Cobra’s face was as black as charcoal. He had several thousand men on his side. He had assumed that any crowd of them could be shoved forward, poke at the man a few times at random, and ten Ye Tianxies would have died. Pulling the entire Archer unit off the Red Leaf Pact and turning it on Ye Tianxie had already been an enormous outlay on his part, made to kill him in the shortest possible time, and he had never once imagined the man would still be alive ten seconds later. But… but now it looked as if he had ten minutes. Ye Tianxie was still cutting his way through the ranks of Wings That Shroud the Sky as if no one stood there at all.

He ground his teeth and growled, “What are you shaking for! We have five thousand men on this side. Five thousand — do you understand? Are you telling me one man is going to beat us? Then what the hell is Wings That Shroud the Sky even for—”

“Boss, it isn’t five thousand any more. We’re barely down to four thousand-odd now…” Lone Sword Without a Trace’s face was a study in misery. “Xietian… Xietian has wiped out close to six hundred of ours on his own… Boss! If we don’t come up with something, we really are going down to him today!!”

Six hundred men?

In under ten minutes… in under six hundred seconds, he had driven into the thick of the ranks alone and wiped out more than six hundred men?!

The number had Cobra sucking in a cold breath, his hands and feet gone cold.

This was not supposed to be a fairy-tale world!!

He finally began to feel a very strong unease… A man who could calmly wipe out six hundred with the whole force closed around him could wipe out another six hundred once there were fewer of them… and another six hundred… and another…

“Boss! That fox’s healing is flat-out obscene. It brings back more than a thousand health in a single cast, and it can stack several different heals at once. Our people can’t take health off faster than it puts health back. And after all this time its mana still isn’t gone — the healing has never once broken off… It’s, it’s terrifying. If not for that thing, Xietian and that freak cat would never be having this easy a time, and we might already have—”

Lone Sword Without a Trace had not finished before Cobra was roaring down the team channel. “Every ranged class, all of you, attack that white fox behind Xietian!! Now — I want it dead inside five seconds!!”

Yaoyao’s body was too small and far too quick, and a player who wanted to hit it had to crouch to do it. Tucked in behind Ye Tianxie, who opened the road and shielded it, the fox had taken essentially no attacks at all. And even when it was hit, it had Mystic Spirit Self-Healing, which restored its whole health bar at a stroke. It had two skills for healing its companions and three for healing itself.

The order came down, and this little snow fox — running absurdly fast, small as a target, and so adorable that a man could hardly bring himself to attack it — was finally locked on by a great swath of players, and a broad sheet of arrows and a narrower one of spells came down on it together.

Yaoyao’s healing was powerful, but the fox itself was fragile. Never mind concentrated fire that could one-shot even Ye Tianxie any number of times over; a few of those hits at random would have been enough to end it. Ye Tianxie did not look back. He used the gap that had opened in the attacks on him to plunge headlong into the Archer ranks and slaughter his way through as he pleased, and that orderly unit was soon in complete disarray.

Yaoyao stayed behind Ye Tianxie and Xiaobei, and the pale yellow Wall of Heaven’s Barrier formed around its body. Countless attacks landed on it — the arrows alone came to dozens of hits — and before Cobra and Lone Sword Without a Trace, watching from a distance, could get as far as being pleased, both their faces froze and they rubbed their eyes without thinking.

“Impossible… impossible! That string of attacks just now would have done ten thousand damage at the most conservative estimate. How is that fox still alive… Is its health over ten thousand, or am I seeing things?”

“Keep attacking that fox! Don’t let me find out this many people can’t handle one little fox!!”

The attacks came down like a rainstorm with Yaoyao’s body for their center, and the sheer thickness of them nearly buried the fox’s small shape.

Several seconds later, when the attacks finally eased, that little white shape was still crouched there without a hair out of place. Then it shot away, darted in behind Ye Tianxie, and put a heal on him worth who knew how many of an ordinary Priest player’s.

This time, Lone Sword Without a Trace and Cobra all but dropped their jaws on the ground.

“A monster… the thing is just a monster!!” Lone Sword Without a Trace clenched his fist and set his teeth. “More than a thousand health per cast, mana that doesn’t run out… and you can’t kill it! If a pet like that belonged to Wings That Shroud the Sky, what BOSS could there be that we couldn’t grind down!!”

The Wings side had a very strong Priest unit of its own… but against a Xietian who killed with every strike, those Priests had nowhere to put their skills to use at all. Compare yourself to other people, the saying goes, and you will die of rage.

And in that short space of time, the Wings Archer unit had already fallen into chaos. What an Archer fears most is an enemy at close quarters. Open the distance and an Archer controls the battle; let him be closed on, and he is not far from dead.

Ye Tianxie went back and forth through the Archer unit like Death’s own scythe. The well-drilled Archers all backed away in panic, scattering, trying to get clear, too busy saving themselves to spare a thought for their commander’s bellowing.

The Hour of Fate swung, and players went down one after another. The white light rising around him never once broke off. In that moment every man there — Wings That Shroud the Sky and Red Leaf Pact alike — was staring blankly at him. At this man called Xietian, who stood one against a thousand and was still this unhurried, still this calm.

Every single person present fixed the name Xietian in his memory, a thousand times more deeply, ten thousand times more deeply than anything he had heard of the man before. Nothing marks a man like seeing a thing with his own eyes.

This battle had begun as the Red Leaf Pact’s and Wings That Shroud the Sky’s to fight over. One man’s arrival had changed it utterly, and the lead role had passed entirely to him. His body was not a large one. But every man on that field felt that he stood somewhere very high, so high the top of it could not be seen, and looked down at them from there.

“He brought this on himself!” Cobra was angry — through his shock, thoroughly angry. He picked up his communicator and called out in a voice cold and level. “All of you listen to me! Forget the Red Leaf Pact for now. All of you — listen carefully, all of you — get over there and attack Xietian! Guardian unit, every one of you press in and box him up for me, box him in until he can’t move, and the ranged classes pound him for everything you have… And if you can’t box him in, then there are enough of you to drown him, so drown him for me!!”

That order went out, and Lone Sword Without a Trace’s mouth fell open — but he raised no objection. If anything, the look in his eyes eased a little.

The shape of the battle changed again on the instant. Great masses of Wings players who had been fighting the Red Leaf Pact pulled back like a receding tide, then put their Guardians in front with every other class behind them and slammed in at Ye Tianxie from eight directions at once, in a ring, like a flood coming in… They held their shields in front of their chests and did not raise the weapons in their hands. Because what they had come to do was not to kill him — they could not have killed him — but to pen him in.

The Guardian ranks were packed dense and solid, a wall of black bearing down from all around with a roar, as if they meant to squeeze Ye Tianxie and his two pets flat in the middle of it. This kind of penning tactic costs a considerable number of players and is normally used only against an extremely powerful BOSS — and today it was being used on Ye Tianxie, because he was more frightening than the strongest BOSS they had ever met. These Guardians’ attacks were no threat to him. But once they had him sealed in at the center and the crowd behind them pressed forward together, he would be pinned in place with no way out, and the ranged classes at a distance could open up on him with everything they had.

Eight shields hit Ye Tianxie with Heavy Shield Bash at once. He did not dodge, and there was nowhere to dodge to. All eight landed…

-1, -1, -1, -1…

Heavy Shield Bash has low attack power to start with. Its main effect is to knock an enemy back, with a 20% chance of a three-second stun attached. Eight Heavy Shield Bashes put Ye Tianxie into a stun easily enough — but the stun lasted only an instant before Yaoyao’s Mystic Spirit Restoration cleared it.

A few oxen might hold back a charging tiger. But no number of sheep is going to pen in a fierce tiger coming down off the mountain.

Bang!!

One Dragon Rend Slash, and the Guardian in front of Ye Tianxie was hammered away, the body flying backward knocking over a swath of his own side behind him. Ye Tianxie was right behind it. He stopped using his ordinary attack with its area effect and went entirely to Dragon Rend Slash and its heavy concussive force. Every Guardian his Dragon Rend Slash knocked flying knocked over a patch of men in turn. And because the Guardian unit had crowded itself in tight for the best possible seal, a few men going down meant the ranks behind shoving the ranks in front, and those Guardians went over or tripped in their turn. The chain reaction ran all the way through. A Guardian unit that had been perfectly ordered and high on its own momentum broke apart as a fighting force, every man too busy with himself to help anyone else, hemmed in and crushed to the ground before they had ever touched Ye Tianxie. Ye Tianxie slipped out of the ring without any trouble at all.

But the Guardian unit’s attack was not entirely without effect. They had done nothing to Ye Tianxie, but Xiaobei was squeezed half to death.

First a Heavy Shield Bash stunned it. Yaoyao had only just brought it around when it was crushed in tight between several cold shields. And when Ye Tianxie had shaken the Guardian unit off with ease, it still had not gotten free… so it got well and truly angry.

Xiaobei had never been in danger before, so Ye Tianxie had no way of knowing how frightening an angry Xiaobei would be.

“Meow~~~” — one low cat cry, and a ball of white light burst out of its body and flung every Guardian penning it in far away. It did them no damage, but the sheer force of the impact cleared a wide pocket of empty ground all around it.

“Ding… Your pet ‘Xiaobei’ has erupted in fury. The first of its two berserk skills — Rend · Light of Havoc — is open.”

Ye Tianxie turned back and looked at Xiaobei in astonishment.

A berserk Xiaobei is the most frightening Xiaobei of all. And now every man there was about to learn what frenzy really means.

(End of Chapter 265)