The Most Down-Head Saber

Who is the strongest retired player?

"Amulet Owl": While it depends on the situation, I personally think it's Brother Dao.

"I Don't Want to Pay Breach of Contract Fees": Isn't it Brother Dao? If you include players who retired this year, it's another story.

"Not Iaido, But Drawing Sword": Anyone other than me and God Stealer?

The strike that decapitated the Spider Woman caused the Headless Centaur Phantom to lose considerable speed. However, after three consecutive accelerations, its remaining speed was still terrifying, exceeding the limits of normal human reaction.

The Headless Centaur raised its long saber and charged at the Dragonkin from the front.

As a Wraith creature, its instinctual reaction kept it in an invincible state of transparency until the blade touched its target.

The Dragonkin, on the other hand, remained motionless, as if the physiological limitations of a cold-blooded animal prevented it from realizing what was about to happen.

The blade slashed down.

In an instant, the Scholar saw the Centaur pass the Dragonkin. Its front legs suddenly buckled at the knees, and it crashed heavily to the ground. At speeds exceeding a hundred miles per hour, its massive body left a long drag mark on the earth.

The Dragonkin still stood in its original position, its right hand resting on its saber hilt.

It was as if nothing had happened.

If spectators were added to this battle in the woods and asked to judge when the Dragonkin joined the fight.

New, unfamiliar spectators would probably say, "Of course, it was when he was charged by the Centaur."

However, if you were to ask Brother Dao, who was controlling the Dragonkin, or anyone who had watched the first five "Glorious Expedition" World Championships, the answer would naturally only be, "When the mercenary self-destructed, right?"

As the thermobaric rounds detonated, Brother Dao instinctively drew his sword.

On his hidden interface notification bar, three messages flashed:

[You have just cast "Sword Draw Slash", you have learned the skill "Sword Draw Slash Lv20"]

[You have just cast "Sheathe Technique", you have learned the skill "Sheathe Technique Lv20"]

[You have triggered "Blade Counter", you have learned the skill "Blade Counter Lv13"]

There was a Player named "Golden Wind" who shared a discovered game mechanic in a ten-person group chat when the game opened:

If a player, based on their own experience, casts a skill that their game character has not mastered during combat, the character will automatically learn that skill.

The skill level, however, would not be very high.

This is because the skill level the character learns is consistent with the player's execution level.

For veteran players like them, they had only mastered the muscle memory of those skills through thousands of hours of gameplay.

They were not Transcendants within the game; being able to execute skills from the "Mortal" stage under a Burst State was already an outrageous feat.

But for Brother Dao.

For the max-level Lv30 "Sword Draw Slash," he only scored 66%.

It could only be considered a passing grade.

Seeing Brother Dao being attacked, "I Don't Want to Pay Breach of Contract Fees" had no choice but to abandon his equipment, discard his damaged Exoskeleton, and quickly run towards the Mining Mech abandoned by the woman.

He saw the Dragonkin's saber and knew it was Brother Dao's action, not the character's, and suddenly felt an urge to cry.

As a professional player of the new generation, he knew how difficult it was to achieve this. Brother Dao's deeds during his professional career had long since become a standard tool for coaches to pressure current players.

—Under the effect of triple Brain Domain acceleration, Brother Dao in his professional days would practice drawing his sword for at least 32 hours every day.

His profession was "Sword Saint," which centered around complex moves and reacting to attacks.

But Brother Dao only knew how to draw his sword.

The correct way to use the "Drawing Sword Style" was to exploit the openings created by drawing the sword, apply hard control, and then follow up with high-damage combos.

But attacking after drawing the sword is Iaido.

Yet Brother Dao only knew how to draw his sword.

Drawing the sword was not suitable for offensive attacks; it was mostly used for counter-attacks, which was why Brother Dao never initiated attacks.

Even in professional matches, he would just stand there with his hand on his saber.

If you could resist the urge to attack Brother Dao, then in team matches, Brother Dao would truly watch his teammates get surrounded and killed.

After your team of five had wiped out Brother Dao's teammates, you could then team up to challenge this terrifying Boss who had participated in 326 professional-grade solo matches over five years and remained undefeated to this day.

This was the Down-Head Saber.

Speaking in Henan dialect, watching his teammates die, standing still, and only using counter-attacks, the world's number one sword-drawing man.

If "Glorious Expedition" displayed damage numbers like the old version.

Then the Dragonkin's Lv1 character's scratching blow would have dealt a total of 10 HP damage to the "Headless Centaur Phantom."

Although it inflicted the "Stun" hard control by hitting the knee joint, causing the Centaur to lose 400 HP.

However, as an Lv32 Elite Monster, the "Headless Centaur Phantom" still had [6790/7200] HP remaining.

For a "Silver Monster" that costs over 10,000 per person, this HP is quite low.

Even so, in "Despair Expedition," almost no players would actively farm this piece of garbage.

Just look at its mechanics: [Centaurs] are already a race that gains damage from speed, and the [Headless] trait allows it to teleport and change direction, guaranteeing it's always accelerating. The [Wraith] trait lets it maintain a semi-transparent, invincible state until it actively attacks you.

Three effects stacked together, a perfect match!

Unless you're a Divine Arts class with specific counters, no one can farm it quickly.

The headless centaur that fell to the ground immediately got up, teleported a short distance away, and began circling the Dragonkin, building up its running speed.

The Dragonkin remained still, but Brother Dao behind him's eyes lit up.

A new move?

Just like what was said in the "Amulet Owl" post, this game might have added an AI learning function for every monster.

How much of a load would that put on the servers? Could they even handle a large number of players?

His main account, worth over 8 million, was deleted by the developers just like that. Was this actually the entry fee for the game?

Maybe the developers only plan to serve a small number of high-paying players and don't need non-paying players to participate, which is why they made such realistic NPCs.

For an equipment-driven online game, ordinary players are part of the whale players' gaming experience. Is this part being optimized away now?

Despite the jumble of thoughts in his head, Brother Dao's instincts took over as he swung his sword.

The centaur built up enough speed and charged from the front again, raising its long saber. The moment it swung down, it teleported behind the Dragonkin.

"Clang—!"

The [Sword Draw Slash] targeted a weak point, but the level one character's stats were too low to cause a major stagger, only interrupting its attack.

With its attack blocked, the headless centaur instantly disappeared and reappeared in front of the Dragonkin, using the speed preserved by its teleportation to deliver a second strike.

"Bang—!"

Using [Sheathe Technique] to cancel the recovery animation of the [Sword Draw Slash].

Not difficult!

The Dragonkin instantly unleashed a second [Sword Draw Slash], deflecting the centaur's attack in another direction, but still failing to find an opportunity to inflict a major stagger.

The centaur disappeared again, reappearing 300 meters away. Its height of over three meters made it quickly grow from a black dot in the field of vision, its speed reaching its maximum.

Dragonkin: "..."

The centaur swung its saber again, the blade slicing from the Dragonkin's head to its tail, but it didn't deal any damage.

It didn't even remove its Wraith state!

The Dragonkin still gripped the hilt of his saber, not fooled by the feigned attack. With his current stamina, he couldn't continuously cast skills.

Within the 20 seconds it took for his "green bar" to recover, he could only draw his sword one more time.

So, when the centaur charged at him again, he took half a step forward.

Almost didn't finish typing the extreme