Chapter 201 The difference between fighting the Ten Commandments of Moros and Balford is basically the same as the difference between using a cup and using a real person.
Similar to Cheng Tian replacing Lancelot's adjutant, this player named "Sailor" also gained the qualification to infiltrate the Silver Cavalry by relying on his real-life horsemanship skills and by demonstrating his Popeye mutant bloodline to the Twin-Blade Knight. He even obtained a set of Breaker Armor that could only be used in this scene.
However, his start was unfavorable. Even the strongest horsemanship could not make his warhorse withstand the roar of the Crimson Tyrannosaurus, a top terrestrial predator.
But as the saying goes, blessings and misfortunes are intertwined. Although his horse's legs went soft from the roar, causing him to fall and be buried by the subsequent chain collision, he also avoided the charging slash of the Knights of the Round Table and the Solar Flare released by Cheng Tian.
Although the death of Twin-Blade Knight Balford would not directly cause their main quest to fail, the death of a commander would inevitably lead to a decrease in rating and even further reduction in rewards. Sailor, of course, would not sit idly by.
By consuming a can of spinach from his inventory, his strength, which was already 24 points, instantly surged to 36 points, allowing him to push away the corpses covering him.
He then caught sight of Cheng Tian's move to shield bash his commander and unhesitatingly charged with a fist.
As an E-rank skill, Charging Fist's damage effect was naturally mediocre, but its advantage lay in its low mana cost and short cooldown. In critical moments, it could even be cast by sacrificing health. Coupled with his Popeye's Strength, continuous output could quickly whittle down health.
However, the continuous six instances of 0 damage due to resistance in the combat log still made him lose his composure, and a feeling of "Why?" spontaneously arose.
The reason was that although his skill, with high strength, could indeed deal decent damage, each hit only dealt 18 points, and every punch was precisely blocked by Cheng Tian with his shield. Just as Cheng Tian's Blessed Blade suffered physical attenuation when hitting Balford, Sailor's punches landing on the shield also resulted in only half of the impact damage penetrating.
And it was precisely this halved value that met the absorption and resistance effect of the Primordial Shell. As a result, after these six wild punches, Cheng Tian's mana bar actually recovered 14 MP.
If Sailor hadn't used a skill and had instead directly punched Cheng Tian with his fist, equipped with blue brass knuckles, he wouldn't have been perfectly resisted and absorbed... However, Sailor's disbelief lasted only for an instant. Realizing that Cheng Tian was a more formidable player than he had imagined, he immediately used another consumable from his inventory.
His arm, still in its spinach-mutated state, was raised high, and then a scroll, already unfurled and covered in bloody characters, appeared in his hand.
The next second, accompanied by a cacophony that caused the ground to tremble slightly, a group of simply dressed commoners, varying in height and build, appeared out of thin air. They then frantically charged past Sailor himself, forcefully knocking away all the Knights of the Round Table cavalry in a straight line, and finally impacting Cheng Tian, who had just resisted the six wild punches—
"Militia Stratagem," consumable, item source from the arcade platform "Dynasty Warriors 2: Heroes of the Three Kingdoms." Summons a group of fleeing Shu Han commoners to launch a desperate charge and impact against enemies in a straight line, dealing 25 damage per hit, up to 5 consecutive hits, and also causing a forced displacement effect.
This time, Cheng Tian was like a prominent figure being crowd-surfed at a concert, bouncing around on top of the refugees, and his mana bar began to continuously drop.
Seeing Cheng Tian being carried away by the refugees, and with no message indicating that the item was resisted, Sailor breathed a sigh of relief, preparing to turn and cover the Twin-Blade Knight's retreat back to the infantry group that was almost reassembled. However, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of something falling in a parabolic arc from the direction where Cheng Tian had been taken.
It was a crystal-clear, collectible-grade red orb that made one want to place it on their desk or bookshelf just by looking at it.
But this magnificent orb mercilessly smashed onto the ground, shattering instantly.
In an instant, a shockwave that made it impossible for anyone to resist spread out from the shattered red orb. Both Sailor and Balford, who could now somewhat discern figures, were knocked to the ground by this irresistible shockwave.
However, the scene that followed was the most terrifying.
The seven Breaker Knights belonging to the Roman faction, who had not yet fully died, turned an extremely unnatural golden color as they were covered by the shockwave. Then, all their remaining life force was extracted and rapidly transformed into 4 gold and silver coin pouches, 2 silver coin treasure chests, and 1 set of gold and silver tea ware—
Red Shockwave Orb! Effect activated!
In Sailor's view, as he lay on the ground, everything was within reach: gold and silver treasures... and allied knight units lying beside the treasures, completely lifeless. A mix of joy and fear simultaneously surged in Sailor's heart.
Why did he choose to infiltrate the Breaker Cavalry? Wasn't it for more bounty?
But compared to his desire for bounty, the immediate deaths of these allied units completely terrified Sailor. It was clear that their deaths were directly related to the broken red orb, and he himself, also affected by that shockwave, wouldn't be forcibly squeezed out for a bloody treasure chest, would he?
Regardless of whether he had gotten up yet, Sailor quickly opened his panel with his mind. After seeing that his health bar had not fluctuated significantly, he subconsciously breathed a sigh of relief. But the next second, a dark shadow directly enveloped his head.
In Sailor's vision, a massive foot belonging to the Crimson Tyrannosaurus was rapidly growing larger.
Arthur, who had recovered from the blinding state first thanks to the Excalibur's explosive defensive capabilities, was already striding forward, charging towards Balford, whose eyes were still unable to fully open. Using the momentum of his charge, he delivered a stepping heavy slash.
But Balford, who had continuously suffered multiple crowd controls, chose the safest response at this moment.
He was like a gymnast, using his sword-gripping stance to support himself on the ground and perform a Thomas flair to get up. As his twin swords executed a 360-degree whirlwind slash, his body erupted with an astonishing aura storm, directly blowing away Arthur, who had changed his slash into a block—
Aura Storm!
As mentioned before, many playable characters in arcade beat 'em up games have invincibility-frame skills used for evasion, and typically, using this skill also requires sacrificing health, hence the common name "blood-sacrifice skill."
Arthur and the three knights possessed such a skill, named "Holy Aura Storm," and Balford also had an "Aura Storm" with almost identical effects. However, his Aura Storm had a unique feature that the three knights' did not: it could be used while knocked down and allowed him to stand up during its execution.
Previous consecutive misjudgments had made the Twin-Blade Knight, whose health was less than 60%, incredibly cautious.
The Aura Storm not only successfully blew away Arthur but also shattered several golden energy arrows flying towards him.
...As expected of a humanoid BOSS, the strategy feels completely different from large BOSSes.
Cheng Mouren, who had been carried quite far by the Shu refugees, first glanced at his almost depleted mana bar, then at the Twin-Blade Knight who had successfully rolled back and rejoined the infantry group. Far from looking dejected, he became even more excited by encountering a difficult BOSS.