"Da Yi!!?"
Jiang Chi's face contorted. His voice cracked with shock.
'What was this [War] follower doing here?'
'He was a hunter too!?'
'Was Cheng Shi a Fate Weaver or a Lord of Desire!?'
'Had all these people been brainwashed!?'
Jiang Chi didn't dare let his guard down. Seeing the streak of light plunge directly at his head, he gritted his teeth and swung his sword upward to intercept.
As the [Ti]-infused blade traced a half-circle above his head, Da Yi — who'd almost reached Jiang Chi's face — suddenly froze the instant before his Iron Thorns connected.
The wind and snow around them froze with him.
Space itself had been stopped by [Ti]!
Seeing the [War] assassin locked down practically at arm's length, Jiang Chi felt no urge to counter-attack. His raised sword imdiately swept forward again as his body shot backward, retreating to the high wall and pressing his back flush against it.
During his retreat, Gongyang Jiao's figure materialized from a gust of howling wind — frozen in place at the exact spot Jiang Chi had just vacated.
Everyone had moved!
The Screaming Earl had seized the mont, but the Pointer Knight's reflexes proved superior. He'd blocked the ambush perfectly. But before he could catch his breath, the hunter's arrows shrieked through the wind.
Jiang Chi's sword spun like an umbrella, deflecting the leading arrows. But the rapid-fire barrage was relentless, and his maneuvering space was too cramped. He had no choice but to freeze all the remaining arrows mid-flight.
The distant Chaleon frowned at the sight, imdiately shifted position to find a new angle, and drew his bow again. anwhile, the fourth hunter — Poison — had...
Vanished.
Just as Jiang Chi held his breath, eyes unblinking as he scanned for her, a soft laugh erged from sowhere within the thick city wall behind his head.
"Sir Knight — which is harder, the wall or the persimmon?"
Jiang Chi startled violently. He whipped his sword backward, poml-first, while simultaneously flooding the wall space behind him with [Ti] stagnation. A solid thunk rang out — the poml struck solid masonry. There was no Poison behind him.
A decoy voice!
Jiang Chi frowned and half-turned to glance back. And in that split-second — from behind a snowflake directly in front of him — a snow-white figure erupted forward. Poison, in full assassin garb, materialized without warning. Lips curled in a smirk, eyes dancing, Dance With Desire flashing through the air — she carved a gash along the Pointer Knight's thigh in a single stroke.
Poison's real target had been the hand holding the pocket watch. She'd observed that the watch was likely the source of his ti-freezing power, so she'd aid to cripple his left hand.
But startled as he was, Jiang Chi's reflexes were anything but slow. The instant Poison appeared, he'd already lifted his knee in a counter-kick, tid perfectly — catching Poison in the one mont she had no leverage.
Left with no alternative, the assassin settled for slashing his thigh on the way past.
Blood sprayed. Three inches deep. The wound carved long, and under Dance With Desire's desire-pull, Jiang Chi's entire body shuddered.
The assassin struck and withdrew without hesitation. But Jiang Chi refused to eat the loss in silence. He raised the pocket watch toward Poison's escape route and froze that entire section of space.
Though the assassin had already vanished into the blizzard and no figure was visible within the frozen zone, the furious Pointer Knight had a solution for that: AoE.
Through gritted teeth and searing pain, Jiang Chi launched himself upward, dodging two volleys from the Chaleon, then swept his sword through the space where Poison had disappeared — indiscriminate slashes, covering every inch.
Of the hunters present, the only one he could match in direct combat was Poison — who wasn't particularly combat-focused to begin with.
And with her controlled, he had even more confidence.
The seemingly wild sweeps proved devastatingly effective. Within monts, four or five savage wounds appeared in the air above the frozen zone.
Scalding blood poured forth, tracing the outline of a shapely figure in mid-air. The instant she took damage, the assassin's stealth shattered.
Once an assassin lost concealnt and was hard-locked in place, death was all but inevitable.
Spotting her position, Jiang Chi sneered, then spun and hurled his sword — straight at Poison's back!
And at that precise mont, Da Yi recovered.
The earliest frozen zone finally fractured. The [War] assassin cursed under his breath, eyes narrowing, and shot toward Jiang Chi. For a peak assassin of his agility, the distance was covered faster than a blink.
Da Yi keenly exploited the window created by Jiang Chi's thrown sword. He flashed past the about-to-be-impaled Poison without sparing a thought of rescue. Target locked. Full charge at Jiang Chi.
His Iron Thorns danced like butterflies, sohow refracting eerie light even through the dark blizzard. Threads of light fanned out like flung silk, boxing Jiang Chi against the wall. Despite his hulking fra, his movents earned the word "spectral" — and in a single breath, he closed the distance.
Jiang Chi's face was grim but fearless. He'd drawn a shorter blade from sowhere — half the length of the previous Hour Hand Sword — and channeled every ounce of strength into his body. He didn't target the oncoming Da Yi. Instead, he slashed at the light-threads coiling around him.
Those silk-thin threads should have been intangible, yet steel rang against them — a resonant tallic clang that sang without end. But the blow lacked sufficient force. The Gap Light Trap binding him held firm.
Da Yi grunted in amusent, seized the opening, and stabbed upward.
Six thorns at once!
Shlk—
Six punctures burst simultaneously across Jiang Chi's chest and abdon. The Iron Thorns pierced clean through his body along the light-thread tethers. Da Yi caught the returning thorns and yanked.
Squelch—
The threads cut like razors, slicing Jiang Chi's body into countless fragnts.
Amid the stunned silence of all onlookers, the [War] assassin appeared to have ended the war in an instant.
But was it real?
No. It was false.
The victorious Da Yi suddenly felt the world blur. Then he realized nothing that had just occurred was real. The mory dissolved gradually in his consciousness, fading into phantom images where no detail could be grasped.
He blinked in shock and found himself still standing at his original attack position. Poison was pinned to the wall by the thrown sword. Gongyang Jiao had advanced several ters at so point but was now trapped in another ti-stagnation field, unable to move. Only the Chaleon remained...
Currently locked in close-quarters combat with the Pointer Knight who'd just broken through the encirclent — bow against sword, trading blows blow for blow.
Seeing this, Da Yi was both alard and furious.
A [Ti] deduction illusion-trap!
This Pointer Knight had sohow planted a deduction trap above his head, just waiting for him to walk into it!
At least the simulated outco had him winning. If the opponent had possessed an item that could overwrite the deduction's result, the consequences would have been catastrophic.
'This warrior... how did he have so many tricks!?'
'Warriors were supposed to be brutes who charged head-on! Why was this one fighting with nothing but calculations!?'
That said, Jiang Chi's warrior image had beco genuinely warped — even deford — in Da Yi's eyes. The Pointer Knight was undeniably skilled, but that skill didn't quite match the title "Pointer Knight."
He possessed the sharp instinct for seizing timing, yes — but in practice, most of those timing-seizes relied on Ti Stagnation. He had a warrior's physique, true — but his raw strength barely matched a peak hunter's.
He looked like a warrior, certainly. But his combat power lacked a peak warrior's ferocity. His attack thods leaned heavily on talent-based skills. Yet the Pointer Knight was supposed to be a brute-force class. [Ti]'s blessing granted them precise timing capture — and if such a warrior lacked raw power, what good was perfect timing?
Case in point: right now, he'd hard-locked multiple opponents, and still chose to retreat and break out rather than press the advantage.
If Da Yi or Gongyang Jiao had that kind of crowd control, the frozen enemies would've been pounded until not even bone dust remained.
"Hot damn — sothing's off!"
Da Yi spat fiercely, stopped dwelling on the illusion trap, and threw himself back into the fight.
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