Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

Chapter 241 - Regenerating Werewolves

Since Gu Fei’s target could fight monsters thirty levels beyond his, he was now unsure if the person was alone or in a party. If it was the former, he would sincerely praise this person.

When Gu Fei looked at this matter from a different angle, he could say that he had more or less met almost all the highly skilled individuals in Yunduan City, so he wondered if any of them had equipment that could beat monsters thirty levels higher.

Svelte Dancer and Drifting... These two were among the Five Unyielding Experts of Parallel World, and the chances of one of them being his target were high. Thankfully, he could easily find out if one of them was his bounty target. Gu Fei sent each a message directly addressing this matter: “Do you have PK points on you?”

The two were high-level players, so them having PK value was as natural as them having ten top-grade equipment. As expected, both players replied: “Yes.”

Gu Fei immediately became alert: “How many points?”

Drifting promptly replied that he had 1 PK point. As for Svelte Dancer, being a lady that she was, she quickly followed up her admittance of having 1 PK point with: “Why are you asking?”

“I’m clearing off my PK value, so I’m trying to avoid getting someone I know...” was Gu Fei’s reply.

“Tsk! You better not dare pick the ‘Bounty Mission’ for me, or I’ll rip you apart,” Svelte Dancer retorted.

Gu Fei did not reply to that as he had no wish to argue with her. For additional insurance, he asked his comrades on the mercenary channel.

Young Master Han would never ‘dirty’ himself with something like PK points, so asking him if he had PK value was as good as asking him if he had a terminal illness, and he disdained to even reply to Gu Fei. The rest simply answered that they had none at the moment. These experts did not inquire deeply on the matter as this was not the first time Gu Fei had asked them such a question. Ever since that time Gu Fei had mistakenly picked Royal God Call as his bounty target and vice versa, he had made it a habit to ask his fellow mercenaries for their PK value before doing ‘Bounty Mission’, telling them to erase their PK value as soon as they could. It would be quite troublesome to find a resolution for the matter of Gu Fei accidentally picking up their ‘Bounty Mission’, after all.

After confirming that the player who could grind on monsters thirty levels above was not one of his acquaintances, Gu Fei high-spiritedly proceeded to Suoyun Village.

Gu Fei could already make out the silhouettes of the Werewolves within the woods. Parallel World was ultimately a fantasy-themed game, so it would be remiss if the game designers did not add these scary and frightening creatures. However, this was also a full-immersion game, so the players would need to have a certain level of psychological resilience if they were going to face these savage and bloodthirsty beasts.

The game designers felt the need to gradually ease the players into this by making it so that the low-level monsters would slowly become fantastical as their level increased. Simply put, players could tell how deadly a monster was just from its looks. The higher level the monsters were, the more powerful and horrendous they would look. This so-called evolutionary design was too extreme for open beta when the designers chose to put adorable cats and dogs in the beginner maps and inadvertently caused quite the uproar among the players.

Creatures like the lycanthropes were often the prime villains in horror films, so for them to be present at the level 70 threshold showed how much care the designer team had put into rating them.

Gu Fei was quite far from the Werewolves in the dusky woods, so he did not attract their attention. Checking the coordinates once more, he confirmed that his target was really somewhere within the village. The village appeared quiet and deserted. A wide, wooden bridge extended before the village and there was a road that led people who took the mountain path right into the village.

Gu Fei got on the bridge and proceeded to the village, but before he even made it halfway, two Werewolves suddenly appeared out of nowhere, panting heavily as they stood by the head of the bridge.

Gu Fei had once crossed paths with their kind in the church by Yeguang Village outside Yueye City. Although it was but a brief encounter, Gu Fei was clearly no match for that Werewolf back then. Had it not been for the quest condition requiring the Werewolf to flee, he would have most likely been killed by its claw swipe.

The two Werewolves before him were grinding monsters, so they would naturally not run off once they got injured. If Gu Fei fought with them right now, he would still be no match for them despite him being ten levels higher than before.

Gu Fei might be undefeated in-game thus far, but that was mainly due to him possessing fast speed and reaction; it just so happened that these two aspects were the fortes of Werewolves. Gu Fei assessed the monsters before him using the strength of the Werewolf he had faced back then as gauge. If he had confidence to beat these level 70 Werewolves, he would come here to level grind long ago.

Moreover, Gu Fei had only considered a one-on-one fight. Since two Werewolves were blocking the bridge like this, it was needless to say how things would turn out for him. Gu Fei stood in the middle of the bridge for the longest time, yet the two creatures before him showed no signs of leaving.

Gu Fei had no choice but to beat a hasty retreat. Since he could not cross the bridge directly like so, his only choice was to follow along the embankment and enter the village via a longer route.

Turning his back to the other end of the bridge, Gu Fei decided to save time by jumping from the bridge to the embankment. Following his landing on the embankment, he heard a howl from behind.

Gu Fei hurriedly sidestepped to dodge. He faced backward and saw a Werewolf leap out from under the bridge to pounce at him. He did not know how the Werewolf had walked all the way to here from under the bridge, but Gu Fei never once spotted it due to the bridge blocking his sight of it. Naturally, he had no clue of its existence when he leaped from the side of the bridge. Doing so caused him to enter this Werewolf’s aggro range. It then unhesitatingly hurtled itself toward Gu Fei and attacked him.

Gu Fei did not get flustered when the Werewolf pounced at him. He quickly chanted a spell and blinked five meters away from where he stood. The Werewolf’s claws swiped thin air once more and it snarled in frustration as it gave chase to Gu Fei.

Gu Fei was originally planning to flee when he created this five-meter distance from the ferocious beast, but upon seeing the Werewolf’s moves, he had a sudden stroke of inspiration and went forward instead of retreating. The hand holding Moonlit Nightfalls lashed out with Twin Incineration.

The spell’s flames burned the Werewolf’s skin and hair, causing it to howl and become more aggressive. Still, its attack patterns remained the same; Gu Fei dodged the Werewolf’s attack and struck it once more, not showing any signs of being at a disadvantage.

Upon seeing the Werewolf’s movement, Gu Fei decided to fight with it despite its faster speed. Deep down, he was feeling puzzled by this Werewolf’s inferiority in terms of strength and speed to that Werewolf back in Yeguang Village.

Any average player might think that the reason for this was his increase in strength and speed, but the close-combat expert Gu Fei thought differently, as he could accurately judge the strength and skill of his opponent, separate from his fighting capability.

What Gu Fei forgot was that the Werewolf he had clashed with for the chain quest in Yeguang Village was not ordinary. Adrian had used the Fang of the Wolf King to shapeshift into a Werewolf Lord. Although the strength he had displayed was nowhere near that of a true Werewolf Lord, the average Werewolf would still be inferior to him in every aspect. Gu Fei mistakenly used Adrian as the standard for every Werewolf, causing him to inflate a Werewolf’s actual combat strength. This was yet another aspect of the game mechanics that Gu Fei had failed to understand.

But while he could meet the Werewolf’s every strike, its HP and defense were still frighteningly high. Gu Fei used Twin Incineration – the strongest spell in his arsenal – on it thrice, and he even smelled the pungent odor of burned hair and flesh, yet the Werewolf’s attacks did not falter in the least, incessantly snarling and tearing at Gu Fei. The Werewolf’s saliva dripped and frothed in its maw, occasionally flying out; it was the very definition of the word ‘disgusting’.

Gu Fei was now helpless at this point. His Blink was currently unavailable, so he could only endure dealing with the Werewolf. The Werewolf did not show signs of tiring, and it in fact even slowly recovered from the burn wounds of his Twin Incineration. Gu Fei could tell this from the scent of burned flesh slowly becoming fainter.

This... This was the Werewolf’s regenerative ability!

It was as if Gu Fei had suddenly awakened from his dream as realization dawned on him. It was no wonder this Werewolf had yet to die despite suffering from all his slashes and burns and even appeared to be more invigorated from all the abuse. It was not due to this Werewolf having high HP or defense but was due to its inherently fast regenerative ability.

Gu Fei’s Moonlit Nightfalls was at level 70, and the Werewolf was also at level 70. Although the sword was considered to be top grade, Gu Fei’s low Intelligence and Strength meant he was unable to deal the usual damage that struck fear to the enemies just with his weapon’s Attack Power. Not being able to insta-kill the Werewolf after hitting it with Twin Incineration thrice... This was due to Gu Fei not having enough stats to bring out the sword’s full potential.

The amount of HP I reduce is lower than the amount of HP it regains, Gu Fei finally met a situation he had no means of resolving. In a scenario where one could not kill the quarry despite putting all into the fight and where one could not escape the strong opponent, any other player would just helplessly wait for the monster to finish him or her off.

Unfortunately for this Werewolf, it was currently up against Gu Fei, the very same person who had completed the chain quest involving a shapeshifting Werewolf in Yeguang Village. He was also in possession of a weapon called Sacred Flames of Baptism, which was the bane of the Werewolves’ existence.

Flames of Baptism was just a level 30 weapon, and plenty of better quality weapons with additional fire attack naturally existed out there, yet Gu Fei had not replaced it all this while. This was due to the village elder performing a ritual on it as part of the chain quest, which changed it into a ‘Sacred’ type and granted it the ability to ‘nullify regeneration’.

This trait usually had no effect, but when it was employed against Werewolves, it could uncompromisingly become a hindrance to these foul beasts.

Gu Fei returned to his senses with a jolt and hastily replaced his Moonlit Nightfalls with Sacred Flames of Baptism. Sacred Flames of Baptism’s Attack Power was very inferior to Moonlit Nightfalls’. Just its Physical Damage had problems penetrating the Werewolf’s high defense. Thus, the Chinese broadsword’s main source of offense was still its additional fire attack. Who knew that Sacred Flames of Baptism would demonstrate an outstanding result when used against a real Werewolf? One slash from it left an open wound that looked quite like it was scorched, albeit a faint silvery glow was hidden within this scorch which was brighter than a flame’s glow.

The additional fire attack that soon followed lit this wound aflame, intensifying the smell of burning flesh once more. The Werewolf was evidently in greater pain from this attack using Sacred Flames of Baptism than Moonlit Nightfalls’, as its whimpers became more mournful.

Gu Fei did not relent in his assault and his slashes arrived in rapid succession. Before too long, the Werewolf collapsed on the ground in a heap. Gu Fei sighed in relief. Werewolves were not overwhelmingly strong, after all, and the key to vanquishing them lay in taking care of their fast regenerative ability. If a level 70 player that came to grind in this map could not match the Werewolves’ fast regeneration, he or she would probably just become matchstick for these creatures.

On a side note, the experience points Gu Fei had gotten from killing the Werewolf were indeed worthy of its high level. Brimming with confidence, Gu Fei stepped on to the bridge once more after replenishing his HP and mana and resolutely headed toward those two Werewolves at the other end of the bridge.

Over by the Game Administration Department of Parallel World, the monitoring team happily informed Ye Xiaowu, “Chief Ye, that guy whom you have eyes on just killed a Werewolf thirty levels above his today.”

From the perspective of the staff of the monitoring team, Gu Fei’s actions and control did not violate any rules, but his ability to leave the game designer Ye Xiaowu helpless and stunned through his achievements had them keeping an eye on Gu Fei as well.