CH 16

After hearing this command, the other members of the party paused purposefully. On one hand, they immediately threw aside the emissary boss and rushed towards Laughing Sky’s location. On the other hand, someone in the channel asked, “Sky, weren’t there only two people from the enemy team? What, have the reinforcements arrived?”

Laughing Sky said, “Just the two of them, both are experts.”

When the others heard this, they were all stunned. To cause the leader of their fixed team to voluntarily admit this was no mean feat.

After the 3 seconds in which he had been chained down had passed, Laughing Sky pushed through the Blood Poisoning effect placed on his body and brandished his claymore, slashing it towards Adorable Ghost. The opposing side immediately hit him with a Stun effect.

After getting close to them, he made use of the advantages he had in close combat. Using a sudden burst of quick hand speed, he suppressed the Ghost Priest, not giving the other party any opportunity to cast their skills. 

There were many passerby experts among the players in the First Division of the arena ladder. There was no shortage of skilled players among them who were at a level that might even exceed that of professional players. It was just that these people were not interested in becoming professional players, hence they did not accept the invitations of the various professional teams. Instead, they remained active in the various major guilds within the online game.

As the hottest passerby king that everyone had their eyes on, when it came to combat alone, Laughing Sky was definitely a top-notch player. At this time, with an explosively fast hand speed, he interrupted Lin Xiao’s skill casting bar1 a few times consecutively. He stuck closely to the front of his body and kept up a flurry of piercing cold attacks.

He noted the position of the Priest standing at the side with a glance, confirmed that the other party was not within casting range, and released a deep sigh.

He took a deep breath and focused, his maneuvers quickly speeding up. With precise accuracy, he grasped all of Adorable Ghost’s planned movements and prepared to clear out the rest of the opponent’s’ health bar in one move.

At this time, the Adorable Ghost before his eyes once again tried to create a distance between them and cast a skill. Immediately, Laughing Sky dished out a Shadow Slash, wanting to cut him off. Unexpectedly, the other party’s movements suddenly became strangely erratic, and a blue light appeared abruptly out of thin air.

He felt a sense of foreboding and wanted to make a quick retreat, but it was already too late.

The red-hooded shota suddenly drew closer until he was practically right in front of him. He had directly used a Freezing Curse on him without giving him any leeway. Adorable Ghost took advantage of the moment in which his entire body was frozen, to meet him head on. Brushing past his shoulder, he created a safe distance between them in the blink of an eye. As he was outside the range of all the Spellsword’s skills, the attacks were cut off.

Adorable Ghost’s state at the moment was quite tragic. After all, he had been suppressed by a close-range fighter for such a long time. He only had half of his health left. However, to Lin Xiao’s credit, he had used his positioning to avoid a large portion of the damage. If it had been someone else, they would probably have been flattened to the ground long ago. It was inevitable that someone who could be dubbed as a passerby king would indeed have a couple of tricks up their sleeve. If they were talking about hand speed alone, he would be ranked highly even among the players of the professional alliance.

Judging by his operations alone, this person was indeed talented. If he were to receive professional training, he would definitely become even more terrifying. It was truly a pity that he did not become a professional player.

A strange feeling of pity due to appreciating talent rose in Lin Xiao’s heart. He retreated backwards while taking note of his surroundings. Then, he caught sight of Hello Kitty, who was standing by the side not too far away, once again not moving. It was as if the startling movements that he had glimpsed just now were just a figment of his imagination. When he looked back yet again, he saw a distant silhouette that was flying towards him.

Sensing that the opposing side had already called for reinforcements, Lin Xiao made a swift decision to fight and end the battle quickly. He ran a few steps backwards, turned, and started to unleash his skills.

At this moment, Laughing Sky was urgently closing the distance between them. He made use of his positioning to dodge the Blood Shura Curses that sprang up from beneath his feet. When he was about to draw close once again, his field of vision suddenly turned pitch black.

This was, Blind! He was taken off guard, and yet his hand maneuvers did not stop. He continued to control the character on his screen to rush forward, even amidst the darkness.

Lin Xiao saw that the other party had actually continued pushing forward without any hesitation and couldn’t help but feel some admiration in his heart. However, the corners of his lips were slightly curled up as he saw this.

The staff in his hands was suddenly enveloped in an eerie black and red aura. One skill after another was released with seemingly no pauses in between.

Although these skills all required casting and were utilized in advance, almost all of them accurately fell upon Laughing Sky’s body. It was as if both sides were cooperating to act out a script. Everything was right on target.

However, owing to the differences in equipment, the damage was slightly lacking. In the end, Laughing Sky still had a quarter of his health remaining. In the split second in which his vision became clear, he saw that the red-hooded shota was standing within reach right in front of him. Without further ado, he swiftly closed the distance between them in one fell swoop.

At this moment, Adorable Ghost just happened to finish casting his Blood Poisoning skill. In a flash, a red light closely followed the Spellsword’s body, and his health slowly began to decrease under its effects.

Laughing Sky did not show any hesitation in this situation. He directly used his ultimate move, Traceless Shadow of the Sword, and got ready to completely clear out his opponent’s health in one strike.

At this moment, a barrier was suddenly erected between them right before his eyes.

This barrier was in a position that lay very specifically between the two people, who were barely one space apart.

—— The Ghost Priest’s ultimate defensive skill “Buddha’s Gate”, which could absorb all damage targeted at oneself for 5 seconds.

After the period of time where the blade’s silhouette continuously flashed with light, it was as if Adorable Ghost’s health bar had been frozen. His health had not decreased at all.

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Translator’s comments: Sorry to have to split the chapter, but I had a busy week and couldn’t really do much translating (it doesn’t help that each chapter is at least 2k words after translating…) I tried my best to not leave you guys with a cliffhanger though ><

This bar indicates the time taken to cast a skill. Normally, when a character is hit before the bar fills (thus casting the skill), the skill casting is interrupted and the player must recast the skill.

This was a skill that could be seen in almost every competitive match that had a Ghost Priest in its lineup. However, Laughing Sky had only seen it being used to block the attacks of Plumed Archers, Black Mages1, and Gunners. But the ability to accurately block close combat skills cast at point-blank range without any flaws, like what had happened before him, was something he had never encountered in his life before today!

Having seen with his own eyes how the duration of his ultimate skill had ended without inflicting even a scrap of damage against the other party, Laughing Sky felt a little out of sorts. A clear feeling that he was not willing to admit immediately arose in his heart – he could not win against this person.

It was only a split second in which his techniques did not connect, but Lin Xiao had already swiftly grasped the advantage. He continuously casted a range of skills that once again caused the Spellsword’s vision to be blurred.

Laughing Sky was very depressed. It had been a very long time since he had been beaten so soundly in a one-on-one battle.

Even if he had been fearful and cautious at the beginning due to the presence of the Priest on the opposing side, he had displayed almost all of his ability later in the fight. Excluding the tiny bit of mana he had consumed when he was fighting against the emissary boss, his condition had been almost pristine at the beginning. However, even in such perfect condition, in the face of the opponent’s unpredictable skill usage and precise planning, the hand speed that he had always taken pride in seemed to have become meaningless.

As he looked at his completely grey screen, Laughing Sky silently committed to memory the name “Adorable Ghost” and chose to revive at his basecamp.

The others had just arrived in time to witness the scene of Laughing Sky lying on the floor and disappearing from view and immediately, they unconsciously stopped moving. Someone in the voice channel shouted a few times consecutively without getting an answer. He could only hear someone else helplessly say, “Stop shouting, Laughing Sky has already exited the voice chatroom.”

The others were dumbfounded. “Then, do we still fight or not?”

The Priest, Lazybum, glanced at Adorable Ghost’s health and made the decision. “The enemy only has these two people, while there are so many of us. Let’s defeat them quickly and avenge Laughing Sky. Black Jack, you should come over as well. Leave the emissary boss aside for now. Let’s eliminate the people from Black Dawn first!”

…

Lin Xiao had just defeated Laughing Sky and saw that a few people on the opposing side were dashing over like a pack of wolves. Based on their equipment, he roughly estimated that their rank was in the Second or Third Division of the arena ladder. He turned his field of vision to look backwards and guessed that the enemy had essentially given up on fighting against the emissary boss to fight against him. Since his objective had already been met, as per the saying “a wise man knows how to pick his battles”2, it was now time for him to retreat.

At this moment, a white light suddenly flickered on Adorable Ghost’s body, and the health bar that was nearly empty filled up significantly. At the same time, a message from Hello Kitty appeared in the Team channel. “Fight them.”

Ever since Meat Meat Meat Meat had died, this channel had been silent for a very long time. At this moment, this sentence suddenly appeared. Initially, the others in the team who had not been paying attention to the health bars of those two people immediately found it strange. One after another, they began asking, “What’s the matter, have both of you been discovered? Where are you fighting?”

Lin Xiao did not pay any heed to the non-stop questioning from these people. He looked at Hello Kitty’s flippant words and smiled. No matter what, this sister had witnessed a good show for a long time, but it was only now that she was finally starting to show him mercy and fight alongside him?

As if to confirm his conjecture, Hello Kitty filled up Adorable Ghost’s health bar with two or three more heals and stood behind him silently.

Lin Xiao glanced at the figure that was much taller than him and followed suit, standing in place without moving.

The people on the opposing side had originally seen that the other party wanted to run away and were preparing to give chase. But now, the other party had suddenly become unusually calm and stayed put for unknown reasons, looking as if he wanted to face them head-on. They suddenly felt as if they were being taken lightly, which made them feel indignant. Immediately, all of them rushed forward with fangs bared and claws brandished.

Who could have guessed that when a few of them had closed the gap, those two would both take to their heels and run away.

“Chase them!” Someone yelled in the voice channel as they decided to pursue them. They saw the other party run into the bushes and wordlessly rushed in. To avoid being outdone, the others also chased closely after them from behind. However, shortly afterwards, the team’s voice chat room was filled with aggrieved cries.

“There are so many people chasing our party’s sister, don’t any of you know how to feel shame? ^_^~” As he said these words in the Public chat, the Ghost Priest’s ultimate skill, Void of Ten Thousand Ghosts, filled the area of the bushes and encapsulated everyone within it. In this moment, great upheaval and chaos descended upon them.

As for Adorable Ghost, he merely stood behind a tree not too far away and leisurely began casting his skills.

The skills were released one after another. His skills were not as closely packed together as when he was facing Laughing Sky, but the aiming was very precise. Once the debuff duration ended, the Sky team’s Priest had already been thoroughly killed off.

The remaining two people were infuriated. With an explosive war cry, they immediately rushed forth. However, when they found that no matter how much they attacked, they were unable to chip away even the slightest bit of the enemy’s health, they felt a strong sense of defeat and finally, they silently chose to stop struggling and surrendered.

The Ghost Priest and Priest stood over there before their eyes, one tall and one short. The person in front dealt out damage in a frenzy, while the person behind calmly sustained them. Their actions were so compatible that it was as if they had created an impenetrable barrier. There wasn’t even the slightest opportunity for the Sky Team to break through.

Without any suspense, the party had been annihilated.

Once Blue Skies Aren’t Blue and I’ll Shoot You To Death arrived after following the mini map, Adorable Ghost and Hello Kitty were sitting next to each other on the grassy plain. The Guardian Emissary of Power was taking a quiet and leisurely stroll near them.

This scene was so peaceful and devoid of conflict that they speechlessly looked at each other and asked, “Where are the people from the Heaven guild?”

Lin Xiao was in a pretty good mood. “They all went home. ^_^~”

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Translator’s comments: I hope that the translation for the battle scene was alright. I’ll try not to cut any more chapters, but real life never cooperates with me. More RL action starts to happen next chapter, do look forward to it ^_^~

Also, pidgon’s comment in this chapter was “You Jing you’re really weird!” Yea…imagine our dear Queen just cradling his cup of tea and watching everything unfold xD

An offensive mage class that specializes in various elemental attacks such as fire, thunder and ice spells.

Literally, a wise man or hero will avoid the unfavorable situation before him so that he will not suffer any losses.