9 - Han Bing Xue Field (4)

Translated by rabbitrisu

There were only two mobs left, so there was no need to separate them. After a blizzard passed, Gaosu Gonglu put on his protective armor and rushed forward with a large axe.

The Xue Qiu Elite mob was several times larger in size than the Xue Qiu mob, and it looked like a rotund snowman. Its hands were made of dead branches and were very flexible. They beat at Gaosu Gonglu’s shields again and again, and his blood volume dropped immediately by 20%. Seeing that the hatred focus had stabilized, Liang Xia quickly tossed a healing skill at him.

The others’ output also wasn’t lagging behind.

Seeing that Gonglu was maintaining his resistance, Xiao Ran replaced his equipment with a lower-level equipment that had higher output and fatality.

The little Xue Qiu that walked alongside the Elite were quickly wiped out by the fire. As if sensing the disappearance of its ally, the Xue Qiu Elite’s carrot nose gulped in two heavy breaths. It took two steps backward and then sprinted forward, a pulse of icy energy quickly amalgamating on its chest—

“Xigua!”

Xigua Jingling had been on high alert for a long time. Hearing Xiao Ran’s voice, he immediately lifted his hand and a tree vine burrowed out from the snow-covered ground beneath his feet, trapping the Xue Qiu Elite in a looping spiral from top to bottom. The blue energy that had gathered on its chest wasn’t enough, and it dissipated.

They successfully interrupted it.

Everyone was relieved.

They quickly resumed their combat rhythm that was temporarily interrupted by the freezing spell.

After two more freezing interruptions, the Xue Qiu Elite’s blood volume steadily dropped to 50%.

The Xue Qiu Elite raised its right hand, a dim light flashing in its palm. In the next second, an identical Xue Qiu Elite appeared next to Liang Xia!

Under normal circumstances, the Xue Qiu Elite’s clone would target the players who had the second and third highest hatred values. The main healing output and damage output would be caught off guard, leading to chaotic combat rhythms and eventually ending in total annihilation.

They, of course, were prepared, and wouldn’t go down so easily.

When the Xue Qiu Elite appeared in front of Liang Xia, she immediately stopped healing and evacuated herself from the combat circle while casting a Heart-Cleansing spell to lower her hatred value.

The boss followed closely. As its dead branch arm was about to make contact with Liang Xia’s back, an arrow flew through the air. Naozhong Ni Bie Nao was standing nearby and rushed behind Liang Xia, Seduced 1 the Xue Qiu Elite, then jumped away and ran with his crossbow, releasing three arrows in a row.

Seduce was the Spirit Fox’s basic skill to gather hatred, but it didn’t do any damage. Basic hate skills like that were available to almost all occupations except healers, but each occupation labeled it differently according to their characteristics. For example, Spirit Foxes had Seduce, Dragon Power Knights had Provoke, Shen Bi had Criticize, Promise Swordsmen had Shame……

The Spirit Fox’s Hatred-Attracting Arrow was a burst skill that attracted hatred. It needed to be cast with a Spirit Fox’s bow or crossbow. The number of arrows released correlated to the speed of the player’s consciousness. Players with high consciousness speed could release several Hate-Attracting Arrows as soon as they equipped their crossbow. Top players could even turn the crossbow around for a short moment to shoot several Hate-Attracting Arrows at different targets with just a slight wave of their hand.

Naozhong’s attack successfully attracted the boss’s attention, and it curled up and merged into a huge snowball, quickly rolling toward him.

Naozhong Ni Bie Nao quickly rolled to the side, stabilized his stance, bent his knees, and leaped out of the battle circle, happily taking the boss to fly kites on the hillside. 2 Liang Xia, who was hiding off to the side, took the opportunity to sneak back onto the battlefield.

“The time that Naozhong can keep Number 2 occupied is limited. If we burst our damage and can’t kill Number 1 in two minutes, that means Number 2 is a clone. Da Feng and Xigua will go help Naozhong. We’ll continue fighting here.” Xiao Ran commanded calmly. He marked the Xue Qiu Elite near Gonglu as Number 1, so it naturally turned out to be Number 2.

Just over a minute later, Boss Number 1’s throat let out a pitiful whimper as the snowman’s entire torso spontaneously exploded. The hot temperature within its body instantaneously evaporated it, turning it into steam that disappeared into the chilly air.

“Number 1 is gone. Naozhong, come back with Number 2 soon!” Xiao Ran shouted in his team chat.

“Going ahead! Just wait!” After a moment, Naozhong appeared before their eyes.

Gaosu Gonglu rushed forward for a surprise attack and Provoked the Xue Qiu Elite, but it was unmoved. It tried to move past Gaosu Gongly to attack Naozhong behind him, but it was blocked by his shield. The dead branch arm angrily beat at the shield, leaving a small scratch on it.

Liang Xia and Da Feng decisively sent a Heart-Cleansing spell and Buddha’s Compassion at Naozhong. Gaosu Gongly watched for an opening and directly hit the boss’s carrot nose with his axe, letting out a Wind Slash. After the boss was tossed into the sky, a series of perfect combo attacks finally grabbed the boss’s hatred. The dead branch arm smacked against Gaosu Gonglu’s shield. The strong impact caused Gonglu to adjust his stance several times before he could stand firm.

What came next was a sight to behold as they made trouble. 3

When the Xue Qiu Elite’s blood volume reached 20%, it recast the clone technique. This time, Naozhong Ni Bie Nao was targeted, so he sprinted around the boss for two minutes. After two minutes, the three spellcasters ran to help attract hatred from the clone Elite. That group of four people returned to the cliff and continued to make trouble.

Because of Xiao Ran’s skilled commands, the Xue Qiu Elite who was tossing Naozhong into the path had no room to fight back this time.

Who on earth said that Shen Bi were useless? No occupations were spicy chickens! 4 Your uncle will always be your uncle! 5

Naozhong Ni Bie Nao completely forgot his earlier way of thinking. Now he just wanted to laugh in the faces of those ignorant mortals.

“Xiao Ma-ge, let’s add each other as friends. The four of us have entered instances the max number of times today, but if you have time tomorrow, we can run through an instance together?” It wasn’t just because Naozhong Ni Bie Nao wanted to hug his thighs. The main reason was that a member of their original team had a real world problem and couldn’t get online recently. By inviting another person to join, they were afraid of being tricked like before, but this was a strong and reliable teammate, so who wouldn’t be happy with him, ah.

“Alright, let’s talk about it after we leave the instance. Let’s increase our output and burst the boss. The next blizzard is approaching.” Xiao Ran was stern as the spells in his hand crashed into the boss one after another without stopping.

The Xue Qiu Elite’s blood volume reached 2%, and it raised its right hand again—

The boss’s frenzy move was also a clone technique?!

Seeing the approaching blizzard, the team members targeted by the Xue Qiu Elite may only be able to die, so Xiao Ran hurriedly shouted: “Xigua, retreat quickly!”

Xigua Jingling’s equipment was excellent. Although his technique wasn’t good, his output value had always rivaled Naozhong’s. Naozhong was targeted by the boss last time, so this time it would probably be Xigua who is targeted. If that’s the case, the situation would be less optimistic.

He couldn’t think deeply in an emergency, not to mention that Xiao Ran had rescued him once before. When Xigua heard what he said, he rushed out of the combat circle almost like it was a conditioned reflex.

The wind exploded. At the same time, the Xue Qiu Elite once again performed the clone technique—

The blizzard obscured most of their sight and hearing. Gaosu Gonglu could barely hold on to the shield in his hand to resist the Xue Qiu elite. Although his opponent attacked fiercely, he didn’t dare to adjust his stance or retreat. This was to make sure that Liang Xia could heal him based on her memory and sense of touch while the visibility was so low.

The others were the same. The violent wind and snow left them unable to act; they could only wait with deep anxiety in their hearts.

Naozhong Ni Bie Nao shouted: “The boss didn’t come to me, what about you Xigua!”

Xigua Jingling: “The boss isn’t with me either!”

Liang Xia: “+1.”

Da Feng: “+2”

Of the team members, only Gonglu and Xiao Ran didn’t speak. The former, of course, had no time to speak, so the latter also…

Everyone’s hearts sank: It couldn’t be, ba!

After the Xue Qiu Elite became frenzied, its clone technique was chaotic and hateful!

The team was dead silent. Everyone was confused, not to mention the blizzard hindered their actions. The Xue Qiu Elite’s attacks alone were enough to make someone drink a pot, 6 let along Xiao Ran, who was still a long-range attacker with cloth armor. 7 In such a case, everyone knew what it meant to be at close-range.

When they thought that Xiao Ma-ge might have died, their relaxed typing disappeared without a trace. Everyone suddenly remembered how they felt afraid that they would be annihilated as a group.

Liang Xia suddenly spoke: “Don’t get distracted. Look at Xiao Ma-ge’s blood volume! He resisted!”

Naozhong suddenly bounced in shock: “Fuck! Really!”

Gaosu Gonglu was almost bashed in the head by the Elite’s branches, but he took the time to shout: “How is that possible! His spicy chicken output? Touch him and you need to burp!” 8

The others agreed. They were curious to death about what was happening on Xiao Ran’s side.

Xiao Ran’s blood volume in the team column was dropping. Although it wasn’t too slow, compared to their hopeless expectation of him ‘kneeling with a sword,’ 9 it was still thoroughly calming to his teammate’s small hearts.

Ten seconds felt as long as a century. When the blizzard slowly subsided, everyone understood what happened—

The first thing their five senses notices was a very fierce beating. Then there was Xiao Ran, who had put on his Chiyu Siyuan equipment at some point, and then there was also a pitch-black spear that had appeared in his hand during that time, and finally that gentle and meek boy was leaping up and down like a dragon, spells and blades soaring together, fiercely resisting the Xue Qiu Elite.

That formidable defense, that unrestrained operation, that sharp output. His long-range crispy 10 skin was so sturdy that he didn’t lose out against melee 11 tanks at all?!

Kacha.

The people present heard their three views shatter:

— Fuck, this transformation speed was too dramatic! Did this guy change his costume in the blink of an eye, ma!

— What the hell is that spear in this brother’s hand, ah! What the hell is this long-range spellcaster holding physical weapons and drawing blood on the boss, ah!!

— Is this really a fucking Shen Bi?!!!

Footnotes

Seduce is a taunt spell à capitalized. Kiting is to keep the boss attacking you but not able to hurt you; also means he took it to leisurely waste time off the battlefield It actually says an onomatopoeia here, but it’s the sound of rustling leaves and bushes and such, so I think this is a metaphorical meaning. 辣鸡 (spicy chicken) sounds like 垃圾 (trash) Things will be only as they actually are, not as someone believes they are. to suffer or be disadvantaged Can’t remember if I had to annotate this before, so here you go. Many mmorpg games have armor classes based on your occupation, where cloth is the armor with the least defense, then things like leather, then iron, then plate, etc. Xiao Ran (as a Shen Bi) is a cloth-wearer, just like most mages or long-range spellcasters would be. A joke: spicy chicken makes you burp. Being sentenced to death: kneeling down and the executioner slices your throat off with a sword fragile, weak close-range