other long-range job classes continued to unleash attacks upon the two.

“Evade! What are you standing there in a daze for?!” Gu Fei, who was about to make a dash for it, saw Svelte Dancer still standing there foolishly.

Svelte Dancer hurried to Gu Fei’s side as she asked blankly, “Where’s your spell?”

Gu Fei smiled faintly as he snapped his fingers. Flames blossomed and exploded as a raging inferno erupted. The team of forty-five men looked as if it had stepped onto a huge landmine and was very quickly enveloped by the sea of flames.

“Sigh. They didn’t evade it!” Svelte Dancer exclaimed in dismay.

Gu Fei was momentarily mystified, asking “Whose side are you on? What is so bad about them not evading?”

“But—” Svelte Dancer was about to say that the opposing guild’s formation would be in a mess if they had evaded his spell, yet no words came out of her mouth in the end.

All that was left of Gu Fei’s Blazing Tree of a Thousand Inferno on the field was some glowing embers, burning a big hole through the Unbeatable under the Heavens’ formation. The leftover enemies were shocked and perplexed, their eyes filling with horror. The Priests at the rear of the now disrupted formation were even more at a loss over what had just happened. They were originally planning to bestow Heal on their guildmates, yet those guildmates ended up being insta-killed by the searing inferno.

“Go on!” Gu Fei waved Svelte Dancer onward, having already charged toward them himself. He merely casted Blazing Tree of a Thousand Inferno on a whim. Gu Fei’s first love when it came to PvPing was still melee or directly confronting the enemies with his sword, after all.

“Hey, you…” Svelte Dancer had clearly never seen a Mage that headed straight into the thick of the fray like this before. Sadly, she only managed to utter these two words before she was left in the dust by Gu Fei who had already rushed toward the enemies himself.

Svelte Dancer could only chase after him. The Unbeatable under the Heavens’ players had yet to recover from their shock, but the two full-Agility build demons were already upon their ranks in the next moment.

“Twin Incineration! Incinerate!” Gu Fei casted another spell that could insta-kill the others right from the start. Although his Blazing Tree of a Thousand Inferno managed to insta-kill half of the troops here, the ensuing two versus over twenty players still exerted quite the pressure on Gu Fei – or at least, the fight was not yet at the point where he could toy on his opponents.

The slash under Twin Incineration he had unleashed went through three players and killed two right away. The last person was a Priest and he only got burned by the spell and did not suffer Moonlit Nightfalls’ physical damage, allowing him to barely cling on to his life.

Svelte Dancer finally arrived at where they were and immediately unleashed an equally oppressive attack as Gu Fei’s. She brandished her dagger into a fast blur and quickly disposed of two opponents. Gu Fei sent another slash on Twin Incineration and slew two more enemies.

It was only now that the enemies finally reacted. Abandoning all thoughts of maintaining their formation, the remaining players charged toward the two and encircled them haphazardly. Gu Fei’s Twin Incineration took down another player and stepped backward until his back was almost leaning against Svelte Dancer’s. “Hey. You okay over there?”

“If you can do it, why can’t I?” Svelte Dancer retorted.

“Alright, then. Hold on for a while. I’m gonna eat a banana first,” Gu Fei’s Twin Incineration cleaved a path out for him in exchange for the two players’ lives. Charging out of the crowd, Gu Fei fished out a banana from his dimensional pocket to eat it. Unlike Svelte Dancer’s dagger attacks, his attack required a high mana consumption. Saying that the Mage Gu Fei’s mana pool was currently depleted was already being kind. In all honesty, it was completely empty right now.

“D*mn you! You scoundrel!” Svelte Dancer wanted to cry, but no tears would come out. How would she know that Gu Fei had asked that question to leave her to the lions and run off on his own! One person against an encirclement of over ten men; even Svelte Dancer’s heart wavered as she shrieked, “When will you be back?!”

Gu Fei was peeling his banana as he ran, answering her with, “As soon as I can! Hold on!”

In the end, the Unbeatable under the Heavens’ men learned that Gu Fei was out of mana. Not letting go of this chance, many hastily chased after Gu Fei and eased the pressure off Svelte Dancer considerably.

Gu Fei faced backward. When he saw the situation behind him, he immediately realized that the opposing men had split themselves into two groups. Svelte Dancer no longer had to push herself that far as he quickly gobbled up the banana. Although his mana had yet to replenish to a point that he was contented with, he could still handle these few enemies tailing him without being excessive.

He put Moonlit Nightfalls back into his dimensional pocket and took out his Sacred Flames of Baptism instead. Now, he no longer had to be so cautious with his opponents like before.