Chapter 138 : New Possibilities
New Possibilities
"Run!"
Seeing the girl exuding murderous intent in her words and actions, the Mage's expression immediately changed. He shouted to warn his teammates and then turned to flee.
After all, the person standing before them was none other than the world's current number one ranked player, already at the terrifying level 10. The game had only been open for two hours, and she could solo world-class bosses—a feat that made fighting her, even as a trio, a one-way ticket to death.
However, after saying so many bad things about himself earlier, how could Chen Zixuan possibly let them go so easily? He immediately strode forward in pursuit.
Among the three, the Mage posed the greatest threat. After many tough battles, taking out the hardest target first had nearly become Chen Zixuan's conditioned reflex.
Though the Mage reacted quickly, dashing several meters away before the other two even responded, Chen Zixuan was even faster. In the blink of an eye, he easily caught up.
His dagger, enchanted with [Wound Tear], pierced precisely into the Mage's back. Both the red Physical damage and the blue Magic damage were triggered simultaneously. At the same time, the Mage entered a Bleeding state, losing 1% of his max HP every second for thirty seconds.
Only then did the remaining two react. Seeing Cecilia go after the Mage, they felt a brief relief and hurriedly fled in the opposite direction. However, they hadn't anticipated Cecilia's speed. In the blink of an eye, she had taken out the strongest Mage and then turned to chase after them.
-298!
Another swift, deadly strike. The slower Swordsman fell right after the Mage.
Hearing the miserable screams behind him and realizing escape was impossible, the last remaining Sharpshooter cursed internally. He simply turned around, drew his bow, and unleashed his most powerful skill.
[Continuous Shot], a level 5 exclusive skill for Sharpshooters, consumes 45 mana, has a cooldown of 120 seconds, and a range of 50 meters.
Skill effect: Fires two arrows in quick succession. The first arrow deals 0.8x Physical damage and, upon hitting, reduces the target's Agility by 30% for 0.85 seconds. The second arrow deals 1.5x Physical damage and increases the Sharpshooter's attack speed by 40% for 5 seconds after hitting.
For the Sharpshooter class, this was a must-learn skill. While not the strongest, it was already quite good.
The first arrow dealt slightly less damage than a normal attack, but its 30% slow effect counted as crowd control, and it made the second arrow much harder to dodge. If you couldn't avoid the first, the follow-up was even harder to evade.
With two crisp sounds of arrows slicing through the wind, both arrows shot rapidly toward Chen Zixuan.
The distance was about a dozen meters. Given Chen Zixuan's reaction and speed, a slight sidestep would've easily dodged both arrows.
Nothing could be done about it—this was the reality of class suppression. Assassins with high Agility and burst damage were the nemesis of Sharpshooters, mages, and Priests.
Although Chen Zixuan's class was not Assassin, he was dozens of times more terrifying than Assassins of the same level.
However, at this moment, Chen Zixuan suddenly wanted to see how strong other players really were. So he stopped dodging, forcibly adjusted his stance, and took both arrows from the Sharpshooter head-on with his chest.
Ding! Ding!
With two light metallic clangs, sparks briefly flared on the white breastplate of the silver-haired girl.
-1!
Critical! -8!
Watching the two numbers float up above the girl's head, the Sharpshooter's face went blank, a surge of complicated feelings welling up inside.
What was this?
Was he not fighting a player, but a loli-shaped Gundam?
Meanwhile, Chen Zixuan, who just felt like he'd been bitten by two mosquitoes, relaxed.
With his current level and panel values, he wasn't quite ready to challenge bosses above his grade, but ordinary players essentially posed no threat to him whatsoever.
These days, Chen Zixuan didn't plan to clear his red-name status. Instead, he'd focus on leveling up in the Mutant Jungle. If any oblivious players dared to disturb him, he'd just kill them on the spot. Not only did they give experience, but the drop rate for gear was much higher than with monsters.
Was there anything better than this?
Without hesitation, while the Sharpshooter was still dazed, Chen Zixuan dashed forward and instantly flashed in front of him, crouched and drove his knee up—just like in a street fight—and kicked him in the chest, leaving a size 35 shoe print.
A powerful force instantly sent the Sharpshooter flying, dealing 78 points of Physical damage.
This move had little purpose—partly to save weapon durability, but also to send a message: See that? Even my kicks deal more damage than your best attacks.
Finally, watching the Sharpshooter's body fly backward, Chen Zixuan slowly raised his right hand, white palm glowing red—[Blood Drain], activate!
-326!
Even without the Bleeding state's critical multiplier, killing an ADC five levels lower was still overwhelming.
Before he hit the ground, the Sharpshooter's HP had been fully depleted. He crashed down, broke into particles of light, and was instantly sent back to Main City.
After clearing out the three weaklings, Chen Zixuan exhaled, opened his personal panel, and saw his experience bar jump by about 10%. He felt a barely noticeable trace of amusement.
As expected, killing players awarded much more experience than killing monsters of the same level.
Just killing three level-five players netted this much experience. If he'd hunted elite monsters instead, it would've taken at least a dozen to achieve the same effect.
Proving this discovery gave him hope.
If, after slaying the Sawtooth Demon King Crocodile, his experience still wasn't enough to reach level 15, then Chen Zixuan would have no choice but to abandon the human faction, fully commit to the Darkborn side, and turn his blade on players—embarking on a path to become enemy of the world.
Although this choice might offend the overwhelming majority of the player base, Chen Zixuan no longer cared.
He was about to turn into a girl—could anything be worse?
Unfortunately, none of the three players dropped any gear.
Chen Zixuan wasn't disappointed though. The total value of all the gold coins in his backpack already exceeded two thousand. There was nothing to spend it on for the short term, and with the end of days approaching in a year, more money was nothing but a number to him.