Chapter 166

– Internal Conflict
Moonlit Nightfalls glowed as a ball of fire formed from its tip before flying toward the four ladies.

Ahh! Quickly dodge it!
The ladies were thrown into a tizzy. With the current standard of Parallel World’s players, the most basic spell in the Mages’ arsenal, Fireball, was often disregarded by many. Most people would casually knock it away with anything that they had and view the spell as not a big deal even if it hit them.
As for the ladies, they treated Gu Fei’s spells, even Fireball, as something very dangerous. Thus, the four quickly dispersed when they saw the ball of fire heading their way.
Fireball had a tracking ability, yet Gu Fei did not make his spell chase after any of the four ladies and the ball of fire was floating in a straight line instead. Gu Fei had always been using Fireball like how he threw his secret projectiles during his kung fu training session, and he would often throw the spell out by relying on his eyes and calculation instead of on the system’s target lock-on assistance.

Fireball! Shoot!
Ice Glaze and another Mage made use of the same spell to counter Gu Fei’s. He extended his sword and unhurriedly sliced apart the two balls of fire heading his way, easily dissipating them.

YA!
The female Warrior lowered her head and sprinted over using Charge. Gu Fei sidestepped to let her pass him and swung hard at the incoming figure with his sword,
Twin Incineration! Incinerate!

The blade formed a beautiful red arc, yet it cleaved nothing but empty space. The female Warrior was currently standing next to the sword as she said in confusion,
Oh, dear. Did I estimate wrongly for the distance?

Gu Fei wanted to faint right there and then. The lady Warrior had apparently calculated the distance wrongly with Charge. The lady could simply not reach Gu Fei from where she had activated Charge, so while Gu Fei’s sidestep perfectly opened up an opportunity for him to strike her, the lady’s poor execution of the skill had rendered his swing useless.

Let me do it again!
The lady ran back to her original position.
Gu Fei’s could do nothing but to hold his sword tightly in hand. Originally, he had wanted to slash at the Warrior right away, but he ended up staring blankly at her retreating figure after hearing what she had just said.
Once back in position, she bent her waist, lowered her head, and raised her sword again. After getting into that posture, she said,
Just wait for a little longer! The skill’s cool-down time is about to end.

The other three ladies confidently nodded their heads.
Gu Fei was in tears. Is this a PvP match or a mentoring fight?

Aye! Here I come!
The female Warrior shouted and rushed forward using Charge once more.
Gu Fei was afraid of her misjudging the distance once more and wasting his effort, so he decisively took a step forward,
Twin Incineration! Incinerate!

From the perspective of Parallel World’s Verdict, no matter how many times a Mage casted Twin Incineration, the spell would be unable to win against the Warrior’s Charge skill. However, Gu Fei saw through the skill execution and his forward step essentially dodged the female Warrior’s Charge. With his follow-up swing to the opponent’s direction, his actions virtually canceled out Verdict.

Ah! She got him!
Ice Glaze and the other ladies rejoiced, fully assuming that Gu Fei’s forward step would make him receive the full brunt of the Charge skill. In the end, they only saw their guildmate catching fire as she went past Gu Fei and burning until she was nothing but a white light.

Ah… How is that possible?
The three ladies were left befuddled by what they had just witnessed.

I’m not gonna go easy on you lot anymore!
Gu Fei flexed his forearm to show them that he was serious.
The three ladies were standing separately, so Gu Fei could not cut down all three with one stroke of his sword. Thus, he threw out a ball of fire and dashed toward one of the ladies’ direction.
A whistling sound stopped Gu Fei’s forward momentum, though. The sound of the traveling arrow gave a vague indication of the Archer’s attack power and speed, and Gu Fei believed that only one Archer present in this match could shoot an arrow of this caliber.
Turning his head over, Gu Fei saw that the ball of fire he had thrown to the female Priest was dissipated by the arrow.
Royal God Call then hurtled over from the arrow’s firing direction and shouted,
Who dares to touch Grape?!

Oh? Is this lady that Grape? Gu Fei glanced at the Priest and sighed in his heart, saying,
Royal! Look at how much you’ve frightened her.

Royal God Call hurtled over like a wild sparrow, standing in front of Grape while pointing his bow toward Gu Fei. Before anyone could say anything, he signaled Gu Fei like crazy by winking his eyes and moving his brows.
Gu Fei originally wanted to praise Royal God Call for being able to shoot down his Fireball, yet he lost the will to do so after seeing the latter’s facial gestures. He simply sighed and asked,
What are you trying to do here?


I’ll fight whoever that dares to touch Grape!
Royal God Call continued to act the part of a hero saving a damsel in distress.
Before this matter could be settled, War Without Wounds also trampled over. His voice reached Gu Fei ahead of his figure,
Xiao Bing and Xiaoying are under my protection! Anyone who dares to attack them will have to get through me first!

Xiao Bing naturally meant Ice Glaze, as for Xiaoying, Gu Fei did a quick check of Amethyst Rebirth’s members list. Spotting a Mage by the name of Singing Peach, he reckoned that this lady before him must be her.
War Without Wounds, who had gotten near the ladies, opened his stance and bore the look of someone defending justice. The way the two looked at Gu Fei seemed to suggest that he was the one infringing upon the virtues of the fair maidens before him, angering Gu Fei to the point of speechlessness.
The ladies were of course at a loss at what was happening. Ice Glaze meekly asked,
What is going on?


It’s an internal conflict!
Gu Fei huffed.
Royal God Call and War Without Wounds stood their ground firmly, as if what they were doing was logically sound. The three ladies looked at one another, unsure of what to make of the situation that they had found themselves in.

Since that’s the case,
Gu Fei rolled up his sleeves, saying,
I guess I’ll have to take you two down first.

Royal God Call cried out,
Do you think it will be that easy?
With that, he fired off an arrow on Homing Projectile toward Gu Fei.
Gu Fei flipped his sword over and knocked the arrow aside as he chanted,
Fireball! Shoot!

Royal God Call fired off Double Shot instead of dodging; one hit Fireball and the other one flew toward Gu Fei.
Gu Fei rushed toward Royal God Call once he finished casting Fireball, dodging the incoming arrow with a deft twist of his head. Royal God Call smiled when Gu Fei broke eye contact with him and took that chance to turn tail and run.
Fck! Gu Fei cursed inwardly. The movement speed Royal God Call currently possessed was comparable to his, so chasing after him would be no different from when he was fighting with Sakurazaka Moony: It would just be a stalemate.
War Without Wounds was trying to twist the situation into one where the ladies would feel indebted to him, so he hurriedly addressed the ladies over by the side,
Run away quickly! Leave him to us two!
Gu Fei had been turned into the villain by the actions of these two idiots.

Ha ha! Come and get me!
Naturally, Royal God Call knew that Gu Fei would be unable to do anything to him right now, so he delightfully taunted him. He ran toward the ditch and dashingly leaped over. However, Royal God Call disappeared from the surface with a whoosh when he did so.

What happened?
War Without Wounds asked in shock. Gu Fei, meanwhile, was laughing inside him. Evidently, Brother Assist, who was still hiding inside that ditch, had taken that moment to pull Royal God Call down when the latter was gleefully leaping over the ditch. Brother Assist might not have these experts’ fighting prowess, yet a person in hiding would always have the upper hand when it came to pulling a fast one on others.
Recalling that time when they drank the most expensive liquor on Young Master Han’s tab, Gu Fei had only drunk three glasses while Brother Assist had had a whole bottle after the first glass. He profited the most during that incident, yet Gu Fei took the blame for the whole matter. The deviousness of Brother Assist’s duping tactics could be seen from that move alone.
No matter how powerful an Archer was, he or she would oftentimes be at a disadvantage when it came to melee. At this moment, Royal God Call was being held down in the ditch by Brother Assist and was no longer a cause for worry.
Gu Fei raised his sword and turned about to close in on War Without Wounds.
War Without Wounds was a Warrior, so he clearly did not have the skill to kite Gu Fei. Thus, he firmly planted his feet to the ground and did not forget to tell the ladies in order to earn more brownie points,
Stand behind me.

The ladies had long been muddled by the messy predicament they had found themselves in. Hearing War Without Wounds’ words, they meekly hid behind him.
Gu Fei sprinted toward War Without Wounds, as the latter separated his two hands each holding a claymore to his sides.
He has taken the Job Class Advancement to be a Berserker! Gu Fei’s heart tightened. He had since learned from his fight with Foe-herder that the Warrior’s dual-wielded Cyclone was not easy to deal with. Foe-herder was ranked sixth on the Warrior leaderboard, while War Without Wounds was currently ranked third. Besides this, he was also known as the number one Warrior in the entire online gaming community, so his Strength should be much higher than other Warriors.
As all these thoughts were running through Gu Fei’s head, War Without Wounds had already bent low and dropped his swords, taking up a very familiar stance.
Here it comes! Gu Fei cried out in his mind. He did not dare to increase the speed of his forward sprint and chose to halt his steps instead. He then raised his sword in preparation for unleashing an AOE spell to interrupt War Without Wounds’ attack.
Unexpectedly, War Without Wounds lifted the swords from his sides and clasped both in front of him as he lowered his head.
Fck! Gu Fei was shocked to see War Without Wounds stomping toward him using Charge. He quickly sidestepped to dodge the attack and was about to chant a spell when War Without Wounds suddenly jerked his head up, separated his claymores to his sides, and stopped his forward momentum by twisting his waist to meet Gu Fei head on.

Fck!
Gu Fei cried out audibly this time.
Gu Fei did not know how far War Without Wounds’ Charge could reach, but he was positive that the latter had canceled it before reaching the intended distance. His timing for the skill cancelation was nearly impeccable, placing him right before Gu Fei. What was worse was that War Without Wounds had immediately followed this up by unleashing Cyclone on the spot.
A dual-wielded Cyclone had double the effect compared to the usual Cyclone. Using only one hand to take the blow would result in a player taking a gash from the other weapon before being flung outward by the skill’s spinning. Gu Fei had already experienced this before and he could only think of one way to fully block this attack: dual-wield weapons, as well.
Characters without the Dual-wielding Mastery would be unable to deal damage with the weapons in their non-dominant hands, but the Verdict for blocking still existed. When Gu Fei used the sword in his right hand to block the first blow, his left hand also reached into his dimensional pocket for his Sacred Flames of Baptism.
The clashing of metals rang out twice. This was followed by Gu Fei being hurtled outward by the Cyclone’s spinning. His HP was dropping rapidly while mid-air. Although his weapons had managed to block the attacks, his blocking attempts had been judged by Verdict as very weak. Thus, Gu Fei still received a lot of damage from the Cyclone skill.

This sucks!
Gu Fei sighed in frustration. He might have been able to take all the damage had he been at full HP. Unfortunately, he had earlier taken damage from Ice Glaze’s Descending Wheel of Flames….
…Can Gu Fei survive his impending fall to the ground with how he is currently sailing through the air? Find out next time in the succeeding chapter of Virtual World: Close Combat Mage!