Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 325
Many fans of crystal suits and low-level Cultivators came to the duel zone not because they wanted to take part in a match, but because they were hoping to watch the matches between the top experts to learn more.
Lone Walker was a somewhat renowned expert in the virtual matching platform. His super-fast continuous striking tactics were textbook for many young people. Therefore, many people had followed him and paid special attention to his matches.
The moment his match started, the system had sent notifications to those spectators.
By default, all match tickets were available to everybody at the cost of one crystal coin. The income would be divided in a ratio of 3:7 and given to the loser and winner respectively. The players of the match could change the setting by themselves to turn off the spectator mode or increase the price of the ticket.
However, it was a rather common practice to leave the spectator mode on, which was considered to be a great method of communication and studying.
Cultivators were responsible for improving the Cultivation level of the entire civilization. Therefore, even the real super experts would sometimes peg the ticket for spectators at one crystal coin symbolically, in order to return the favor and benefit the public.
Countless spectators immediately crowded in to watch the game.
At first, everyone's eyes were fixed upon Lone Walker. But when they read the profile of his opponent, they were all dumbfounded. A Building Foundation Stage Cultivator with a sync rate of only 37%? What had happened? Was there some sort of bug in the system?
Inside the ice ocean, Lone Walker was at a seemingly overwhelming advantage. The super mobility of his crystal suit couldn't be better shown. White Feather seemed to have split into hundreds of shadows which surrounded the Eight Arm Suit in the front and almost suffocated his opponent like a dominating hurricane.
Compared with the naturalness and elegance of the White Feather Battlesuit, the Eight Arm Suit's movements couldn't be more unappealing. One moment, it was on all fours on the surface of the ocean; the next moment, it was rolling over like a donkey; now, it was running away with its head in its hands. Although it narrowly escaped the dense attacks of White Feather every time, the crystal suit was on the brink of destruction. If the Exo hadn't been maintaining the crystal suit with the six artificial arms during the escape to keep its basic functions, it would've collapsed a long time ago.
"This Vulture is clearly no match for Lone Walker!"
"You don't say! His sync rate is only 37%, but Lone Walker's is 81%! They are not of the same level at all! I really wonder how he advanced into the Building Foundation Stage!"
"I understand it now! Vulture can't be a battle-type Cultivator. He must an admin-type, a creation-type, or even a culture-type Cultivator! Although he is in the level of the Building Foundation Stage, he does not have the corresponding combat ability. This is just his entertainment!"
"Yes, yes. It all makes sense now. The guy is just an amateur here to relax. Lone Walker is wasting his time!"
"Are you serious? The guy's maintenance skills are indeed impressive! He fixed up such a long fracture in front of his chest within only half a second!"
"Haha. I understand why he chose the Eight Arm Suit now. This guy must be a professional mechanic for crystal suits and an amateur of fighting in them! The Eight Arm Suit can prolong his life as much as possible so that he can fight the experts for another several minutes!"
"However, under the bombardment of Lone Walker, there is nothing but doom in front of him! Look, Lone Walker's ultimate skill, 'Shadow Dance'!"
The streak of whiteness seemed to have grown two wings. It was even faster than lightning and flashed past the Eight Arm Suit. Blood spurted out, and a giant head flew to the sky!
"For an amateur, to be killed by Shadow Dance is something to be proud of."
"Indeed. This battle lasted six minutes and fifty-four seconds. For Lone Walker, who is best at killing his opponent instantly, this is a long one."
"This Vulture is indeed interesting. Should I go down there and play with him, too?"
The spectators were all whispering to each other, but their voices were suddenly frozen by the cold wind blowing on the ice ocean. The channel for spectators was cast into awkward silence.
It was because all of them had discovered that the one cramping on a floating ice sheet without the head was the White Feather Battlesuit, or in other words, Lone Walker.
In the meantime, the mysterious Vulture, who only had a sync rate of 37%, was still standing magnificently in the frigidness wearing his Eight Arm Suit!
Chapter 478: Is This Possible? |
"Why?"
"What exactly happened during that final moment? Why was Lone Walker's head chopped off?"
"Is this real?"
Gasps were echoing nonstop in the spectators' channel. Hundreds of them were watching the game, but none had noticed anything wrong about it.
"Replay the game in slow motion!"
It was not until the battle video was replayed at one tenth of the normal speed that the spectators discovered, with much difficulty, that when Lone Walker activated the ultimate skill 'Shadow Dance', the battered Eight Arm Suit sensed a great danger was coming and backed off awkwardly, only to step into a crack on the floating ice precisely.
As a result, half of the crystal suit fell into the seawater.
The two authentic arms and six artificial arms all waved crazily in the air. One battle saber happened to extend out of one of the artificial arms.
It was not deadly at all, not even poised at Lone Walker.
The problem was, Lone Walker had just taken the opportunity to sprint close at the highest speed. Eventually, he crashed into the edge of the saber at more than five times the speed of sound!
Right at this moment, the saber waved again and cut accurately into the joint between the helmet and the chest of the White Feather Battlesuit.
As a super-fast crystal suit, in order to ensure the smooth turning of the head, the White Feather Battlesuit did not have thick armor protecting its neck. Therefore, after the clash, the battle saber slashed open its neck ruthlessly!
In other words, Lone Walker charged at the edge of a saber at five times the speed of sound and killed himself!
"Is this even possible?"
All the spectators were rendered speechless when they realized what had happened. They were wearing weird expressions, as they did not expect an expert like Lone Walker would be defeated by a newbie in such a ridiculous way.
This Vulture was quite a lucky dog.
"This guy is interesting. Let me play with him!"
Many people were rubbing their fists.
A few space zones away, in the center of a world fragment, on the top floor of a vintage skyscraper, a tidy, handsome young man was crouching in an egg-shaped seat rigidly. He was holding his neck uncontrollably, while cold sweat was dripping off his forehead.
He was Lone Walker.
The pain at the moment was so real that he felt his neck was cold even after he logged off the matching platform. Blood seemed to be still spraying out from there.
The deepest fear filled Lone Walker's eyes.
Was that last slash a coincidence, or—
Lone Walker pondered for a long time and replayed the pictures that he last saw before he fell into darkness. The more he thought about it, the more frightened he became.
It was definitely not a coincidence; it was a lethal trap!
Starting from the fourth minute of the match, although he had been in a seemingly overwhelming advantage, his opponent had been leading the rhythm of the fight. Every attack he made only hit the unimportant or readily repairable parts of his opponent, who had even intentionally left some of the damages unattended to and thereby faked the terrible conditions of his crystal suit!
On second thought, Lone Walker realized that he had never hit his opponent's critical parts at all, not even once!
During his continuous attacks, his tactics and methods of attacking were scrutinized by his opponent. Before he launched the final deadly 'Shadow Dance', he had been lured to the perfect location, with the optimum angle and route, and doubtlessly, the result was that he crashed into the edge of his opponent's saber!
"Horrifying. The guy's capability is indeed too deep to measure. He might be one of the test pilots of the three main crystal suit centers or a leading expert from the five major arenas!
"I'm going to challenge him one more time. This time, he is not going to have it his way!"
It was not the style of a Cultivator of the Flying Star Sector to give in easily. The more they failed, the braver they would be; the longer they fought, they stronger they became!
Long Walker gritted his teeth and challenged Vulture again, only to discover—
"What?
"Are you serious? There are a hundred people waiting in line?"
Lone Walker didn't know what to do. During the brief moment of him reflecting on his failure, a hundred people had challenged Vulture, of whom Vulture had gladly accepted all and refused none.
"Who is this guy exactly? If he were a test pilot of a crystal suit center or one of the leading experts in an arena, he shouldn't have so much time to waste on the mediocre players," Lone Walker mumbled to himself.
Of those who had challenged Vulture, 95% were only amateurs of the sport. They must've thought that Vulture had been merely lucky previously and planned to take their chance.
Only 5% of the challengers were real experts like Lone Walker.
Having no other choices, Lone Walker entered the spectator mode and watched Vulture's match at the cost of one crystal coin.
The second match was held on a randomly selected map, too. It was 'Scattered Stone Sea', a classic map for one-on-one duels.
The two parties would engage in battle in the middle of an extremely unstable stone belt. Other than their opponent, they would have to be prepared for the meteors which might rush close at them at any time.
This was a very tricky map. Newbies often found it hard to cope with.
As it turned out, Li Yao's opponent was such a newbie. Before he came close to Vulture, he had already been caught in a flurry by the raging meteors.
A bunch of idiots. They really think that Lone Walker could be beaten by a rookie because of sheer luck? How naïve!
Lone Walker sniffed and focused his attention on Li Yao.
His eyes immediately narrowed.
Vulture did not seize the opportunity to attack. He seemed to be stumbling and shunning the meteors, too. But in Lone Walker's eyes, the 'stumbling' was apparently too exaggerated.
Lone Walker smelled the stink of a scheme, but he didn't know how Vulture would set up his trap yet.
Finally, just as his opponent regained his balance and avoided most of the meteors, Vulture was hit by a meteor. One of his power rune arrays was wasted, and he was struggling like someone being drowned.
His opponent was overjoyed; he unsheathed his chainsword and lunged at Vulture.
When the guy was a hundred meters away from Vulture, a few meteorites not very far away suddenly collided. Scraps of the stones flew to everywhere and triggered a chain reaction. A rapid meteorite was hit and veered off at a different trajectory, smashing right into his back!
The strike was so surprising that Vulture's opponent had no time to dodge at all. His spiritual shield was automatically activated, and most of the spiritual energy was transmitted to his back where it formed a dense protective layer.
The momentum of the meteor was enormous. A cluster of brilliance broke out on his back, while the inertia pushed him dozens of meters forward.
Just at that time, Vulture finished altering his position. The vibration claw on his left hand stabbed out and pierced through his opponent's chest!
Vulture won again!
Whispers of disbelief echoed again in the spectators' channel.
In the eyes of most people, Vulture was unbelievably lucky again. He apparently was not well adapted to a battlefield in the vacuum, but his opponent had been ill-fated enough to be hit by a meteor which the guy spent so much of his spiritual energy to defend that the protection of his chest turned extremely feeble. Vulture had taken advantage of his weakness at the critical movement and secured the victory with just one attack.
But Long Walker simply rose up from the seat with an extremely twisted expression on his face.
This is impossible!
Could this guy have calculated the trajectories of hundreds of meteors and their respective alterations during the chain reaction caused by the collisions? Was he adjusting his stance and angle with ostensible clumsy movements which deceived his opponent and lured him to the route of the meteor's abrupt deflection?
What frightening computational ability!
Goosebumps rose up all over Lone Walker's body. He couldn't begin to imagine what kind of monster was hiding behind the identity of 'Vulture' on the other end of the World of Crystal Suits.
He couldn't figure out why such a super expert had come to play with the green hands, either.
I really can't understand what the top exerts are thinking!
Lone Walker sighed and watched the third player to challenge Vulture in pity.
The third opponent was apparently not as polite as the previous two. He dumped a lot of trash talk into the public channel, saying things such as you were merely lucky, and I'm going to cut your throat in ten seconds, blah blah blah.
In Lone Walker's eyes, it was like a flock of bunnies had lined up and challenged a hungry wolf that was wearing the skin of a goat one by one. The more ignorant ones were even bold enough to bare their teeth and provoke the wolf.
He almost found it unbearable to watch on.
As he expected, the dozen competitions that followed ended in the same way. Vulture could've won the games easily, yet every time, he always dawdled along and defeated his opponents with the simplest moves and through lucky coincidences only after his opponents performed all their ultimate skills.
Nobody was a fool. After Vulture secured more than ten victories in a row, they'd more or less all realized that something was wrong and started thinking that it might actually be a super expert making fun of them by pretending to be the weak.
But as the sixteenth match began, everything changed. In only three seconds, Vulture sprinted and thrusted through his opponent's all defense, burning his heart to ashes!
It was a classic sprint-and-thrust that could be recorded in a textbook or saved in a skill card. Devoid of any tricks, there was only brutality, sharpness, speed, and the absolute control of the transient loophole!
Lone Walker was quite impressed by the attack, even though he had been best known for his speed himself.
Pondering for a moment, Lone Walker realized something and shivered.
"The guy… is not pretending to be weak.
"He has been observing, learning, and summarizing the fighting patterns of everybody.
"Right now, he knows everything he needs to know!"
Lone Walker mumbled to himself in disbelief, "Did he just leave seclusion after practicing a powerful Cultivation art for twenty years? What kind of monster did I run into?"
The coming couple of matches were all the same. Vulture seemed to be on drugs and became a maniac possessed by a devil. He beat most of the crystal suit amateurs to the ground like he was chopping woods. Every match took only twelve seconds on average.
It was not until the 36th match that Vulture engaged a strong opponent.
Chapter 479: Where Dreams Come True |
"Black Chess Player, Building Foundation Stage, 89 victories, 34 failures, sync rate: 79%!"
It seemed to be just another random top expert, but his match with Vulture was quite weird.
Their battlefield was 'Burning Desert'. The temperature of the map was more than five hundred degrees. The quicksand was fluid like a river, dotted all around the field. If anyone stepped into the quicksand, half of their body would immediately by buried in the sand. Power rune arrays were prone to clogging up with dust in midair if one were to fly for too long in a crystal suit.
It seemed peaceful, but it was, in fact, a perilous map.
Black Chess Player and Vulture were both clumsy. They were circling like two cautious roosters. Very occasionally, one of them would make a few steps toward the opponent, but then he would often retreat before his opponent took any countermeasures and continued staying in the safety area.
Only after they'd circled several times, when all the spectators were yawning in boredom, did the two crystal suits suddenly glitter and collide in dazzling brilliance.
But just as everyone held their breath and stared intently, the two of them parted and started drawing circles again insipidly.
The monotonous competition frustrated most of the spectators.
But for a real expert such as Long Walker, this was a duel where one could hear a roaring thunder from the ostensible quietness.
Black Chess Player was just as his name suggested. Like the most brilliant chess player, he played a lethal chess game emotionlessly and expressionlessly. Countless deadly traps had been set up while he was circling around, only to be resolved by Vulture time and time again.
Sometimes, Vulture would pretend that he had fallen for one of the traps that his opponent had laid out, but he was actually setting up his own traps inside his opponent's. Black Chess Player was nearly fooled several times, and only narrowly escaped from the disasters by his sharp senses in the last half second.
Such soul-stirring competition was too thrilling to miss for even one second. An unseen fierce battle was being fought in the tranquility!
Twenty-one minutes later, a terrible hole was broken on the chest of Eight Arm. Vulture had failed for the first time!
But Long Walker only admired Vulture more.
He had been in touch with 'Black Chess Player' before, and from special sources, he had learned that 'Black Chess Player' was actually a secondary account of a player who was one of the champions of the Death Ray Arena, one of the five major arenas of the Flying Star Sector!
