Chapter 200: Popeye's Wild Punches
[Balford: Champion Template. Legion Commander, Dual-Wielding Knight. HP = 1200, MP = 180. Strength 30, Agility 35, Spirit 18, Charisma 28.]
[Unit Traits — Dual-Wielding Knight, Parry Counter, Aura Storm]
Sun Fist combined with Splitting Mount Hua, Cheng Tian's sudden combo of killing moves was undeniably lethal.
However, Balford was not a clumsy fool like the Amphibious Blazefire Dragon (Blazefire Dragon Soul: NMD!), with an agility value of 35. Although he was temporarily blinded and unable to see, his exposed arms, face, and scalp could keenly sense the flow of air.
Facing the heavily descending Blade of Blessing, Balford decisively raised his personal long and short swords, bestowed upon him by the Silver Prince himself, and performed an X-shaped cross-parry, blocking with almost muscle memory precision.
In the world of Knights of the Round Table, it wasn't just the protagonist's Three Knights who knew how to parry with weapons. Almost any unit associated with the 'Knight' profession possessed such abilities.
Lower-level units, such as Minotaur Knight Breakers or Bird-Helmet Knights wearing duck-shaped helmets, could only block and parry with shields. Other named and powerful individuals, however, could achieve precise parries with their halberds, dual swords, hammers, and other weapons and equipment.
BOSS's precise parries not only completely nullified incoming damage but also allowed them to launch fatal counterattacks. However, the cost was an accelerated durability loss for their weapons.
Of course, if a precise parry failed, the situation would be similar to a katana wielder failing to 'See Through,' meaning they would take double damage.
Balford, being a high-agility unit, even when blinded, had enough muscle memory to react appropriately at the most opportune moment... However, the sword in Cheng Tian's hand was a holy blade condensed from energy!
Balford, with his swords crossed, did indeed feel a somewhat weak impact from above, but what followed was a burning sensation dozens of times more intense than having all armor and clothing removed and his skin completely exposed to the scorching sun!
Knights' precise parries and parry counters generally only worked against pure physical attacks.
Therefore, the physical damage portion of Cheng Tian's Splitting Mount Hua was completely nullified by the precise parry, but the Holy Light burst portion hit the Dual-Wielding Knight with full force, undiminished!
Accompanying the pop-up of a "-333" serpentine digital effect, Balford's HP bar plummeted by a quarter!
He parried, but not completely. It wasn't a failure, but it couldn't be called a success either.
And Balford, who should have directly launched a counterattack after completing the precise parry, was instantly staggered by the Holy Light burst, uncontrollably retreating half a step—
However, Cheng Tian's attack was not over. After successfully landing from the heavy slash, his hands, gripping the Blade of Blessing at his chest, made another full-force forward thrust.
In his staggered state, Balford could no longer perform any precise parrying actions.
The second thrust, granted by the Virtue of Valor, ruthlessly pierced Balford's chest!
A very obvious gash penetrated Balford's chest armor, leaving a glowing sword mark in the center of his chest. It should have bled, but the wound was directly cauterized by Holy Light beforehand, preventing blood from gushing out. He himself rolled backward like a tumbling gourd.
[-175]
The second thrust of the Blade of Blessing only dealt 50% damage, and Balford's chest armor successfully nullified about 20 points of physical piercing damage, but his body once again endured the erosion of Holy Light.
His full HP of 1200 had dropped to nearly half, 692 points. Cheng Tian's smooth combo had directly taken almost half of his life!
Cheng Tian secretly sighed, regretting that the Blade of Blessing hadn't critically hit.
Among the 'Knight's Multiple Virtues' in the Holy Grail Knight template skill set he loaded, there was a passive effect called "Temperament Virtue"—
When an enemy's current HP is less than 4 times the critical damage, a critical hit will instantly kill the enemy. This effect is halved for Champion Template, Leader Template, and units with the 'Large' tag; 4 times is reduced to 2 times.
If the Blade of Blessing had critically hit, the first heavy slash would probably have already finished off the opponent.
Cheng Mouren, whose 'kicking someone when they're down' attribute was maxed out, unhesitatingly raised his sword and shield and charged. The Holy Grail Knight template granted him a series of basic combat abilities, including but not limited to blocking, shoving, charged thrusts, charged shield bashes, evasive sidesteps, evasive retreats, and other knightly combat techniques. Cheng Tian, who had previously loaded and partially restored the Captain America combat instincts remaining in his body through training with a wooden dummy, unhesitatingly chose a charged shield bash to the head.
Even if Cheng Tian's template weapon only provided twenty-odd points of shield bash damage and sword strike damage from the integrated common machete, the resulting stun and stagger would be very real.
What Cheng Tian needed to do was maintain crowd control, buying time for friendly units, especially Arthur himself, to recover from the Flash spell.
However, at this moment, from among the large number of Silver Cavalry who had fallen in a chain collision, a small mound of human and horse corpses suddenly exploded. Immediately, a figure burst towards Cheng Tian's position. During the charge, his two arms, which should have been covered by armor, suddenly swelled up, directly tearing through the arm guards!
Cheng Tian even noticed that on his abnormally swollen forearms, there were two very conspicuous tattoo marks, like ship anchors—
'Popeye's Mutant Bloodline', C-rank / Lv-, skill blueprint from Popeye "Popeye" from the FC platform game 'Popeye'. When consuming over 200 grams of fresh spinach or a canned spinach item under any circumstances, both forearms will abnormally swell, and he will immediately gain 1.5 times temporary strength bonus, 75% reduced pain, and +50% Super Armor value, lasting for 1 minute. The digestion cooldown is 30 minutes. This bonus can be extended during its duration by consuming spinach again, but the amount of spinach consumed for extension doubles, and the digestion cooldown also doubles. It can be extended a maximum of 2 times per natural day.
As Cheng Tian had already shifted his shield bash into a shield defense stance, the hostile player, whose strength had surged from consuming spinach, was already swinging his fists with all his might, like a child fighting with wild, unrefined punches—
'Charging Flurry Punch', E-rank / Lv4, skill blueprint from the rollerblading black kid "Sammy" from the MD platform game 'Streets of Rage III'. While charging forward, quickly swing fists to continuously deal 6 physical strike damages equal to Strength * 0.5 to the target. Consumes 10 MP or 15 HP. Each effective attack hit during pursuit will add and accumulate more stagger value. When fully accumulated, it will cause the target to stagger and lose balance, unable to perform defensive actions. (Lv4 additional effect)
The moment they made contact, Cheng Tian's shield was subjected to extremely powerful impacts, continuous and relentless, forcing him to constantly retreat, his feet grinding out two brake marks on the ground.
However, above Cheng Tian's head, who had endured 6 consecutive hits, 6 "Damage Resisted" prompts popped up simultaneously, and his HP bar remained completely still!
Meanwhile, the player who cast the skill, whose ID was "Sailor," stared wide-eyed at the 'Resisted' notifications refreshing in his vision, his face filled with disbelief.