Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

Those players who had sprung their encirclement trap on Extremely Heaven Defying had not expected for something like this to have happened. They had clearly seen them all get killed right before their eyes, yet not a single one of them ended up appearing at the spawn point but were all sent directly to the Jail instead. As such, when Thousand Miles Drunk was cutting down all his guildmates like they were fresh produce, he was actually completing Bounty Missions. Had they known that would be the case, they would most definitely have not been so laidback watching it unfold. In truth, even though these players who formed the encirclement held the numerical advantage, they were all still quite afraid deep down, because they were well aware of what sort of experts they were facing, and to have forced them to such a degree, it was only natural for them to make a last stand and fight hard. The City Wars event was no longer running, which meant that death would most definitely see a drop in level. Going up against such powerful experts, no matter how many players were out there, there was simply no guarantee that they would not suffer casualties in the ensuing clash, especially when going up against Thousand Miles Drunk. Who knew just how many people would have to sacrifice themselves just to finish that man off?

The players from Extremely Heaven Defying were not the only ones who were afraid of losing their levels. Which player out there would not be afraid of such an outcome here in Parallel World? That was why they had been very happy to sit back as they watched what happened to their opponents without suffering a single loss on their end.

Even though they would still have to continue to coerce and hunt them down after sending the players from Extremely Heaven Defying back to Yunduan City’s spawn points, that would ultimately be the responsibility of those other players over that side. Thus, no matter the outcome there, they would no longer have to bear the possible threat of losing levels anymore.

This became something akin to kicking the ball into the other’s court, except it was Thousand Miles Drunk who had done the kicking for them. As a result, these people gladly accepted his labor for this, and it was already too late for any regrets by the time they realized something was off.

Just as they were grinding their teeth, they suddenly received a new message, “There’s still someone from Extremely Heaven Defying in the Priest Academy!!!”

“Is that so? Then quickly kill him, shred him into a million pieces!!!” It was already too late for these players who took part in the encirclement to wallow in their remorse after making such a huge mistake, so for there to be a target worth hunting down, they immediately hung onto this shred of hope like it was a blade of life-saving grass, not even thinking how chasing a single target would hardly be threatening at all. Basically, their plan to threaten with the fear of losing levels to force the members of Extremely Heaven Defying to leave the guild and ultimately disband was already ruined by this point.

The players responsible for carrying out the continued killing over by the spawn point had yet to fully grasp what was happening, though they remained steadfast to their tasks. Over by the Priest Academy, all their would-be targets were all Priests, which meant that the job they had to do there was fairly easy and risk free. As such, there were not too many players there, and none of them were too aggressive about it. They were already prepared to block and kill the Priest when they spotted him appear in the spawn point.

Just like the players who encircled Extremely Heaven Defying, these people also had their faces covered and were not wearing their guild emblems. When executing such an ambush, the majority of them were of course Thieves, and they were all positioned right outside the Priest Academy’s entrance right now, waiting for the Priest to step right out the safety of the spawn point so they could kill him off in one go.

However, Young Master Han was not in the least bit rushed, strolling over to the entrance like he was taking in the sights. The Thieves gripped their daggers till the point their palms were sweaty, watching the man as he was about to step out from the spawn point, just a single step shy from crossing the transom when he halted his footsteps.

The sound of shattering glass was heard, startling the players from both inside the Priest Academy, as well as those who were passing by outside. Plenty of eyes swept over to where the sound had originated, only to find several Assassins standing by the left side of the wall outside the Priest Academy. They had no idea what to do with themselves, their bodies glistening due to the shattered shards of glass that covered them all.

“Whoops. Sorry about that,” Young Master Han waved to apologize to those Assassins.

These Assassins had not expected anything like this to happen, but all of them immediately pretended like there was nothing wrong at all, patting their own bodies down as they quickly said, “Don’t worry about it. We were in Stealth, so there’s no way you could have seen us!”

“Ahem, I take it you’re the ones who were tasked to ambush people? It’s pretty hard work eh?” Young Master Han struck up a conversation.

These Assassins were sniggering, muttering to themselves, we’ll give you a surprise the moment you take a step outside.

In the end, they heard Young Master Han answer, “But won’t you guys feel anxious if I don’t take a step out at all?”

These men were astonished, but the cloths that they had covering their faces helped keep their expression hidden. Someone quickly answered back, “What are you talking about? We don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“Which guild are you guys from?” Young Master Han asked.

“We’re from—” Someone had subconsciously said the two words when another player beside him abruptly stomped on his foot, causing him to realize what he was about to do and promptly corrected himself, “No guild.”

“Such poor acting skills,” Young Master Han shook his head repeatedly. He suddenly pulled his hand out from his dimensional pocket and threw something out to the right side of the entrance, “Are there people here as well?”

A bottle shattered once again, but not a single player got struck by it this time.

“They moved, huh?” Young Master Han wondered out loud as he suddenly pulled out a little cloth pouch from his dimensional pocket and tossed its powdery content in front of him like he was doing magic.

When the pouch loosened, the content within was of course none other than the white dust that came from Baishi City, revealing the presence of a Thief right in front of Young Master Han when he spilled it out in such a manner. The Thief was completely covered in the powdery substance at this time, looking like he had been doused with a bag of flour from head to toe. His comrades to the left and right were not spared either, as the whole group of them all got revealed after being exposed to the white dust.

“Whoops. So sorry. I did not know you’re actually so close to me,” Young Master Han had casually tossed out the cloth pouch, and those Thieves in front of him were no more than 3 steps away from where he was standing. Young Master Han could easily reach out and grab these men had he stepped out from the spawn point.

The Thief that had received the brunt of this was presently shrugging with both hands, uncertain what he should do as he lowered his head down to find himself entirely covered in white. His other comrades were also exchanging glances with each other, none of them having any clue on how they should proceed.

In the end, all of them watched as Young Master Han stuck his hand into his dimensional pocket again, only to pull out yet another bottle of liquor. The group of Thieves standing outside the entrance had a fright and thought the man was going to randomly throw things at them again, so they hurriedly prepared to duck for cover. However, Young Master Han had simply popped the bottle with his teeth and started drinking its contents in front of everyone. There was no way that he would waste a bottle that still had liquor in it.

“Is it just you guys? Anyone else?” Young Master Han asked.

There were two groups of Thieves outside, totaling up to 10 men. 5 had been struck by the glass bottle shards, while the other 5 were dirtied by the white dust. Even the cloths that they had over their faces were not enough to hide the awkward expression beneath, momentarily feeling somewhat displeased seeing that arrogant look on Young Master Han’s face. Since their intentions had already been exposed, one of them could not help but answer, “Come out if you’ve got the guts.”

Young Master Han continued to take a mouthful of his liquor, unconcerned.

“We have issues with Extremely Heaven Defying, so we won’t be troubling you any further as long as you leave Extremely Heaven Defying,” Someone from among the ten had thought of their actual objective and felt that they should first open up the conversation with this line. They would be more than happy to let these people leave with their lives intact than killing these people ten times over as long as they were willing to leave the guild.

“Oh? Can I join your guild if I leave Extremely Heaven Defying?” Young Master Han asked.

“That’s something we can discuss after you leave the guild,” another answered.

“Oh? What’s your guild called?”

“We’re—”

“G*dd*mm*t, just shut up you fool. Can’t you see that this guy is merely trying to use you as amusement to pass the time?” Someone else had sent a vicious kick to that idiot, before turning back over to face Young Master Han with a cold expression, “Stay inside forever and never leave if you’ve got the guts.”

“Stay outside and never leave if you’ve got the guts,” Young Master Han retorted as he took a sip of his bottle.

“Hahahaha, are you trying to waste our time? We’ve got plenty of others waiting in shifts, more than enough to camp you out,” That person boasted.

“Oh? Then when does your shift end?” Young Master Han suddenly asked.

“Why do you care?”

“I would advise all of you to leave this place as soon as you can, otherwise it would be too late,” Young Master Han said with much nonchalance.

“Tsk, who are you trying to fool?”

“Just look over there,” Young Master Han pointed.

“What a childish trick,” that man laughed mirthlessly, but there was ultimately someone out of the 10 Thieves who would subconsciously turn in the direction of where Young Master Han was pointing.

A single black figure came into view.

Black robes with a sword that glinted purple. Just this image alone was enough for several people to keenly experience the sensation of losing levels.

“THOUSAND MILES DRUNK!!” someone finally croaked out.

Gu Fei was almost upon these men. He glanced once at Young Master Han with expressionless eyes, nudging his head right at the 10 Thieves questioningly.

Young Master Han nodded his head.

Thus, Gu Fei used a Blink and materialized right in front of the 10 Thieves, his sword flashing mercilessly as he slew 5 of them in one smooth motion.

These Thieves were enough to bully Mages, but they are still streets behind if they went against Gu Fei! The players who were pitted against Extremely Heaven Defying knew just how troublesome it was to handle Thousand Miles Drunk, which was why they had concentrated a good portion of their stronger troops over at the Mage Academy, but how would they have guessed that Thousand Miles Drunk would not even show up there. After completing all the Bounty Missions, Gu Fei had activated his Windchaser’s Emblem and teleported himself directly to the Bounty Assignment Hall. His PK Value was completely cleared after handing in all those missions, so he was able to come over and assist Young Master Han after.

Young Master Han was a Priest, so of course he did not have a PK Value. There was no way for him to be sent to Jail through the Bounty Mission, and with how closely he was being camped, he did not really have much to work with to do anything fancy either. Thus, Gu Fei figured that he would just directly send him to the Priest Academy by his hands since he was going to lose his level one way or another. Extremely Heaven Defying originally had a dearth of Priests anyway, and they had depended on employing mercenaries in order to help them during the City Wars event. When more than half of their members left the guild, the handful of Priests that had been externally recruited were all included in those numbers.

After Gu Fei killed the 5, he turned toward the other 5 and went for the kill as well. Naturally, none of these 5 had any intention to clash against Thousand Miles Drunk, so they turned to flee. Gu Fei sent a Thunderbolt right out and struck one of them dead, though he could not be bothered to chase after the other 4. Turning around, he gazed at Young Master Han, “Any more?”

“There should be some more,” Young Master Han took a look around, including within the Priest Academy.

“Where’s Verdant Timber and Paddy Scented Pastures?” Gu Fei asked. Those two men, as well as Young Master Han, were the three remaining Priests in Extremely Heaven Defying.

“Haven’t seen them. They must have either logged off or already managed to sneak off. There’s no need to worry about them; they must be plenty experienced in this sort of situation, yeah? They are men who would camp out people’s respawn, so how could they fall for an ambush that someone else springs on them? Were it not for the fact that yours truly is absolutely gorgeous, making it impossible for me to disguise myself, I would have managed to leave the place undetected long ago,” Young Master Han said matter-of-factly.

Gu Fei did his best to stop himself from puking as he took in his surroundings, unable to determine who could be lying in wait to ambush them. Young Master Han had thrown a liquor bottle and tossed out white dust. Gu Fei came and killed 6 players in one go, so every pair of eyes down the whole street were on them.

“Aside from myself and the three of you, the rest are all in Jail right now,” Gu Fei said.

“How did you do it?” Young Master Han asked.

“My Bounty License allows me to automatically pick up any Bounty Mission as long as I search for players who had a PK Value on them. I simply went down our guild’s member list and picked every bounty there and then,” Gu Fei explained.

“Oh, that’s very convenient,” Young Master Han nodded.

“Who are we up against?” Gu Fei asked.

“We have no idea yet, but it’s nothing too difficult to investigate,” Young Master Han said.

“How so?”

“How could there not be a leak despite having so many players participating in this operation? Did they really think that just keeping their faces covered and removing their guild emblems would be enough to keep things under wraps? That’s way too hilarious. When would having thousands of players be considered a secret guild operation?” Young Master Han mused.

“That makes a lot of sense,” Gu Fei nodded. “But we have someone in our guild that’s working for them.”

“You can tell that too?”

“It’s too obvious. If people could leave unscathed just by leaving the guild, how could they confirm if they had truly done that or otherwise? The lack of a guild emblem? What if I were to take it off myself? That is why it is apparent that they have someone inside our guild. This person must have been cross referencing with our members’ list so they could of course confirm if the person leaving had truly left the guild or otherwise,” Gu Fei said.

“And that is why you started killing everyone without saying a word, afraid that if you were to explain yourself, that spy would leak the news out to the other party,” Young Master Han said.

Gu Fei nodded, “That person would be sent straight to Jail right after, so even if he or she wanted to say something, there’s no way that the message could be sent out.”

“So you were the one who told everyone from Forever in Flowers and Amethyst Rebirth to just leave as well?” Young Master Han clarified.

“Yeah.”

“Well done,” Young Master Han nodded approvingly.

“However, I did make a little mistake there too,” Gu Fei scratched his head.

“Oh?”

“Deep Waters, Coco, and Eternal Dominion, there’s no need to kill these people since they are originally not from our guild. They should not have had any problems leaving either, but this fact actually slipped my mind and I ended up killing them as well,” Gu Fei sheepishly confessed.

————————————————————

Inside Yunduan City’s Jail, the players from Extremely Heaven Defying were all gathered together within the four walls. After their bonfire night party, everybody still in the guild was being held behind bars. This guild activity of theirs had most surely taken a unique turn.

When they were initially under attack from Gu Fei, everyone was still clueless as to what happened, but by the time they spawn in Jail, each of them instantly understood what had just transpired. Most of them were instead rather happy, as their PK Values were not too high, so they would only have to squat in Jail for a handful of hours. They would have lost two levels if they were slain by enemy hands, so it was very obvious which was the better option in a glance.

“D*mn, so that was what Miles was thinking after all. Really, why didn’t he mention this to us at all?” Royal God Call was elated. Escaping his fate of losing levels as compared to squatting in Jail, he was very happy when he realized that Gu Fei had actually done them a good deed by killing everyone. He had been fuming mad when Gu Fei had flashed his sword out to insta-kill him out of nowhere before.

“Sword Demon, are you guys here?” Royal God Call yelled. While the jail cells in Yunduan City were huge, they could only fit in 25 players in one cell. Adding Extremely Heaven Defying, Deep Waters, Coco, and Eternal Dominion into the mix, there were a total of 51 players that were sent here, meaning they needed two cells, with an additional individual. Royal God Call was the first to be killed, while Sword Demon was the last, so it was only natural that neither men shared the same cell. Royal God Call had looked around the cell and did not find Sword Demon anywhere, so he decided to shout out his name.

“Stop yelling, I’m right across you!” Sword Demon’s voice came through.

“How are you over there?” Royal God Call was still shouting.

“Same as you!” Sword Demon answered curtly.

“How is that possible? You’ve got a PK Value that’s well over the 20s! Even if you got bounty hunted, you would still lose two levels as a result!” Royal God Call responded.

“that’s nothing. It’s fine as long as everyone’s okay,” Sword Demon gave a simple reply, and his voice genuinely sounded gratified at this outcome.

Both cells were originally celebrating the fact that they had managed to escape their fate, but upon hearing this exchange, they suddenly quieted down. They had actually forgotten about this particular PK rule. At the same time, they had all discovered a problem, and that was the fact that Sword Demon was actually nowhere near them.

“Boss Sword Demon, where are you?” The voices came from both cells.

“Right beside you guys,” Sword Demon answered.

Brother Assist was doing his math for a bit as he slapped his forehead, “There’s only space in each cell for 25 players, and we should have a total of 51 players, so that would mean we would have one extra… Sword Demon, you’re not all alone in there, are you?”

“Heh, I was the last to get killed,” Sword Demon chuckled.

“Boss Sword Demon…” Those newly recruited guild members who had not quit back then, or perhaps they wanted to leave the guild but were unable to do so in time, were all moved. The punishment that Sword Demon would be undergoing was much harsher than any one of them present. Most of the players in the cell only had a single digit PK Value, so even if they were killed outside, they would merely be losing 2 levels. But right now, Sword Demon was not only being imprisoned, but he would also have the additional punishment of losing 2 whole levels. Furthermore, there was an even bigger problem.

“Boss Sword Demon, you’re not alone in your cell, are you?”

“I am!” Sword Demon answered.

Everyone fell silent once more. Sword Demon had 21 PK points before he was slain by Gu Fei, and he would be serving all 42 hours here in the Jail all by himself. But what about the others? Each of the two cells had 25 players inside, and some of them had already pulled out a set of poker cards moments ago. Had they not heard of what happened to their guild leader Sword Demon, they would have already begun playing.

This silence persisted until someone finally cried out in righteous indignation, “Wait till we get out, we must most definitely take revenge for Boss Sword Demon.”

“That’s right, we will avenge this umbrage!” There were plenty of voices who echoed this sentiment. Even though Gu Fei was the one who had sent Sword Demon to Jail and caused him to lose his levels, their animosity was obviously still directed toward those players who had gathered to surround them in the first place.

“Haha, thank you, everyone,” Sword Demon laughed.

“Sword Demon, who do you think those guys are?” Being in different cells was not enough to stop Brother Assist from being his inquisitive self. At the moment, he was shouting out the question floating in his mind, hoping to discuss the matter with Sword Demon.

“We’ll talk about it when we get out!” Sword Demon replied.

“But how long would it be before you could get out…” Brother Assist’s voice trailed off when he realized that he had drawn the burning glare from many people around him after yelling that out loud. These people evidently thought Brother Assist was rubbing salt into Sword Demon’s wounds. Brother Assist was startled, but he abruptly felt relieved for Sword Demon. Ignoring the fact that Sword Demon had suffered such a huge loss in this encounter, he did manage to win over all these newcomers in the end. While there were not many of them here now, their sense of solidarity would at least gradually increase after everything that had happened. Sword Demon’s deeds today would most likely be propagated in the guild from here onward, letting everyone know just what sort of guild leader Sword Demon was.

It was around this time when Coco walked up to Brother Assist, tugging at his sleeve, “Stop yelling.”

“Oh?” Brother Assist could tell that Coco wanted to speak to him about something, even as Deep Waters strolled over to them, all somber.

“Have you not realized something’s afoot?”

“What?”

“There’s a spy in your guild,” Deep Waters said through gritted teeth.

“A spy?” Brother Assist was astonished.

“Think about it. They had previously mentioned how players that voluntarily leave the guild would be allowed to leave; But how would they be able to confirm if someone had really left the guild or if they were faking it?” Coco posed this question to Brother Assist.

“Our guild emblem of course!” Brother Assist pointed to what he had pinned on his chest. “The guild emblem would disappear the moment a player quits the guild.”

“True, so what if I manually took it off?” Coco asked.

“Just watch the players more closely!” Brother Assist said.

Coco stared at him, nonplussed.

“Ahem… Okay, there’s most likely a spy among us,” Brother Assist conceded as he nodded his head.

“Sword Demon must have also realized this as well,” Coco said.

“Even if he has not come to such a conclusion, a certain someone would have realized this as well and told him after,” Deep Waters said.

Brother Assist knew who Deep Waters was referring to, so he did not bother clarifying as he suddenly thought, “Miles must know this too, which was why he had not given us a heads up and slaughtered us all like that. He must be afraid that his plan would be leaked out to the other party if he revealed it in the guild channel.”

“That’s right,” Coco nodded.

“So who could this spy be?” Brother Assist sucked in a deep breath as he began scanning through the crowd of players in the cell with him.

“How about the Aural Valley Wind person? He’s from a workshop. Where was he once the fighting began?” Deep Waters suddenly asked.