Hu Die Lan

Chapter 344 A Small Plot of Land

The water depth turned back and saw that Lord Grim was already in the woods, obviously having moved before he even spoke to remind him.

"That bastard, his judgment of the situation is always so quick!" Shui Shen muttered as he chased after him. The two thieves behind were only momentarily flustered by the traps. One hadn't been caught at all, merely startled by the bluff, and the other had already freed himself from the trap in such a short time. Clearly, Shui Shen's little trick didn't have a long trap duration.

After entering the woods, Shui Shen soon saw Lord Grim leaning against a tree. He quickly darted behind a tree himself and whispered, "They're coming after us."

"Only two, can't you handle them?" Lord Grim asked. As a priest, he naturally wasn't suited for direct combat, but Shui Shen was one of the Five Little Strong ones. If he couldn't even take care of two thieves after being killed and losing a level to Gu Fei today, it would be utterly disgraceful.

"Not just two!" Shui Shen said.

"Who is it?" Lord Grim asked.

"Damn, how would I know? Looks like they're after you!" Shui Shen said.

"Isn't this your territory?"

"Don't recognize them, never seen them before," Shui Shen said.

"Are they coming?"

"Of course!" Shui Shen suddenly spun around from behind the tree, drawing his bow and firing two arrows in quick succession, using the skill Double Shot.

"Damn!" A low curse came from the woods, obviously from someone who had been hit. Shui Shen flashed back behind the tree, quickly poking his head out from the other side for another arrow. This time, there was no curse. Shui Shen leaned against the tree, listening intently. There wasn't even the sound of footsteps.

The two sides were quite close at this point, and the forest floor was covered in fallen leaves. Trying to move silently wasn't easy. Clearly, the opponents had stopped.

Lord Grim gestured to Shui Shen, asking how many there were in total.

Shui Shen held up four fingers. He had seen five players enter the woods when he poked his head out earlier, but his two consecutive attacks had focused on one person, already taking one down. Currently, he was only sure of one thing: the opponents had pinpointed his location and were carefully preparing to ambush him.

His lurking skill, Peep, was specifically for targeting those in stealth. He could only detect opponents who were stealthed. Right now, the opponents weren't using stealth, but were cautiously approaching him, making his skill useless.

He quickly made a gesture to Lord Grim, who nodded in understanding. Counting silently to three, Lord Grim suddenly emerged from behind the tree, using a weak Holy Light Ball, a priest's attack, as a haphazard offensive.

While no one would take a priest's attack seriously, the sudden appearance drew all four opponents' attention. Shui Shen seized this momentary opportunity, quickly darting out a few steps to another tree. The opponents didn't realize that Shui Shen had taken advantage of this fleeting distraction. When they finished paying attention to Lord Grim and refocused on Shui Shen's old tree, he had already moved.

Shui Shen's new position wasn't under the opponents' close watch. He glanced over and saw two opponents heading towards Lord Grim, while the other two were still cautiously approaching his old position. Without hesitation, Shui Shen poked out half his body, drawing his bowstring tight for a Snipe, firing at one of the two heading towards Lord Grim.

This sudden arrow clearly startled the four opponents again. They didn't realize that the attack was from the guy behind the tree who had changed positions. They assumed there was a third person hiding in the woods.

If there was a third, there could be a fourth, a fifth, a sixth… That was their subconscious judgment. The four no longer dared to act rashly and cautiously stuck together.

Shui Shen, however, had taken the opportunity to identify the four opponents' classes: all thieves. This made him even more confident, as he at least had the advantage of range. He immediately revealed himself and fired another arrow, but unfortunately, the guy who had been Sniped earlier wasn't in the firing angle this time. Shui Shen could only switch targets. After firing, he boldly repositioned himself. However, a glance back revealed that the opponents were keeping a close eye on his movements, while also seeking out places to hide, seemingly not intending to pursue him actively.

"Tsk, they're not falling for it!" Shui Shen lamented, but the opponents' retreat completely surrendered the initiative. Shui Shen shifted from passive to active, boldly weaving around and quickly flanking one of the players' hiding spots.

Seeing that the guy was still peering around, completely unaware of the danger nearby, Shui Shen could only shake his head and sigh, while ruthlessly firing an arrow and taking him out.

"These guys probably aren't from LinYin City…" Shui Shen had come to a conclusion. LinYin City players were all experts in forest guerrilla warfare and would never think that hiding behind a tree was safe; it was a death sentence.

As Shui Shen thought this, he weaved around and turned to the rear of another opponent. But just as he drew his bow, ready to fire, the opponent's figure suddenly began to fade.

"Stealth!" Shui Shen understood and immediately fired the arrow. The opponent's stealth was interrupted, and he frantically turned to find the attacker. Shui Shen simply didn't bother hiding anymore and blasted him with a barrage of arrows. The guy didn't have time to dodge, and finally disappeared with an arrow sticking out of his butt.

"Hey, hey! Are you dead?" Shui Shen sent a message to Lord Grim, whom he had just added as a friend when they met at the tavern earlier.

"Forever alive," Lord Grim said.

"The opponent stealthed," Shui Shen informed him.

"Oh!" Lord Grim responded, and in the next second, Shui Shen saw him dashing out from behind the tree, his steps what Shui Shen, as an agility-based class, would describe as unhurried. But he knew that it was the limit for a priest, and impossibly fast for a stealthed thief to reach.

"Too cunning," Shui Shen marveled. Lord Grim's actions directly targeted the thief's weakness: insufficient stealth speed to catch up. Even so, he had to give Lord Grim a coordinate: "Run this way!"

Lord Grim immediately ran accurately toward the coordinate. Shui Shen couldn't help but mutter again, "He's so accurate with coordinates, why doesn't he take that idiot Yu Tian with him to do quests?"

The stealthed thief, upon seeing the priest run, immediately canceled Stealth and used Sprint to pursue him. However, he was still some distance away from Lord Grim. Shui Shen calmly sent him another message: "If you can't make it, even if you hug my leg, I won't save you!"

With Lord Grim's sensitivity to coordinates and calculation ability, he had already determined that it would be slightly difficult to reach Shui Shen's designated position before the thief caught him. But he didn't panic at all. He was a priest. He could easily throw a couple of healing spells on himself to buy some distance. With his level of skill and confident Golden Ratio stat allocation, it would be as difficult for the average player to interrupt his spellcasting as it was for others to prevent Gu Fei from interrupting their spells.

After successfully reaching the position he had calculated, the thief had indeed caught up. Lord Grim, having timed it so that a healing spell landed on himself in advance, suddenly turned around and waved in the direction of Shui Shen, "Hurry up and attack!"

The two thieves couldn't help but nervously turn their heads to look, and with this casual diversion of attention, Lord Grim, without suffering any of the anticipated damage, easily ran into the coordinate area that Shui Shen had designated for him.

Shui Shen naturally had to act, but he didn't seem to be in a hurry. He still hoped that Lord Grim would suffer a little. This seemed to be the wish of everyone who knew Lord Grim.

In the end, this wish was barely fulfilled. The two thieves ultimately attacked Lord Grim, who was closer to them. Lord Grim didn't dodge, accurately casting healing spells to buy time, while looking at Shui Shen, neither speaking nor shouting.

Shui Shen didn't say a word, just as slowly as possible taking out his bow, nocking an arrow, drawing the string, and releasing!

If only the arrow could fly a little slower! Shui Shen thought.

The two thieves gritted their teeth and persevered, thinking that two of them working together to take down a priest would be a simple matter, after which they could decide whether to kill or evade the archer. As a result, Lord Grim's healing spells were cast at just the right time, neither too late nor too wasteful, maintaining his life in the most efficient way.

Just like that, the two thieves finally realized that their health bars were red, while the priest was still standing.

This was already Shui Shen intentionally holding back. If he had focused his fire on one of them, how could they both have reached low health?

Knowing that they couldn't hold on any longer, the two thieves suddenly turned and ran, wanting to hide and recover. So, Shui Shen accelerated his attack rhythm in that instant, shooting a Tracking Arrow at one, and finishing the other with a well-aimed Snipe.

The five thieves who had chased them into the woods were now all eliminated.

"Too bad, why didn't you die?" Shui Shen said regretfully as he walked over, putting away his bow.

"My skills are too good, I can't die even if I want to, I'm also very disappointed," Lord Grim said, putting away his staff.

"Who were those people?" Shui Shen asked him.

"Don't know, don't recognize them," Lord Grim replied.

"Why did they want to kill you?" Shui Shen asked.

"Don't know."

"They don't seem like people from LinYin City," Shui Shen said.

"Really? Are you sure?" Lord Grim said.

"If they were from LinYin City, you'd be dead by now," Shui Shen said.

Lord Grim didn't take it to heart, muttering, "If they're not from LinYin City, and they're close by, and I was just passing through, it can only be BaiShi City. People from BaiShi City… hmm…" Lord Grim thought.

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