CH 30

S City, Seven-Star Team training base at the Star Trace Club

Jiang Shiqi, who had just returned from spending the night outside, was about to enter his room to take a shower and sleep when, passing by the training hall, he heard someone call out to him. Turning around, he saw Tang Qian waving at him, “Why are you so late, come and see something!”

Jiang Shiqi walked over, puzzled, “What’s going on? On such a good vacation you’ve been training in the club all day? Why are you working so hard, dude?”

Tang Qian ignored his question, pushed the computer screen toward him, and said, “Don’t say anything, just look at this.”

Jiang Shiqi looked at the screen, and what he saw was a whole page of green victory list, then glanced at the character ID on the top left and immediately shouted, “Damn, that Ghost Priest just went straight through to the next level?”

Tang Qian was already expecting his teammate’s surprised outburst. Seeing that he nailed the main point, he casually clicked to bring up the details of the record, and dragged them one by one to show him: “Not only is he on a winning streak, but almost every match is a 2-0 win, and none of them lasted more than 15 minutes.”

“All these, crushing wins?” Jiang Shiqi was stunned for a long time before he could utter a sentence: “Could it be…that guy was lucky and happened to meet some weak opponents?”

Tang Qian was angry and amused at the same time. He gave him a funny look, “Luck for two levels? Then try to be lucky yourself. You don’t have to win ten straight, just three will do.”

“How vicious! I’ll admit, he’s powerful.” Jiang Shiqi turned his attention back to the record details on the screen with a disgruntled expression and grumbled, still not reconciled, “When did ghost priests become so powerful in one-on-one combat? It doesn’t make sense…”

Tang Qian patted him on the shoulder: “Okay, I know you can’t accept it, but you have to admit that this Adorable Ghost is indeed a true master. When the captain comes back in a few days, I think we should ask him to make an assessment himself.”

Jiang Shiqi looked at the time of the last match and asked, “Twenty minutes have passed since it ended, and no new score has been updated yet. Is he done?”

Tang Qian shook his head and said, “I checked just now, and he is still online but doesn’t seem to be in the game. It’s like he’s waiting for something.”

Jiang Shiqi was silent for a moment, then instead of returning to the dormitory, he pulled a chair next to him and sat down. “Then let’s just wait and watch the battle after he enters the game. That way, we can collect some videos so that the captain has more references.”

Tang Qian nodded: “I think the same.”

While they were talking, the assistance area updated the match table, and Adorable Ghost‘s green icon on top turned yellow.

As a new round of battle began, Tang Qian made a decisive move, choosing to enter the reading bar of the game’s spectator mode.

Jiang Shiqi looked at the opponent’s blue ID and couldn’t help but exclaim in surprise, “Didn’t he just get promoted to the first rank? Has he already reached Nine Thousand People‘s level? The game is so high-end, how high is his hidden score?”

Tang Qian immediately checked out the rank of Nine Thousand People, and he couldn’t help but sigh in admiration, “This should be considered the top match of the entire server.”

Jiang Shiqi was so shocked that he was speechless.

Winning streak, how high a winning streak is this that the hidden points can directly reach the highest levels of the top ten in the whole server?!

…

This was Lin Xiao’s third tier of solo battles since he advanced to the first level.

Neither he nor Laughing Sky had dealt with Nine Thousand People before, and they fought the previous two battles swiftly and decisively. Finally, the moment arrived when, checking the opponent’s ID, he rejoiced as if the entire room was filled with bright lights.

With a cigarette in his mouth to keep himself alert, he promised beamingly on the voice chat: “Laughing Sky, boss, wait and see how I’ll piss him off.”

Although Laughing Sky was not in the same batch as Nine Thousand People, hearing the news from Lin Xiao, he seemed happier than if he had killed him himself: “Give him a good beating and finish him off!”

Lin Xiao smiled: “Of course.”

Lava Purgatory could be considered to be the most suitable scene for assassins among the five selections, more so than the others. However, during the process of banning the maps, Lin Xiao deliberately left it out. Obviously, Nine Thousand People wasn’t about to give up his natural advantages as an assassin, so without any suspense, Lava Purgatory became the final battle map used.

As expected, after reading the notice, as soon as he entered the game, Nine Thousand People clamored in the chat room, “Hey bro, you’re a little weird, you actually left out Lava Purgatory. Are you looking down on you or me?”

Lin Xiao grinned and replied: “Do you still need to ask, who would look down on himself, of course, I look down on you.”

Nine Thousand People sneered, “Oh, he can talk back, I hope you won’t cry and call your daddy later.”

This speech was funny but we have yet to see who will cry ‘daddy’ at the end. Lin Xiao didn’t bother with him anymore, but instead operated Adorable Ghost to emerge from the resurrection point, turned around, and walked to the bottom right of the map.

…

Due to the delay factor designed by the spectator system to avoid cheating, Jiang Shiqi and Tang Qian, who were watching the match in the Seven Stars team’s training hall, only saw the start of the game five minutes later.

“Is he going to detour?” Jiang Shiqi looked through the aerial perspective from above and could clearly see the moving route of Adorable Ghost. Taking a casual look at Nine Thousand People‘s position as well, he said, “Nine Thousand People seems too straightforward. An assassin who plays as direct as he, really has no future.”

Tang Qian laughed and said, “Nine Thousand People straightforward, are you kidding me? I think these two people started challenging each other from the beginning. Clearly, Nine Thousand People saw that his opponent had just been promoted to this ranking and thought that he would be easy to bully. Relying on his strengths enhanced by this map, he deliberately wanted to show off in front of his opponent.

Jiang Shiqi pouted, remembering his previous unpleasant experience, and said with a bit of regret in his tone, “Congratulations to him then, he’ll probably lose at least two positions. Who made him be so careless…”

His words ended abruptly.

At this moment, the two people on the screen have almost reached their respective fields of view.

Apparently, they both immediately discovered their whereabouts at the same time. While Adorable Ghost hid in a cave on the side, Nine Thousand People flickered and disappeared like a shadow from the enemy’s sight in an instant.

To better experience the battle, Tang Qian adjusted his field of vision to Adorable Ghost‘s viewpoint.

Right now, Nine Thousand People was nowhere to be seen, there was only the bubbling magma brewing layers of heat that clouded the vision.

However, Adorable Ghost just stood there without moving; even his field of vision remained unchanged.

Jiang Shiqi was confused: “What’s going on? Did you get stuck, or did you give up?”

Before he finished speaking, the magic staff in Adorable Ghost‘s hand suddenly flashed, and a bloody arc was instantly outlined under his feet.

After gradually forming a perfect circle, a thorny black shadow pierced straight up without warning.

Stabbing Void.

Right now, this unexpected ability seemed to be misused, as if his hand had slipped, but just as the thorns rose from the ground, a strange shadow rushed straight toward the Adorable Ghost without warning. He rushed straight into the damage range as if he had an appointment there.

The assassin’s skill activated instantly, but after inflicting a small amount of damage at the moment of collision, he was completely pierced and froze in place in a particularly strange, statue-like posture.

“Beautiful prediction!” Tang Qian saw everything through the Ghost Priest’s eyes and couldn’t contain his admiration. “The most difficult part when dealing with assassins is forcing them to expose themselves. I also didn’t expect Nine Thousand People to catch his opponent so quickly. It seems that the first wave of sneak attacks it’s already over.”

As if to validate this comment, Adorable Ghost casually cast an elemental curse on him before the end of the 0.5 seconds in which Nine Thousand People remained frozen in place. After depriving him of 20% of his magic resistance, he cast a corruption spell over him.

Enduring the corrosive effect of the blood and energy draining from his body, Nine Thousand People used a rear-trapping technique while moving behind the opponent in an instant, making Adorable Ghost unable to move for a short period of time.

He immediately cast the shadow-splitting technique, and after summoning a shadow with half the energy and health and the same attributes as the original, the operator and the shadow simultaneously slashed the Ghost Priest’s throat with a hidden sleeve knife.

Once he forcefully brought down by half the opponent’s health bar, Nine Thousand People didn’t continue. Instead, he left the shadow behind to keep fighting, while he returned to hide in the cave complex to the side.

Although the Ghost Priest was unable to move for a short time, this did not affect the release of his abilities at all. The dark will-o’-the-wisp on the staff dashed over the Nine Thousand People‘s shadow and soon burned away its last vestige of life and blood. At this moment, a red light flashed above the shadow as Nine Thousand People used the shadow-shifting technique and instantly switched positions between them.

After poisoning the Ghost Priest with a direct hit, he followed up with a series of chaining snipe attacks. The slowdown effect attached to each hit made the Ghost’s movements look extraordinarily difficult.

While Adorable Ghost‘s health bar could be seen dropping at a speed visible to the naked eye, suddenly, a white light looking out of place swooped under Nine Thousand People‘s feet.

As the frost curse exploded, the combo was interrupted instantly.

At the same time, a wisp of Ghost Fire quietly landed at his feet and burst forth, spreading a dense ring of fire around and making this map even more like an inferno.

Nine Thousand People used emergency evasion to get away. However, even after the Frost Curse disappeared, a layer of the frost effect still inexplicably shrouded their bodies, blossoming into a black flame that was particularly eye-catching.

“This Ghost Priest is using a Frost Staff!?” Only now did Jiang Shiqi get the clue. Grabbing Tang Qian’s mouse, he revised the equipment bars of both sides, looking at it in dismay, “I say, how could it be possible not to see the Frost Staff from the outside! Damn, what this bastard is wearing is actually a Frost Necklace! Who would have noticed that!”

After the special effect of the frost attribute equipment was turned on, casting a pure damage spell usually came with a corresponding deceleration effect. Although the slowdown was more effective on mass damage techniques than on a solo target, combined with the wide-scale devastating effect of Ghost Fire, even with no other attack, at least half of the life bar was lost. Not to mention the other party won’t be such a nice person.

Tang Qian was also a little speechless at this moment, “He deliberately didn’t activate the special effects before and waited all this time, clearly trying to draw the enemy deeper. He is really calculating…”

In the midst of all this admiration, Adorable Ghost cast his staff abilities one after another without stopping, taking Nine Thousand People‘s first blood in minutes.

The author has something to say: My head hurts badly, if there are logic errors in the battle, please ignore, ignore, ignore… ^_^~ Love me!