Published at 25th of March 2019 9:37 pm

Chapter 180: The Fastest Launcher

“Lord Grim???” Poplar Beach was a bit doubtful when he saw that a female character had entered the field.

“Yeah.” Ye Xiu said.

Poplar Beach wasn’t too surprised though. Lord Grim had said that he would borrow an account. Male characters were the same as female characters; their stats and equipment weren’t much different from each other.

However, this was something that Ye Xiu had said during their dispute in front of Desolate Land’s entrance. How could the other players know this? All they knew was that, yesterday, Lord Grim told his opponent to use his main account, so many concluded that these two characters were both side’s main accounts.

“Poplar Beach!!” This character was quite famous. Many veterans from the Heavenly Domain, who came to pioneer in the new server, knew this character.

“Poplar Beach??” In Happy Internet Cafe, Chen Guo and Tang Rou had turned on a computer and logged into Glory with Soft Mist. They found the room and entered as a spectator. When Chen Guo saw the opponent’s name, she couldn’t help but cry it out in surprise.

“You’re familiar with him?” Tang Rou asked.

“I’m not familiar with him, but I do know of him. He’s from Blue Brook Guild after all. He’s an elite in there, but he’s always shouting arrogantly in the world channel. He’s really annoying.” Chen Guo was in the Heavenly Domain as well, so she recognized the famous experts from Blue Brook Guild. But clearly, her impression of him wasn’t good.

“Oh.” Tang Rou was the type of new player who had no concept of how great “Blue Brook Guild” was. She just thought that they were the same as Full Moon Guild; they were one of the guilds that had asked them to set a record and nothing more.

“Why are they PKing?” Chen Guo asked Tang Rou in doubt, while yelling at Ye Xiu: “Hey, hey. You can start now!”

“Okay.” Ye Xiu put on his headphones and clicked Ready. Poplar Beach immediately clicked Ready as well and their match began. Chen Guo and Tang Rou’s screen flashed and switched to spectator mode.

“Are you a male or female?” Poplar Beach asked. After entering the field, the two were able to talk to each other.

“Male.” Ye Xiu replied.

“So you’ll be using this character. You’re sure that you won’t switch?” Poplar Beach asked.

“Yeah.”

“How many rounds to determine who wins or loses?” Poplar Beach asked about the details of the duel.

“One round is enough.” Ye Xiu laughed, “One round is enough to let you know the gap between us. I guarantee that you won’t fight a second round.”

“CUT THE CRAP!!” Poplar Beach roared.

Even though Chen Guo and Tang Rou weren’t able to listen to the two talk in spectator mode, they could hear Ye Xiu, who was sitting next to them. They could hear whatever Ye Xiu was saying. After hearing this, Chen Guo curled her lips towards Tang Rou: “He sounds really mad!”

“It’s started.” Tang Rou said. Right now, Chen Guo was controlling the computer, so she needed to adjust the spectating angle.

In the ring, after Poplar Beach said that, he took the initiative to attack. His character rushed towards Chasing Haze, which Ye Xiu was controlling. The instant his character entered Chasing Haze’s firing range, his character suddenly flashed. Moving in an irregular pattern, Poplar Beach’s character immediately blurred into one, two, three, four afterimages.

“Shadow Steps! Four afterimages!” Chen Guo immediately shouted.

This was a high-leveled Blade Master skill. The skill’s effects depended on the player’s mechanics. Poplar Beach’s movements created four perfect afterimages, making Chen Guo yell out in astonishment. In her experience against other Blade Masters, she had never met any players who were able to create four afterimages. This Blue Brook Guild’s expert really did have the ability to back up his arrogance.

“Woah, not bad!” Ye Xiu lightly praised. Poplar Beach had quite a bit of experience. His Shadow Steps were timed perfectly. They were completed the instant he entered Chasing Haze’s firing range. To be able to instantly determine Chasing Haze’s firing range was a testament to his exceptional knowledge of the game. This judgement could only be made by looking at Chasing Haze’s equipment.

As for the four afterimages that Chen Guo was so astonished about… they weren’t anything to Ye Xiu. In the pro-scene, which pro Blade Master couldn’t do this? For top-tier Blade Masters like Huang Shaotian, he could create six and a half afterimages with his movements. Four? Too few…

Ye Xiu instantly recognized which of the four afterimages was the real one. His mouse moved and Chasing Haze immediately fired out a Quantum Bomb. At the same time, he tapped the keyboard with his left hand to have Chasing Haze step back. “Quantum Bomb” and “Laser Rifle” were similar when they were fired. They had a strong recoil, requiring the user to move their character a step backwards in order to dissolve it. If not, then the character would fall backwards towards the ground. Poplar Beach wasn’t too surprised by this “Quantum Bomb”. He slid to the side with Shadow Steps and moved just outside of the Quantum Bomb’s shockwave radius. This precise control made Ye Xiu want to praise him again. But who would have thought that right after Poplar Beach dodged it, he would immediately follow up with a “Sword Draw” to hack at the Quantum Bomb.

The system allowed for this type of attack as long as your hand-eye coordination and hand speed was good enough. In theory, you could even slice apart a Sharpshooter’s bullet. Of course, anyone who could do that would be an expert with mechanics that were even higher than those at the peak.

As for people who could slice apart a “Quantum Bomb”, quite a few people could do that. However, it also required a good enough hand-eye-coordination as well as fast hand speed. However in this situation, Poplar Beach had already avoided the “Quantum Bomb”. For him to suddenly use such a difficult move was completely unnecessary. Besides looking cool, there was no other reason to do so. Ye Xiu helplessly shook his head. Did this guy not understand the situation?

Since things were already like this, how could Ye Xiu ignore this huge opening? Without a word, he switched to a gun and used a “Floating Bullet”.

Launchers could use other weapons other than heavy artillery. It was just that many of the Launcher’s high damage skills required a cannon to use. The skill “Floating Bullet” wasn’t actually a Launcher skill. It was a Level 20 or below Spitfire skill. It was named “Floating Bullet” to indicate the strong Knock-up effect the skill had. If the skill was used with a smaller gun, the bullet would come out faster.

Switching guns and using dual guns was quite common for Gunners. Ye Xiu had noticed that Chasing Haze had a reserve gun when he took over the account. As a result, he pulled out the handgun and quickly fired a Floating Bullet.

However, the following scene made Ye Xiu somewhat surprised. When his Floating Bullet was fired, he immediately put the handgun away and prepared to switch to the cannon to follow up with an attack. But he then saw that Poplar Beach cancelled his Sword Draw mid-animation and jumped forward, dodging the Floating Bullet. After landing on the ground, he followed up with a Triple Slash. As the sword light arced forward, his character closed in on Chasing haze. Triple Slash was a Blade Master skill that was often used to move quickly.

“So it was a trap! This guy!” Ye Xiu immediately understood. Poplar Beach unexpectedly had a few of his own tricks! His previous actions, which aligned with his show-off personality, were just bait. He used the time that his opponent needed to switch weapons in order to close in!

The actions of switching guns wasn’t quick because switching weapons had a cooldown. This was one of the biggest obstacles that limited the power of unspecialized characters.

Seeing that his ploy had worked, Poplar Beach felt ecstatic in his heart. It was already too late for Chasing Haze to raise her cannon and defend. There wasn’t enough time for Chasing Haze to escape with an Aerial Fire either. He had found an opportunity where he could attack and the opponent had no way of resisting! Poplar Beach had already begun his offensive, however, Ye Xiu returned the surprise. Poplar Beach saw his opponent throw his weapon onto the ground.

“What? Did he make a mistake in panic?” Poplar Beach hadn’t expected something like this to happen. Equipment couldn’t be dropped in an Arena, so could this guy have actually thrown down his weapon by accident?

Poplar Beach knew Chasing Haze’s firing range, so he had figured out what his opponent’s weapon were even before that.

Rose Flower Cannon, a Level 70 Purple weapon. If something like this just dropped on the ground, who wouldn’t want to pick it up? Even if you couldn’t use it, it was still worth a lot of money.

“Fuck!!!” Chen Guo jumped up from her seat. That Rose Flower Cannon was hers! Ye Xiu had thrown it on the ground. What if the opponent picked it up and took it away? Chen Guo immediately felt a pang of regret. Hate! Why didn’t she bind it? It was because she was too ambitious. She was always thinking of switching for an Orange weapon and then sell her Purple weapon. But now?

However, Poplar Beach wouldn’t pick up the weapon right now. Although he was surprised, he still continued his offensive. However, he suddenly saw a Knee Strike come flying forward from Chasing Haze.

Knee Strike? What was the use of that?

Poplar Beach sneered. It was true that Knee Strike was an uninterruptible Super Armor skill, but unfortunately, Poplar Beach had anticipated that Chasing Haze would use some sort of Super Armor skill to force them apart. As a result, he used a “Wave Wheel Slasher”, which could break Super Armor.

This skill actually took some time to execute. However, his opponent was the slowest Gunner class, a Launcher, so he had more than enough time to interrupt this Knee Strike. Knee Strike was a low-leveled Sharpshooter skill. Even though the speed of it was unrelated to the user’s firing speed, the weight would affect its speed. A Launcher using a Cannon and Heavy armor would be very slow when using this skill.

Poplar Beach had thought that his decision was perfect, but unexpectedly, Chasing Haze’s Knee Strike was faster than his “Wave Wheel Slasher” so he was launched into the air.

“Impossible… ” Poplar Beach adjusted his camera to look down, when he suddenly realized: Weapon weight affected the move’s skill. As a result, what was supposed to be a very slow Launcher, without a cannon, in his hands were… his hands had no weapon!

A Launcher with nothing in his hands. How fast would the move be? Poplar Beach suddenly realized an issue he had never thought of before.

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