Vanguard of the Eternal Night

Chapter Ch142 - National Competition – Priest 2

translator: xiin

editor: kara

There was a palpable silence in the arena. The faint breeze whispered across the tiny pieces of gravel.

Jiuzhou stood in the middle of the field, ordered the remaining spirit angel to fly a little further away from him, then stood there alone, and chanted quietly.

After casting a HOT (heal over time, continuous healing) on himself, he used another heal spell with a shorter cast time. With the Seal of Soul active, his healing moves were much more effective, and casting the spell twice was already enough to bring his health back to 80%.

“Jiuzhou is very calm,” The commentator said, “Generally speaking, under such circumstances, many priests would first put a shield on themselves in advance. However, Jiuzhou hasn’t done so. This is one of his combat habits. Jiuzhou prefers to keep the shield in reserve. When his opponent’s combo reaches a certain point, he can use the shield to interrupt it.”

“This is another detail that I’m not sure you’ve noticed. His spirit angel has flown off to a distance of about 7 meters, which is a very subtle distance. It can attack and defend in advance, remaining just outside of the 5-meter limit warning range. The sound from it won’t affect Jiuzhou’s ability to survey for stealth either.”

For masters at Jiuzhou’s level, it would become an advantage if they were able to detect a stealthed opponent even 0.05 seconds earlier.

Unfortunately, he was facing another master.

For Odin, as long as the opponent wasn’t a ranger or sniper with stealth detection bonuses (in other words, without a system that helped them ‘cheat’), there was absolutely no chance that his approach could be detected in advance!

The two players were very clear that Odin wouldn’t wait for another of Jiuzhou’s seals to cool down before coming in to fight. If he wanted to ambush, it had to be within 5 seconds!

After having cast two spells, Jiuzhou’s inner countdown had already reached ‘four’.

At this moment, a sudden aura of killing intent spread out behind him, Jiuzhou’s pupils contracted abruptly, and he turned back to cast ‘Condemnation’––

His Condemnation failed though as there was nothing behind him!

Just when he looked back, half of the remnants of a Flash appeared behind him. Odin’s figure came out of its stealth effect, and a blade had already swept by close to his throat.

The system judged: Critical attack! Bleeding damage!

Jiuzhou hadn’t been casting, so it hadn’t triggered a silence effect.

However, this attack’s goal hadn’t been to land a silence effect. It had just been the starting move. When facing a mage profession, the short sword, Song of Triumph, didn’t need to start a blade fight. It only needed to pursue bigger combos and become a bloody murder weapon!

In the time it had taken for Jiuzhou to turn around, Odin had already launched Shadow Dance.

“Adding onto the hit from the Flash, it’s a five-hit combo!” As soon as the commentator had seen the figures, he could see that Jiuzhou’s second Condemnation had failed to release once again.

Odin could judge that Jiuzhou was using Condemnation at the moment when Jiuzhou raised his wand. Then, within 0.5 seconds, before the spell was successfully released, he could activate Flash and move behind Jiuzhou so that the Condemnation failed!

In the blink of an eye, the number of combo hits rose up to 9. Jiuzhou immediately changed tactics after Condemnation had failed and opened up his shield.

A shield cast in the Seal of Soul state could increase his health by 20%. Song of Triumph’s next strike would be interrupted.

However, what was more important was that with this shield, Jiuzhou was no longer afraid of having his throat sliced for the moment. It gave him one second of casting time, and what he chanted was a fear skill that would make opponents within 5 meters flee.

Jiuzhou’s calculations were completely correct!

When the number of combo hits was only at 9, it was very difficult for Odin to break through his shield with one hit. However, if he couldn’t break through the shield in one hit, the combo count would reset after being interrupted. When it started again from 1, the damage the attack dealt would be reduced greatly. In any case, there was no way to break the shield and silence Jiuzhou before he finished chanting the fear skill.

The commentators’ voices rose up abruptly, “Alright, counterattack––”

Their words hadn’t even fallen when everyone suddenly heard an unusual sound.

It was Song of Triumph, but it had never made such a sharp noise before. This sound was different from the previous gorgeous and crisp ringing. It seemed to be extraordinarily sharp, just like a bloody nightingale crying as it died!

Additionally, this sword attack changed from Odin’s usual freehand style and turned deep and slow instead. Many people subconsciously went to look at the system’s judgment.

Jiuzhou’s shield had been broken!

Odin’s combo count was cleared, but this hit had been enough to break Jiuzhou’s 20% health shield.

In the next moment, Deep Silence appeared, and Odin followed up with a throat slice!

The number of people who could react to such a thing within that instant wouldn’t exceed a single-digit figure, but Jiuzhou was one of them. At that critical moment, he had interrupted his own chanting and avoided the silence effect once again!

This had been a real series of rapid actions. Starting from when Jiuzhou had cast his shield to Odin breaking the shield to Jiuzhou’s immediate interruption of his own spell, all of this didn’t even add up to a second of time.

Odin seemed to have expected Jiuzhou’s reaction. After slicing his throat, he started up Shadow Dance again.

Taking advantage of this break in the storm, the commentator called up the video replay on a small screen beside him. He exclaimed in surprise, “The technique that Odin had used just now had actually been Vantico’s ‘Wind Pressure’!”

The ‘Wind Pressure’ technique was not consistent with Odin’s subtle and light style. It stressed momentum and heavy force, using power generated by the movement of the blade to increase the force of its impact.

Impact force was also equivalent to dealing damage!

Song of Triumph’s distinctive ring just now had also been due to Odin’s use of this technique. It was no wonder that he had been able to break through Jiuzhou’s 20% health shield in one hit after stacking up 9 combo hits.

On the public screen, the audience was fried up like a boiling pot of oil, “Amazing, great demon king! When did he learn ‘Wind Pressure’?!”

“It has never appeared in competitions before! It definitely hasn’t!”

“The great demon king seems to have also used Flower Blower’s ‘Chain Arrows’... and adjusted it for the situation? Had he suddenly found it suitable to use in this situation, so he just gave it a try?”

“Vantico and the great demon king don’t have a good relationship, and he certainly wouldn’t take the initiative to teach him... Could it be that last time when Odin and Vantico had fought, he learned it on the spot?”

“WTF! You must be kidding me! The difficulty level of ‘Wind Pressure’ is 8.8. Why don’t you give it a try and imitate your opponent on the battlefield?! Do you think that he’s a main character from an oriental martial arts novel who comes with his own halo?”

The audience was still arguing over it on the public screen while the two commentators were paying close attention to the changes happening on the scene. They absolutely didn’t dare get distracted––but, they also couldn’t fully explain what was going on without splitting their attention.

During this round of attacks, Odin’s fighting was as smooth as floating clouds and flowing water, and his use of Shadow Dance could also be considered a textbook performance.

The commentators had no way to analyze the details and switched to say, “Jiuzhou has no way to chant in this situation. His health has dropped down to 50% again, and there’s still one or two seconds until his seals finish their cooldown. What will he do to get out of this––?”

His words hadn’t yet finished when Jiuzhou acted!

This time, he used the remaining spirit angel to interrupt the combo!

As early as when the two had started fighting, the spirit angel had been shooting auto-attacks at its opponent while accepting Jiuzhou’s command to fly back to where the two of them were. However, due to how fierce the fighting had been between the two players, almost nobody had paid attention to such a small summoned creature.

However, it was a very useful creature, especially when commanded by top level experts––it could become like a flying immortal in the sky. It flew in to hit Odin’s eyes, blocking an attack for Jiuzhou.

The spirit angel died on the spot!

The combo was interrupted again though!

Jiuzhou had long been prepared for this. He cast a Condemnation that hit the edges of Odin’s clothing, and after landing, it reduced the cooldown of his other skills, allowing him to immediately cast out another seal.

“Seal of Sacrifice!” The commentators exclaimed.

It had actually turned out to be ‘Sacrifice’!

The sound of discussion rose up like a tide.

At this critical time, anyone could see that if Jiuzhou had continued to receive attacks, he probably wouldn’t have been able to hold on until the next seal. At this time, he only had one ‘Seal of Soul’ left that increased healing effects. Everyone felt that he would use ‘Seal of Valor’ again to put some distance between them or the ‘Seal of Humility’ to defend and protect himself.

But, he had blatantly used the Seal of Sacrifice! The less health he had left, the faster his cooldown and chanting speed would be!

Commentator: “He’s clearly intending to play a fast game!”

As soon as the Seal of Sacrifice had been applied, all his skills’ cooldown speeds increased, and Jiuzhou started off with another Condemnation!

Odin’s Shadow Dance was still active, but he wasn’t in the middle of a combo. How could he allow that Condemnation to land?

However, Jiuzhou didn’t actually plan to cast Condemnation seriously. After Odin Flashed away, he immediately turned around and cast ‘Surge’––this magic skill was usually used to push an opponent in front of him away, but it really wasn’t effective on an opponent on Odin’s level. So, this ‘Surge’ that Jiuzhou had cast was actually used to allow himself to be pushed back into the air.

While he was in mid-air, Jiuzhou didn’t forget to throw in another Condemnation. This time, because the distance between the two was wide enough, Odin was unable to leave his field of vision.

However, this distance was insignificant in front of the Flash technique!

After Jiuzhou had landed on the ground, he even started to calmly start casting the ‘Holy Light’ spell. This spell that required a 1-second chanting time was an all-out offensive spell.

The audience was in an uproar, and the commentator exclaimed, “Jiuzhou is going to fight back with only 40% of his health! Let’s see if he has a chance!”

His voice had just fallen when they all saw that Odin had already arrived in front of Jiuzhou.

At this time, Odin’s health was at 82%, and he was in good condition. His Shadow Jump’s cooldown was about to end, and his stealth was about halfway through its cooldown.

Meanwhile, Jiuzhou’s health was at 43%. He had one second remaining until his next seal could be cast, and his Flash would soon be off cooldown. He had one second left of his ‘Seal of Soul’ and six seconds left on his ‘Seal of Sacrifice’.