“Break!”

The Silver Blade Sword cut across my shoulder and tore a hole in the Obsidian Dragon Scale Armor, drawing blood. I lost over 4000 HP as Candlelight Shadow took the upper hand with a helix maneuver.

Rustle rustle...

My Barbarian War Boots skidded against the sand as I pressed the hilt of my sword to Candlelight Shadow’s chest before rushing past him in one smooth motion. The blade chased after my movement and drew a line where Candlelight Shadow’s neck was. He crouched quickly, but the Heaven-stealing Sword still scratched his helmet.

Chiang!

Sparks flew everywhere as a huge damage number popped above his head—4574!

……

Candlelight Shadow smiled cruelly and chased after me like an unrelenting ghost. I rushed him with equal fearlessness. The two of us followed an S-shape path until we met at the center and clashed swords against one another. The next moment, we threw a punch at each other at the same time!

Bang!

Both of us stumbled backward after taking a punch from the other party. My bloody cape flapping behind me and my sword shining like a lamp, I planted my foot on the sandy ground and charged Candlelight Shadow once more. My skills’ cooldowns were up, but I wasn’t going to use them. Oh no, I was going to kill Candlelight Shadow through pure technique and see if he still had the face to call himself China’s king of control after that!

“Heh!”

Candlelight Shadow grew harsher as he swam his way erratically toward me. The moment we were about to make contact, he leaped into the air and brought his sword down for an overhead strike!

I saw what he was doing, so I pumped strength into my legs and ran an intertwined double-S pattern toward Candlelight Shadow. It was the same helix maneuver he pulled on me earlier, an advanced technique that demanded exceptional reaction speed and judgment from its user. My path was like a circle, and I could launch a devastating attack from any point along that path. It was basically the upgraded version of the butterfly maneuver. However, Candlelight Shadow needed a second or so to complete one full helix pattern. With my current ability, I could do it in just 0.75 seconds!

“Hmm?”

A hint of astonishment flashed across Candlelight Shadow’s eyes as I appeared about 30 degrees behind his back. Then, I hit his exposed back with lightning speed. There was no parry, no Guard; just pure offense versus pure defense for once.

3764!

2981!

Despite being caught in a great disadvantage, Candlelight Shadow didn’t turn around to face me. He didn’t have the time to turn around anyway because I was about to hit him with a Desperate Gambit and delete all of his remaining HP!

“Hah!”

Candlelight Shadow did a back kick with his right leg and forced me to block it with the flat side of my sword. Chiang! His war boots hit me so hard that I was literally sliding across the floor. Overall speaking, Candlelight Shadow’s equipment was extremely good—even better than mine, frankly—so in a Strength versus Strength exchange, I actually didn’t have any advantage over him at all.

Back in reality, the audience members were holding their breaths unconsciously as two peak-level, maybe even Heavenly King–level players duked it out against one another. Helix maneuvers hadn’t been seen in a game for over a year, and today two peak-level players were using it to find a chink in the opponent’s armor and beat the other party! It was a level of competition no one had seen for a very long time!

……

Not far away, a low-health Li Chengfeng was chasing after God’s Dance and attempting to kill her, but things were not looking well for him at all. God’s Dance hadn’t lost her Magic Shield yet, and Li Chengfeng had lost too much health fighting the other members of Candle Dragon earlier. It was because the inexperienced girls of our party had died way too quickly to make an impact in the fight!

“Roar!”

God’s Dance fired a Dragon’s Roar, and Li Chengfeng dodged out of harm’s way with a beautiful zigzag. However, he couldn’t dodge the follow-up hurricane from God’s Dance that hit him for over 3500 HP and killed him where he stood. Shit, I’m the only one still alive in the party now!

God’s Dance ran up to Candlelight Shadow and said, “I’m here to help!”

Candlelight Shadow licked his lips and said, “Kill him!”

I gritted my teeth and activated Thunderous Charge, blitzing toward God’s Dance like a lightning bolt. I’ll kill her first and deal with Candlelight Shadow later!

But God’s Dance predicted that I would go after her and dodged my Charge with a lithe jump to the back.

Inside the party channel, Li Chengfeng said, “Vice leader, God’s Dance Flash still has 10 seconds of CD! She used it when she was fighting me!”

“Got it!”

I parried away a Fireball thrown in my direction while I ran toward God’s Dance. Magic could be parried as well, but the amount of damage reduced was 40% at most.

At the same time, I sensed Candlelight Shadow running toward me from behind. Sharp rocks burst out of the ground as he launched a fierce Rock Thrust at me!

Suddenly, I changed direction and speed before leaping into the air. Leaving a Z-shaped path behind my footsteps, I slashed Candlelight Shadow right across his chest armor. Surprise appeared in the warrior’s eyes. He clearly didn’t expect me to launch a counter attack this quickly while under the threat of Rock Thrust!

MISS!

6094!

I successfully landed a Pardon and a basic attack. Candlelight Shadow was a 5-Strength warrior, so the attack had one-shot him where he stood!

However, I was low on HP as well. Sensing a chill behind my back and cursing, I spun around and fired a Dragon Slaying Slash straight at God’s Dance!

Dragon’s Roar!

Ice Fire Flurry!

I took three magic spells in a row and lost all of my remaining HP. Although I managed to kill God’s Dance with my Dragon Slaying Slash, she died half a second later than me. That was all it took to lose a match!

Ding~!

System Notice: You have died. Your party has lost the round!

……

The score was 0-1. Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls had lost the first round!

Chiang!

Outside the tournament ring, I plunged my sword into the ground and cursed through gritted teeth, “God dammit! It was so close…”

Li Chengfeng watched the stage calmly and said, “Yes, it was. Candle Dragon was just lucky this time, so don’t worry. Once we rearrange our tactics, we’ll win the next two rounds and the match, easy peasy!”

“Yeah.”

I turned around to face Beiming Xue and He Yi before saying, “Lil Beiming, I want you to pierce God’s Dance Magic Shield as quickly as you can. This time, I’ll try to kill Transient Smoke and Clouds while fighting Candlelight Shadow. Eve, there’s no need to be nervous. Just focus on keeping Blue Sky Scar and Tempest Shadow busy, and it’ll be fine. Sis, cast Restoration on me immediately after the match begins, okay?”

All three girls nodded in unison. “No problem, handsome!”

……

We were teleported onto the stage again.

On the other side, Candlelight Shadow was staring at me with killing intent. Although they had won the first round, it didn’t change the fact that he, the China representative, was taken out by me through pure technique. He was a prideful man, and it was a level of shame he couldn’t tolerate, no matter what.

The corner of my lips turned up a little. This was exactly the kind of shame I wished to inflict upon him. One by one, I swore to return all the shame he had put me through. For myself, He Yi, all the companions who had to suffer with me back in those darker days, and my comrade, Li Chengfeng!

Transient Smoke and Clouds was glaring at Beiming Xue because he realized that she was good enough to threaten his status. God’s Dance was glaring at me because the previous round was too close for comfort. Had I been able to unleash the Dragon Slaying Slash half a second earlier, the scoreboard would be written the other way around. Of course, that was just a pipe dream. Forget me, not even god would be able to pull off that maneuver in such a short amount of time.

The system began counting down—

3!

2!

1!

It was do or die. The second round of the match begins!

Swhoosh!

Murong Mingyue cast a Restoration spell on me immediately as we discussed earlier, and would heal 50% of my HP over 30 seconds. It was a perfect match with my Regeneration of the Undead, and it boosted my HP regeneration speed so much that it was hell for anyone who wanted to take me down during this time.

Thud!

I launched myself forward before anyone else and charged straight for Candlelight Shadow. When I was about 10 yards away from him, I raised my sword and fired a Thousand Ice Slash!

Boom!

Dust and ice flew everywhere as Candlelight Shadow burst out of the dust cloud to meet me. However, I abruptly changed directions and ran toward Transient Smoke and Clouds instead.

“What?”

Transient Smoke and Clouds was shocked. He had no idea that I was targeting him until he saw me running toward me. Backing away in an S-shaped path, he passed by Tempest Shadow so that his teammate could cover for him.

Of course, I had no intentions of wasting time with the tanky magic knight. Pumping strength into my lengths, I ran a double-S path then joined together to form a helix and brushed past Tempest Shadow with ease. Then, I pressed my sword to Transient Smoke and Clouds’ back and summoned light to the blade!

MISS!

7843!

The Pardon + basic attack easily took out the archer, but a blazing hot sensation had reached my back as well. I didn’t even need to turn around to know that it was Candlelight Shadow’s Blazing Purgatory Slash, a devastating triple-hit fire attack that could one-shot even He Yi!

I spun around and raised the Heaven-stealing Sword. Guard first, everything else later!

Clang!

275!

The first attack failed to do too much damage to me, but that was just the bait. The real killer was the Crushing Blow from Blue Sky Scar! I had barely a second to react to both attacks!

My heart nearly stopped as my reaction shot to its maximum speed. First, I canceled my Guard so that the Crushing Blow would miss. Then, I slashed with the Heaven-stealing Sword twice and accurately parried the remaining two hits of the Blazing Purgatory Slash!

The three-hit skill was 1 second long, meaning that the interval between every slash was only 0.3 seconds or so. Somehow, I still managed to parry all of them with impossible speed! I wasn’t kidding when I said that my heart almost stopped earlier. A couple more maneuvers like this, and I would probably need to take a trip to the hospital!

At the distance, Li Chengfeng laughed loudly. “Well done, vice leader!”

I felt like patting myself in the back too!

……

The tides were changing drastically in our favor because I had single-handedly drawn the attention of Candlelight Shadow, Transient Smoke and Clouds, Blue Sky Scar and Tempest Shadow, and my teammates hadn’t been idling during this time. Li Chengfeng worked together with Beiming Xue and took out God’s Dance in no time. He Yi stunned Blue Sky Scar with a Charge, and Beiming Xue followed up with an Evil Spirit Volley that devastated the enemy’s formation!

After that, I kept Candlelight Shadow from being able to do anything else while Li Chengfeng and the others took out Blue Sky Scar and Tempest Shadow. Then, a Shock Arrow, Reverse Scale Slash, and Green Wave Slash flew toward Candlelight Shadow at the same time.

Candlelight Shadow’s eyes were filled with despair. “Dammit, how did it turn out like this?”

Pu!

Li Chengfeng stabbed him through the chest before kicking his corpse to the ground. Staring at his dissipating corpse, the dragon warrior said coldly, “Enjoy the feeling of losing everything little by little, you bastard!”