The Ultimate Evolution

‘Self propelled artillery…’ The idea had only just registered itself in Sheyan’s mind when another shell exploded less than two meters from him. Sheyan reflexively rolled away. When he climbed back up and was ready to use some medicine to treat himself in this critical moment, a thought suddenly flashed across his mind:

‘Why is the enemy’s aim so precise? High Perception Sense? Impossible! There’s no way they have someone who has a crushing advantage over me in Perceptive Sense. Could it be….’

Upon realising this, Sheyan immediately roared, “I wish to suppress the other party’s ability with the rank of a silver party! At once!”

The Nightmare Imprint on Sheyan’s chest glowed following his shout. The silver light quickly turned into countless little spots. At the same time, the light on the opponent’s Nightmare Imprint faded, making it look like a stainless steel mark coated with a layer of mist. A contestant wielding a gun immediately yelled in anger.

“Damn it, the enemy suppressed our party ability! The precision of our detection has dropped from three meters to ten meters!”

Another contestant leaped down from a self-propelled artillery at the side and landed on the ground heavily. One of his arms and one of his legs were made of metal, and their designs looked very complicated and sophisticated. They were obviously not your average prosthetics. The contestant’s eyes were filled with anger.

“What the hell’s going on, Capote? I’ve just locked on to that bastard, but the precision suddenly dropped to 13 meters! I even loaded an armour piercing round for this shot! How am I supposed to hit him with a precision of 13 meters? That guy’s a monster. I don’t even know if I can kill him with the precision of 3 meters!”

Capote immediately retorted, “Are you an idiot, Vance? Don’t you realise that the party ability has been suppressed? That bastard can actually suppress our radar ability to its initial state! Damn it, this guy’s party is really strong. I’m afraid we’ve met a really formidable opponent this time! ”

Vance seemed used to Capote cursing him out. He instantly retorted back, “Oh yeah? Transform!”

The self-propelled artillery summoned by Vance started to rotate, fold and merge, finally turning into a multi-barrel rocket artillery! He leaped onto it and smirked mockingly.

(TL: Rocket artillery is a type of artillery which utilizes rockets as a projectile. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_artillery)

“See this? So what if the precision has dropped to thirteen metres. All it does is make me waste a few thousand more utility points worth of rockets! Ghani, make sure I have the priority on the loot this time!”

“That’s fine by me, but you’ll have to ask Pacino and Old A about it,” replied a muscular man who was folding his arms in front of his chest as if the current situation was not worth his time.

Vance grunted, but did not say anything else. Instead, he pressed down on the launch button hard. More than a dozen tongues of fire shot out of the multi-barrel rocket artillery. Dense smoke enveloped the place like a cloud, while the spot Sheyan was last detected became a raging sea of fire!

The horrifying carpet bombing of rocket missiles covered hundreds of square meters. There was no fuel at the target area, but the rockets themselves contained solid fuel that was claimed to be able to burn for 30 minutes straight even on glaciers.

The smoke which enshrouded the area around the rocket artillery carried some heat and a burnt smell. Like the smoke on a battlefield, it was stinging, pungent and hazy. Although its source had nothing to do with human body fluids at all, it reminded one of the smell of blood.

However, when the smoke rose, Vance and the others there had a strange feeling. If they were to look closely, they would notice that the flow of the smoke was a little irregular. However, everyone’s attention was focused on the area being bombarded at the moment, so no one had noticed the rather inconspicuous abnormality. After all, Sheyan was putting a lot of pressure on them.

The smoke suddenly surged, and there was a flash of crimson blade. It cut towards Vance’s throat in a bizarre manner, as if it was refracted multiple times in the air. It was completely impossible to sense the attack coming. Vance even felt that even if he leaned back, he would still run into the blade.

Vance instantly jumped up with a startled cry. Streams of blood gushed out of his body. It did not seem like a lot of blood had poured out, but it left faint trails of crimson lines in the air.

The sharp blood-red shortblade sliced into Vance’s skin again, this time easily cutting through his abdominal muscles. It could not be stopped at all. Not only that, the blood-red shortblade dragged hard and brought out Vance’s inner organs. A large amount of blood spurted out of the wound and splashed along the high-speed blade.

Vance was slashed three times in succession before anyone could even react!

Those were three attacks from Ronnie’s insanely-strong Blood Weapon!

Only then did the gloomy outline of Ronnie’s body gradually emerge from the smoke. He was wearing a half-transparent cloak which surface was undulating like a wave. It looked like it would melt and disappear into thin air at any moment, but if one were to look at it carefully, they would see that it was only an illusion!

This was the permanent invisibility ability Ronnie acquired after passing the trial, the ‘Protection of the Dark Templar’! It provided a permanent invisibility effect by constantly refracting light!

Vance howled in pain. The three slashes had penetrated deep into his body, leaving behind several serious wounds! Vance had used his honorary dosage, but a Blood Weapon was a powerful equipment which was made for a fight between contestants, so Vance found to his horror that his HP could not be raised at all! His only hope in this situation was that his companions could come to his rescue in time!

But suddenly, Ronnie’s image blurred in Vance’s vision. He first split into two, then into four, and continued to split further. Following a series of continuous flashing, eleven Ronnies appeared, all of whom surrounded Vance and attacked him from every direction, making eleven wounds on his body from various angles!

At this time, the help of his party members finally arrived. Having successfully attacked Vance, all 11 Ronnies immediately ran away in different directions, but Vance’s party members would never let them get away. The 11 Ronnies were not very tough; they were wiped out in but a few seconds. However, the contestants did not look happy at all, because all 11 Ronnies turned out to be just illusions! The real Ronnie had already vanished into thin air again without them realising it!

With the permanent invisibility effect, Ronnie was like a tiger that had gained a pair of wings. He became a nightmare for the enemy to deal with, a terrifying assassin who could deliver a lethal blow from behind at any moment! He was a constant threat when he hid in the dark, perhaps an even bigger threat than when he appeared!

Everyone here knew that the attack power of Ronnie’s illusions was not that high. However, his killer move, the ‘Phantom Ghost Flash’, was deadly. Even in a hopeless situation, it could seize the life of the enemy out of nowhere, instantly turning the tables around! And Ronnie had not used it yet!

Seeing Vance struggle frantically while grabbing his throat in pain, some of the contestants tried to save him, but their efforts were in vain. There were simply too many injuries on his body, and each wound was pouring out blood in large amount. More importantly, the crazy negative effect from the weapon which weakened any healing effect was still there.

Although Vance had been treated with the best medicine, his chest which was initially rising and falling like a broken bellows gradually slowed down. Finally, he exhaled his last breath with difficulty and died in the driver’s cab of his summoned object. The powerful rocket artillery quickly rusted, withered, and collapsed, then turned into a cloud of dust which dispersed along with the wind. The only thing left of Vance in this world was his image in the minds of all those who witnessed his death.

Ronnie’s level of lethality was far beyond what they expected. Not only did he now have a permanent stealth ability tailored for assassins, the abnormal bleeding effect in his attacks was something that was not mentioned at all in their intelligence of him.

Vance did not have high defence, and Ronnie was very familiar with him. Moreover, Ronnie’s Blood Weapon was simply too powerful. With all these factors combined, three slashes was enough to leave Vance on the brink of death.

In addition, although the eleven illusions each only had 20% of the attack power of the real Ronnie, their attacks all carried the powerful bleeding effect! That was why Vance had bled to death on the spot!

All the other contestants instantly formed a circle with their backs to each other. When dealing with an invisible enemy, this kind of defensive stance was the most reliable.

In the area previously bombarded by rockets in the distance, the flames were still raging, but the contestants’ attention had long shifted to their own surroundings as they tried to detect any abnormal movement.

This was especially so for Pacino and Old A who were strong in offence but weak in defence. They believed that if Ronnie decided to attack recklessly, they would not be able to stop him. So even though they knew that it was not a smart move, they had no choice but to prioritise on defence first.

Seeing how the situation had developed, Ronnie had already quietly retreated before Sheyan even had to instruct him to do so. His combat style was assassination rather than direct assault. Under the circumstances, to retreat and wait for an opportunity was obviously a much better choice than to force an attack!