Chapter 280: Déjà Vu

A pitch-black wheel of light circled the sharp object to the right of the black shadow’s hand. Even George, who possessed low-light vision, could not observe the specific appearance of that sharp object under the influence of that energy—whether it was an alien dagger or an awl remained unknown.

‘This guy’s stature is a bit too short to be a Human, but he is much taller than a Dwarf, let alone the even shorter Halfling or Gnome. Moreover, his physique does not look as burly as a Dwarf. Could he be a short Human, or a Black Skin who was ruthless enough to alter his long ears? And this guy is really lucky; the Flash Dust from earlier seems to have had no effect on his vision!’ Facing the Assassin’s next move, George’s mind raced. He had thought of so many things, yet he completed them all in the blink of an eye.

Unlike the first assault, which was like a tiger pouncing on its prey, the Assassin swayed his body to blur his movement trajectory. Then, in mid-air, he unfurled his coiled body, launching an attack that blended wild speed and power .

This time, his movement seemed light and slow, but in action, it was extremely fast. However, the distance between him and George shortened very rapidly. The distance of less than 10 feet could be covered in a blink.

‘The directional changes of his stepping are a bit like the Taoist Yu Step. And the way he pushes with the right and lifts with the left, thighs straight at the knees, calves extended, feet slightly level off the ground, toes gripping the earth, alternating parallel advancement, is a bit like the Bagua Mud-Wading Step. No, it’s not just that. I have seen this step somewhere before. This seems to be the entry-level step introduced in that ancient scroll—the Wind Walk Stance, though I prefer to call it “Sneaking into the Night with the Wind.” Pity that the thing I obtained had no related practice techniques or principles on it!’ Fortunately, George’s current speed of thought had become somewhat different from the current timeline; otherwise, he would not have had the time to think about such things in such a tense moment.

However, although his brain was still working, George had already issued instructions to his body to beware of the opponent’s tripping technique. This method could not truly achieve splitting his mind in two, but due to the time difference, it could achieve a similar effect when facing the enemy.

However, under the current situation, such a step was not suitable, as this underground storeroom was not exactly spacious but was absolutely flat without obstacles. Of course, this might be because the opponent feared that George had set up something while releasing the “Flash Dust” just now—after all, caution is the parent of safety, and careless killers usually do not live long.

Of course, those who die early naturally have mediocre strength, while those who survive have the opportunity to continue increasing their power.

Facing the opponent’s stormy offensive, George, to prevent the opponent from using close-range impact attacks similar to the Mountain Leaning Strike, or monkey-like tripping movements, kept his movement range from becoming too large. He bent his legs slightly as if squatting like a horse to lower his center of gravity.

Because the most feared thing in this situation was having his balance destroyed by the opponent. From the brief contact just a moment ago, George sensed that the opponent was no easy foe. In a life-and-death struggle, a single momentary opening could cost him his life.

Using the “Wind Walk Stance” could easily traverse ground full of rubble and other debris, allowing the user to gain more advantages over opponents who struggled to move at full speed.

By closely coordinating with the surrounding environment, the user could easily find footholds in difficult terrain. When other creatures struggled to move in difficult terrain, the user’s movements appeared effortless.

When fighting in difficult terrain, he could turn uneven footholds into his own advantage. By guessing how the opponent balanced his weight, the user could launch an attack at the most appropriate time to make him fall.

He saw the opponent’s left arm trace a bizarre trajectory like a coiled snake, and also like a flexible breeze winding around the body. It avoided George’s left hand, which he had swung out beforehand to block.

Then, a “whoosh” sound of wind slashing past was heard! It turned out that what had a metallic luster in the darkness was the opponent’s soul-seizing sharp claw, not the light weapon George had previously thought was hidden in the sleeve.

That Assassin, who played with light and shadow in the palm of his hand, was like a giant nocturnal raptor. In this gloomy environment, he extended his incredibly sharp claws, slipping past George’s layers of defense at a bizarre angle—diving straight for his heart.

The Tiger Claw Style’s Raptor Strike—an offensive move like a goshawk striking the hall. Through several leaping movements, it could seize the opportunity when an opponent is surprised by you bypassing their defense to plunge a deadly weapon into the opponent’s vital spot.

Today, George was not wearing armor and fully armed as if on a battlefield. Let alone metal products like Breastplates or Chainmail, due to George’s habits, he did not even have heavy clothing. The two tight silk shirts on his body could not stop the opponent’s ghostly claws.

Facing this situation, George was not unprepared. With a technique from Southern Style Wing Chun called “Circle Hand” to dissipate force, he circled the opponent’s wrist to make the opponent’s attack miss. At the same time, George held his breath and channeled his power. Cracking sounds of “pa pa” came from his body, as his muscles and bones rang together. A force generated from the soles of his feet, rising all the way up, passing the hips, bearing at the waist, reaching the shoulders, arriving at the arms, and then like a bullet leaving the barrel, he relied on a Three Star Punch to turn defense into offense.

At the same time, relying on his height advantage, he launched a high-position attack like a comet crashing to the ground, fiercely attacking the opponent’s crown. The head is the most important organ of the whole body; George prepared to use this rapid fierce strike to directly smash the opponent’s skull.

At this moment, he simply did not have time to consider keeping the opponent alive for slow interrogation. As the saying goes, a noble does not sit under a leaking roof; even if he wanted intelligence, he would never trade his own life for it. As for using other people’s lives, that is another matter.

Just like the front three rows of Tianchao before transmigrating, although what they said was beautiful, for the “Donkey Braying” elements, they only knew how to kneel and lick. After all, those guys’ terrorist attacks not only did not affect their rule, but even the safety of their distant relatives like seventh aunts and eighth sisters was unaffected. The ones who died were merely the ordinary “Fourth-Class People” to them.

However, by the time George transmigrated here, his identity had suddenly changed, and he began to habitually think in this manner of a superior. Of course, because there were no brain-dead goods like “Minzhu” or “Ziyou” dragging things down here, the rulers here could use the most swift and effective method against those cultists—that was sending them to see their gods.

In fact, for some notorious villains, merchants from the Lower Plane would come to buy their souls. Although Lords who feared being tainted with evil Spirit Light usually did not appear personally, entrusting their underlings, the Black Gloves, was a very common occurrence. After all, the losses caused by their activities previously, and the costs during the siege, had to be shifted to someone else.

Of course, regarding the subjects treated as their own wealth, Lords like George who wanted to make a difference still paid quite a bit of attention. After all, the population here could not compare to a certain country before transmigrating that was so “overpopulated” it had to restrict the birth rate of the main ethnic group.

However, although George’s idea was good, that shorty was not without a countermeasure. Suddenly, his body seemed to be covered with a thin black veil; he wrapped himself in chaotic shadow energy. This energy swirled and surged around him, preventing any creature from launching a preemptive attack against him—Blade Shell.

This was one of the few defensive moves in the Shadow Hand Style! It could turn part of the opponent’s power back against himself, thereby improving your combat capability.

George’s thunderous strike was blocked by this energy, as if moving in solidified gelatin, so his speed naturally slowed down a bit—this gave him enough time to recover his defense.

Their two arms were like two long whips, slashing rapidly, producing sounds of breaking air, like two pitch-black pythons entwining above their heads. The next moment, George’s attack collided fiercely with his defensive stance—Thousand Illusion Defense.

The user of this move squatted on one leg, with a hand on the crown of his head. At the same time, his legs took root in the earth, transferring part of the attack’s impact force to his feet through unique vibration—this was a bit like someone’s Art of Absorbing Energy into the Ground. This was a technique of grafting one trick onto another and using force to counter force; it could be said to fit the characteristics of the Setting Sun Style quite well.

The resulting air wave shook up the few dust particles in the basement. The figures of the two seemed to freeze at the same time, and during the collision, George could hear the opponent’s bones creaking!

Perhaps due to the threat to his life, George used a move in this strike that he had previously only been able to use with two-handed hammers—the Val Knights called this the Rhythm of the Hammer. This attack was less a contest of strength and more a contest of physical toughness, or in numerical terms, endurance. From this aspect, George’s attributes were much better than that Assassin’s.

Suddenly, he seemed to disappear into the shadows, becoming transparent and ethereal. If the effect of the Flash Dust had not still outlined his silhouette, George would have thought he had gone invisible again!

This ability could turn the user, including all equipment, into an incorporeal body, and he could gain all the benefits of the incorporeal subtype. Although he could not pass this trait to other creatures through touch or carrying, a duration of 6 seconds was enough for him to adjust his state before starting to move again.

Of course, George could also get some rest; after all, the influx of shadow energy from the previous contact made George feel very uncomfortable, faintly accompanied by a sense of weakness and trembling. It seemed that with just a circulation of the blood and qi in his body, this strange sensation disappeared from his body.

Of course, George would not just watch the opponent adjust his state like this. Although the best choice against incorporeal creatures was Magic Weapons enchanted with the Ghost Touch effect, George, who was currently empty-handed, was not completely helpless.

Because of the Blessing of Order, George’s physical body was like an ordinary Magic Weapon when attacking. Although such weapons had a high chance of being ineffective when attacking incorporeal creatures, compared to having no method at all before, there was now a chance to defeat the enemy.

George turned his claws into hooked fingers as spears, his arms as hammers, and his elbows as maces. After activating Qi and Blood Separation, his body was like a Taoist Yellow Turban Strongman, and he seemed to have grown a section taller. His swinging arms were like the sharp blade of a lawnmower, whistling as they moved. They brought out gusts of wind from the opponent’s phantom form and created a series of sounds of breaking air.

His whole person was like a Barbarian wielding two Halberds at the same time. Because a Halberd has both a straight blade and a horizontal blade, forming a “ten” or “divination” shape, the Halberd has multiple uses such as hooking, pecking, stabbing, and cutting, combining the functions of various weapons like the dagger-axe and spear. It has always been known for being difficult to use.

However, facing this target who was temporarily only defending and not attacking, George threw everything he had learned and knew at him. Under moves mainly consisting of chopping, stabbing, hooking, slicing, probing, hanging, capturing, knocking, shoveling, back-chopping, horizontal stabbing, downward chopping, diagonal slashing, horizontal cutting, intercepting, flat hooking, wall pinning, reverse stabbing, penetrating strikes, lifting strikes, and direct chopping, George’s arms really moved as freely as a pair of Halberds.

The electric current coursing over his upper body was a new ability George obtained after continuously nurturing the Thunderbird Spirit. By now, George was able to very perfectly control these electric currents acting on his own body. Now, George himself was like a specially enchanted Warforged, making people feel danger from afar.

The so-called Warforged were constructs manufactured in the war between Knights and Mages for leadership of the Continent. Originally designed as mindless war machines, the Arcane experiments that transformed them into weapons of destruction gave the Warforged self-awareness. Through these experiments, Warforged became true living constructs. The basic mass-produced Warforged were only slightly larger than Humans, but there were also huge varieties encountered; they were remnants of the war.

After the Last War ended, the Warforged longed for social recognition, while instinctively hoping to establish connections with their creator race. But most humanoid races usually viewed Warforged as bloody remnants of the Last War, so they avoided contact with them as much as possible.

Amidst the “Bili—Puchi—Po!” of flashing thunder, the opponent, carrying a slight smell of burnt flesh, was knocked flying toward the corner of the wall by this strike. In fact, with the series of attacks George just made, he should have hit the opponent long ago. But sometimes when people have bad luck—even drinking cold water makes them stuff their teeth! Such probabilistic matters are sometimes really hard to say.

However, George’s strike just now could truly be said to conquer ten meetings with one force! Whether in unarmed techniques or weapon fighting, this was the case. Even if you wore fine steel armor that was hard to cut through, if you really took such a powerful blow, it would be hard to escape death. If not electrocuted to death by the current that just burst out, one would be smashed or shocked to death!

If it were an ordinary Adventurer, after such a strike, they would have long since flown up like a pitch-black torn rag, then slammed heavily against the wall like a pile of dog shit, losing their breath long ago.

But the opponent did not do so; he struggled to stand up, sliding out a curved arc, and then leaped out with a trajectory about the height of a person, flying in to kill from the upper right. Suddenly, a pair of incredibly sharp Scimitars appeared in his hands, like the giant lion’s wind-sweeping sharp claws, flashing from both left and right to kill together.

A pair of arms turned into mountain-toppling staff shadows, and the blade light was like an unpredictable storm, sealing off all of George’s attack paths! This was the combination of “Pouncing Charge” and “Mongoose’s Fury” from the Blood Claw Style.

The former, with a beast-like roar, formed a high speed that caused friction injuries to himself. The user’s weapon swung at his opponent with a wild speed, gradually becoming blurred. The latter was a desperate strike that found release in cruel attacks, throwing aside all caution and self-control.

Facing such a powerful strike, George instead became even calmer. He read the opponent’s movements as much as possible, trying every means to use the Assassin’s strength against himself, looking for openings to defend and even hold out until the opponent’s offensive slowed down before counterattacking.

Just when George thought victory was within his grasp, he saw the Assassin suddenly burst out with intense black light about 60 feet wide, spreading to a very wide range like an octopus spitting ink, “Shua!” It looked like a mass of thick black clouds that did not disperse, confusing the basement faster than a gale.

This was the special ability of the Shadow Sun Monk, Child of Light and Shadow: When the user mastered his life energy, he could release light and shadow energy. Starting from the eighth level, you could concentrate your energy, plunging the area around you into an alternation of light and shadow.

When he was in the Setting Sun or Shadow Hand stance, he could use a swift action to give up the stance’s original effect to gain the Child of Light and Shadow ability. As long as you are in the Setting Sun or Shadow Hand stance, this ability is always in effect, or you can stop the Child of Light and Shadow ability and regain the stance’s usual effect.

If he used this ability to release light energy, the space around him would be shrouded in bright radiance. Enemies within 60 feet would be blinded for 1-6 seconds. When determining how this ability interacts with magical darkness, this ability is treated as a 9th-level spell.

If he released dark energy, the space within 60 feet around him would be shrouded in complete darkness. When determining how this ability interacts with magical light, this ability is treated as a 9th-level spell.

As long as he maintained the stance, he would alternately release light and darkness. If this ability was activated according to his will, the ability would change. If it produced light, it would now produce shadow, and vice versa.

Within this “Darkness” spell, George could not see, and could only rely on hearing, smell, and other senses to detect the enemy’s general location; precise striking was impossible. If they were on the Surface, he could rush out of the spell’s range, but in the Underground secret room, he was completely covered by it.