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.9 - He's already cornered against the wall? That was quick!

translator: xiin

editors: alamerysl & BlueBug

The night deepened after Zi period; there was not even the tiniest bit of candlelight in the instance. Someone pulled a candle out of their backpack and it lit up, but it was only then that they discovered that each candle's illumination could only encompass three people, and the area covered did not get any bigger even if two people with candles were brought together.

Xue Ling had known about this plot point beforehand. He spoke as he opened his backpack, "Me, Thousand Miles Without Pause, and Su Xuanyan will take the lead. You guys can group up in twos or threes behind us. Remember not to get separated from the group and end up by yourself."

"Ok." Everyone unhesitatingly agreed. This made the undecided Listening to Rain on a Bridge feel aggrieved for a moment, as there was no way for him to say anything else. He could only quietly make a sound of agreement.

According to the original plot, they were indeed supposed to group up into twos and threes, but because it was Listening to the Rain on a Bridge's first day with the team, and he was not familiar with the others, he could only join up with Thousand Miles Without Pause. Later, when everyone was unexpectedly separated, it became the first time that the two of them were alone together.

Today, Xue Ling stole the opportunity to speak first, and had already completely destroyed the original setup. Xue Ling believed that he had done enough preparation that they would not become separated from each other in the instance even if anything unexpected came up.

The first stage of the instance involved many human faces floating in mid-air They had illusionary bodies, and did not seem to be drifting above the ground, but the faces on top of their bodies were extremely realistic.

Listening to Rain on a Bridge's voice wavered; after all, this kind of scene was really frightening. "I've seen these faces before! These faces were all on the portraits that the master guard showed me!"

Everyone gathered together into a group that was headed by Xue Ling, Thousand Miles Without Pause, and Su Xuanyan. They arranged themselves into an inverted V formation - similar to the flying patterns of wild geese - as they moved forward. This formation maximized the candlelight range and allowed them to see the monsters in front of them clearly.

But that was limited to things directly in front of them. The large area beyond was still covered in darkness.

The map of the instance was locked, and the only things they could see were the monsters in the area they had illuminated. They had to use their own judgement and rely on themselves in order to move forward. If the two players they had picked up in the world channel had been weak, the team might not have been able to pass this stage by solely relying on Thousand Miles Without Pause's aid. After all, they still had a low levelled player that specialized in dragging people down.

But Xue Ling and Su Xuanyuan were not to be trifled with. Between the two of them, one had a sword in his hand, while the other emitted thick black fog from his palm; their auras spreading to cover the areas that their eyes could not reach and gaining a complete grasp of the situation in the cave.

Thousand Miles Without Pause was a swordsman who used a longsword. He looked very imposing when he wielded it, as though able to solve everything through pure brute force. After all, he was the protagonist gong, and he would definitely have cheats of his own. His sword always found its mark, unbridled and frenzied, each stroke able to bring up the wind and overflowing with an absolutely domineering aura. It made people want to kneel at his feet and beg loudly to be carried by this big thigh. He had also chosen to walk a similar path to Xue Ling, combining martial prowess with cultivation abilities, which gave him an extremely strong combat ability.

With a powerhouse like him in charge of the frontal assault and Xue Ling and Su Xuanyan responsible for the other two sides, even though the monsters looked very strange, it was not a difficult task to deal with them.

Those faces belonged to the people of Zou City, only they had all been peeled off and fixed onto these ghosts.

Whenever Xue Ling's sword swung, the air seemed to almost freeze in its wake. Thousand Miles Without Pause looked over in surprise, but did not examine it too deeply. Things like weapons, in a sense, were still considered private. They were not familiar with each other, and it was better not to casually ask too much.Su Xuanyan did not have a so-called 'weapon'. He simply raised his hand and waved, and the black fog became his greatest weapon. His actions and moves were particularly compatible with the devil's path, and no matter how one looked at it, it did not seem like the means of a righteous path cultivator. Xue Ling had already teamed up with him for a while now, and no longer questioned his means after having seen them so frequently. Instead, it was Listening to Rain on a Bridge who had always been hiding behind them who looked curiously at the three people who were clearing the way.

He was a person who had been accepted as a disciple by Thousand Miles Without Pause's master as a result of serendipity, and had discovered to his surprise that his martial-brother was a great god who was number one in the rankings. As a gay person who had transmigrated into this world and had read too many gaming web novels involving pairings between great gods and nobodies, Listening to Rain on a Bridge felt that this was the road he needed to follow in order to reach the peak of his life.

Unexpectedly, before he could even start hugging this big thigh, someone showed up out of the blue to steal his place.

He didn't know where this person called Xue Ling came from. He was dressed all in white and resembled a white lotus. Nevermind that his tone and words were cold, he was even indifferent when interacting with the great god. He had glamorous, seductive looks, but acted like an icy, cold beauty, and he had probably adjusted his looks to appear more attractive. Listening to Rain on a Bridge was rather indignant that Xue Ling had stolen his opportunity, and in his heart, he had already labelled Xue Ling as some rubbish cannon fodder in the way of his own love story.

Although Xue Ling was indeed here to break up the main couple, if he knew what Listening to Rain on a Bridge had labelled him in his mind, he would definitely kill the boy all the way back to the novice village, smiling as he did so, and make it so that he wouldn't be able to play this game for the rest of his life.

The first boss of this instance was a disgusting sphere that was made up of all the previous faces grouped together. As those faces breathed, the sphere would also contract and expand slightly. When the boss was aggro-ed, the faces would begin to glow and chant. Every word that they spoke would fly out as a separate entity and hit whoever had the highest damage output.

It was during times like these that having a tank became very important. Fortunately, Thousand Miles Without Pause was very skilled, and was very good at taking damage and keeping aggro. In addition, Xue Ling and Su Xuanyan's cooperation was rather smooth, so they did not waste much time fighting the first boss.

The monsters in the second stage were zombies with no faces. From the clothing they were still wearing, they were likely the bodies of the missing people from Zou City. The team had already cut their faces into many parts during the first stage.

They had been willing to kill the creepy faces; these monsters didn't have faces and naturally weren't a threat. Clearing out the rest of the instance went by smoothly. This was actually a miniature Hundred Ghosts Night Parade instance, only the monsters inside were all low levelled mobs, and did not amount for much even within the Night Parade. Their hobbies were very wicked, liking to trick human beings into their territory late at night, peel off their skin while they were still alive and listen to their victim's cries of fear and pain.

Clearing such a disgusting instance once already made people uncomfortable, but the team completed it three times, becoming the team that occupied the top three spots on the instance rankings, and actually managed to farm the guild order.

The announcement rang out three times in the world channel. Thousand Miles Without Pause could be considered to have made some big waves with his name, and the regular players were all discussing and wondering which players had been recruited by that team recruitment post earlier for them to be able to farm a guild order in such a short time. Based on the game's level of difficulty, how much luck did they have to have in order to get the guild order after only completing the instance three times?!

While everyone was surprised and gossiping, the team that was at the center of the discussion was just preparing to disperse. Other than the guild order, all the other spoils had been divided according to damage output. Nobody spoke up when Listening to Rain on a Bridge, as a low-levelled player only received some money that could be considered compensation for finding the instance, and not much else.

Before leaving, Thousand Miles Without Pause expressed that he wanted to add Xue Ling as a friend. Xue Ling hesitated for a moment before nodding, adding, "You can look for me if there are any new instances in the future."

He could be considered a solo player, and even counting the man, there was only two of them. He was too lazy to manage his own network of contacts in order to build a team, and it seemed that the man, other than being interested in him, was only interested in money. Asking him to pull together a team would be forcing him to do something he didn't want to do, so Xue Ling wanted to keep Thousand Miles Without Pause and his team as a backup plan.

"Of course." A strong player like Xue Ling would definitely make clearing quests more efficient, and his personality was good; Thousand Miles Without Pause would accept someone like him even if he were less attractive, let alone Xue Ling who was so pleasing to the eyes. If they ever encountered another instance as disgusting as that one, they only needed to look at him every time they had had enough of the monsters. They would definitely feel like the world was a wonderful place, and the team's morale would go up. "I'll definitely remember your words."

Xue Ling nodded once and said goodbye to the members of the team. He ignored Su Xuanyan who was still standing to one side, turned, and straightforwardly teleported away. After he left, the party channel that had been quiet the entire time while its members held their breath and only listened to commands, immediately blew up instead of disbanding.

[ Corrupted Bamboo: Oooooh!!! Sure enough, it really was the top beauty ahhhhhh!!! I couldn't believe it when he applied to join the team earlier!!! It really was the Snow Beauty!! He even wants to form a fixed team with us!!! I must be dreaming!! ]

[ cholera: He's really as cold as the rumours say. He deserves to be the number one beauty in Jiuzhou (:3)∠] A snow lotus on a high mountain peak that can't be played with and can only admired from afar!!! ]

[ Eleven Ghosts: The beauty's fighting power is so high, and he's so fierce when he fights. But even so, he's so beautiful. Heaven knows how difficult it was to suppress the fact that I desperately wanted to lick him the whole way! ][ Unnamed: He's really so beautiful that everyone's captivated by him! Boss, you were next to him for so long just now! Did you get mesmerized? I was standing further away, but I still felt that he was so bright, it was difficult to keep my eyes open. ]

[ Meow Meow: (= w=) You idiots, don't act like we're all dogs that only care about other people's looks. ]

[ Dancing Sleeves: It's not just about his looks! He's a big god that can stand beside our boss on the rankings. The boss levels up so quickly because he usually takes us with him when he levels, which is why he's rising up so fast. Is this Snow Beauty on drugs? He has constantly been able to keep up, and if it wasn't for the fact that our boss' name is earlier in the alphabet, he would be pressing down on top of the boss by now. ]

[ Eleven Ghosts: Riding position? (/w) I like~ ]

[ Listening to Rain on a Bridge: …You guys are saying that the person just now is really amazing? ]

He only knew that Thousand Miles Without Pause was the great god at the top of the rankings because other disciples from their sect had lamented about it to him when they discovered he was martial-brothers with Thousand Miles Without Pause. Currently, he still hadn't taken a proper look at the rankings, so he hadn't known that the person just now was an expert who could compete with Thousand Miles Without Pause…

Did he make a mistake? Was this not a story about a silly and sweet little boy who transmigrated into a new world and latched onto a big thigh and had a smooth sailing life afterwards? Was this actually a story about a relationship between two powerful characters who then got together and swept through the world?

Listening to Rain on a Bridge's expression was uneasy. He definitely did not want to have transmigrated from so far away just to serve as someone else's supporting character. Back then when he had squeezed out the other soul that occupied this body, he had sworn that he would definitely live well, and the best and strongest person would be his. Nobody else was allowed to steal him away.

[ Meow Meow Σ(っ°Д°;)っ Little martial-brother, did you never look at the rankings?! That is the Ten Thousand Sword Sect's direct line inheritor, Lord Wuzheng's disciple, and also a god who has always been competing for the first place, labelled as the number one beauty, Xue Ling! ]

If Xue Ling learned that he now had so many titles in front of his name, his face would probably be full of disbelief.

[ Listening to Rain on a Bridge: I haven't looked yet, but even from just now, I can guess that he's really amazing. ]

[ Meow Meow: Right! I also feel that he's super amazing. Why don't you suggest to your impossibly severe and serious-faced martial-brother that he should go and chase him. If you have such a beautiful person as your sister-in-law, you'll definitely be super lucky. ]

[ Listening to Rain on a Bridge: Ha-ha. ]

[ Su Xuanyan: ^_^ ]

[ cholera:…??? Something strange just mixed in. ]

[ Corrupted Bamboo: (lll￢w￢.) Er. It seems that Mister Su still hasn't left the group? ]

[ Su Xuanyan: ^_^ ]

[ Meow Meow: Why do I suddenly feel like I'm getting cold all over… ]

[ Thousand Miles Without Pause: Let's disband. Everyone go and do their own quests. Little Bridge, I'll take you to level up. ]

[ Listening to Rain on a Bridge: No need, I'll go myself. ]

If he needed to be outstanding in order to keep up with Thousand Miles Without Pause, he could level up alone, and slowly catch up by himself. He would confess to him on the day his level had caught up to his on the rankings.

Thousand Miles Without Pause did not try too hard to make him stay. Originally, he had only brought him along because his master had asked him to, and now that the other party had refused, he naturally would not have any intention of trying again.

Su Xuanyan slowly withdrew from the team and opened a transmission array. He appeared beside Xue Ling, reached out and grabbed the man who was currently wiping his sword, and directly pressed him up against the wall.

System: … He's already cornered against the wall? That was quick!

kinda left it on a cliffie here.. but at least you guys know what to look forward to in the next chapter cough blue balls cough