Chapter 259 |
Spades placed the metal box filled with strong acid on the alcohol lamp and loosened his thumb over the pressed hole.
The particles inside the box were corroded and turned into a viscous black liquid that flowed down his fingers like dark-coloured blood.
The ‘blood’ dripped onto the outer flame of the alcohol lamp and was burned again, giving it a peculiar flame-coloured reaction.
The orange-red hue of the outer flame changed to an unsettling greenish-purple, jumping restlessly as the liquid dripped into it from the box.
The dull green light of the fire cast Spades’ shadow shakily on the tent, which danced aggressively as if Spades were hiding a monstrous spirit inside his body that was about to burst out of him as these particles incinerated.
The liquid extinguished the alcohol lamp three times as it dripped, Spades was used to this and lit it again. He waited until he was sure he had burned all the liquid out of the box before he extinguished the burning solid block of alcohol in his hand.
After packing the remaining alcohol and acid in the package, Spades changed his clothes, knelt down to lace up his snow boots and casually gathered a rash jacket. He got up to gather the rest of the items, which were mainly the remaining acid, fuel, solid alcohol, and some food.
–These supplies were bought and brought in by Spades at the shop outside.
The shop system is disabled in the game pool, but of course, Spades does not normally need to carry food or a change of clothes for himself.
Usually, when Spades enters a game, the monsters couldn’t even wait for him to eat his next meal before the game is already over with his absolute victory.
This is why in the later stages of the training process, The Judge of Defying Gods was so anxious.
The Killer Sequence, as last year’s championship team, is undoubtedly a strong individual fighting force.
Last year’s Killer Sequence was a dark horse to all the old guild teams, and it has to be said that none of the five players were easy to beat, not to mention the perception-breaking top aces like Spades.
When the whip swept, silence and tranquillity followed.
Even the Deer Hunter’s arrogant reformer had to grit his teeth and sigh, admitting that this guy didn’t need any weapon modifications at all –
–Because the weapon was only an accessory to Spades, an optional add-on. Whatever weapon Spades uses, he himself is the most potent weapon on the league’s field.
No reformer has the courage to say that they can transform an existing Spades into a better weapon.
Because Spades is already the best.
–This is the common knowledge of all players in the game, like the unshakeable common sense that the earth is round and that the earth revolves around the sun.
But the Killer Sequence, a young championship team, has a rather fatal weakness –that is the fact that all five players in the team are main attackers.
No shield, no crowd control, no roaming, and the most outrageous thing is that there is no tactician in the team.
Last year’s win was due to Spades’ abrupt and overpowering performance, which caught the other teams off guard.
But after a year, this one-man tactic has gradually become less and less invincible in the eyes of other guilds in team battles, exposing all of its flaws instead.
Because while Spades is perfect, his teammates are not.
After a year of study and research, almost every guild team has developed a number of tactical guidelines based on the skills of Spades and his teammates, as well as each other’s teamwork habits.
Hearts of the King’s Guild has put her tactics against Spades out in the open – back-up healer plus double crowd control.
This tactic won’t kill Spades, but it’s enough to make things difficult for the other four.
Just as all the guilds were gearing up to give the fledgling and determined Killer Sequence a real run for their money in the next tournament, Spades did something that once again blew everyone’s mind –
– He poached the Deer Hunter’s tactician, [The Judge of Defying Gods].
The entire game’s forums were in turmoil for a dimensional week as everyone discussed the matter, with almost every player putting a question mark under the announcement of the Killer Sequence’s acceptance of the [The Judge of Defying Gods].
What type of player was Spades?
Anyone who has seen him play will have a deep understanding of the man’s “independence”. This guy is a fairly typical main attacker character, tripping mines, sweeping lines, pushing bosses at the bottom of the level, and beating his opponents at lightning speed to win, even posting an outrageous 1-5 record in the semi-finals.
With the absence of a tactician, Spades is the nucleus of the team.
But again, Spades was conspicuously absent as the centrepiece since he barely communicated with his teammates during the game. Of course, when the other guild teams followed up with game replays, they had to admit that Spades seemed like he really didn’t need to communicate with his teammates.
Because even if he communicates with them, his teammates won’t always be able to keep up with him, so he simply doesn’t communicate.
A man who, in a thirty-two to sixteen match, has a teammate fall in front of him begging for help, can misjudge him and stab him with a whip before realising that he’s stabbing his teammate then immediately go after the monster after apologising without any sincerity. Such a man would take it upon himself to poach someone else’s tactician?!
But no matter how unbelievable it was to the audience, [The Judge of Defying Gods] transferred to the Killer Sequence guild as promised, becoming the only non-main attacker – Tactician – in this outlandish team combination.
And the last people who wanted to see this scenario were the other guilds who had been preparing for most of the year to take down the Killer Sequence.
Because they know exactly how much of a boost the addition of [The Judge of Defying Gods] can be to a team with players like Spades.
The skill of [The Judge of Defying Gods] is prophecy, and he is the best tactician in the game.
The strong combination of the best tactician and the best main attacker can’t help but make all guilds desperate.
But soon the despair subsided.
For they were delighted to find that the two bests didn’t work well together at all!
He quickly developed a whole new training program after [The Judge of Defying Gods] joined him, but the program so far……
It’s not that it’s completely bad, it’s just a mess.
[The Judge of Defying Gods] restricted Spades’ performance, he asked Spades to obey his command and not to leave the group to attack monsters or opponents until he gave the order. Spades looked really intent like he was listening, so he was relieved and carelessly put the man directly into the game pool.
Spades was like a wild fish out of water when he entered the game, he disappeared in the blink of an eye.
The Judge of Defying Gods broke down and searched for half a day, thinking that Spades had fallen into the game’s trap.
In the end, he was dumbfounded to find Spades in the middle of a bloody mess.
Spades, with his hands taut, strangled a monster’s head with his whip then dropped it and hid it behind him, turning to look at them as if nothing had happened.
The blood on his eyelashes dripped down, but his face was as tranquil as a soft breeze without a trace of embarrassment at being caught in the act, his voice was calm and soft: “Sorry, I just saw the monster, I couldn’t control myself, so I went to kill it. It didn’t affect your training plan, right?”
Meanwhile, the other four were briefed in their systems that:
[System notification: Congratulations to player Spades for leading the team through the game! Game over!]
Spades eased up: “……Ah, so that’s a win?”
The Judge of Defying Gods: “……”
The other three teammates: “……”
You’re smiling, aren’t you! You were smiling because you won, weren’t you!!
Do you want to win all by yourself that badly?! Have some team spirit!
Over the next few months of training in the game pool, [The Judge of Defying Gods] had his definition of team combat painfully updated by Spades
–That being, watching over Spades with a group, it’s basically like a fucking war.
In a group fight, while farming monsters and doing the main quest, every moment, every second, whenever any teammate doesn’t keep an eye on Spades, this guy would begone!!!
By the time a group of people scrambles to find Spades, there is usually a system announcement that the game has been cleared.
[The Judge of Defying Gods] was tormented to the point of a nervous breakdown.
Most of the time when he activates his prophecy skill in the game, it’s not to predict the movements of his opponents or the main quest, but basically just to find Spades.
Spades is like a child whose attention can be drawn away from his surroundings at all times, a child who fights like a champ, has the fastest movement speed in the game and is very competitive but seems outwardly obedient.
And he’s the disappointed parent who can’t control his child and has to spend his days and nights washing his face with tears and then look for his lost child in the game like a cheap missing person GPS locator, or the vocal broadcast kind–
[Spades! Spades, where are you?]
[Spades, come out will you?! I won’t force you to work with your teammates this time! It’s all my fault for being a bad tactician! I didn’t consider your feelings as the main attacker who wanted to bring us victory as we slack by himself! You’re a good attacker, it’s all my fault!]
[Come on out! We’re going home! Let’s not play games anymore, okay?]
After many such instances, [The Judge of Defying Gods] weakly stated that he wanted some peace and left Spades alone to wander– no, to train outside. Then he took the other three remaining players to grind and train first, leaving Spades as a [roamer] to cool off for a while.
It would have been disheartening to see the invincible ace put on the bench like that by a new tactician, but Spades took it well, and he really did listen this time and went off to train alone.
Spades is a very intuitive main attacker, which is recognized by the audience, his teammates and the prophet–The Judge of Defying Gods.
And the personal training ground he chose based on his intuition was the instance dungeon of Ice Age.
Spades had a vague sense that something in this dungeon drew him to it, as if there was a mission inherent to his existence that drove him strongly to this icy world, to reveal the evil things hidden within-
–To obliterate it completely.
EN1: I feel like The Judge of Defying Gods just needs to go on the show SuperNanny with Spades and he would listen!
EN2: the reverse god’s title/names keeps changing throughout every time he’s mentioned so i decided to just pick 2 of them in order for readers to not being confused but overall his main name is The Judge of Defying Gods
ANNOUNCEMENT!!! We now have the previous translator from Library of Cnidaria working with uss!!! (what a honour i know) wuu still cant believe this tl has gotten so far..（；´д｀）ゞ
(TL: Raven here! It’s an honour to be working here too! Life’s been kinda busy for me recently and it’s good to have someone to work with instead of dealing with things all alone! I’m so sorry for the previous slow slow slow updates, but I hope you guys will enjoy the story!)