Vanguard of the Eternal Night

translator: xiin

editor: kara

It was foggy in the bamboo forest, and the reaper's figure was like an invisible cloud that floated silently towards Odin as he stood there on the shrine.

Odin made his move at the same time, but he didn't head towards his enemy. Instead, he leapt up into the sky--

A series of darts were shot out into the air like blossoms scattered by heavenly maidens, landing at random onto the ground.

The time between these actions was very short, but it was long enough for Duke to see the distribution of these darts and dodge them. He narrowly avoided a dart and went straight for Odin, who had nowhere to borrow leverage from.

As he approached the limits of his attack range, his black scythe had already vaguely locked onto Odin's forehead.

In this instant, Odin suddenly moved--

As the scythe approached, Odin pulled out his short sword and clashed against it!

The scythe paused slightly after a crisp clanging sound, but Odin hadn't only pulled out his short sword for the fight. He used that instant of engagement as leverage--

"Windmill combo!" The female commentator yelled, "He obviously can't see Duke clearly. How can he be so accurate with his blades?"

The male commentator praised emotionally, "Odin's strategy is so beautiful! He first used the steel wires to determine the distance between him and his opponent, and the darts forced Duke to move. If calculated properly, it can indeed allow him to use his blades to fight--this wave of operations simply left Duke with no way to defend against it!"

.

Duke had indeed been caught off guard, but he was quick to react and immediately dived back into the shadows.

The black scythe that had originally almost landed on Odin's face disappeared instantly. In the blink of an eye, it reappeared behind him, its trajectory aimed at cutting into his back.

When faced with an abrupt change in the middle of an attack, the average person would require a certain amount of time to reconfirm the direction of the new attack--just like how many people would look back as they run away despite it being an action that actually slowed down their escape.

And, this was the best opportunity for Duke to land his attack.

However, to his shocked horror, Odin didn't look back to confirm his positioning at all!

Odin simply crossed his daggers behind his back to protect himself as much as possible--

Instead of wasting time looking back, he reacted defensively right away!

Only the most experienced melee players could develop such instincts. This level of recognition alone was enough to make Duke's eyelids tick.

.

The scythe landed helplessly on the center of the two crossed blades.

This was because Odin had also correctly estimated Duke's preferred attack location. Everyone who used large, two-handed weapons tended to aim at the middle of the chest, because this was the area with the highest hit rate for them.

Duke had failed to guess any of Odin's moves, but Odin had managed to see through his moves every time.

When this blade was resisted, the male commentator even judged, “This will be difficult for Duke!”

Indeed. The attack frequency for a scythe was very low. It could be said that the limit for it to be swung was twice per second, and wielding it in such a way in the long-term was very physically taxing. This was an important balance adjustment that the system had created for this profession.

As soon as the first attack that was powerful enough to cripple their opponent wasn't successful, a reaper would face a situation where they were in close combat. This originally wouldn't have been a big deal--

However, the person he was facing now wasn't any ordinary melee fighter but Odin!

What was Odin's concept of frontal close combat melee?

So far, he'd fought in over a dozen blade fights with zero defeats!

On average, it only took him a single-digit number of seconds to kill an opponent. It was like anyone who came up would die. When fighting with Odin, as long as they weren't able to immediately pull out of the fight, they would basically be declared as dead with nothing to bury!

It wasn't just Duke. Almost all melee players had a very clear basic understanding: Never, absolutely never, enter a blade fight with Odin.

.

The most typical way of getting rid of a melee-type opponent without engaging in a blade fight was to use ranged attacks or windmill combos.

Male commentator: "Duke's started up a windmill combo on the spot. He wants to force Odin to retreat!"

Female commentator: "He feels that the risk in close combat is too great. Does he want to take advantage of his profession's characteristics to regain the advantage through a second ambush?"

The two of them hadn't finished speaking when they saw that both players were about to land from mid-air.

Odin had deviated more from his original position and landed directly onto a sturdy bamboo. His entire person was like a long, black shadow that made the bamboo beneath him bend beneath the force of his landing before springing up again.

Then, Odin suddenly used Flash and broke through the reaper's windmill combo!

For a moment, countless fine knife lights flashed in the black fog suspended in the middle of the sky, their figures appearing and disappearing in the swirling fog. Simply based on the sound of the blades clashing, it seemed that they had intersected about seven or eight times in that single second.

Male commentator: "Odin went directly into the windmill combo. He's too bold!"

Female commentator: "It can be seen that he can't avoid being hurt, but this also interrupted Duke's combo attack. Let's see who ended up at a disadvantage in this round of fighting--"

At this second, everyone was holding their breath as they waited for either one of the contestants to fall out of the fog. Then, they saw that the first thing to fly out was actually the scythe!

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Duke's huge, black scythe flew out of the black fog, making a loud 'clang' sound as it landed. It happened to land blade-first into the stone shrine, immediately splitting the shrine in two!

It was immediately followed by Duke, who'd been kicked to the ground by Odin from the air. A gray footprint could be seen on his left shoulder.

After landing, Duke didn't hesitate to activate his passive skill and turned into black fog again, escaping to the shadows of the nearby bamboo forest in an instant.

Next, Odin used Flash and aimed at the ground like a meteor, falling to the ground at a high speed. The dagger in his hand just so happened to pass through the black fog but struck empty.

Female commentator: "Duke's health is less than half, but fortunately, he escaped quickly. Otherwise, the game would have ended just now."

At this point, a loud 'boom' suddenly rang out through the virtual arena.

As the sky turned increasingly dark, thunder and lightning intertwined, and rain clouds covered the sky. In just a mere two seconds, it began to rain.

Female commentator: "Oh, I almost forgot. There's a possibility of triggering thunderstorm weather when the shrine is damaged."

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The bamboo forest that had already been damp to start with was suddenly covered by heavy rain, and the ground started to turn muddy. The green bamboo stalks shook and swayed, the sheets of alternatively transparent or white rain splashing onto every corner.

Odin stood up from the broken shrine. When he'd broken into Duke's combo just now, the scythe had sliced across his chest. Due to the passive nature of the 'reaper', it had directly ruined the clothing on his right shoulder.

Now, with the heavy rain, the torn clothing was very inconvenient. Odin casually tugged it off, revealing his powerful right arm, a small cut on his shoulder, and… his collarbone.

Then, the rain soaked through his hood and caused it to sag, affecting his field of vision. The mask also began to cling to his nose and mouth, affecting his breathing. Odin took them off too.

He pushed back the hair scattered over his face and exposed his entire forehead; his eyes were deep set, and he wasn't worried that the rain would affect his eyes. His eyelashes appeared unusually dense and long because of the rain.

… Now, it was the commentators and audience who found it difficult to breathe.

The female commentator seemed to have been petrified for several seconds, all the way until the two contestants began fighting again. A long time later, she unconsciously began to pull out toilet paper and used trembling hands to block up her nose.

The male commentator turned into a broken voice recorder. There was a delay before he came up with the names of techniques and routines.

The huge spread of audience members seemed to all have become 'The Thinker' statues, sitting motionless in their seats without even blinking their eyes.

For a time, the entire venue seemed extremely quiet, to the point where a needle dropping onto the floor would be heard. Only the patter and splashes from the pouring rain from the virtual map interrupted the silence.

.

The progress for this match had suddenly become unusually fast.

This was because Odin never entered stealth again. As long as the reaper was willing to show up, the battle would be very simple and clear. Duke's stealth had become inessential as soon as the rain began, because such dense rain made it so that he could no longer conceal his figure fully.

At least, with Odin's level of observational skills, that outline where rain didn't seem to fall was too eye-catching!

"Flash." The male commentator spoke dryly.

Odin's instantaneous flash brought him close to Duke, but Duke was unable to react in time when he saw him and lost the chance to directly blend into the shadows and hide.

In other words, even if he retreated into the shadows again, it would be nothing but a delaying tactic!

The greatest significance of hiding in the shadows for the reaper profession was the accumulation of power that would occur while they were hidden. His scythe attacks required a long time to accumulate power, but the damage it caused was extremely high. The most typical attack routine was to hide in the shadows to accumulate power, then seize the time when their opponent was weak to transmit themselves instantly to their opponent's back, and complete the attack with the accumulated power!

In other words, it was all about timing. It was necessary to build up time delay and attack opportunities in order to reach a perfect situation that allowed them to cause the most damage.

The moment Duke was unable to pinpoint a weakness in Odin's defense, he had already lost.

.

"A short Shadow Dance." The male commentator's tone was a little blank, "And another flash and back winding, launching a combo."

Strictly speaking, Odin's Flash wasn't back winding but had instead gone to Duke's left flank, which was his less balanced half, his weak point.

Earlier, Odin had been able to knock Duke's scythe away instantly because he'd attacked his left wrist directly.

It was just that simple, sharp, and to the point! He saw Duke's weakness and took nothing else into account as he went straight for it. There wasn't any hesitation or the slightest bit of delay!

His attacks could even be called crazy, because he took advantage of this weakness once again and kicked the scythe that was coming slowly from behind him and sent it flying!

After that, his dagger, Deep Silence, stabbed directly into Duke's neck from the left. He twisted it viciously and took away the rest of his life.

In the instant when the dagger was pulled out, a small amount of blood mixed in with the rain water and splashed out along the trajectory of the tip of the blade, forming a beautiful water flower that bloomed for a brief moment amidst the sheets of rain.

One moment later, Deep Silence returned to its sheath.

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The fight was over, and it was another win.

Because of the rainy weather, Tyron hadn't paid much attention to controlling the time, and the match had ended in around 17 seconds.

As the scene closed, the audience could see Odin raise up his hand to slick back his wet hair.

The rain ran down his face, neck, and all the way into his torn clothing. The lightning struck just at that moment, and the damp mist seemed to cast a soft light over every inch of his bare skin.

……

When Tyron returned to the stage, he once again saw thousands of 'lick lick lick' type gazes.

--It was really terrible!

--It was simply an indescribable sense of terror!

Even the master assassin was a little unable to control himself and broke out in goosebumps.

Tyron: "……" If you keep looking at me with that kind of gaze, I'll kill you all!

xiin: *lick*