Chapter 131: Two down
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor:
Both sides placed their bets of 1,000 gold coins and waited for the bells to ring.
With each team having famous players, spectators were already gathering in the arena. However, when they wanted to enter the arena to spectate, the room was locked with a password. They could only ask around, waiting for someone to reveal the password to enter the arena.
The password was placed by Floating Up, fearing that they may face public shaming if either one of them loses the fight, or so Zhang Yang thought.
5 minutes passed like the wind and both contenders entered the battle field. There was no one around the arena aside from the remaining 9 members of Sword and Fire Mercenary group.
'Ding! The battle will start in 10 seconds!'
[Player: Floating Up]
Level: 34
HP: 4,560
9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1,0!
Clang, Clang, Clang...Boom! The steel cage dropped behind them.
Shiing!
Floating Up glowed with a yellow golden light and there was a shape of a battle axe icon on his head. It looked like he gained a buff.
[Commanding Seal]: Every melee attack will inflict additional 30% melee damage as Holy Elemental damage. Last for 30 seconds.
He then dashed towards Zhang Yang. When he was 15 meters away from him, Floating Up stomped the ground hard and tossed his shield towards Zhang Yang.
<Shield Toss>!
'-1!'
A nullified attack damage popped over Zhang Yang's head.
[Shield Toss]: Throws the shield in your hand to cause 100% physical damage to the target and 2 other nearby targets. Inflicts a 50% movement speed reduction. Last for 3 seconds.
Floating Up was wearing a complete Level 20 Gray-Silver equipment, so his Strength should be around 220. Even of the set-equipment effect would increase his attack by 10%, it would only be raised to 250! Zhang Yang equipped the [Bones of the Chimera], which made his Defense to be up to 360 points. Floating Up damage was unable to break his defense and could only inflict a nullified damage value. However, Zhang Yang was still inflicted with the slow effect.
Floating Up was not surprised of his nullified damage, since he had crossed blades with Dominating Blade once and had the same effect. However, Zhang Yang's equipment was not weaker but only stronger!
Shush! Zhang Yang rushed in with <Charge> and stunned his opponent.
He then ran behind him and attacked him normally, followed by a <Horizontal Sweep>.
'-644!'
'-1,313!'
Defender had 15% damage reduction passive skill but would still be in effect even when an enemy attacked from behind.
<Blood Rage> +30 Rage!
'-1,325!' <Destructive Smash>!
2 seconds later, Floating Up recovered from the stun and consumed a bottle of healing potion. He then turned around to face Zhang Yang but only to find Zhang Yang following his back like a shadow. Zhang Yang swung the sword in his hands and dealt another attack on him.
'-656!'
Floating Up now realized that the opponent's ability to reposition was much better than his. If this dragged on, he willd be played around by Zhang Yang, only to be killed. Without hesitating further, Floating Up activated a skill. A flash of golden light beamed out and Zhang Yang was stunned.
[Sanction]: Punish the target, stunning the target immediately. Last for 5 seconds.
Skill range: 15 meters.
This skill's advantage was that the caster did not need to face the target directly to activate!
Similar to Zhang Yang's strategy, Floating Up went behind Zhang Yang and sliced Zhang Yang's back.
'-453!' Normal attack.
'-150!' <Commanding Seal>.
'-501!' <Strong Hammer>
'-290!' <Justice Bash>.
'-827!' <Judgement>.
Defenders and Guardians possess a different kind of system. A Defender did not need any Rage. They could cast the skill at any time they wanted as long as the skill was not on cool down. Additionally, majority of the Defender's attacking skill was Holy element, which could not be reduced by Defense value.
Floating Up stomped the ground and activated <Devotion>. A golden light spread out and Zhang Yang started to receive 20 damage every second.
After a series of skill, Floating Up had to rely on normal attacks while waiting his skills to finish their cool down.
'-458!'
'-153!'
'-462!'
'-149!'
5 seconds' stun ended!
Zhang Yang had 3,000 HP shaved off by Floating Up. The moment he got control of his character, he quickly turned around and faced Floating Up directly. His skills was ready to be unleashed when his Rage gauge was already full.
'-1,322!' <Destructive Smash>.
Floating Up wanted to learn from Zhang Yang, to follow someone's behind like a shadow and to kill him that way. But that was just a beautiful wish that could never be granted. Before he was even able to react to Zhang Yang's attack, Zhang Yang had already smashed him to have only 1,500 HP left. Zhang Yang attacked him another round and was left with only a drop of blood from death.
Floating Up quickly reacted and activated <Divine Protection> and <Holy Restoration>.
[Divine Protection]: Dispel all negative status effect and grant immunity to all attacks. All damage output and healing will be reduced by 50%. Last for 5 seconds.
Cool down time: 7 minutes.
[Holy Restoration]: Fully restore all of the caster's HP.
Cool down time: 2 minutes.
Shiing! Floating Up had recovered all his HP in a second and also gained immunity to all attacks.
Zhang Yang only grined. After moving himself repeatedly, Zhang Yang was now behind him. This time, Floating Up could not cast <Sanction> to counter him as the skill still had 45 seconds of cool down time!
Zhang Yang waited until the immunity expired and then attacked him slowly.
Floating Up tried his best to move around faster than before, but no matter how fast he moved, he was unable to shake off Zhang Yang. He could only hope to deal damage to buy some time for <Devotion>.
'-671!'
'-1,341!'
'-656!'
......
One by one, Zhang Yang struck him as if there was nothing Floating Up could do to stop Zhang Yang. Eventually, he was killed.
"Damn!" Floating Up could not help but leave a curse at his death bed.
'Ding! Player Floating Up was killed. You have obtained victory!"
A flash of light passed and Zhang Yang was sent out of the battle ground.
What a pity. Floating Up may have damaged Zhang Yang by 3,000 damage but he could not force Zhang Yang to use any of his skills: <Berserker's Heal>, <Shield Wall>, [Servant], <Lifesteal> skill from the sword, and <Merlinda's Shadow>.
There was no one from this current timeline had the capability to even be on par with Zhang Yang!
They would need at least train hard for at least until half a year later, to have their skill sharpened to its best.
Victorious, Zhang Yang had obtained the 1,000 gold coins from the bet and thought to himself. "If I could earn 1,000 gold coins for every battle I fight, I could earn quite some money there!"
'Ding! Player Dominating Blade has sent you a battle request. Will you accept it?'
After Zhang Yang accepted the request, the battle was announced on the announcement board. However, the room was locked with a password. Players from outside were not able to enter the room to spectate the match. Many of them were already frustrated by it.
"Not bad." Dominating Blade sent a private message. "Alright. Just this match. The rest of them won't be fighting! They are all weaker than I am. Since both of us are Guardians, if I lose to you, the rest of them are not worth to be your opponent."
Zhang Yang smiled. "I listen and obey!"
5 minutes later, both of them were teleported into the corner of the battle ground.
10 seconds count down started and the battle began.
Both fighters dashed towards each other and once they were close enough, they activated <Charge> at the same exact second, causing both Dominating Blade and Zhang Yang to be stunned.
2 seconds later. Both of them raised their sword and simultaneously struck each other! They were like a mirror image of each other!
<Block>!
'-139!' Zhang Yang's <Block> reflected damage.
<Block>!
'-1!' Dominating Blade's <Block> reflected damage.
How could both side's <Block> reflected damage could have such high difference? On one end, Zhang Yang had a higher Strength and Defense value. The most important factor was Zhang Yang's <Eagle Eye> that could ignore 50% defense!
"Eh? Do you have a passive skill that could ignore defense?" Dominating Blade brandished his sword as he asked.
"Yeah." Zhang Yang nodded and swung his sword as well.
'-526!'
'-272!'
Dominating Blade was wielding the exact same sword as Zhang Yang but the damage done from both sides were so much different from each other!
When one was at the disadvantage of equipment and skill, maneuverability and tactics were depended on to overcome his opponent! However, could Zhang Yang's capability lose to Dominating Blade?
Before this, Dominating Blade always relied on his equipment and skill level to win a fight against others. But now, his opponent was Zhang Yang, who had better Strength, higher Defense, stronger equipment, and crazy amount of skills! Dominating Blade could not help but feel a little bitter. He wanted to say his catch phrase to Zhang Yang, as he always said to others: "If you have the capability to wear the same equipment as I am, then you have my permission to fight me!"
But with the huge gap in power, Dominating Blade had already lost more than 3,000 HP when Zhang Yang had only lost 1,700 HP. Zhang Yang had not used his regular play style, to hide behind the opponent's back and attack him there. Without a skill like <Sanction> Zhang Yang could torture him as much as he wanted to.
Dominating Blade started to flinch. He knew this battle was going south. He then quickly activated <Shield Wall> and fought Zhang Yang head on. Until <Shield Wall> expired, he activated the sword's <Lifesteal>.
Zhang Yang grined. He used <Block> to block off one attack and activated <Shield Wall> after.
<Block>!
'-68!'
'-134!'
In 3 attack instances, one was blocked. The total damage Dominating Blade had dealt was only 200 damage. He had only healed 50 HP since he had the <Destructive Smash> effect on him!
Dominating Blade was so frustrated he was not sure whether to cry or just give up the match!
Zhang Yang unleashed a fury of attack and ended Dominating Blade's life before he could decide to do anything.
...
"Boss! You're quite strong you know? You could last for 40 seconds! That's much longer than what Floating Up could get!" All Wounded laughed.
Floating Up was enraged at his joke. "Hey! At least I managed to deal 3,000 damage! Dominating Pig here had only deal 2,000 over, you want to compare my ass then?"
Dominating Blade smiled bitterly. "He must have held his punches when he was fighting with you! Floating Up, he didn't used <Shield Wall> when he was with you!"
After a temporary silence, 44 Bandits spoke.
"Are we going to reject every contract for him?" said 44 Bandits with a tone of disappointment. After all, Zhang Yang's head was worth 10,000 gold coins a kill. It was so much more than any other contract that they had ever received. Now that the system had implemented the new system, that kills would not cause a level drop, clients wanted the snapshot of the scene where Zhang Yang was killed. They wanted to use it and post it in the forums to demolish his reputation.
Dominating Blade suddenly went pale. He turned to 44 Bandits and said, "We had accepted two contracts to kill Zhan Yu. But how did that turn out again? Right. You and Not Telling My Name dropped a level!"
Floating Up solemnly said, "Our group strength is strong, but Zhan Yu also had a team. He even had an entire guild backing him up! If we ever cross paths again, he might turn it around and kill us all. His capabilities are just..."
All 10 members of the Sword and Fire Mercenary group turned sour.
They had never been afraid of any super guilds. 'God's Miracle' map was so god damn huge! How could anyone find them? They could just be hiding behind any tree or cave! As long as they were alive, they could just wait for the perfect moment and strike you down without you knowing it! Their controls were strong, equipment as well! The worst-case scenario, both of them would die!
But, Zhang Yang exceed them in every way they could think off. How could they even hope to attack him, much less kill him?
"There won't be a next time for us. We will no longer bother him ever again!"