Chapter 40

Nie Fan was unaware that Grievous Harm was approaching. Still, he had been quite cautious after running into him in the village, keeping an eye on his surroundings so that he would not fall to Grievous Harm’s ambushes.

He glanced at his scoresheet to find that he had already slain nine Elite Demon Goblin Warriors.

Other players around were looking at him with utter respect. All of them were trying to guess who Nie Fan actually was since top players like him were rare, and not even Dancing Phoenix could compare to him. Could he be some godly gamer who was also ranked at top ten?

Naturally, all of them were just guessing, and none of them actually knew Nie Fan’s identity.

Meanwhile, Nie Fan had taken out another Demon Goblin Warrior with a Black Oil and Mini Fireball combo. However, he sensed that something was amiss when he was about to collect the dropped items, and turned his form into a cheetah with a roar. Ever alert to his vicinity in every moment, he could actually pick up the slightest shift in the winds, and that he would definitely die if he didn’t Morph with the Thieves coming for him.

Grievous Harm was certainly stunned, caught off guard by how quickly Nie Fan reacted and noticed him in almost no time at all. The dagger on his right hand which was charged with a Bash skill was therefore interrupted, and was promptly shifted towards Nie Fan’s back instead.

Nie Fan quickly shifted his body. But even if his reaction was quick enough to evade the Bash, he couldn’t completely evade Grievous Harm’s attack.

With a slashing sound, a damage value just over fifty popped up over Nie Fan’s head.

His Defense was much higher than last time, making him a lot less vulnerable.

Grievous Harm drew a blank for a moment. He had already switched to a better weapon—so why would the damage from his attack this time be lower than before?

Still, he quickened his hand to stab his dagger at Nie Fan’s back. Knockout!

Vertical Leap!

Casting his evasion skill, Nie Fan jumped three yards away at once, and Grievous Harm’s attack hit thin air this time.

The Thief’s heart sank right then. ‘That fellow has even more skills now,’ he thought.

Nonetheless, he swiftly pursued Nie Fan even as his target fled.

“Surround him! Don’t let him escape!” He yelled, inwardly scolding himself for attacking too quickly and ought to have waited until his other party members had arrived. He never thought to expect that Nie Fan would be so alert despite having lowered his head to pick up item drops, even dodging his ambush.

Meanwhile, the other five Thieves were encircling Nie Fan from every direction.

Sensing the Thieves approaching with Cloak but not knowing their positions, Nie Fan paused for a moment, thought about it and started to make a dash at a position with the most goblins.

“Should we go after him?”

“Yes!” Grievous Harm seethed. His group should never have accepted that Tracer’s quest if they had known Nie Fan was actually so much trouble. That being said, they could no longer regret it since they did accept the quest, because their studio’s reputation was at stake, and they would complete their client request even if they knew how powerful Nie Fan was.

Even now, Nie Fan proved too quick for the five Thieves attempting to surround him, weaving in and out between the Demon Goblins and dashing far away soon enough.

The Thieves in turn crashed into some of the Demon Goblins, decloaking and exposing them one after another.

So, there were six Thieves including Grievous Harm. They really thought highly of him!

Nie Fan sneered. He glanced at his system notifications: since Grievous Harm had attacked him on purpose, he has half-an-hour period for legal self-defense against Grievous Harm’s gang.

Despite agilely dodging the Demon Goblins’ attack, Nie Fan had to retreat some distance as more Demon Goblins rushed towards him. Nearby, the Thieves were held back by the Demon Goblins as well and was too busy to attack him, but they were still slowly getting closer to Nie Fan.

If all six Thieves managed to surround him, Nie Fan would probably never escape.

Even as he thought about how he should escape, Nie Fan’s eyes brightened when he suddenly noticed the piles of Demon Goblin corpses on the ground.

With a wave of his right hand, he casted a multitude of Soulcraving Thorns! Since the spell had no cooldown and cost barely any MP, he could do so continuously.

Long, thorny vines grew out of the ground, cutting any Thief passing by with [-2] or [-3] damage. It was not much, but the slowing effect was plenty enough to delay their movement.

However, the number of thorns on the ground were increasing instead of decreasing, which them utterly annoyed.

“These damned thorns!” Grievous Harm could not hold back a curse. To think that someone would pick such a skill, even developing it up to level two! Usually it would have been a useless skill since it required corpses as a medium, but there are plenty of them around here, so much so that Nie Fan did not have to worry about running out.

Soon, however, Nie Fan’s MP was drained and he quickly drank a Novice Mana Potion.

He looked at his skill bar then, but decided not to use Toxic Miasma when the other players were looking unless he was absolutely forced to do so. Otherwise, news that it could be combined with Soulcraving Thorns as an AoE spell would quickly spread.

While he had been seen using that combination before, they did not know it was because it was an effect from matching two spells and might even have assumed that it was not Toxic Miasma at all. On the other hand, if Nie Fan used it right here, Grievous Harm and the others would be able to clearly see him do so.

Black Oil!

Nie Fan unleashed his skill at Grievous Harm, splashing his head with a wave of dark grease without warning out of thin air, drenching his whole body and slowing him down.

Then, a Mini Fireball shot towards the Thief as well.

Grievous Harm was scared out of his wits when he saw the ball of fire coming towards him. He had seen the sheer power of the Mini Fireball and Black Oil combo, and he was not certain that he could survive that!

Hide!

Grievous Harm gained a Vanish status, and the Mini Fireball hence blew up in thin air with a bang and missed.

Nie Fan did not anticipate that Grievous Harm had that many skills as he watched the Thief hide, especially since Thief skills that provide Vanish was both rare and expensive.

Meanwhile, while Nie Fan traded blows with the Thieves, players from both Bloodbath Studios and Phoenix Downs Studios had noticed the situation there.

“Warsong, the one called Dark Night seemed to be fighting some guys from Wandering Souls.”

“How does it look over there?” Warsong asked in the party chat when he received the news, unsure how Nie Fan had provoked the Wandering Soul players.

“They can’t do a thing to Dark Knight although they are having six guys fighting him at once, but he isn’t getting the upper hand either.”

Warsong blanked out for a moment from the report. A band of six Thieves working together, but unable to kill one Druid? If it had been himself against those six Thieves who were also above Level 20, he probably would have died in no time at all.

“Send a few guys over to help. Take down those thieves from Wandering Souls!”

“But boss, is it really worth provoking Wandering Souls over him?”

“Wandering Souls isn’t even worth a fart. Would I be scared of them? And who cares about provoking anyway? We would fight eventually, and I’m going to have to take them down sooner or later.” Warsong cursed in disdain—he never considered Wandering Souls a rival, but since they were squeezed into the same village anyway, conflict was inevitable.

Moreover, Nie Fan had sold him two extraordinarily rewarding coordinates which he got quite a few awesome items from, so he had every intention to keep their partnership a long term one. And there was no way Nie Fan was some minor character given how he sold high-level Copper items and he could provide the locations of Boss-class monsters. Earning favor would be nice with such a person!

At Warsong’s command, seven elite gamers from Bloodbath Studios sprinted towards the direction where Nie Fan, Grievous Harm, and the others were having their PK.