Game’s Dogma

Drako Yau focused his eyes. With his life now in danger, the yin-yang symbol was spinning so quickly that the naked eye could only see a sphere coloured red and blue. The two elemental forces in him were getting sucked into the symbol like a whirlpool. They then became forces he could use without any side effects.

Drako Yau’s legs were suddenly shrouded in mist while sparks appeared beneath his soles. Like a flaming tornado, the mist and sparks whirled him to safety.

‘What!’ Tigeroar yelled in surprise as his greatsword struck and sent cracks through the empty ground. His white tiger, having also missed its attack, returned to his side and sent a ferocious glare at Drako Yau.

Meanwhile, Drako Yau was feeling lucky that the meridians in his legs had suddenly opened up. Flame Form’s main ability was increasing muscular strength, with the basic buffs being strength, speed, and reflex. When the power of flames seeped through his body, it could emit flames to deal fire damage as well as further enhance a certain body part to increase its explosiveness. This was why Drako Yau’s thrusts were stronger and quicker when his arms were shrouded in flames.

However, as he was still at the initial accomplishment stage, he could only open up the meridians in his arms and let the power of flames flow through them, though it wasn’t without its limits either.

Drako Yau differentiated Flame Form into two phases since phase two materialised his elemental forces. When activating phase one of Flame Form, which was the basic physical buffs, he could sustain it for around fifteen minutes. For phase two, the duration was down to ten minutes.

If he hadn’t opened up the meridians in his legs just now, allowing Cryoflame to buff his Empyreal Dragon Step, he would certainly have died. His gaze turned cold at that thought. He said, ‘My turn now!’

Whoosh!

Nothing but a burnt footprint remained at where he stood. Tigeroar had goosebumps all over his body as a wave of danger splashed against him like a bucket of freezing water. He immediately thumped his chest and roared, ‘Celestial Guard!’

The amulet hanging from Tigeroar’s neck gave off an explosive glow. Starlight shot out from the amulet and formed a barrier around him. Immediately afterwards, a heavy blow struck his back.

While the barrier blocked the attack, it couldn’t defend against the force of impact. Having just experienced a breakthrough, Drako Yau’s speed was now beyond Tigeroar’s perception, which was why he used Celestial Guard decisively.

Drako Yau furrowed his brow. How can he use equipment skills here? It didn’t take long for him to figure the answer out.

‘How despicable! You fiddled with the room settings!’

Under normal circumstances, the Arena didn’t take into account one’s equipment, hence disabling all equipment skills. Putting on a Level 1 armour was no different from putting on a Level 100 armour in the Arena—the system would balance out both contestants’ equipment attributes.

However, players could also open rooms that imitated Ranked battles. In such rooms, all equipment, equipment skills, and items could be used. No one opened such rooms in Casual battles since players who wanted to fight under said rules would directly fight in Ranked battles instead.

The main difference between Ranked battles and Casual battles was that the former took equipment into account while the latter didn’t. Players who fought in the Arena usually opened Casual rooms to hone their fighting skills because relying on their equipment and items greatly limited their potential in combat techniques.

Tigeroar, having fought over a thousand matches in the Arena, only gave Drako Yau a room number when inviting him to a duel. He guessed that Mask wouldn’t check the room settings before entering, and his guess was on the mark.

In other words, it was a trap!

Furniture, equipment, skill points, attribute points, and levels—Tigeroar was superior to Drako Yau in every aspect. Under such rules, everything was in Tigeroar’s favour. But what stunned Tigeroar the most was that even with such an advantage, he was the one receiving a bashing! He was even sure now that he could never let Mask out alive.

Tigeroar wiped the blood from his mouth and snickered. ‘Despicable? In a battle, you have to use everything you’ve got, underhanded or not. So what if it’s despicable? History is always written by the victor. As long as I kill you here, everyone will simply think you deleted your account. Who’d think it was me?’

Tigeroar no longer looked down on Mask. The previous attack that struck him from behind swept all his arrogance away. He thought he was giving Mask a lot of credit already, but turns out it wasn’t enough. Only by giving it his all did he stand a chance at killing Mask!

‘Mask, you’re strong. But you’re too old-fashioned. You can cultivate all you like, so what? This is the world of a game. Here, you live by the rules of the game.’

Tigeroar sparkled bloody red. It was the Level 35 Berserker skill, Raging Blood! For the next five minutes, his attack, attack speed, and movement speed were all increased by twenty per cent. Such a powerful buff naturally wasn’t without its costs; after the effects wore off, all his attributes would be halved. Such was the path of a berserker who tread the Blood Ritual path—making a final stand and ending the fight with only one man standing. This was simply how berserkers fought.

As if that wasn’t enough, Tigeroar thumped his chest again. His armour immediately shone brightly.

‘Set skill of the epic set Feral Rage, Feral Song: Decrease all enemies’ attack by 20 per cent within a 100-metre radius. Duration: 1 minute. Cooldown: 6 hours.’

I can’t let him go on! Drako Yau thought. While Flame Form was powerful at phase two, he could only wield it for ten minutes. His time was almost up!

‘Heh!’ Tigeroar grinned at Drako Yau who vanished again.

After applying all those buffs, Tigeroar’s physicality was close to that of Drako Yau’s with Flame Form activated. Tigeroar spun his greatsword to use the Level 28 Berserker skill, Mountain Breaker! He turned around with a step and swung the greatsword along with the momentum.

Clang!

Drako Yau took a heavy blow and was shot backwards until he slammed into the duelling ground’s barrier.

Tigeroar also shuddered and stumbled a few steps back while flames incinerated him. It was the effect of Fiery Dance, the Godly Spearmaster skill that inflicted burning on enemies by chance. He wasn’t bothered at all though; such petty flames were nothing to his luxurious equipment.

Dropping to the ground near the edge, Drako Yau thought, How can he hit so hard?

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