Chương 153: B3 Chapter 9 - Trash Talk

VeilShot was often called The Hawk both by his fans and his haters. The former used it to refer to his eyes and sharp senses—because despite the constant drama and toxicity, VeilShot was the undisputed best ranger player of the game. His haters used "The Hawk" to refer to his nose, which was apparently the largest thing since the invention of the village update in that one game. That was a clear exaggeration. I'd even say VeilShot was good looking.

Three girls followed and paused behind him as he faced us, all younger than him. He was in his mid-thirties, still with a perfect hairline, complemented by a brown coat of the same color. He had a slight Turkish accent, but I understood his words easily enough. Much weirder was the tray of food he'd picked. His plate was loaded with four steaks, no sauce, and not a single source of carbs, trusting a large pint of milk to provide all other nutrients. He snorted, then sat down.

Veyra and I sat on a table for two, but that didn't stop him from getting to the next table beside us, close enough to talk. The three girls took seats at the same table.

"Funny how out in private, you're just wondering who'll eliminate you," VeilShot said. Veyra glanced at me with the " Do we have to talk to this guy?" look. I returned an exaggerated eye-roll to her, while VeilShot waited for an answer. I said, "Dragrath beat you up pretty bad outside the castle, huh?" His brow twitched.

"He's hyped for a reason. You're hyped for a publicity stunt. I get it, you're still young, you want popularity. Joining this as a duo was a mistake, though." I shrugged at him and kept eating, saying nothing. Veyra did the same, sipping her smoothie. VeilShot snorted and turned to his three fangirls.

"Should I knock them out solo? Beat the stunt with an even bigger publicity stunt." He turned back to us.

"If we come as a full team of five, you can always play the victim card."

"We're literally eating food right now, bro," I said.

"You'll need to eat a lot more to get through the qualifiers," he said at Veyra's smoothie.

"Alright, that's enough," I said as I stood, grabbing my tray. The moment I showed an intention to leave, Veyra unlocked the wheels with a click. She placed the smoothie to a cup holder on her wheelchair, and wheeled herself out. She moved on her own, to an unoccupied table in another corner, where she wouldn't see him.

"My god," she said, brows wrinkled.

"Who does he think he is? Isn't he like thirty-eight years old? This guy is pushing forty and acts like that?!" I sat with an amused smile.

"And what's with his diet?" Veyra continued.

"He eats like he's trying to get cows extinct, or what? Why does he have three girls with him?!"

"They all looked pretty embarrassed to me," I said. Veyra held a hand over her face, sighing.

"I swear, if we lose to him…" She raised her head at me.

"I might need to practice a bit tonight. I can't go outside anymore if he knocks us out." I laughed, though it looked like Veyra was serious.

"Back to practice right away?" I asked.

"Yeah. I still need to get better at dual-casting. Let's crush tomorrow."

Unlike Veyra, I didn't feel like there was anything I could practice at the last minute. I was confident I could outplay every opponent in the tournament, including VeilShot. More so, I was worried about the sheer difference in numbers in a two V five. Stat differences had already been a problem in two V threes. Five opponents was a whole new weight class. My items really had to be optimized to their absolute best.

The current version looked like this: Character Name: Assassin Guild: Solo Mage Character Level: 379 Progress To Levelup: 20, 856/187, 399, 999 Experience Class: Assassin Stats: Health: 38, 389/38, 389 Mana: 6, 000/6, 000 Attack Force: 5, 721 Critical Strike Chance: 15% Spell Power: 70 Defence: 300 Total Resistances Combined: 300 Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Monster Avoidance: 30% Class Skills (Active): Thrust, Swing, Throw, Dodge, Stealth (Level 10), Conceal Footsteps, Shadow Dash, Afterimage, Eavesdrop, Eviscerate (Level 58) Class Skills (Passive): Lightweight Weapon Proficiency (Level 48), Dagger Proficiency (Level 97), Vital Strike (Level 5) Footwear: Boots Of The Unseen Veil (Legendary, Unique Event Item) +200 Defence +150 Attack Force Unseen Veil (Passive): The cooldown of dash abilities is 15% lower.

Critical Veil (Passive): After exiting a dashing ability, the next melee attack will deal 20% more damage. SoulShadow's boots had become a staple ever since I'd gotten them. I didn't see a world in which I could ever get rid of them. They were honestly a contender to upgrade to mythics if I ever got another evolution stone. Ring Slot One: Enna's Protection (Epic) +4000 Maximum Health +50% Passive Health Recovery Enna's Protection (Passive): Healing effects are 20% more potent on you. This ring, though…

I couldn't say the same. It was the same one I'd worn to Worlds as a placeholder. At the time, I'd justified it by saying I needed more health, but now that I was well over level three hundred, the passive health I got from levels slowly made the four thousand extra irrelevant. The ring could honestly be called garbage.

Ring Slot Two: Lost Ring Of Edda (Epic, Unique Event Item) +5000 Maximum Mana +100 Attack Force Cry Of The Abandoned Phoenix (Active, Conditional): Lost Ring Of Edda contains the dying breaths of a young heartbroken phoenix. Critical Strikes have a small chance to take effect twice. The second critical strike does 50% reduced fire damage. This one had held up much better, and I still gained occasional value from it to this day.

Less so without a luck multiplier in any of my items, but when it procced, the damage was good. The devs had lessened the size of the fire effects, making it less noticeable, but I still considered this decent. It was an epic, though, and replacing it with a legendary could be a decent idea. Accessory: Pin Of The Brawler (Epic) +100 Defence +100 Elemental Resistances The Brawler's Blade (Passive): Exchanging blades consumes 30% less stamina. Lightweight weapons withstand force 30% more efficiently.

That one I snatched from the auction a month ago, a bit after I stopped using The Immortal for perfect blocks. The passive effect allowed me to actually toss my daggers at heavier swords without just being crushed. Exchanges with heavier weapons still left me at a disadvantage, but the ring let me diminish that a little. It was quite perfect for my playstyle, the only caveat being that the ring was an epic, thus providing less stats than I would have liked.

As crazy as it sounded, I would have considered upgrading that to a mythic as well. Gloves: King Killer Gloves (Legendary) +18% Critical Strike Multiplier +5 to Dagger Proficiency +500 Attack Force That one was purely a stat-stick item, replacing my old gloves since the synergy with Sablethorn to stack defence wasn't in use anymore.

The King Killers were one of the most heavily nerfed items in the game—the crit multiplier used to be at thirty percent, then twenty, going all the way down to eighteen—but I still thought it was worth buying. Critical strike multiplier was different from a pure damage addition. As the name implied, the gloves multiplied the existing critical strike damage percentage I already had. That meant, [Eviscerate] would be eighteen percent more efficient.

Weapon Slot One: Sickle Of The Soul Harvester (Mythic) +2500 Attack Power +10% Attack Power +500 Pure Defence Penetration +15% Critical Strike Chance +250% Critical Strike Damage Haunt (Passive): Attacks haunt enemies with Dark Magic, dealing an additional 10% damage to the inflicted attack over 15 seconds. If Haunt is already active when another attack lands, the bonus damage increases by 10%, up to 100%. Haunt fully ignores defence and elemental resistances.

Harvester Of Souls (Passive): When Haunt's life drain exceeds the target's remaining health, landing a critical strike activates Harvester Of Souls. Execute target and gain 25% of target's All Stats for 30 seconds. Weapon Slot Two: Arcana Mimic Dagger (Legendary, Unique Event Item) +1100 Attack Power Stat Mimic (Passive): When dual wielding weapons, Arcana Mimic Dagger copies 5% of the stats from the primary weapon.

Arcana Mimic (Passive): When dual wielding weapons, Arcana Mimic Dagger copies all abilities from the primary weapon at 75% efficiency. Copied abilities: Haunt, Harvester Of Souls. My weapons combo, with the dagger gifted from Veyra. Being a mythic item, the sickle was hard to replace. [Haunt] wasn't my favorite thing in the world, but the execute was strong by all metrics. The ten percent increase to attack power was also insane.

Headwear: Mask Of Soul Protection (Legendary) +200 All Elemental Resistances +5% Maximum Health +5% Health Recovery Soul Protection (Passive): If the user's health falls by more than 30% in under three seconds, activate Soul Protection for ten seconds, resisting all further damage by 10%. Armor: Cloak Of Oblique Transcendence (Epic, Unique) 500 Attack Force 30% Monster Avoidance 70 Spell Power Blood Desperation (Active, Conditional): Straight attacks are 100% more effective when below 40% health.

Status: Inactive Hood (Passive, Conditional): All stats increased if the hood is up. This occupies the headpiece slot. Status: Active. And that was my current set. I was ready to replace most items, even my cloak. All together, it was far from perfect, but still conventionally good. Players couldn't one-shot me unless they landed a perfect ultimate. My attack force stat was really good, my crit damage was fantastic, and my sickle shredded through armor. It could always be better…

Problem was, finding improvements this deep into the end-game was tough. My playstyle was quite specialized. The perfect dream items didn't even exist right now, and investing millions into mythic enhancement stones was far from ideal, especially with Wonderwind two coming. Well, this set is good enough to defeat VeilShot, I thought, and with that, I comfortably fell asleep in the same bed with Veyra, fully ready for the group stage tomorrow.