Virtual World: Close Combat Mage
chapter-751-30041322

Chapter 751: Chapter 751 – Along the Way

Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales

“How did it get Enraged without any rhyme or reason!?” The four guild leaders were exasperated. A BOSS would usually Enrage when it was in critical HP; Why would it become Enraged while it was still healthy? What sort of sense would it make if it Enraged even further when it was about to die later?

“It’s a circumstantial trigger. The item he handed over triggered it,” Ye Xiaowu said.

“So what do we do now?” The four guild leaders were in tears. In the time they spoke with Ye Xiaowu, Courtney had fired another scatter shot of arrows, and those struck by the projectiles were all insta-killed. There was no additional attack to these shots; just the pure physical damage alone from its arrows demonstrated just how insanely powerful Courtney’s attack power was.

“That NPC only deals pure physical damage, so use Guardians or Endurance-focused Warriors to tank the attacks,” Ye Xiaowu instructed. Actually, most Priests would also be Endurance focused, but because the equipment that they wore was just cloth armor, the defense provided would not be enough to survive the attacks. While the equipment in Parallel World had no job class restrictions or level requirements, they still had certain stats prerequisites to meet. Top tier armor needed Endurance and Strength, and while Priests had enough Endurance, they lacked the Strength necessary. While Priests were able to devote points toward Strength just for equipment, the only benefit that they would gain was in their defense, and the Strength stat was basically useless to a Priests’ Healing power. Regarding this particular choice, it was just a particular topic that players had always been researching.

There was no time to research any of this right now, and the Warriors had also stepped up and habitually protected their own guildmates. Facing the scatter shots from an Enraged Courtney, several Warriors had already come forward and were prepared to bear the brunt of the attack by their own volition. However, Ye Xiaowu’s prompt was not for naught here, as the Warriors themselves all had a great variety of stats allocation, so while their defense after wearing all their heavy armor was decent, those Berserkers who diverted their points toward Strength were not really any good as shields for this. Their HP were all well within the range of damage that Courtney could successfully dish out, and it was very difficult to watch them die just like that.

The four guild leaders hurried to give their order, leaving it to the Guardians and the Endurance-focused Warriors to move to the frontline and become proper meatshields.

Courtney did not care who was standing in front of it, and just kept desperately firing arrows, dashing forward as it kept up its attack. Guardians and the Endurance-focused Warriors were indeed capable of withstanding a single arrow from it, but before they could even celebrate, Gu Fei had Blinked over and throw in a Twin Incineration of his own as a follow-up, cleansing the men in one swipe. He was then somersaulting and rolling on the ground, focusing on targeting their lower body as he avoided Courtney’s next volley of arrows at the same time. The players were crying bitterly. These two characters were enough trouble all by themselves no matter where they pop up, though players could ultimately deal with them accordingly; but now that they were working together, the damage was simply so high that they had a hard time keeping up.

And what made it all the more disgusting was Courtney’s special Threat tabulation; it completely ignored the players’ attempts to lure it away, possessing a one-track mind to follow Gu Fei and escape together that left all the players gnashing their teeth.

“What do we do?” The four guild leaders were depending on Ye Xiaowu, but the man simply refused to say a word. He would always have a solution when dealing with a BOSS or NPC, but when taking on Gu Fei, he was still as clueless as the next man. How was he supposed to have known what would Gu Fei do next? He was a real human being, not some computer AI that was programmed by another. Gu Fei was currently executing his Tang sword style of kung fu, rolling about on the ground. With how tall the reeds were here, no one had any idea just where Gu Fei’s figure was.

“Where is that guy?” Ye XIaowu watched Gu Fei disappear below the reeds, losing sight of him just like that.

“How would we know!?” The four guild leaders were angered. They were waiting for this man to come up with an idea, yet he had proven himself to be just an imbecile as well during such crucial moments.

“Get the tanks to provide cover, I’ll send my Mage Formation over,” Brave Surge really really did not wish to kill the NPC, but he truly had no choice but to grit his teeth and bear with it when he saw the situation that they were now in.

“Guild leader Surge is truly noble and righteous, truly a role model for our generation.” The three other guild leaders were still being hypocritical!

Brave Surge did not deign to be concerned with them any longer. The Warriors in the encirclement did not start to move in and surround the two, but pull back and to make room. However, the movement speed of these Warriors was no match for Courtney’s. Using its high movement speed to break through the encirclement, it very swiftly caught up to the Warriors, pulling out its dagger the moment it was near. The blade shone as it moved, and the Warriors fell no slower than when they had been struck by its arrows. It was completely impossible for the City assaulters to keep the NPC surrounded in the center and safely bombard it with their Mages.

Without hesitating, Brave Surge gave the order and the Mages that he had called over all began to unleash their AoE spell, engulfing Courtney as well as the Warriors that were surrounding it in their flames.

“D*mm*t…” Oathless Sword gritted his teeth. He was convinced that Brave Surge was doing this on purpose, directly blasting the Warriors without sparing a single thought since the Warriors were all from Traversing Four Seas.

“What are you doing?” Ye Xiaowu nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw what sort of strategy they were employing.

“This is a necessary sacrifice,” Brave Surge was composed.

“Are you guys daft? That’s a BOSS level NPC, do you know how much HP it has? How much damage can your AoE spells do in one go, and how many people will you be sacrificing? Do you think you’re able to exchange enough lives for all of its HP?” Ye Xiaowu said.

Brave Surge was startled as well. The AoE bombardment that was unleashed moments ago had cleansed a bunch of players, while Courtney remained standing. Brave Surge suddenly felt a little panicked, That’s right! I had no idea just how much HP the target has. Would it really be effective for me to include my own allies in our bombardment this way?

“This…” Brave Surge was stumped, implicitly feeling like he had made a fatal error somewhere.

Oathless Sword had sacrificed a bunch of Warriors, so when he heard Ye Xiaowu’s reminder, he quickly reacted with tears streaming down his cheeks, “The hell are you doing, that’s not Thousand Miles Drunk! It’s a BOSS!”

“D*mn!” It was only now that Brave Surge realized where he had made a mistake at. Fighting against Thousand Miles Drunk had caused them to cultivate a habit of bombarding their enemy alongside their own men. Thousand Miles Drunk was a player, so when facing such a huge wave of AoE spells stacked upon him, death was inevitable if he was unable to evade the attack. But when facing a BOSS NPC like Courtney right now, the HP of a player and that of a BOSS was hardly comparable. They would be seriously undervaluing a BOSS if a bunch of people were able to kill it by just stacking their attacks together.

Brave Surge had broken out in a bout of cold sweat when he thought about this grave mistake he had made. He had really enjoyed giving the order to that last bombardment too, directly carving out a chunk of Warriors from Traversing Four Seas in that one move, but that only allowed Courtney to dash out in the wake of the empty space created as it continued to fire its arrows randomly at everyone.

“Maybe Thousand Miles Drunk had been killed in that last bombardment?” Brave Surge was still trying to console himself!

“Thousand Miles Drunk is of course still alive,” Ye Xiaowu shot down this line of thinking almost immediately.

“How do you know?”

“Actually, it is like Thousand Miles Drunk is its aggro target right now; That NPC would pretty much lose all sense of direction if Thousand Miles Drunk dies,” Ye Xiaowu said.

“In other words, we need only to kill Thousand Miles Drunk and that would work?” Oathless Sword was pleasantly surprised.

“Why are you saying it in such an elated tone?!” Foe-herder barked. “Had we not already learned just how difficult it is to deal with Thousand Miles Drunk, which is why we decided to kill the NPC so as to disrupt his quest in the first place?”

“We were forced into acting like this because Thousand Miles Drunk had refused to step into our ambush and simply called out to the NPC from outside our set up. Now that he’s actually stepped into our encirclement, we should turn our focus back on him instead,” Oathless Sword was thinking very clearly.

“Wait a minute, you’re saying that the NPC will follow Thousand Miles Drunk’s trail?” Brave Surge suddenly said.

“It will, of course, be smart enough to make its own judgment to retaliate based on the attacks around it, but the direction of its advancement would more or less be unchanged,” Ye Xiaowu explained.

“In that case, don’t you guys think that the direction it’s headed in seems to be where we’re currently standing?” Brave Surge exclaimed.

“OH F*CK!” Oathless Sword shrieked. All he saw was a blur in front of him as a black figure suddenly darted over.

Thousand Miles Drunk!

No one would have thought that he would not be in any rush to dash out of the encirclement and continue his quest. Instead, the man had taken this opportunity while all the players were at a loss about how to deal with Courtney to sneakily make a beeline to the place where the guild leaders of the four guilds were commanding from.

With a Blink, by the time Gu Fei had suddenly appeared in front of these men, it was already too late for any of them to run away.

“Twin Incineration!!” Gu Fei twisted his body with the attack, and none of them managed to evade it. However, these guild leader level experts each had their own moves, so they were all able to withstand this one attack from Gu Fei. It was only poor Ye Xiaowu who was already eliminated in the first revolution of his Twin Incineration. Gu Fei was feeling great remorse, for he had not even managed to greet the man yet!

The four guild leaders did not have any intention of trading blows with Gu Fei at all. They had only taken this attack entirely due to Gu Fei suddenly Blinking within their midst, hating the fact that the other men had stood so close together. After eating the damage from Gu Fei’s attack, they scattered in four different directions, each of them praying that Gu Fei would pick one of the other three to pursue and not themselves.

The four guild leaders were coincidentally all baby legs as well, so knowing that it would be a simple and almost instantaneous task for Gu Fei to catch up to them, they ran like their lives literally depended on it as they cried for assistance, turning their heads back to see just who was the unlucky fellow.

Brave Surge once more demonstrated how he was the most meticulous out of the four. He sensed that Gu Fei had not come charging toward them as a meaningless attempt for the spotlight, but it was for his mission, the Honor-killing mission! However, Gu Fei’s mission target should be Oathless Sword, and Brave Surge felt calmer by quite a bit after recalling this fact. The other three had all turned back looking for who would be the ill-fated prey, while he had turned around with the expressed interest of seeing how Oathless Sword would be slain.

That was when Brave Surge saw Thousand Miles Drunk and the tip of his sword was less than one centimeter away from him.

“Why is it me?” Brave Surge sputtered.

“Why is it not you?” Gu Fei was baffled.

“Isn’t your mission target Oathless Sword?” Brave Surge asked.

“It had changed long ago,” Gu Fei glumly answered. “I have no idea who it was that camped out my spawn point this morning when I logged on and ambushed me, forcing me to fail my mission, so I have no choice but to change it to you now.”

The tears from Brave Surge were flowing freely. He was the one who had camped out Gu Fei’s log off point and ambushed him…

This is an Honor-killing… Brave Surge’s legs turned into jelly when he thought of this point. But he did not give up. He strove to hang on to his dear life then and there, using his Ice Armor spell so he could use his mana to reinforce himself, only to find himself swept to the ground by a single kick from Gu Fei.

Twin Incineration, Palm of Thunder, Thunderbolt, Fireball and Repeating Fireballs.

Gu Fei unloaded every available spell he had in his repertoire on Brave Surge, who weathered everything sent his way. Ice Armor was a spell that created armor with a certain amount of HP, but it did not take long for it to shatter under the powerful assault from Gu Fei. The spell sustained itself by consuming the caster’s mana in exchange for the HP lost from the damage dealt; a Mage’s mana would always be far more abundant than their HP, so this spell was actually very practical.

However, Brave Surge was ultimately unable to survive.

He did not receive any assistance. The d*mn*bl* swathe of reeds that surrounded them caused him to disappear from everyone’s field of vision, so even though Priests had rushed over after his cry for help, none of them were able to get a line of sight to him, and so they were unable to do what they had come to do in the first place.

Brave Surge’s mana was not unlimited, and besides, while his mana was putting up with the attacks, the defense rating of his equipment was not part of the equation, so his Ice Armor was essentially shouldering all 100% of Gu Fei’s damage.

The only thing Brave Surge had gained from this was that he fully experienced just how powerful and indomitable Gu Fei’s attack power really was.

White light finally rose, and Brave Surge got Honor-killed. When this news was announced to all the city defenders by the system, a bout of cheer erupted. Sword Demon and the others all began sending their congratulatory messages even as they inquired with much surprise regarding how Gu Fei had managed to finish off Brave Surge while he was busy with his quest.

Even Royal God Call and the other two ladies over in the distance, ready to come in to lend a hand were somewhat confused. Gu Fei’s plan did not seem to have this particular path before.

Conversely, Brave Surge’s efforts at holding out had managed to earn some time for the three other guild leaders to get away. Foe-herder was two deaths shy of being completely taken out of the event, so he was scrambling on all fours among the sea of reeds as he escaped. Oathless Sword and Black Index Finger were not any better, wearily hiding to the best of their abilities as they prayed that Brave Surge would die a little slower.

The three of them ultimately fled from their doom; had Gu Fei been given the chance, he would not have minded giving each of them a lick of his blade.

Their reinforcements were trying to surround Gu Fei and Courtney once more as quickly as they could, but the NPC was hurrying along after Gu Fei, leaving behind fresh blossoms of white light everywhere it went, a far more impressive sight than Gu Fei’s own efforts.

Gu Fei shrunk himself down into the tall reeds once again, moving about among the vegetation without the players having any sight of him.

His movement speed did not seem to have reduced despite this change of posture, and that was all thanks to his kungfu again. The ground-variant of the Tang style kungfu that he was proficient in had a foundational class on how to roll on the ground at high speeds, and he had used this opportunity to properly utilize it in his current predicament.

Ye Xiaowu was already dead.

Out of the guild leaders from the four large guilds, one had died while the other three had fled with their lives intact, and they were still reeling and left in a daze by what just transpired.

The players were now all in a mess, and all of them had no idea what to do. Gu Fei had disappeared into the reeds, occasionally reaping a player whenever he stumbled onto someone. Courtney was an NPC, and the shamelessness of an NPC meant that it did not need to see Gu Fei to have a clear idea which direction Gu Fei was going. It followed Gu Fei’s movement speed and rush on outward, clearing out everyone that it came across.

It was only when Gu Fei had barreled out from the reeds that all the players realized that he had already broken through their lines.

Meanwhile, the players who were now all left in a state of disarray were entirely incapable of handling an Enraged Courtney, allowing it to successfully step out of the reeds as well.

Gu Fei sprinted forward, and Courtney effortlessly followed behind him. As an entity that had all three Agility-based job classes in itself, it was unknown just how much movement speed it possessed, not to mention when it was in the Enraged state.

“They’re coming!!” Royal God Call and the two were hiding out in the little forest by the hills, and they had finally spotted Gu Fei leading Courtney out of the heavy encirclement.

“They don’t look like they need our help,” Xi Xiaotian said as she watched. The job classes who lacked movement speed would hardly be able to catch up to the pair, and anyone with Agility that might be thinking of creating trouble would simply face Courtney’s scatter shot when it turned around… These players might have Agility but lacked HP, and the stucco of white light that blossomed endlessly looked particularly beautiful when superimposed by the field of reeds.

“This NPC’s really strong! If we can lead it around, could it become our pet?” Royal God Call was daydreaming.

Gu Fei was already closing in on the three, so he waved, “Time to go.”

The three jumped out from the trees and joined the two and formed a party of runaways, and the men from the four large guilds did not dare to chase any longer. Courtney soon determined that it had fled from combat, so it immediately came to a halt, and once more exchanged words with Gu Fei.

“Where is Angus?” Courtney, who had just killed a host of players without batting an eyelid, looked to be verging on tears at the moment.

“Give me the notes,” Gu Fei collected all the notes from the three others and handed it to Courtney.

“Ah!” Courtney exclaimed; it obviously recognized what they were. It very quickly shuffled through the correspondence between the two and read the written internal monologues and confessions from Angus.

“Angus, why did you not come to find me!?” Courtney naturally wondered.

“It’s because something very terrifying has happened to him,” Gu Fei said.

“That’s right, he got torn apart, no thanks to you,” Royal God Call complained, which resulted in Gu Fei sending two kicks his way. Courtney ignored this brief exchange, only focused on asking, “What happened to him?”

“An accident seemed to have happened during the Yunjiao water storage and drainage project. Angus’s body had evidently been mutated by it. He’s no longer human, and is in great pain,” Gu Fei answered.

“You’re being very dramatic,” Xi Xiaotian mockingly criticized, which earned her a scowl from Gu Fei.

“Then where is he now?” Courtney asked.

It was finally time for the truth. Gu Fei took a deep breath, “He… He’s dead.”

Courtney froze up, and abruptly collapsed to the ground.

“Crap, what happened? Is it dead? Did I do critical damage?” Gu Fei was anxious as he quickly squatted down to check its body.

“Does it have any top tier equipment? Can we take it off?” Royal God Call was very anxious as well.

Gu Fei glared at him.

“It should have Thief items too, right? I did see it use a dagger when it got into melee combat,” Svelte Dancer added.

“Shut up, the both of you!” Gu Fei was irate. Treating Courtney like a human, Gu Fei tested to see if it was still breathing, and discovered that it was not out of breath.

“What do we do now? Do we have to bring it to a doctor?” Gu Fei asked.

“Perhaps we just have to wait till it recovers on its own,” Xi Xiaotian said.

“But we cannot possibly stay here and do that, right? Those guys might very well be hot on our trail,” Gu Fei said, even as he forcefully dragged it across the ground.

“Should we go hide out in the forest over there?” Xi Xiaotian pointed in a direction.

Inside the forest, after putting down Courtney for a short time, its consciousness very quickly returned. It looked like the system did not dare to waste the player’s time by making it stay unconscious for three days and three nights.

Courtney’s expression was very pale, and it appeared to lack any sort of light behind its eyes. Gazing straight at Gu Fei, it asked, “How did he die?”

The other three turned to look at Gu Fei, watching to see how he would explain to the NPC how he had dismembered Angus’ limbs.

Gu Fei was calm, “I’ll bring you over so you can see for yourself.”

“Will its corpse still be there?” Xi Xiaotian voiced her doubts for the rest.

“Perhaps it would be!” Gu Fei said. “Would any of you care to pick at his disgusting corpse?”

“Hey, don’t say it like that. It’s really pitiful!” Svelte Dancer was angered.

“I don’t mean to say that with malice; I’m just stating facts,” Gu Fei said.

Leaving the forest, the four players and NPC ventured over to Yunjiao Quarry. The site where Angus had been killed was already devoid of players, and before Gu Fei and the three were able to locate where Angus was lying, the BOSS level NPC with three job classes had demonstrated just how sharp its vision was, or perhaps it was under the direction of the almighty system; Courtney very quickly sprinted out in a direction, and the four players followed.

Angus was lying quietly on the ground.

The bones and flesh from the broken arms were mosaiced, its clothing was already torn and shredded. Evidently, players had searched its body for equipment and beneath the torn clothing revealed his abnormal rotted flesh. Its facial expression still preserved that same savage ferocity from before, its hair was like mushrooms, its eyes were left vacantly staring up to the sky, giving off a sense of its melancholy and helplessness.

Courtney was holding its hand to its mouth, not making any sound of its own as it sobbed inaudibly. All of a sudden, it kneeled over Angus’ body and hugged it tightly.

It continued to cry soundlessly as the four silently stood by behind it.