Volume Two, Devil's Game Chapter Sixteen, Flash of Blades

Rubble kept pelting Lu Yi as it shattered, and he was forced to retreat several steps, his expression grave.

Part of the reason was that the Keeper had detected, from a blind spot in his field of vision, that Lu Yi was in the act of rescuing the trapped girl, and that he himself possessed a non-horizontal charge skill.

Though a non-horizontal charge and a horizontal charge differ by only a single word, the gulf between them is as vast as heaven and earth. A common horizontal charge can be avoided simply by creating a difference in elevation, but with a non-horizontal charge like the Keeper’s, merely reading the direction of his attack is troublesome, and the arc of his descent is not something one can easily judge with any accuracy.

Another reason was that when Lu Yi had just tried to shove the girl aside, she had evaded him. At the time, from Lu Yi’s position, he had been able to see only the black speck of the Keeper leaping high overhead, while the girl had been utterly unable to see behind her. And yet she had accurately read the direction of the attack and dodged it.

Whatever abilities this girl might possess, that reaction alone proved that anyone capable of capturing her would be far from ordinary.

These thoughts flashed through Lu Yi’s mind in an instant. By then, the girl called Jade Toad had already turned and run into the distance, while the dust where the Keeper had landed was slowly dispersing, accompanied by the sound of metal colliding.

“Black Phosphor Paste: Streamer, streamer, the Keeper is about to come out. Are you nervous?”

Lu Yi had not forgotten the purpose of his visit. He stared intently at the cloud of dust. Then the hiss of a blade cutting through the air reached his ears, and at the same time something stirred the cloud of grit.

With the aid of his demon eye, he could already see it: a great saber longer than half a man’s height.

His expression changed at once. He drew the Demon Hunter and held it before him. A sharp clang rang out as metal struck metal. Lu Yi only felt an irresistible force surge through the Demon Hunter and into his arm, sending him stumbling back several meters and nearly toppling to the ground.

The Keeper, however, was not satisfied with this. Heavy footsteps sounded within the dust, and then a figure over six feet tall, entirely encased in metal armor, charged toward Lu Yi with the long blade raised, all before Lu Yi could even steady himself.

Lu Yi hurriedly summoned the black magic within him. He kicked hard off the ground and leaped backward. At the very instant he sprang away, the long blade stabbed into the place where he had just been standing.

From within the helmet, the Keeper’s blood-red eyes locked onto Lu Yi. He slapped the hilt of the saber, and the blade erupted with a dark, eerie glow. Then he abruptly flipped the weapon upward, sending a slab of stone flying to smash heavily into Lu Yi’s chest.

Struck by the stone, Lu Yi was sent flying even faster. In the blink of an eye, he slammed into the trunk of a large tree and slid down along it.

“Anyone who moves my sacrifice, dies!” the Keeper roared, his body shooting toward Lu Yi like an arrow loosed from a bow.

Seeing the Keeper close in so swiftly and raise that terrifying great blade, Lu Yi’s hair stood on end. He brushed the Windward Talisman at his neck, kicked viciously off the tree trunk, and darted aside. At the same moment, the Keeper’s saber came crashing down. Lu Yi nearly grazed the blade as he slipped past it, and he clearly caught the stench of blood and rust on the steel.

The saber swept through.

The immense tree before them—the one Lu Yi had crashed into and then kicked against without causing the slightest shake, a trunk thick enough to require the embrace of two men—was severed in an instant, without even the slightest delay.

“I’m a husky: Holy crap, that Keeper is fierce. Streamer, run!”

“Black Phosphor Paste: That is way too brutal. At this level, an ordinary Keeper would have to use a skill, right? But he just went straight for a single slash. That’s insane.”

Lu Yi naturally saw it too. A tree that thick, cut in two with one blow—if he had taken that strike, he might not even have had the chance to be locked in a cage.

Under these circumstances, he had to widen the distance. He rolled on the ground, quickly ran behind another tree, then kicked off his board and, after a few steps, stepped onto it.

“One Fish: Streamer, 666. In such danger and you still can’t stop thinking about your little board.”

“I’m a husky: Streamer, run, don’t keep skating.”

“Black Phosphor Paste: Exactly. At this rate you won’t be able to keep distance.”

Lu Yi pushed a few more times with his feet, then looked back. The Keeper was already in pursuit, though his speed was clearly not as great as before.

Seeing this, Lu Yi let out a breath and explained to the chat, “I thought about it. This Keeper is completely covered in metal armor, and his attacks are so strong, so he must have some weaknesses. If he could move any faster, he’d probably be able to force his way through ordinary obstacles by relying on that armor.

“From the looks of it, his burst just now probably used a skill.

“In other words, this Keeper has two charge skills. Against this kind of opponent, creating enough distance is certainly important, but maintaining enough mobility is just as necessary.”

While Lu Yi was speaking with the viewers, the Keeper saw that he still could not further close the gap between them, so he raised his great blade again and hacked at a flower bed. A large mass of broken stone flew up at once and smashed toward Lu Yi.

Lu Yi moved neither hurriedly nor slowly, steering the board into an S-shaped path and easily avoiding the successive projectiles.

“Sweetheart Yiyi: Wow, it’s just like the streamer said. As long as you keep your distance, guard against the other side’s charge and long-range interference, and endure the chase time, it’ll be over. If you just run headlong, you’re actually more likely to get hit.”

“Ink Weaver: Compared with the previous Keeper, the last one had weaker common attacks but carried a slight negative effect, so it was fine to tank it for a short while. And since it only had one charge skill, it was suited to quickly opening distance.

“This one hasn’t shown any ranged methods so far, but its attacks are strong and it has two charge methods. In this case, evasion should come first, and only after that should you widen the distance, provided it’s safe.”

“Bipolar Fairy: Hearing you say that, it does seem to be the case. But if the streamer can get through ten minutes so calmly, doesn’t that seem too easy?”

Lu Yi frowned. He had thought of this too. With the Keeper’s speed, even with two skills, so long as he was dragged out, he probably would not accomplish anything even in two hours. So what was the point? And how, then, had this Keeper managed to capture that Jade Toad?

With that thought, Lu Yi turned on the board to face him. After weighing the Keeper in his mind, he spoke. “Listen, I only let one person go. Do you really need to cling to me like this?”

The moment he finished speaking, he felt the killing intent in the Keeper’s eyes. The Keeper said fiercely, “Anyone who dares offend me, dies.”

After staring at the Keeper for a long moment, Lu Yi confirmed that he was serious. If that was the case, then trying to collect the reward item from this Keeper no longer seemed worthwhile. After all, his favorability was already in the negative.

Lu Yi smiled. In that case, there was no need to show any courtesy. “I say, what meaning is there in chasing me this way? At most you can still pursue me for six minutes. In this situation, what can you do to me?”

“You brat, you’re courting death.” The Keeper immediately let out a roar.

“Is that so? Then come at me.” As he spoke, Lu Yi raised both hands and crooked his fingers at the Keeper.

The Keeper abruptly lifted his long blade. A hazy radiance immediately swelled over it. Then he swung it down, unleashing a blade-light more than ten meters long. Wherever it passed, the concrete ground shattered in slabs, as if a layer of earth had been shaved away.

“Damn it.” Lu Yi’s expression changed again at last. He stomped on his board and leaped into the air.

“You brat, die.” A black speck appeared above Lu Yi. The Keeper had used his charge skill. Gripping the long blade, he stabbed downward at Lu Yi below, the red light in his eyes now blazing so fiercely it was almost painful to look at.

“What kind of tale are you telling?” Lu Yi raised his hand, and a rope shot out at once.

Very quickly, the noose hooked onto a rooftop and yanked Lu Yi forcefully to that side. Less than a meter after he left the spot, the Keeper, still gripping the long blade, shot through the place Lu Yi had occupied a moment before, and the blade sank deeply into the ground.