Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

It was apparent that the enemy they were facing was not as much a fool as Young Master Han had believed. Even though they had copied the tactic that he came up with, they did not copy it wholesale considering how they combined both the terrain and both parties’ player status. Young Master Han’s rocks and logs were the crux that allowed them to directly damage the enemy’s forces, while the enemy had employed the same tactic as a means of containment, preventing them from retreating back up the mountain path and spread out accordingly, tying them down so that they could only watch Thousand Miles Drunk wade deeper into enemy lines, all alone.

Young Master Han suddenly realized that if the enemy were to successfully kill off Thousand Miles Drunk right here and now, it did not matter if the whole lot of them here died or managed to escape. The enemy was actually unconcerned with them. Their biggest target was just Thousand Miles Drunk, and everyone else would only be buried alongside with him if they were to serve as a foil. Had they been tipped off of this earlier, they could have kept their distance some more, and there would not have been anyone that would care to expend energy on taking them out.

But if that’s the case, could they have some sort of special method since they dare to surround Miles? Young Master Han wondered about this. He had a distinct understanding of the decisive role that Gu Fei was playing in this scenario. His presence, even if he did not make a move, acted as a sort of restraint and a source of distress to the enemy. The moment he dies and loses a whole bunch of levels as a result, this indomitable chip that they have would cease to exist.

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Gu Fei was not thinking so much right now. Turning around to see the others being barred back onto that mountain path, while the falling rocks and logs from the mountaintop loomed over them that basically rooted them to their current position, the only hope he had left was for him to kill these men till they were able to make their way out of the mountain pass.

This shouldn’t be too difficult, right? Gu Fei thought to himself. The enemy was not too strong, and some of the Warriors were even killable with a single Twin Incineration from Gu Fei, which showed that they had a lower tier of equipment and level. Even though numbers were on their side, there were not so many that he was afraid of them. Gu Fei checked his mana, noting that his regeneration was still holding up, and a casual glance over to his PK Value. 128 points… He was somewhat speechless. The city guards would not be able to come over here, right? Gu Fei was worried, jumping up to look far into the distance. He did not see any trace of the city guards coming for him, though he did spot the troops that had long been heading to their position, and they were getting closer by the second.

I might be in some real trouble by the time those men join in the fight, Gu Fei thought to himself as his hands sped up, continuing to slice and dice the people around him. Just as he was waiting for the cooldown for his Twin Incineration to finish so he could unleash it out again, he suddenly felt as if there was something in front of him that flashed, and a black glow flooded from below, forming a hexagram pattern right under his feet. Gu Fei realized that the pattern was already complete, and because he had no idea what sort of spell this was, he quickly thought to leap out of this spell formation. Fortunately, he was not obstructed from doing so, but the astute Gu Fei had already realized something: Just as the light from the hexagram shone bright, the flames that wreathed his Moonlit Nightfalls when he cast his Twin Incineration had instantly been extinguished.

Is this a fire extinguisher? Gu Fei was muttering to himself, as the enemy came swarming in like a tide. Twin Incineration’s cooldown was still a little bit off, so Gu Fei waved his arm to call down an Electric Wall. But nothing came out of it in the end!

Could I not use my spells?

Gu Fei reacted quickly, he had enough mana, and his incantation was correct, yet he did not manage to cast his spell. Adding to the fact that he just witnessed how his Twin Incineration got extinguished, he promptly came to such a conclusion.

In any case, he had no time to think any more about this. The enemy was already on him, and it was very obvious that they knew about the current state Gu Fei was in, which was why they were so fearless in their assault. Gu Fei knew that any feint that he attempted would not work on them either. These men would most likely charge and capture him so they could directly throw him off the mountain. As such, he had no choice but to take a gamble; instead of retreating, Gu Fei advanced, dashing right up front, raising a leg up as he came flying out with a kick right at someone. Sure enough, this person did not try to avoid the attack, bracing his chest to directly take Gu Fei’s kick, his two arms outstretched ready to grab a hold of Gu Fei’s leg.

Gu Fei had already expected him to do something like that, and this flying kick of his suddenly adjusted itself higher, straight over the man’s shoulder as his other leg hopped off the ground. That leg of his that had gone past the man’s shoulder bent, stepping right onto his shoulder blades as he borrowed it to propel himself upward. Those two outstretched arms quickly tried to grab a hold of Gu Fei, but all he grasped was nothing but air.

It was quite a struggle for Gu Fei to jump like this as well, so he did not manage to jump too high, but he very swiftly used the man’s head as a foothold and leaped again. All the players already knew by now that Gu Fei was unable to use any spells, so any fear had all but disappeared, and all of them shared the same sentiment: Do you really think you can fly? Thus, none of them were flustered in the least, patiently waiting for Gu Fei to land back on the ground. In the end, there was still someone who was panicking, shouting from amid the crowd, “Quick, get him! We’ve only got 5 seconds.”

The man had verbally shouted this out in his anxiety, too late to compose a message through more private channels. All of them seized what little time they had when they heard this shout, but Gu Fei had also overheard this warning as well.

5 seconds? What else could this ‘5 seconds’ be referring to? It was of course the duration of the status that Gu Fei was currently afflicted which prevented him from using any spells. It appeared as if the weird black spell that was cast made it so that Mages would be unable to use their spells. Five seconds? So it only lasts for five seconds? Gu Fei chuckled. It seemed like the situation was not as dangerous as he had first thought. 5 seconds would very quickly pass by, no? Gu Fei was still in mid air as he figured it was best to go according to what he had originally planned. He threw his hand out all of a sudden, and the grappling hook that he had in his hand went flying outward, very accurately finding purchase on a rock that jutted out. The players below were still waiting for Gu Fei to land back down, but who would have expected the man to swing on the rope as he scaled that cliff face, slowly worming his way up the rope that hung off the grappling hook.

“Attack him!” someone had shouted from among the crowd below.

Gu Fei had intentionally pushed himself along the cliff face, causing the rope to sway left and right as he began to swing like a pendulum and climbed upward. The players firing out their ranged attacks could only stare at the swinging Gu Fei, aiming here and there, and never able to zero in on him. There were some of the more weak willed players who nearly found themselves hypnotized watching him oscillate left and right like that.

“G*dd*mm*t, he isn’t dropping down even as he keeps swaying from side to side. Just what sort of heavenly injustice is that?” Someone from the crowd yelled mournfully. They could only watch as they saw Gu Fei climb higher up the rope, until he finally somersaulted over the piece of protruding rock and was no longer targettable.

“Make him fall down by throwing all the rocks and logs at him!” The players below had no other options, so they began to call for the people up on the mountaintop to assist them, hoping to crush Gu Fei by littering all the objects on him. The players up on the mountaintop were very diligent; after hearing the request, they asked for the coordinates and immediately began lugging all the rocks and logs over. Poking their head out to look down, they had however been unable to find where they should be tossing things off. Isn’t everyone down below part of our forces?

“There’s a protruding rock halfway up this cliff. Do none of you see it?” Those players below directed.

“We see the rock, but there’s no one there.”

“Where is he?”

“What are you guys asking us that for?”

The opinion of the players below and those above was contradictory. Someone had even posed that Gu Fei could have used a teleportation scroll and left after making it up to the rock.

“Just throw a rock down anyway!” The final decision that they all came to was still to give it a shot. Thus, the players up on the mountain did not care either as they started to take aim and start pelting down objects at that rocky protrusion. Actually, Gu Fei was still on that rock at the moment, but he had been tightly hugging the rocky cliff face the entire time, and because the cliff was not like a smooth and flat mirror, their line of sight was obviously obstructed since Gu Fei had reduced his exposure by shrinking behind the natural cover provided by the craggy cliff.

“How are things with you guys?” Gu Fei felt that he was quite safe right now, so he sent a message over to Young Master Han and the others.

“We’re trapped. Where did you fly off to?” Young Master Han and the rest only saw Gu Fei leap away from his encirclement, but they had no idea what the situation was like with him since Gu Fei had gone up along the backside of the mountain.

“I’m fine.”

“You may be alright, but we will be in trouble soon.”

As the other party was unable to do anything with Gu Fei, they decided to divert their attention toward Young Master Han and the others since they had nothing else better to do. Young Master Han and everyone was presently obstructed on that mountain path, all of them hugging the cliff wall as they moved. They were afraid of being squashed by the rocks and logs if they were to fan out onto the path, while also afraid of the enemy’s attack if they continued to advance forward. But now that the enemy no longer had to surround and trap Gu Fei, they were able to relegate some of their men to begin making their move toward Gu Fei’s friends. A line that consisted purely of Archers was standing in a safe distance, drawing their bowstrings as they let loose their arrows. They were lined up in rows there, while Young Master Han was standing in a single file. Facing their enemy, there was no way for them to mount any substantial retaliation, so Young Master Han and the rest had no choice but to retreat, letting these ambushers from the workshop to slowly move on up to them.

“Don’t panic, ” Gu Fei replied as he carefully observed his left and right; his eyes caught sight on a pine tree above whose branch extended outward horizontally. Instantly pulling out his grappling hook once more, he tossed it out in one go, entangling, wrapping, and hooking onto the branch far more securely than the rock from before. Gu Fei took a deep breath, tugged at the rope as he suddenly came swinging out.

“Over there!” Players below saw Gu Fei appear and were all shouting out loud. In the end, they saw Gu Fei wrap the rope once around his fist as he began scaling the cliff face, as if he was running up vertically. He was moving much faster this time than the pendulum motion he displayed minutes ago, so any of the players who tried to draw a bead on the target came away with nothing. What made it even more bizarre was how Gu Fei kept running and swaying halfway before suddenly disappearing in a sudden flash.

“Blink!!” The quick-witted players were still around, and the 5 seconds had long since passed, so naturally it meant Thousand Miles Drunk would be able to cast spells by now.

“Where did he blink to??” Everyone was looking everywhere with their eyes wide open. The fact that none of them could see where he materialized of course meant that he had chosen a spot similar to that protruding rock the last time. All of them started pointing and crying out “there” one after another almost immediately, calling attention to their own protruding rock that they spotted.

Their answer came in the form of a Descending Wheel of Flames.

Gu Fei was perched up on a vantage point, able to indiscriminately throw out his Descending Wheel of Flames, and this spell had appeared from thin air all of a sudden as it came crashing down. None of them knew where the incantation had come from, so they could only identify all the various suspected hiding spots that he could be in and relay it to the players up on the mountaintop to help them look.

Constantly looking down from up high like they did, it was unavoidable for them to become dizzy, and the players up above were unable to stomach this for long, so they made excuses to avoid doing it. There was no need for any of them to look down like that when they were executing the ambush before; all they needed was to ask for the coordinates and push the objects down the mountain accordingly. There was no need to keep looking down, but now that they were constantly being asked to do so, gazing down time and time again, each of them began to feel a bout of dizziness come over them, with some even getting a system warning about detecting their state of unwellness.

“I think we should forget about it. Why don’t we line up a row and push the objects down like that?” Someone suggested.

“That’s right. We can’t find that man anywhere anyway. There’s no way that we could have been able to see anything if the man just huddles himself to some corner and takes cover.”

“Let’s do that!!”

“Okay, push!” The one in charge finally gave the order, so the whole lot of them exerted themselves to their limit and shoved all of the objects that they had carried over down the mountain in one go. With so many objects in motion, the stir it made was of course proportionately large as well. The rumbling sounds echoed within this mountain pass, giving Young Master Han and his men quite the scare. However, when they raised their head to look, they discovered that nothing was being thrown down at them. Instead, they got a message from Gu Fei, “Okay, step out and kill!”

“What happened?” Young Master Han asked. Gu Fei did not respond, so Young Master Han lifted his head up and set his gaze over to the mountaintop. Could that guy have managed to expend all their resources up there? But then, how would he know if that was all their resources or otherwise?

Up there on the mountaintop, Gu Fei was already standing right on the edge of the cliff in his delight, looking at the panic-stricken faces of the players there. His eyes rested on a particular player he recognized, “So it was you, guild leader Arrogant Spawn!”

Arrogant Spawn was the name Dusky Cloud and his comrades scornfully used for the player actually called Proud Sovereign. He was the guild leader of a guild from Yueye City, Proud Skies, and he was also the branch manager of Remarkable Flair workshop there in Yueye City.

Proud Sovereign stared at Gu Fei, exhaling a deep sigh in the process, “You’ve got the skill to rock-climb too?”