Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

Oathless Sword’s expression turned ashen. At the first chance he got, he sent out a message to Young Master Han, “Crap. Deep Waters is here!”

“Deep Waters?” Young Master Han was astonished when he got the message. He was not taken aback by the fact they had encountered trouble, but was instead shocked that Deep Waters would actually expend so much effort to hound them all the way to Luori City.

“Even Deep Waters is here!?” the others naturally exclaimed when they heard the news.

Young Master Han helplessly nodded, “That guy’s always such a pest.”

War Without Wounds nodded in understanding, even showing an expression of pride as he commented, “To be able to stay together with a lady for seven MMOs, you can imagine how great he is at being a pest.”

The others glared at him in contempt.

“Now what do we do?” Brother Assist anxiously asked.

“What else can we do? There’s no way he can make it in time,” Young Master Han shrugged.

“Did you not make any arrangements for such an event?” Everybody present was clear when it came to Young Master Han’s temperament, and his penchant for acting shocked, just to keep everyone on their toes.

“Of course I did. It only makes sense to save our ace in the hole for the most crucial conundrum,” Young Master Han replied.

“Miles?” everyone exclaimed in unison.

Young Master Han neither confirmed nor denied this, which was as good as admitting to it.

“Miles has always been with them?” everybody asked. There were various moving parts for this current plan of theirs. The average player would only know a small portion of them, which was what most of the players from Luori City were aware of. The experts here naturally knew another portion of the plan, that Todd would take a different route into the city. At this point, none of them were aware of anything regarding Todd’s safety, and they had reason to believe that perhaps Oathless Sword himself had no idea of this either; this was where Young Master Han’s sadistic nature really infuriated people.

“Oathless Sword’s group left for the North Gate, which isn’t too far away from the prison,” Young Master Han explained.

“Oh...” the experts hummed together. They had long suspected that Young Master Han had been lying when he said Todd was headed to the North Gate, but it turned out to be otherwise. Since the Prison was near the North Gate, it made no difference if they entered via the East or North Gate; the only difference would be whether they travelled outside the city, or inside it.

“But how did you know the prison was near the North Gate? Did you have a friend here?” Brother Assist asked.

Young Master Han shook his head, “Miles told me.”

“Miles? He’s got a friend here?” Everyone was all the more astonished at this fact. They knew Gu Fei was a MMO newbie, so it was impossible for him to have any sort of old acquaintances in this game.

“Miles was the first to enter Luori City. He inquired after the route with some of the locals before suggesting that I send Oathless Sword over to the North Gate,” Young Master Han elaborated.

“He was the first to enter the city? Why? Just to inquire after the route?... Hmmm...” Everybody was still confused.

“He only did that in passing. More importantly, he needed to clear off the PK Value he had on him,” Young Master Han said.

“Oh...” Everybody immediately understood. With Gu Fei’s high PK value, slaying a few more people would easily result in him breaking the 30 ceiling once more. Considering the whole buttload of trouble that came with it, it was better if he cleared up what he could before a huge battle like this. They dared believe that he must have been equally busy himself in these past few hours, like everybody else.

At this point, the entirety of Young Master Han’s master plan had been laid out. In this final push, the players from Yunduan City were split into four separate fronts.

The first was made up of the majority of the players. While they were further split into four parties, they were actually considered to be a single front, meant to draw the attention of the enemy.

The second was Young Master Han and the team of elites he led. Pretending to head down the valley like this, they were acting as a diversion specifically for those elites from Luori City that could see through the first layer of his plan, as well as the men who had been stalking them for reasons unknown, who had turned out to be Southern Lone Blade and his squad. The seven men sprawling upon that large boulder viewing the matter from afar had long been spotted by Young Master Han. The spyglass he borrowed from Vast Lushness was far more powerful than a Sharpshooter’s Eagle Eyes. Not only did he know it was a seven-man squad, he even identified SLB himself. Everything else that happened afterwards had successfully played out in the exact manner he had directed.

The third front here was naturally the small team led by Oathless Sword that had Todd in tow. They mixed in with the players that were grinding and slowly made their way away from the battle, looking exactly like any of those grinders. With how both of those sides were neck deep in each other, why would there be anyone out there who would notice this small detail?

The fourth and final front was Gu Fei alone. Obviously, he was not the object of anybody’s attention since he was running solo, and with his fast movement speed, he had long since made his way to Luori City and began to clear his PK points doing Bounty Missions. He was meant to step out only at the critical moment to save Oathless Sword from any potential disaster.

“So will Miles make it in time?” Everyone was still rather worried.

Young Master Han did not reply to them.

------

Outside the Prison, Oathless Sword and Vast Lushness were standing on Todd’s left and right respectively. At the moment, there was a group of Archers right outside the entrance blocking their path into the building.

Up on the roof, Deep Waters had already stood up, condescendingly regarding them with folded arms as he gleefully said, “Bet you didn’t think I would make an appearance here, am I right?”

“Why would you be here?” Oathless Sword was also a veteran of the MMO Jianghu, talking to stall for time even as he noted the current situation he found himself in. Deep Waters did not seem to have too many men with him; He would have no problems holding on if he had more men with him right now, but it was a pity that all he had was Vast Lushness and himself.

“So? Bet you didn’t expect this at all!” Deep Waters laughed.

“Yeah. I totally did not expect this at all. How did you track us down?” The three-man team of Oathless Sword, Vast Lushness, and Todd had managed to elude everybody trying to get a bead on their whereabouts, yet they did not think that Deep Waters could so confidently camp out by the Prison like this. While that was truly surprising to him, he was honestly not too bothered by the answer to this question; all he was thinking about at the moment was how he could drag this out as much as possible.

“I’ll just tell you this one detail. As a guild, it is a requirement for members to wear their emblem in the most prominent place, just like you!” Deep Waters did not fall for Oathless Sword’s ploy, saying all this as simply as possible after picking at the emblem he wore on his chest.

“What do you mean by that?” Oathless Sword asked loudly.

Deep Waters was already ignoring him by this point, and raised his hand. “Kill them both!”

Just as he gave this command, a flash of light appeared among the Archers at the top of the steps. Someone had actually been insta-killed. A fiery red figure had already appeared on the top of the steps, looking absolutely chivarious and heroic as their short dagger flurried in the air in rounding slices. That figure even used its body as a weapon, knocking people all around as it capitalized on the uselessness of Archers in melee range.

As predicted, this person’s rampage within the two ranks of Archers left them all at a loss as to what to do. Quite a few of these Archers had already dispersed and fired off their arrows, causing a whole mess of arrows to fly in every direction. Deep Waters up on the roof quickly retracted his head back from the edge, as an arrow brushed within centimeters of his hair.

“It’s you again!” It was now Deep Waters’ turn to get mad. The red figure that appeared was none other than Svelte Dancer, the same lady that had slain him back in Linyin City. He was somewhat frustrated that she had once again appeared to upset things at such a crucial moment, yet he was even more aware of just how indomitable this woman was; sending this lot of Archers to face her head-on was as good as courting death!

Svelte Dancer did not even bother to look at Deep Water as she stabbed her dagger wildly at any Archer that looked to be firing their bows, while these Archers attempted to flee in all directions in their panic. Oathless Sword was over the moon when he saw this, using the opportunity he had been given to continue his charge to the Prison, but he did not expect an arrow from behind to land on his foot.

Oathless Sword believed he would definitely not be insta-killed by this one shot, so he did not take it seriously. However, he heard the sound of metal clanking in the next moment by that foot as a trap, a size smaller than the usual Hunter’s Trap that Hunters use, sprang out and snared his foot in place.

The jaws of the trap might be small, but Oathless Sword instantly found it difficult to move even an inch from his position. All the Archers had been scattered by Svelte Dancer and distanced themselves sufficiently by this point, and the metallic door that opened into the Prison stood freely before Oathless Sword, yet he was unable to even move. The level of anxiety he was feeling right now almost caused him to puke blood.

Svelte Dancer had been busy clearing a path, yet she spotted no movement behind her. She turned her head towards Oathless Sword and yelled furiously, “Get in there already, what are you posing for!”

Oathless Sword felt like crying, but no tears came out as he replied, “I’m trapped!”

Two thud sounds could be heard as two more arrows found their way into Oathless Sword’s body. Svelte Dancer was powerful, but fighting an enemy that numbered far above her own forces. While she may have managed to kill off two players in this one charge of hers, the remaining Archers had dispersed in different directions and those who had the chance made sure to fire an arrow towards Oathless Sword.

Thankfully, Oathless Sword was a Warrior through and through, so taking two arrows like this was not too much of a problem. Vast Lushness was also by his side, hastily bestowing her Heals on him.

However, no one knew how long the trap would take before it ran its course. Using those traps they encountered in Linyin City as a reference, Oathless Sword figured it would at least take a minute before he could move again, causing an insurmountable level of anxiety to surge within him... and suddenly felt something loosen by his ankles. He looked down and saw that the Trap had actually fallen off. Without a moment of hesitation, he took a large stride to continue his way onwards, yet instantly heard another metallic clang by his foot.

Oathless Sword felt his stomach lurch as he lowered his head to look. The old trap was gone, yet a new metallic jaw was now clamping down on his foot. Oathless Sword was almost driven crazy at this point, certain that it was Deep Waters’ handiwork, who was still up on the roof behind him. He spun his head around, looking to curse and vent his anger for a bit, yet was instead the recipient of an arrow hurtling right towards his temple, which left him speechless as his mouth hung agape.

Vast Lushness was shocked on her end; seeing him like this made her think he was about to die, so she quickly threw two more Heals over to him. Because Vast Lushness had advanced into the Dark Priest job class advancement, the effects of her Heals were nothing like before. Fortunately, she was a Priest that focused her stats purely on Intelligence, so the Heal she bestowed reflected this perfectly. It was at least able to do what it was meant to do.

Svelte Dancer was hoping she could help alleviate the danger and was chasing the Archers in a hurry when in her carelessness, she heard the clank of metal underneath her feet. She looked down and discovered that she had actually been ensnared by a trap as well!

She glanced about at the ground around her and finally realized that the whole lot of these Hunters that Deep Waters had brought along had been tossing out traps all over this flight of steps as they escaped. Normally, this sort of trap that was not properly buried would not be able to catch anybody, but the steps that led up to the Prison were not particularly wide, and with how many traps they had tossed out, all it took was a moment of carelessness for Svetle Dancer to be caught in one...