With the shield's boost, even Cheng Tian, with his low Agility, could achieve an explosive top speed of 24 meters per second. Combined with Shield Master, the Cyclops Head's inherent "Unicorn Pierce" effectively had double the penetration and bleeding effects.
Although the Twin Red Names' skintight suits were both Blue Excellent equipment, they clearly did not specialize in high defense. Once pierced, they would inevitably be left with a hole the size of a bowl.
But just as the thick horn was about to plunge into the breastplate made of a little fat and a great deal of mammary tissue, a fierce gust suddenly erupted from Yaksha's body. With almost no warning, he shot into the air, tilted his body, and executed an extreme move resembling a side flying kick. He spun in a full 360-degree arc midair, his left leg swinging like a blade as it collided with the Cyclops Head's horn!
A violent boom echoed through the alley, sending the crows that had been watching scattered in every direction.
Having escaped danger with that dazzling emergency kick, Yaksha seemed to borrow the rebound force from striking the horn, soaring through the air and landing more than ten meters away.
Cheng Tian's charge came to an abrupt halt. It seemed the forced knockback effect had indeed been triggered, but the physical damage Flash Charge should have inflicted apparently failed to affect her.
Yaksha had indeed safely avoided that charge, which would have cost her half her health if it connected, but she had not escaped without paying a price. The instant she activated her skill, her health dropped by 20%.
God of War Style Cyclone Kick, a skill based on the identically named move of "Kai," the thirty-ninth-generation inheritor of God of War Style ninjutsu in SD Final Fight.
By now, Cyclone Kick had become a standard move for countless fighting game characters, differing only slightly in presentation. At its core, it was a move that launched the user into the air and struck all around them with 360-degree kicks. However, Yaksha's version was somewhat different: it came from a beat-'em-up game, or in more common industry terms, a "health-draining safety move"—
A move that could theoretically be forced out in most situations, sacrificing a certain amount of one's own health to unleash an attack with low damage but likely a large amount of "knockback value," blasting away surrounding enemies and getting the user out of trouble.
Such moves were implemented in many arcade beat-'em-ups, and they usually came with a brief invincibility state. In other words, while sacrificing health to use the move, the user would temporarily avoid taking additional damage from enemies.
Yaksha's "God of War Style Cyclone Kick" naturally did not grant the complete invincibility of a Starman, but it did render ordinary physical attacks ineffective during its activation. He took the impact of Cheng Tian's Flash Charge, using it to avoid the danger of Cheng Tian closing in and entangling him.
Meanwhile, Oni Princess, the older twin, shouted "Watch out!" to her younger sister while still remaining on one knee, one hand hovering over the ground.
At the instant Cheng Tian knocked Yaksha away, energy also coursed through Oni Princess's body. Then, a fluctuation powerful enough to tear apart the ground burst from the palm she held over the floor and shot straight toward Cheng Tian—
Earth Splitting Break!
Cheng Tian was currently in a brief period of stiffness after exchanging moves with Yaksha, and with only base Agility, he had no way to immediately respond effectively.
But do not forget—Cheng Tian had a teammate.
Another flash of emerald-green light descended from above, landing with incomparable precision directly in Earth Splitting Break's path. The moment the two collided, they produced a modest energy explosion.
He has help! He really has a backing guild already!
Seeing the Green Arrow's flight path from afar, Yaksha's gaze sharpened. Without hesitation, he opened the jar containing the guide bugs again and decisively used their final remaining charge.
Only now did the twins truly snap out of the state where Knight Armor had blinded them, unanimously concluding that Cheng Tian had found someone to back him. He had traded the armor for Captain America's Shield and perhaps even its matching skills.
Naturally, this was also a coincidental misunderstanding.
Eileen had entered the instance before Cheng Tian, making her the first slot. Cheng Tian, as the second slot, still had three vacant positions after accepting the mission. The twins occupied the third and fourth slots, while the fifth should have belonged to a new Player with unknown intentions. At this moment, the twins clearly mistook the still-hidden Eileen for the fifth slot who had entered the instance with Cheng Tian's team.
Well, although the twins' analysis of the process and conditions was wildly off, they had still reached the correct conclusion. Cheng Tian really was in a party—a party that looked as though he were being kept by a rich woman.
Just then, Cheng Tian, emerging from the explosion's dust, suddenly shouted.
"Focus all your strength on killing one! Kill the one on my side first! Those two have a Fusion Skill!"
The moment Cheng Tian spoke, the Oni Princess Yaksha twins' expressions changed drastically. They could not understand how Cheng Tian had suddenly learned their greatest secret.
Oni Princess and Yaksha might have been Red Name PK Players who enjoyed hunting newcomers, but that only proved one thing from another angle: they were complete cowards, space scum who only dared to point their butcher knives at those weaker than themselves.
As domineering as they were against Novice Players, they were just as pathetic when facing the Main Quest bosses of the Moon Trial.
As mentioned before, Space Trial had no missions that guaranteed death or execution. Even if the Main Quest failed, there would be a corresponding Evacuation Mission, greatly lowering Veteran Players' casualty rate.
But the problem was that some people could learn from failure and turn it into a catalyst for becoming stronger, while others would be crushed by it, even constantly avoiding the failures they should have faced head-on.
Oni Princess and Yaksha belonged to the latter. They had PTSD from Main Quests.
The difficulty of Bounty Missions could be chosen freely, and novice prey could be selected slowly, but Main Quests assigned Players to corresponding instances based on all their current capabilities and resource reserves.
The more extra resources they gained by hunting novices, the greater the overall difficulty of their Main Quests. This was reflected not only in enemy strength, but also in the Main Quest completion requirements, the complexity of the instance terrain, interactions with NPCs, and other factors.
So far, they had already retreated in disgrace from three consecutive Main Quests.
Under normal circumstances, Players only had the chance to obtain Free Attribute Points and Free Skill Points from the Main Quests of monthly trials. Bounty Missions merely provided Chosen Coins, equipment, skills, expanded NPC connections, map exploration, hidden plotlines, and the like. As for Normal Magic Equipment, it rarely came with Attribute Bonuses.
The attribute increases attached to Cheng Tian's cane and the Cyclops Head could both be considered novice benefits—extra rewards for his courage during the Novice Trial, when he had forced himself to solo-kill a powerful Elite Red Demon and a Champion Giant with the body of an ordinary man.
Perhaps suitable equipment could indeed bring a Player a qualitative leap, but attributes were the strongest foundation upon which a Player could raise a towering skyscraper from level ground.
So although they could hunt novices relatively easily, they had done so by exploiting Information Gaps and piling up equipment. If all their equipment were stripped away, their attributes would not be much better than Cheng Tian's.
Furthermore, their failed Main Quest experiences had made them increasingly inclined toward Skill Pools focused on escape and self-preservation.
They clearly had more abundant resources, yet lacked the mentality to match them. Even if they had not encountered Cheng Tian this time, they had already embarked on a one-way road toward slow death.
As for how Cheng Tian had figured out that they possessed a Fusion Skill...
He had actually bluffed it out of them.
Because whether it was their outfits or the skills they had just used, both closely recreated a pair of boss characters from his memories—
Streets of Rage 3, the twin bosses of the second stage's "Nightclub" area: Oni Princess and Yaksha.
Before you continue