Trash mobs like Headless Centaur Phantoms seemed, at first glance, perfectly suited to serve as players' "parry-and-counter instructors."
But that was not actually the case.
Its attacks were too simple, with broad, obvious windups. Once players learned its patterns, fighting it became nothing more than boring memorization.
Under three circumstances, it would turn its entire body spectral, fake a charge, then teleport behind its target for a sneak attack.
First, when its opponent showed the intent to attack for the first time. Second, after it missed two consecutive attacks. Third, when its health dropped to 15%.
At all other times, it either "charged at the face and struck the back" or "charged at the back and struck the face."
Its teleport had a cooldown of three uses every ten seconds, and its invincibility also had a ten-second cooldown.
In other words, after using two teleports, this Headless Centaur Phantom only had one final teleport left at this moment!
Dragonkin stepped forward half a pace, preparing to force the centaur to teleport.
However, the moment the fully sprinting Headless Centaur Phantom saw Dragonkin move for the first time, it immediately vanished and reappeared three hundred meters away, at the very limit of its teleport range.
Seeing that, even Dragonkin's normally impassive face could not hold its expression.
What the hell, man!
I only took ten health off you from start to finish. You're an Elite Monster over level thirty—how could you be this cowardly?
At that moment, he truly understood just how much more interesting combat became when ordinary mobs were equipped with built-in learning AI.
"Bzz—bzz—!!!"
The Mining Mech roared. This civilian machine made of steel, over five meters tall, raised its high-speed spinning drill.
Scholar jumped at the deafening noise.
He snapped out of his awe at Dragonkin's stunning swordsmanship and turned his tear-filled, stinging eyes toward the reawakening metal beast.
To be fair, this world had vast quantities of minerals exposed on the surface.
But there was no need to design such an exaggerated industrial mech just for mining.
The so-called "Mining Mech" was merely a weapon legally disguised to bypass regulation.
Still, while this clumsy hunk of metal might have worked against equally clumsy monsters, against an agile centaur phantom, it was just meat waiting to be carved up on a chopping block.
"Mr. Dragonkin, help me kill the spider on my stomach! I have a way to get everyone out of here!"
Scholar shouted anxiously.
Although that might draw the centaur's attention, Scholar could also see that Dragonkin's exquisite swordsmanship could not inflict much damage on a phantom.
He could only take the risk and gamble.
Yet Dragonkin seemed rooted to the ground. He merely glanced at Scholar from the corner of his eye and remained completely still.
Scholar's blood pressure shot through the roof.
If he had been an old viewer of the Expedition Cup, he would have known that scenes like this were inevitable. It was only because Brother Dao had won the championship all three times he entered the world tournament that everyone had declared the misunderstanding cleared up.
Fortunately, compared to Scholar, who could only shout, the centaur charging in from afar considered the newly activated Mining Mech a greater threat than anyone except Dragonkin.
The three-meter-tall Headless Centaur Phantom charged at the five-meter-tall lumbering hunk of iron.
At that moment, Scholar could only hope that this terrifying spectral creature did not understand the Mining Mech's structure and did not know to attack the gnome inside the cockpit.
"Rumble, rumble—"
The Mining Mech stepped forward and swung its drill to meet it. Its terrifying thirty-two-ton weight made the ground tremble faintly.
The drill passed through the Headless Centaur Phantom's translucent body without resistance. Then, using the momentum of its forward charge and pivoting on its right leg, the heavy steel beast spun in a circle like it was dancing a graceful waltz, narrowly dodging the blade striking from behind.
Scholar's eyes widened.
He knew that could not have been a coincidence. Such a maneuver required planning out the entire sequence and what came afterward before making the move.
But that was a Mining Mech?!!
Leaving aside its cumbersome body, he remembered that the mech's cockpit only had two control sticks and six buttons.
An industrial mech with such sluggish responsiveness simply could not perform such meticulous maneuvers. Otherwise, it would never have passed inspection as a "civilian" facility.
Back in the battle, 'I Don't Want to Pay Liquidated Damages' swung the drill again after avoiding the first teleport attack.
The centaur's invincibility had gone on cooldown. Now, it either had to meet the drill head-on or use its second teleport.
Sure enough, the centaur chose to teleport and appeared behind the Mining Mech.
But the gnome in the cockpit, whom fans called "the Baron," had already prepared for this.
He overloaded the drill's rotation speed and drove the two rapidly spinning drills into the ground. Using the instant friction to support the entire Mining Mech's weight, he then kicked backward hard like a horse!
Before it could be struck by the iron hoof of the steel beast, the headless centaur could only teleport again. Unexpectedly, it arrived behind the long-neglected Dragonkin.
All three teleports had been used, and its invincibility had also gone on cooldown.
Dragonkin leaped into the air. Before entering the centaur's attack range, he struck the ground with his tail and altered his flight path.
"Thousand Strikes in an Instant!"
The stamina bar players called the Green Bar determined how many actions they could perform in a short period of time.
It depended on the Yellow Bar, the stamina stat. The higher the stamina, the higher the energy.
With the boost from the hero template, a level-one Dragonkin had attributes similar to a level-five human and could unleash eight skills in succession.
First came Sword Draw Slash, then Sheathe Technique canceled the attack recovery, followed by another Sword Draw Slash...
Only the very best players could master this kind of instantaneous burst technique.
But after that terrifying burst came the cost of an emptied Green Bar. It was the kind of offense Brother Dao, who favored parry-and-counter fighting, hated most.
Because he believed this move—
Was not sword drawing.
"Slash—slash—slash—slash—"
The four slashes came so fast they were blinding, yet together they dealt less than sixty damage.
But!
"Even rats can bring down lions if they bite twice in a row. It's called anaphylactic shock!" Dragonkin's weathered voice rang out.
The centaur staggered. Four white marks instantly appeared at the joints of its four horse legs, and it toppled uncontrollably forward.
It had been constantly accelerating for the past minute, and its speed had long exceeded two hundred kilometers per hour. Once it lost control, its body was completely impossible to stop—but this time, soft mud was no longer waiting for it.
"Bzz! Bzz! Bzz—!!!"
The five-meter-tall steel beast thrust its rapidly spinning drill at the out-of-control Headless Centaur Phantom.
The instant the two made contact, dark-blue soul matter was churned out by the drill, scattering grain by grain across the surrounding mud.
The two players felt warmth spread through their bodies. On their character cards, the number in the faith section changed from 0 to 6.2.
In other words, this level-thirty-two Elite Monster gave each of them 31,000 experience, enough to raise them to level nine.
Not far away, Scholar felt that these ten minutes had been more exciting than everything he had experienced in the first half of his life combined.
Two mortals who had not even reached Bronze Rank had actually joined forces to kill a Silver Rank monster... If he was eloquent enough, perhaps he could convince those Muggles who had never seen a monster.
But no one would likely believe what happened next.
He watched as the Headless Centaur Phantom's corpse gradually dissipated. Part of its faint light merged into the two players' bodies, while the other part gathered again, condensing into something that left him equally breathless.
Centaur Heart (Purple) Item Effect: Maximum Health +50 after use (up to 1000). Item Description: A strong heart from the centaur race, containing abundant life force. Eating it can increase one's lifespan.
The centaur tribes flourished because of it.
The centaur tribes perished because of it.