Chapter Fifty-Two: Kill Him

At this moment, a faint smile appeared at the corners of Wine-Capped Hero's mouth.

"That scatterbrained fellow is probably planning to make a move," Old Hu said with a beaming smile as he watched the scene before him.

And just as Old Hu had anticipated, Wine-Capped Hero immediately followed up by defending against and blocking Wen Yukun's attack. Although it was not a perfect defense—which resulted in his HP being directly reduced by twenty percent—it still counted as a forced perfect defense under the skill's effect, causing the barrier of black flames to flash with light.

Immediately afterward, all eyes were fixed on the clash between the offensive Sorcerer-class players utilizing different custom talent skill trees.

After a brief exchange of offenses and defenses, the passage of time caused both sides' attack powers to stack up to their highest peaks, reaching the absolute limit of what could be enhanced.

Wen Yukun's alternating offensive and defensive states could amplify his rising attack power, while Wine-Capped Hero relied on meeting the requirements for a perfect defense to boost his. Judging by the magnitude of the attack power increase, the latter held a slightly more obvious advantage. However, at this point, Wen Yukun's HP was sitting at sixty percent, whereas Wine-Capped Hero's HP had plummeted to a mere thirty percent—barely enough health to survive a single ultimate-style skill, even for an offensive Sorcerer.

"Next up should be the phase where the victory is decided."

Looking at the white-hot clash on the stage, Ye Yu said calmly. The commotion in the surrounding audience seats gradually quieted down, and everyone's gaze was intently focused on the two of them, the crowd even holding their breath to watch the decisive battle.

Wen Yukun initiated the attack first. The black flame shield dissipated and surged directly into the spear in his right hand, instantly forming a charging posture. Sharp auras wreathed around him, creating an unstoppable momentum. Two illusory figures gradually emerged on the left and right sides of Wen Yukun. Though the phantoms were extremely translucent, one could vaguely discern that they bore a slight resemblance to Wen Yukun himself. Immediately following this, the three figures directly darted toward Wine-Capped Hero, kicking up three trails of flying sand and dust on the ground.

Wine-Capped Hero stretched out his arms, and black flames instantly surged out from within his body. Along with the sweeping black flames, the armor on Wine-Capped Hero's body was also wreathed in dark fire. This black-and-gold colored armor was even more dazzling than the one Wine-Capped Hero wore when they met at the Royal Tomb Palace.

Wine-Capped Hero stood behind the black flames. The instant Wen Yukun was about to charge right up to him, his figure suddenly leaped into the air.

Seeing this, Wen Yukun wore an expression of sheer shock, his eyes filled with absolute disbelief. Wine-Capped Hero performed a high-speed displacement in mid-air, using black mist to swiftly move directly above Wen Yukun, and then plunged down instantly. A black spear materialized in Wine-Capped Hero's hand, and at the tip of the black spear, the black flames reached an extreme high-temperature threshold, instantly evaporating all moisture in the surrounding air.

The black spear slashed down in an instant, carving a black scar across Wen Yukun's back.

"Sorcery: Heavenly Wolf Slash"

A three-stage strike skill. A proud heavenly wolf emerged amidst faint black flames, and its terrifying sharp fangs instantly pierced through Wen Yukun's armor. The armor shattered on the spot, and the three consecutive attacks dealt a terrifyingly high amount of damage.

"Adding a proportional attack that ignores the target's target defense, followed by two armor-breaking strikes—a three-stage skill like this is terrifying."

Admiration appeared on Old Hu's face. Being able to play an offensive Sorcerer to this extent undoubtedly proved that this scatterbrained fellow's capabilities were truly extraordinary.

"Ah!"

A miserable scream suddenly echoed. Wen Yukun was directly struck into a state of negative sluggishness by this attack. Wine-Capped Hero immediately used a flash-shift to put some distance between them, assumed a charging stance, and without even going through a charging phase, bolted straight forward, fiercely slamming into Wen Yukun.

Boom—

Bang—

Wen Yukun's entire body flew backward, crashing into the boulders of the rocky zone and smashing through several large rocks in succession. However, before he even hit the ground, Wine-Capped Hero caught up, thrust his spear straight through Wen Yukun's chest, and pinned him directly against a giant boulder.

"Pardon me."

Wine-Capped Hero pulled his spear straight out, swung it to shake off the blood clinging to the tip, and then gave Wen Yukun a modest bow.

Yet Wen Yukun crashed heavily to the ground. His legs went limp, and with a "thud," both of his knees slammed straight onto the earth. His health value plummeted to zero before momentarily bouncing back to five percent.

"Quite magnificent indeed."

In the lounge, Ye Yu clapped his hands, then used his left hand to slightly cover a yawning mouth and said with a smile.

In reality, Wine-Capped Hero was not merely relying on his own perfect defense to accumulate the final damage amplification; rather, he had figured out the effect of Wen Yukun's offensive and defensive switching used to boost his attributes.

Therefore, when Wen Yukun switched between offense and defense, he would immediately transition states to amplify his attributes after performing a single attack or defense. However, if the attack or defense effect was not triggered, it would automatically jump to the other effect state after a certain period of time.

Wine-Capped Hero undoubtedly seized this exact opportunity, finding the perfect timing. After accumulating enough damage of his own, he lured Wen Yukun into using a skill that would inflict a significant negative status effect, and then chose to dodge directly instead of defending. Because Wen Yukun's offensive state failed to hit the target, it could not transition to the defensive state, and since the transition timer had not yet elapsed, the defensive state could not be triggered either. Wine-Capped Hero directly inflicted him with a negative sluggishness status and seized the opening to unleash a full combo of skills.

However, comparatively speaking, the mechanic of Wen Yukun's offensive and defensive states was genuinely fantastic. The defensive state could force a perfect defense, while the offensive state prevented him from suffering negative sluggishness. Under such circumstances, had Wen Yukun not been impatient and used the skill that induced negative sluggishness, even if his offensive state missed, he could have simply relied on his "Overclocked Mode" and the two phantoms to hold out until his offensive state rotated back into the defensive state.

If he hadn't used the charge skill just now, Wen Yukun might truly have forced Wine-Capped Hero into revealing his ultimate trump card. So, when all was said and done, it was still Wen Yukun's unstable mentality that made him a bit too hasty. Moreover, his custom talent skill tree lacked any other skills to compensate for the gap during his offensive and defensive state transitions or to deal with opponents. This was a fatal weakness; once discovered, Wen Yukun had no chance of holding out for so long.

Wine-Capped Hero put away his spear, drew his hands back into his sleeves, placed them behind his back, and smiled slightly. "Refine and perfect your own custom talent skill tree a bit more, and participate in more actual combat to enrich your combat style. I believe that among offensive Sorcerer players, you will definitely carve out a brilliant path for yourself."

However, Wen Yukun merely stood frozen in the arena, completely oblivious to the rare words of balance from this scatterbrained fellow. The next moment, he actually grabbed the spear in his hand and darted furiously toward Wine-Capped Hero's chest.

Wine-Capped Hero had already put away all his offensive and defensive stances, undoubtedly exposing the most terrifying weakness to his opponent. Without any combat status active, Wine-Capped Hero was instantly struck in the chest by Wen Yukun's spear. Wine-Capped Hero's expression shifted slightly, and his eyes turned icy cold. But because Wen Yukun's damage had stacked up to a very high level, reaching its absolute limit, the direct hit to the chest caused Wine-Capped Hero's health value to plummet swiftly to zero.

Because they had a death-avoidance chance granted before the match, Wine-Capped Hero's HP quickly recovered a little. Immediately afterward, Wen Yukun's expression twisted hideously as he roared furiously, "Come on! Neither of us has any death-avoidance chances left now. I refuse to believe you won't use other skills."

With that, Wen Yukun gripped his spear tightly and rushed toward Wine-Capped Hero. But Wine-Capped Hero was still trapped in the negative sluggishness state, rendering him unable to cast any status skills or trigger "Overclocked Mode" to dodge the incoming attack. Furthermore, just like Wen Yukun, the two of them were left with only five percent HP. If he were hit by Wen Yukun's attack again, certain death awaited him.

Yet at that critical, split-second juncture, Wine-Capped Hero's body simply vanished, evidently having been teleported away directly. Another figure materialized in his place instantly, and with a swift flash of light and shadow, appeared right behind Wen Yukun.

"Not everyone in this world is a good Samaritan."

Huang Hong said, a single droplet of bright red blood dripping from the tip of the spear in his hand. Huang Hong's face was covered in a bone-chilling frost, and an intensely thick murderous intent had long since been bared.

Wen Yukun only had five percent of his health remaining. Because of Huang Hong's instantaneous strike, which achieved a one-hit kill, that five percent health was instantly reduced to zero. Shock washed over Wen Yukun's eyes as he slowly dropped to his knees, collapsed with a resounding crash into a pool of blood, and saw his body gradually dissolve, vanishing from the arena in an instant.

Since Wine-Capped Hero's health had been completely depleted, he was considered the loser, allowing Huang Hong to use the exact same forced member-substitution mechanic the opponent had previously used to directly protect Wine-Capped Hero.

Everyone in the audience fell silent for a moment, followed immediately by an outbreak of curses and insults.

Quite a few people berated Wen Yukun as a sore loser who bit back after losing. But there were also many who felt that Xin'ai, the spearmen player, had acted far too ruthlessly. Soon enough, the spectators in the stands were engaged in a fierce shouting match with one another.

"It was obviously that Sorcerer player Wen Yukun who was shameless! Since he had already lost, he should have conceded gracefully instead of turning around to bite the hand that fed him. He couldn't stand seeing someone else fight on and actually pulled such a despicable, petty stunt!"

"Even if he was in the wrong, there was no need to slaughter his opponent outright! Do they not know the mechanics of *God's Demise*? Death deducts game currency and a massive amount of experience points. You have to understand that leveling up here is extremely difficult and never easy to begin with!"

"Exactly, this seems way too cruel! He could easily have shown mercy!"

"If that Sorcerer player Wen Yukun hadn't lashed out maliciously, the spearmen player Xin'ai naturally wouldn't have forced his teammate off the field just to step in and execute the guy himself! When all is said and done, it was entirely the Sorcerer player's fault for stirring up trouble!"

Before long, the audience was screaming insults back and forth, and no one cared anymore whether the preceding battle had been magnificent or not.

"The situation right now is quite unfavorable. How about we leave first? After all, we can fight another day, and it won't be judged as our defeat."

Ye Yu spoke up at this moment, addressing Huang Hong directly.

Huang Hong remained silent for a moment without saying anything, while Ye Yu looked at Old Hu, who nodded in agreement.

After all, trying to continue fighting peacefully in the arena at this point was completely out of the question. The stands had devolved into a war of words, and the only way to quiet the verbal brawl was to halt the battles; otherwise, the cursing certainly wouldn't stop.

Without further ado, Ye Yu walked onto the arena stage, placed a hand on Huang Hong's shoulder, and instantly, Ye Yu and his party vanished from the venue. The next moment, Ye Yu and the others had returned to Purple Void City, where Luo Feng was still healing Wine-Capped Hero, whose health was gradually recovering.