Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

Chapter 206 - Does it ever end?

After insta-killing the man with one stroke, Svelte Dancer retreated to her original position. Her ghostly attack wowed all the leaders in the establishment as they had never seen something like it before.

What was more; Svelte Dancer’s one attack was clearly not backed by a skill but was merely her inherent Attack Power. This left the leaders tongue-tied and made them question themselves. Had they been the recipient of Svelte Dancer’s attack, would they have been able to dodge it? And if they could not, would they be able to withstand that one blow? Each of their faces paled when they thought up to that, and they all came to one conclusion: Too fast! There’s no way anyone could dodge that.

When she was back into her original position, Svelte Dancer asked aloud, “Spouting nonsense. Do you lot even know the rules?!” She then carefully wiped her dagger clean as her eyes swept through the crowd of guild leaders, as if she was looking for her next target.

The remaining man of Silver Moon at Ray’s Bar did not even dare to make a peep. However, just because he had stopped speaking did not mean that others would let him do so. Young Master Han had an expression of taking joy in calamity and delight in disaster as he pointed the man out, “That friend over there, didn’t you have something to say?”

“Nope! None at all!” the man quickly denied.

“Really? You were so talkative moments ago!” Young Master Han continued to say.

The last man looked at Svelte Dancer quickly. Feeling her eyes on him, he nearly peed his pants as he mumbled, “I really have nothing else to say.” This was what a guilty person would say; otherwise, a person would not be so nervous.

It was the man’s fearful expression that further deepened the shadows in the leaders’ hearts and they no longer dared to speak arbitrarily. Young Master Han did his best to stifle his laughter. Just as he was preparing to say something that would give the leaders an out for today’s matter, the bar’s door was suddenly pushed open from the outside and a man walked in.

“Eh? Why are you lot still here?” the person exclaimed while looking at the congregation.

Young Master Han looked at the newcomer and almost coughed up blood. Miles! Gu Fei had the worst possible timing to return to the bar. If this dragged on and on, when would the matter ever end?

“What are you doing here?!” Young Master Han’s face was black from barely suppressed ire.

“‘Bounty Mission’ It’s for real this time, though!” Gu Fei answered.

“Oh...” all the leaders happily exhaled as realization dawned on them. Had Gu Fei not said that, none of them would have recognized him. After all, Gu Fei’s face was covered the last time he had been in the bar. Without it, none of them associated him to the Mage from before. Mages wearing black robes were a dime a dozen in Yunduan City, and in fact, the newest attire available for level 40 Dark Priests was colored black. Moreover, differentiating between Mages and Priests was difficult without scrutiny. Would anyone use Appraisal on every random person who entered a tavern just to determine his or her job class?

Once Gu Fei uttered ‘Bounty Mission’, everyone immediately knew who he was. They were even more certain of his identity when he took out Moonlit Nightfalls from his dimensional pocket. With Guild Leader July calmly staring at them, all the guild leaders could do nothing but blush at Gu Fei’s sudden reappearance.

It was Gu Fei who took the initiative by slowly walking toward them. Unlike his earlier arrogant demeanor, he was currently giving off an apologetic vibe as he courteously said to the leaders, “Please let me through; I’m on a ‘Bounty Mission’.”

The few leaders awakened from their daydream and quickly stepped aside. One of the more quick-witted leaders even helpfully asked, “Who are you looking for? Want me to help you?”

The person’s question held a lot of weight behind it. After all, many of the people currently inside the bar were influential individuals by their own right. For two leaders to clash with each other, it would very likely escalate into a guild war. Thus, it could be seen how much importance the person had placed to attracting the talent Gu Fei. To compete for Gu Fei’s attention, he did hesitate to start an altercation with others.

If an altercation did start because of him, Gu Fei would surely be compelled to lend a helping hand, and it was clear which side he would aid at that time. Once Gu Fei was forced to choose a side, whatever happened afterward would just create many chances for the guild to entice him in. While this scheme might seem moronic, it was actually a very sophisticated psychological attack.

It was just a pity that this person had no understanding of where Gu Fei’s interest lay. He was doing ‘Bounty Mission’ to have a valid reason to slay people, so why would Gu Fei let others take his target? After rejecting the offer, Gu Fei immediately pointed to someone in the crowd with his sword and said, “It’s you! The rest of you, please make way!”

Scrambling to make a good impression to Gu Fei, all the leaders hurriedly moved to either side for him in a way that resembled the parting of the Red Sea.

Gu Fei’s target was a distinguished guild leader, yet the person was currently not feeling very distinguished. Gu Fei had singled him out and was now rushing to him. No matter how much he wanted to ingratiate himself to Gu Fei, there was simply no way he would willingly expose his neck to the latter for him to chop off. Right now, the guild leader could not stomach Gu Fei’s self-assured attitude.

At the end of the day, you’re just a Mage. Guess I’ll just have to see how OP you are! was what the person thought to himself. With a wave of his hand, he brought out his claymore. The man was a Warrior. Applying the basic logic of online games for this fight, the two’s proximity to each other was clearly fatal to the Mage, a job class that was at a disadvantage in melee, and the limited space the tavern provided was also helpful to a Warrior, making it that much easier for him to force this melee.

Unfortunately for the Warrior, Gu Fei was an existence that defied logic. Ye Xiaowu was so hung up over Gu Fei precisely because the latter was a walking anomaly in-game. If Gu Fei had chosen to be a Warrior, Fighter, or any melee job class and proceeded to use his kung fu, Ye Xiaowu would not have paid much attention to him. But since Gu Fei had a Mage job class, his use of kung fu in close combat had changed the way his job class would normally be in-game. This was why Ye Xiaowu had regarded Gu Fei as an existence that could break the balance of Parallel World.

The Warrior knew that the damage of Gu Fei’s Twin Incineration was high. With Gu Fei closing in on him, the Warrior deduced that he was planning to cast that spell and decided to take the initiative in attacking Gu Fei. No matter how high a Mage’s Spell Damage was, his or her defense would always be low. It would be hard for the Mage to cast his spell if he took the offensive, right?

The deduction of this leader was rather clever. When Gu Fei stepped within two meters of him, the leader quickly ducked his head and activated Charge.

“Ah!” someone among the crowd of spectators exclaimed, subconsciously worrying for Gu Fei’s safety. At the same time, the other leaders sighed as they assumed that the Mage had limited experience regarding clashes like this since he did not take precaution against the Warrior’s Charge.

“EHHH?!” In the next moment, however, everyone exclaimed in disbelief.

Seeing the Warrior lower his head, Gu Fei easily figured out his next move and foresaw various possible scenarios for it. What happened after was exactly as he had expected.

Gu Fei sidestepped to dodge the attack and the charging Warrior brushed past him. With a quick incantation, Gu Fei cleaved his sword down the Warrior’s back. Who knew how many times he had crossed weapons with Warriors and experienced Charge before? He truly felt sorry for these players. Engaging in a PvP in such a formulaic manner, all the Warriors’ fighting techniques seemed to have been cut from the same cloth.

Naturally, that resulted into Gu Fei employing the same PvP maneuver to subdue them again and again. He only had to sidestep to dodge their attack and follow it up with Hui Feng Luo Yan. Since this move always worked perfectly in every instance, Gu Fei felt very lonely! He was like Dugu Qiubai1! How he wished to encounter a Warrior that could avoid this technique of his, but he sadly had yet to encounter such a Warrior.

At this moment, the Warrior’s back went ablaze as he continued to Charge ahead. It was extremely eye-catching to the others around him due to the fact that Twin Incineration would apply to its victim the Burn effect for a few seconds. As the Warrior finally finished his forward Charge, the flames on his back continued to dance merrily without any signs of extinguishing.

Gu Fei rarely saw such a scene as 80% of his targets would promptly disappear after receiving his slash powered by Twin Incineration; none could survive the Burn effect of his spell as well.

You’re a guild leader alright! You’re quite tough! Gu Fei commended the Warrior internally. Closing in on the Warrior with two steps, he was about to plunge his sword onward when the Warrior was swathed in a white light and disappeared.

“Sword qi?!” someone exclaimed.

“Sword your f*cking qi! It’s the Burn effect of Twin Incineration!” someone immediately ridiculed.

Gu Fei disappointingly kept his sword. He totally did not expect the Warrior to survive the initial blow of his Twin Incineration, only to be done in by the spell’s Burn effect. “Mission accomplished!” Gu Fei announced. He was about to activate the teleportation function of his Windchaser’s Emblem when he noticed Young Master Han throwing him a look.

“Just say what you wanna say; stop giving me eye signal. I’m not Sword Demon, so I don’t understand it,” Gu Fei said.

“F*ck*ng remove your message restriction, then!” Young Master Han exclaimed, enraged.

“Oh... I completely forgot,” Gu Fei quickly readjusted the message setting of his gaming account and immediately received Young Master Han’s message, “Kill that guy.”

Gu Fei looked to where Young Master Han was pointing his hand and spotted a certain man in the crowd. “Why?” Gu Fei asked him.

“To protect the peace,” Young Master Han curtly answered.

Gu Fei looked over at the man who was presumably undermining the peace. When their eyes met, the man’s eyes immediately darted away as nerves overcame him, the very act of someone feeling guilty. At the same time, Gu Fei recognized him as one of the two men that Silver Moon had brought in the conference and promptly added two and two together.

To indiscriminately kill a man in front of so many people, the repercussions would surely not be good. Gu Fei pondered on how to do the deed without angering the others and then activated Blink to appear right before the man. The person squeaked in surprise and retreated a few steps from Gu Fei, causing him to step on to something. By the time the person lowered his head to look, Gu Fei had already coldly remarked, “Bro, you’ve stepped on my foot.”

It was unknown when Gu Fei had placed his foot right in the man’s path of retreat, but it was obvious that he had intentionally done it so that the latter would step on his foot.

The man was about to explain himself, but Gu Fei did not give him a chance to do so. Pulling out his sword, he slew the man right there and then.