Published at 25th of March 2019 9:37 pm

Chapter 662: The Heart of Shadow Dance

Deception had been careless. Facing two players with such garbage equipment, he hadn’t given them a second thought. If not, with his level of skill and superior equipment, even against both Tang Rou and Steamed Bun, he wouldn’t be in such a sorry state.

Circle Swing was categorized as a forced “grab” and couldn’t be Quick Recovered, but Deception was quite quick. As soon as he crashed into the ground, he immediately followed up with a roll. In the blink of an eye, he was back on his feet as if he really had used a Quick Recover.

Deception no longer underestimated his opponents. He only hated how he had used his ninja tools.

A Ninja’s ninja tools were a part of the skill tree. However, ninja tools differed from ninjutsu, which could be immediately cast after forming the hand seals. On the other hand, ninja tools required the Ninja to craft the tools in order to use them. There was a limit to how many ninja tools a Ninja could carry. Normally, Ninjas would prepare enough before setting out, but he had been using his smoke bombs and caltrops the moment the skills had refreshed from cooldown, so he had run out awhile ago.

He had been using pre-made ninja tools. How would he have any time to craft any, while running?

Seeing how these two fearsome individuals were blocking his path, Deception regretted using up all of his tools. In this sort of situation, they clearly weren’t going to give him any time to craft his tools.

When he got back onto his feet, Soft Mist’s spear immediately stabbed towards him. Deception hastily dodged when he saw something else flying towards him. It wasn’t a skill or a tool, but a person! Steamed Bun Invasion had directly pounced on him, pinned him to the ground, and started attacking him in a flurry.

Deception wanted to cry. Even though he was a lone wolf, he still had plenty experience with the game. Steamed Bun Invasion had used the Brawler skill, Tyrannical Chain Punch, which pinned the target to the ground and followed up with a flurry of punches. A skill was just a skill though. Every person would use it differently. Facing this wild monkey, Deception wanted to go crazy. The skill wasn’t being used with any strategy to it. It was just a bunch of random attacks.

How could he bear being pinned by such a person? Not longer after Tyrannical Chain Punch ended, without the effects of the skill forcefully pressuring him, Deception immediately dug into the ground.

“What!?” Steamed Bun cried out in astonishment.

“You’ve never seen it before?” Tang Rou said. Soft Mist had already started acting. It wasn’t impossible to find someone who was using the Underground Tunneling Technique. There was a small hole used for breathing from the ninjato’s sheath. It was very small though, so the terrain easily hid it. However, Deception had used the skill right in front of them. How could they not know where he was? Soft Mist stabbed the ground, but something didn’t feel right.

The Underground Tunneling Technique wasn’t a rigid skill that only allowed the user to go up and down. The user could tunnel around a small area. Deception was a skilled Ninja. Since he dared to use the technique in front of them, he obviously had some confidence in using it. When Soft Mist stabbed the ground, Deception popped out of the ground behind her. His ninjato didn’t gleam with cold light. It silently stabbed Soft Mist. Deception didn’t follow up though. He had already started running. No matter how confident he was, he didn’t dare to continue fighting the two of them. There were more chasing after him. He had to be especially aware of Lord Grim in particular.

Deception glanced back, when he saw a brick flying towards him. He hastily tilted his head and dodged it. Suddenly, he was struck by Soft Mist’s spear.

These two reacted too quickly!!

Deception was astonished. His Underground Tunneling Technique had hit Soft Mist. Whenever an attack hit a character, there would be some sort of effect. Deception thought Soft Mist would be startled by it. He didn’t know how much Soft Mist had been slowed down, but she had been able to react in time and chase him down with her spear. No matter how fast he moved, he couldn’t be faster than the enemy extending her arms. The superior range of a spear finally displayed itself here.

Soft Mist had used Dragon Tooth. It didn’t deal much damage, but it still had a stun effect. This stun duration was enough for Soft Mist and Steamed Bun Invasion to trap Deception again.

Helpless, Deception could only start fighting the two of them again and see if he could find an opportunity to escape. After a few back and forths, he couldn’t find any openings. In trouble, he heard someone say: “You little punk! You scrap pick very bravely now!”

Deception knew who was talking, but he didn’t have time to look. He relied on Tang Rou’s and Steamed Bun’s lack of real battle experience to grasp an opening. He was about to take advantage of it, so how would he have the time to glance at Lord Grim?

Deception’s two hands moved in a blur as they formed a complex seal. It was clearly a high-leveled move. If not, he wouldn’t need so much time to complete the seal.

Ninjutsu - Shadow Dance!

Numerous clones instantly appeared all around Soft Mist and Steamed Bun Invasion. Tang Rou and Steamed Bun hadn’t experienced this skill too many times. High-leveled skills required more time to activate. Even Deception required a good opening in order to successfully execute the skill. Normal players would have needed even more time than him, but Tang Rou and Steamed Bun completely dominated their opponents. Very few of their opponents had the opportunity to activate the skill.

Thus, even though the two of them knew what this skill did, they didn’t have much experience dealing with it. Deception was an expert as well. Several clones jumped and attack them all at once. The two didn’t know what to do. The attacks from the shadows wouldn’t bother them too much, but they had no way of grabbing onto all of the clones

The Blade Master’s Shadow Steps hid the real body amongst the fakes, but that wasn’t the case for Shadow Dance. They wouldn’t be able to catch Deception unless they killed all of the clones.

But Deception obviously wasn’t using this skill to continue fighting them. He was just using it as a distraction so he could escape. He just had a few of his clones randomly jump at Soft Mist and Steamed Bun Invasion before sprinting towards outside of Darkness Palace.

Tang Rou and Steamed Bun tried hard, but they could only keep on killing the clones one after the other, but Deception would never jump to a clone that was attacking them.

As for the other clones, he had them run as well. Shadow Steps only had a limited range, so the clones couldn’t be too far from the real character. This made it easier to control though. Deception had two clones stop Soft Mist and Steamed Bun Invasion from advancing.

At this moment, Deception finally had time to check the situation. Sure enough, Lord Grim had caught up to him along with a bunch of Heavenly Justice players. There were even a few players that were faster than him, but in any case, none of them were closer to him than Soft Mist and Steamed Bun Invasion. After stopping them from chasing him, Deception felt like escaping wouldn’t be too difficult now. He still needed to pay close attention to Lord Grim though. What trap had that guy set for him? Should he have some of his clones harass him?

Deception was still deciding when one of the clones moved askew. Soft Mist clearly hadn’t attacked it. In that moment of absent-mindedness, the clone had been whisked away.

“Not good!!”

Deception suddenly understood what had happened. He hastily moved his character when he saw the clones running out of Darkness Palace suddenly poof into smoke as he was grabbed by a Qi Master.

Qi Mister skill: Cloud Grasping Fist.

Deception obviously knew this skill. He just hadn’t thought his enemies would use this sort of skill to break his Shadow Dance.

He only had two clones remaining. One of them had been grabbed by the Qi Master and the other was instantly killed by Steamed Bun Invasion. By default, the system forced Deception back into his original state.

“Ha ha, why are you only paying attention to me? Aren’t you looking down on everyone else here?” Lord Grim’s laugh floated over.

Deception was sad!

Indeed, he had ended up paying too much attention to Lord Grim. He had thought that Lord Grim was the only top expert among the group. Even though the two with trash equipment had surprised him, he hadn’t put Heavenly Justice’s players in his eyes. However, the one who had used Cloud Grabbing Fist on him had just been a normal member of Heavenly Justice. The only reason he was able to pull it off was because he was a Qi Master that could use Cloud Grabbing Fist.

Deception was certain that the reason the Cloud Grabbing Fist had worked on his Shadow Steps wasn’t because of the Qi Master’s skill, but either on accident or…

“Not bad… ” Deception heard a voice. Lord Grim had walked over, talking to the Qi Master.

Sure enough!

Deception knew that he had fallen into Lord Grim’s hands.

In theory, none of the clones were his real body for Shadow Steps. However, because the clones could only move around in a limited area, in order to satisfy this condition, there had to be a marker of some sort. This marker was the clone being used by the user.

If this clone were killed, it just meant there was one less clone. Even if the player didn’t choose to, the system would automatically throw the player into another clon, and this clone would become the new marker.

This marker clone was called the Heart of the Shadow Steps. It wasn’t the real body. The player could still freely switch.

What Ye Xiu had done was determine that Deception had used the clone Soft Mist was fighting as the Heart of Shadow Steps, and so he quietly ordered a Qi Master to suddenly use Cloud Grasping Fist to bring him over. By the time Deception noticed, it was too late to move. All of the clones that had rushed out of Darkness Palace were immediately recalled because they were now out of range of the heart.

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