Game’s Dogma

Dan was in a bad mood today.

It was already midnight. Even as an elite player who belonged to Empyreal Spire, he didn’t have the habit of staying up too late.

On other nights, he’d have logged off and went to sleep already; he didn’t have the habit of sleeping in the game—even though he used a top tier game pod, which was the basic prerequisite for joining Empyreal Spire.

Looking at their target, he was more irked than anything. He just wanted to get it done with and go to bed.

Suddenly, he received a notification.

‘You have received a friend request from Dragonspear. Accept?’

Dragonspear?

Dan pressed ‘Accept’ and asked curiously, ‘Who are you?’

The voice that came from the other end scared the living lights out of him. ‘You little brat, you’re gonna go against me now that you’re fully-fledged?’

Dan almost pissed himself. ‘You’re…’

‘You can’t even recognise my voice?’ The person sounded slightly mad.

Unbeknownst to his four guildmates, Dan’s legs were shaking. ‘Bo… boss?’

Tripurity stared daggers at Mask, the wooden sword on his back trembling.

‘All of you, stay back’, he said as he looked at Drako Yau. ‘Don’t say I’m not giving you a chance. Defeat me and I’ll let you go.’

Another person chimed in and said, ‘Hey hey, Tripurity, don’t forget the guild master’s orders.’

Tripurity shot a cold glance at the person, yet the person didn’t shrink back at all and simply laughed. ‘The guild master’s orders, think over it again.’

‘I know what I’m doing.’ Tripurity ended the conversation; nothing but Mask occupied his mind right now.

‘If you’re really going to fight me in a duel, there’s no need to bring four others with you, is there?’ A speech bubble popped up above Drako Yau’s head, along with a snickering emoji. ‘In the end, you’re just a hitman who follows that person’s orders. A loyal dog.’

‘Argh!’

Drako Yau’s words really struck Tripurity’s nerve.

The next moment, Drako Yau made a move because he could see the formless danger approaching him. He took a light step back and flicked his spear upwards.

Clang!

A wooden sword suddenly appeared before his eyes, but he managed to knock it away as though he could see it coming.

‘You’re not bad.’ Tripurity snickered, totally unbothered by the fact that his attack had been easily repelled. If Mask couldn’t even deal with attacks of this calibre, there was no point in fighting him.

Tripurity made a sword mudra with his hands and pointed at the longsword that had been flicked away by Drako Yau. As if he was controlling the sword with his mudra from afar, the sword spun several circles in the air and nose-dived at its target again.

‘Can you defend against my Art of Sword Manipulation?’

The sword whizzed through the air. It was gaining speed as it morphed into a shadow and repeatedly lunged at Drako Yau, but he always managed to parry it.

‘Interesting, sword manipulation?’

He had heard about sword manipulation from the old geezer before. His master told him that masters who had reached the pinnacle in the art could manipulate swords tens of thousands of metres away and behead the enemy from afar.

Drako Yau seemed like he was barely holding on, but in truth, he was taking the opportunity to observe and analyse Tripurity’s sword manipulation technique.

In the modern era, such ancient swordsmanship no longer existed. Perhaps the game was the only place where he could encounter this legendary art.

The old geezer’s crazy training regimen included defensive techniques against concealed weapons. The flying sword, at least at the moment, was far from posing a threat to him.

Tripurity focused his gaze. The sword abruptly vanished in the air and appeared directly behind Drako Yau immediately afterwards, its tip drilling straight towards his back.

Right before the sword pierced through him, Drako Yau pulled his spear backwards and thrusted it below his armpit to his rear to knock the sword away.

‘That’s not all you’ve got, right? We’ve warmed up well enough.’

Another speech bubble popped up above Drako Yau. He wasn’t so talkative normally, but now that he was seeing the legendary sword manipulation which the old geezer praised so much about right before his eyes, he was going to feast his eyes as much as he could. His provocations were for the sake of learning more.

Tripurity’s complexion wasn’t so good. His Art of Sword Manipulation came from his hidden class Taoist, which he got from an encounter quest. After becoming a Toaist, this was the first time his sword had failed to deal damage to someone; even the elites in Empyreal Spire couldn’t deal with his sword manipulation so easily.

Tripurity was an arrogant one. He sneered and said, ‘Pardon me. Let’s get serious then.’

The wooden sword levitated above his head. He made another mudra with hands and made a battle cry, then separated his hands. The sword above him separated into three swords, and the sword in the centre gradually descended into his palm.

‘Come at me.’

The two wooden swords shot at Drako Yau like arrows!

‘Quick.’

Zephyrwolf and Greenstone were both rushing to the teleportation array, but it still took time to get there. If the enemies were indeed five top players like Drako Yau had told them, the time they needed to arrive was enough for him to die several times. Even Greenstone who never seemed bothered by anything was slightly anxious.

While the two ran, Sasaki also received Drako Yau’s request for reinforcements.

‘Those bastards!’ Sasaki gritted his teeth.

After Sasaki Kojirou gave him a class change and taught him the supreme swordsmanship, Sasaki saw Drako Yau as his benefactor. He realised what he used to pursue was nothing but trash upon learning the profound way of true martial arts.

Sasaki had the soul of a martial artist. As such, by giving him that encounter quest, Drako Yau had given him a new chance at life. He wasn’t going to let anyone hurt his benefactor.

‘Party time?’ When the three arrived at the teleportation array, Idyllic Poet was already there with her cheerful smile. ‘Where ya going?’

Zephyrwolf had the worst temper among them all. He simply said, ‘Urgent stuff, get out of the way.’

Idyllic Poet acted like she was scared and said, ‘Oh my, so scary. Don’t treat me like this.’

Sasaki repressed the urge to rush over to save Drako Yau and told her, ‘‘We’re going to save Mask. He’s getting teamed up on.’

A tint of shock flashed across her eyes. As a smart lady, it didn’t take long for her to guess what was going on.

‘Empyreal Spire?’

The three men stole glances at each other; she really was something to have guessed that much just from knowing someone was ganging up on Drako Yau.

‘Yes, time is of the essence. We don’t have the leisure to be here chatting.’

‘I’ll go with you guys.’

A pair of wooden swords that seemed to contain life within them were constantly attacking Drako Yau, and Tripurity also joined the fray with a wooden sword in hand. Drako Yau was basically dealing with three enemies at the same time, but he had learnt the old geezer’s versatile spearmanship, which was especially potent in such situations.

He waved his spear around, almost creating afterimages along with countless clangs. Just like that, Tripurity couldn’t breach his defences.

Drako Yau appeared to be faring just fine, but he didn’t dare to make a move lightly. After all, there were three others who were ready to pounce at him. If he really had to finish off Tripurity, it was doable even though it would take a bit of effort. What he feared, though, was that the others might swarm him with numbers.

As such, while he was defending against the barrage of attacks going his way, he was silently observing the other three spectators around him.

The person who talked back at Tripurity before the fight was squinting his eyes. The ID above him was ‘Slyfox’.

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