I can, you can't.

"Xiao Xian, my health, my health! Heal me! Keep me up!" A Warrior stared wide-eyed at his health bar and yelled, barely sparing a glance for the target in front of him.

"I'm trying..." Xiao Xiaoxian watched several party members' health bars, not daring to let his attention slip. "You melee guys, get on him! If I keep healing like this, I'm going to run out of mana."

The young man finally understood what it meant to be unable to cry even when you wanted to. That Mage switched targets outrageously fast, and every Explosive Impact unleashed a vicious burst of damage!

No one knew which unlucky bastard would get hit by the next Explosive Impact. Xiao Xiaoxian was its most direct "victim"-as the healer, predicting the enemy's target was a basic skill. After all, whenever someone died, the healer was usually the first to get blamed.

Healing was wearing Xiao Xiaoxian out... His gear was good and his skills were solid, but the guy opposite him seemed to have even better gear and even greater skill! The bastard had baited several Divine Prophecies out of him in succession, leaving the once-confident young man wanting to delete his character.

Yes, Xiao Xiaoxian was very talented, but Ye Fengxing's execution speed was clearly several notches above his. Canceling a spell in the instant after its casting cues appeared was no challenge for this guy at all. In fact, he could do it with ease.

If you slowed time down, even that "instant" offered room to maneuver. The two of them could compete to see whose reactions and execution were faster!

As for the outcome, there was probably never any doubt.

Poor Xiao Xiaoxian was beginning to question whether he had truly mastered that advanced technique. Why... why had he failed several times in a row? Why?!

Cyclone Bind could hold someone for eight seconds. In theory, eight seconds was enough for Ye Fengxing to blast two people to death... But Xiao Xiaoxian wasn't the only healer here, and the damage dealers weren't just standing around doing nothing.

They might not be able to inflict any meaningful damage on Ye Fengxing, but they could at least interfere with him. A Mage had to cast, after all. Surely Ye Fengxing couldn't keep muttering incantations with several blades flashing around him.

Even so, Xiao Xiaoxian and the other healer were under immense pressure, their mana repeatedly dipping dangerously low! Meanwhile, the Mage opposite them still had half his mana left, clearly enough to fight their whole group for several more rounds. How was Xiao Xiaoxian supposed to live with that...?

Left with no choice, Xiao Xiaoxian had shouted those words, even though he knew they sounded rather stupid. The melee guys were already doing their utmost to chase that Mage. Everyone could see how skilled their opponent was. Failing to catch him didn't mean their own people were bad; it simply meant he was too strong!

The melee fighters had their own misery they couldn't put into words... Fucking hell, who wouldn't close in if they could? Who wanted to be dragged around like a kite? They just... really couldn't catch him. They really couldn't...

The two Warriors were frustrated enough to throw away their weapons and delete their characters. Surely there had to be a limit to shamelessness... Warriors weren't fast runners to begin with and relied entirely on Charge to catch people. Yet that bastard opposite them was something else. Leaving him alone was fine, but whenever they Charged, they inevitably went flying headfirst into the ground, forcing their teammates to rescue them like pulling up radishes.

"Fuck this goddamn bullshit! How the hell are we supposed to play?!" The two Warriors were utterly distraught.

By comparison, the three Assassins hadn't suffered anything quite so embarrassing. But! Three Assassins failing to corner a single Mage was already humiliating in itself... You could even call it a slap in the face, delivered back and forth across both cheeks...

Our friend Xinchang was the most frustrated of all... At one point, he had rushed over while the Mage was casting. Seeing that his opponent showed no sign of dodging, he couldn't help feeling delighted. Goddammit, I can finally stab you!

Really, how "simple" our friend Xinchang's wish was. His thoughts were straightforward, truly straightforward... You're the expert, brother. With gear and skills like yours, I admit defeat. All I want is to let my short sword graze you just once. That isn't too much to ask, is it?

Sadly, even such a simple wish was mercilessly shattered by a certain someone...

An instant before Cold-Hearted's attack landed, he suddenly discovered that his opponent had flicked his hand backward and caught his short sword without even looking at him!

The frustrated little Assassin took a closer look. The Mage was actually holding a small, pitch-black dagger, its edge lodged against his sword hilt!

Since the system had set the game's pain sensitivity to its lowest level by default, Cold-Hearted hadn't felt any pain. But he knew his opponent had cut his fingers! If this had happened in real life, he would have been left crippled with only six fingers.

The game didn't feature such bloody scenes. At most, he would lose some health and suffer a debuff.

This particular effect was called "Finger Sever." It reduced a melee class's attack power by 50% and attack speed by 60%. Of course, if you wielded two weapons, the other weapon's attack power and attack speed remained unaffected, but the injured hand was effectively useless for the time being.

Our friend Xinchang was in a sorry state. Not only had his attack achieved absolutely nothing, he had fallen for his opponent's trick instead. What made it even harder to comprehend was that his opponent was a Mage, supposedly the worst melee combatant of all the classes...

Mages had practically no melee skills. Even if they did, they could forget about competing with an Assassin's melee skills in a clash resolution. After all, even the weakest Assassin had a far higher strength stat than a Mage.

Clash resolution was rather mysterious, but it boiled down to a few rules: first came the comparison between the skills themselves, then the two sides' stats. The third was called "secondary factors."

What were secondary factors? Their scope was actually quite complicated: terrain, the point of impact, differences in timing, and so on...

Take the simplest example: Ye Fengxing had tripped a Charging Warrior merely by sticking out a foot. Why? Sticking out a foot to trip someone didn't even count as a skill, let alone compare to Charge, which had an extremely strong clash rating.

The reason came down to the third rule... Yes, those "secondary factors"!

Light of Freedom and Chronicles of the Sky closely mirrored reality and offered an extraordinary degree of freedom! Many mechanics were based on real circumstances. Charge, for example, had a strong clash rating but still possessed weaknesses. Very few people could discover and exploit them, however, so players generally called these mechanics "hidden mechanics."

Hidden mechanics often produced astonishing results that overturned common assumptions.

Generally speaking, anyone who could use hidden mechanics proficiently was an expert.

What made someone an expert? There were many things he could pull off that you simply couldn't. That was why he was an expert.

A Mage holding a dagger had actually parried an Assassin's "Pommel Strike"! That was utterly unbelievable. Even more fantastically... the bastard had cut his opponent's fingers and inflicted some "Finger Sever" effect. God! Was he a GM?

Pommel Strike: Strike an opponent forcefully with your weapon, dealing 62-74 damage and stunning them for 4 seconds. Grants 2 combo points. Melee range, instant cast. Costs 24 Battle Aura. Cooldown: 15 seconds. No cooldown while in Stealth.

Clearly, Pommel Strike inflicted a stun, making it an incredibly powerful hard crowd-control skill!

If you wanted to contest Pommel Strike in a clash, a Warrior was a more reliable choice. They had high strength and powerful skill effects, after all. As for a Mage... forget it. Keeping your distance and kiting was the way to go. Crossing blades with an Assassin was sheer idiocy.

Cold-Hearted didn't know what trick his opponent had used, but he knew one thing for certain: his opponent hadn't used any skill!

Xiao Xiaoxian had also witnessed this truly "fantastical" scene. His knowledge in this area far surpassed that of Cold-Hearted and the others... A Mage, the weakest melee class, had parried an Assassin's powerful crowd-control skill without using a skill himself, and had successfully countered with crowd control of his own. Explaining how difficult that was would take far more than a sentence or two.

Just how monstrously skilled did that make their opponent...? Xiao Xiaoxian understood perfectly and had already reached his conclusion.

Timing, execution speed, the point of the parry, the force of the cut... Every one of those factors had to be controlled to perfection to produce this seemingly "impossible" result!

Who exactly is this guy? Intense curiosity rose in the young man's heart. He knew that with the skills this man had shown, even if he wasn't an active professional player, he was good enough to qualify as one. If he wanted to, the major clubs surely wouldn't mind adding another capable player to their ranks.

What so-called "major guild" would have the nerve to make someone this talented do such "grunt work"? Had they never heard of not using an ox-cleaving knife to kill a chicken?

"Xiao Xian, watch my health!" Cold-Hearted had taken several Flame Arrows in succession and was starting to buckle.

"Oh..." Having let his thoughts distract him slightly, Xiao Xiaoxian hurriedly raised the Holy Light Cross in his hand and slammed a heal worth over 800 health onto Cold-Hearted! This frustrated Ye Fengxing in the distance, leaving him no choice but to switch targets and keep attacking.

More than two minutes had passed since the fight began. Someone had reported the situation to Kuang Dao and War Hero Yi Yan long ago. Judging by the time, they should be arriving soon.

Ye Fengxing knew his opponents wouldn't obediently send only a handful of small fry to dance around with him and waste time. Their main force had to be nearby. He wasn't afraid of these people, but Adaric in the cave remained a problem. What if...

A certain someone began deliberately circling back toward the direction he had come from. Several melee fighters desperately followed, only to see him suddenly rush to an earthen slope and scramble up it in a few quick movements! His agility and lightness made it look like he was shooting a martial arts film.

Cold-Hearted's eyelid twitched. He hurried over as well and tried to climb up the same way. Unfortunately, this wasn't something you could master with a last-minute attempt... People often spoke of "scaling walls and crossing rooftops as though walking on level ground." It sounded easy, but actually doing it was far from an overnight achievement. It required at least several years of grueling practice.

Although Ye Fengxing's base stats had been reduced, this slope wasn't particularly steep. Its uneven surface also offered plenty of handholds and footholds, so he could just about make it up.

Still, his movements were so effortlessly graceful that the moment Xiao Xiaoxian and the others saw them, the same thought sprang into their minds: Holy shit! Is this a fantasy MMO or a martial arts MMO...? Lightness skills? Wudang's Cloud Ladder?