Chapter 17 Confrontation Before the End

Previously, during his fight with Doomsday Assault, Feng Bujue had already noticed something was slightly off about his opponent. Now, after this series of awkward (at least, it wasn't awkward for Brother Jue) probes, Brother Jue could basically confirm... that at least these two members of Corpse Blade's First Team that he'd encountered were playing the game in a "stopped taking their meds" state.

Although Brother Jue didn't know why this was, nor was he sure if it had anything to do with his visit to "Jiang Daode" tonight, he was very clear that this was undoubtedly a huge advantage for Hell Frontline.

"Heh... Comparing them to their usual performance in the competition recordings... the force of their attacks is obviously higher than average, and the angles and timing of their attacks... also have a certain degree of deviation." Feng Bujue coldly watched Xianye Wei Wang, who was rushing towards him, and thought to himself, "It's obvious they haven't adapted to playing the game in a medicated state... their fine motor control is a mess, and they don't even realize it..."

As he pondered, the other party's blade arrived.

"I say... Captain Xianye..." Brother Jue continued to chat with the other party in a relaxed tone while leaping sideways along the top of the wall, dodging the blade's slash. "Did you forget something before you logged in today?"

"What are you referring to?" Xianye Wei Wang responded as he stabilized himself on the wall. Although his first strike had missed, he immediately rotated the greatsword in his hand in a semicircle, smoothly following up with another move.

Clang clang clang—

Seeing this, Feng Bujue took a half-step sideways, raised his military shovel with one arm, and faced his opponent sideways as if playing fencing, skillfully using the military shovel to block the other party's slashes, retreating as he fought.

"Oh? Could it be that you..." Brother Jue paused, then continued with a smile, "You haven't realized even now... that you are different from usual?"

Upon hearing this, Xianye Wei Wang's expression changed slightly. "Oh? You're talking about the limited power of active skills, right?" It seemed he had misunderstood. "No need to remind me... I noticed it a long time ago." As he spoke, he increased the speed of the greatsword in his hand by several degrees. "If I'm not mistaken... Doomsday Assault, who died not long ago, was killed by you right here, right? Presumably... he failed to notice this in time and fell victim to your scheme."

Before he could finish speaking, Feng Bujue had been forced to the end of the wall. Seeing that there was nowhere to retreat behind him, Brother Jue simply shook his wrist, exerted force, and thrust out his shovel, forcing his opponent back a few steps and gaining himself half a step's distance.

Immediately after, Feng Bujue twisted his body and landed in the open space outside the courtyard.

"Regarding the cause of your teammate's death, you guessed correctly, but... I'm referring to something else..." After landing, Feng Bujue pondered for a moment and took out a pistol from his bag.

[Name: Stellar Cooling Cannon (Yeah Right)]

[Type: Weapon]

[Quality: Excellent]

[Attack Power: None]

[Attribute: None]

[Effect: Makes your target calm down a bit (contains one gallon of "ammunition", which will automatically refill at a slow rate after being used up, taking approximately two hours to refill from empty to full)]

[Equipment Requirements: Marksmanship Specialization D, Machinery Specialization D]

[Note: In terms of both appearance and function, this is a cheap-looking toy water gun. Although its water injection port is sealed, considering its self-refilling characteristics, that doesn't seem to be a big problem.

After chemical testing, the ammunition fired from this gun is just ordinary water, but for some reason, creatures hit by it will become slow for a certain period of time. The specific duration and effect of the slow depend on the size of the target.

ps: We have fired the programmer who designed this item because he always gave his designed items overly exaggerated names.]

This pistol, which looked very much like a children's toy, was one of the rewards Feng Bujue obtained during the preliminary round (Random Excellent Grade Equipment *2, Perfect Grade Equipment *1); he had naturally experimented with the actual effect of this gun, and overall... it wasn't very strong.

The reason why Brother Jue didn't throw this thing into the crusher, and even carried it with him... was mainly because he valued the gun's "water production" function. He felt that in some scenarios, it was very likely that he would need the characteristic of this gun to "self-produce one gallon of clean water every two hours".

And right now, in this melee where everyone wasn't relying on skills, this thing seemed to be able to come in handy.

"...Since you haven't noticed, then I'll just say it." After taking out the gun, Feng Bujue continued from where he left off. "Captain Xianye... have you felt that your expressions and emotional fluctuations have become richer today?"

He had made it so clear, and the other party finally realized.

"Could it be..." At this point, the captain of Corpse Blade belatedly exclaimed in his heart, "That's right! I was wondering what was wrong... the medicine seems to have worn off!" Thinking of this, he couldn't help but look sharply at Brother Jue, secretly pondering, "Wait... how did this guy see it?"

After several seconds of thought, Xianye Wei Wang came up with a reason: "Hmm... I see... since my teammates and I used the medicine together, it must have worn off together; from this, it can be known... that Doomsday Assault, who fought Feng Bujue before, was probably in the same state as me. Presumably... Feng Bujue saw clues from Doomsday Assault and then probed me with that 'singing mountain songs' behavior just now, thereby confirming that the medicine on me had also lost its effect..."

While pondering these things, Xianye Wei Wang had chased down from the wall. Taking advantage of the downward momentum, his greatsword came breaking through the wind once again.

"Hmph... Captain Feng." Xianye Wei Wang didn't forget to respond while attacking. "Although I don't know why this is... but honestly, isn't this a good thing?"

As he spoke, his figure moved swiftly, and another round of rapid attacks came.

The sword energy stirred up the wind, and the sword style was extremely fierce. For a time, Xianye Wei Wang once again enveloped his opponent in a cloud of sword light.

After Corpse Blade Forged King withdrew, the Corpse Blade Studio had not yet determined a new trump card, but in terms of strength... that person should be Xianye Wei Wang. Regardless of whether he was medicated or not, his raw strength was still there. Purely in terms of physical skills, Xianye Wei Wang was also top-notch.

"Oh? How do you figure?" Feng Bujue dodged left and right, retreating steadily, but his tone was still calm and collected when he replied.

"This way..." Xianye Wei Wang replied with a sneer, "Even if I defeat you, you'll have nothing to say, right?"

"Ha! Hahahahaha..." Upon hearing this, Feng Bujue laughed wildly, then suddenly restrained his laughter and said in a deep voice, "You're thinking too much."

In the next second, a series of biu~biu~biu sounds were heard (that's right, that's the sound the [Stellar Cooling Cannon (Yeah Right)] makes when it shoots), and Brother Jue opened fire (opened water?).

It wasn't as if Xianye Wei Wang hadn't been prepared. When he saw the other party taking out the gun, he had already thought about how to dodge, but... he hadn't expected that the gun would shoot water.

Unlike the fleeting linear trajectory of a bullet... the trajectory of a water gun is continuous and will drag downwards, making it harder to avoid being touched by a single drop than dodging a bullet.

"Crap!" Xianye Wei Wang panicked for a moment when he was hit by the water column, because he instinctively thought it was a corrosive liquid, but two seconds later... he found that there was no pain coming from his body, and his survival value didn't seem to have decreased either. "Hmm? What is this?" However, he quickly discovered what the effect of these liquids was. "Tch... 'Slow,' is it..."

"That's right, it's slow." Feng Bujue held the gun and fired continuously with one hand, while brandishing his military shovel with the other hand, launching a counterattack. "To take you down... this is enough."

"Absurd..." Seeing the other party counterattacking, Xianye Wei Wang didn't panic. He immediately gathered his energy, sheathed his sword, and unleashed a move—[One Slash Sweeping the Mountain].

Although the power of the skill had been reduced a lot, Xianye Wei Wang's sword moves were still overbearing and terrifyingly powerful. Even in its weakened version, it was enough to be on par with a C-level skill.

"Absurd?" Brother Jue said as he dodged the other party's move and appeared behind Xianye Wei Wang.

"What..." At this moment, Xianye Wei Wang felt fear. His pupils contracted, his heart rate accelerated... he hadn't experienced the feeling of his whole body going cold in a game for a long time.

"It seems you still haven't figured out your situation." Feng Bujue said, "Did you think that after stopping the medicine, you would be fine?" As he spoke, his military shovel had already swung towards the other party's back.

Only a "呲" sound was heard... and a long, narrow gash was added to Xianye Wei Wang's back.

"Even if people take painkillers regularly, they will develop dependence and aftereffects..." Brother Jue's words continued, and his attacks didn't stop either. The military shovel in his hand constantly swept towards his opponent, but he didn't aim for vital points. "From the moment I first saw you, I started observing your actions... it's obvious that your sense of speed and time has become distorted; and your physical coordination, control of explosive power, and the precision of your exertion, etc., all of these need time to adapt to... you won't be able to adjust in one or two scenarios at all."

"Damn it..." Xianye Wei Wang struggled to parry, but he deeply felt a sense of powerlessness. His movements were either too fast or too slow, and the angle of his strikes was difficult to make precise, so much so that after defending for so long, he was full of flaws.

"That's why I said..." While Feng Bujue was using his cold weapon to cut people, the water gun in his other hand was also shooting in between the gaps. "To take you down... this is enough."

"Enough!" Xianye Wei Wang suddenly roared and stopped resisting. "Do you want to humiliate me in the competition? Kill me if you want to!"

Now, he could see that Feng Bujue could have killed him a long time ago, but the other party was deliberately not hitting vital spots.

"Humiliate you?" Feng Bujue squinted his eyes and chuckled twice. "Heh... I think you've misunderstood. I have neither the intention nor the interest... I'm keeping you alive for my own reasons..."

Having said this, Brother Jue actually stopped attacking as well. He sized up the battered Xianye Wei Wang, then smiled and said, "Alright... this many wounds should be enough, so..." He suddenly raised his pistol again, biubiu-ing all the remaining water in it onto Xianye Wei Wang's body, then put away his two weapons, turned around and ran, leaving behind a sentence as he ran, "...Take care of yourself!"

Watching Brother Jue's receding figure, Xianye Wei Wang was completely stunned. "This... what's going on?" He couldn't understand why his opponent was running away, but he didn't have the ability to chase after him and ask what was going on. "Forget it... no matter what medicine he's selling in his gourd, as long as I'm not dead, there's still a chance... Feng Bujue, I'll make you regret it..."

Xianye Wei Wang muttered a few harsh words in his heart, then sat down on the spot and took out survival value supplements and hemostatic bandages from his bag.

For him, who was used to playing the game in a medicated state, the pain he was feeling right now, which wasn't too exaggerated, would become very severe due to the contrast... he was almost trembling all over while treating his wounds, and he really broke out in a cold sweat from the pain.

But despite the pain, his hands and feet were still considered nimble. In less than a minute, he had dealt with most of the bleeding points, but...

"Ugh—Ah—" At this moment, undulating groans sounded from the surrounding darkness, gradually approaching.

"What the hell? Monsters..." Xianye Wei Wang immediately stood up, looking around vigilantly. At the same time, fear... was also quietly spreading in his heart.