Combat Artificer-Run!

Just as Fang Heng was distracted, the battlefield changed again.

The tall trainee suddenly charged out without a word, climbed down from the rocks, and grabbed the unconscious Paparal crossbowman from the ground. Elephant-nose beetles were closing in from all directions. He clumsily dodged their attacks, yet somehow miraculously dragged the latter back.

"Thank you so much! You saved Parker's life!" The elven girl looked at him with immense gratitude.

The round-faced blonde, blue-eyed girl also squealed and hugged their hero before helping him answer, "You're welcome, Miss Etila. We'll still be relying on your help. What do we do next?"

Fang Heng could not help but look at the boy again. He was extremely shy, keeping his head lowered and remaining silent even now.

Fang Heng was different—

If it had been him and the Dawnstar Adventurer Group, he would definitely have been boasting about himself in front of everyone by now. The others would surely be laughing, and Miss Scarpe would undoubtedly be unable to resist scolding him again.

Fang Heng shook his head. Still, he greatly admired the boy's courage and decisiveness.

Tourist status restricted level and experience gains, and he did not even have Magic Adaptability. That boy was worse off than Fang Heng had been back then. Had he been even a step slower, the elephant-nose beetles would have torn him to pieces.

And tourists did not have Star Radiance.

Fang Heng knew that the trainees' assessment had more than a dozen items, but dying ahead of schedule was definitely not among them.

He stopped listening to the conversation behind him, quietly backed out of the bushes, and decided to lend a hand. He stealthily made his way toward where he had seen the Jefflitte Redcoats earlier.

"Tata, was that really Crushed Red Crystal?" Fang Heng asked softly.

Tata nodded.

While he had been distracted earlier, Tata had told him that there was a summoner among the Jefflitte Redcoats. The summoner's contracted creature was a rare Red-brown Elephant-nose Beetle. He must have fed Crushed Red Crystal to his beetle, then used its shrill cry to call over the others.

Under the influence of the Crushed Red Crystal, these elephant-nose beetles had all gone mad.

Fang Heng asked how the fairy girl knew all that.

Tata gave him a concise answer—she could understand the sounds made by elephant-nose beetles.

"You can understand insects' language?" Fang Heng was startled. Was Dragon Soul really that powerful?

"Sounds, not language, Sir Knight." Tata let go of his hair, awkwardly pressed it down and smoothed it out as she corrected him. "They use pheromones, movements, and vibrations to convey information. There are thirteen million different frequencies of vibrations in nature. I can only understand a small half of them."

"Only...?"

Fang Heng realized that his Dragon Soul might really be incredible.

"But that guy really was willing to spend money..." Fang Heng muttered. Red-brown Elephant-nose Beetles were rare because insect creatures had extremely low intelligence and were difficult to contract successfully. Of course, their combat power was generally exceptional as well. They were among the best at the same level, sometimes even capable of challenging opponents one or two levels higher, and were immune to most negative mental conditions.

Besides, a properly tamed Red-brown Elephant-nose Beetle was incredibly expensive on the market.

Whenever Fang Heng thought of the words "on the market," he automatically thought of money and airships, then of his own financial situation, and immediately felt exhausted and hopeless.

He still had quite a few doubts.

Even if the Red-brown Elephant-nose Beetles had gone mad, they should not have surrounded those trainees as though they had agreed on it beforehand. They should have attacked everyone, including the Jefflitte Redcoats.

Then there was the fact that these Jefflitte people were simply too deranged.

The Super Competition Alliance encouraged Chosen to help trainees complete their three-month pilgrimage. Chosen who helped trainees could earn a positive credit record and points within the alliance. Since it concerned a Chosen's reputation in the alliance, most people would lend a hand when convenient.

Even if they did not help, they should at least not cause trouble, let alone attack or kill trainees.

The Jefflitte Redcoats were practically risking universal condemnation. Compared to this, misleading mercenaries into the Zone of Silence to die was practically tender care. If this matter came to light, it would be a scandal enough to shake the entire industry.

Fang Heng certainly had no intention of keeping their secret.

So he activated the system's recording function—

He did not know whether the Jefflitte people had gone insane or were simply fearless, but either way, he was happy to see it.

He carefully approached. Though he could not make out the tiers on their insignias, their attire showed that they were at least official members. Official Redcoat members wore the Firearm Squad's red battle robes, while unofficial members wore brown short shirts and had no white feather ornaments on their hats.

Those feathers were not merely decorations. They were alchemical creations that could be used as one-time smoke canisters.

Among the Redcoats' official members were both Tier 2 and Tier 3 professions. Tier 2 meant at least levels 5 to 15, while some of the higher-level Tier 3 professions were nearly on par with Scarpe.

Fang Heng had seen how terrifying professions such as rangers specializing in scouting could be. Scarpe could detect the slightest trace beneath bushes from dozens of meters away. He knew it was neither intuition nor eyesight. Once perception attributes and scouting-related abilities reached a certain level, the Chosen System would automatically highlight the outlines of unusual objects it could detect.

It felt like having a thermal imager built in.

He stopped from a distance.

This position was basically directly behind them. Only from this direction did Fang Heng feel somewhat safe, because unless the Jefflitte people deliberately looked behind them, their scouting skills would be useless.

Scouting included not only sight, but hearing, smell, vibrations, and even intuition.

For example, the system would turn an unusual sound source it detected into an audio file, mark its direction, and alert the Chosen. But the system's automatic scouting was based purely on character attributes. Without the Chosen's subjective guidance, its efficiency was worrying.

To have the system automatically discover an enemy at this distance, he would probably need a real ranger.

Fang Heng waited a few seconds, then released his Walker.

With a click, the Walker spread its construct legs and slowly rose to its feet, gliding into the bushes ahead. Fang Heng leaned out slightly as well. Without a visual link, this was the only clumsy method he had.

Fortunately, the several Jefflitte Redcoat members remained completely unaware.

When it had crossed roughly half the distance, Fang Heng activated Agile Swiftness IV. The agile components began to hum. He thought the others should have caught the movement behind them by now—but to his astonishment, the five people stood crowded together without moving.

"Don't tell me these people got so absorbed in watching the show..." Fang Heng could not help muttering.

It was as though his guess had been confirmed.

Only when the Sword Plover Walker had almost entered attack range did one of them hear the sound and turn around.

But by then, the Flexible Construct had already bared its fangs. With a gesture of his hand, Fang Heng directed it—its first target was not the person who had turned around, but the only swordsman among the five. The swordsman carried a swept-hilt rapier.

Scarpe had told him that rapier users generally focused on agility with strength as a secondary attribute. They were precision fighters and posed the greatest threat to his Walker. Another fairly threatening target among them was a Gunslinger, but naturally, Gunslingers were slow to act and extremely weak in close combat.

So he chose the swordsman as his first target—

"Watch out...!"

Fang Heng heard the person who had turned around shout something, apparently calling a name. From so far away, he could not hear it clearly. It was probably the swordsman's name.

The swordsman's reaction was indeed astonishing. Worthy of an agility-focused profession, she immediately pressed a hand to her waist at the sound of wind behind her, released the catch, drew out the swept-hilt rapier, and spun around to block.

Only then did Fang Heng see clearly that she was a woman.

She was a rather pretty woman with long flaming red hair. Her movements were crisp and efficient, and her rapier caught perfectly between the Walker's two gleaming blade claws.

The Walker pressed down on her rapier. The blade deformed like a spring, bending toward its wielder before snapping back.

Human and machine separated. Their exchange had ended in a flash, before the others had even seen what happened.

Fang Heng saw a gray number appear in the distance. He did not pay attention to how large it was, but since the ambush had landed, it could not have been small—it was block damage. A swordsman profession focused on agility with strength as a secondary attribute. Their evasion was inferior to a rogue's, and their blocking inferior to a warrior's, but their strength lay in balance.

If a Chosen could actively seek a dynamic balance between blocking and evasion, they could keep the other value recharging at all times. Generally speaking, the higher the Chosen's own limits, the better this profession performed.

It was a profession with extremely high demands on one's own talent, the choice of the confident.

This woman should have been very confident. Unfortunately, the strike from behind had caught her somewhat off guard. Her hurried response had almost certainly cost her a great deal of balance. Balance itself did not affect the amount of evasion or block value, but it affected a Chosen's initiative.

Initiative was not an attribute in the system. It represented a Chosen's reactions, judgment, and instincts. For top-tier Chosen, it even represented every possibility.

Not to mention that when balance was lost, evasion and block values would not recharge.

Attacking and defending both cost some balance, but the attacker clearly had the advantage, especially when Fang Heng had seized the initiative completely. On his data page, he could see that the Walker lost balance far more slowly than it recovered it, while the female swordsman was in a far worse situation—hers was exactly the opposite.

Sword Plover continued its assault—

The swordswoman blocked again with her rapier, sealing off the attack.

The Walker twisted its upper body, bringing the blade on its other side into the attack, each strike faster than the last.

Alarm had already appeared in the female swordsman's eyes. She was indeed confident, and naturally recognized it as a Combat Artificer's Flexible Construct, but she had not thought much of it.

As a rapier swordswoman, she believed her abilities countered Combat Artificers' clumsy constructs quite well. Fast and precise—she could even knock down Clockwork Sprites, let alone a cumbersome Walker.

But she immediately realized she had made a mistake.

That was why a Combat Artificer's construct was called a "Flexible" Construct—

The female swordswoman repeatedly changed the direction of her blade, yet she could not escape her disadvantage as the responder. Their weapons clashed again and again, and the construct was as nimble as a living person.

One strike, two strikes, three strikes. She retreated as she blocked, growing increasingly anxious. On the fourth strike, her guard finally opened wide. Fang Heng saw the gray number vanish—her block value had been depleted. He instinctively stepped forward, brought the five fingers of his right hand together, and slashed from left to right.

Sword Plover shot forward like an arrow.

At the critical moment, the female swordswoman rolled backward and barely avoided it.

But that evasion was no longer her intention. It had only happened because she still had evasion value—a passive evasion under the system's control. Since it contained no active element whatsoever, the damage from that strike was barely reduced at all.

A three-digit blue evasion damage number appeared in Fang Heng's vision.

The female swordswoman fell to the ground because of that unconscious evasion, losing her balance completely for the first time.

Her block value had reached zero, most of her evasion value was gone, and her balance had been utterly depleted.

The exchange between human and machine had been as fast as lightning. In the span of a few movements, the female swordswoman had already reached death's door, while the others had only just reacted.

"Combat Artificer!"

A cry of alarm came from the forest.

Fang Heng recognized it as the foreign girl's voice. It seemed the people over there had noticed him too. Judging by the strength in her voice, the situation on that side of the battlefield did not seem too bad yet.

He breathed a sigh of relief.

The Walker's twin blades crossed as it slashed past the female swordswoman's throat like lightning. A vivid stream of scarlet blood shot out like an arrow.

Fang Heng did not care whether she was truly dead. He immediately controlled the Walker to turn toward the next target—his target was the summoner among them. The Gunslinger was still struggling to reload. As long as he dealt with the summoner first, there was hope of winning the battle.

There was not the slightest trace of joy in Fang Heng's heart from succeeding in the ambush.

If the previous exchange had merely been an appetizer, the main course had only just begun. His gaze slowly swept across the battlefield. There were four Redcoat members remaining, four official members, and every one of them was probably a higher level than everyone present.

His only chance of winning was to make the Red-brown Elephant-nose Beetles lose control and muddy the waters.

Other than that, there was practically no possibility of winning this battle.

But just as Fang Heng calculated the possibilities on the battlefield, another unexpected scene unfolded. The remaining Redcoat members suddenly displayed suffocatingly skilled coordination. Upon seeing the female swordswoman fall, not only did they fail to charge over in a rage.

Instead, they all shouted together:

"The boss is dead!"

"It's a Combat Artificer, run!"

Before the words had even faded, these people vanished into the grass with astonishing proficiency, faster than Western journalists.

Leaving Fang Heng staring at the scene in dumbfounded silence.

What was going on? Were Combat Artificers really that terrifying?

Please continue to vote and bookmark. Also, I recommend a friend's book, Chronicles of Aier, on Qidian—just search for it directly. The author's prose is rather meticulous, and its overall pace may be relatively calm. Some people might not like that style, but those who do may love it very much.