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Chapter 25: The Stone and the River — Last Part
All people around the beach stared at one particular man in unison. That person was wearing ragged middle-class Wuxia’s clothing which could be bought in Beginning Town. He ignored everyone and walked slowly but steadily in the direction of Merpeople Village.
That man was Sila.
He intended to keep all the attention to himself so that Varee could perform her assassination easier.
People were laughing scornfully at his conceited action. That middle-class Wuxia’s clothes might look decent, but equipment like that could be purchased easily if you had money.
The main reason for them to look down on Sila was due to their current location, Beginning Island, is the place where every new player started. The thing is: the hardest energy type to start with was undoubtedly qi type. One must reach level 50 to learn how to use qi and reach around level 500 to be able to utilize it in battle. Meanwhile, for magic type, you could just purchase one nice skill book and cast it to kill monsters at ease. As for psychic type, if you invested some money on equipment then your combat ability would exponentially rise.
Therefore, skilled qi-type players only existed on the Main Continent. Qi-type players that still on Beginning Island were bound to be weak. That was their mindset.
Sila began to walk into the battle area where very few players fought against Merpeople. Then, the system sound rang.
[You have entered the territory of the Blue-Scaled Merman King, Squire Rank, Level 750. You cannot use Returning Scroll for the time being.]
Sila remembered that he also had been informed like this when he went to fight the Great Millennium Ape. It was a familiar experience. But the current Sila was not the same as back then, even if he was to encounter the Great Millennium Ape again, he was sure that he could handle it with ease.
Three Mermen spotted Sila approaching and immediately thrust their harpoon to him. Sila frowned slightly as he wondered why the system didn’t inform him about their level.
Sila still didn’t know that some races of psychic-type monster were being able to conceal their power to stealthily attack players. Merpeople race was one of them. In this case, the system would not notify players about such monsters. This is another fascinating aspect of Monster Soul Online that each power type had many unique abilities.
The harpoons approached Sila. Some female players turned their eyes away, one leaned her face into her boyfriend’s shoulder to avoid the bloody scene. Even though if Sila really died, he would disperse as light in three seconds, some player still subconsciously averted their eyes to the gruesome scene.
Unnoticed by anyone, the dim lights really appeared. It was by the hand of Varee who killed players in the rear, two at a time.
Sila circulated Qi of Little Fish all over his body and concentrated it into his hands. Despite his hand’s movements looking rather slow, they actually parried all three harpoons neatly. Then, he brought out the power of Worlds Crossing Bridge which he had never used before and turned the momentum of all harpoons toward Mermen.
[Special skill: Worlds Crossing Bridge]
[One of qi techniques. Allow you to migrate the power from one point to another. The amount of power that can be transferred is depended on your expertise.]
The stabbing sound could be heard three times almost simultaneously. All people were dumbfounded by the sight of Mermen stabbing each other. As for Sila, he just went through them as if he wasn’t involved in this matter. Even the players who kept their eyes opened at that moment still felt confused.
Sila deliberately used Worlds Crossing Bridge that he wasn’t familiar with because he wanted to reserve his qi as much as possible. His enemy wasn’t just these Mermen but all the remaining players here after he had taken care of the Merman King. The method to borrow the enemy’s power to attack instead of his worked splendidly. However, if the enemy’s attack was too powerful then he wouldn’t be able to borrow it. Like when he had fought against the Earth Dragon, he couldn’t perform this technique at all.
Sila gradually reached the coastline. The waves of the sea hit his legs. Now a problem arose. It was another reason that players remained offshore, except for the obvious reason that they were waiting for an opportunity.
It was the sea.
Fighting monster from Merpeople race while swimming in the sea sounded kind of stupid. But Sila also didn’t have that much confidence in his newly acquired Qi of Little Bird that it could allow him to step on the sea surface.
Sila stopped thinking for a moment before deciding, ‘Well, I better use what I’m confident in.’
He circulated qi and jumped towards the sea. His jumping power was beyond ten meters. It caused everyone to stun to see such qinggong.
However, walking on the water was another level. The real hurdle would be the moment that his foot taps on the sea surface.
But the sight later caused a commotion among the players. Upon Sila’s foot stepping on the water surface, his body wasn’t sunk into the sea but instead rebounded back and soared at an astonishing pace.
The thing was, Sila had activated Freezing Soul in secret. When his feet touched the sea, that part of the sea would be solidified into a small ice field which he could use as a temporary foothold. Also, thanks to the ice being so small, it sank and melted away immediately when Sila stepped on it. Thus, from the distance, it looked like Sila was able to jump on the sea surface.
“A great Wuxia!” someone shouted.
There was a commotion among the players. It was very rare to meet a player who mastered qingqong to this extent. Not to mention that here was Beginning Island, and that guy seemed to be a new player since no one recognized him.
Sila was heading to the hut. But there was more than a dozen of harpoons thrusting toward him while he was still in midair. It seemed like these mermen wanted to drag Sila into the sea.
Almost instantly, Sila circulated Qi of Little Fish and directed all the harpoons into his hands without slowing down.
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Actually, Sila would like to use Universe Momentum to return their weapon right back at them. But with his current ability, he could only display two kinds of qi or qi technique at a time. Now that he was using Qi of Little Bird and Freezing Soul altogether, there was simply no room for him to display another qi-type skill.
Well, his in-game teacher told him that he just needed to keep on training to be able to increase the number of skill he can use at a time. Sila also had asked his teacher how many skill his teacher could display simultaneously. The old man’s answer was shockingly eighteen.
As a side note, he could use Qi of Little Fish just now because each of Qi of Little Divine Beings was counted as one.
Next, Sila activated Hidden Weapon Firing to toss all the harpoons back at the mermen in the front line. With his posture holding the harpoons briefly and the fact that he did not shout out a skill’s name, other players could only recognize Sila’s action as simply throwing a harpoon, not firing a hidden weapon.
Each harpoon he sent back was fused with Qi of Little Tiger. Although its speed looked pretty much the same as when the mermen thrust it toward Sila, it was very precise due to the increase in accuracy from Hidden Weapon Firing skill. The mermen soon became a light or get heavily injured, causing the sea to be dyed in red color.
Sila’s feet finally landed on a hut’s roof in Merman Village. The time he took since he jumped from the beach to arrive here was less than a minute, indicating how quick all the incidents just now happened and ended.
Sila turned back and witnessed the scene of two players turning into light one at a time without a sound. Thanks to all the eyes of players gluing at Sila, they still didn’t realize that some people behind them had gradually disappeared.
Drawing more attention was needed. That was what Sila was thinking. Meanwhile, dozens of mermen suddenly and continuously rushed out of the hut. Strangely enough, their number didn’t make sense to Sila. It completely far surpassed the size of the hut.
‘With these many mermen, how could they stay in that tiny hut? It even seems like they can come out continuously without limit.’
But he soon shook his head. This is a game. Whatever kind of logic is understandable.
Good grief, he couldn’t leave it alone as it would become a big problem. Although the mermen were relatively weak, if their numbers increased too much it would become an issue. Wasn’t there a saying that even an elephant can be bitten to death by a large number of ants? These guys were different from the Great Millennium Ape who obstructed each other when they acted together. They could perform simple coordinated attacks.
This was due to psychic-type skill that enabled monsters of this type to have strong command chains. Their command was linked between minion and boss by Mind Connection. They were different from qi-type monster that tended to be individually strong.
Sila needed to destroy the hut before their numbers increased more than this. He activated God’s Cathedral and extended the sphere from the skill to cover almost all the huts here, and then he immediately executed Flame of Torturing.
The result was as expected, the huts in the area started to burn. The mermen screamed in agony and quickly jumped down into the sea.
The flame from Sila’s qi was invisible. But since the huts caught on it, it turned into the red flame that quickly spread out. The flames from his qi didn’t hurt him since he was the one controlling it, but the flame that spread out could damage him. Thus, Sila jumped to the faraway hut that wasn’t in his God’s Cathedral’s area of effect.
Actually, if Sila concentrated Flame of Torturing throughout his body, these flames would have no effect on him. But he didn’t know that yet.
The screams of merpeople and the burning of the huts dyed the night sky into a crimson red color. Some female players even had to cover their ears to shut the sound full of agony from the merpeople. The scenery was like hellfire on the sea surface.
Sila looked back and witnessed that several players had died and turned into light. But no one noticed yet as Sila’s actions had attracted all their focus.
Many players were surprised that Sila could set fire easily. But soon they remembered the sight of him skillfully handling the harpoons and perceived that Sila must be specialized in throwing the weapon. It was not weird that Sila would carry some fire bombs which could be bought from merchant players. That was what they thought. They didn’t know that their hypothesis had a big flaw. It was the fact that all the huts burnt down too quickly. It shouldn’t burn this fast if firebombs were the cause.
Sila burned these huts down using qi. So every surface of the huts ignited simultaneously, causing the whole huts to burn. It was, of course, different from burning with firebombs that would start by the origin of the bomb and gradually spread out to other areas.
It was safe to say that these players couldn’t grasp Sila’s abilities at all. It was due to their common sense that perceived qi-type player in the beginning area as weak. Also, from the start, Sila still hadn’t directly performed an attack, so they just thought that Sila was only skilled in qingqong.
Sila burned down the remaining huts to prevent the number of mermen to increase. He then jumped and landed himself on the wood floating on the sea. Now, Sila tried to look for the Merman King that he thought he could easily spot it, since it was wearing a crown, holding a trident, and importantly had a big heart symbol on its head.
However, he couldn’t spot any heart symbol even when he looked in all directions.
Sila frowned. ‘Is it dead already?’ That was his first thought.
It wouldn’t be strange if the Merman King died in such a chaotic situation that Sila had caused. But Sila still hadn’t obtained Ocean Heart Aquamarine yet, instead, he felt annoyed from the continuous alerts about experience point, items, and money he had received from killing the mobs. He promised himself that he will ask someone how to turn off these voices after the event finished.
Sila considered that the probability of the Merman King diving into the sea was higher than it being dead.
Many merpeople were swimming around Sila and approaching him from every side. It was as if they knew that they would be advantageous if they could drag Sila to an underwater fight.
Sila could hear the sound of water behind him. But at the time he turned his head, the harpoon would be thrown at him from the other side. As his footing was limited, Sila could only dodge and didn’t have room for counter attacks. The merpeople who attacked Sila were smart enough to dive into the sea right after performing an attack.
‘These guys sure are smart. They can even perform a feign.’ Sila thought.
Sila used God’s Cathedral and the fifty-metered radius around him was in his perception. Sila now knew the number of merpeople diving under him. But he still didn’t know which one of them was the Merman King.
With God’s Cathedral, Sila could easily dodge the merpeople’s attacks. But he still couldn’t spot the Merman King even once.
If the Merman King only intended for its subordinates to attack Sila like this, it would be a deadlock for Sila to keep fighting endlessly.
The more time passed, the more waves to drive Sila to a coastline. Now players seemed to be less interested in Sila already. The occurrence of players being killed by Varee was becoming less and less.
Sila figured that he needed to lure the Merman King out. But he couldn’t think of a method yet. He started to review the skills he possessed. His in-game teacher told him that qi-type players needed to be flexible. You can resolve any situation if you adapt to it.
After that, Sila began to smile. He already came up with one method. If he couldn’t lure it out no matter what, then wouldn’t it be easier if he just attacked all of them altogether? This method even more suited his style. The only problem was that he had never tried to use qi like what he was planning. However, he could just try.
He circulated Freezing Soul and the broken wood that was his footing began to freeze. Then, the frozen area was spreading into the sea.
Instantly, Sila fused Qi of Little Tiger into his current qi circulation. The result was satisfying. The frozen area suddenly spread to the coastline, and all the merpeople were frozen underwater.
This is called fusing offensive qi into another offensive qi. Since the principle of Qi of Little Tiger was to increase attack power, using it together with Freezing Soul would eventually strengthen its freezing power.
Sila smiled at his own wit. The system sound alarmed continuously, and one of them was the sound that Sila had been waiting for:
[You have defeated the Blue-Scaled Merman King, Squire Rank, Level 750. You have received 2,000 experience points, gotten 50 gold coins, Blue-Scaled Merman King Card, Jewel of the Sea, and (Event) Ocean Heart Aquamarine. Due to you taking part in the event, you are unable to use Returning Scroll for now.]
After the system sound ended, there was a pink big heart floating on Sila’s head. Sila soon checked his system window and found that Ocean Heart Aquamarine was gone. There was a short message form Varee.
“I get your heart,” Sila read that vague message and believed that it must be due to Varee being really hurried.
Sila gazed towards the groups of players. He noticed Varee standing behind everyone. Despite the distance, it wasn’t hard for him to spot Varee due to a big heart floating on her head. However, since the players were now gazing at Sila, no one noticed Varee disappearing from their back.
Currently, Sila was standing alone on the ice field. Meanwhile, many players started to jump toward the coastline. Each of them readied their weapons in unison.
“Next are these guys, huh?” Sila muttered softly while circulating Intermediate Qi.
He began to walk back slowly with the same speed he used to go there.