“Zuo Pojun!?” Astonishment crossed Fierce Shadow Star Soul’s face, and then, the puzzle resolving itself, he muttered, “Of course. Where there’s a Murong Qiushui, how could there not be a Zuo Pojun.”
Three years or not, with a frame like Zuo Pojun’s, one look was all it took; forgetting him afterward was no easy matter. Zuo Pojun grinned, savoring it. “My, if it isn’t the little brat who wanted a duel with me three years ago and got kicked flat on his face for it… You’ve grown, but the look of you hasn’t changed much at all.”
Fierce Shadow Star Soul’s expression went stiff with embarrassment, and embarrassment turned straight into fury. Shing — he drew the greatsword off his back and roared, “Fat man, I’m dueling you!! …Er?”
The roar had barely left his mouth before it jammed. He stared at the man standing beside Zuo Pojun for a moment, and then shouted, louder still, “You’re Xietian!”
Not a question. A statement, and a completely certain one. Nobody else could have duplicated that outfit of Ye Tianxie’s.
Ye Tianxie did not answer. He did, though, look this youth over carefully. Anyone with the nerve to bellow like that in front of Zuo Pojun was unlikely to be an ordinary person… Oh? Fierce Shadow Star Soul, the one from the Level Ranking? And this young. He hasn’t outgrown the age of easy impulse yet, by the look of it — and the edge on him is already showing.
The temper Zuo Pojun had just kindled in Fierce Shadow Star Soul vanished without a trace in the space of a blink, and he covered the few steps to stand in front of Ye Tianxie. “Xietian, let me join your Heaven Soul mercenary corps!”
“Your reason.” Ye Tianxie watched him with real interest.
“I’m going to become the strongest Sword Warrior in the World of Fate! That’s my reason!” Fierce Shadow Star Soul’s eyes burned as he looked at Ye Tianxie. The Hero’s Headguard hid the man’s face from him, and even so, standing this close to the mysterious foremost player of Huaxia, he found his own heartbeat quickening. Not even meeting Huaxia’s highest leader had set his blood surging like this.
“You’re going to become the strongest Sword Warrior. And what does that have to do with joining the Heaven Soul mercenary corps? Your reason amounts to wanting to use the Heaven Soul mercenary corps to raise your own ability. That is all it is.” Ye Tianxie said it smiling, neither warm nor cold.
“That’s right, you’re quite correct. But I believe I’m qualified to get into the Heaven Soul mercenary corps!” Fierce Shadow Star Soul said it with his head up and his chest out.
“And what are your qualifications?”
“I’m ninth on the Level Ranking—”
“Level does not mean strength.”
“Then I—”
“If you genuinely want to join the Heaven Soul mercenary corps, it isn’t impossible… Two conditions. Pick one of them yourself.” Ye Tianxie did not wait for him to start listing his advantages again; he said it with a level expression.
“What conditions?”
“The first… take one strike from me and live. The second…” Ye Tianxie’s eyes flicked sideways. “Beat Murong Qiushui!”
Remembering the terrible damage in that video — over a thousand off a single casual blow of Ye Tianxie’s — Fierce Shadow Star Soul had the good sense to strangle the first condition where it stood. He respected the strong and worshipped them, and from a very young age had set himself on standing at the summit as one of them. He was in no way a coward or a man who conceded easily; on the contrary, he had been born with a proud spine. But the strength Ye Tianxie had put on display broke through his psychological defenses without effort, and every time he imagined fighting him what he felt was a deep, unvarying helplessness. Which was exactly why he had always longed to meet him.
“Fine. I choose to beat Murong Qiushui!”
Fierce Shadow Star Soul shouted his choice and turned at once to face Murong Qiushui.
“I’ll give you one warning: Qiushui is a member of my Heaven Soul mercenary corps. Beat him, or draw with him, and you’re qualified to join. All right, you two can begin. Make it fast, one exchange decides it, and neither of you is to use potions. Qiushui… no throwing the fight.”
That said, Ye Tianxie stepped back a few paces and watched the two of them with a hand at his chin.
“Very well. I’m not especially willing to trample the motherland’s tender flowers, but for my dear Second Brother’s sake I’ll go against that soft heart of mine and be cruel just this once… Come on, boy!” Murong Qiushui pursed his lips and raised the steel bow in his hand without hurrying about it… Set against Fierce Shadow Star Soul’s silver two-handed sword, the bow really did look as drab as a heap of scrap iron. Murong Qiushui was below him in both level and equipment, and Fierce Shadow Star Soul, with confidence to spare, felt no great pressure at all.
Murong Qiushui’s words galled Fierce Shadow Star Soul no end. He waved a hand. “Xiaoxie, get back. Watch me teach this dead lady—”
He got two syllables of dead ladyboy out and never managed the third. What he managed instead was a cold sweat, because he had suddenly remembered those terrible rumors about this man… Ever since that bloody scene had played out a few times over, nobody had ever again dared call him a ladyboy. That was his reverse scale, and to touch it was to die.
“A beauty… oh, what a beauty…”
Fierce Shadow Star Soul had shoved at Yan Xiaoxie and somehow failed to move him. He turned his head to look, and only then discovered that Yan Xiaoxie’s eyes were fixed in a dead straight line on Su Feifei, standing at Ye Tianxie’s side, with drool running out of his mouth. He had not registered a word of it.
Black lines began to run down Fierce Shadow Star Soul’s forehead. His own reputation, and the whole Ling family’s, was being dragged through the mud by this deadbeat who could not walk past a pretty woman… He roared, “Xiaoxie, clear off!!”
The shout jolted Yan Xiaoxie hard enough to bring him back, and he hurriedly wiped his mouth dry and ran clear. Ye Tianxie’s eyes passed idly over him — and then he paused, and a strange light went through them.
“Tianxie, can Qiushui beat him? That Fierce Shadow Star Soul is on the Level Ranking, and his equipment is better than Qiushui’s, too,” Su Feifei said quietly at his ear.
“Fierce Shadow Star Soul… loses beyond any doubt. Unless Murong Qiushui deliberately throws it, there is no second possible outcome,” Ye Tianxie said, low and absolutely certain. “In fact, I’ll go further… Fierce Shadow Star Soul will not so much as touch Qiushui’s body before he loses.”
“Eh?” Su Feifei’s gaze slid over, and she looked at the two of them — swords drawn, bow bent — in astonishment.
“Attack, boy. I’m a good-natured old soul who dislikes bullying his juniors.” Murong Qiushui muttered it with his lips pursed and not a scrap of conscience about him, his expression the very picture of idleness, with no regard whatsoever for the man in front of him.
Fierce Shadow Star Soul’s temper rose at one “boy” after another, and since he had the advantage in both equipment and level, he was hardly willing to take a cheap shot on top of it. He sneered instead. “You attack first…”
He was halfway through the sentence, the half-mocking remark meant to follow it still unsaid, when the bow that Murong Qiushui had been idly playing with, ten meters ahead of him, gave a soft sound and sent an arrow streaking straight at him…
Telling the other man to attack first and then shooting while he was halfway through a sentence — and at that range — was something nobody could have reacted to. Fierce Shadow Star Soul had only begun to react when it took him square in the forehead…
For an Archer, hitting a man in the head is several times harder than hitting his body. For the man who takes it, being hit in the head is a great deal worse than being hit in the body. And in the World of Fate‘s design, an arrow that lands in the target’s head raises the probability of its attached effects enormously — as with Concussion Shot, the Archer’s basic skill for interrupting spellcasting, whose interrupt chance leaps to 100% on a clean headshot. At the same time, the struck target’s body stalls for roughly half a second, with a further chance of being knocked flat outright.
Whether Murong Qiushui was too lucky or Fierce Shadow Star Soul too unlucky, that arrow not only landed dead between his brows, but the force behind it dropped him flat on his back.
Only then did Murong Qiushui’s voice drift over, unhurried. “Since you’re being so polite about it, I’ll attack first.”
Thwip, thwip…
Thwip, thwip…
-88, -92,
-90, -91…
By the time Fierce Shadow Star Soul got up off the ground, he had taken two more of Murong Qiushui’s offhandedly loosed Double Shots, and with the arrow that had put him down, better than half his health was gone. His face darkened. He gathered his focus and charged in furiously… Once he closed, the fight would inevitably be his to control.
Facing the charge, Murong Qiushui did not fall back to open the distance. He stood where he was, drew the string fast, and gave his fingers the lightest flick… Fierce Shadow Star Soul, who had been watching Murong Qiushui’s every movement, saw it, and his body swung abruptly to the left…
The sound of the arrows tearing air came less than half a second later than he had anticipated. And where those two shrieking arrows landed was… exactly where his body had moved to.
Thud, thud!
Two arrows in succession, once again unerringly between Fierce Shadow Star Soul’s brows. He had plainly shifted aside in the very instant Murong Qiushui loosed, and the two arrows had followed him as though they had eyes — and landed just as squarely, dead center, exactly to the mark.
Struck in the head, half a second of stall plus another half a second, and Fierce Shadow Star Soul’s mind went blank for a full second. When he came back to himself, Murong Qiushui was standing three meters in front of him with the bow leveled at him. He gave a light whistle. “Phweee… Boy, if I cruelly loose this one too, will the great motherland have one more trampled flower to its name?”
Three Double Shots and one ordinary shot, all landed, and Fierce Shadow Star Soul’s health bar was very nearly blank.
The whole thing had gone exactly as Ye Tianxie expected. He was about to step forward when an anxious voice suddenly reached his ear. “Xietian, can you hear me? This is the City Lord of the City of Stars!”
The City Lord of the City of Stars, no less — one of the great chiefs among the NPCs — was initiating a call to him, a player. Ye Tianxie could hardly help being astonished for a moment. He got the communicator up quickly and answered, “My lord. What is it?”
“There’s an urgent matter of the greatest importance, and I need your help. Come to the City Lord’s manor at once,” he said hurriedly.
Ye Tianxie hung up and could not help a sigh of feeling… This is what comes of Charm that runs too high. Even the NPCs deliver quests to your door.
(Mm, are you finding the three System Quests very dull to sit through… meow. Passion always needs a stretch of plainness to set it up, and the legendary passion is coming right up, meow…)
(Do you know why there’s a “meow” on the end? Meow…)
(End of Chapter 208)