Chapter 243-3: Etherbreath World, Calamity Rampant (3) |
In the northwest of the city, amid a cluster of ruined buildings, a black shadow swept by silently like the shadow of Death.
He held a blood-red dagger in a reverse grip in his right hand. A dark red halo flowed along the edge, as if it were a murderous weapon that had drunk countless souls.
The player’s steps were as light as a cat’s. His figure leaped forward among the building debris. Each landing needed only a touch of the toe to propel his body far ahead.
Before long, this assassin build player found his prey.
A little over one hundred meters ahead, dozens of Etherbreath warriors were retreating in panic.
With the five senses enhanced by attribute increases, the assassin could even hear the rapid breathing and the faint sound of bio armor joints rubbing during the run.
With one glance he could judge that fear had stripped this group of Etherbreath warriors of their will to fight, and they were thinking only of fleeing this land of death.
But he naturally would not let them have their way.
“Extreme Speed, activate.”
Time seemed to stretch out at this moment.
With the trait’s blessing, his figure suddenly blurred, turning into a blood-colored afterimage and cutting into the retreating warriors at lightning speed.
First one, the dagger stabbed into the back of the neck like a viper. The protective layer of bio armor tore like thin paper. The blade severed the neural center with precision.
The targeted Etherbreath warrior did not even have time to grunt before he went limp and fell.
Second one, a blood-colored cold gleam swept laterally across the throat. Before the blood could even spurt, the player’s figure had ghosted to the back of the third.
The dagger flicked up on a slant from below. The tip stabbed precisely into the gap between the Etherbreath warrior’s lower jaw and breathing mask, piercing the head.
The warrior’s body still charged forward out of inertia, but his head had already drooped powerlessly.
Fourth one, the player spun past, the dagger half-turned at his fingertips and gripped, then backhand stabbed into the neck.
At the instant the blood jet sprayed, the assassin had already rushed ahead. The dagger pierced through the fifth one’s back armor and stabbed precisely into the blue heart at the very center of the chest. When he drew the dagger out, it carried a trace of blue.
Fifth one, the player slid low along the ground. The dagger sliced upward from below, applying a Blade Seal mark.
In the instant he rose, he hurled the dagger, and it pierced through the head of a Etherbreath warrior ahead.
As the dagger flashed cold light from that warrior’s forehead, the player under Extreme Speed was already at his side. At the instant the dagger broke through the forehead, he gripped the hilt with precision and, in the same motion, killed a Etherbreath warrior on the left.
Sixth, seventh, eighth…
The assassin player’s movements flowed like clouds and water. With each strike he could use the Insight trait to lock onto a weak point with precision, dragging out a death path as he ran forward.
The dagger traced blood-red arcs through the air again and again, and every flicker of his figure was accompanied by the silent fall of a Etherbreath warrior.
Squelch.
Crack.
The faint sounds of slicing rang out in succession. This group of Etherbreath warriors could not even see the assassin player’s figure.
They only felt a breeze brush past.
In just 5 seconds, the assassin player passed through the fleeing dozens of Etherbreath warriors and reached the frontmost Etherbreath warrior.
When the foremost warrior sensed something amiss and turned in panic, the blood-colored dagger filled his vision, then pierced out through his brow.
Thud.
The corpse hit the ground.
The assassin player slowly straightened up, flicked off the blood on the dagger, and swept a cold gaze around.
Behind him, the dozens of Etherbreath warriors had all been killed.
There were no screams, no struggles, not even a trace of a chance to resist.
They did not even know how they died. In a single instant, their lives were harvested to the last.
The player gave a light hum. The blood-red dagger spun at his fingertips and finally disappeared into his sleeve.
“Guide bro, anything valuable on the ground?” The assassin player’s ice-cold facade suddenly dropped away, and he looked at the Guide water sphere floating beside him with a fawning face.
[In the fourth pocket on the left there are three repair fluids. They are worth some money. Offer the other equipment directly to Emperor’s Sign.]
“Thanks, Guide bro.”
After dumping all the equipment left by the Etherbreath warriors into the Emperor’s Sign recycling station, the assassin player leaped and slipped back into the shadows again, stealthing with Duskhaze form and beginning to search for new prey.
—
In the southwest of the city, atop a tall building, a player raised his hand in a phantom draw. Flames rolled between his fingers and finally condensed into a fierce and menacing longbow of blazing flame.
Lava-like lines flowed along the bow. The bowstring was composed of fire-element enchantment particles.
The archer’s gaze swept the area below. He slowly drew the bowstring, and a burning vitality arrow formed out of thin air.
The flames dancing on the arrowhead were gilded with a streak of gold under the blessing of the Force Savage Axe trait.
At this moment, in his ear was the voice of a teammate in the team chat channel.
“Rock bro, I have killed 13 already. Why have you still not started? Stop leeching the gains and get moving.”
“The zone I dropped into is full of those bastard spell domain players. I could not compete with them at all. I am about to start now. Do not bother me.”
With that, the archer’s pupils contracted.
“The first one.” He whispered, then let his fingers relax.
The instant the vitality flame arrow left the string, it dragged out a blood-colored trajectory.
A Etherbreath warrior below who was organizing defenses did not even have time to look up before the arrow had already pierced his chest.
There was no spray of blood. The wound was instantly carbonized by high temperature.
The warrior looked down blankly at the bowl-sized hole in his chest, the edges still flickering with sparks, then toppled straight over.
“The second one.”
Another arrow shot out, this time aimed at a Etherbreath warrior who was activating a defensive device.
After applying Mark, the arrow struck precisely at this Etherbreath warrior’s forehead, and his entire head exploded.
Panic spread among this group of Etherbreath warriors.
They frantically searched for cover, but in the archer’s eyes, all hiding was futile.
The Spirit Eye trait activated, and there were no more obstacles to his sight.
As long as a target was marked, it meant a one hundred percent hit.
After marking all the targets in his field of vision at the same time, the player activated the Scatter Arrows trait.
“Clear the field.”
He yanked the bowstring open. Vitality poured into the bow and arrow, and his health bar instantly dropped by one third.
Twang.
The arrow shot out and burst in the air into 32 blood-colored streams of light.
Each stream twisted and roamed like a living thing, carving a trajectory through the air like a spirit snake’s glide.
Puff, puff, puff.
The sound of flesh exploding rang out simultaneously on the street more than one hundred meters away.
The warrior behind the cover on the east side was shot through the wall and his head blown off. Skull fragments embedded themselves in the building debris.
A Etherbreath warrior running on the west side had a blood hole explode open in his back. The arrow passed through and pinned him into the ground.
A Etherbreath warrior hefting a heavy shield was pierced through shield and all, and the remaining force of the arrow continued on to pin through the three behind him.
With just one arrow, the field was cleared.
His gaze jumped to other directions. This time he marked targets in the order of 1, 2, 3, 4.
He shot an arrow, and it weaved among the Etherbreath warriors, automatically adjusting direction and again killing more than a dozen Etherbreath warriors.
When the last Etherbreath warrior turned to ash in the vitality flames, the archer put away his longbow.
His gaze turned to other parts of the city.
Seeing another Spell Tower rise in the distance, he could not help cursing in his heart.
At this time, the players’ Calamity was still rampaging through the city.
Some players had already started their fancy plays. Players forming spell domains were placing elemental Spell Towers in various areas of the city to clear large swaths of Etherbreath warriors.
Quite a few players were so angry that they cursed out in the chat channel, feeling that this group of spellcaster players was really going too far.
“Bastard spell domain players, stop it. Doing this is utterly heartless. How can you just drop Spell Towers all over the place here? Are you leaving any resources for other players?”
“I am so mad. I just found a group, and then a Spell Tower’s remote lock-on bombardment came in. I did not get a single hair. What kind of people are these.”
“Hahaha, the Spell Tower build is just too fun, quickly harvesting the little weaklings in the nearby area.”
“The domain build is the most hateful. There is literally not a single hair near those players. Everything was shredded by the elemental torrent.”
—
For area-of-effect capabilities, players of other schools were far inferior to spellcaster players.
Their behavior of placing Spell Towers in various parts of the city simply left no chance for other players to enjoy the killing. Their efficiency in snatching monsters was maxed out.
Meanwhile, there were also players constantly recruiting teammates in the regional channel, wanting to form Calamity squads to act together.
In terms of demand, the once most popular melee players became the ones everyone disliked.
On the Monster World battlefield, melee and tank builds were absolutely the core of a team. Only if the melee held the line could the backline damage output efficiently.
But the enemies in the small world instance were all weaklings.
There was no need at all for tank build players to soak damage. Only efficient kills could earn more sacrificial power.
So in terms of demand: spellcaster players (all builds) ＞ monster build players ＞ ranged physical ＞ support (Bloodburn, power bank) ＞ melee DPS ＞ tank build.
Tank build players, who usually had to take double resources or even higher resource quotas to join a team, suffered unprecedented cold shoulders in the small world instance.
In the unparalleled grass-cutting mode, tank builds were, in many players’ eyes, just burdens hanging in the team to split the gains.
There was simply no need for them to rush in to bear damage. A single round of bombardment by spellcasters could easily end the fight. What were they needed for.
Unless it was a friends-and-family group leading the team, solo players would not recruit tank build players at all.
This broke the defenses of quite a few tank build players.
In Monster World, they had always been the team core.
They never lacked teams. Before joining a team they still had to pick and choose and negotiate a suitable profit split.
They never expected that after entering a small world instance, they would instead become despised rats crossing the street.
What humiliation.
With no other choice, the tank build players could only choose to ‘band together for strength,’ forming mutual-aid teams.
The entire team was nothing but tank builds, and the kill efficiency was arguably the lowest in the field.