Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

“Demon Robe, it’s you!” Baili Changcheng stared at Demon Robe’s face, which was covered up in a leather mask, and his eyes gleamed. He shouted, “What do you want?”

Demon Robe let out a cold laugh, and with a wave of his hands, hundreds of players stepped forward in unison, trapping Baili Changcheng and the rest within. “Isn’t it quite obvious? But I am curious—what are you all doing here? This is the Dark Shrine’s territory, do you understand what that means? Oh forget it, a wimp like you who lives off your family’s wealth, what better can you know?”

“Qiu Yuan, Bu Yi, I will stall for time here. Both of you go now,” Baili Changcheng’s expression turned hard, but he secretly sent this message to both girls in their team’s channel.

“Neither of you can die, or else I will find it hard to answer to Fu Sheng.”

Qiu Yuan gripped her Mana Dagger and imitated an action of slicing the dagger across someone’s throat. A peculiar smile spread across her petite face as she spoke. “Oh, won’t this be so unfair to me? It’s more meaningful if I stay put and show them that I can kill more of them than you.”

“Argh, my dear lady, can you behave more like a woman? Just go when I tell you to go! I can handle all of them by myself!” cried Baili Changcheng anxiously. He did not know if he should laugh or cry at Qiu Yuan’s reactions. It would be normal if the person saying those words was a burly man, but why must he hear them coming from the mouth of a cute girl?

‘Are ‘tough girls’ that in trend in the actual world now? Aish!’ mused Baili Changcheng. Yet, he was still secretly touched by Qiu Yuan’s expression.

Bu Yi whispered in a low voice, “He’s coming. Meanwhile, people from Brotherhood are also rushing here, so don’t worry.”

“He? You mean Fu Sheng? He won’t make much difference even if he shows up now.” Baili Changcheng stared at the group of players that surrounded them and suddenly raised his voice. “However mighty he is, he wouldn’t be able to pass through all those people. Listen to me, leave now! Ice Control·10 Miles Frozen!”

Baili Changcheng’s Ice Crystal Longsword suddenly grew longer, and assumed the shape of an ice pillar, piercing deep into the ground! The dense Water Elements present at the Mesosaprobic Shrine condensed into ice at once, and in fact, there were beautiful snowflakes floating down to the ground from mid-air. With the descent of the snowflakes, the temperature dropped to an all-low, as if winter had arrived. Icicles appeared upon the ground out of nowhere.

Ice Control·10 Miles Frozen: This is a skill recorded in the Mystic Skill Book, ‘Ice Control’. It will temporarily freeze all enemies within a 40-meter radius for at most 20 seconds. During this period, the player who used this skill will also be frozen to the spot, and will not be able to move or attack. The damage received by the player will be increased by 350%.

Baili Changcheng had actually learned a skill that only players of advanced jobs could possess! Even if Lin Jie was present, he would be shocked too.

Take for example, the three sisters Cyan Fly, Pink Mosquito, and Rainbow Bug—two of them were hidden jobs, and it was only with help from Baili Xuanyuan in gathering numerous materials that the three of them were able to learn advanced jobs’ skills. Yet now, Baili Changcheng was able to use such a skill by himself! This was definitely jaw-dropping by anyone’s standards!

“GO NOW! Teleport out!” roared Baili Changcheng.

Bu Yi and Qiu Yuan threw each other a look, and out of no choice, both made gestures to leave after leaving behind the words “stay safe”. At that moment, Bu Yi sensed a warm blue light from her chest area, and a faint mist started to spread out…

Just when Demon Robe was about to launch his attack, several layers of ice started wrapping around him. At the same time, Baili Changcheng’s body was covered in ice too, and he transformed into an ice statue.

Demon Robe was a clever guy. Although he had remained low-key and there was seldom any news of the Dark-Robed Knights being leaked out, it was a known fact that Demon Robe’s abilities were not any inferior to Eighteen Massacres. In fact, he might even be stronger than Eighteen Massacres!

After all, Eighteen Massacres had joined the Dark Shrine and thus gained power easily. Yet Demon Robe did not, and he still ranked highly within the Bandits Association. This could only mean that his abilities were solid!

“This is a control-type skill, but since it has such great effects, there must be consequences of some sorts.” Demon Robe stared at Baili Changcheng’s body, and shouted, “Most probably he will die if anyone just lays a finger on his body now. Guys, attack him with spells!”

“No way!” When Qiu Yuan saw what happened, she clapped her hands together and several gusts of black mist condensed within them. She flung them out forcefully, and they exploded like smoke bombs. All at once, everyone could only see black mists all around.

Dark Fog!

This was the Shadow Priest’s Basic Skill, Dark Fog. She had used this skill to save Lin Jie when she had previously complemented him in a battle. After that, Qiu Yuan had used this skill as her main skill and trained up diligently. Now she was very used to it, and this particular skill of hers had reached Level 5.

Even Lin Jie, who used up numerous precious Skill Points on his Death Rage Skill, had only reached Level 5 for that skill up till now! Though it’s true that the conditions needed to activate Dark Fog were not as harsh as the ones to activate Death Rage, a lot of time was still needed to level up the Dark Fog skill to Level 5. Qiu Yuan’s perseverance was indeed impressive.

Dark Fog spread out to the surroundings. All at once, the players enshrouded by it had their Vision Fields decreased by 50%, and their Critical Strike chance was decreased by 30%. In fact, the sticky fog had also affected the players’ Speed, which was all decreased by 15%!

Qiu Yuan kept her dagger and shouted, “Baili Changcheng, come with us now! Why are you still standing there when you had frozen them?”

Baili Changcheng let out a bitter laugh. ‘Oh well, the reason why I was still standing here is because I have to use my own body as a tool for activating this skill!’

Yet at this moment, a figure appeared in front of him—he was none other than Demon Robe! He had used some mysterious skill to break free of Baili Changcheng’s hold on him.

By right, Advanced Skills should have an overriding effect above all lower-tiered skills. However, there were some special skills in The New Age, which could break free of Advanced Skills.

“Baili Changcheng, do you think you are the only one who learned Advanced Skills? How naive of you!” Demon Robe’s cold dagger slashed through the Dark Fog, and was about to stab into Baili Changcheng’s body!

Pierce Bone!

“Power Word Shield!”

-421!

Baili Changcheng couldn’t help but feel a shudder run down his neck. He, Bu Yi, and the rest had often played at the Elf Dungeon, and he knew very clearly that Bu Yi’s Power Word Shield could hold off 800 damage points at any one time. Yet Demon Robe could now break through this skill—this meant he must be really powerful! By calculation, Demon Robe’s basic Attack must be above 300 points on average.

Not to forget, Demon Robe was just a Bandit—and normally, a Bandit’s attacks were supposed to be lesser than half of the number of a Warrior’s attacks. This was the consequence for them being able to attack so swiftly. For him to be able to deal out 400 damage on Baili Changcheng after Bu Yi’s Power Word Shield… one could just imagine how strong he was!

‘What a powerful shield, this Priest’s really strong! She must be at least 20% stronger than the Priests in my elites’ team,’ Demon Robe was equally shocked, but he put a cruel smile on his face as he spoke. “What are you going to use to block my attacks now? Ambush, Cold Blood!”

This was the Bandit’s signature skill, Cold Blood! It was a powerful skill which would ignore 50% of all Defense, increase a player’s Critical Strike chance by 30%, and Critical Hit damage by 30%!

-2,745! (Immuned)

Baili Changcheng let out a roar, broke free of the restrictions from the Ice Control skill, and finally gained control of his body again. Layers of ice covered his body—this was the Frost Armor, the signature skill of a Frost Sword Artist which could increase the player’s Defense, and at the same time let him or her be immune to all damage for one second! He had used this to evade Demon Robe’s attack on him, and with a strike of his sword, Baili Changcheng was about to freeze Demon Robe in the instant the latter activated his skills!

Baili Changcheng had learned the Ice Control skill, and his attacks now had 20 Ice-type damage with a 15% chance of freezing his enemy. Meanwhile, all of his Ice-type skills would also have additional Freeze and Speed Decrease effects.

Ding~

When Baili Changcheng’s Ice Crystal Longsword stabbed through Demon Robe’s armor, Demon Robe’s figure actually fizzled and became transparent! After which, it turned into a faint shadow and faded away.

“What, he’s fake? It’s a Skill Replica?” gaped Baili Changcheng as his eyes widened in shock.

“Hahaha, your battling instincts are still too inferior!” Demon Robe appeared from behind Baili Changcheng, and his dagger was already placed upon Baili Changcheng’s neck. “After all, you are just a brat, and a far fetch from Lone Wolf! I shall teach you a lesson today—DIE now!”

Baili Changcheng’s body shook, and he shouted in rage, “I am inferior to Lone Wolf? You are dead meat now!”

Demon Robe scoffed at his comment, and stabbed his dagger consecutively down at Baili Changcheng after letting out several cold laughs!

“Ang—”

Suddenly, a loud Dragon’s Roar was heard! Its prowess made even Demon Robe’s actions halter for a while. Yet the next second, Demon Robe was being blown up into mid-air! Meanwhile, a gold Blade Aura — from Shield Cut — descended upon Demon Robe!

“Lone Wolf, it’s you!” gasped Demon Robe in extreme shock. He did not know that Lone Wolf had learned such a powerful skill!

Dragon Armor Removal!

This was an improved version of the Epic Skill, Armor Removal, and now it was definitely one of Lin Jie’s strongest skills! The next would be Army Obliteration, followed by the Clomaros’ Kill skill, which he had never revealed to anyone yet.

Right after Lin Jie removed his disguise as the Dragon Envoy, he had teleported there using the Ocean’s Hearts. Though it had taken more time due to the further distance between Lin Jie and Bu Yi, he was still able to make it in the nick of time!

‘I didn’t expect Demon Robe to be here too! Looking at his bizarre skills, he must have completed the Bandit God mission distributed by the Bandits Association and hence learned the Shadow Skill from the Peculiar Bandit Black. No wonder this skill seems so weird. This is a skill which can only be learned by players of advanced jobs, and it’s a notch stronger than my most basic skills.’ Lin Jie sized up Demon Robe carefully, but his Broken Blade and its Supplementary Sword, which he wielded in his hands, continued to give out gusts of Blade Auras. Like a parasite that refused to leave its host, they followed closely to wherever Demon Robe went!

Lin Jie’s attacks were now over 1,000 points, and he surpassed all the players in The New Age. Meanwhile, Demon Robe had been attacked with the Dragon Armor Removal skill, and hence his Defense was reduced to naught. Coupled with the previous attacks from Shield Cut and Wind Rider Blade Aura Executioner, it was easy for Lin Jie to instakill Demon Robe!

Lin Jie had chosen not to use the Army Obliteration skill because he did not want Demon Robe to discover he had arrived. Though the combination of Shield Cut and Dragon Armor Removal seemed impressive, it wasn’t that easy for the system to judge the resulting damage all at once. Yet if Lin Jie had used Army Obliteration, once the four gusts of Blade Auras shot out, Demon Robe would have discovered him and escaped immediately.

Whoosh—

Yet Demon Robe, who was about to be hit, transformed into another shadow and disappeared again. His voice rang out from the other side. “Everyone, attack now! Kill them all! Whoever manages to kill them, I will reward you with 100,000$ real cash!”

“Wth, he still dares to announce that he wants to kill us all?!” Baili Changcheng’s eyes widened in extreme fury, and he shouted in their team’s channel, “Fu Sheng, KILL HIM!”

Lin Jie replied in a low voice, “A cornered animal is a dangerous foe. Our main motive this time is already ruined. If we continue to pursue him, we will all be goners if someone discovered something amiss with the King of Blood. Let’s get back to the City of Sea King first, and stall for a while. We will need to gather arms of our own. Right now, the Mesosaprobic Shrine is not a map that we can handle just by ourselves.”

“But… alright, I swear I will return today’s shame to him one day!” Much as though Baili Changcheng was reluctant to let go, he could only nod furiously and make his way towards the teleportation circle.

In the darkness, Demon Robe gritted his teeth. “Darn it, this damned fellow always ruins the Three Alliances’ plans. Inform Eighteen Massacres to bring more people over now! Don’t bother to contact Leader Xuanyuan for this, he has more important stuff to do. Tell Eighteen Massacres to surround the City of Sea King! The rest of you kill these four scumbags! I don’t believe that we can’t handle the few of them, with all the hundreds of us here!”

“Qiu Yuan, remove the Dark Fog and leave now,” instructed Lin Jie as he pulled onto Qiu Yuan’s arms. This girl seemed to be addicted to fighting, and once any battles began, she would not leave unless there’s an outcome.

Qiu Yuan stomped her feet. “Are you stupid!? When I remove the fog, our whereabouts will be revealed to them!”

“Just go, their attacks can’t hurt me!”

There were sounds of blades, fire, and daggers being unsheathed heard from every direction. It was not hard to imagine how many arrows and fireballs would descend upon Lin Jie, once Qiu Yuan lifted the fog! To be honest, even if the Dark Fog was still there and helped to decrease the enemies’ vision fields, all the magical spells and arrows being thrown in this direction would blast Lin Jie to death!

Yet Lin Jie pushed Qiu Yuan resolutely into the teleportation circle. Meanwhile, he raised Broken Blade, and a pure, black light shot out. The light spread out and formed a black hole—this was the Dark Chaotic Hole Skill!

MISS!

MISS!

MISS!

MISS!

MISS!

Various ‘MISS’ notifications sprang up, and everyone’s visions were covered by them.

Lin Jie stared at Demon Robe, who was hiding within the crowd, and with a slash of Broken Blade, he revealed a cruel smile. He made an action of slicing Demon Robe’s head from his body!