Game’s Dogma

“Boss, ya know the Assassination Coalition isn’t a ruly place from the start. We’re a complicated place with complicated people, and Ko Chun’s one of those ‘complicated people’. No one knows what his level is, but he always surprises us.

“Our guild’s a loose one, but we do dungeons when we feel like it too. That was before the system update which allowed us to resurrect in dungeons. Our squad dragged Ko Chun along without expecting him to contribute much. I guess we brought him to level up? Anyways, our cleric screwed up big time and four of us were dead, leaving Ko Chun all alone in the dungeon. They waited for him outside the dungeon, but he still wasn’t back after a long while.”

“Until they received the notification that Ko Chun cleared the dungeon all by himself. That was Blazing Cave at Hell difficulty you know! It’s totally nuts to clear it alone!” Goemon laughed bitterly. “After that, no one ever saw Ko Chun in action again. He keeps on gambling with the guild members and even once got a crowd to gamble what class the next player to appear at the city entrance had.”

Drako Yau and the rest all chuckled, while Idyllic Poet burst out laughing without holding back. 

“From that day onwards, we gave him a nickname—Godly Gambler.”

[Note: Ko Chun is the protagonist of God of Gamblers, a 1989 Hong Kong action comedy-drama movie that is considered a classic.]

Some players frowned at the sight of Ko Chun running around and despised him for his unsightly behaviour. How did such a player even manage to climb all the way up here? Still, there were all sorts of people, and some found gambling a fun pastime.

“Here! Thirty thousand coins on Handsome Scholar!”

“Cheh, Firefly’s drop-dead gorgeous! Twenty thousand coins on her!”

“A hundred coins on…”

“You have some balls to bet just a hundred bucks! I like it, I’ll take the bet!” shouted Ko Chun.

At that moment, a single voice overshadowed everyone else’s. “Three hundred thousand coins on Handsome Scholar.”

Everyone looked at the person who made the met—it was the masked man as expected.

Ko Chun was nothing special to be honest. The best quality he had was his vague charisma that incited others to place huge bets, the charisma of a gambler. He squinted his eyes and said, “Alliance master’s quite generous with his bet.”

“Will you take it or not?”

“Of course!” Ko Chun exclaimed. “How can I not take such a huge bet?”

“Great,” said Drako Yau before he turned his gaze to the patio’s sparring area.

Handsome Scholar faced off Firefly across the sparring area. No matter how excited and stirred up the spectators were, both paladins weren’t affected in the slightest. Their opponent was the only thing they had in mind right now.

Handsome Scholar didn’t underestimate Firefly because of her gender. As a former soldier, he had always seen intel as crucial knowledge, and the game was no different for him. He often browsed the forums to see how other elites fought. Among the videos posted, Firefly appeared fairly frequent due to her strength and beauty. Who wouldn’t want to film a beauty in action, right?

Indeed, Handsome Scholar found Firefly’s battles quite inspiring. He even learnt a handful of moves that he had never thought were possible. Despite being surprised that Firefly would invite him for a duel, he feared no battle and would gladly take her on.

The two stared at one another. After staring down a while, they both moved simultaneously—and made the same move. With their shields in front, they pulled their right leg back and pointed their swords forwards in a back-heavy stance. What made duels between players of the same class so tricky was that they both had the same pool of skills, thus emphasising the difference in technique.

“Take this!” Firefly shouted with her lovely voice and thrust her hand out.

Level 30 Paladin light magic, Consecration.

Hmm? Handsome Scholar blocked it with its shield. Although Consecration was a Level 30 skill, its base damage wasn’t high at all, so most players only unlocked the skill and put it aside. However, Firefly’s Consecration held more power than he expected.

She maxed out Consecration!

Firefly followed up her spell with a charge—Holy Bash! Chunks of rocks were driven out of the ground and splattered all over the place as she bulldozed her way towards Handsome Scholar like a tank.

Handsome Scholar, still stiffened from Consecration’s effect, lifted his arm and summoned a ray of holy light onto himself. It was the Level 35 Paladin skill, Winds of Honour, which had the sole effect of cleansing the caster of all negative ailments.

Using Winds of Honour to remove the one-second stiffness seemed like a waste given its three-minute cooldown time. Still, he used the precious skill without any hesitation. Some battles between top players could end well within that period after all.

Firefly felt no delight in seeing Handsome Scholar use Winds of Honour so decisively. Instead, her forehead creased even more.

Her Holy Bash naturally missed its target when Handsome Scholar expended his precious skill to get out of the way. Right after she dashed past him, she immediately fired off another Consecration.

Consecration was a skill with short cooldown and low damage, but it felt like a whole new skill when in the hands of Firefly who maxed it out and had superb precognition. She also went through the effort to find items and furniture that increased its damage even further, turning it into a terrifying skill to be reckoned with.

The moment Firefly used Consecration, she had already forcefully ended her Holy Bash. Surprisingly, the beam didn’t hit Handsome Scholar and instead veered off sideways. She quickly turned around and swung her shield as she cast Shield Bash.

“Level 15 Cleric skill, Shield Bash: Causes knockback on the target.”

Handsome Scholar hadn’t expected her attack and was struck by her shield. He tumbled a few steps backwards and boom—the Consecration struck him at that exact moment.

Firefly’s movements were so fluid and smooth; it only took her five seconds to use Consecrate, charged in with Holy Bash, force-ended it for another Consecration, and finished off with Shield Bash. Her precognition and execution were so outstanding that it left all the paladins present awe-struck.

While many kept it to themselves, the fact was that a large portion of the male player base looked down on female players, albeit to varying extents. They held onto the old-fashioned belief that men should do the fighting while ladies should support them as clerics or mages from behind. Firefly’s display was exactly what needed to wake them up.

Handsome Scholar was just as surprised as the spectators, but he kept his cool on the surface. With Firefly pressing on with her advantage, he didn’t have the time to stabilise himself and chose to hammer his round shield into the ground.

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