MMO: Pierce Heaven Til’ It Breaks

Blinding white light shielded everything from sight. The people could only hear sounds of clinking from the outside.

12 seconds later, the Twelve Knights of the Round Table disappeared alongside the bright white light. Alongside them, Li Yi had disappeared from the battlefield…

“Where is he!”

Arthur was stunned.

No matter in the air or underground, Li Yi was nowhere to be seen!

“Where could Dark Wing have gone?”

“He should’ve been hit by the attack, what happened?”

Not only was Arthur puzzled, so was everyone else. Just as Arthur approached in utter confusion, three splashes of blood splattered across his head as three golden numbers indicating critical hit appeared. [-2121], [-2311], [-4654]!

Without defense, coupled with critical hit and guard break, caused Arthur to be immediately killed!

Li Yi’s silhouette appeared not far from where Arthur had made the Knights of Round Table attack him.

His HP was exactly at 1 point, but he looked as if he did not even break a sweat.

“You’re cheating!” Arthur roared. He had forgotten that dead bodies could not speak.

Li Yi smirked, “You know clearly who was cheating. Arthur, do you think the system wouldn’t detect you if you use a perma-stealthing Thief?”

As Li Yi finished his sentence, another silhouette emerged from behind him. He was dressed in black with his face masked and dual-wielding two daggers. It was the Thief who pushed Arthur to break his Repent status. He was a legend among the Southern Continent called Untraceable God of Death, Hostile Mutilation!

In Pantheon, there was an infamous bug in which a Thief accidentally acquired the ability to permanently be in Stealth Mode. It was different from Li Yi’s Camouflage where Camouflage seemed game-breakingly buggy but was recognized by the system, while perma-Stealth did not and was officially a bug.

There was only one perma-Stealth Thief in Pantheon, and that Thief was Hostile Mutilation!

No one knew how he managed to be permanently in Stealth Mode, not even Arthur, a closed beta player understood it. Hostile Mutilation never mentioned it no matter how persistent other people asked him or how much money they offered to buy the secret off of him.

To simply put, his lips were sealed.

In the past, Hostile Mutilation had been unbeatable for 5 whole years in Pantheon due to his exploitation of this bug. In the end, the bug was only patched up by the system when he had to fight the Queen of Western Continent, Night Moon. From then on, the perma-Stealth Thief was no more.

No one knew how he managed it, but the higher-ups of Pantheon had long paid attention to him. However, he had never done anything out-of-line during all his logins. Even when the system was trying to find the reason behind it, they could not after five long years of tracking. In the end, after losing their patience, they banned him.

In Li Yi’s past life, the perma-Stealth Thief, Hostile Mutilation, had stayed on his throne for a long time. However, in this life, his fate had already been changed in Li Yi’s hands.

When the challenge took effect and the system was being the judge, would it not be stepping a cat’s tail to choose to cheat?

Li Yi had already reported the incident when Hostile Mutilation pushed Arthur from the attack.

The system had already been keeping its eyes on him anyway. The system could not fault him for engaging in perma-Stealth, but when he abused that bug to tip the scales on another other people’s battles, can the system not step in?

Hence, the system interrupted and patched the perma-Stealth bug, locking Hostile Mutilation out of his signature move!

When Arthur’s subordinate saved Arthur from having to corpse run, Arthur’s first move was to report Li Yi to the system, claiming that he cheated…

However, the report was ignored. Arthur waited anxiously for quite a while but still, the anticipated response did not come. It meant that Li Yi did not cheat, but had actually depended on his own strength to defeat Arthur.

Seeing Hostile Mutilation with without his Stealth, Arthur said achingly, “Muti, you…”

“No more perma-Stealth.” Hostile Mutilation sounded calm, it was as if the loss of his perma-Stealth ability did not matter.

“Ah…” Arthur punched the air in frustration. He said while pointing at Li Yi, “You didn’t escape my Knights of the Round Table’s attack, how are you able to survive? You even hid yourself, admit it, you cheated, didn’t you?”

“Go home and think about it for a bit. Maybe in near future, you will find your answer.” Li Yi did not bother to explain. To him, the only thing that mattered now was that he won.

“The next battle is about to begin. Solitary, you can take this battle.”

Li Yi retrieved the challenge scroll and wrote “Milk Dipper Solitary” before ticking it and sending it to Arthur.

Arthur turned around, planning to pick his representative when Hostile Mutilation approached him. Hostile Mutilation brandished his blades and said, “Let me.”

Arthur’s lips twitched. “Your perma-Stealth is gone.”

Obviously, he did not trust Hostile Mutilation.

Hostile Mutilation was very adamant. “If I lose, I will get you everything you’ve lost.”

“I don’t mind the armor, but can you get my orange scepter back? Do you have the capability to do so?” Arthur sighed slightly and caressed his scepter. He said, “It wasn’t easy, this scepter. I used a whole year to farm this. I don’t mind other equipment, but this scepter, I can’t, Muti…”

“Believe me, I can do it!” Hostile Mutilation’s eyes were almost on fire as he spat the words out glaring at Arthur.

Arthur was still hesitating, unable to make a decision. At this point, his other teammate laughed out loud and said, “Let him do it, I believe that he can.”

“Alex, you…” Arthur was a little shocked.

Arthur stomped the ground hard and said in determination, “Alright Mutilation, I’ll depend on you this time!”

“Don’t worry!”

Hostile Mutilation sighed a breath of relief and stepped forward with his blades.

Milk Dipper Solitary giggled loudly.

Unending Unmatched could not make it due to the trap that Arthur laid, so Li Yi called Milk Dipper Solitary here. It was widely known that the mercenary of Savage Tribe was fierce, but it was rare that people would know that the chief of Savage Tribe, Milk Dipper Solitary, was a fighting powerhouse.

Strength-wise, Milk Dipper Solitary was not worse than Unending Unmatched at his peak. However, due to the nature of the class, players only set up a Top Ten MT Ranking Board and not Top Ten Violent Warrior Ranking Board. Otherwise, with Milk Dipper Solitary’s capabilities, he would have dominated the ranking board.

Li Yi knew of his strength only because he had realized it when he was pursued by the Savage Tribe in his past life. With Li Yi’s personality, he would have sought vengeance. If the Savage Tribe wanted to pursue him, he would strike back. So several times after that, he had launched sneak attacks on Milk Dipper Solitary with losses and wins. From then on, he knew that Milk Dipper Solitary was really strong himself as well.

He was not the strongest, but compared to the others from Little Drunk Cat, he was still stronger.

Arthur wrote in Hostile Mutilation’s name in the challenge scroll as the challenge become effective.

Hostile Mutilation shimmered and disappeared with Stealth. Even though he had lost his ability to perma-Stealth, but he could still Stealth.

Milk Dipper Solitary began to spin his two axes and use his signature skill, Whirlwind Slash.

Visually, Violent Warrior’s Whirlwind Slash was similar to Weapon Warrior’s Blade Storm, they both swing in a circular fashion with their weapons to target an area. However, there was a major difference between the two skills.

Weapon Warrior’s Blade Storm did not impede movement, but it could not be actively halted. It would only stop after the skill had finished running. After the skill stopped, there would be a 50% chance that the user would go into Disoriented and very easy to be attacked.

Whirlwind Slash was different. It completely depended on players to control it and could stop at any time. The maximum it could go was three and a half circles. At level 20 of the skill, the countdown time between usage was only 3 seconds, which was how it became Violent Warriors’ signature move.

Milk Dipper Solitary kept spinning from time to time, forcing Hostile Mutilation to not be able to get close. At the same time, he kept pushing near Hostile Mutilation in an attempt to ascertain his location.

“Berserk Roar!”

Milk Dipper Solitary shouted suddenly. His torso heaved upward as a sound wave spread all around, immediately revealing Hostile Mutilation.

Berserk Roar did not cause damage. Its primary use was to reduce the opponents’ DEF by 20% for 20 seconds. However, the skill had a secondary usage, which was to reveal all opponents in the states of Invisible, Camouflage, and Stealth.

“Charge!”

As soon as Hostile Mutilation showed up, Milk Dipper Solitary immediately rushed forward to knock him out.

Hostile Mutilation’s reflex was not too slow, in a way. Before Milk Dipper Solitary could hit him, he threw his Shadow Cape in the air and disappeared into Stealth Mode once again…

Thieves could not Stealth in battles, but by using Shadow Cape, they could go into Stealth Mode once in any situations.

A pack of stun powder was sprayed onto Milk Dipper Solitary from behind, rendering him immobile.

Splurt! Splurt! Splurt!

Hostile Mutilation appeared behind Milk Dipper Solitary as he attacked his hip!

Hostile Mutilation managed to shave off 200HP in the first attack, 300HP in the second, and a whopping 600HP in the third. When he took his fourth attack, he unleashed a Finishing Blow, causing the two daggers to shine with a glint of starlight as they sank into Milk Dipper Solitary’s neck.

[-3213!]

“Sanguine Berserk!”

Milk Dipper Solitary glowed red as he turned around and slashed.

Sanguine Berserk would temporarily focus all of a player’s DEF to their ATK. Aside from that, the lower their HP, the higher its bonus to ATK was.

Milk Dipper Solitary was almost dead at this point. His counter right now seemed to carry his resolution to fight to the death.

‘Either he dies, or I do!’

“Crash!”

In the nick of time, Hostile Mutilation activated his special skill bestowed by his boots and managed to barely evade a fatal ax strike.

“Berserk Charge!”

Before Hostile Mutilation’s boots could finish its skill, Milk Dipper Solitary used his second Charge attack, zooming toward Hostile Mutilation as he raised his great ax.

[-2312]

His strike took away a huge portion of Hostile Mutilation’s HP. As he was going for a second attack, Hostile Mutilation regained his balance and quickly took a shot of poison, turning his body green.

Milk Dipper Solitary’s second attack connected. However, it was not able to finish off Hostile Mutilation. Instead, black words appeared on top of his head, saying “No Effect”!

The dual axes struck again!

“No Effect!”

It was at that point that Hostile Mutilation’s daggers struck him. Milk Dipper Solitary could not dodge anymore and could only watch as the two blades sunk into his chest. Even though he was unwilling, he could only fall to the ground.

Hostile Mutilation had only 300HP left…