[FLOTG] Chapter 8: Hunted

The next morning, Shen Huai noticed something different about his account as soon as he logged on. A golden yuanbao{Also known as 'sycee':
} symbol could be seen above the character's head.

This was the mark indicating that the account had a bounty placed on it. Sure enough, the system notified him that he owed a blood debt for his evil ways ― the player <Drunken Snow> had offered 500,000 gold coins seeking the help of those with strength and power to help avenge her.

Shen Huai clicked into his mailbox and saw that the email he had sent to <Drunken Snow> had been marked as read.

[ Loudspeaker ][ Mysterious Cloud ]: Attention everyone! The scammer has come online! Scamming money and then killing the victims. Avoid him if you meet him so you don't end up bloodied.

This <Mysterious Cloud> was also part of the Primo Wolf guild, and their ID was styled exactly like <Drunken Snow>'s, so they clearly belonged to the same clan.

Shen Huai was not the type to shout publicly, so he just ignored all of this. If the other side really had the skills to end him, then let them come.

He planned to go complete some quests to upgrade his equipment for now, and then go to the Arena later at night when there would be more players online.

He did not know whether this account ID was truly so disreputable, or if the assassin class was just that unfavoured, but he consecutively rejected by several parties he tried to join.

[ World ][ One Leaf Skiff ]: Falls Abyss! Seeking DPS, major DPS!

Shen Huai clicked to apply, and he was very quickly accepted into the party this time.

[ Party ][ Desert North ]: This is the great DPS you chose?

[ Party ][ One Leaf Skiff ]: Hehe, it's all roughly the same.

[ Party ][ Desert North ]: There's a huge difference, ok?! This line-up won't make it!

Falls Abyss was a level-100 weekly dungeon quest which would drop equipment fragments and materials for equipment upgrades. The dungeon wasn't very difficult, but the bosses were timed bosses. If the players did not manage to kill a boss within the time limit, the boss would go berserk and instakill all players. Thus, the dungeon was a real challenge of a party's damage output.

Shen Huai looked over the party line-up — it really wasn't very good. The party leader <One Leaf Skiff> was a warrior, <Desert North> was a healer, and the rest of the party consisted of another healer, a spellcaster, and a gunner. With the addition of Shen Huai's assassin, they were a full party of 6.

When Shen Huai came closer, he discovered that the spellcaster was actually a dreamstealer! Dreamstealers had the weakest support ability among the 3 branches under spellcasters. It had low damage, and its skills were more of a joke than anything — its only advantage was probably its relatively stronger self-preservation skills, which could at least help lessen the burden on the healers.

The other healer in the party saw that Shen Huai's gear was plain and uninspiring, and swiftly quit the party. However, <One Leaf Skiff> had already clicked to enter the dungeon, so the remaining 5-man party was sent into the dungeon.

[ Party ][ Desert North ]: ......

[ Party ][ One Leaf Skiff ]: Hehe, so sorry, ladies. I clicked too soon.

Shen Huai was rather speechless. The party already lacked damage output to begin with, and now they didn't even have a full party.

[ Party ][ One Leaf Skiff ]: It's ok. Ladies, you can all just hide behind me. I'll carry. Let's take it slow.

Every character within the party aside from <One Leaf Skiff> was female. Shen Huai felt a need to clarify.

[ Party ][ MuWanGe ]: I'm not a girl.

[ Party ][ Desert North ]: ...male?

[ Party ][ One Leaf Skiff ]: Brother, this name of yours is misleading.

With light steps, Shen Huai made the little assassin hop around in front of the group, showing them the golden yuanbao on top of her head.

[ Party ][ One Leaf Skiff ]: You have a bounty on your head?

Characters who have a bounty on them could not change their gender, name, or other identifying information, so Shen Huai could only continue playing with this feminine name.

[ Team ][ One Leaf Skiff ]: No matter what, let's just try and see. Miss healer, please watch our HP.

There were 3 levels to beat in Falls Abyss, and the difficulty level of the bosses would increase accordingly. In the first level, there was no time limit for clearing the mobs before the boss. Though <One Leaf Skiff> seemed like a brash and careless person, he was quite skilled at pulling the aggro of the mob creatures. Not only did he swiftly establish the hate value on himself, he managed to do so without losing much HP.

Under his protection, the group slashed their way to the boss. The boss for this first level was a giant robot with 3 modes of attack. In the first mode, the boss would strike the ground with its large fists, causing the 'dizzy' status effect within a small range. In the second mode, the boss would spray flames outwards to the front in a fan-shape — this skill had the highest damage and was capable of wiping out an entire party if one wasn't careful. And in the final mode, the boss would unleash a type of shockwave roar — all players would lose a percentage of HP but would not die. The 3 modes were randomised and would last for 5-minute intervals. Every 30 seconds, the boss would summon a large number of mechanical puppets which all had to be cleared within 10 seconds, otherwise the boss would enter berserk mode.

In a normal line-up, typically, a warrior would be pulling the aggro of the boss, two DPS would work on clearing the puppets, another two DPS would attack the boss, and the healer would heal as necessary.

But in this current line-up, the only proper DPS was the gunner, and it was obvious that she would not be able to handle all the damage output on her own. <One Leaf Skiff> was fretting over this when a shadow zipped past his field of vision, so quickly that a gust of wind was left in its wake.

[ Party ][ MuWanGe ]: You guys handle the puppets. I'll fight the boss.

<Desert North> instantly protested.

[ Party ][ Desert North ]: How much damage can you deal as an assassin? Isn't this just throwing your life away?

But the assassin had already disappeared, swiftly leaping in front of the boss. The dual blades in her hands danced, stamping a Reaper's Mark and then successfully dealing a critical hit in the ensuing combo. The attacked boss raised a palm — the very first attack mode was Flamethrower with the highest damage!

The group broke out into a cold sweat. This skill was extremely difficult for melee character classes to dodge, and it also dealt very high damage. Even warriors like <One Leaf Skiff> would be rendered HP-Critical by this skill, not to mention a fragile character class like the assassin.

However, the expected outcome of the little assassin being killed instantly did not occur. Just as the boss raised its hand, Shen Huai used Quick Stab, narrowly evading the flames from Flamethrower.

The group was stunned by his agile actions, only coming to themselves when the boss summoned the first wave of puppets.

<One Leaf Skiff> hurriedly pulled the mob together for the group to attack, killing the puppets within the progress bar limit of 10 seconds. After that, they turned to help Shen Huai with the boss.

<Desert North> saw that Shen Huai had lost some HP, so she used a single target heal skill on him.

Shen Huai took some time to type in the party channel.

[ Party ][ MuWanGe ]: Don't heal me.

<Desert North> was a little exasperated. This assassin was really too arrogant. Won't he die if she doesn't heal him?

She tamped down her anger and replied with an 'ok' and then really began ignoring <MuWanGe>.

After the group finished clearing 2 waves of puppets, the assassin only had 10% HP remaining. <Desert North> acted like she could not see that, and no one else in the party dared to say anything. But after clearing yet another 2 waves of puppets, to everyone's surprise, the assassin still had 10% HP! He was like a cockroach which could not be killed — holding steady at 10% HP, he had already chipped away half of the boss' HP!

<One Leaf Skiff> noticed that the assassin's movements and positioning had become extremely accurate ever since his HP had dropped to 10%, and none of his skills ever missed its mark. Besides that, his damage output was very high, a great contrast from when he had first charged forwards at full health.

When the group finished clearing the latest batch of puppets, they immediately turned to attack the boss. The female assassin with free-flowing long hair had both her blades flying endlessly within her hands, her agile figure dashing around nimbly around the boss. A Wild Blade Dance with bonus critical hits successfully knocked the boss to the ground.

[ Party ][ One Leaf Skiff ]: An expert! Awesome!

Shen Huai responded with an emoji.

<Desert North> said nothing but felt deeply moved. She had never seen an assassin with such quick combos and high damage output. It was widely known that an assassin's attack damage would keep stacking as long as their combo chain was not interrupted — within these 5 minutes attacking the boss, this assassin had not broken his combo chain even once.

The boss dropped 5 treasure chests. According to the convention established by the players, they each received one chest. Whatever came out of the chest would belong to the player who opened the chest.

Shen Huai obtained several materials, but these materials were a mere drop in the bucket compared to the materials needed to upgrade his equipment.

They needed to accept a mission from an NPC at another location to access the 2nd level of the dungeon, so the group exited the dungeon together. As soon as the loading screen faded, flashes of white light from sword attacks converged on the party, so overwhelming in number that the group was almost blinded.

Shen Huai activated Sprint as soon as he could to dodge, and at that exact moment, a skill to lock opponents in place was cast right where he had been standing. <One Leaf Skiff> and the rest of the party were all caught and pinned where they stood.

The leader of the attacking party was a swordsman by the name of <Phantom Wolf>. This ID, along with his character class, led Shen Huai to instantly guess that the other must be a member of the Primo Wolf guild.

[ Party ][ MuWanGe ]: you guys go ahead with the mission

Shen Huai instantly dropped out of the party as soon as he finished leaving this message. As long as he was in the party, the others in the party would also be deemed as attackable targets. Primo Wolf was a top guild in the professional region, and at a visual estimate, it looked like around 30 people had come this time. If a fight ensued, <One Leaf Skiff> and the others would just end up as punching bags.

Assassins have always benefitted from high movement speed, and Shen Huai had activated Sprint as well. The majority of <Phantom Wolf>'s team was unable to keep up with him — only the two swordsmen in the team managed to catch up by relying on the advantages of their character class.

In the game, every character class had a common primary class-specific skill aside from the skills of their branch class-specific skills. This skill was usually the core of the character class, one which could be used no matter which branch of the character class you chose to develop.

The common class-specific skill of the assassin was Stealth, allowing assassins to turn invisible during battle. Meanwhile, the common class-specific skill of the swordsman was Windwalking, which greatly increased one's movement speed while active. There was almost no character class which could outrun a swordsman using Windwalking. Shen Huai made a decision within a split second. He turned and cast Soul Steal at the swordsman closest to him, while simultaneously leaping over a Y-shaped tree branch.

The swordsman behind him was not so lucky — his large frame was instantly trapped by the tree branch and he was stuck. In a burst of hand speed, Shen Huai took the opportunity to finish off the trapped swordsman with two consecutive combos. The other swordsman had caught up by then, and Shen Huai quickly stunned him in place, and then there were suddenly two assassin clones!

Half of the swordsman's HP had been whittled away when Shen Huai turned to run away, the three assassin figures headed in 3 different directions.

<Phantom Wolf> immediately gave the command, "Split into 3 teams. After him!"

The 30-man team chased after the 3 figures. The team led by <Phantom Wolf> ran into a densely forested area, and suddenly, 4 figures leapt out from the trees to surround the group, rapidly casting a skill ― Prison Construct!

Shen Huai's assassin flitted over like a ghost, cutting swiftly to the side of the healer to unleash "Dark Blade". This was a very painful hit, and Shen Huai followed that up with a Reaper's Mark and another 4-hit combo. Not only was a critical hit triggered, he also formed yet another clone!

His fingers tapped rapidly, and the number of clones grew. In the blink of an eye, there were now 6 clones!

Completely befuddled by the clones, the healer was quickly ended, and <Phantom Wolf> who had tried to help had also loss half his HP in the fight. Shen Huai fought as he ran, and after chasing him for this good long while, the group found that he was still at 10% HP. In contrast, their side had not fared as well, with many either dead or HP-Critical. They only had about half of their number left.

The dual-wielding swordsman at the helm of the group could not take it anymore. He charged towards Shen Huai's back and then activated his special skill ― Peerless Sword Intent!

The afterimages of dozens of sword slashes flew towards Shen Huai, their range far too wide for him to dodge all of them. Still, even after taking a special, the assassin was still alive. A yellow 'Immune' status effect appeared on him.

Talent: Salvation ― Grants immunity to damage when receiving a fatal blow.

Yet another "living-on-the-edge" assassin!

Thanks to Ash Wing, there had been a great number of "living-on-the-edge" assassins with Salvation activated over the past two days. Although very few could play well, it was still extremely annoying when fighting with them. Seeing the damage from his special being negated just like that, the dual-wielding swordsman was on the verge of slamming his keyboard in frustration.

But before he could do so, he suddenly noticed a skill pointer dot on him, indicating that he was being aimed at. Almost instantly after, his character collapsed to the ground and his screen turned grey.

"Sniper! There's a sniper!" he shouted into the party channel.

<Phantom Wolf> instantly commanded, "Machinists, when you're ready, Flares!"

Four Flares were fired, each going a different cardinal direction, finally combusting into bright silver flashes at their maximum range.

Shen Huai had also paused at this point. He had excellent dynamic vision ― he had also caught sight of the skill pointer dot on the swordsman. The surrounding area within a 800-metre radius was illuminated by the flares, but strangely enough, there was no one to be found on the small map.

Even invisible units would not be able to remain hidden in any area illuminated by Flares, but there was no one aside from them in the surrounding area. This could only mean that the enemy sniper was not within the range of 800 metres.

Snipers were a branch of gunners with an ultra-long range. A sniper had a maximum range of up to 2,000 metres. However, long-range sniping was extremely difficult. Most snipers kept within 500 metres for their shots in real battle.

Shen Huai briefly observed the surrounding terrain and then abruptly turned to run towards the distant Cloudfall Peak.

The swordsman pointed at the way he was running and yelled, "He's getting away!"

But <Phantom Wolf> suddenly said, "Don't chase anymore. Let's go."

The group was a little dismayed but did not dare to question too much. An elder sent <Phantom Wolf> a private message, "Are we letting him go because of that sniper? Who is he?"

<Phantom Wolf> said nothing, deep in thought.

Among the many sniper gods, one person ranked first in the national server sniper rankings by merit of his ultra-long sniping range and his precise predictive ability. His longest sniping range within an official match was 1,500 metres, and he had implied in an interview that his ultimate range could stretch even further.

This person was none other than the captain of Maple Moon, Song Xue-Yang.

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Previous: Chapter 7: Vendetta
Next: Chapter 9: Apprentice

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