Chapter 1 The Match Will Begin in Thirty Seconds

As the system prompt sounded, the four players were teleported to the arena.

The moment they stabilized themselves, the two from [Deities] took action. Yama turned and ran, heading into the distance, while Brahma stood his ground and immediately activated a self-buff skill.

"Ho~" Even in this crucial match, Meng Jingchan was still smoking and drinking, and upon seeing his opponents' movements, he casually remarked, "Are they going for such a desperate strategy?"

"Considering the combination of Brahma and Yama..." In the next second, Ye Zhi picked up his train of thought, "…it's indeed the most logical approach. If successful, they can win instantly."

From this brief exchange between the two from [Order], it was clear that they had already deduced their opponents' tactics from the opening moments.

However, some tactics, even if you can anticipate them, are not necessarily preventable.

"Yeah... if they succeed, they win immediately, but if they fail..." Meng Jingchan said, taking another drag of his cigarette, "Haa..." He exhaled a white smoke ring, and as it floated upwards, he blew on it, "Whoosh—" scattering it into nothingness.

"They've definitely considered the risk of failure more thoroughly than we have... if they dare to use that strategy, it means they're willing to bear that risk..." Ye Zhi replied, "Anyway, no matter what they do, we'll just adapt as we go."

"Ah... got it." Brother Chan responded, taking another swig of his drink, "Glug... I'll do my best..."

The thirty-second preparation time wasn't long, and it passed in the blink of an eye.

With the system's countdown ending in a resounding "Fight," the barriers in the arena vanished.

Immediately following...

Bang!

A deafening explosion.

A pillar of divine light soaring into the sky.

A wild and unrestrained figure.

A fierce and deadly attack.

As the battle commenced, Brahma unleashed his might, launching the first aggressive move.

This opening strike was an extremely dangerous, life-threatening maneuver!

Brahma's target was clear: the support player in the enemy's formation.

His punches were like shadows, turning from illusion into reality, achieving the extreme of speed, with the force to shatter mountains and rivers.

Clang—

In that instant, before the fist arrived, the sword struck first... Meng Jingchan dropped his bottle, spat out his cigarette, and intercepted the attack with his sword.

The sword blade deflected the fist wind, producing a metallic clang.

"Damn... my hand's gone numb..." Meng Jingchan hadn't expected that after a single exchange, the opponent's arm wouldn't have a scratch on it, while his own sword-wielding hand was numb, "Do you have a titanium alloy Qilin arm or something?"

"Not exactly." Unexpectedly, Brahma, whose attack was blocked, actually turned his head to respond to Brother Chan's quip, "This is called Divine Fighting Qi: Armament Haki... undoubtedly a capability that hasn't been recorded in your intel."

As he spoke the word "force," his figure suddenly flashed, bypassing Meng Jingchan, and he closed in on Ye Zhi again, launching a fierce and rapid assault.

"Hey hey... are you not done yet..." Meng Jingchan seemed to have anticipated this move, and once again reacted in advance, countering with a sideways stance, his sword deflecting the torrent of punches, "With me here, you won't touch a hair on our support."

"Tch..." Brahma's sudden attack was thwarted again, causing him some displeasure, "So, distracting you with words doesn't work after all..."

"That depends on who's using it, and how." Meng Jingchan shrugged, "If Feng Bujue were here, he might actually be able to distract me with his chatter... but you... pulling this half-finished sentence trick..."

Clang—

Brother Chan wasn't exactly a saint either; as he spoke, he suddenly unleashed a cold sword strike, attempting to ambush Brahma's lower body.

But unexpectedly, his slash, which was powerful enough to split mountains, landed on Brahma's leg and still didn't leave a mark, only producing another metallic clang.

"...this technique of speaking halfway and attacking when the opponent's attention is diverted... you're quite skilled at it yourself." Brahma continued the unfinished sentence, all while launching a series of attacks.

"Likewise, likewise... to each their own..." Brother Chan raised his sword to meet the attacks, engaging in a fierce exchange, not losing ground in words either.

These two, one's fists were like ferocious tigers, using force to break through skill; the other's sword was like a coiling dragon, combining strength and flexibility.

Punches and swords clashed, creating a rustling sound.

A head-on confrontation, a dragon battling a tiger.

At first glance, the two seemed evenly matched, and it seemed unlikely that a winner would emerge in the short term, but don't forget... Brother Chan had a support on his side.

Under Meng Jingchan's protection, Ye Zhi, who had successfully evaded the opponent's first two attacks, had already activated her skill; she first applied a hot (heal_of_times, a common term in mmorpgs, generally referring to an effect that continuously restores health to a unit over a period of time) skill to Meng Jingchan—[Holy Restoration], then took out a relatively small sketchbook and a pen from her inventory, and began to draw something on it.

[Name: Lag Sketch]

[Skill Card Attribute: Active Skill, Permanently Mastered]

[Skill Category: Universal]

[Effect: Immobilization (Cooldown time of one hour, locks the target for 30 seconds upon successful application, requires paper and pen to activate)]

[Consumption: 200 Spiritual Energy Points]

[Learning Requirements: Universal Specialization S, Mechanical Specialization B]

[Remarks: After the death of the Lord of Time, the power of time became one of the freely shared forces in the universe; this skill was created by a master who could sense and connect to the power of time, allowing the practitioner to capture the afterimage of the target left in the flow of time in the form of a sketch, and affect the target's body.]

This was undoubtedly a very rare skill; from the description, it could be seen that before the end of the "Twilight of the Gods" event, this... or rather "this type of skill"... simply didn't exist.

Although there were quite a few control-type skills that could be used on "players," those with a long duration, strong effect, and capable of "complete suppression" were extremely rare.

One could imagine that if the skill was successfully activated, even if Brahma's defense was high, he would be doomed...

Of course, such a powerful control skill would definitely have certain limitations. The problem with [Lag Sketch] was that... the caster had to spend a certain amount of time drawing the target's figure at a certain moment (this act of drawing was considered part of the skill effect and was unrelated to the caster's own drawing skill). During this process, as long as the caster's drawing action was interrupted for more than three seconds, they would have to start drawing all over again.

At this moment, although Brahma didn't know what Ye Zhi was drawing for (Ye Zhi had never shown the [Lag Sketch] skill to anyone outside the studio before this match), based on his experience and common sense... such a troublesome preparation process was bound to be preparing for some very troublesome skill.

Brahma naturally wouldn't sit idly by, even as his offense and defense against Meng Jingchan was fiercely contested, he was looking for opportunities to interrupt Ye Zhi's actions.

On the other hand, Brother Chan... although he still maintained that composed appearance on the surface, he knew very well that this wave of offense and defense was extremely dangerous for him.

With Brahma activating [Divine Fighting Qi: Armament Haki], his offense and defense could be said to have surpassed Meng Jingchan by several levels; the reason Brother Chan had been able to withstand until now was because Ye Zhi had given him a melee enhancement Buff that lasted for ten minutes before the barriers disappeared; relying on this Buff, as well as a slight advantage in speed and moves, Meng Jingchan had barely managed to keep the opponent at bay until now.

However, as the battle deepened, Brahma gradually tested out where Meng Jingchan's limits were, making the former's attacks even more fierce and gaining control of the offensive and defensive initiative.

"This Armament Haki thing lasts quite a while..." Meng Jingchan immediately thought to himself as he was being pushed into a disadvantageous position, "But Ye Zhi's skill should be about to take effect too..." While thinking, he also glanced at his teammate with his peripheral vision, "The problem is... when exactly will Yama's 'that move' come down..."

Some things... especially bad things, just can't stand being mentioned.

Whoosh—

Just as Brother Chan was muttering, a red beam of light suddenly lit up in the distant sky and came hurtling towards them.

This was the core of the "strategy" that [Deities] had devised for this 2v2 match—the "permanent version" of [Dragon Break Slash].