Chapter 188: The Saber Class's Entrance Exam Is "Firing a Beam with a Sword"
[Blessed Blade of Valor and Virtue: Template Skill, Active Skill. A Holy Grail Knight can condense divine radiance into a holy blade blessed by the Goddess, using it to slay all chaotic demons, plague heretics.
Condensing holy light to create a holy blade for a heavy slash on a single target causes dual physical and holy light damage. Physical damage is equal to Strength * 3 points, and holy light damage is equal to Spirit * 9 points. When the target has attribute keywords related to chaotic evil gods, including but not limited to "Chaos," "Evil," "Plague," etc., the holy light damage will directly double. This effect ignores enemy templates.
Under the enhancement of Valor and Virtue, a Blessed Blade that completes a heavy slash can also perform an additional thrust. The rules are the same as above, and the damage data is 50% of the heavy slash.
Condensing the Blessed Blade requires 90 Magic Points and then a 10-minute cooldown before it can be condensed again.
Casting Blessed Blade will immediately switch your currently equipped gear and switch back immediately after the attack ends; if you choose to condense but not attack, the Blessed Blade will also automatically dissipate after 60 seconds.]
[Additional Evaluation: You've already got one foot in the door of the Saber class's entrance exam: "firing a beam with a sword"!]
Riding on the back of the Mammoth war elephant, which seemed to have grown a bit, the holy light sword Cheng Tian held aloft was the Blessed Blade condensed under the template's blessing.
As long as Cheng Tian didn't attack a target, this thing could be held in his hand for a minute, emitting a bright yet not overly dazzling holy radiance.
It must have been the bizarre and eye-catching combination of "Holy Sword" + "War Elephant" – the kind of spectacle that would make passersby stop and stare at what strange thing it was – that miraculously quelled the chaos in the Knights of the Round Table camp.
Many militiamen and Knights even involuntarily knelt or performed a Knight's salute in Cheng Tian's direction—
They probably mistook Cheng Mouren, holding the Blessed Blade aloft, for Arthur with the Sword in the Stone.
Look at Cheng Tian's current appearance.
Having entered combat, his sunfire mask directly covered his face, and his upper body was adorned with the Azure Flame Dragon Scale Armor. He was still holding the holy light sword aloft, and a Mammoth war elephant was bellowing beneath him... Only a ghost could tell who he was!
However, this eye-catching display was recognized by both factions.
Cheng Mouren, currently bathed in holy light, immediately became the target of the enemy's attacks.
Under the cover of night, something flew through the air, heading straight for Cheng Tian—
There were actually four arrows, each with different flight speeds and trajectories!
In fact, the number of players who chose the "ranged marksman" route in the player community was far greater than imagined.
A moment's thought makes it clear: players with a ranged marksman role generally stand at the back of the team, which is generally safer than the melee combatants at the front. Even if they can't handle a bow and arrow, they can opt for the more accessible and easier-to-aim crossbow as their primary output weapon.
Traditional ranged weapons like bows and crossbows are also almost unaffected by dungeon modifiers, and even fighting tournaments don't prohibit them, as those people throwing energy blasts are even more outrageous than bows and arrows.
Another key point is that players who choose the ranged marksman role, if traced back, will find that they generally fear pain and are reluctant to fight to the death.
These four arrows all came from enemy faction players participating in the night raid. The arrows, enhanced by skills or equipment effects, were clearly more of a probing attack than a sniper attempt, as they weren't sure whether Cheng Mouren on the elephant's back was a player or an NPC, or what his strength was.
However, at this moment, the golden object that had been hovering above Cheng Tian's head like a crown of holy light suddenly scattered, splitting into 9 golden Arrows of Retribution, which then shot out in different directions.
Three of the Arrows of Retribution accurately collided with the incoming arrows mid-air, shattering them on the spot with their effect of "being difficult to be countered by other projectiles."
But the remaining one instantly shattered a golden arrow, clearly not on the same level as the other three filler arrows.
Facing this attack, Cheng Tian chose to swing the Blessed Blade in his hand.
With the night-time bonus from the sunfire mask, Cheng Tian's Agility attribute was as high as 23 points. Coupled with the lingering muscle memory from the Azure Star's Katana Swordsman template, the divine radiance directly struck the deadly arrow—
Then, a large ball of fire instantly exploded, engulfing Cheng Tian!
"YES!"
An Allen Army player outside the camp made a fist-pumping victory gesture.
『Arrow of Commemoration』, B-rank skill / Lv3, Active skill. The blueprint for this skill is the "Amazon" class from the PC game "Diablo 2"; it allows arrows or bolts to be imbued with powerful fire elemental magic, causing an explosion on impact and leaving behind an unshakeable lingering flame; direct explosion damage is weapon damage + 35 points, explosion radius is 2 meters, and upon hitting, it applies a 5-second burn to the target, dealing 20 fire damage per second. Cooldown is 30 seconds, MP cost is 15 points.
Although this arrow was meant only as a probe, hitting the target was naturally gratifying.
He had studied it: in this dungeon, both friendly and enemy forces tended to wear and use metal armor. While metal might initially withstand the impact damage from an explosion, it absolutely could not resist subsequent burning damage; this was determined by the armor's properties.
But just as he was about to strike while the iron was hot and fire two more arrows, his mind buzzed as if struck by a heavy hammer, and he instantly stood at attention.
Then he temporarily lost consciousness, and his skin turned a ghastly greenish-blue, like a living corpse.
The next moment, this marksman player, no longer in control of himself, stiffly raised his most precious purple rare longbow and, without hesitation, shot an arrow at the nearest teammate from his own faction. After the arrow easily struck the unprepared unlucky person and the victim let out an uncontrollable scream, the greenish-blue color on his body returned to normal, and he awoke as if from a dream, belatedly realizing what had happened.
Almost simultaneously, five golden Arrows of Retribution descended from the sky, all plunging into the top of his head.
[Ten Commandments: C-rank skill / Lv4, Active skill. (Preceding details omitted).
Your skill target range has expanded to "Elite Template."
When you cast this skill on a player unit of the "Human" race, the judgment rules remain unchanged; if the judgment passes, the target will only temporarily enter a "Ghoulification" state, lasting 2 to 5 seconds.
A ghoulified player unit will temporarily have their Agility attribute halved, suffer from stiff limbs, and gain immunity to small-caliber firearm attacks. During this time, you can forcibly control the target. (Lv4 additional enhancement)
When cast on a player unit, the MP cost doubles to 40 points, and the cooldown remains unchanged, still 15 minutes.]