CH 27.1

Evidently, after experiencing life or death battles to be promoted to the Second Division, the trio1 had already begun to be matched up against proper arena teams within the Second Division. 

Laughing Sky was very familiar with the skill levels of the opposing “Dissatisfied” team. The three were fixed team members2 who were not particularly easy to deal with. Even so, when he asked Lin Xiao if they should prepare any particular strategies when facing them, he still received the same answer as before. “Of course, it’s still the same. You kill one, and I kill one.”

Very good, very simple, very unrefined, yet this really suited Laughing Sky’s tastes a lot. At this moment, he no longer tried to be polite. He behaved like a rich second generation son who was gleefully selecting an escort to accompany him to a nightclub as he said, “In that case, Sound of Sea Tides should obviously be left for me.”

Lin Xiao glanced at the enemy’s lineup and casually replied, “Then, I will kill the Priest in this match first. But Sister, this time you must follow me closely.”

By all rights, Laughing Sky, who had chosen to pit himself against Sound of Sea Tides, should be in a slightly more dangerous situation. Yet no one questioned Lin Xiao’s judgment in making this decision. After all, his parting words to the other team just now had been too lethal. If nothing unexpected happened, he would definitely be the first target of all of the opponents’ attacks.

After the delegation was complete, Laughing Sky immediately made his move, circling around the sides of the map towards the enemy.

As for Adorable Ghost, he casually moved forward, bringing along the Great Hello Kitty-sama with him.

Although, at the very least, it seemed like their team was not charging forth mindlessly right from the start, as the match progressed, things proceeded rather similarly to their previous matches. Once both sides encountered each other, they immediately charged forth, meeting each other head on.

The opposing three players were all very clearly sprinting towards Hello Kitty. After Adorable Ghost chanted a spell, a Thorn of the Void rose up from the ground at which he stood. Right after this, he slipped away and retreated at the very same moment Hello Kitty had taken a step backwards. Because the map was too dim, it was hard to see. After a second passed, the Thorn burst open, and their pursuers stepped on it without realizing. After the enemy group took damage from the Thorn, they were all rooted to the ground where they stood thanks to the Petrification effect of the Thorn. This allowed the distance between them to increase in an instant.

Adorable Ghost’s movements did not stop. He held his staff aloft and twirled it, immediately casting a tormenting curse on Snow Fox. The resulting Corrosive effect enveloped Snow Fox’s character in a layer of dark green light. Over the 30 second duration of the curse, his health bar was slowly chipped away by its harmful effects with every second that passed.

After the Petrification effect came to an end, Snow Fox immediately used a minor heal spell on himself to recover his lowered HP.

He was about to release a party heal skill, but his skill casting was interrupted by a figure that suddenly rushed into their group.

After Laughing Sky had successfully snuck around them, he charged and attacked them from behind. With a sweeping Whirlwind Slash, he caught them by surprise, stopping all of them from releasing their skills. Then he strode forward, thunder crackling on his broadsword, and almost seamlessly executed three Thunderbolt Blitz attacks on Sound of Sea Tides. Like this, he managed to firmly separate Sound of Sea Tides from the other players.

“Dammit, Laozi will play with him. You guys go and take care of the nanny!” Sound of Sea Tides’s expression immediately darkened due to this series of provocative attacks. He wielded his broadsword and charged towards Laughing Sky, aiming a Vacuum Wave attack at his feet.

Laughing Sky suddenly turned, making use of his positioning to dodge the upcoming series of sword strokes and waiting for a gap in the attacks directed at him.

Sound of Sea Tides quickly grasped this opportunity. Red light flashed on his broadsword, raging flames glowing as they cleaved directly towards Laughing Sky.

Laughing Sky did not grow anxious upon seeing how his opponent had made use of the opportunity to counterattack. He glanced backwards and saw the other two enemies rushing towards Hello Kitty without sparing a glance towards anything else. He guessed that this must have been Sound of Sea Tides’s decision, yet he was still idle enough to use the Nearby voice channel to taunt the enemy before him. “What’s wrong, isn’t this your long-awaited chance to fight solo against Laozi?”

While speaking, he did not neglect operating his character. Laughing Sky brandished his sword and immediately parried the Flaming Sword attack. In the split second in which he resisted the attack and forced Sound of Sea Tides back, he made use of the momentum to direct a Rising Dragon attack towards Sound of Sea Tides. The attack hit him straight on, causing him to collapse onto the ground.

Sound of Sea Tides was exerting quite a lot of energy to parry the quick succession of attacks directed at him. Seeing that his teammates had intentions to turn back and help him, he stopped them somewhat violently, “Don’t bother about me, kill the nanny!”

“…” Ode to Joy was rendered speechless by Sound of Sea Tides, who was concerned about personal glory and shame even in this type of team battle. Although his intuition told him that doing what he said would inevitably cause him nothing but trouble, he also knew that going to help Sound of Sea Tides at this time would more or less be the same as exposing him and slapping him in the face. Thus, all he could do was to helplessly go along with his reckless ways. “Snow Fox, come with me.”

Naturally, the other two were also able to get a very clear look at the situation of the battle taking place on this side.

“Laughing Sky, you’re not bad, suppressing the enemy as you fight.” Lin Xiao appreciated this kind of one-sided battle, so he smiled happily as he praised, “Looks like First Blood will be yours this round!”

“My family’s son3 always misbehaves and causes trouble outside. Since I have this chance, I must definitely beat him up so soundly that he’s pretty much dead.” While he was engaged in battle against Sound of Sea Tides, Laughing Sky appeared to be at ease. Furthermore, he seemed to be in a pretty good mood. It was evident that he had long had a bone to pick with Sound of Sea Tides. Previously, on account of them belonging to the same guild, he had not pursued matters further. Now that such an opportunity had arisen today, he could finally vent all of his dissatisfaction without holding back.

However, personal grudges should be kept personal. He was still mindful of the fact that their current match was a team battle. Seeing that the other two members of the “Dissatisfied” team had charged forward, he did not forget to remind Lin Xiao, “The other two in their team are both experts, you should be careful of them while you’re carrying our sister here.”

“Oh, how good are they?” Lin Xiao replied mildly and yawned, “That’s just as well, let me see what they’re made of.”

As he spoke, Adorable Ghost raised the staff in his hands.

Because the match was taking place in the Ancient Tomb of Horror, silhouettes clad in red cloaks slowly rose up on the side, with dark and gloomy flames flickering faintly. The whole scene looked rather frightening.

“Move away!” Following Ode to Joy’s words, Snow Fox hurriedly jumped aside.

Almost immediately after they dodged, their bodies brushing past each other, dark purple flames rose up from where the two had been standing just now. In an instant, the ground was flattened even more by the flames, which fiercely burst forth like a wildfire. They burnt everything in their path, leaving nothing but a layer of ashes on the flat ground.

These were Ghost Flames, an extremely lethal Ghost Priest skill. Thanks to the two players’ swift reflexes, it had missed.

However, they still couldn’t let down their guard. Seeing a black light fall directly upon his body, Snow Fox quickly dodged it, after which his vision was obscured by a layer of smoke that wrapped around his body.

Almost simultaneously, after Ode to Joy had created sufficient distance between himself and the enemy, he finished casting his spell.

A Bind debuff was cast on Hello Kitty, decreasing her movement speed by 50%. After this, he continued to spin the staff in his hands. Three closely intertwined bolts of lightning flashed through the air in quick succession. They suddenly bloomed open, forming tens of thousands of light beams that headed straight towards the enemy. 

“You make sure to hold the Ghost Priest back, I’ll hunt the Priest down.” Seeing that the opposing Priest’s movements were limited by the lightning prison that surrounded her and that she was left with a third of her health, Ode to Joy no longer paid any attention to Snow Fox. Rather, he used a Haste blessing on himself, and, coupling it with the movement speed bonus granted by Ghost Sprint, he headed straight towards Hello Kitty, attacking without pause.

The two people from the “Dissatisfied” team were both experts ranked in the Second Division of the individual arena. Naturally, they had already seen through Lin Xiao’s tactic of focusing his attacks on the nanny first. Since Ode to Joy had confidence in Snow Fox’s skill in operating his character, there was no need for any discussion. By default, they had already chosen a battle format that was practically 1 vs 1, which was more “beneficial” for them.

Snow Fox began to restore some of his own health, but, unexpectedly, his casting was interrupted. At this moment, he began to have some misgivings. However, after the debuff on him ended and his vision was restored, there were still no signs that he had been attacked by the enemy.

He immediately lifted his head and began looking around, but all he saw was the Ghost Priest that he had been pursuing in the distance. He was not only far away, but was even running in the opposite direction for some strange reason.

As if to answer his question, Adorable Ghost’s words popped up in the Nearby chat channel: “Wanting to kill our sister before taking us out, aren’t you guys thinking too much of yourselves?”

As they read these words, the phrase “Fxxk your mother!” began resounding in both Snow Fox’s and Ode to Joy’s brains. Fxxk me! The one who decided to target our Priest first was you, and the one who was now saying that killing the Priest first was simply thinking too much of ourselves was also you! Because your family’s sister was being chased by others, you gave up on a perfectly good opportunity to battle other players. How on earth did you manage to make your way up to the Second Division? To lack any level of insight, are you an elementary school student!?

As they continued to mentally curse and swear, Hello Kitty sent out the very first message that she had sent in their entire process of battling tonight in the Team channel: “Kill the Priest, no need to bother about me.”

Lin Xiao said, “Sister don’t be afraid, if they want to kill you, they will have to step over my dead body!”

Originally, You Jing had already entered “The enemy is too weak” into the chat window. After hearing these words, he began deleting his words one by one.

After replenishing his own health, he stood to the side and watched silently.

In the current battle, Adorable Ghost had locked on to Ode to Joy’s position with the Thorn of the Void. Then, after casually tossing a Corrosion spell at Ode to Joy, he had also used a Curse of Doom on him.

The effects of the curse swirled around Ode to Joy’s body. An exceptionally eye-catching one minute Skeleton debuff timer that was displayed at the bottom left hand corner of his portrait began counting down.

After the one minute duration came to an end, characters who were subjected to the Curse of Doom would sustain extremely heavy damage.

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TL comments: Translating battle scenes is tiring, especially when I have to come up with skill names…

I’m pretty sure this is referring to Lin Xiao’s party

As in, they frequently or always party together.

Sound of Sea Tides