Chương 167: Chapter 163

Wade's plan was all a series of mechanical steps that had to be done in precise order, with good timing. All of it abusing their combined boons and equipment. In his defense, at least this cascading chain of bullshit didn't involve grenades. Yet. Fortunately, none of these steps were complicated. Step one: Wade gave a slight skip, and flung the tiny bits of red liquid off his glove, onto Leon. Droplet of inevitable doom, launched mid-skip at the Russian.

Step two: He then dove deep for his limited mana reserve and pulled a small chunk out, cycling it through to his legs and feet where he gave himself the muscle enhancement buff. He'd put all his points into intelligence, he was going to use all those points. Step three: While trusting his intelligence points to handle the mental load, he pulled out his glock and leaped straight up into the air. The mana cycling through his legs powered him up and made it more like he'd jumped off a trampoline.

Magical leaps were high, but not the real height Wade was after. What it was, was high enough to jump over Leon's head and start coming straight down at him. Leon moved into action, aiming his hands up like he was about to set his volleyball team for a spike, with Wade as the a giant malformed volleyball. And all of this lead to the glorious step four: Leon slapped his hands up, and hit Wade in the boot. At that point the entire loony toon chain of bullshit that Wade had prepared really started.

He was launched straight into the air as Leon's knockback boon triggered. And then he froze right in the middle of the air, near the very ceiling of the cave, rooted in place from Leon's current random boon. From there Wade had a full view below at the gawking targets. He aimed his glock straight down at the elf, who no longer had a single thing to hide behind, and fired. He wasn't worried about instantly killing the elf. For one, he didn't have the right combo for front-loaded damage.

For two, he knew Azdrians warding spells would take bullets without issue. The high elf took the bullet hit with a swear, and as expected, a magical enchanted wards triggered and blocked it, eating up a small chunk of the Elf's mana reserves in exchange. That was fine. Wade didn't care if his gunshots didn't instantly kill someone. Because he had the System. Above the high elf's health bar, the skyviper archer debuff popped into existence. The real meat and potatoes of Wade's current strategy.

Wade would have prefered if the skyviper damage could affect the elf directly inside the suit as that would grind the fight to a quick ceasefire and begging for life real fast - but unfortunately the System applied it to the mana shield itself, or at least something was taking the damage instead of the Elf's health bar. Wade delivered another set of shots, stacking that buff upwards for more time and damage per hit, still rooted in place high up in the air, in the world's longest jumping attack.

The Elf's face went from mild confusion on what was going on, to concern, to outright panic, likely as he felt his mana shield rapidly burning through his mana supply.

"Guards! Arrows on the demon! Kalan, handle the monkey!" He ordered, taking a few steps backwards, rapidly cycling through the orders. With stoic resignation, all four of the demons turned and started their work. One took a clearly well drilled defensive position at the vanguard. Two behind him brought out bows and arrows, heads looking up to track Wade where he remained an easy unmoving target above them all. And the last one started sprinting straight for Leon, blade drawn. Or at least attempted to.

There was a gunshot and the one coming after the Russian was blown straight backwards, mana shield triggering as he skidded over the ground, keeping his suit from taking the damage. Another side effect of Wade's circus of edge-case chaos. This one was all about the droplet of inevitable doom he'd flicked at Leon earlier. He could personally decide who he considered an enemy, and the game rules said nothing about targeting an ally like Leon and deciding he was an enemy for a few seconds.

The potion of inevitable doom had counted down and then done true damage to Leon. Which meant damage to his health bar in specific. It kept his acranaught suit whole and undamaged, while still triggering the knockback boon he relied on. It probably stung a little bit to the Russian, but this was a half-droplet from a slightly damp plastic nozzle, which didn't even do a full percentage of damage. But Wade's little skip did trigger the skyviper debuff through it.

And then would continue to do a quarter of damage each second, constantly refreshing Leon's knockback boon, same as it had with the pebble trick they'd first done all the way back in round one. The knockback that did not specify it needed to be a melee weapon hit. The elf gawked, but quickly rethought his strategy.

"Urlus, Qathim, on the monkey!" The two demons about to start shooting a well prepared Wade who had magical warding up and ready, and turned their bows back down to aim at Leon. One of the archer demons went flying backwards as Leon's glock aimed and fired way faster than medieval bows in bulky suits could. The second got sent backwards a moment later, equally too late to get a bead on Leon.

"Belay defense, distract!" The elf adjusted his strategy, pointing at the vanguard. Then his eyes snapped to the last guard.

"Ignore the flying demon, take out the monkey!" The vanguard demon ahead gave a shrug and started racing for Leon. The one aiming for Wade turned his aim down and started tracking for Leon. Leon aimed and the vanguard demon was knocked straight backwards with another crack of on-target gunfire. But Wade's ex-attacker got his arrow off. That could have been a problem. Could have. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. But wasn't.

In between gunshots, Leon had jogged over to the wagon, and with his poinst in strength, had no problem whatsoever pulling out the copper lootbox they'd been faithfully dragging along with one hand. And then he hunkered behind it, shooting his glock from his protected position. As far as Wade knew, runic enchantments were superior to free magic enchantments in every single possible way except for one - free magic could linger and didn't need someone actively there pushing the pedals. The enemy arrow was enchanted.

It sailed straight for the Russian, and detonated in a net of lighting. But the copper lootbox was goddamn indestructible. So it didn't give a single flying fuck about whatever poor free magic enchantment had been stuffed inside the arrowhead. Wade's ex-attacker planned another shot, but that's where Eri got into the mix.

While everyone had started moving around screaming left and right about monkies and demons defying the laws of physics and proper magic, Eri had gotten up and sneaked around by the wallside, unnoticed in the same way a discarded hammer wouldn't be seen. He'd been waiting for the demons to all get tunnel visioned on the duo ahead. And now, only the fourth demon remained anywhere near the Elf, knocking another arrow to shoot Leon with.

The skeleton sprinted off to the side of the walls, and then dove after his target, jaw clicking in maniacal glee. He looked like he wanted nothing more than a high elf shishkabob. And the High Elf seemed to understand the animosity almost immediately given his frantic backpeddling.

"Oh shit." Wade hissed, realizing he'd fucked up. The plan was fine, that wasn't the fuckup. The mana shield getting eaten away and the implied threat of a bullet puncturing his suit would make even this prissy asshole call off his guards and be real open to negotiations. Like 'surrender' and 'free your guards' And if there was issues, Eri would be there to smooth things out. The problem was that he'd sent the wrong man for the job. Or rather, a far too qualified man for the job.

Because the High Elf's panic was completely correct. Eri had locked in on the word 'slave master' and very clearly had his to-do list written out as murder first, murder second, and maybe murder third if he had spare time, as a treat. Problem: If the Elf was killed, there was zero ways to get the rest of the demons off the hook.

"ERI! DON-" The skeleton ran headfirst into the archer demon who'd dropped his bow and arrow, trying to keep himself between the feral skeleton and his boss. He didn't have time to get a full blade out, so instead pulled a small dagger out by his glove, which was doing absolutely nothing against Eri. The only reason Eri didn't run him over was that the skeleton was deliberately trying not to kill or cut the demon, and just wanted to get past to the tasty High Elf slave master hiding on the other end.

Said High Elf was busy giving a high pitched shriek, taking a few more steps backwards behind his guards.

"Guards! Defend me!" But the rest of the guards were still struggling to get up, and those who did were getting knockbacked with precise glock fire from the copper lootbox bunker with a gun aiming off the right side.

"He's going to deploy them early." Bael said over Wade's strapped on phone.

"Think fast." The words might have been cryptic, but Wade knew enough about what was going on down there to understand what that meant. The four demons were Deathguards - demons contracted to pull their arcanaught suit off at any point in order to go all out with mana. And then die in a few hours from poisoning, or possibly minutes depending on how far they tapped into spells for it. It was the worst possible contract a demon could sign, but desperation was desperation.

And it generally meant there was more than their own life at stake. But Deathguards were one-time-uses. Once the suit was off, that was it, the demon was going to die, while the scouting mission might still have a good half day left in it. The High Elf wouldn't want to waste his Deathguards on what should have been a single demon summoned by a single monkey. And now he was spooked enough he very well might be about to do that.

The Skyviper archer was still eating away the shield, and so long as it was there, Wade couldn't start threating to end this guy's life in one shot. But oh boy would Eri chew him up if he got past the desperate bodyguard. The System itself knew it was going to be a cakewalk given Eri's massive level while the elf remained weaker than even that SAS guy Illy had talked about. Wade needed a quick plan C before Eri broke through or the Deathguards were fully mobilized. Shit shit shi-"Yinaran!"

The Elf screamed out, one finger pointed at the archer.

"Execute Deathgu- what?" You have applied Market's Language Blessing on Level 14 High Elf. It was done. The curse had been applied. Wade took a breath, held both hands out as if a prophet from on high, and opened his mouth. Words of absolute unholy blasphemy tumbled forth into the world. Words of darkness, insanity, and degeneracy. And no magical wards could protect the High Elf from the madness that lay within the internet. Knowledge flooded through as THE GAME followed the rules as written. All comprehension.

All at once. All four demons heard nothing but gibberish from the strange arcanaught still hovering in midair far above them. The High Elf on the other hand fumbled backwards on the ground, his shield flickered dead as his focus abruptly ended. He tried rolling over on his stomach, too stunned to really understand what was going on. Eri gnashed his teeth, trying one more time to get past the demon holding him off. The Elf was right there, in stabbing range. Plus his target had gone basically limp.

All the elf needed was just a quick little poke of a sharp sword, and Eri just so happened to have exactly that. Wade closed his mouth, the words of chaos abruptly ceased.

"Order them off, or else the beatings will continue until morale improves!" Wade called out, still hovering halfway up in the air, rooted in place. The elf gave one more flinch as the context of Wade's ultimatum kicked through.

"I WILL, I WILL, WE SURRENDER!" He sobbed, "Please, dear Andrian, make it stop! No more, no more!"

"Order them off!" Wade called down.

"Eri, we need him alive!" The skeleton gave a very unsatisfied click of his jaw.

"I order… you four… to stand down," The elf called, still struggling with the world's largest migraine. Problem with the HOA complete! Gained: One Storefront Coin. Insignificant Leveling Experience. And Wade promptly fell right back down, the thirty seconds of Leon's boon coming to an end. Fortunately, featherfall was a somewhat simple enough spell that came in different levels.

The rookie version worked with Leon there to catch him out of the air before he landed too hard, although he noticed it hadn't reduced his falling speed by anywhere near what he'd hoped for. His intelligence stat might be too low for that spell, or he actually needed to practice it more. EIther way, he had Leon to rely on this time, so he put it out of his mind.

"Not too bad for a first attempt at what we got." Wade dusted his gloves off, nodding to himself as the Russian set him back down on the bone floor. Fight complete, and he'd gotten an easy coin to boot. Excellent.

"Is good showing." Leon agreed.

"Although... maybe we being more careful with blessing combo?" Wade could see where this was going. It was strong, but it was also a one-time hit. Once someone knew something, there wasn't any un-knowing it. And the shock value was also gone. Eri was perfectly fine over there, having already learned of the internet and the general world beyond, few things rattled hi- Wade realized the other side: Leon wasn't much of a gamer. And he looked just as rattled.

Because he was a regular normal person that wasn't deep in internet culture. He was the most down-to-earth normie of them all even.

"Oh shit. Friendly fire." Wade said.

"Friendly fire." The Russian nodded.

"Life infinitely better not knowing what…" He lowered his voice and whispered the forbidden two words with a shudder.

"And we lacking bleach for brain. No unhearing that." He gave a shudder. On the phone was laughing. From Zin.

"No, no, you should throw more of those around. It's highly effective against goat-boy here. My ONE regret in this beautiful shared moment between us is that I didn't hit record three seconds sooner. Heartbreaking stuff, truly." Right. Zin hadn't been blessed yet since Wade was dangling the subscription. But Bael and Medy both had his blessing.

"Well I thought it was fascinating." Medy said off the side, completely unrattled and quite happy with the whole slew of fun trivia.

"You don't count." Zin instantly said. Leon shook his head one more time, "Why you even knowing these things? I worry about you."

"Internet." Wade said with a sympathetic flinch.

"Eh, well, is very effective." Leon pointed over to the High Elf, who was still on the ground, slowly sitting back up, looking like he was about to dry heave for a second time, as images and ideas of a different world floated back from his memory.

"Eesh, hoping you not break his head over. We needing him alive for a little."

"He's just being dramatic." Play whispered nearby, still invisible.

"If you ask me Michael, you went a little too easy. High Elves in specific are going to be quite good targets to certain words by their very nature, you could do some real damage. Do let me know if you want some more suggestions~" Wade could see the flickering heart and stars glitter in the air as she probably gave another wink. But her voice wasn't the sing-song having-fun tone it usually had. There was some menace and hatred deeper down in there.

He wasn't certain what Play meant about High Elves being weak to some kind of words, but he got the rest of the implications. Play was terminally online. There was no telling what darkness floated in her head. But it would be far, far worse than the things Wade knew of. In the face of the NEET, he was the normie.

"Stare into the abyss, abyss stares back." Leon shrugged, lifting the copper lootbox with ease back on the wagon.

"Now, how about we getting chest, and handle Elf, da?" Eri clicked his jaws further ahead. And he looked real annoyed.