I decided to switch targets and kill the archer first!

I immediately locked onto Great Shot and activated Charge!

Swhoosh!

During the one second Great Shot was stunned, I slashed his head with Slayer Slash and Ice Ray!

985!

1107!

It was an instakill. An archer with Divine Valor buff would have given us too much trouble and had to be disposed of ahead of time.

I sent my Dark Wasp after the enemy bard, but again she proved herself to be extremely competent. She raised one hand and applied a shielding light onto her magic knight and increased his Defense my 20%! It was Death Match!

The magic knight, One Rides as Thousands roared like he was high on drugs and fought against Gui Guzi and Du Thirteen. His swings and jabs were so powerful that Du Thirteen actually faltered and had to fall back!

Puchi!

A Flame Thrust skewered Du Thirteen and killed him. Turns out One Rides As Thousands wasn’t lacking in the offensive department either!

Gui Guzi shouted his own battle cry and hit One Rides As Thousands with a Death Combo.

227!

284!

225!

However, the damage he did was shockingly poor. After his Defense was raised by Death Match, One Rides As Thousands was practically unkillable by conventional means. Gui Guzi was a pretty good attacker, but not even he was able to do much against the magic knight!

One Rides As Thousands drank an HP pot right in front of Gui Guzi before bursting into laughter. “Is this all the legendary Undead Knight can do? Die!”

Gui Guzi didn’t give up and clashed valiantly against One Rides As Thousands again, but...

Boom!

The sky turned dark, and an Ice Dragon Howl dropped down from the sky!

The powerful spell struck Gui Guzi dead on, and before he could do anything, a Rank 6 Fireball exploded against his body. The enemy mage was single-handedly turning this fight in One Rides As Thousands’ favor!

“Die!”

Gui Guzi had already lost a ton of HP after tanking two spells in a row, and the enemy magic knight’s Blaze only made things worse. Gui Guzi had never lost this badly since the start of the tournament!

Suddenly, he heard a shout from behind him. “Little Gui, out of the way!”

My weapon glowed red with undead energy. The moment Gui Guzi dashed to the side, I took his spot and slashed One Rides As Thousands twice as quick as lightning!

So what if he had Death Match and 20% extra Defense? He was still going to die!

Pardon “missed” its target as intended. Then, a bloody Desperate Gambit hit the magic knight like a truck!

MISS!

2954!

One Ride As Thousands stared at his empty HP bar in disbelief. He never thought that he would be one-shot even after he was buffed with Death Match!

In fact, he was just unlucky. If the hit hadn’t been a critical hit, the attack would’ve dealt 1477 HP only!

One Rides As Thousands died. It was also around this time that Beiming Xue broke through the enemy mage’s Magic Shield and killed him with two basic attacks. The enemy warrior was clearly no match for me, and he died in shame after he hit me twice and dealt less than 600 damage.

Now, Beiming Xue, the enemy bard, and I were the only ones left on the battlefield. Gui Guzi had died under a Fire Dragon Roar not long ago because no one was around to heal him. However, bards had no offensive power to speak of, and Beiming Xue and I were both powerful attackers in our own right. This round already belonged to Bloody Mercenaries.

The pretty bard, Gong Shang Xue Zhi Yu, gave us a helpless smile before surrendering. “We lost!”

She conceded the round!

The system announced our victory as the bard was teleported out of the stage. One more point and we would join the Top 8!

Swhoosh!

After we returned to the edge of the stage, Gui Guzi asked seriously, “How should we fight the next round?”

“Let’s kill that bard first.” Du Thirteen suggested. “Those bastards fight like they’re high on aphrodisiac after she buffed them. It’s too much to handle!”

But I shook my head and said, “No, that won’t work. Their bard is extremely skillful, and she knows her distance extremely well. It won’t be easy to kill her. They even predicted that we would prioritize killing her, which was why we got led by the nose almost the entire fight just now. We made a tactical mistake, or this would’ve been a much easier fight.”

Mamate asked, “What should we do then, Lu Chen?”

I clenched my fists and smiled confidently. “It’s simple. The bard is just a support. Even if her buffs were five times stronger than what they are now, she’s useless if she has no one to apply them to. Their archer is clearly their strongest physical attacker, and their magic knight is their strongest defender. All we need to do is delete their archer from existence before he can do anything, and the match is ours!”

“Yeah, boss is wise!” Beiming Xue nodded repeatedly. “It’ll be nice to not lose Mamate so early into the fight again. It feels terrible to fight without a healer behind you, right Gui Guzi?”

Mamate wept.

And so did Gui Guzi.

…...

The second round was about to begin, and both teams were teleported onto the stage again.

Just like before, a serious atmosphere hung above everyone’s heads as we glared at our respective opponents in silence.

The system started counting down. The fight was about to begin!

Charge!

This time, I set my sights on the enemy archer. He’s not getting the chance to hurt my men again!

Great Shot clearly wasn’t expecting me to target him right from the start. My Charge landed successfully and stunned him for one second!

Slayer Slash!

MISS!

Fuck, his evasion must be pretty high. I wasn’t expecting to miss my skill.

But it didn’t matter, because I still had Ice Ray!

Puchi!

The Ghost Ice Soul turned into an icicle and penetrated my opponent’s chest, dealing a whopping 1102 points of damage!

Archer’s HP scaling was barely any better than Mage’s, and Great Shot only had around 1000 HP. He couldn’t withstand my Rank 6 Ice Ray at all!

Great Shot groaned and collapsed to his knees. Panicking, the enemy bard applied both her Divine Valor and Death Match on the magic knight instead. It was in fact the right decision. One Rides As Thousands had pretty good Attack and Defense in the first place, so he was positively ravaging our formation with his Wasp after the female bard turned him into a mini god of war!

After Great Shot was killed, I immediately set my sights on the enemy mage!

My Dark Wasp flew straight to the mage and unleashed Flurry, destroying his Magic Shield right away. He tried to escape, but he didn’t expect me running at him from the side with my weapon already poised to strike!

973!

It was a basic attack, but it was a one-shot nonetheless!

The combination of Undead Energy and my Ghost Ice Soul made me a living reaper to all cloth-armor players!

Next, I moved onto the middle-aged warrior. Actually, their entire team was made up of middle-aged adults, and I felt terribly sorry for destroying them because it was rare to find people who embraced gaming so wholeheartedly at their age. But it was either them or us, and I wasn’t going to give up on the first place or the precious Hero’s Token that came with it.

My Pardon and Desperate Gambit hit the uncle at nearly the same time and dealt 2253 damage. He was one-shot as I expected him to be. His Defense was much poorer than the magic knight’s.

At this point, the only players left in the enemy team were the magic knight and the bard. Right now, One Rides As Thousands was fighting against Gui Guzi, but this time Yamete was alive to keep the latter healthy. Although One Rides As Thousands had Divine Valor and Death Match, Gui Guzi was able to fight him like a champ.

In fact, the Magic Knight didn’t have nearly enough healing to make full use of his buffs. His HP was dropping like a rock, and it was only a matter of time before he was killed on his feet!

Thud!

Beiming Xue took him out of his misery with a Devil Piercing Arrow. The bard shook her head with a smile and forfeited the round again!

Ding~!

System Notice: Congratulations, your team [Bloody Mercenaries] has entered the quarterfinals!

…...

Swhoosh!

Beiming Xue cheered after we were teleported out of the stage; an understandable reaction considering that this was a fight way harder than all the previous ones. We had lost three players during the first round, and Du Thirteen still died during the second round even though we were whooping our opponent’s asses.

I turned toward Du Thirteen and asked, “How’d you die just now, Thirteen? I didn’t even notice…”

Du Thirteen replied, “I ate a Fireball while you were wrecking the mage…”

“Fuck! Seriously?”

Beiming Xue giggled. “Thirteen’s a feeder, huh?”

Tears immediately started pouring down Du Thirteen’s cheeks.

Beiming Xue quickly added. “Gui Guzi and Mamate didn’t get any kills either. Boss took out nearly everyone on his own…”

Gui Guzi and Mamate wept again.

…...

The last match of the Top 16 matches was Plum Wine VS Mad Dragon!

Mad Dragon’s team was led by their guild leader, Roaming Dragon. He was accompanied by the so-called “Gemini Stars of Mad Dragon”, Iron Pardon and Inconstant; the charming Archer Coldmoon Rose, and finally a cute-looking priest called Mad Dragon Sweetie.

Coldmoon Rose and Mad Dragon Sweetie were standing next to Roaming Dragon and holding his arm. Roaming Dragon himself was clearly enjoying the moment.

It was not a sight for sore eyes. “Man, Roaming Dragon is one happy man…”

Beiming Xue saw my envy and smiled. She walked up to me and grabbed my right arm, saying, “Are you happy now, boss? Though, I guess we’re still lacking one person…”

Mamate walked up with perfect timing and grabbed my left arm. He grinned at me and said, “Now you’re definitely happy, aren’t you?”

Me: “Fuck…”

…...

The battle began shortly. Roaming Dragon had above-average equipment, skill and tactical acumen, not to mention that he was accompanied by fierce generals like Iron Pardon, Inconstant, and Coldmoon Rose. Mad Dragon crushed the Plum Wine team with barely any effort and became the last team to join the Top 8!

The Top 8 teams were finally decided. Their names and the match-ups were displayed on the big screen.

Upper Bracket:

Lover’s Place VS Snowy Cathaya

Peach Garden VS VVS

Lower Bracket:

Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls VS Gods of Destruction

Bloody Mercenaries VS Mad Dragon

……

The tournament was approaching its end, and all the competing teams belonged to some of the hottest forces in Floating Ice City. “Who Will Fight Me” was designed to be a gaming festival from the start, and all the teams who managed to stand out despite the fierce competition were sure to command great power in the future struggle for the sovereignty of the Floating Ice City region.