Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

“I’m back!!! Hahahahaha!” Gu Fei shouted loudly. Dying and respawning was no more than a blink of an eye, dying just a moment ago back in the control room, Gu Fei had already reappeared inside Yunduan City’s Mage Academy.

“I’m back too! Hahahahaha!” Svelte Dancer was equally as domineering.

“What the heck, what sort of situation is this?” Royal God Call was in tears. He had just respawned and all he saw was a flash of fire before his eyes. The Archer Range had been pillaged to the point that it was barely recognizable, and the NPC guards that were often stationed there were all lying on the ground by now. There were players everywhere, and the moment Royal God Call had shown his face, countless attacks were sent his way without a moment of hesitation.

“Miles! Big sis Svelte!” Royal God Call yelled out, but there was of course no reply. He was instantly vanquished there and then, and killed yet again when he respawned. Royal God Call scurried all around, alone and without help. He looked all around and saw plenty of Archers who were also on the city defenders’ side, each of them looking like refugees seeking shelter as they ran from this demonstration of strength from the city assaulters.

————————————————

Actually, the situation over at the Mage Academy was not any better either. Under the swarm of players’ waves of assault, Southern Lone Blade and the other city defenders were having a hard time holding the line especially after Brave Surge, Youthful Reflection and their men had analyzed the battleground they were in and were now sending their elite players into the fray.

Yet at this very moment, that arrogant bark of laughter from behind the city defenders’ frontline really perked everyone up. Everybody turned their head back and saw a pair of players, one dressed in black and the other in red, laughing with wanton glee.

“Come over and help!!” They were all exasperated.

“Coming!” Gu Fei rolled up his sleeves and did a chest stretch before he dashed right out, brandishing his Moonlit Nightfalls in one smooth motion. There was basically no one here that did not know about Gu Fei’s history, so everybody quickly shuffled to make way for the man, allowing Gu Fei to end up on the frontline in the next moment, as Drifting gave him instructions, “Look, it’s Traversing Four Seas now—”

In the end, Gu Fei merely ran past Drifting and had already somersaulted over the Warrior frontline, diving right into enemy lines.

“Exercise restraint!” Drifting stopped himself as he nearly pointed his magic staff to the location Gu Fei had just run toward.

“Every single player killed is one less that we have to contend with. EVERYBODY, CHARGE!” Gu Fei beckoned everyone.

Sword Demon, Southern Lone Blade and the others had all kept their cool, calling out to all the players around them who were all moved into excitement by Gu Fei’s actions, “Provide cover.”

Gu Fei was the only person in all of Parallel World that could just mess around like that. Other players who would think to even attempt what he was doing right now would have to focus on coordinating with each other while paying attention to their appropriate formation and position. Everybody could only look enviously at Gu Fei, watching him Blink right into the midst of the enemy formation, raining down fire from the heavens, burning out an area of white light as Gu Fei disappeared alongside with that whole swathe of players.

“Where’s Miles?” Svelte Dancer was a tad bit slower, only reaching the front at this time, though she did not see Gu Fei’s figure anywhere. The other players were of course searching as well, only to end up hearing Gu Fei’s voice from behind them, a clear dissatisfaction in his tone, “Ahem, I’m over here.”

All of them turned back and saw Gu Fei with a sheepish expression on his face. He was all the way at the back, and it seemed like white light was only just fading off his figure.

Everyone wiped their figurative sweat in discomfort.

“Bro, what the hell are you up to?” Drifting represented everyone and asked the one question they were all curious to find out.

“I got careless,” Gu Fei bitterly admitted. The enemy’s determination to throw their attacks out was outside of his expectations, and at that moment when he Blinked and appeared in their ranks, the enemy had all thrown out all sorts of attacks right at him, almost as if they had been waiting for him to materialize there. These attacks covered the skies and ground, and no matter how quickly Gu Fei reacted to this, he had been insta-killed till nothing of him remained. Meanwhile, a conservative estimate of that wave of attack should have sent about 50 or so players from the city assaulter’s side to their deaths as well.

In order to eliminate Thousand Miles Drunk, the enemy had sacrificed 50 players; was that a worthwhile trade? The math behind this was a bit complicated, but honestly, with the huge numerical advantage that the city assaulters possess in this clash, there was no way that Thousand Miles Drunk was capable of exerting any level of pressure all by himself. All these players believed they could trample Thousand Miles Drunk together, but that was only the result they were hoping to achieve at the end. In order to finish off Thousand Miles Drunk, there was no doubt they would have to expend huge efforts trying to snuff him out, and that required plenty of players to sacrifice their lives en masse.

They could not continue to waste time like this. Right now, time was the most precious commodity that could not afford to squander. Eliminate Thousand Miles Drunk? That was unimportant; what was important was for them to clear out all obstacles as fast as they could and take over the Mage Academy. That was why the moment Thousand Miles Drunk appeared, Brave Surge had immediately made the decision to send forth his Mage Formation. Youthful Reflection had sent forth a burst of arrows arching over as well, and the two attacks from these two groups covered a huge area that Gu Fei was completely incapable of escaping from.

Of course, there was one very crucial reason as to why these two men were able to make such a ruthless call: The players who lost their lives were neither of their own. Who cared which guild they ultimately belonged to?

After these large guilds fought with Gu Fei so many times, they had already gotten an epiphany that they were able to act decisively at that time. Even Young Master Han was nodding his head approvingly with surprise at their decision despite having already deemed these people as idiots in his heart. However, this sentiment was not shared by everyone. Half of the 50 players who had been sacrificed all belonged to a certain guild, and the guild leader was also personally taking command here. The moment he saw his main forces get bombarded like that, he instantly became infuriated. He knew where the attack had come from, so he turned his head over and glared at Brave Surge, roaring, “WHAT THE HECK?”

“Sorry, we didn’t have the time to procrastinate further. We need to take down the spawn point in the fastest time at all cost,” Brave Surge very somberly explained.

“Couldn’t you at least warn us beforehand?” That guild leader was still fuming.

“Sure, we could have given you a heads up, but do you think there’s any point to that? Do you really expect us to give you guys the time to scatter?” Brave Surge retorted.

“We could have at least prevented quite a few from dying!”

“This is not the time for us to be arguing over this!” Brave Surge furrowed his brow and continued to direct Carouse’s Mage Formation forward. At the same time, the Warriors among his men had already come out, ready to provide cover for their Mages to push forward. The configuration of this march forward was similar to what Southern Lone Blade had arranged for his men, the only difference being in how Carouse was able to execute it on a much larger scale, greater numbers and obviously, far more powerful.

“We’re closing in on the target. Get ready!!!” Brave Surge already had his hand raised.

“RETREAT!!!” Southern Lone Blade and Sword Demon practically bellowed this out in unison. The elite members that made up the frontlines that were making a last stand right by the Mage Academy’s courtyard gates had no choice but back away. A row of fire that was so red it looked dark rose right outside the courtyard gates. Experienced veterans like Drifting and the others could tell in a glance that there were over ten spells being stacked in order to achieve such a dense overlay that it would cause the flames to change color. Had anyone not stepped away from this, there would have hardly been anyone capable of surviving that deluge of spells.

“Archers, step forward and fire parabolic shots. Hit whomever you possibly can!” Sword Demon waved his arm forcefully, as the Archers heeded the order and approached. Shooting arrows in a parabolic arc was a skill that the Archers of Traversing Four Seas had mastered as well. The average player might not have practiced something like this, but they nevertheless joined in the fun as well.

“We need to interrupt the enemy’s Mage Formation. It possesses too great a firepower,” Southern Lone Blade called out.

“There’s also Traversing Four Seas’ Archer Formation as well. The two of them are both very troublesome to deal with,” Sword Demon added.

“Which is why I’ll be the only one going,” Gu Fei interjected.

“Are you sure you’re up to the task?” Gu Fei had already arrogantly taken a step outside, only to end up being bombarded by the enemy, sending him back to the spawn point. Everyone had a skeptical look in their eyes right now. Of course, they were still not underestimating Gu Fei in the slightest; they were all hoping to be able to buy some time given the predicament they were currently in. Seeing the state of their quest over there, there was surely nothing they could do if they were to truly depend on purely battle.

“Leave it to me, I’ll find a way to get back out no matter what!” Gu Fei said even as a fiery glow appeared over his head at that moment. The players around hurriedly scrambled backward, as it was apparent that Brave Surge had commanded his Mage Formation to press forward once more.

“How are you getting over there?” Drifting knitted his eyebrows together. He was quite familiar with the Mage Formation from Traversing Four Seas, and the Mages who were all 30 meters away from them had bombarded the entire area so tightly that all the city defenders were essentially barricaded in that spawn point, unable to take even a single step out.

“Via airdrop,” Gu Fei replied as he nodded toward Slyris.

“Onward!” Brave Surge shouted, leading his troops as they continued their way forward to pressure the enemy. None of the other players had any chance of stepping in because it was just a sea of flames right ahead. Traversing Four Seas was making progress in 10 meters layers, and there would always be 20 meters of raging inferno in front of them. On the other side of this sea, even though there were arrows flying through in retaliation, the amount was simply not enough, so it was not even effective at crippling Carouse’s attacks. If this were to continue on, it would only be a matter of time before they cleared out the entire Mage Academy.

However, Brave Surge was in no hurry as he continued their push. He maintained his cool and waited for the news from the two other spawn points to come through. He did not wish to complete the assault a step before everyone else due to how powerful his forces were, as that would only result in letting the city defender’s forces gathered here to be sent over to another spawn point, re-establishing a new defensive line. That meant that all the elite members over here will have to head on over to take them down once more, and he was afraid that they did not have that much time.

“The Warrior Encampment has been conquered!” It was at this time when the system message came through, lifting everyone’s spirits.

“How things over by the Archer Range?” Brave Surge asked Folding Fan Invader, who was leading the assault on that venue.

“We’re already starting the countdown,” Folding Fan Invader replied.

“There won’t be any more surprises, right?” Brave Surge asked.

“Of course not. We’ve got everything under control.”

“Get ready! We’re doing an all out push!” Brave Surge ordered. At the moment, he was of course leading his guild Carouse’s Mage Formation, while the Mages, Archers and other ranged specialists from other guilds had all stepped out, looking to assist Carouse’s Mage Formation as the situation called for it. With such an aggressive offensive, they instantly managed to push in another 10 meters, and the front row of Warriors have already stepped through the gates of the Mage Academy courtyard.

“What is that? OH GOD!” All of a sudden, somebody exclaimed in horror as everyone lifted their heads. Almost immediately, they saw Slyris and Gu Fei flying in the air.

Everyone could easily identify Thousand Miles Drunk’s attire, and Brave Surge was immediately flustered, pointing right up to the sky, “ATTACK!!!”

Arrows, fire and every sort of ranged attack possible were promptly directed over to the floating figure. Brave Surge was very clear just how frightening it would be if Gu Fei was thrown right into his Mage Formation. Forget Gu Fei, even tossing a Warrior into their midst would be a huge problem.

Both parties were not even 30 meters away, and Slyris was carrying Gu Fei as she flew out from behind a wall. The pair was already not too far away and ready by the time Brave Surge and his men had all turned their attacks toward them.

“Let go!” Gu Fei called out. Even though Slyris did not have much Strength, it was still quite the struggle to throw Gu Fei forward like that.

The act of throwing Gu Fei allowed them to evade quite a bit of the incoming attacks. Slyris truly had no means to withstand everything in that spot that she was originally in, but she had more or less expected that this flight of hers to have been a one-way trip, so she quietly accepted her respawn.

However, it was Gu Fei who came diving down like an atomic bomb. There was still quite a bit of distance from where he would be landing and the position of Carouse’s Mage Formation. Brave Surge did not care that there were other players around Gu Fei as he simply waved his arm and pointed. All the Mages each began to unleash their spells, but Gu Fei Blinked right before he landed, appearing 6 meters away. This one move allowed him to get right to the very edge of Carouse’s Mage Formation.

Spells exploded behind Gu Fei. He managed to evade them this time, resulting in that bunch of players to have sacrificed their lives for nothing. Meanwhile, the location where he had Blinked to was actually somewhere which Carouse could include within their spell bombardment range, but even though Brave Surge had a splendid time sacrificing the lives of players from other guilds, the position that Gu Fei had materialized was near where his own men were, which was why he was very careful not to include them in it.

“Twin Incineration!” Gu Fei chanted, instantly carving out a circle of flame around him. It did not matter if he did not use any spells after that. Just his punches and kicks were enough to beat the entire group of Mages until they were unable to maintain their composure.

The sky was suddenly filled with arrows by this point. Youthful Reflection had no care for Carouse’s Mages just like how Brave Surge had shown no consideration for the players from other guilds; while the salvo of arrows was released with the intention of killing Gu Fei, it was evident that quite a number of Mages would be made martyrs of as well.

Gu Fei gazed at the arrows that were peppering from the sky, yet he was strangely calm about it. Very quickly taking several steps to the side, he suddenly came to a halt in that moment when the arrows fell, he turned his body sideways alongside the drop of the arrows.

Gu Fei had once been eliminated in the PvP tournament a long time ago, but after experiencing that the one time, it was not so simple to take down Gu Fei so easily with the same move again.

With his body turned to the side, the proportion of his body that could be attacked was reduced by two thirds. Gu Fei kept his eyes peeled toward the side and suddenly made his move, his sword flurrying as four arrows were swatted out of the air. Afterward, he did not move even an inch as the onlookers watched; Gu Fei simply stood still in that rain of arrows while everyone waited for him to turn into white light. In the end, they saw the rain of arrows whiff past him, yet Gu Fei was not in the least bit injured, and white lights were blossoming all around him. Quite a good number of Mages from Carouse had actually died as a result of the arrows.

“How is that possible?” Everybody exclaimed.

“What’s so impossible about that? Of course I wasn’t going to die if none of the arrows struck me,” Gu Fei chuckled, though they were all astonished over the fact that ‘none of the arrows struck him’.

In the eyes of these onlookers, all they saw was him swing his sword once and he did not even attempt to duck or evade any of the incoming arrows. But none of the arrows had actually connected despite this…

Not evading? Gu Fei shook his head. The standard of the average player is truly too low. Could they not tell just how many arrows I’ve managed to avoid just by turning my body to the side just now? 

Nine Arrows. Gu Fei had managed to dodge a total of nine arrows.

Gu Fei had watched the sky rather closely and those few steps that he had taken from the start was not his attempt at escaping from the mass of arrows that were flying toward him, but he had actually been choosing his position. By depending on his shockingly sharp eyesight, Gu Fei had instantaneously grasped the spacing between the arrows and by focusing on just that one spot alone, as well as turning his body to the side with such accuracy, Gu Fei identified that he only needed to swat away four arrows while standing there, and that was hardly anything difficult for him to accomplish.

What he had done was something the average player had difficulty understanding. Indeed, being able to do so was anything but simple, and just in terms of his sharp eyesight alone was already something few players would not possess, since they were only adept at contracting myopia.

Unfortunately, Gu Fei did not have the time to savor this moment. After that rain of arrows had passed, he immediately went dashing forward, targeting the very area where there was the highest concentration of Mages from Carouse.

“That guy… He’s doing this on purpose…” Brave Surge was extremely dejected. Should he make martyrs out of his own men? When facing a situation where he had to sacrifice his own men, the very decisive and straightforward Brave Surge revealed his own true colors of selfishness. It was only but a moment’s worth of hesitation, but Gu Fei’s Twin Incineration had already insta-killed that first ring of players.

The average Mage simply had no way of grasping Gu Fei’s tempo now that they were in close quarters, and when the Warriors who were supposed to protect these Mages joined the fight, hoping they could bear the weight of their responsibilities, Gu Fei did not even care to get tangled with those men as he simply wandered off and harassed the other Mages instead.

Brave Surge no longer needed to hesitate as a majority of the other players had also made the impromptu decision for him. Their attacks were executed with absolutely zero care for the presence of Carouse’s Mage Formation as they came pouring down altogether. This was especially the case for the guild leader whose own main forces had been wiped out in an instant by Carouse before. The man was yelling enthusiastically, openly cheering for everyone to hunt Gu Fei down, though anyone could tell that there would have been no difference carving out the word ‘revenge’ across his forehead as he did so.

Brave Surge was helpless to this, of course. He knew that he had no way of stopping this because he had been the one who had first fostered such an atmosphere to begin with. Even though he did not feel like what the people were doing was wrong, there was still a glaring problem… Are any of these b*st*rds even coordinating with each other? All the attacks that were being sent at Gu Fei only left the man in question unscathed, while more than half of Carouse’s Mages had already died.

Among all the arrows that flew out, a good amount had come from Traversing Four Seas’ Archer Formation. Their first wave of projectiles had not managed to kill Gu Fei, yet Youthful Reflection was not a believer of bad luck. Thus, a second and third barrage of arrows followed. Sadly, nobody had any idea that Gu Fei had already seen through the weakness of the formation, enabling the man to easily survive the rain of arrows time and time again.

If it was just this salvo of arrows, Gu Fei truly had nothing to fear, but the problem was that there were other players who had followed their lead and were joining in as well.

Gu Fei evaded the Archer’s barrage, yet there was a glaring flaw to his response since he needed to remain still in that moment when the rain came falling down on him.

Perhaps nobody had seen this flaw, but with how the entirely uncoordinated mess of players’ attack was very tightly packed, there was bound to be blind cats that ended up stumbling upon a dead mouse, so Gu Fei’s HP was unrelentlessly being used the entire time.

That was the moment when Brave Surge had suddenly come to an epiphany as well. Rather than end up being dragged to their funerals in such a manner, was it not better for them to just summon the courage and kamikaze themselves?

“ATTACK!!!” Brave Surge finally gave the order.

With Gu Fei becoming the core of their spell bombardment, it spread outward in a circle, encompassing as large of an area as possible. There quite a number of Mages that were not affiliated with Carouse that ended up getting roped in there too.

However, no one paid any attention as all of them were brandishing their magic staves.

Now that spells could be very quickly unleashed, the man who did not believe in ill omens sent forth another wave of arrows as a countless number of average players were all expending all their efforts to retaliate.

With Gu Fei as the epicenter, it was like there had been a nuclear explosion. This time, he did not try to evade it. The Archer Formation was capable of ending his life, yet it was restricting his movement. Thus, when the Mage Formation struck, Gu Fei looked all around him and saw that his cooldowns were all reset. The cooldown for Blink is over. But the distance was still too great, so there was no way for him to flee from this attack.

The huge blossom of white light that appeared finally enveloped Gu Fei as well.

All the players heaved a sigh of relief. Brave Surge did an inventory of the battlefield, while the Mage Formation from Carouse that had demonstrated their prowess to everyone was only left with just 30 men, and among them, Gu Fei had actually managed to kill quite a good number of them with his own hands. Brave Surge really wanted to cry.

“Everyone, charge!!!” Seeing that Thousand Miles Drunk was vanquished, the other players who had tagged along were prepared to continue their assault of the city.

“Hahahaha, here I come!!!” In the end, they saw Gu Fei pop out once again.

The sound of vomiting blood came one after another, and it was far more vivid than the fire spells that were still raging on.

All the players had forgotten. In this world, Thousand Miles Drunk would always respawn right there in the spawn point, and he would be restored back to normal! This was the one benefit Gu Fei had from this battlefield. According to a message that came from someone being held in the 15th District, a player that had died 25 times would die just like any other normal day, respawning all dejected. However, the Thousand Miles Drunk at this moment was full of vim and vigor