The white light of teleportation began to envelop Yan’s vision, and the bustling crowd in the spectator area slowly faded from view.
Just before the white light completely consumed his sight, Yan’s gaze lingered on the slightly worried, gentle smiles gracing Qing Bai and Tian Jiu’s faces.
“You have to win.”
Qing Bai’s soft voice, a stark contrast to her usual domineering persona, resonated in Yan’s ears like a melody from heaven.
‘Heh.’
Yan’s lips curved into a slight smile, allowing the white light to fully consume his vision.
“I will win,”
he murmured in response.
The next moment, Yan’s figure materialized on Arena (TL Note: A raised platform or stage for martial arts contests or challenges) number three, where he found himself facing Zhen Bupo, who exuded the poised, unhurried demeanor of a refined young master.
“[Spear Master] Yan… is that right?”
Zhen Bupo, with his right hand gripping a folding fan and pressing it firmly against his chin, watched Yan with a look of utter helplessness as his two finely arched, dark brows twisted together in a bitter knot.
“Why did it have to be you…?”
‘Well, it seemed he wasn’t quite as composed as he appeared, at least not after seeing Yan as his opponent; the ease had certainly vanished from his face.’
“Pfft.”
Yan couldn’t help but chuckle at his expression, then playfully retorted, “What? Am I not good enough?”
“It’s not that you’re not good enough… it’s just that I watched the morning matches of the arena masters, and I thought fighting [Swordlight Wielder] Xiao would be a bit easier…”
Zhen Bupo scratched his head in frustration, disheveling the elegant dark hair behind his ears.
“But it’s you… ah, now I have a headache.”
“Fighting Xiao wouldn’t be easy either, you know,” Yan gently reminded him, a faint smile playing on his lips.
‘In his mind, Xiao was a player of his caliber; indeed, if not for Yan’s abnormal stats inherited from the old server and his deep familiarity with the game, Xiao would undoubtedly be considerably stronger than him.’
‘If it were a PK outside the arena, she might even be able to defeat An Ruina.’
‘Xiao was, in all likelihood, the strongest player in the new server.’
“I was talking about the compatibility of our awakened skills, the compatibility…”
Zhen Bupo scratched his head in exasperation, seemingly realizing his previous words might have been inappropriate, and spoke with a hint of awkwardness.
“At this stage, with Xiao’s playstyle, she can’t beat me in the arena. She needs to maintain a certain distance, doesn’t she?”
He tilted his head with a smile, his folding fan opening and closing in his hand.
“And my transformed Old Ape takes massive strides; I can close the distance to her in one or two steps. Of course, that’s not the main point.”
“The main point is that she’s a player specialized in attack speed, right?”
“That’s correct…”
Yan nodded in surprise.
‘He hadn’t expected Zhen Bupo to discern Xiao’s specialized attributes just by watching her on screen; it seemed he possessed a profound understanding of such games.’
“My transformed Old Ape has very high dual resistances; she can’t burst me down with her skills, and while her skills consume mana, mine don’t.”
“So, unless Xiao has some new trump cards yet to reveal, she won’t be able to defeat me with her current methods. Hmm… though I shouldn’t speak so absolutely. Her win rate is probably about twenty percent…”
‘Twenty percent…?’
‘That statement was practically absolute enough.’
Yan mused with a helpless smile, his gaze settling on Zhen Bupo before him.
“If that’s the case, and you’re so confident about beating Xiao, why didn’t you wait for her to become the arena master before challenging her? Instead, you were the first to jump onto the stage and await challengers.”
Yan’s eyes held a hint of confusion as he looked at Zhen Bupo.
“I thought you were confident enough to fear no challenger, no matter who they were…”
“No, no, no, I’m not that arrogant yet,”
Zhen Bupo hastily waved his hands, seemingly quite flustered by Yan’s misunderstanding.
“It’s just that An Ruina jumped onto her stage immediately after the finals began, didn’t she…?”
Zhen Bupo revealed an embarrassed expression, lightly biting his lower lip as he spoke with a sigh of resignation.
“It’s… how should I put it… I didn’t want to lose to her…”
“So I gritted my teeth and jumped onto the arena stage.”
‘Oh? So that’s it…’
Yan looked at Zhen Bupo, a knowing smile playing on his lips, as if he had misinterpreted something.
Zhen Bupo, however, didn’t notice the mischievous glint in Yan’s eyes.
Instead, he closed his eyes, scratching his head, and added with a guileless laugh, “After all, if an older brother is more timid than his younger sister when playing games, wouldn’t that be too embarrassing? Hahaha…”
“Ah… huh?”
Yan raised an eyebrow, a flicker of doubt crossing his mind about what he’d just heard.
“Are you saying you… and the… [Iron-Blooded Queen] An Ruina, are siblings in real life?”
‘They looked nothing alike, no matter how he saw it.’
Yan scrutinized Zhen Bupo, who resembled a handsome man from ancient times, then lifted his gaze to the elegant Western rapier queen, An Ruina, on Arena number two, his brow furrowing in disbelief.
“Hey, hey, what do you mean by that? That’s quite rude, you know!”
Zhen Bupo frowned slightly, clearly displeased, as if he felt underestimated.
“Ah, my apologies, haha…”
Yan offered an awkward laugh.
“It’s just that the stylistic difference between you two in the game is so vast that I couldn’t tell.”
“Well, it can’t be helped. Even if you saw us both in real life, you still wouldn’t be able to tell we’re siblings…”
Zhen Bupo shrugged helplessly, a wry, self-deprecating smile on his face.
“We’re half-siblings; her mother is Spanish.”
“In real life, she’s a beautiful girl with blonde hair and blue eyes, while I’m just an ordinary otaku you could find anywhere.”
‘What a complicated family dynamic…’
‘Perhaps it was because of Liu Xuerou, but Yan was somewhat sensitive to topics concerning family relationships.’
‘Even hearing Zhen Bupo’s casual, almost jocular words, he felt a faint sense of melancholy.’
‘Though Zhen Bupo’s face didn’t betray much solemnity, perhaps the situation wasn’t as bleak as Yan imagined.’
‘Perhaps Zhen Bupo’s father and his previous wife had simply parted ways amicably?’
‘Regardless of the truth, it was inappropriate to pry too much into someone’s real-life circumstances within a full-dive virtual reality game.’
Yan decided to let the matter drop.
‘His primary task now was to fight this guy.’
“Since I’ve jumped onto this arena stage, then the two of us must fight to determine the ultimate victor,” Yan said with a resigned smile, unholstering the long spear from his back and gracefully twirling it in his hand.
The sharp, cold glint of the spear tip then pointed directly at Zhen Bupo.
“Come on.”
“W-wait a minute!”
Zhen Bupo waved his hands in a fluster, seemingly not yet ready for battle.
Yan frowned in slight displeasure.
“What is it? We’ve been talking for ages, aren’t you going to fight? Are you trying to stall for time? As the arena master, you only need to hold out for thirty minutes to win, but I won’t fall for that trick.”
“No!”
Zhen Bupo exclaimed anxiously, shaking his head.
“Then what do you want to do…?”
Yan, with a sigh, twirled his spear once more, then lowered his stance.
“An Ruina’s match has started…”
Zhen Bupo didn’t rush to answer, instead turning his gaze towards the screen in the sky displaying Arena number two.
“Yes, it has. What about it?”
Yan also looked up, noticing that An Ruina had already engaged Ivan.
Both a pugilist and a rapier player, they were kings of close combat, battling fiercely on the small forty-yard arena stage.
“I… I’d like to watch An Ruina’s match first, and then we can start ours… would that be alright?”
Zhen Bupo asked somewhat humbly, rubbing his hands together.
‘…’
Yan was speechless.
‘What kind of person jumps onto the arena stage early to become the master, only to then beg the challenger not to fight yet?’
“Anyway, this event lasts for thirty minutes. Let’s just watch for a bit. If they haven’t finished by the twenty-minute mark, we’ll ignore them and start our match… sound good?”
Zhen Bupo’s words held a certain logic.
‘Aside from someone like An Dong, who among serious players could fight for thirty minutes in an arena without a clear winner?’
‘Twenty minutes was more than enough time to finish a battle.’
Yan pondered for a moment, then gave a slight nod.
“Alright.”
“Really!?”
Zhen Bupo beamed with surprise.
“Thank you, Yan!”
“We have an agreement,” Yan added.
“If their match isn’t over when there are twenty minutes left on the clock, I won’t waste any more words and will start fighting immediately.”
“Understood.”
‘To be honest, Yan himself wanted to watch the other battles first.’
‘After all, it was a showdown between the ten strongest players in the game, yet the simultaneous arena format meant he couldn’t see all of them, which was quite frustrating for Yan.’
‘Moreover, he was very curious about the situation of the other four arena masters from the morning session.’
Having agreed not to interfere with each other for the time being, Yan smiled and looked up at the sky, observing the other arenas.
‘Xiao’s challenger still hadn’t appeared?’
‘[Terminator Mage] wouldn’t have given up, would they…?’
‘An Dong’s match hadn’t started yet either.’
‘Was it that little girl nicknamed [Poison Maiden] (TL Note: A nickname suggesting a female mage specialized in poison attacks)?’
‘From the nickname, she sounded like a mage proficient in poison-attribute attacks…’
“Eh? Why is Lian in such a tough spot? How can she not create distance?”
‘For an archer, close combat meant defeat!’
****
On Arena number five, Lian moved swiftly, her longbow strapped to her back, almost scrambling on all fours as she weaved incessantly through the dense forest.
Not far behind, the Challenger, [Shadow Killer], seemed to have locked onto her, sticking to her like glue.
The distance between them wasn’t increasing but decreasing, slowly closing from eighty yards to seventy!
Lian’s expression turned grim as she suddenly leaped, scrambling up a tall tree trunk like an agile cat.
She then gracefully bounced between trees, attempting to use the terrain to shake off her pursuer.
A fallen, thick tree trunk lay across Shadow Killer’s path, seemingly obstructing his chase.
Just as Yan thought this obstacle would delay Shadow Killer for a while, allowing Lian to create some distance…
“Flying Dagger!”
[Shadow Killer] flung a dagger from his hand, which arced gracefully through the air, soaring over the fallen tree trunk.
“Flying Thunder God!”
[Shadow Killer] instantly swapped positions with the thrown dagger, effortlessly passing through the fallen tree trunk.
With barely a pause, he continued his relentless pursuit of Lian.
‘He’s actually a [Dagger Assassin] (TL Note: A class specializing in throwing daggers and short-range teleportation)!’
Yan’s heart jolted with alarm, his gaze heavy as he watched the constantly fleeing Lian.
‘[Flying Thunder God] was a skill with no cooldown, usable as long as a weapon left the hand.’
‘A [Dagger Assassin], incredibly agile and possessing a considerable attack range, was practically the bane of archers.’
‘Lian was in danger.’