Only willing to raise their blades against the weaker-scum

Because of the shield's enhancement, even the low-Agility Cheng Tian could unleash a burst of speed reaching the limit of 24 meters per second. With Shield Master enhancing it as well, the Horn Pierce ability innate to the Troll Head would also have effectively double the penetration and bleeding effects.

Although the bodysuits worn by the twin red-named players were both blue-quality equipment, they clearly did not excel in defense. Once pierced, they would inevitably leave a bowl-sized hole.

But just as the thick horn was about to plunge into the chest armor formed from a small amount of fat and a large amount of mammary tissue, a fierce gust suddenly erupted from Yasha. Without the slightest warning, she shot into the air, tilting her body into an extreme motion almost like a side flying kick. Her body spun through a full 360 degrees in midair, and her left leg swung around like a blade, crashing into the horn atop the Cyclops Head!

The violent boom echoed through the alley, sending the crows that had been watching the fight scattering in all directions.

Having saved herself with a magnificent kick at the critical moment, Yasha seemed to borrow the recoil from striking the horn and flew through the air, landing more than ten meters away.

Cheng Tian's charge came to an abrupt halt. It seemed to have achieved the forced knockback effect, but the physical damage that Blitz Charge should have inflicted appeared not to have affected her.

Yasha had indeed safely escaped the charge, which would have cost her half her life if it landed, but she had still paid a price. The instant she activated the skill, her health dropped by 20%.

Bushin-ryu Hurricane Kick was a move of the same name from "SD Final Fight," used by Kai, the thirty-ninth-generation inheritor of Bushin-ryu ninjutsu.

By now, the Hurricane Kick had become a standard move for a great many fighting-game characters, differing only slightly in presentation. At its core, it was a move that sent the user into the air to attack with kicks in all 360 degrees around them. Yasha's version was slightly different, however: it came from a side-scrolling beat-'em-up game. In the more common industry terminology, it was a "health-sacrifice safety move"—

A move that could theoretically be forcibly used in most situations, at the cost of deducting a certain amount of one's own health, to unleash an attack that dealt little damage but had a high chance of carrying a large amount of "knockback value," sending away the enemies surrounding the user and allowing them to escape.

Moves like this had been implemented in many arcade beat-'em-up games. They were also usually accompanied by a brief invincibility state. In other words, when activating the move by sacrificing health, the user would temporarily be immune to additional damage from enemies.

Yasha's Bushin-ryu Hurricane Kick naturally did not possess the comprehensive, star-level invincibility of true invulnerability, but it did render her immune to conventional physical attacks while the move was being executed. She had taken the impact from Cheng Tian's Blitz Charge, using it to avoid the danger of being entangled with him at close range.

Meanwhile, while shouting "Watch out!" toward her younger sister, the elder twin, Guiji, still remained kneeling on one knee, one hand hovering over the ground.

The instant Cheng Tian knocked Yasha away, energy also surged through Guiji's body. Then, from the palm she had held over the ground, a wave powerful enough to tear open the earth suddenly burst forth and shot straight toward Cheng Tian—

Ground Shatter!

Cheng Tian was momentarily staggered after exchanging blows with Yasha. With only his basic Agility stat to begin with, he had no way to respond effectively at once.

But don't forget—Cheng Tian still had a teammate.

Another flash of emerald-green light descended from the sky, landing with pinpoint accuracy on the path Ground Shatter had to cross. The instant the two collided, they produced a small but noticeable energy explosion.

He has a helper! He really has a backer organization!

In the distance, Yasha saw the flight path of the green arrow. Her eyes narrowed, and without hesitation, she opened the jar containing the Guide Bugs again, decisively using up their final remaining activation.

Only now did the twins truly come to their senses from their state of being blinded by the Knight Armor. They unanimously concluded that Cheng had found a backer and traded the armor for Captain America's shield, or even the matching skills.

Of course, this was also a coincidental misunderstanding.

Erin had entered the instance before Cheng Tian, making her Position One. As Position Two, Cheng Tian still had three empty slots after accepting the mission. Positions Three and Four had been taken by the twins, while Position Five should have belonged to a new player whose purpose was unknown. At this moment, the twins had clearly mistaken the still-hidden Erin for the Position Five player who had entered the instance in a party with Cheng Tian.

Well, although the twins' analysis of the circumstances and the process was absurdly off the mark, they had still reached the correct conclusion. Cheng had indeed formed a party—one in which he was practically being supported by a rich woman.

Just then, Cheng Tian suddenly emerged from the dust of the explosion and shouted.

"Focus everything on killing one! Kill the one on my side first! Those two have a fusion skill!"

The instant Cheng Tian spoke, Guiji, Yasha, and the twins' expressions changed drastically. They had never imagined that Cheng Tian would suddenly know their greatest secret.

Although Guiji and Yasha were red-named PK players who enjoyed hunting newcomers, this indirectly proved something: the two of them were complete cowards, space scum who only dared to turn their butcher knives against the weaker.

The more overbearing they were against beginner players, the more wretched they became when facing the Boss of the Moon Trial's main mission.

As mentioned before, space trials had no missions that guaranteed death or erasure. Even if the main mission failed, there would be a corresponding evacuation mission, which greatly reduced the death rate of veteran players.

But some people could learn from failure and turn it into a catalyst for becoming stronger, while others would collapse after it, constantly avoiding the failures they should have faced head-on.

Guiji and Yasha were the latter. They had PTSD from main missions.

The difficulty of bounty missions could be selected freely, and they could take their time choosing newcomer prey. Main missions, however, were assigned to corresponding instances according to all of a player's current abilities and their own stock of resources.

The more additional resources they obtained from hunting newcomers, the higher the overall difficulty of their main missions became. This was reflected not only in enemy strength, but also in the completion conditions, the complexity of the instance's terrain, interactions with NPCs, and more.

By now, they had already evacuated in disgrace from three consecutive main missions.

Under normal circumstances, players could only obtain free attribute points and free skill points through the main mission of the monthly trial. Bounty missions existed merely to provide Heaven's Chosen Coins, equipment, skills, NPC connections, map exploration, hidden storylines, and so on. As for ordinary magical equipment, very little of it actually carried attribute bonuses.

The attribute increases attached to Cheng Tian's staff and Cyclops Head could both be considered beginner benefits—the additional rewards for having the courage to single-handedly kill the powerful elite Red Arremer and Champion Troll with a mortal body during his beginner trial.

Perhaps a suitable piece of equipment could indeed grant a player a transformational improvement, but attributes were the firmest foundation that allowed a player to build a towering edifice from the ground up.

So, although they could hunt newcomers with relative ease, they did so by exploiting information gaps and snowballing through stacked equipment. If all their equipment were stripped away, their attributes would not be much better than Cheng Tian's.

Moreover, their experiences of failing main missions had made them increasingly inclined to choose skill pools with escape and self-preservation abilities.

They clearly possessed more abundant resources but lacked a mindset to match them. It could only be said that even if they had not encountered Cheng Tian this time, they had already embarked on a path of slow death with no return.

As for how Cheng Tian had seen through the fact that they had a fusion skill...

He had actually bluffed it out.

That was because, whether in their attire or in the skills they had just displayed, the two of them closely recreated a pair of Boss characters from his memories—

The twin Bosses Guiji and Yasha from Streets of Rage 3's second-stage "Dance Hall" area.