Teaching You a Lesson

Lan Xi often challenged Ye Fengxing to duels, and in him, the Mages finally found the answer to their problem...

Stalling was definitely necessary. Kneeling down and accepting death wasn't our style... if anyone had to die, it should be Ye Fengxing. I wasn't fucking stupid! Still, there was an art to stalling-you absolutely couldn't rely on skills to do it, or that bastard would keep you pinned down! He would control the pace the entire time, and even a god-tier Mage couldn't do a damn thing about it.

What was the trick? The answer was the Roll Maneuver.

Everyone knew what the Roll Maneuver was, and everyone knew it could be used to dodge skills, but not everyone could use it well... someone like Ye Fengxing, who dared to use it at around level 9 to dodge a level 17 Elite Monster's Charge, was simply a freak!

Practically anyone who played the game knew that the character One Leaf Windwalk had ridiculously high agility. The speed of his Charge... comparing it to an F1 car was almost underselling it. Put yourself in that position: if an F1 car came hurtling toward you, sure, you could see it, but could you get out of its way?

As Lan Xi put it, it was nothing more than, "When you see him charging over, just move sideways. Left or right, either works. Rolling is optional, too." Those words had brought countless Mages to tears. Bro, just because you can dodge it with an incredibly slick Roll Maneuver doesn't mean we can! When we see the great Ye charging at us, we're scared out of our fucking minds...

Considering Lan Xi's freakish character also had ridiculously high agility, it wasn't surprising that he could kite Ye Fengxing. Now that Ye Fengxing was playing a Mage himself, would he make the same mistakes as ordinary Mages?

With an incredibly practiced Roll Maneuver, he dodged beautifully... a Warrior actually dared to show off his Charge in front of him? What a joke! And he immediately taught that Warrior what it meant to "ask for humiliation"...

A leg sweep right after the roll struck the Warrior's ankle with perfect precision! And so, the valiant Warrior pitched forward headfirst...

Dragonkin players tended to be large. Apart from physically frail classes such as Mages and Priests, every class was taller and more imposing than the last! Take Ironhead's Warrior, for example. The guy was already built like a tank in real life, comparable to Second Master Lu, the Flowery Monk. In the game, he had gone straight for the Himalayan Yeti look.

This Warrior wasn't much smaller than Ironhead, either. With a rush of wind, an enormous human cannonball slammed into a tree ahead!

Although this was only a game and it didn't hurt, the psychological blow was considerable. The Warrior was stunned. It wasn't as though he had never heard of someone getting tripped during a Charge, but he had never imagined it would happen to him...

Charge had very strong combat priority. It wasn't a matter of sticking your foot out to trip someone as they came charging over... doing that would most likely injure your own leg instead. Then you'd be stuck with a "broken leg" debuff while someone pinned you to the ground and beat you senseless. How embarrassing.

Ye Fengxing was an expert at playing Warriors. He had carefully studied every Warrior skill, and Charge was the one he had studied most.

Once a Warrior started charging, attacking almost any part of his body was useless. Charge's powerful combat priority allowed the Warrior to forcibly resist most external attacks during that instant!

For the simplest example, many classes had skills that could knock people back. What happened if a Warrior's Charge collided head-on with a Knockback effect?

Generally speaking, Charge would beat those Knockback effects hands down! Unless the opposing skill's level or the opponent's stats were high enough to completely overpower the Warrior, he could push straight through the Knockback skill and charge right into his opponent's face!

Of course, some people had learned crowd-control skills with particularly strong combat priority that could stop a Warrior's Charge. But Warriors also had advanced Charge skills, such as "Charge Stomp" and "Savage Charge." In the end, it still came down to the two characters' stats.

Combat priority depended heavily on stats, and Charge relied on strength and agility. One Leaf Windwalk's Charge was so badass precisely because his strength and agility were high enough.

Unfortunately, the game was still in its early stages, and this Warrior's stats weren't up to much. Meanwhile, Ye Fengxing knew every Warrior skill inside out. And so, the Warrior took an arrow to the knee...

Charge's only weakness lay in the feet! Ordinary players simply couldn't adapt to that kind of speed. Their footwork was mechanical, controlled for them by the system, and thus had virtually no flexibility. That was Charge's greatest opening!

The skill's design was rather interesting, too. While charging, the part of the body with the weakest combat priority was the side of the foot. The front was still fine, but the side of the ankle was a genuine "Achilles' Heel"! Ye Fengxing knew that better than anyone!

"Kid, let me teach you a lesson. It's for your own good." Ye Fengxing couldn't spare the time to finish the Warrior off. With "Wind of Freedom" active, he took to his heels. His movement speed, already as high as 8.32, rose to nearly 9.2 after receiving Wind of Freedom's 30% bonus. How were Cold-Hearted and the other Assassins supposed to live with that...?

Some of them had advanced to Shadow Assassins, some to Rogues, and others to Thieves. Murder, arson, raids, and interceptions were their specialties, but today, they had collectively run into a formidable opponent.

Assassins couldn't outrun a Mage... well, it wasn't as though that had never happened before. Think of the Gale Mages back in "Light of Freedom." They allocated most of their points to agility, prioritized agility on their equipment, and learned every speed-boosting skill available, completely disregarding attack and defense. They truly were the "kings of running." No class could hope to compete with a Gale Mage.

Even full-agility Shadow Assassins, Thieves, and Agile Warriors-classes renowned for their speed-couldn't compete with Gale Mages in raw speed! Even Ye Fengxing had to admit that if he met someone like that who was determined to flee, there was nothing he could do.

But the problem now was that this Mage also had high attack power! Outrageously high! He could burst down a Warrior wearing a full set of green gear and wielding a blue weapon!

A Mage with high attack power wasn't scary. As long as a bunch of melee fighters stuck to him like glue, he was meat on a platter, ready for them to carve up however they pleased.

A fast Mage wasn't scary, either. I'll stand right here and let you attack. Let's see how much damage you can actually do!

But a Mage who was both fast and powerful, who killed a whole ring of melee fighters before any of them could get close-that was absolutely infuriating! Back in the day, Lan Xi had been exactly that kind of bastard in the eyes of those miserable melee fighters! Words like "shameless" and "scumbag" might as well have been coined with his face in mind!

Now, Ye Fengxing seemed well on his way to following in that guy's footsteps. (For that matter, ranged players had considered him just as "shameless" back then, if not more so. The number of times people had secretly stabbed effigies of him, cursed him, screamed abuse at him, and ranted about him probably wasn't much lower than Lan Xi's...)

The Assassins couldn't help cursing inwardly. Fucking hell! His attack is that high, and he can still run that fast-and he's fucking ranged, too! How are miserable Assassins like us supposed to get by? Huh?!

Ye Fengxing couldn't care less about their misery. After escaping, he entered Wind Stealth again, then set his sights on Invincible Sword of Overwhelming Might once more.

This time, Ye Fengxing ignored the enemy healers. He opened with Flame Arrow, started casting, and went straight to work...

-101, Flame Devours the Body.

-288! Critical hit! Flame Arrow!

-224! Critical hit! Magic Missile!

Before Invincible Sword of Overwhelming Might could react, a streak of fire and a streak of white light had already struck him...

The young man cursed furiously and rushed toward the source of the spells! But before he could take a step, a brilliant flash of fire froze him in place-Explosive Impact's four-second stun wasn't just for show! In the early game, when most people lacked ways to counter crowd control, a stun skill like this was practically a shamelessly overpowered PvP ability!

-997, Explosive Impact.

-227! Critical hit! Magic Missile!

-384! Critical hit! Flame Arrow!

-379! Critical hit! Flame Arrow!

With a bang, poor Invincible Sword of Overwhelming Might fell bitterly to the ground once again... although his damage against players wasn't as high as it was against monsters, Ye Fengxing still hit brutally hard. Even with an Earth Ranger standing there desperately healing his dying teammate, that health bar disobediently dropped straight to empty...

Oh, perhaps it wasn't fair to call the health bar disobedient. It had the right to choose, too... it simply preferred listening to Ye Fengxing. What was wrong with that?

[Raid][Invincible Sword of Overwhelming Might]: Fuck! Coordinates 357,232. That bastard burst me down again!

[Raid][Kuang Dao]: Cold-Hearted! You're close. Hold him up!

At the sight of that message, Cold-Hearted's eyelids began twitching again...

Boss, don't you know that Mage can burst people down? Sure, I can chase him, but whether I can hold him up is another matter. He's so fast, after all... but one thing's certain: I'll end up gloriously sprawled on the ground. Is that the result you're looking for?

Complaining inwardly was one thing, but he still had to give chase! Cold-Hearted wasn't a child, nor was he an ordinary player. This was his job. Would a grown man of twenty-four or twenty-five mess around with his livelihood for no reason? Money wasn't that easy to earn!

Cold-Hearted chased after him without hesitation... If I die, I die! This is a guild operation anyway. Even if I die, I won't have to cover the losses out of my own pocket. The boss has given the order, so I'll obey.

The Shadow Assassin arrived at the scene with murderous momentum and a resolve to die, only to discover that the Mage had already run far away. Cold-Hearted finally breathed a sigh of relief. Of course, he still couldn't slack off. He was still within everyone's sight, after all, and publicly neglecting his assignment wouldn't look good.

Cold-Hearted chased after him at full speed without panicking, because he knew perfectly well that the Mage was far too fast for him to catch.

But many things in this world lay beyond human calculation. That was why the ancients had sighed, "Man proposes, Heaven disposes."

At that moment, Cold-Hearted very much wanted to let out just such a sigh... because he suddenly discovered that the Mage was gradually slowing down. The distance between them seemed to be shrinking... when he looked back, the other raid members were already some distance behind him.

In other words, our friend Cold-Hearted was now alone...