Chapter Fifty-Eight: The Duel at Tiger Leap Gorge (tttt Recommendation Votes!)

“Charge!”
“Charge!”
“Charge!”

Seeing that the distance was just right, Smack-Your-Face and Whose House Sews launched a charge with shrill cries, and Whose House Weaves, not to be left behind, charged as well to join the battle at once.

The three of them rushed forward in a wedge formation, nearly upon them. Dew and Frost felt a slight tension in her heart and readied herself to leap away.

“Bring it on!”

Huang Yunshuo let out a peal of silver laughter, his pitch-black cannon barrel aimed squarely at Smack-Your-Face.

“What the hell kind of weapon is that?”

As Smack-Your-Face charged at high speed, his heart skipped a beat.

Boom!

With a deafening blast, all four were blown off their feet.

Dew and Frost reacted instinctively, activating a leap and flashing five meters back, while the remaining four, including Huang Yunshuo, were blasted away.

Huang Yunshuo was sent tumbling by the recoil and shockwave, landing face down near Dew and Frost’s legs in a most undignified posture, a slow icon appearing above his head as his health dropped by fifteen points.

-68!
-16!
-17!

The three who’d charged in so eagerly were thrown back by the explosion. Horseface and Monkeyface, like Huang Yunshuo, suffered only half the area damage, but unlucky Smack-Your-Face took the full brunt at point-blank range, triggering a critical hit.

-3-3-3!

Bleeding damage erupted over him, and Smack-Your-Face was blasted more than ten meters away, landing hard on his backside and taking another -15 damage from the fall.

By the time the stun icon floated above his head, he had lost a total of 113 health and was left hanging by a thread.

The other two were also flung away, one landing five meters off, the other seven, both suffering fall damage and slowed.

Monkeyface, Whose House Weaves, who’d already lost 26 health to Dew and Frost’s arrows, was left at half health. The three of them sat on the ground, stunned, unable to accept what had just happened.

“What are you dawdling for? Keep attacking!” urged Huang Yunshuo.

Dew and Frost snapped out of her daze and fired her hand crossbow at Smack-Your-Face.

-7!

Now hanging on by a sliver, Smack-Your-Face was just one touch from death.

“You two just wait for me!” Smack-Your-Face shouted, fumbling for a healing spray and hurriedly dousing himself. His health bar began to rise.

Monkeyface and Horseface shot Huang Yunshuo a look as if they’d seen a ghost, and without a word, scrambled after Smack-Your-Face, the three of them stumbling in panic toward the valley’s exit.

“They really are idiots, sticking together like that!” Huang Yunshuo shook his head in disbelief.

Boom!

A rocket fired from over ten meters away landed among them. Monkeyface, Whose House Weaves, took the full bleeding damage and died where he fell.

Smack-Your-Face, who had just managed to heal up to 20 health, was killed by the blast and the fall.

The sole survivor, Whose House Sews, was left at half health, and scrambled up, fleeing the canyon in terror.

“Run all you want, you’re not getting away from me!” Huang Yunshuo shouted.

Repulse!

A white beam shot forth from beneath the dark cannon barrel.

Crash!

The beam struck the ground three meters ahead of Horseface, and with a muffled thud, he was hurled backward by a tremendous force, landing five or six meters in front of Huang Yunshuo.

Huang Yunshuo switched to his iron sword, dashed forward, and unleashed a flurry of blows, finishing Horseface off in a flash of white light.

“Well, what do you think? Was that impressive?”

Leaning on his iron sword, Huang Yunshuo looked back at Dew and Frost with a lonely expert’s air.

Dew and Frost snorted, “Mister Pro, you’d better wipe the soot off your face first!”

With that, she ran toward the fallen trio and began to gather up the loot.

Her shoulder guards were already re-equipped, concealing her fair skin again, which left Huang Yunshuo a little disappointed.

“Got my gear back! They even dropped some extra stuff,” Dew and Frost announced, preparing to open the trade panel.

“You keep it. Losing a level is a heavy hit!” Huang Yunshuo replied with a wave, disappointed there was no mana spray among the drops.

He’d only come to help Dew and Frost in PVP; now that business was done, it was time to level up.

With red names overhead, Huang Yunshuo and Dew and Frost started hunting white goslings for experience.

Of course, Huang Yunshuo wasn’t about to waste rockets on mobs—it was far too costly. He took up his iron sword and charged in to fight the goslings head-on.

“Honk! Honk! Honk!” The white goslings leapt up and pecked furiously at Huang Yunshuo.

Miss!

Dew and Frost’s arrow went wide.

Dragon Dance!

Huang Yunshuo suddenly leapt and dashed forward, stunning the gosling and launching a rapid attack, but Dew and Frost missed another arrow out of her next two.

By the time Huang Yunshuo had finished off the bounding white rabbit, his two hundred health was already below half. He downed a small recovery potion and let his cloak’s auto-heal run for a good while before he was fully restored.

“Do you miss a lot when shooting white goslings?” Huang Yunshuo asked, motioning for Dew and Frost to attack one.

Dew and Frost fired while retreating, using movement skills to wear it down, but out of thirteen arrows, six missed.

“These monsters aren’t worth it. Let’s go back to hunting sloths.” Huang Yunshuo shook his head helplessly—the white goslings had a ridiculously high miss rate for ranged attacks, and with sixty attack and one hundred fifty health compared to the rabbit’s fifty attack and one hundred health, they were much tougher. Staying here would just make him cough blood.

“All right,” Dew and Frost agreed.

They hurried back to the southern woods, found Foxie, and the three of them carefully slipped into the outer grove.

Foxie and Dew and Frost each grabbed one end of the sticky net and stretched it out, securing it to the ground with branches.

Huang Yunshuo slipped through the net’s gaps and aimed his rocket launcher at the densest cluster of leaves.

Boom!

The tree trunk shook, and a shower of leaves was scorched black.

From above came several shrill cries, and a series of red -30, -31 damage numbers popped up.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

A handful of nuts suddenly whizzed toward Huang Yunshuo’s head.

Huang Yunshuo, hearing the whistle of the wind, dove back through the sticky net in an instant.

Splat! Splat! Splat!

Every last nut was caught by the net, but its durability dropped by three points in a flash.

Dew and Frost fired an arrow, striking a dopey sloth poking its head from the foliage.

-31!

A slow icon appeared above the sloth, stacking with the rocket’s splash slow.

Suddenly—

Splat.

The sloth, failing to grip the branch, tumbled down and landed on the ground with a heavy thud.

“It fell?”

Could a sloth, an old hand at life in the trees, really make such a mistake?

Without hesitation, Huang Yunshuo aimed at the branches beneath the other two sloths and fired.

With two anguished cries, the other sloths tumbled down as well, landing with such heavy thumps that Huang Yunshuo almost felt sorry for them.