Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

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This gang of robbers were extremely depressed. They had not expected to find themselves in such a situation. Players that had never really crossed blades with Gu Fei would never know just how terrifying it was to contend with him. Most people thought he was a Mage that had spells that could insta-kill targets, but that assessment alone would be an insult to Gu Fei.

Just take the current situation, as an example. He was a Mage that had run out of Mana, yet he was still able to throw the entire party into a chaotic mess. That was something nobody could replicate.

Gu Fei shuttled between the Mages and Archers as he bullied them without mercy, making sure to keep a half a meter distance from them from moment to moment. It was quite a despicable tactic. Some of the Archers had already managed to get away, but whenever they tried to fire their arrows back in, Gu Fei would dodge and the shot fired would end up shafting one of their own. Gu Fei would casually bat the arrows away if they used Homing Projectiles, and given how there was quite a bit of cooldown to the skill, they were unable to use it again for a short while.

At the start, Gu Fei was rather ruthless with his attacks, and his constant attacks had even managed to kill off a Mage. But he soon discovered that these Mages actually made for really good meatshields. Mages were usually not very agile, which made it easy for Gu Fei to run circles around them.

So, whenever Warriors or Thieves managed to squeeze their way in, they were never able to find the right opportunity to strike. Whenever a Thief wanted to score a Backstab on him, they would always find Gu Fei with another Mage behind him. And if the Warrior wanted to use Charge or Cyclone? Someone tried that and it turned out just like the Archers. The moment Gu Fei dodged it, they would end up hurting their own instead.

“Disperse! Mages, get away from one another!” the gang leader shouted out in panic.

But they were stuck in that cramped street, with walls flanking either side. Where could they disperse to? Gu Fei had already accurately homed in on this issue and was currently utilizing the terrain advantage as best as he could.

But even so, under the protection of the Warriors, Thieves, and other classes, the Mages were slowly able to shift themselves to the back. These melee job classes had been playing a game of cat and mouse with Gu Fei for quite a long time, and he already knew he was no match for them. Upon seeing that they were about to bear down on him in close combat, roaring as they came rushing towards Gu Fei, the man simply turned his head and fled!

There were Archers ahead of him, but when they saw Gu Fei running straight towards them, each of them was actually so unsettled that they did not dare to fire their arrows at him.

Why was that? It was entirely because Gu Fei was no ordinary player. They had already noted how this Mage was absolutely capable of dodging the arrows they shot at him. Firing off arrows that missed Gu Fei was nothing, but now that their own comrades were right behind Gu Fei, arrows they fired at this point would only become friendly fire if Gu Fei dodged them.

At the end of the day, the manpower that this gang of robbers had mustered did not reach the critical mass needed to endanger Gu Fei. Their Archers, Mages and such only numbered slightly over a dozen. Had they possessed several dozen of them in their ranks, Gu Fei would most likely have been burnt to ash from the total firepower of their Mages or already became skewered like a hornet’s nest under the barrage of arrows from the Archers.

“Stop him!” the gang leader angrily shouted, when he saw how useless his Archers were, standing about doing nothing.

The Archers stared at their boss as he gave the order. Thinking that since their leader had essentially given the green light to shoot their own, they immediately obliged and daringly released their arrows. Thus, Gu Fei dodged and batted the arrows that came flying towards him, leaving him unscathed while the Thieves behind him howled and complained, their curses rising in volume as they sustained damage.

“Stop squabbling!” The gang leader realized that order he had given had been a mistake and was feeling miserable.

“Surround that guy!” The leader realized asking the Archers to “stop him” was rather pointless. He may as well be more specific with his instructions.

The street was only so wide, it should not be too much trouble for the Archers to line up in a row and hold Gu Fei in place. After hearing that cry, Gu Fei was also quite anxious on his end. He hurried to adjust his pace as he strafed towards the wall. The enemy had no idea what Gu Fei was intending to do as he stuck near the wall and ran. Some of the Archers diagonally opposite him even dared to fire their arrows him. The wall was right beside him, so there was no chance of friendly fire.

In the end, just as Gu Fei was about to run right into the row of Archers, the two players he was running right into were already reaching out their arms in attempt to grab hold of him when Gu Fei suddenly kicked at the wall beside him.

Gu Fei did not have enough Strength to send himself flying up towards the roof like Eternal Dominion did, but he was able to use the kick to bolster his jump a little higher. Next, he used his hand to get support from the wall as his other foot stepped on to the shoulder of the Archer before him, easily getting over the wall the players had formed.

The Archers exclaimed as they turned around, but Gu Fei had already landed and run off a good three meters. None of their men were anywhere ahead, so the Archers hurried to fire arrows at their target even as their leader angrily called for their Mages to attack.

But had all the preparatory work Gu Fei had previously done been for naught? The Mages had long since shifted to the back of the mob, so now that they were suddenly required to move up to the front created a scene of chaos that Gu Fei capitalized on, and he managed to get far away. There was no way for the Mages to block his way through a spell bombardment anymore.

“Chase him!” the leader roared angrily.

Gu Fei did not look in the least bit cool when he made his escape. He knew that his death was an eventuality if the battle dragged on any longer, so he quickly fled after disrupting the enemy’s formation. He was quite literally running for his life, not even caring to evade the arrows that sailed after him. In fact, an arrow had already embedded itself into his shoulder as he ran.

The Archers were still chasing after him with their arrows, and Gu Fei was not even certain if his HP would be slowly whittled down if this went on any longer. But the intersection was already right ahead, so all he needed to do was sprint over to take the turn and his chances of survival would surely increase tremendously. It was just at this moment when Gu Fei spied a head pop out from the corner and shrank back quickly.

“Don’t tell me there’s an ambush there!” Gu Fei’s heart seized up as he momentarily feared to get too close to it. He made his way to the middle of the street in a few strides and finally reached the intersection. Gu Fei turned his head to look, hoping to be able to tell if there was an ambush laying in wait for him before making the decision.

In the end, all he saw was a group of extremely reprehensible-looking men prone behind the wall, each of them looking shifty. The moment Gu Fei dashed into view, he saw all these men jerk their heads towards him before revealing a look of pleasant surprise.

“Drunk bro, come over quick!” someone shouted.

Gu Fei was no longer tense like before, since he had recognized these men as the members of Forever in Flowers.

He quickly darted into the alley with them as Sakurazaka Moony waved, “Brothers, it’s time for us to enter the fray!”

In the next moment, all Gu Fei saw was these guys lacksadiscally get up from the ground as they gleefully lifted their bows at the ready and leapt out from the street together.

“Fire!” Sakurazaka Moony shouted.

“Fire!” the rest of the players echoed, with some even despicable whistling as they did so. Gu Fei felt a little embarrassed to mix around with this lot, before looking at the lady Vast Lushness standing by the side, looking calm and composed.

A habit that becomes naturalized, that’s a saying alright, Gu Fei thought to himself.

Those Archers from that gang of robbers had recklessly rushed forward after their quarry with their bows raised at shoulder level, looking like they were a SWAT team ready to apprehend a fugitive. In the end, they had not expected that the moment Gu Fei turned the corner, several players would leap out and take his place instead.

“It’s an ambush!” the Archers yelled, even as arrows rained upon them.

Forever in Flowers consisted of mostly Archers. Fireball was among them hoping to toss out a spell, but his disorderly and undisciplined comrades ended up bumping into him all over the place, not giving him a single chance to complete his spell incantation successfully.

Even though it was an utter mess, fighting in this sort of narrow street only helped to amplify the lethality of the volley of arrows these forty Archers released. Those enemy Archers that were right in front were unable to survive this onslaught, all of them turning into white light as the arrows skewered them.

The Thieves were right behind those Archers. The cramped street afforded them no cover, and there was barely any space for them to maneuver, so they suffered the same fate when the next volley of arrows arrived.

The Mages were the next in line, the bunch that had previously been tossing their spells at Gu Fei. They had low HP and defense, so they also died in a single salvo.

The three waves of attack each eliminated the three main damage-dealing job classes of the gang, and the next group that followed after were the Warriors.

“Guardians! Get Guardians!” That gang leader finally reacted after watching waves of his men die to the Archer fire. The Guardians held their shields and came rushing out, easily blocking the Archers’ attack.

“Disperse, quick disperse yourselves!” It would be far too foolish to rush forward into the line of fire at this time.

“Onwards!” Sakurazaka Moony commanded his men to move forward. It was now time for these Archers to shine. Everyone had their bows raised, acting as if they were Special Agent 007.

“Now it’s time for me to shine!” Fireball leapt to his feet as he joined his comrades. The enemy this time round were the Warriors with high physical defense. Logically speaking, it was time for a Mage like him to go nuts.

“Scram!” in the end, the physically weak Fireball was once more shoved out of the group by the Archers.

Fireball was incensed! He had no idea when Gu Fei ended up next to him when he turned round. The man was munching on an apple with his left hand as his right rummaged through his dimensional pocket and produced a Mage’s robe, before lifting that as well as his Moonlit Nightfalls right next to Fireball. “Here. I’ll let you have a taste of supremacy.”

Fireball was a little stunned when he took it from Gu Fei’s hand. He started taking short breaths after he examined the Stats of the two items. He quickly replaced his own robes with the Midnight Spirit Robe and directly tossed his magic staff to the side. He raised Moonlit Nightfalls up in the air and pointed it at the opposing formation, “Descending Wheel of Flames, descend!”

A fiery glow appeared from thin air high up in the sky as Fireball chanted this, and it abruptly made its descent.

The street was silent in that instant as the center of the enemy’s formation was gouged out by a huge swath of white light.

Fireball was a conventional Mage, focusing primarily on the Intelligence Stat. He often used his AoE spell when grinding, so his proficiency was far higher than that of Gu Fei. Now that he was wearing the Midnight Spirit Robe and had Moonlit Nightfalls equipped as his weapon, the spell damage that he dished out was far stronger than Gu Fei could muster.

While Gu Fei could only insta-kill the job classes with lower HP with his AoE spell, Fireball was able to reduce the Warriors into dust now that he had those two OP items equipped. Of course, this was not an absolute. There were still some that had managed to survive, but Fireball had also cast a Blazing Tree of a Thousand Infernos right after, which was why everything had became quiet.

“As... As expected of the Insta-kill Mage...” those lucky members from that gang of robbers that survived stuttered after witnessing this sight. Their leader had just lost his life under the oppressive power of those two spells as well.

The Archers from Forever in Flowers were all surprised by this indomitable display of power that had cleansed the battlefield so thoroughly. Even the toughest and most resilient Warrior could not survive that one attack, huh? Everybody subconsciously wondered just what would happen if such a spell were to land on themselves, and their hearts instantly palpitated rapidly. They had all forgotten to continue firing their arrows as they turned back in unison.

Behind them was a Mage decked out in a fine black robe, with his head lowered. The sword in his hand was placed in a pose that kept him veiled. Upon taking in the atmosphere that had pervaded, that Mage slowly raised his head and flashed a sly smile, “That wasn’t too bad!”

Dead silence.

The crisp sound of a man biting off an apple interrupted this. Gu Fei continuing to munch on his apple as he said to Fireball, “Alright, that’s enough heroics out of you. Return me my gear!”

“F*CK!” Everybody finally realized what was going on as they surrounded Fireball to beat him up.