Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

When faced with such an attack that barely made any difference, the first to die were always the low HP-ed job classes. When the Mages from Colored Clouds respawned, they were all randomly scattered all over the Mage Academy. Some of these Mages managed to successfully Kamikaze themselves, while others got blown up by Southern Lone Blade and his men before they did anything. However, all these Mages who died soon randomly respawned back in the Mage Academy, making it seem like none of them had actually died, but had instead been given Gu Fei’s Blink skill.

Over 30 Mages were rampantly unleashing their spells in the white light. A good majority of the players hardly even noticed Southern Lone Blade’s orders when they came through, with some running helter-skelter in a bid to evade the damage, while others even attempted to retaliate against the Mages. But these efforts were all useless; The ones who scattered and bolted were unable to escape the Mages’ teleportation Kamikaze, while those who tried to attack the Mages essentially helped the Mages ‘teleport’ them.

The Mages from Colored Clouds acted as martyrs, sacrificing themselves so as to rapidly clear out the Mage Academy. The various job classes that were killed got sent to their respective spawn points, and that was fine for most people, but it was a tragedy for any of the Priests that were caught in the blasts of spells. Given that the men of Colored Clouds were all already in position by the Priest Academy, ready and waiting to grief the Priests, any Priest that turned up was expediently killed off repeatedly. Logging out was the only way any of these Priest could escape this predicament, yet they would constantly be interrupted again and again from all sides under the watchful besiegement from the enemy. Attempt a forceful log out? Unless their house was on fire, there was no way that any self-respecting player in Parallel World would even consider such an option.

“It seems like we’ve fallen into their trap,” Gu Fei and the others were still able to peek out from their cover from time to time, not to mention how the current situation was being noisily chattered over the respective guild channels of both Amethyst Rebirth and Colored Clouds.

“Could the concentration of the Mages here have been intentionally set up?” Drifting was showing a rather ghastly expression.

“It seems like our enemy this time had already noticed this was a very good spot for Mages to deploy a sneak attack on them, so they had specifically positioned their Mages there for us to attack. They had even anticipated that we would scheme to take out the respawned Mages, so he used this opportunity to try and at least wipe out our Priests...” Slyris said.

“Very possibly...” Gu Fei was crestfallen. “Utilizing the terrain is that guy’s strong suit.”

“Just look at their formation right now and you can tell,” Cirrus said after he poked his head out and sneaked a glance.

“What?”

“Not a single one of them is standing in the area where any of us could target them,” Cirrus explained.

“D*mm*t, we’ve truly been played into Young Master Han’s hands,” Gu Fei punched the ground in frustration.

Drifting was all the more ashamed of this outcome, having been the one who came up with the plan in the first place. Meanwhile, the rumors that Drifting was an undercover spy was swiftly spreading in the guild.

“Royal God Call, let me severely warn you to keep your mouth shut,” Gu Fei said, and the rumors very quickly disappeared.

“That’s enough messing around already,” Xi Xiaotian admonished Royal God Call, uncertain if she should be laughing or crying about it. Royal God Call had immediately filled the guild channel with rumors the moment he heard her analysis of the situation

“I believe there’s just such a possibility!” Royal God Call insisted with much seriousness. “Have you forgotten? Young Master had even tried snatching away Southern Lone Blade and his team when we previously tried to contact them, and he almost managed to pull one over them had we not managed to intervene. Perhaps he had already got in touch with Drifting before us, and had strategically placed such a chess piece on the board, clearly expecting you to call on Drifting to come help.”

Everyone was stunned. The possibility itself existed. Among the six Mages, four of them crooked their heads to look at Drifting quizzically. It was only Gu Fei who was still very calm, “It’s a personal grudge here, everyone should ignore all that.”

“That d*mn*d kid,” Drifting awkwardly said to the other four. “Miles is still the one who’s righteous.”

“What are we going to do now?” Cirrus asked. From the many sneaking glances he took, it was very heartbreaking to watch impotently as their Priests got massacred over by the Priest Academy, unable to do anything to assist them in any sense.

“Without our Priests, there’s no way for us to engage them in a ground push either,” Drifting commented.

“They are only Priests!” Gu Fei was still very calm, however. Quickly messaging Brother Assist who was outside of the city, “Calling for Brother Assist. We have an urgent lack of Priests; we required a lot of Priests.”

“I know that, but it’s really hard to find Priests. Any guild that is newly established would lack Priests and other similar job classes. This is essentially an objective law of MMOs. If you don’t believe me, just ask Sword Demon,” Brother Assist quickly explained, afraid that Gu Fei would wrongly accuse him of being inefficient.

“I understand. We don’t need the Priests to join our guild, but only to lend us a hand in the capacity of their job class, so all they need is to have the neutral third party player status that would allow them to enter the city. Find some friends, or spend some money to employ them as mercenaries if you need, I’ll leave it up to you,” Gu Fei said.

“Spend money to employ them as mercenaries?” Brother Assist repeated.

“Yes, you’ll cover the cost for the mercenaries first,” Gu Fei said.

Brother Assist was somewhat horrified at this prospect. He was not suspicious of Gu Fei’s character, but the issue was that he was worried he would feel embarrassed taking Gu Fei’s money when Gu Fei asked to settle the bill afterward. The guild does not belong to just one person, so everyone would surely have to chip in if any coin was being used in this matter. Except, they were currently pressed for time. Perhaps they would collect the necessary funds at a later date and settle the bill with me in the future? Brother Assist had such thoughts floating about in his mind as he nodded and replied, “Wait for my message.”

Money made everything easier; this was widely regarded to be a universal truism. Brother Assist and July, who had both been struggling with enticing Priests to join their cause, suddenly found the grind map that they were in to be just filled with Priests the moment they opened their purses.

During this period where the currency market was seeing a great change and upheaval, everyone was concerned with how they would be earning gold coins in the future. Brother Assist was a veteran gamer who was well versed in the psychology of the players. He had a firm grasp with how various things worked in the game, and so the price that he now offered reflected the background of the times they were all in; it was a sum that was enough to tempt any Priest out there to join either Extremely Heaven Defying or Amethyst Rebirth as a mercenary for this event.

Those who were grouped up with close friends discussed their wish to earn this gold coins with these people, asking for a temporary leave from the parties.

As for those who were grouped up with unaffiliated parties, the more responsible players sought their party leaders and asked for everyone’s understanding for their choice of action; the players who were more middling in terms of their sense of responsibility simply gave a half-arsed excuse about being busy and left the party; those who were completely irresponsible simply just ghosted the party without even a word.

Brother Assist was currently very chipper. As the employer hiring the Priests as mercenaries, he would of course pick those who were of quality, and all the Priests were asked to divulge their total stats distribution as well as their spell power stat. To a Priest, their spell power directly affected just how much HP each of their Heals would confer.

As for the method of payment that everyone was very concerned with, Brother Assist had used the names of Thousand Miles Drunk, Sword Demon, Svelte Dancer, Drifting, Slyris, and other big names in Parallel World like they were vegetables on display. In Parallel World, level represented everything, and when it came to these known experts, players would naturally feel that their reputable renown would of course mean they would not be able to pull any tricks like swindling them of their fees here. As such, now that these players no longer had any issues regarding payment. Plenty of players, who had managed to pass Brother Assist’s selection, were instructed on how to sneak their way into the city and they happily made their way toward Yunduan City.

“Over here!!!” Brother Assist’s mercenary recruitment drive happened to be proceeding in full swing when a troop of reinforcements gatecrashed from out of nowhere, pointing at Brother Assist and July as they charged right for the pair.

“Oh dear!” Brother Assist was taken aback, quickly shouting for July to flee. All he could feel was his heart thumping rhythmically against his chest as he heard the players behind him yell endlessly, “Kill them! Kill them both!”

In the end, all the Priests were enraged by this interruption. During this period of economic downturn, finding a job was not easy, and this abrupt appearance of players halfway out of nowhere ended up driving a wedge between them and an avenue of earning. All the Priests felt as if their interests were being assaulted in broad daylight, and they immediately called for their friends and comrades to their cause.

Most of the Priests had just left their own groups so as to earn this one-time side income, and some of their friends were basically nearby while others were even accompanying them outright. All the unaffiliated players very quickly came together and were all keen to get rid of these people who were denying their Priests from making some money.

“Screw this, mind your own business! What has this got to do with any one of you?” The players who were hunting down their quarry yelled angrily when the unaffiliated players attacked them, and they made a fundamental mistake. When they were most definitely at a disadvantage in terms of their numbers, they should not be in the least bit arrogant, because no one liked arrogance. Thus, several players who had been too lazy to act were all riled up by their reaction. All of them worked together and rapidly dealt with this bunch of pursuers.

“Thank you everyone, thank you all very much,” Brother Assist had immediately stopped running when he realized how the situation had escalated, and had been secretly watching the joke unfold by itself from the sidelines. These unaffiliated players were truly unbridled, not to mention that the reinforcement that these Priests ended up calling were the parties that they had been with the numerical superiority in this instance was huge; they barely wasted much strength when they cleared out the guild members, and they all felt what they had done was akin to stepping on an ant that tried to bite them. When they saw Brother Assist and July appear once more, all of them quickly rushed over to them to apply for the job, and Brother Assist continued to hire the Priests they needed.

—

“That was a misstep... D*mm*t. All the players grinding there are on their side...” The players from Colored Clouds that had all been slain immediately reported to Gu Xiaoshang what happened the moment they respawned back in the encampment. The party of men that attempted to assault Brother Assist and July had of course been sent by Gu Xiaoshang. After knowing the enemy’s battle plan from her other members in the city, she knew that she had to cut off the enemy’s ability to replenish their manpower. Gu Xiaoshang had originally thought that the city assaulters ran the show beyond the city walls, but it seemed like the neutral third party players were forever a force that should not be discounted.

“In that case, reorganize everyone. We’ll just rely on ambushing them.” After hearing the report, Gu Xiaoshang picked out several Thieves and Archers for this task and prepared to ambush them a second round.

Brother Assist was not good at PK, but he was no slouch when he applied his analytical ability to the situation. Having identified the enemy as men from Colored Clouds just now, he reckoned that the enemy would not give up just like that. While he had no clue as to how they would be attacking the next time, the pair worked a lot quicker than before, as neither was keen to find out. Brother Assist and July were naturally not about to continue their mercenary recruitment forever. Presently, the combatants inside the city were all the players that Brother Assist had sent over. He was very certain on the numbers, and he was convinced that they would make enough of an impact if they brought about 40 Priests back to the fight.

Thus, after they had rallied the 40 they needed, Brother Assist immediately halted their recruitment. While he sent the name list over to Gu Fei and the others, he told them about how Colored Clouds had begun to interfere with their mercenary recruitments out here.

“Loiter about a little; at the end of the day, the maps outside the city are much larger. Don’t make it easy for them to locate you,” Gu Fei said.

“I know that, but there’s really too many pairs of eyes. Hmm, it looks like being renowned isn’t exactly all it’s cracked up to be!” The word of mouth among the people had gotten so prevalent that a good majority of the players out in the grinding maps knew that the city defenders were recruiting others to their cause. Colored Clouds could inquire and find out where the two turned up wherever they ran off to, so unless the pair ran somewhere there was no one around, they would eventually be discovered. However, doing so would beat the purpose for heading out in the first place, since there would barely be anyone out there for Brother Assist or July to recruit.

“Just do what you deem fit; be flexible,” Gu Fei told them.

“Your guild leader is really exuberant right now,” Brother Assist said to July.

Entering the city would forever be easier than getting out. Because the final line of defense that they had to get past would always be the city guards, nobody could easily tell if somebody was on the side of the city defenders until it was too late, and by the time players had made it past this line of defense, the other players simply had no means to give chase even if they wanted to.

—

Regarding the situation inside the city, Gu Fei and the others were all staring at the Priest Academy, watching as their Priests all got massacred to the last person, completely incapable of doing anything. The situation over by the Mage Academy was even crueler, with Colored Cloud’s Kamikaze tactics essentially blowing up a good number of lives across job classes. Actually, the Mages from Amethyst Rebirth and Extremely Heaven Defying would also find themselves being respawned back in the Mage Academy after each death, so if the Mages from both sides continue to Kamikaze each other in this manner, the Mages from Colored Clouds who had already Kamikazed more would automatically be at a disadvantage over time. But the problem with this method lies in how the Mages from Amethyst Rebirth and Extremely Heaven Defying were all newly recruited, so neither Sword Demon nor Gu Fei felt at ease with the utilization of such a barbaric attack style.

Meanwhile, the sacrificial mentality found in these fresh recruits of both guilds were obviously nowhere near that the members of Colored Clouds demonstrated. These men wanted to preserve their own lives and obtain the greatest gain by surviving in this long City Wars event. That was why even though the Mages found themselves respawning in the Mage Academy as well, not only did they not treat it as an opportunity to gain the close combat advantage, they were instead afraid of the Mages from Colored Clouds Kamikazing themselves. All these respawned players were only thinking of how they could rapidly flee from this place. In fact, none of them even noticed that after these Mages from Colored Clouds had more or less cleared out the Mage Academy and were no longer using the Kamikaze method.

The difference between those who were grouped up and those who did not, those with the resolve and those without, was very evidently demonstrated here. The Mages of Colored Clouds were originally at the disadvantage, yet because of the weakness from the newcomers of Amethyst Rebirth and Extremely Heaven Defying, it allowed Colored Clouds to gain the absolute upper hand in this. There were Mages from Amethyst Rebirth and Extremely Heaven Defying who ran and those who did not run; those who did not flee had all been subjected to the repeated kills in the Mage Academy. Meanwhile, those who managed to successfully escape from the Mage Academy were all just standing around staring blankly. They had completely been awed to the point of shock by the Mages of Colored Clouds’ unrestrained display, and not a single one of them dared to step forward.

Southern Lone Blade tried to organize everyone, but that actually earned him the cold shoulder treatment instead.

“What’s the point of attacking without any Priests?”

“D*mm*t, just what are you up to here!? How did attacking the 30 or so Mages end up like this?”

“Where are the Archers? Send them over and Snipe them!”

“What about the Thieves? Get them to sneak in and ambush them!”

Complaints, pessimism, shirking of responsibility; A newly established group would be completely incapable of undergoing the temperance from this sort of brutal combat. The guild channel was lit up with complaining voices. Even Thousand Miles Drunk and all the ladies were unable to appease all the players at such a time.

“D*mm*t, what are you all afraid for!? Everyone charge right up and exchange your life with theirs, I want to see just how many times can they Kamikaze themselves!!” Southern Lone Blade was infuriated this time! Out of his gang of seven, Verdant Timber and Paddy Scented Pastures had both been killed during the latest Kamikaze attacks from Colored Clouds. It was only later when he realized that the enemy’s Kamikaze tactics seemed like it was indiscriminate on paper, but they would actually focus their attacks, opting to toss their spells at the Priests under certain conditions.

Four out of their gang of seven had already been met with the fate of dying 25 times and were eliminated from the event. This pained Southern Lone Blade greatly, thinking about the fate of his six comrades, especially after seeing these people on the retreat right in front of his eyes, he was truly angered by what he witnessed.

In the end, what Southern Lone Blade had offered was a very reasonable strategic decision, but nobody supported it. The selfish players were all thinking of distancing themselves as far away from clocking the 25 death limit. There was no way that they would be willing to sacrifice themselves and attack.

Ultimately, Southern Lone Blade’s call was actually answered by several timid ladies from Amethyst Rebirth that were standing by his side, and even that did not make the other players feel ashamed. Instead, they rationalized it as the ladies not understanding how to play the game, unable to clearly comprehend the situation they were in.

“D*MN THEM ALL!!!!” It was unwise for Southern Lone Blade to vent his frustration in the entire guild channel, so he could only report to Sword Demon and Gu Fei about how the situation got out of hand on his end.

“Mmm, how diligent do you expect those new recruit members to be?” Sword Demon heaved a long sigh that reflected the vicissitudes of life.

“They don’t have any future,” Southern Lone Blade spat.

“Brother Assist has employed a batch of Priests as mercenaries from outside the city. They will be making their way into the city one after another, can you guys head to the east city gates to receive them? At the same time, call the players who had just died to gather at the east gates as well. We’ll go for a direct confrontation,” Sword Demon said.

“Will such a group be alright?” Southern Lone Blade had seen through the apparent weaknesses.

“We’re not going to be depending on them to succeed. We will mainly be relying on our elites as our main force. We simply need to arrange for a Warrior and Priest formation to help provide cover and that will do,” Sword Demon said.

“Then what about the Mage Academy? Are we going to ignore it?” Southern Lone Blade was unreconciled with that!

“Miles, bring a squad over,” Sword Demon explained.

“Oh? What squad?”

“Your Mage Squad.”

“Oh? Oh. I see,” Southern Lone Blade lifted his head and saw the six-player Mage group that Gu Fei was leading. They had abandoned that now pointless ambush spot outside the Priest Academy, and had swiftly hurried over to the mess in the Mage’s Academy.

“What’s the situation?” Gu Fei asked Southern Lone Blade.

“A bunch of fools,” Southern Lone Blade angrily grunted. This was also the first time he took charge of a large scale battle and the result had been severely disappointing. He was feeling out of sorts, especially toward those players who had scattered.

Gu Fei and the others walked over to the Mage Academy’s entrance and took a glance and saw the raging fires that were still going inside. Meanwhile, the players outside the place looked on emotionlessly, and the only one doing anything about the situation was actually the Archers. But after the Archers took out their bow, all of them hesitated and did not dare to fire. They were all new members of the guild, and they could not even differentiate which of the Mages are their own.

“Let’s call the Mages to continue making their way outward,” Gu Fei said.

“They have been doing that the entire time,” Southern Lone Blade said.

“Okay, then let’s head on in and reinforce them,” Gu Fei led the five Mages with him and charged toward the Academy. He had his eye on a certain position and Blinked right over in front of everyone else. When the two Mages, both on the left and right side of Gu Fei respectively, saw that an additional Thousand Miles Drunk had appeared, they immediately thought to initiate their Kamikaze, but Gu Fei’s hand was much faster, and he gave each a punch to interrupt their spellcasting. He did not even kill the two after, merely using his punches and kicks to beat the two as they retreated step by step.

Colored Clouds’ battle tactics here were originally just to relinquish their own lives, and it was really no different whether they Kamikazed or let their own comrades sacrifice them. The Mages by the side saw the two of them incapable of casting any spells and quickly tossed a spell over in an attempt to insta-kill them alongside with Gu Fei. In the end, the time they took to wave their magic staves, there was already a spell that came flying over to interrupt their spellcasting just a moment sooner. Drifting and the other Mages had entered the Mage Academy by this time and as apex experts, they had very calmly assessed the situation on the battlefield, the interrupts, constraints, and what they needed to do; they did not blindly charge in and clash in terms of their spell power or their Kamikaze.

“Icy Mirage!!” Drifting used one of his signature moves first, and the mirages splitting forth from him caused the enemy to bombard wildly. This drew the firepower away from the empty spaces, allowing the other four to each make their moves. By not focusing on decimating the enemy, they proceeded to anticipate when their enemy would cast their spells and interrupt them accordingly.

The trapped Mages suddenly discovered that there were many spaces being created as a result, and they were finally rewarded for sticking it to the end to fight their way out. In that moment, three players escaped, and the numbers continued to grow as time went by. The players outside the Mage Academy were dumbfounded watching this scene unfold before them. They were just six Mages, yet they were able to have nearly full control of the situation inside the Academy. Just Gu Fei’s attack alone had already entangled with six players, and the six were truly experiencing a fate that was no worse than death. Gu Fei barely did any damage with his attacks, yet not a single one of the enemies could unleash a single spell as each of them was being interrupted in a very timely fashion.

Over with Drifting, his Icy Mirage had managed to lure away a huge part of the enemy’s firepower, even though he had also died some time during this assault, but he had already gone through the process of at least registering his account to Yunduan City, so at the very least, he did not get sent back to his old city.

The other four coordinated with Drifting as they controlled the enemy until the Mages from Amethyst Rebirth and Extremely Heaven Defy had completely withdrawn from the battle. This process, aside from Gu Fei, had caused the others to die occasionally, but that did not change their successful extraction.

“Shall we all leave?” Gu Fei turned around to ask.

“We’re leaving,” Drifting shouted.

“Okay!” Gu Fei turned around and cast a rotating Twin Incineration as six flashes of white light appeared.