"You want to fight the Raiders???"
Ghost Face Demon Fox cried out.
As the most levelheaded member of the three-man team, Demon Fox rarely raised his voice. Mainly because Thin Dog's words reminded him of the last time the two of them had been brutally beaten by the Raiders. In that narrow tunnel, he had taken three hits and died outright.
By the time he died, the Raider still had 80% of its Health Bar left.
They were nowhere near the same league!
"No, Thin Dog, you don't seriously think adding Lin Tang will boost our combat power by much, do you? He's a mod maker. What the hell does he know about combat?"
Lin Tang: "???"
Demon Fox: "What if we die right after respawning and get our accounts banned by the NPCs? This isn't a single-player game where you just get back up, teleport over, and keep fighting after you die. This damn game has a Death Penalty!"
"Hu Da, calm down, calm down!"
Thin Dog hurriedly tried to soothe Demon Fox.
"I'm not messing around. I consulted my special forces coach. I have rigorous pre-battle theoretical preparation."
Time rewound to a day earlier.
After logging off and spending half the day chatting nonsense in group chats and forums, Pu Shenqi sat in his study of more than a hundred square meters, growing angrier the more he thought about it.
"Why couldn't the two of us beat the Raiders?"
"Theoretically speaking, as long as a monster has a Health Bar, it can be defeated."
He remembered a guide he had once made on the Sekiro forum: facing the final boss head-on at level one, with no equipment or skills whatsoever!
It had originally been a Plot Kill. The player-controlled character would die after taking a single hit, and the battle was only meant to be a brief cutscene.
But when Pu Shenqi discovered that he could deal a tiny amount of damage to the Boss, he got an idea.
If I don't get hit even once, then theoretically, I can kill him.
And so came the video that shocked the entire Sekiro forum for a year: "Sekiro: Clearing the Game Right from the Start—Level One Challenge Against the Final Plot Boss, African Thin Dog."
He became famous in a single battle!
If Lin Tang's strength in their three-man team was deducing the design logic behind the game, and Demon Fox's was his insight into all kinds of data, then Pu Shenqi calling himself the number one expert on the forums was because of his combat power!
A top-tier hardcore player!
A mechanical monster!
"Since the two of us could knock off 20% of a Raider's Health Bar just by fighting wildly, that means we can absolutely kill one if we operate properly!"
"Given how realistic this game's physics engine is, stats can absolutely be made up for with skill and strategy!"
Without hesitation, Pu Shenqi called his coach—retired special forces instructor Chang Sheng.
The Pu Family had a rule, left behind by Pu Shenqi's grandfather, the founder of Duoyu Group.
"In our Pu family, men and women alike must build their bodies and train their physiques from childhood. Only a strong body can support a strong soul!"
It was a family rule that everyone with the surname Pu had to follow, and they had to pass it down through the generations.
It was said that this family rule had been left behind because Pu Shenqi's legendary grandfather had died young.
Pu Shenqi's grandmother had been strict with him since childhood. She never pushed him to study, only demanded that he strengthen his body, and even found him a special forces coach.
Inside the villa's combat training hall.
"Coach Chang, I have a simulated battle I'd like to ask you about. Suppose my opponent is two meters tall, weighs 30% to 50% more than me, has extremely high resistance to blows, and is twice as strong as I am. He uses a blunt weapon like a club, and I can choose a similarly sized blunt weapon. In an armed fight with such a huge gap in strength, how can the weaker side defeat the stronger?"
Chang Sheng thought for a moment.
"Is it an unrestricted fight?"
Pu Shenqi said, "Completely unrestricted. The goal is to beat the opponent until he loses the ability to move."
Chang Sheng nodded. "Based on your description, if it were hand-to-hand combat, you would have absolutely no chance of beating him. But if weapons are involved, there's a chance!"
"Fighting and martial arts are contests of technique and strength, with an emphasis on restraint. Weapon techniques are killing techniques."
"In weapon combat, strength ranks behind speed and timing. If your opponent has the advantage in strength and endurance, you only need to be faster, seize the timing of every strike, and hit his vital points to win. How skilled is your opponent?"
Pu Shenqi recalled the Raider's wild, wide-open, completely unstructured attacks. "No skill at all. Just brute force!"
"Then your chances of winning are even greater. Although you haven't learned the Bagua Step, its principles will definitely be useful in the simulated battle you described. That is—"
"Receive, deflect, release?"
Lin Tang interrupted Thin Dog's account.
Thin Dog: "???"
Demon Fox: "Don't interrupt him. Let Thin Dog finish! What principle?"
Thin Dog said, "Circle wide, step small, strike after the enemy moves but arrive first!"
"It means using our nimble bodies to find the Raiders' openings, constantly moving into their blind spots so they can't exert force directly. The instant they attack, we dodge, then exploit the recovery after their swing to strike! Hit them before they've even pulled their strength back!"
"The instructor was talking about one-on-one techniques. With good enough control, we can absolutely wear a Raider down and kill it! And if the three of us fight one Raider, we'll have plenty of room for error. Taking it down will be a sure thing!"
Lin Tang and Demon Fox both sucked in a sharp breath.
Lin Tang said, "Hiss~ You can fight like that!? I feel like I can do this again!"
Demon Fox said, "Hiss~ This is my first time using real-world techniques in a game. That's right! In such a realistic, era-defining virtual game, we should be using real-world skills! I was blinded by a single leaf. This game is more than just a contest of numbers."
Seeing that his two teammates had grasped the idea, Thin Dog immediately said, "Then let's find a lone Raider and test out our tactics!"
"Let's go! We can still see the Raider Camp we visited last time on the map. Let's head over and take a look."
The three had just set off down the mountain when they spotted a green-skinned Raider carrying a Wolf Tooth Club in one hand, preparing to climb up the mountain.
Eight eyes met, and both sides showed delighted expressions.
The Raider was delighted because it had found the humans its boss wanted killed.
From the Raiders' combat experience, three ordinary humans were easy prey. At most, it would suffer a few minor injuries.
The three players were delighted because experience had come knocking at their door!
"Roar!"
The Raider let out a furious roar and swung its Wolf Tooth Club with both hands, launching the first attack.
That roar was both the trumpet signaling the start of battle and a call for the other nearby Raiders to come over.
This strike carried overwhelming momentum. An ordinary human might have been scared stiff enough to wet himself.
Bang!
Facing the blow head-on, Thin Dog silently chanted, It's just a game. I'm not scared. I'm not scared!
He took a step back just in time to dodge the Raider's attack. The huge Wolf Tooth Club smashed into a stone on the ground, sending shards of rock flying.
Thin Dog emerged completely unharmed and quickly raised his own Wolf Tooth Club, taking several short steps to the side.
The other two seized the opportunity and each struck the Raider with a crowbar.
hp-20 hp-19
Two black Physical Damage numbers popped up above the Raider's head, and its Health Bar dropped by a tiny amount.
Thin Dog did not attack. His Wolf Tooth Club was too cumbersome, and if he swung it, the Raider would likely hit him as well.
"Come on! Circle around with me!"
There would be another chapter shortly.
Before you continue