Chapter 14 Fire Ball?

“Heh… Fire Ball?” Without needing to use his data vision, Feng Bujue recognized the magic the opponent was using and struck a disdainful pose.

Indeed, Fire Ball was an excellent offensive spell. Its destructive power, attack speed, and area of effect were all quite considerable. If the caster was strong enough, they could add many variations to the spell.

However, in front of Brother Jue as he was now, such an attack was impossible to inflict any damage. Because…

“Well done!” The instant Brother Jue spoke his second sentence, he already had something in his hand – the [Tiangang Disha Box].

*Boom—*

At the same time, the Fire Ball had flown in front of Brother Jue and exploded very suddenly.

As a grandmaster-level mage, Weston could naturally make some adjustments to this spell. Therefore, to ensure he hit his target, he preemptively detonated the Fire Ball about half a second early (the spell would originally explode and burn upon contact with a solid object of a certain size).

In an instant, the blazing flames engulfed Brother Jue and everything within a five-meter radius.

The people standing near Feng Bujue reacted quickly, scattering as soon as the Fire Ball flew over. Nesslu didn't forget to pull Mad Eye away with him. As for Honghu and Snow… it wasn't that they didn't want to help their teammate, but they both assumed that with Feng Bujue's speed and reaction time, dodging such an attack would be a piece of cake.

But the result was… Brother Jue standing still.

“Hmph…” Looking at the burning flames, Weston sneered, squeezing out a sentence through his teeth, “Foolish fellow, it’s too late to regret it now.”

Unexpectedly, just as his voice faded, a sudden change occurred.

With a “whoosh—” the large ball of fire suddenly shrunk as if it were a dust bunny being sucked up by a vacuum cleaner, and disappeared in a matter of seconds.

When the fire was gone, Feng Bujue's figure reappeared; and those magical flames… had all been sucked into a strange twelve-sided object in his hand.

“Hm?” Seeing Brother Jue unscathed, Weston looked suspicious, then his expression changed, “I didn’t expect… you brat has a decent magical artifact…”

“Hey, since you have a tool that can absorb attack magic, why didn’t you use it when we were attacked earlier?” The NPC had just finished muttering when Snow threw another question at Brother Jue from afar.

“Magic arrows are too weak to be worth absorbing, the Explosion Array is too strong to absorb completely,” Feng Bujue’s answer was concise, logical, and well-founded.

“Hmm… okay.” Snow shrugged, giving an ambiguous expression.

“Heh… I see, so something like the Explosion Array can’t be neutralized, is that right? Thank you for telling me…” Hearing this, Weston raised the long staff in his hand again.

“Am I dead?” Seeing the other party preparing to unleash a big move, Blackbeard, who was closest to Weston, naturally wouldn’t stand idly by. He took a step forward, and a sword strike followed his words.

However, the sword missed.

The blade passed, creating a wave-like black energy that swept out diagonally… and directly caused several Illusion Demon Church sorcerers more than ten meters away to be hit and die.

As for Weston… at the moment the other party attacked, he had already released a Flash spell, teleporting in front of Feng Bujue with a buzz.

“Kid… try absorbing my physical attack as well.” The moment Weston appeared, he provoked while launching an attack.

He was, after all, the “God of Wisdom,” so using some tricks in battle was perfectly normal. Right now, Weston was using words and actions as “inducements” to make his opponent think he was going to release a powerful spell like the Explosion Array, in order to conceal his real intention of hitting people with his staff.

It had to be said, his trick was very clever… at least it fooled most of the people present.

As one of the “Nine Gods” who once roamed the Sea of Chaos, Weston’s magic power was definitely strong enough to “instantaneously cast a large Explosion Array,” so when Blackbeard saw him seemingly about to “unleash a big move,” he had to be on guard.

However, there was also an easily overlooked fact, and that was—Weston’s physical strength… was also very high.

“Lesser Gods” were, in the system’s setting, at the same level as “Zhuanxie the Honored” and “Dianhe the King.” Although Brother Zun and Old Wang were among the top figures among the Lesser Gods, and Weston couldn’t compare to them at all, with his martial arts ability, killing one or two players with a single strike was more than enough.

*Whoosh—*

In the blink of an eye, Weston’s long staff had already fallen through the air.

The speed, power, and suddenness of this strike were enough to kill an ordinary player, but unfortunately…

“Not bad, a bit interesting.” Feng Bujue shifted slightly and took a step back with minimal movement, easily dodging the surprise attack, and said in a calm tone, “If I hadn’t expected you to teleport over and hit me, I might not have had time to dodge.”

“Preposterous!” Seeing this, Weston picked up the staff and followed up with a sweep.

This time, Brother Jue seemed even more at ease. He didn’t even move his upper body, easily jumping over the opponent’s sweep. While jumping, he muttered, “Whoa~ what’s going on? A melee mage? Learning from Gandalf? Saruman?”

Just as Brother Jue was complaining, Weston missed his strike and followed with another, seeing him swing the staff in a half circle and thrust it into the ground.

This thrust from top to bottom, using the end of the staff, had a very small attack range. Feng Bujue only took half a step back to dodge, but after he dodged that half step, he noticed a problem…

“Oh?” When Brother Jue realized that his body couldn’t move, three words escaped his lips, “Shadow Binding Technique?”

As the name suggested, this was a confinement-type spell. The conditions for casting it weren’t too harsh either. The caster needed to attach magic power to a solid object (usually a throwing knife or short sword) and then “insert” it into the target’s shadow. Once the spell was successfully cast, the target whose shadow was “fixed” would also be fixed in place.

Of course, the person who was fixed wasn’t “completely unable to move,” but only “almost unable to move.” If their strength was strong enough, they could make small movements at a very slow speed. In addition, “speaking” wasn’t affected by the Shadow Binding Technique, because a person’s shadow generally didn’t change when they spoke.

“It’s no use seeing through it now!” Weston said, letting go of the long staff (because pulling out the staff would cause the Shadow Binding Technique to fail), and directly punched towards Brother Jue’s head.

However, he still failed…

*Hiss—*

Just as Weston’s fist was about to reach its target, a fierce light flashed, directly slicing off the arm he was using to punch.

“Looks like you really think I’m dead.” In the next second, Blackbeard, holding his sword, had appeared at Weston’s side.

“Why… what…” Weston looked in shock at his flying arm, muttering, “How could you…”

“Not quite what you ‘expected,’ is it?” Blackbeard said, already swinging his second sword.

Weston quickly pulled out the long staff from the ground to block, but… this sword cut off his long staff and his neck together…

“You’re really unworthy of being called the ‘God of Wisdom’…” Blackbeard looked at the unclosed head that was drawing a parabola in the air, and said with a sneer, “You didn’t even realize ‘what the Master of Time did to you’ before you couldn’t wait to appear in front of opponents you had no chance of defeating.”

At this moment, Weston seemed to belatedly realize something, and half a sentence flashed through his mind: “Could it be…”

Then, his train of thought was interrupted forever.

“Phew…” Looking at the head that had fallen to the ground, Feng Bujue breathed a sigh of relief, “That was really close.” After speaking, he looked at Blackbeard, “Thank you, Captain, for lending a han…”

“Stop pretending.” Blackbeard interrupted, “Even if I didn’t act, you would have been able to handle it… I just didn’t want to watch you play around anymore.” He paused, turning his gaze to the distance, and continued, “Now, instead of that idiot who was ‘stolen of his time’ and is still completely unaware, let’s think about… how to deal with this group of guys around us.”

Before Blackbeard could finish speaking, the Illusion Demon Church sorcerers who were surrounding them all raised their hands, expressionlessly tearing open their sewn-shut mouths with their fingers…