Chapter 339 - An Unsatisfying Conclusion
Plenty of players in Parallel World had experienced PvPing, but few came close to attaining Gu Fei's extreme levels at it. The average players would fight and kill on given occasions, but they would often strive to keep their PK value below 10 points if they could help it. The Mages who would act as the ranged artillery of their groups and guilds would often garner a rather high PK value as a result, but they would rarely go past 20 points.
Therefore, excluding the Instkill Mage Gu Fei in the count, only a handful managed to cross such a historically unique threshold of accumulating over 20 PK points.
Take today's battle as an example; the Mages from Deep Waters' guild had managed to reduce the escort army from Yunduan City by a good half under their constant assault and concentrated bombardment, making at least 500 - if not 600 - kills this night alone. If this kill count was split evenly among twenty players, each of them would accrue about 25 to 30 PK points each.
Naturally, the reality of the situation did not have everyone sharing these PK points evenly. However, because they were only able to instkill their targets by overlapping their spells, there were bound to be players who would be 'luckier' and garner more killing points than the others. PK points were not awarded like killing a Boss, where the system would calculate the damage dealt to determine who the Boss's kill belonged to. Since PK value depended entirely on the final strike, whoever did the killing blow would be awarded the PK point.
Out of all these Linyin City's Mages, only about seven or eight had PK value over 20 points.
In any case, Gu Fei had not really done an in-depth research about the PvP rules; his knowledge about it came entirely from his personal experience PvPing. When the PK value went above 20 points, a player would not attract a manhunt from the guards like what was happening to Gu Fei right now. However, if the offender happened to be in the vicinity of a patrolling guard, the guard would take the appropriate actions against the offender. This squad of guards' purpose here was indeed to execute Gu Fei, but they would naturally apprehend those Mages from Deep Waters' guild who had over 20 PK points when they came across them along the way.
The Mage that the guards first pinned down was not killed but was captured alive, instead. This was in accordance to the rules governing PvP, where players who had PK value over 30 points would be executed on the spot while players with 20 to 30 PK points would be captured and sent to prison along with a penalty of losing two levels....
With a PK value of over 20 points, the offender was expected to be jailed for over 40 hours. Adding the two levels that he would lose, it sounded as though his punishment was harsher than Gu Fei with a PK value of over 30 points who would just lose five levels upon execution and would not be further detained for long hours.
Moreover, the system did not care if the PK points they had earned were a result of doing a guild quest.
The other players could only sheepishly watch as their comrade got apprehended, powerless to stop the system.
"Quickly run!" A few players had a sudden idea and urged their Mages, who were merely standing in a row, to flee as they moved to form a human wall. These players were thinking that as long as they did not interfere and merely stood there, coincidentally blocking the guards' way, these mindless NPCs would have to find another path to get to their comrades without going through them.
In the end, the guards proved to be more foolhardy than them. Completely ignoring the player-made wall before them, they marched onward without stopping. One of the guards sent a player flying when it directly bumped into him, while another guard trampled a player underfoot. The guards were clearly unperturbed by their actions and attempts as they continued the chase for the 'criminal'.
"Traps! Set up traps!" someone shouted.
Plenty of Hunters quickly began setting up traps. The Mages that had come their way naturally circumvent these contraptions. However, the guards did not have that level of AI to do the same and directly stepped on to the traps.
"Ha!" In that moment of glee, they heard the sound of metal snapping, yet this sound was produced by the guards smashing the traps underfoot instead of becoming trapped in its steel maw.
Gu Fei was obviously no stranger to this. Back when Nightmare of Death had set up traps to ensnare him, he had witnessed the Werewolves from Suoyun Village do the same. The difference in level in MMOs was truly an insurmountable gully for players and NPCs alike.
Not one of the few Linyin City's Mages was spared and all were easily captured alive by the NPC guards.
While Gu Fei was delighting over their misfortune, not once did he forget that he was the guards' main target all along. The Linyin City's Mages attempt to hide from the guards managed to lure a portion of them away. Nonetheless, most of them were dead-set on capturing and continued to make their way toward the idly standing Gu Fei.
Just as Gu Fei was wondering how the guards would reach him on the roof, the captain suddenly bent his legs slightly before launching himself up from the ground. The mud beneath his feet churned and splashed forth, like a jet plane launching, as the captain flew directly toward the roof with his greatsword already raised above his head. Midair, the captain cleaved the huge weapon toward where Gu Fei was standing.
"Earthsplitter!" the players, who managed to identify this move, shouted.
The animation for the Warrior skill Earthsplitter was shown in Parallel World's promotional videos. Young Master's Elite, Traversing Four Seas, and other players who had seen the game's NPC guards in action before had the same question floating in their heads, In the end, are these guys Knights or Warriors? They were just too versatile.
Although this cleave was shocking, Gu Fei's reaction was not slow and quickly hopped to the side to avoid the attack. Fortunately, the captain's sword cleave did not change trajectory and really landed on the spot he had aimed for. Still, with the captain's one knee on the ground, his greatsword brutally smashed that spot of the roof.
Dust scattered. That greatsword nearly cleaved the entire roof into two. Gu Fei only felt a slight tremor beneath his feet, yet a huge chunk of his HP got reduced by it. Although Earthsplitter did not directly connect to Gu Fei's body, it was still able to deal damage on him. In gaming terms, this attack dealt AOE damage. Had it not been for Windchaser's Blessing increasing his HP, that attack of the captain would have already instkilled him. It was simply unimaginable how deadly the greatsword's strike would be if it connected to the target head on.
Facing such a strong foe, Gu Fei did not yield. Just as the NPC climbed to his feet, Gu Fei uttered the incantation for Twin Incineration to return the blow.
In the end, Gu Fei's infallible Twin Incineration, which had not yet failed to connect to a target, broke its pristine record today.
The captain brought up his shield by raising his right arm and easily blocked Gu Fei's strike. Twin Incineration left a flaming streak as it scratched insignificantly past the shield's surface.
His opponent's actions were quick and were entirely mechanical. Just from this exchange alone, Gu Fei could tell that he would have a difficult time defeating this guard captain.
Gu Fei had two ways to deal with NPCs like this. The first was to move faster than his opponent. In that way, even if it had the intention to dodge or block Gu Fei's strikes, it would be unable to do so. The second was to grasp the opponent's attack patterns and come up with counter moves.
The first option was impossible in his current situation. While Gu Fei did not know whether the captain was a Knight or a Warrior, the fact that the NPC had a shield meant that he must have a high defense. Gu Fei figured it would be highly improbable to attempt cutting the opponent as the NPC clearly possessed a flawless and inhuman reaction time.
As for the second way… He was currently pressed for time so now was not the time to employ that. With the captain taking the lead to engage with Gu Fei, the other guards also began making their way up the roof using the same Earthsplitter skill.
It was evident that Gu Fei would lose his life here if he were to take even the slightest impact from these NPCs' AOE attacks. Fearing that running might be too late, Gu Fei hurriedly used Blink to distance himself by five meters from the guards.
The captain of the guards once again took the lead in attacking and used Charge to chase after Gu Fei. He somersaulted to his right, leaped from the roof down to the street, sprinting away once he landed.
Looking backward as he fled, he saw some guards leap off the roof to continue their chase of him while the others replace their weapons with bows to fire off arrows at him.
"WHAT THE F*CK?!" All the players were once more riled up. Apparently, these guards were not just Warriors or Knights, they were g*dd*mn Archers as well!
After Gu Fei fluidly evaded an incoming arrow, he began to stick close to the wall as he ran onward. This caused the guards who had been firing arrows at him to lose sight of their target. Meanwhile, the guards that were hot on his heels did not give up their chase. With movement speed that did not seem to be any lower than Gu Fei's, they relentlessly pursued him. These NPCs had speed, Strength and skills from almost every job class. The average webnovels would usually have their protagonist demonstrating such almighty mastery, but, unexpectedly, the game designers were shameless enough to program Parallel World's guards with such level of invincibility before players themselves could attain it.
Gu Fei occasionally looked backward as he fled and saw the guards effortlessly chasing after him uniformly. Gu Fei found this to be quite a waste. If there were perhaps only one or two guards chasing after him, he would probably consider stopping to patiently exchange a few blows or spar with them. Unfortunately, there were many guards pursuing him right now… At the end of the day, this squad's main target was Gu Fei. Although the fleeing Mages with over 20 PK points led one or two of them away, Gu Fei would be very foolish to expect the same treatment.
The players' nosy mentality had also surfaced at this moment, and quite a lot of them actually followed to watch the show. Deep Waters and quite a few guildmates, Svelte Dancer, Royal God Call, and other players with high movement speed all made the effort to follow the action.
Having witnessed these guards unceremoniously trample the traps before, Gu Fei did not bother to cast Electric Wall to stall his pursuers. Instead, he saved that bit of mana to use Blink twice later to increase the distance between him and the guards.
As the chase continued, Svelte Dancer, Royal God Call and many other acquaintances of Gu Fei even had the mind to send Gu Fei a message asking what sort of plan he had in mind. Gu Fei did not reply to any of them as he was busy running on the streets. Eventually, the sight of a compound loomed before him. The sign by the wall of this compound showed a bow and an arrow, identifying it as Linyin City's Archery Range. Without a second thought, Gu Fei dove head-first into this safe zone.
"I'm gonna log off first; I'll see you all tomorrow." Gu Fei managed to squeeze this message before he disappeared in a white light as he logged off.
"D*MM*T!" The players, who had been following him thus far, felt miserable at witnessing such an abrupt conclusion to the matter. The hunt for the world's first player with PK value of over 30 points had actually ended in such an unsavory manner. It was just like a movie that had no ending that left the viewers infuriated.
The city guards instantly formed up and left when Gu Fei logged out. Players that were loitering about berated Gu Fei's disgraceful action. Suddenly, everyone exclaimed and immediately split back into two groups, each standing on a side of the street.
Minutes ago, all these players were fighting against one another with their lives on the line. At this moment, they had gathered together as to watch Gu Fei's escape. It was truly unsightly.
"Everyone, calm down!" Deep Waters suddenly spoke, "We're merely doing our quest. Since our target isn't here, there's no need for us to fight."
He then whipped his hand out and scattered a handful of Whitestone Dust. Instantly, a Thief, who had been edging closer to Deep Waters, appeared in the middle of the street!
"Please, fair lady, what's the point of doing all this?" Deep Waters laughed.
"Enough talk! Go to hell already!" The lady tightly gripped her dagger as she sped up toward him.