I downed a HP pot quickly and rammed into Tempest Shadow instead of pulling away. Spears had a longer range compared to swords, so I absolutely couldn’t allow him to make distance between us.

One successful elbow strike later, I plunged the Ghost Ice Soul into his chest!

Tempest Shadow’s eyes widened in shock. “This… rhythm... Who… who are you? You… you…”

I said calmly as I watched him, “Tell Candlelight Shadow to come himself if he really wants to test the strength of the best players in Floating Ice City. What’s the point of sending cannon fodder who’ll amount to nothing?”

The light of Ice Ray erupted from my weapon!

Puchi!

Ghost Ice Soul penetrated Tempest Shadow’s body completely, and the Tempest War God, a famous player who was also an entree of last year's CGL Hall of Fame, collapsed to his knees and died under my sword, just like that. Unfortunately, he only dropped a couple of potions.

…...

“That’s it?” Lin Yixin sounded a tad disappointed.

“That’s it.”

“I thought this Tempest Shadow was 19th on the CGL Hall of Fame last year, so why is he so weak? This makes no sense!”

I couldn’t help but smile at her comment. “Yiyi, you shouldn’t believe the CGL Hall of Fame blindly. Let’s put it this way: right now, you are worthy of joining the CGL Hall of Fame yourself. That’s why it’s always better to judge a player’s strength with your own eyes than blindly worshipping the famous players. Back when I was at my peak, there were at most three players in the China server’s Hall of Fame who could threaten me!”

“Oh? Who are they?”

I sucked in a deep breath before replying, “Frivolous Scholar, Lin Fan and Murong Shanshan.”

Lin Yixin muttered enviously, “I want to be a Heavenly King too…”

I immediately dashed her hopes and dreams. “Give it up, that’s not a corner you belong to.”

“You bastard!”

Lin Yixin ranted up a storm on the other side of the call, but physically she couldn’t do anything to me. It was a wonderful feeling!

I gave her a friendly warning. “Take care of yourself, Yiyi. I’m not his only target. He seemed to have found a way to track another player’s coordinates. If that wasn’t revenge for back then and he was just testing me, he must also be gunning for you.”

Lin Yixin said, “It’s fine. He can show his face around me all he wants, it won’t change the fact that he’s going to die under my blade!”

“Haha!”

I ended the call, saved the recording and entered the official forums of the China region. Then, I uploaded the video and titled it: “Tempest Shadow War God” of Dawn City travels to Floating Ice City to challenge “Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand”. Video below!

I didn’t add anything else besides the title and the video. True strength didn’t need excessive boasting and embellishment to be clear for all to see.

In less than ten minutes, the thread had over a thousand replies. The forum moderator even gilded and stickied the thread! Aw, you guys are making me blush!

Replies soon followed:

1st comment: All hail Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand! He hasn’t let down Floating Ice City!

2nd comment: Tempest Shadow must have a lot of free time on his hands. Isn’t Candle Dragon’s main base at Dawn City? Did he come all the way here just to humiliate himself?

3rd comment: I support Tempest Shadow! Candle Dragon is the best! This Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand must’ve cheated somehow. How despicable...

4th comment: Guy above me, what do you get if you drag out the word e? You get an eeeeeeeeeediot!

5th comment: Candle Dragon lost a ton of face this time, haha! Who would’ve thought that the mighty Tempest War God would be defeated so easily? How shameful!

6th comment: Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand is so handsome. Wanna date?

……

There were all kinds of replies, but most of the commenters were in support of me. Candle Dragon was currently the strongest guild in China, so they were arrogant and overbearing toward others. It wasn’t just them, however. When an organization was weak, they would preach humility and respect to others. When they were strong, they would forget themselves and get drunk on their own power. Ironically enough, progress of our civilization hadn't changed this trait of humanity since eld.

That was why Candle Dragon lacked the bearing of the previous top guilds such as Sword & Rose or Snow Moon. They might be dominant in China right now, but their rule was nowhere as kingly.

However, that didn’t mean I wasn’t worried. The fact that Candlelight Shadow had sent Tempest Shadow to challenge Lin Yixin and I meant that we had caught the Martial God’s attention. It wasn’t something either of us needed right now.

Snowy Cathaya, Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls, and Bloody Mercenaries were all in the early stages of development right now. We didn’t have enough professional players as well. If Candle Dragon decided to target us or worse, launch an army across the border, we would be caught in a life and death struggle. No matter how well we fared, it wouldn’t change the fact that we would be at a great disadvantage. We might be wiped out before we ever had a chance to grow.

Candle Dragon became the strongest guild in the China server two years ago, and they had over ten thousand professional players. To quote Candlelight Shadow himself, “Candle Dragon is big, and my generals alone number over a thousand. What do I have to fear in Heavenblessed Continent?”

It was clear what Candlelight Shadow was setting out to do. He wished to unite the China region and call himself the king of China!

“Heh…”

An unconscious smile sprang to my lips as I thought to himself. “So what if you have thousands of generals, Candlelight Shadow? Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls will crush your legend with our own hands!”

……

My heart steeled with determination. I will take revenge against Candle Dragon! I will not relent until I have dismantled Candle Dragon and killed Candlelight Shadow so many times he is forced to delete his account!

I waited for a while, but Tempest Shadow still hadn’t come back to life. He was probably afraid that I would camp his corpse, so I left the area, whispered “Earth Escape” and returned back to his body, watching.

Swhoosh!

Tempest Shadow revived and looked around him for a moment. When he saw that there was nothing, he immediately downed a HP pot and cursed to himself. “Fuck! I underestimated my enemy… but this Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand is ridiculously good. His PvP tactics and combo chains are almost as good as Candlelight Shadow’s. But how is that possible? Since when did Floating Ice City have such a top-tier player? Frivolous Scholar or Lin Fan can’t have made a return… right?”

He thought for a moment before shaking his head. “No, it’s not possible. Lin Fan is over thirty years old now, so it’s unlikely that he'd still retain his old reaction speed. Frivolous Scholar is the person in charge of the Asia Region in Eternal Moon Corporation, so there’s no way that he would participate in his own game and fight for the top spot himself. Maybe…”

Tempest Shadow shuddered. “Maybe Falling Dust has made a comeback??”

A few seconds later, he shook his head. “No, that’s impossible. It would be a miracle if Falling Dust’s managed to turn pro with this severe disability of his, let alone beat me... but who else could it be? Who else was a Heavenly King besides those three?”

Tempest Shadow remained troubled until his HP had returned to full. He then looked toward the west and sucked in a deep breath. “Wind Fantasy, coordinates (27466, 8472). Hmph hmph, here I come! Let’s see if this Floating Ice City really is as dangerous as it seems! Show me what you got, Fruit Knife Goddess!”

I let out a sigh of relief when Tempest Shadow finally vanished into the night. Finally, I could level up in peace, although Lin Yixin might be in a bit of trouble.

I sent her a message: “Yiyi, Tempest Shadow is heading your way right now. You’re at coordinates (27466, 8472) right?”

“Ah?” Lin Yixin looked very surprised. “He actually knows my exact coordinates? You’re the one who told him, weren’t you? Admit it already!”

“Do I look that bored to you?”

“Oh well. He’s free to do what he wants. Worse comes to worst, my name turns a bit redder, that’s all. If someone like you can beat him, then I can too.”

“Don’t come crying to me if you lose, girl!”

“Hmph! I will prove my worth with my own strength!”

I could practically imagine the arrogant look on Lin Yixin’s face. Mm, the shapely breasts, that cute look of defiance. I could stare at her all day if I could.

No, no, I shan’t be overly obsessed with the opposite sex. Time to get back to the grind.

……

It was a pleasure killing undead swordsmen since they gave a ton of EXP and even some items. In just an hour or so, I had gotten three Bronze-grade drops.

Frostbone Handguards (Bronze-grade)

Defense: 39

Strength: +7

Level Requirement: 60

Frostbone Legguards (Bronze-grade)

Defense: 43

Agility: +8

Level Requirement: 60

Frostbone War Boots (Bronze-grade)

Strength: +10

Level Requirement: 60

They were all part of the Frostbone set, and they all fell under the metal armor category. However, the stats they gave were absolutely pitiful. Any melee player who had managed to reach Level 60 at this stage of the game was a top-rate player who probably wouldn’t bother with such shabby equipment. Only ordinary players would buy such a thing, but they wouldn’t reach that level until like half a month later. After all, not everyone had the luck or skill to obtain powerful Dark Steel or Silver–grade equipment!

In fact, most normal players would consider themselves lucky to obtain several Dark Steel–grade items for themselves by the time they made it to Level 60. Silver-grade? A luxury they couldn’t afford. Gold-grade? Who was that, a god?

Mm, I should probably toss these items into the warehouse for now and sell them later.

Suddenly, I heard a beep from the system. Lin Yixin had sent me an URL along with a message: “Look at this, Lu Chen. Don’t forget to praise me~~”

“Ah?”

I was confused until I clicked the link and entered a thread on the official forums. It was created by Lin Yixin herself, and it was titled: “Tempest Shadow War God” of Dawn City travels to Floating Ice City to challenge “Wind Fantasy”. Video below!

I clicked the Play button and watched the video with growing astonishment. As expected, Tempest Shadow tracked down Lin Yixin and sneaked up on her just like he had done to me earlier. He actually brought her low and was about to succeed when Lin Yixin fully committed to using Do Or Die + Extreme Break combo to one-shot the poor bastard with 2900 damage!

I couldn’t help but shake my head. Tempest Shadow must’ve accumulated quite the bad karma during his previous life or something. It was one thing to lose to me, and another to be toyed with by Lin Yixin!

The APM since the start of the battle were recorded in metadata. Both players scored really high in that department.

Tempest Shadow

Average APM: 237

Peak: 312

Lin Yixin

Average APM: 324

Peak: 404

……

Holy shit, 404 APM? It meant that Lin Yixin’s movement, footsteps, attacks, pauses, spell casts and so on combined to form a total of 404 actions per minute! On average, she was performing around 7 actions per second!

Of course, that was just her peak value. In that one moment, Lin Yixin had drastically outperformed her opponent in terms of brain activity.

I looked at my own fight against Tempest Shadow and felt a bit ashamed. During the 27 seconds I fought Tempest Shadow, my average APM was 312, and my peak APM was 397. This meant that I was slightly behind Lin Yixin in terms of brain activity.

That being said, high APM didn’t automatically translate to excellent skill. In VRMMO, there were many incredible players whose APM entered the range of 500 or even 600 for a time, but not one had ever managed to become a true master of the craft. In fact, the two strongest players in the history of Eternal Moon Corporation’s games had never had a peak APM of over 400.

An active brain didn’t translate to correct decisions. I understood that better than anyone.