Humans inherently possess their own unique thoughts, along with emotions that, in certain moments, simply cannot be voiced.
Indeed, there are times when mere words fail to bridge the chasm of understanding.
This very moment served as a testament: no matter what explanations Yan offered, the undeniable truth remained that he had forsaken his former companions and guild, venturing alone into a new server.
Though Nan Shi could grasp that Yan’s departure without a farewell hadn’t been intentional, a deep-seated resentment continued to smolder within him.
Mercifully, they shared a common ground in ‘Companion God Realm,’ a space where all the unspoken sentiments festering in their hearts could be unleashed and resolved within the crucible of this duel.
****
“Divine Speed!”
“Combat Instinct!”
“Battle Roar!”
Almost in perfect synchronicity, the two began stacking their buffs, as the fundamental enhancement skills for melee professions were universally identical.
Naturally, any Companion-tier enhancement skills would, however, be an entirely different matter.
“Regretless Killing Intent!”
Nan Shi invoked a buff skill utterly unfamiliar to Yan, as a sanguine glow slowly enveloped his tall, lean physique.
“What skill is that? Is it Companion-tier?”
A subtle furrow creased Yan’s brow.
“Indeed, it is.”
A faint smirk played on Nan Shi’s lips; in his ‘Regretless Killing Intent’ state, his formerly cerulean eyes had transformed into a vivid blood-red, lending him an aura of untamed wildness and palpable danger.
“This is the second Companion-tier skill I obtained from clearing the Professional Arena event…”
His gaze flickered to Yan, even as his grip on his sword tightened.
“As for what it does, you’ll just have to experience it yourself!”
Ah, right! That particular event, exclusive to new servers and unlocking at level ten—it truly did offer Companion-tier skills as a reward, just as Alice had mentioned.
A realization dawned on Yan, and his expression, as he looked at Nan Shi, grew perceptibly more serious.
Unfamiliar Companion-tier skills presented a significant danger, particularly in player-versus-player combat, where an unknown effect rendered any defense impossible.
Nevertheless, his confidence remained unshaken; his proven strength, consistently ranking among the top five on the strategy leaderboards, was certainly not to be underestimated.
Yan’s gaze settled on Nan Shi, standing a short distance away, and a faint smile touched his lips.
“You’re aware, of course, that I possess some real-world spearmanship,” Yan remarked, “so I’ll extend you the courtesy of making the first move.”
“Then I won’t hold back!”
Nan Shi’s shout resonated through the arena as he braced the black longsword clutched in his left hand against his body, while the other black longsword was held horizontally at his side by his right.
“Sword Flash!”
A fierce, immediate assault?
Caught slightly off guard, Yan swiftly executed a back-step, retreating from his initial position.
Almost instantaneously, Nan Shi’s figure vanished from its previous spot, only to reappear in the very space Yan had just occupied.
His right-hand longsword slashed out diagonally, carving a lingering afterimage across the air.
It was fortunate that Yan’s reaction speed had been sufficiently swift, allowing him to create distance in advance, which resulted in Nan Shi’s strike meeting only empty air.
Yet, before Yan could even draw a breath of relief, Nan Shi renewed his assault.
“Flash!”
“Flash!”
“Cross Flash!”
‘Flash’ stood as the dual-wielding profession’s sole ranged attack option, a formidable Tier Four skill known for its high mana cost and equally high damage output.
Four luminous streaks of blade energy ignited Nan Shi’s twin swords.
He executed a rapid flurry of swings, unleashing these streaks toward Yan, who found himself too slow to evade.
So fast!
Had this fellow specialized entirely in attack speed?
A perplexed frown creased Yan’s face.
Lacking time to dodge, he could only resort to deploying his ‘Binding Body’ skill.
He spun his long spear swiftly before him, its sharp tip tracing arcs of chilling brilliance that formed an impenetrable barrier around him.
This, a Lancer’s blocking skill, granted a mere 10% increase to block chance during its activation.
However, that paltry 10% chance proved woefully insufficient; out of four incoming streaks of blade energy, he managed to deflect only one, a feat that felt like an incredible surge of luck.
Enduring the impact of three blade streaks head-on, his health bar instantly plummeted by half.
It was then, and only then, that a genuine sense of alarm began to stir within him.
“Have you completely lost your mind?” Yan roared.
Yan roared, executing a sudden horizontal sweep with his spear, forcing the relentlessly advancing Nan Shi to retreat.
“Four ‘Flashes’? Are you truly not conserving any mana at all?”
Commensurate with ‘Flash’s’ devastating damage was its exorbitant mana cost; even a dual-wielding player, fully geared with a maximum mana pool of 2000, could typically unleash no more than four such attacks.
This utterly reckless approach had caught Yan completely by surprise, resulting in his health plummeting by half in a single exchange.
“Tch, he didn’t get instantly killed?”
Nan Shi clicked his tongue in undisguised disappointment.
“Hey! Don’t you dare click your tongue!”
Yan muttered his exasperation, ‘My stats are specialized for health, for crying out loud! And he still managed to cleave away half of it.’
Was this fellow’s specialization in attack power or attack speed?
Nan Shi’s utterly baffling combat style left Yan thoroughly perplexed.
As he was still trying to unravel the mystery, Nan Shi offered a small smile.
“To be entirely frank with you,” Nan Shi began, “I didn’t actually use ‘Flash’ four times just now.
In reality, I only used it twice.”
What?
Yan regarded him with an incredulous stare.
“This is my Companion skill,” Nan Shi explained.
“[Double Strike]: All attacks and skills inflict damage twice, simultaneously augmenting weapon attributes and capabilities by 50% each time.”
“That’s utterly outrageous…”
Yan felt a bead of sweat trickle down his temple.
This skill essentially allowed Nan Shi to more than triple his damage output!
Furthermore, as a dual-wielding specialist, the attributes of both his swords could be augmented by 50%…
“Regretless Killing Intent!”
Nan Shi offered no reply to Yan’s outburst.
Instead, seizing the moment of Yan’s distraction, he immediately stacked ‘Regretless Killing Intent’ once more.
“Hey! That’s despicable!”
Yan snapped back to attention, charging at Nan Shi with his long spear.
Most buff skills typically boasted a considerable duration, certainly sufficient to see a one-on-one duel through to its conclusion under normal circumstances.
Given Nan Shi’s urgent need to stack ‘Regretless Killing Intent’ once more, the skill had to be either repeatable, like ‘Divine Speed,’ or a specialized enhancement with an exceptionally brief duration.
Although he remained ignorant of the skill’s precise effects, Yan surmised it was likely tied to damage amplification.
Otherwise, he reasoned, he wouldn’t have suffered such a drastic health reduction from a single strike, not even if he had absorbed all four ‘Flashes’ directly!
In essence, regardless of which of Yan’s hypotheses about the skill proved true, maintaining a relentless offensive to suppress Nan Shi and deny him further opportunities to stack buffs would undoubtedly work to Yan’s advantage.
“Crushing Spear!”
Yan abruptly flicked his spear tip upward, driving it menacingly toward Nan Shi’s face.
“Back-step!”
Nan Shi, with wary precision, utilized the universally learnable ‘Back-step’ skill, shifting backward to deny Yan the crucial opening for a ‘Crushing Spear’ knock-up and subsequent combo.
“Heh.”
The very instant Nan Shi initiated his ‘Back-step’ skill, a peculiar smile ghosted across Yan’s features.
“Not good!”
A cacophony of alarms blared within Nan Shi’s mind, yet he was powerless.
Having already committed to the skill, he was forced to await its completion at the designated landing spot before he could undertake any subsequent action.
Yan, however, possessed a distinct advantage.
Endowed with the Companion skill, [Agile Control], he could cancel his ongoing skills at will.
The precise moment Nan Shi initiated his ‘Back-step,’ Yan abruptly halted his ‘Crushing Spear’ maneuver.
With a swift pivot, he gripped the butt end of his long spear with his right hand and thrust it out with brutal force.
“Thrust!”
This was no Lancer skill, but rather one of the foundational maneuvers of traditional spearmanship.
Within ‘Companion God Realm,’ any technique employed by a player that wasn’t recognized by the system was automatically registered as a ‘normal attack’ (Ping A, TL Note: A common gaming term for ‘normal attack’ or ‘auto attack’), collectively termed a “Free Attack,” with damage calculated as the number of hits multiplied by the normal attack damage.
At that precise moment, with Nan Shi’s ‘Back-step’ skill only halfway complete, Yan’s thrusting spear plunged savagely into his golden armor.
Though the sight was chilling, the inflicted damage was merely that of a normal attack.
Equipped with the [Weakening Spear], Yan’s simple ‘normal attack’ only managed to deplete Nan Shi’s health by approximately one-twentieth.
Nevertheless, Yan’s primary objective had already been accomplished.
“Lift Spear!”
Yan swiftly advanced a step, his left hand abruptly seizing the spear shaft.
Simultaneously, his right hand, clutching the spear’s base, rapidly pressed downward, instantly launching Nan Shi into the air and inflicting a brief knock-up effect.
This, a Tier One crowd control skill exclusive to the Lancer profession, was often dismissed as a worthless ability by most players due to its extremely short cast range, a mere 0.8-second control duration, and its inability to affect boss monsters.
Yet, few were aware that ‘Lift Spear’s’ knock-up distance wasn’t a fixed measurement; rather, it was determined by the precise position of the spear tip upon impact.
This implied that merely grazing an opponent with the spear tip was enough to instantly launch them into the air—even if the contact came from a “Free Attack”!
“Consecutive Stabs!”
Yan wasted no time capitalizing on the fleeting 0.8-second knock-up window, instantly chaining into his next skill.
His left hand loosely formed a ring, aligning the spear’s sharp tip with the momentarily airborne Nan Shi.
His right hand rapidly worked the shaft back and forth, propelling the spear tip forward in a furious, rapid succession of thrusts.
This swift and damaging combo left Nan Shi momentarily flustered, even as he still hung suspended in the air.
This, the Lancer’s primary Tier Three damage skill, was simultaneously an indispensable element of traditional spearmanship.
In one-on-one combat, such a rapid flurry of spear thrusts would exhaust an opponent struggling to parry the sharp tip, and within the game, it also boasted substantial damage output.
After a mere 0.8 seconds, Yan had already executed eight consecutive thrusts, and Nan Shi was now poised to land.
Yan couldn’t help but marvel; even in reality, no matter how proficient he became with this technique, he would never manage to deliver so many thrusts within a single second.
Clearly, the game’s agility specialization attribute, with its significant data bonuses, had considerably amplified Yan’s combat speed.
“Sweep!”
Yan didn’t wait for Nan Shi to land; he immediately unleashed the Tier Two ‘Sweep’ skill.
Nan Shi, having just touched down, was slightly repelled by Yan’s attack.
“Piercing Flash!”
Yan swiftly chained his skills; a flash of white light erupted as his long spear pierced through Nan Shi’s body, simultaneously teleporting Yan behind the repelled Nan Shi.
“Wind Spear Wheel!”
The combo was far from over!
Yan raised his long spear high above his head and began to spin it rapidly.
Though merely a weak, Tier One skill that Yan typically reserved for clearing minor monsters, it possessed a slight knock-back effect, making it an integral part of his combo.
Still, despite unleashing so many consecutive moves, Yan’s current equipment, the [Weakening Spear], meant this entire combo had only just managed to deplete nearly half of Nan Shi’s health.
Just as Yan was about to sigh, contemplating how to continue ‘tormenting’ Nan Shi with further combos, Nan Shi’s health bar instantly plummeted to zero.
“Victor: Yan”
The words materialized in the sky above.
“Hey, hey! Why surrender? That’s no fun…”
As Nan Shi’s figure before him gradually dissolved into particles of light and vanished, Yan called out into the empty arena.
“I didn’t surrender!”
Nan Shi’s figure reappeared before Yan; the two were no longer in a duel state.
“It was because of my Companion skill!”
“That skill called [Regretless Killing Intent]?”
Yan looked at him, puzzled.
“Yes!”
Nan Shi stomped his foot in frustration.
“[Regretless Killing Intent]: For 30 seconds, the player’s attributes and attack effects are doubled.
If the player has not exited combat state after 30 seconds, they will immediately die and cannot be revived.
This is a buff skill and can be stacked repeatedly (each stack reduces skill duration by 1 second).
The theoretical maximum duration is 465 seconds, or 7.75 minutes, minus tolerance, approximately seven and a half minutes.”
“No wonder your fighting style was so frantic,” Yan said, a stiff, helpless smile twitching at his lips.
“So, if you didn’t instantly kill me within a certain time, you’d just die, huh?”
‘So, there are skills like that,’ Yan thought.