Chapter 12 The Secret Skill of an Idiot

When the system's "fight" rang out, the isolation barrier abruptly disappeared.

In that instant, Barcode, who had been aiming for a long time, launched his attack without delay, precisely timed with the barrier's disappearance. The twin guns in his hands burst forth with dazzling golden light.

Bang, bang, bang, bang...

Twelve shots rang out in total, tearing through the air.

The skill Barcode activated was called [High Noon], a special technique that only "male players" could learn, and that required "revolvers to be equipped."

Its "special" aspect lay in... besides the two "necessary conditions" mentioned above, if the player also satisfied some "additional conditions," this move would receive extra buffs.

For example, activating this skill on arid yellow earth could increase the bullets' flight speed; if the user dressed up as a cowboy to activate it, it could allow the skill to simultaneously take effect on two revolvers, each firing at two different targets; of course, the strongest additional condition for this technique was—if the time of the environment when using the skill was "high noon," then the user could completely forgo aiming before firing, and could shoot randomly with his eyes closed and still hit the vital points every time, and the destructive power of the bullets would also be greatly increased.

Right now, this battlefield was clearly not arid yellow earth; in this place without a sun, there was no "high noon" where the sun was directly overhead; however, because Barcode wore a Western cowboy outfit under Order's coat (he wore it specifically to enhance the skill), he could at least unleash the additional effect of "firing with both guns simultaneously."

In the blink of an eye, twelve bullets, glittering with golden light, flew towards twelve vital points on Vishnu and Garuda's bodies. This rapid-fire attack was not only as swift as lightning, but its power was also undeniably strong, and could not be blocked by ordinary defense methods.

But who knew, before the gunfire had completely ceased, a series of bell-like sounds, "clang, clang, clang, clang," rang out, as if echoing the gunfire, and in the end... it also rang out twelve times.

"Tch... I was wondering why they weren't running or dodging, so they were confident in their defensive abilities..." When Barcode saw the "thing" that appeared in front of his two opponents, blocking the bullets, he couldn't help but curse under his breath.

At this moment, the thing guarding Vishnu and Garuda was a giant "orichalcum arm"; this object was cyan-blue in color, its appearance was full of metallic texture, and its overall shape was like a very bloated and thick, almost gourd-shaped arm.

As early as the S1 finals, Vishnu had already demonstrated his ability to manipulate this type of "orichalcum material" to fight, but at that time, he was not very proficient in using his spiritual energy weapon, the [Orichalcum Module], and at most he could only condense it into various small cold weapons for offense and defense.

But now, Vishnu's ability to use this thing had reached a state of perfection. With the terrifying true power of his spiritual energy weapon, withstanding Barcode's skill... was at most just a warm-up.

"We really can't be careless..." Before his teammate's offensive and defensive maneuvers had ended, Sashimi suddenly turned his gaze to the other side, muttering to himself, "Faster than expected..."

As he said the word "faster," a figure had already appeared beside him.

He saw that the person was holding a strangely shaped curved blade with a reverse-facing edge, and with an incredible speed, approached Sashimi's blind spot on the left, and slashed at the latter's waist.

"Got him!" The instant he swung the knife, Garuda had already determined that this strike was guaranteed to hit.

As a player specializing in speed, he had exchanged blows with countless people in this way, so he didn't even need to wait for the knife to cut down. Just by seeing the other person's subtle movements when the intent of the knife arrived, before the blade even reached them, he could basically tell whether the person could avoid or block the move.

This time... was no exception.

With Sashimi's speed, he was indeed powerless to dodge this kind of sudden attack at this speed.

However, just as this blade was about to slash Sashimi's body, Garuda felt a strange sensation in his hand, as if... his blade had suddenly stabbed into a piece of super-resilient rubber candy...

Accompanied by that heavy feeling of stagnation, Garuda's blade deflected slightly, and finally brushed past Sashimi's body, without harming him in the slightest.

"What the hell?" Garuda, whose sudden attack was blocked, was immediately shocked in his heart.

He knew that he must have been blocked by a layer of invisible, "gelatinous armor," which made him feel a little depressed because... before the match, he had not heard the data analysis team say anything about Sashimi having this kind of ability. Fortunately, this was a defensive skill. If it was a counterattack ability, it would be hard to say how much of a threat this "unknown intelligence" would pose.

"Although you're fast, you're still far behind 'those monsters'..." A second later, Sashimi continued from what he had just said, and snapped his fingers.

The "monsters" he was referring to were undoubtedly experts at the level of Tun Tian Guixiao, Feng Bujue, and Xu Huaishang.

The experience of being ambushed and killed by Xu Huaishang in Linlu Town a few months ago had already created a certain psychological shadow on Sashimi... Although the main reason for being killed that time was due to his own carelessness—he mistakenly believed that there were absolutely no enemies around, so he was completely unguarded; but it was undeniable that with Xu Huaishang's speed, even if Sashimi had some precautions, he could still have been killed.

Therefore, after that day, Sashimi began to study... how to deal with players who were faster than him, or even much faster; after a period of experimentation, he found a way—since it was basically hopeless to be as fast as those people in terms of speed, it would be better to change his approach...

Thus, after months of practice, he skillfully mastered the following tactical combination of skills and items...

Teng——

As soon as his fingers snapped, the radio Sashimi had placed on the ground turned on, and simultaneously released a sonic boom along with the surrounding loudspeakers.

The instant the sound wave bloomed, Vishnu and Garuda's figures both stagnated for a moment. From their point of view, they could clearly feel... that the "gravity" they were subjected to had more than doubled.

"Destroy the props on the ground!" Vishnu was experienced and seasoned. While relying on the "orichalcum arm" to pressure Barcode, he loudly reminded Garuda, who was known for his speed, how to break the move.

Indeed, Sashimi's "gravity oppression" ability needed to rely on these props.

The basis of this move was actually the passive skill [Bass Region] that he had demonstrated in S2; this was originally an A-level spiritual skill, with the effect of: buffering and eliminating (with a certain bearing limit) all non-solid attacks and negative effects entering within a 7.4-meter radius of oneself.

After Sashimi's training (don't ask me how passive skills are trained), [Bass Region] had now been upgraded to an S-class passive skill. Not only had the range and bearing limit of the original effect increased, but it had also added the ability of "Sound Armor"—its principle was similar to the [Echo Armor] that Jue Ge had equipped in the past, but it was even stronger. The reason why Garuda's ordinary attack was ineffective just now was because his speed-pursuing blade did not have enough attack power to break through the defense of "Sound Armor."

Then... let's talk about the current "gravity oppression," which should be considered the active attack form of [Bass Region]; although the skill itself did not have any offensive capabilities, with the assistance of the props on the ground, Sashimi could apply this extra negative effect to all enemies within the [Bass Region].

"Understood!" Garuda, after being reminded by his senior, shouted in response, and took a step away from Sashimi... his next target was obviously those loudspeakers.

"I've been waiting for you..." Sashimi was well aware of the weaknesses of his own moves, and he had already prepared for this kind of situation...

Buzz buzz buzz——

In the next second, Sashimi's hands quickly released several [Subsonic Wave Fingers], chasing after Garuda.

Bang bang bang——

At the same time, Barcode, who was forced to retreat due to his inability to break through the defense of the orichalcum arm, also used his two golden guns to suppress Garuda with firepower while retreating... For him, shooting while running was a basic skill, and it was not like he was doing anything anyway.

Although Garuda was young, he was a very calm player. Simply put, he was the type of person who "never took chances and prioritized rationality above all else." At this moment, he analyzed the situation and felt that... it would be very uneconomical to forcibly destroy the props under the dual suppression of the sound waves and bullets, considering he had been slowed down by the gravity effect.

After weighing his options, he suddenly changed direction and began to run in the opposite direction.

After running about twenty meters in a few short seconds, Garuda felt his body lighten and immediately turned back and shouted, "The range is up to here!"

Vishnu glanced at his teammate's position and responded, "Got it."

Then, he also controlled the orichalcum arm to protect himself, and unhurriedly withdrew from the effective range of the [Bass Region] in another direction.

They originally thought that after their side made this response, the opponent would have to change their moves accordingly, but who knew...

"Sigh... Did they find out so quickly..." Seeing the actions of his two opponents, Sashimi actually stood still and crossed his arms in front of his chest, muttering with a rather helpless tone.

"Find out what?" Even Barcode didn't understand his words, so he asked.

"Um..." Sashimi's face under his bowl-cut hairstyle replied without any fluctuations, "The real weakness of this move is not that I'm afraid of the opponent destroying the props on the ground, but... as long as the opponent runs more than twenty meters away, it's useless."

"Huh?" Barcode glanced at his teammate and lowered his voice, "You can't just..."

"Move with those devices, right?" Sashimi knew what he was going to say, so he interrupted directly, "Unfortunately... no, I've tried all sorts of methods; if I use portable loudspeaker equipment to activate this move... it will end up injuring myself because the equipment is too close to me; but if I reduce its power, I won't be able to unleash the effect of 'gravity oppression'."

After he finished saying these words in his usual cold-faced吐槽 tone, the scene welcomed about five seconds of awkward silence.

Five seconds passed, Barcode looked at him with lifeless eyes and calmly replied with one word, "Oh."

"Your reaction is too calm, isn't it?" Sashimi's own expression was also very calm when he said these words, "You can say whatever you have in your heart, you don't have to hold it in."

"Alright." Barcode uttered another word, then took a deep breath and roared at his teammate, "You're a goddamn idiot! You call this the secret move you've been practicing in private for months? It's a piece of garbage! It doesn't even have the destructive power of a square dance!"

"Sigh... I'm also very desperate..." Sashimi didn't even deny the fact that he was an idiot, "After studying for a long time, I realized that the proposition of 'as long as you cultivate some specific ability, you can compete with those monster-level geniuses in their domain' is a fundamentally flawed proposition..."

"You needed so long to realize such an obvious thing? Oh my god! You [beep] [beep]! You could have just asked me! I could have given you the answer in three seconds! If there was such a method, I would have squeezed Guixiao out and returned to the first team long ago!" It seemed that Barcode had been thoroughly screwed over, and his desire to吐槽 was now uncontrollably erupting.

At the same time, in the viewing space, Ye Zhi, watching the situation on the field, lowered his head and supported his forehead, feigning a tearful expression, and lengthened his voice to sigh, "Ah... two big idiots..."

This S3 competition would not broadcast the situation in the viewing space to the public, but the situation on the battlefield had both live broadcasts and recordings; one could imagine what kind of mood Ye Zhi, as the team leader (default scapegoat), would be in when he saw his teammates acting so recklessly on the field...

"Are they fighting internally..." On the other hand, Garuda on the field had undoubtedly heard the conversation between Sashimi and Barcode... after all, the two were speaking at a considerable volume.

As a professional player, no matter what problems arose in the opposing team, even if they openly cursed at each other, AFKed, or fed kills, one's own side should naturally continue to play as they should; therefore, seeing this situation, Garuda unhesitatingly took advantage of this opportunity, and once again relied on his speed advantage to make a semi-circular flanking maneuver... killing towards the enemy's rear.

This time, his target was Barcode.

Since Sashimi's defensive abilities were strong, he would turn his attention to Barcode, a player who specialized in shooting... this was indeed a very rational judgment.

Garuda's knife was fast. Although he had now stepped back into the edge of the [Bass Region], the speed he burst out with in that instant was still first-rate. Barcode's physical skills could not keep up with such speed, especially since his main energy was currently focused on "berating his teammate loudly."

Whoosh——

Instantly, the reverse-edged curved blade slashed through the air.

As soon as the wind sound rose, the light of blood appeared.

It was blood spurting from a mouth, and the owner of the blood... was Garuda.