"OMG, they’re actually going to fight with each other! That’s wonderful, I wasn’t expecting such an exciting show so late into the night, heehee…" Chaos Moon said while pulling my arm, giggling away like she couldn’t wait to revel in the violence. She had a point though. It was boring as shit purchasing Luck and selling equipment at this time of the day, and now, the Martial God of China was suddenly going to fight against the best assassin in China in a BO7. Even better, the duelist would lose a level and a million RMB every loss. How could it not be exciting?

I rose to my feet and unsheathed my Chill of the Nine Provinces. It drew everyone’s attention as a matter of course.

Candlelight Shadow sneered, "What’s wrong? Do you want to fight too?"

I shook my head. "Nah, I’m not interested in your duel. However, I do suggest that the two of you activate sparring mode to avoid losing levels and equipment. Also, you should summon your bards and fully buff yourselves. The fight will be more fair then."

"That’s surprising. You don’t want Candlelight Shadow or me to lose levels?" Farewell Song asked smilingly.

I nodded. "That is correct. That would affect your strength."

Farewell Song smiled wider. "I see. I thought you would be happy to see us lose levels. After all, your chances of winning against the both of us will skyrocket that way…"

I raised my eyebrows. "Is that a joke? Do you really think I need that kind of advantage to defeat you two?"

"Er…"

Farewell Song and Candlelight Shadow’s mouth twitched. They clearly weren't expecting this answer.

Warsky let out a cough before saying, "Alright. This will be a best of 7 duel-to-the-death, and I will be the referee of this match. Give me your bets, and I will pay the winner every time they win a round. Is this fair?"

However, Ye Yuse spoke up warily, "Forget it, uncle. You are Warsky Alliance’s guild leader, Farewell Song’s boss. You can’t promise you won’t be biased toward your player. In my opinion, there is only one person who can act as the referee of this match."

"Who?"

"Lu Chen!"

"Why?"

"Lu Chen’s the vice leader of Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls, and he has no direct conflict of interest in this match. Moreover, the referee must be strong enough to convince both participants that his judgment is fair. Ask yourself if you can beat our Candlelight Shadow or even your own assassin, Farewell Song."

Warsky nearly broke into tears when he heard this. Ye Yuse’s statement was fair though. Despite wielding the Immortal Blade, there was no chance Warsky could beat either Farewell Song or Candlelight Shadow in a best of 7 because his character skills and techniques were both a tad inferior. If superior equipment was all it took to win, shit players like Roaming Dragon would’ve beaten us all already.

……

I licked my lips. "I can be a referee, but I have a request!"

"What?" Candlelight Shadow and Farewell Song asked in unison.

I replied, "I want 100k gold as my referee fee. The two of you can just pay me 50k each…"

"You are such a bastard…" Farewell Song said in a dumbfounded tone.

Candlelight Shadow frowned. "You want us to pay you 50k gold each to referee our match one time? Do you think our gold grows on trees?"

I shrugged. "Look, I was here doing my own thing and selling my equipment until the two of you barged in, scared away all the customers and even asked me to be your referee. Even now, I’m losing time and money just talking to you both. We are all adults here, and adults should know how to empathize with others, right? Therefore, I believe 100k gold is a perfectly fair referee fee. Also, remember that you are both CGL Hall of Famers. You probably don’t want to be known as stingy people, do you?"

Farewell Song grimaced visibly. "I don’t know if we count as stingy, but I’m certain everyone’s going to hear about your vulgarity after today…"

I shrugged again. "It is a fact that I’m abandoning my stall to referee your match right now, so just accept your fate and cough up the dough already…"

Suddenly, Warsky said, "Wait a second. You didn’t even get any costumers, did you? It’s fucking midnight right now!"

"YOU DARE JINX ME!? I CHALLENGE YOU TO A 5 MILLION PER ROUND BEST OF 11 RIGHT HERE AND NOW! COME!"

Warsky trembled. "I was just kidding, don’t take it seriously, please continue…"

……

After accepting 50k gold each from Farewell Song and Candlelight Shadow, everyone except Chaos Moon walked out of the west gate. The reason I left Chaos Moon behind was because Blue Sky Scar and Laughing At The Heavens had abandoned their posts to watch the match, meaning that we had fewer competitors than before. There was only so much Luck in the entire China server, and those numbers wouldn’t replenish until a very long time later. That was why the first 24 hours of the Luck purchase were the most important. When over 80% of the Luck in China was absorbed into the Cities of Heaven, it wouldn’t matter even if we offered a mountain of gold.

By now, the ground outside the city, the walls, the floating rocks and even the trees tall enough to stand on were covered by players. Everyone wanted to watch the match between the Martial God Candlelight Shadow and the apex assassin Farewell Song. It was a classic warrior versus assassin match, but this time the participants were some of the most famous faces of their class. Obviously, the assassins all supported Farewell Song, and the cavalrymen all supported Candlelight Shadow. There were also people who were hoping to learn something from this match and become better at dealing against warriors or assassins. True experts were good at creating new tactics after all.

"Stand back, please. The players will need more space…"

I unsheathed the Chill of the Nine Provinces and did my best to clear out a fighting space for the duo. After I received the bet money from the players, I planted my sword on the ground and shouted, "Alright! Let us begin! First round, start!"

……

The first round lasted 2 minutes and 27 seconds and ended in Candlelight Shadow’s victory.

Despite being chain-stunned by Farewell Song, Candlelight Shadow remained calm and parried three of Farewell Song’s attacks in a row with just 19% HP. Then, he forced Farewell Song to stay still with a Wild Collision and one-shot him with his SSS Rank Ancient Divine Skill, Pangu’s Axe.

The second round lasted 3 minutes and 11 seconds and ended in Farewell Song’s victory.

Candlelight Shadow didn’t have the Divine Energy Points to use Pangu’s Axe this round, so Farewell Song activated Dark God Transformation and baited his opponent into missing an attack with a circular step. As a result, Farewell Song’s recharged enough energy—70 points to be exact—to stun Candlelight Shadow a second time[1]. In the end, Farewell Song was able to kill Candlelight Shadow with just 7% HP left. It was a close victory.

On a related note, Candlelight Shadow hadn’t ridden his Fire Dragon from the start until the end. Otherwise, Farewell Song’s chances of winning were 0%. It was an unwritten rule that everyone understood, so there were no complaints about Candlelight Shadow holding back or something.

Candlelight Shadow proceeded to win the third and the fourth rounds. He was able to counter Farewell Song’s circular step tactic perfectly by exploiting the 0.2-second delay that occurred when dragging one’s sword.

The fifth and sixth round went in Farewell Song’s favor. He had brought out two completely different playstyles and caught Candlelight Shadow off-guard both times.

In the end, the match ended in Candlelight Shadow’s victory. The seventh round was a duel of parries, and Farewell Song ultimately lacked just a tiny bit of Strength to survive Candlelight Shadow’s Ultimate Strength Break. Candlelight Shadow defended his honor as the Martial God with a final score of 4:3, and Farewell Song showed off to everyone how to beat a top-tier cavalryman as an assassin. In summary, an assassin should always seek to drag out the battle, attack from concealment, whittle down the cavalryman’s HP bit by bit, and launch a decisive assault when their HP was below 40%. If the assassin managed to do all the above, then they should naturally walk away as the victor.

……

"In the end, I still lost a million gold…" Farewell Song sighed before looking at Warsky. "Do me a favor and pay the bet for me, okay Warsky…"

Warsky’s eyes widened. "What the fuck? Why should I pay for your loss?"

Farewell Song grinned. "You were the one who got challenged, remember? I’m just the unfortunate guy who had to take a bullet for you. Also, how much money do you think you would’ve lost if you had to fight Candlelight Shadow 1v1? I saved you 6 million, man..."

Warsky felt like dying. "Come on, that’s not fair…"

"If you don’t pay the bet for me, I’ll have no choice but to leave the guild and work for Ancient Sword…"

"Fine…"

"That’s a good bro if I’ve ever seen one!"

"..."

At the end of the best of 7, the image of a top expert in nearly every spectator’s heart was solidified. They are strong, agile, decisive, courageous and, above all else, vulgar!

……

On a more serious note, the match might have ended, but the war between Warsky Alliance and Candle Dragon had just begun. It also marked the complete breakdown of relations between the Top 3 guilds of China and more wars in the future. The good news was that the Northern Alliance was trending toward building stability after the emergence of Cities of Heaven. I heard that Hero Alliance was the one who won the Gold City, and knowing Vienna’s Sorrow, the guy wouldn’t act until his Gold Cavalry was fully ready. Unsurprisingly, India’s Cyan Beast was the one who won their Gold City. The true battle was just beginning.

After that, I went to bed straight away to adjust my biological clock back to normal. Dad and third uncle would be visiting us in a couple of days, so I wanted to be in the best possible mental state. It wouldn’t do to make him worry about me again.

The third day at 8 am sharp, I ate breakfast and went online.

Swhoosh!

After I appeared in Silver City, I went to the territory hall immediately to check on our latest Luck total. It was great. After all the blood, sweat and tears, we managed to gather a total of 5998 Luck. It meant that 60k of our mages would soon own the skill "Heart of the Holy Mages" and experience a 25% boost to their magic power scaling, 50% to their max HP and Magic Shield durability. And what wonderful numbers they are! The 25% increase in magic power scaling was especially good. It wasn’t as simple as a 25% boost to attack power. It was a 25% boost to the base number of a player’s Magic Attack. In the future, it could be stacked infinitely to completely different effects as well! [2]

Swhoosh!

A beautiful figure entered the territory hall. It was none other than my beautiful guild leader, He Yi.

"You’re here, Eve."

"Mn!"

He Yi walked up to me and checked the surroundings. Then, she pecked me on the cheek and smiled at me. "No one’s here. Maybe…"

Suddenly, another beautiful woman appeared gradually out of thin air. She was Beiming Xue. "Actually, I’m here. I was testing out the effects of my invisibility cloak, and it looks like it fooled even big bro…"

He Yi turned as red as an apple. I shrugged. "I didn’t have Dark Pupils turned on, so…"

Beiming Xue: "Hmph…"

……

While checking the city’s control interface, I asked, "How goes the Heart of the Holy Mages training, Eve?"

She answered, "We’ve selected 40000 high-level mages from the main guild and completed all their training. We’re currently in the middle of selecting another 20000 high-level mages from Bloody Mercenaries and the other subguilds. We made sure to train players who are Level 215 and know God Devil Break at least because it’s incredibly wasteful otherwise… Also, we trained around 200 players from other guilds…"

"Wait, what? Other guilds?!!"

1. T/N: this was mentioned ages ago, but assassins don’t use mana when using skills. Instead they have a fixed amount of Energy that they use to unleash and execute a series of powerful combos. In this case, it looks like Farewell Song has some sort of skill o that recharges his Energy when he successfully dodges an attack.

2. Author’s Note: those who don’t understand the difference should consult their math teacher… E/N: Pot calling the kettle black… Basically this is not like Killer God Formation, where Gui Guzi gives 275% boost instead of 250%. It boosts the base which is later multiplied by all these buffs.