[FLOTG] Chapter 7: Vendetta

Shen Huai purchased the account and logged into the game, and a dashing and heroic female assassin appeared on his character selection interface.

Female assassins looked much cooler than male assassins. She was dressed in a black open-navel suit, her two long and shapely legs resting securely on high heels. Her long, flowing hair was tied up into a tall ponytail, and you could catch glimpses of a red ribbon in her hair from behind.

Shen Huai quite liked this cool and dashing appearance of the female assassin, so he decided to keep it for now. He would apply for a gender change tomorrow.

Sailway City was the largest region in "City of Despair". It had been inhabited by the professional clubs since the very beginning of the game, and hence was also known as the 'pro region'.

Later on, as there were too many professional players and many more players came to the region out of admiration for the pro players, the region became overpopulated and registration for the region would be closed intermittently. And so, Shen Huai and this great region had missed each other.

Shen Huai found Song Xue-Yang's ID ― <Shattered Snow> ― on the Gunner class rankings and sent him a friend request.

Like Zhou Ning said, Song Xue-Yang wasn't online. Shen Huai's friend request vanished into silence like a rock sinking into the ocean.

He made his assassin go to the repository in the main city to take inventory of this account's possessions. The original account holder still had some unbounded rare materials stored in the repository, probably for the purpose of upgrading equipment. Aside from that, there were also about a million gold coins.

Gold coins and rare materials could be traded, but the repository of this account was very messy, giving Shen Huai the impression that this account had been sold hastily. Stranger yet, the friends' list of the original account holder had been completely cleared.

As Shen Huai busied himself with sorting out the repository, he did not notice the many eyes tracking him from within the shadows.

Once he had pretty much sorted things out, he headed for the wilds.

Although this account had an upgraded gold dual blade weapon, the rest of its equipment was still older versions. The equipped necklace was even an antique from 2 seasons ago. They were no longer competitive in the current game environment, so Shen Huai planned to hunt some bosses in the wilds for rare material drops in order to upgrade his equipment.

Almost every boss in the game would drop materials used for equipment upgrades. The public bosses in the wilds fell into two categories. One type would only reward the player who deals the final blow, while the other would provide material drops as long as a player dealt damage to the boss, but the latter type usually produced much fewer drops.

As it was getting pretty late, Shen Huai did not form a party. He went straight for a public boss in the wilds.

This boss was an axe-wielding yellow sand monster. The giant axe in its hands could cause Fear and stun players, and every bar of HP the boss loses would turn into yellow sand, scraping away a percentage of the surrounding players' HP as it disappeared.

Some players were already attacking the boss when Shen Huai arrived. This was a boss which would drop materials for anyone who participated in dealing damage, so Shen Huai immediately jumped into the fray.

Several figures sprinted towards him from behind, but Shen Huai just assumed that they were also there to attack the boss and paid them no mind. Unexpectedly, the leading spellcaster instantly initiated battle mode against him, greeting him with a Silence. An ice mage behind the spellcaster then unleashed Chains of Ice to freeze Shen Huai in place, while a gunner flipped over a wall and opened fire on him.

―― Explosive Barrage!

The heavyweight cannon in the gunner's hands spewed fiery balls of flame as big as a person's head, every one of them aimed at Shen Huai. Meanwhile, the ice mage had begun chanting to activate his special, 'Blizzard'. Bone-chilling ice on one side, scorching fire on the other, and the boss' axe was just so coincidentally coming down in Shen Huai's direction as well. All the other players fled, but Shen Huai was locked in place and could not move. The axe smashed down, and Shen Huai's character died on the spot.

The gunner in the distance strutted over proudly. Her ID was <Drunken Snow>, and beneath the ID was a golden character title ― First Queen of Sailway City.

This title was the first place reward for the recent server-wide vote for the most beautiful female player in "City of Despair". It was clear to see that she was a small celebrity even in this region.

<Drunken Snow> put her cannon down onto the ground and typed into the current channel.

[ Current ][ Drunken Snow ]: You scammer finally dare to come online again?

She had barely finished typing this out when the female assassin who had been lying on the ground just moments ago suddenly leapt to her feet!

There were two ways of resurrection after dying in the wild ― one option was to choose to resurrect at a resurrection point, whereby the system would send the character to the closest main city. The other option was to resurrect where one died in a weakened state, but this method of resurrection was generally considered not worth it and was mostly ignored by players. Not only did it require 100,000 gold coins, the player would only resurrect with 10% of their HP.

Thus, <Drunken Snow> would never have expected Shen Huai to resurrect in place directly before the three of them. Wasn't this just asking for death?

Assassins do not have a MP bar, and 10% HP was perfect for Shen Huai's intentions.

With a Quick Stab, he slipped behind the spellcaster and landed a Soul Steal. The mage quickly cast Chains of Ice again, but Shen Huai easily dodged it this time and, with a burst of hand speed, countered with a major combo starting with Reaper's Mark.

Even an ace player like Xiao Zhang with his qigong master was unable to withstand this combo, let alone a fragile character class like the spellcaster. The spellcaster was instantly rendered HP-Critical.

The trio was frightened out of their wits. They had never seen an assassin with such high damage before. In this current version, only qigong masters and swordsmen were able to finish off an opponent with one combo... As for the assassins who had been nerfed like mad over the many versions?

Excuse me? Can assassins kill people too? Isn't assassin the character class which changes outfits every day and then goes around looking for scenic maps to take screenshots?

The HP-Critical spellcaster immediately retreated 10 metres and released his special skill 'Doomsday Mantra'. Five wizened spirits appeared around them, each with a magic book in their hands, activating a 5-point array which silenced all the enemies within the array.

Almost at the very moment the 5 spirits appeared, the assassin within the array vanished.

The spellcaster cried out in the team channel in a panic, "She's gone invisible! Protect me!"

Even before his voice could fade, the black-clad assassin suddenly reappeared. The cold light of a blade slashed down mercilessly at the spellcaster from behind — not only was the spellcaster finished off by a seamless combo, the special 'Wild Blade Dance' at its end also left the mage, who had rushed over to help the spellcaster, in a HP-Critical state!

"Kill her!" <Drunken Snow> and the mage charged forwards, but the assassin was extremely light on her feet, deftly avoiding both the consecutive snowballs fired by the mage.

Shen Huai, who had been running away ahead of the duo, suddenly turned around, startling the two people doggedly on his tail. Before they could react, they had been forced to take a full combo from Shen Huai head on. This time, things would not end so simply with a loss of HP. At the same time, Shen Huai activated the skill Arcane Shadow Clone.

Three additional assassins abruptly surrounded the chasing duo, and the four assassins cast a skill in sync — Prison Construct! A square matrix took shape, and the assassins swarmed forwards, knocking the duo to the ground in an instant.

<Drunken Snow> was still in disbelief when she hit the ground. The three of them had attacked first, ambushing a single person, and they ended up being killed by the other in a HP-Critical state? And this person was playing an assassin, the weakest among the character classes!

The assassin with only a sliver of HP left crouched down in front of their corpses and typed a question: [ Who are you people? ]

The mage felt like spewing blood. So this person had killed them without even knowing who they were?

That's just how Shen Huai was. Although he looked meek and quiet, like he was an easy target for bullying, he had never been someone who would take things lying down. These three people had killed him from the get-go without saying a word, so of course he was going to kill them once in return before asking any questions.

<Drunken Snow> raged: [ You cheat! Give me back the money you scammed from me! Or else I'll kill you every time you step out into the wilds! ]

The last sentence was obviously not a convincing threat, but Shen Huai could not ignore the first half of what she said.

[ This account scammed you? ]

[ Drop the act! With your equipment, you think you could have beaten the Gunner Queen Siegel? Your weapon should be mine! ]

The Gunner Queen Siegel was a new world-level boss released in this latest version update. Defeating her would guarantee drops of high-grade materials needed for equipment upgrades, and there was also a small chance of gold equipment being dropped.

This account Shen Huai bought did not have very good equipment. With the exception of this weapon, all the other equipment were mostly purple equipment, with only the rare orange. It truly did not seem like an account which could have beaten a world boss.

Still, Shen Huai did not believe her. The fact that the weapon was bound to the account was the most powerful proof.

[ You just accused me of scamming you earlier, and now you're saying this weapon is yours. If the weapon is yours, then how is it here with me? ]

<Drunken Snow> typed a quick response: [ I sold it to you, but you only paid the deposit of 1 million and then ran away! You scammed me! ]

[ If you only received the deposit, why did you hand over the weapon? ]

[ I was stupid, okay? I trusted you so I gave you the weapon first. Who could have known you would be so untrustworthy?! ]

Shen Huai felt that her words did not stand up to scrutiny at all, and so simply stopped debating with her. [ This account has changed owners. If you can produce proof that the previous owner scammed you, then send me the screenshots. Otherwise, stop looking for trouble. ]

<Drunken Snow>: [ Hoho, you really think you're a god now? Just you wait! ]

The three bodies vanished into beams of golden light, a sign that they had gone to resurrect at a nearby main city.

Shen Huai looked up <Drunken Snow>'s profile and found that she was an elder in the Primo Wolf guild. Her profile status read: "A die-hard fan of God Snow! Rawr, rawr, rawr!"

God Snow was referring to Song Xue-Yang. His in-game ID was <Shattered Snow>, and his real name had the character 'Xue' for snow as well, so everyone often called him God Snow.

Shen Huai felt that there was something odd about this person and their relationship with his newly purchased account. He wanted to ask Song Xue-Yang about it, but Song Xue-Yang wasn't online, and even Zhou Ning was offline.

Shen Huai took a screenshot of his transaction receipt for this account and sent it to <Drunken Snow>. He thought well of Primo Wolf and did not want his relationship with them to sour over some misunderstanding.

After sending the email, Shen Huai logged off. Before going to sleep, he checked his mobile phone, only to be taken by surprise. The Weibo forums were buzzing over his encounter with Xiao Zhang.

Hot Topic: #Ares meets a tragic end at the hands of the assassin boss while streaming with his side account?#
#<Ares> VS <Ash Wing>, an epic assassin duel! Who is the best assassin?#
#God Ash Wing teaches you how to pwn!#

The Tieba forums were also filled with discussions and reposts of the duel. Some thoughtful netizens had even recorded the live-stream and uploaded clips onto the internet, drawing over 100,000 clicks in the blink of an eye.

[ Great God Ash Wing is just too cool! Gotta hand it to him, even God Xiao can't beat him. ]

[ Hur hur, fans of a certain wing are really full of hot air. Just this bit of skill and they are floating up into the air? Ares' primary is  qigong master. Don't you know that BattleGod doesn't allow their players to use their primary character class in live-streams? What's there to brag about beating another person's non-primary with your own primary class? Ash Wing is only good at playing assassin. There are too many other gods playing the other character classes, so he can't make it there. ]

[ Front row seat to a sore loser! What's wrong with assassins? If you can do it, why don't you go get yourself a #1 in a character class! What primary, non-primary... I just know that God Wing beat a pro. It's that simple. Why don't you say that Ares can only play qigong master then? ]

[ Although Ares lost, he still humbly asked Ash Wing for advice, but your God Wing is just too shameless! What 'welcome to the assassin camp'?! Does he really think he's an assassin elder? ]

Shen Huai did not think that the fans on both sides would get into such a heated argument. Xiao Zhang had the support of his team and his official fanclub, so his fans were very organised in their attacks. But to Shen Huai's surprise, Ash Wing's fans put up an equal fight. Though they were clearly scattered fans without a unified organisation, they were very unified in defending their idol from the anti-fans and flamers.

It was just a match which had happened completely by chance, where neither side had actually put their full strength into it. In Shen Huai's opinion, no clear conclusion could be drawn from who won or lost.

He clicked on a random link to a video ― it was a recording of Xiao Zhang's live-stream. Shen Huai heard what Xiao Zhang said from start to end in his stream and could not help but frown.

Although Shen Huai's acting skills were terrible, he had learned how to look beyond appearances to see the dark heart of humanity in his many years in the entertainment industry. Xiao Zhang's intentional verbal leading would never have passed for subtle in the entertainment industry. Shen Huai could tell as soon as Xiao Zhang opened his mouth that he was purposefully inciting his fans to criticise Shen Huai.

It was now clear how the quarrel between the fans had become so fierce.

Shen Huai could not be bothered with Xiao Zhang. Things would blow over once the fans had vented. Still, Shen Huai would never have guessed that BattleGod's ace, Xiao Zhang, would be such a petty and narrow-minded player.

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Previous: Chapter 6: Account purchase
Next: Chapter 8: Hunted

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