Chapter 2 First Blood

During the time between the Vanguard Battle and the Mid-Guard Battle, the players would have five minutes to rest.

During this time, the two who had just finished the first match would be teleported back to their respective teams' spectator spaces; at the same time, the system would repair and clean up the battlefield, restoring it to its state before the battle.

Although the members of the "Super Monster Team" were mentally prepared for a defeat in the first battle, they really didn't expect to lose to such a tactic as "missile sniping."

It could be said that Snow's tactics refreshed his opponents' understanding of the game... and, to a large extent, further dampened their fighting spirit.

In such an atmosphere, the second match of the first round, the 2v2 Mid-Guard Battle, began.

Accompanied by a system prompt, Wang Tanzhi and Gu Xiaoling were teleported into the battlefield, standing on the arena.

On the other side, the Super Monster Team sent out their captain, [Jetton], and their member, [Bemular].

[The match will begin in thirty seconds.] The system voice arrived as scheduled.

As soon as the voice finished, Xiao Tan and Xiao Ling both turned around... and ran.

"Again?" Seeing this scene, Jetton almost blurted out a complaint.

"Don't panic, Captain." Bemular was the strategist of the opposing team, and he was relatively calm. He immediately reminded Jetton, "We watched the S2 recordings together, didn't we? Wang Tanzhi is an assassin-type player, and Bei Ling Xiaogu is a sniper... it's normal for them to create distance and lie in wait, they're not going to make missiles."

"Hmm..." Jetton thought for a moment, and muttered, "What makes you think... 'as long as the opponents aren't making missiles, there's nothing to panic about'?"

"Uh..." Bemular was stunned to hear this.

Then, the two looked at each other and shouted in unison, "Dodge!"

When they shouted this, there were less than ten seconds left before the isolation barrier disappeared, and Xiao Tan and Xiao Ling had long since disappeared.

Jetton and Bemular seized this last bit of preparation time, desperately running away from their opponents and looking for something to use as cover.

Fortunately, the terrain of this wasteland was slightly undulating, and there were many protruding, wave-shaped hillocks. Jetton and Bemular were both players above level fifty, and if they didn't care about stamina, their maximum running speed far exceeded that of ordinary people. Ten seconds was enough for them to run more than a hundred meters and find a place to hide.

[Three... Two... One... Fight!]

The two had just stood firm behind a small hill when the match officially began.

"Phew..." Bemular leaned against the hillside and breathed a sigh of relief. "Okay, now that we know the opponent has sent out a scout and sniper combination, let's discuss the strat..."

Bang—

The last syllable of his first sentence was interrupted by a gunshot.

Arriving a moment earlier than the sound was a bullet.

"How... is... this... possible..." In a burst of pain, Bemular slowly lowered his head and looked at his abdomen.

Just a moment before the gunshot reached his ears, a flower of blood suddenly bloomed on his stomach...

If this were reality, his intestines and the shit inside them would probably have been blasted out and smeared all over the ground. Fortunately, this was a game, and he was a player; the system had limitations on the scale of displaying injuries to players' bodies (the most typical example being that the clothes in some places on female players' bodies would never be destroyed or fall off), so the things that were blasted out of Bemular's abdomen were "harmonized" into clumps of blurry blood and filth.

"Crap! Run!" Jetton reacted quickly. His peripheral vision immediately caught sight of the hole in the hillside behind Bemular, and he guessed what the opponents had done. "Cover doesn't work on them, we have to run out of weapon range!"

............

At the same moment, about seven hundred meters away, on the steep slope in the middle of a small hillock...

Xiao Ling had already set up her sniper rifle on a stand and was aiming steadily in a comfortable prone position.

Xiao Tan was kneeling on one knee beside her, using [Hawkeye Vision] to stare at the direction of the opponents, muttering, "Hit Bemular's abdomen, the damage should be pretty high, but he hasn't lost the ability to move... hmm... looks like he did some simple treatment and can jog, now he's moving further away with Jetton."

"Ah... I see them." Two seconds later, Xiao Ling said unhurriedly.

Since the two opponents had already run out of the range shielded by the hill, Xiao Ling could directly see them through the scope.

As she spoke, the muzzle of the gun in her hand was also slightly adjusted, her sniping posture stable and precise, like a sophisticated instrument, hand, eye, and heart... working together seamlessly.

Bang—

Seconds later, her second bullet left the chamber.

This time, the target was farther away and in motion, undoubtedly increasing the difficulty of hitting.

But...

"Ah!" As soon as the gun fired, Bemular, who was running, screamed and staggered to the ground.

This time, he was shot in the leg, and a blood hole the size of a fist was blasted through his right thigh, the flesh around the wound a bloody mess.

"Damn... we were already running, and we were so far away, how could they still..." Jetton said as he prepared to pick up his teammate.

"No... don't!" Unexpectedly, Bemular pushed Jetton away. "She deliberately shot my leg, just so you'd carry me... that way, for her, two targets become one, and the movement speed will slow down... with the next shot, she can kill two birds with one stone."

As he spoke, Bemular didn't forget to crawl on the ground, away from Jetton.

"Quick! You run first! There's still a chance if you escape beyond their scouting range. There's no way I can escape in this state, so I might as well buy you some time!"

It is necessary to explain here that Xiao Ling's first shot was just a "test shot."

There were three reasons: first, when she fired that shot, she couldn't see the enemy herself, and was completely relying on Xiao Tan's description to locate them; second, she couldn't accurately grasp the influence of the wind when firing the first shot; third, even if she used special "armor-piercing rounds," there was still a certain chance that the bullet would deviate when passing through irregularly shaped cover.

In summary, for the sake of safety, Xiao Ling's shot was aimed a little low... after all, the torso was always easier to hit than the head.

However, this second shot was different.

This time, Xiao Ling could see the target, and the target was already injured; as long as she fired another shot at the easiest part to hit, the torso, Bemular would likely die on the spot.

However, she deliberately shot at the opponent's leg...

This move was, of course, for another purpose.

Of course, a "strategist" of Bemular's level wouldn't think of so much, he was just reasoning according to common sense... since the opponent's marksmanship was so strong that they could hit the leg of a moving target, they must also be able to hit the torso, which was easier to hit; so why didn't the opponent directly shoot the torso to take his life? There must be a conspiracy.

"Okay!" Fast as lightning, Jetton quickly responded after receiving Bemular's instructions, and ran away without looking back, his speed even faster than before.

Although we can often see, in similar scenarios in film, television, or literature, two or more people engaging in "You go... no, I can't leave you... do you want me to die in vain? But... I... if you don't go, I'll die to show you..." this kind of anxious, "touching" dialogue, Jetton and Bemular didn't plan to do such a thing...

Their thinking was very clear—when your teammate is risking their life to buy you an opportunity, you'd better shut the hell up and act quickly.

"Not bad..." Holding the gun, Xiao Ling witnessed the situation over there through the scope. Although she couldn't hear the conversation between the opponents, she could roughly guess the content. "It seems that it won't work to solve everything with sniping..."

Her deduction was correct. At present, the distance between Jetton and them was rapidly increasing. The farther the distance, the lower the lethality and accuracy of the bullet would be. If she chased Jetton with the next shot, even if it hit, it wouldn't have much of an impact on him.

"Hubby." A second later, Xiao Ling called out to Xiao Tan.

"Yeah." Xiao Tan replied.

"Go chase him." Xiao Ling added.

"Oh." Xiao Tan nodded. "Which one should I chase?"

"The one running, of course." Xiao Ling said.

"Got it." After confirming the target, Xiao Tan flashed... and disappeared.

Bang—

Almost at the same instant he rushed out, Xiao Ling's cooling time for firing the gun was up, and she immediately aimed at the fallen Bemular and fired the third shot.

However, this shot was "blocked" by the opponent.

A blue protective shield with rippling water patterns suddenly appeared when the bullet was about to hit Bemular, abruptly resisting the armor-piercing round.

This move was Bemular's title ability [Ripple Shield]. After the skill was activated, no matter what attack Bemular received in the next ten seconds, the shield would automatically appear around him to block it.

As a defensive skill, this move was quite powerful, the disadvantage being... the duration was too short.

If this move could last for ten minutes, Bemular would have activated the skill long ago; but with "ten seconds"... he could only use it at a critical moment when he was sure to die.

"Good... success." Bemular said while treating his wounds, "That first shot was indeed unexpected and impossible to defend against; and that second shot showed that... in the face of your marksmanship... 'movement' is useless; but... when the second shot was fired, your 'shooting interval time' was also exposed, which gave me the opportunity to calculate the lead time and activate the skill to defend against the third shot."

His hands and feet were very fast. Thinking of this, he had already stopped his bleeding and released a summoning skill—[Summoning Technique—Air Elemental].

This was only a C-level summoning skill, not very strong. However, Bemular wasn't originally majoring in summoning skills; he was a player who was good at "spiritual arts"; summoning this elemental was to cooperate with his spiritual art skill [Spiritual Transformation].

With this move, Bemular could absorb the summoned creature like a buff, greatly increasing his maximum health, instantly restoring 50% of his survival value, and gaining some of the abilities of this summoned creature.

"Turning into this form should allow me to negotiate with them for a while..." When Bemular's transformation was complete, strands of gray, constantly swirling "small tornadoes" wrapped around his limbs and torso like armor.

Whoosh—

Just as Bemular was distracted by the transformation, a hidden arrow came whistling through the air, heading straight for his temple.

Bemular reacted quickly, and with a wave of his hand, he actually stopped the hidden arrow.

"What the hell?" Although Bemular blocked the attack, he was still frightened. He suddenly turned his head and looked in the direction from which the hidden arrow came, but he couldn't see even a ghost.

Because Xiao Tan, who had released the hidden arrow, ran even faster than the arrow...

Moreover, Xiao Tan didn't come to attack Bemular on purpose, he just happened to be passing by, and seeing that the range was suitable, he casually threw an arrow, and then continued to chase Jetton.

On the other hand, Xiao Ling, seeing Bemular's changes from afar, also decisively canceled the sniping state, took out several other guns from her pack, and activated the skill [Assembly Magic]...