Chapter 285 - 285. Decoy
Jack was in thought about how he should proceed after receiving the message, while his enemies came at him again in drove. He was glad to have received the message. Otherwise, he would need to rely on the Themisphere Beacon Stone once his other magic tools were used up. He cast Barrier to allow himself more freedom to think about his approach while continued to trade blows with his opponents.
When his Barrier expired, his opponents suddenly backed away.
Hm? Jack was baffled by the act. His surrounding was suddenly devoid of players. His Pyro Lynx went on and chased over the retreating enemies. Since Jack was not suffering any damage at the moment, that summoned creature had free rein to do as it pleased.
The retreating players revealed another group of players lining up not far ahead. Bigarm was amongst that group. Jack had been wondering where the guy had disappeared to. He was planning to do what he should have done in the past when he had his first encounter with the fellow.
"This is the end for you!" Bigarm shouted out.
Jack chuckled at his threat. "Are you planning to do something? Have you not watched those old action TV shows? Mostly the villains failed to win because they tried to talk about what they are going to do before they actually do it. So are you going to tell me what you are about to do?"
"Hmph, I'm about to…"
Bigarm stopped his words mid-sentence because a disruptive bomb was flying his way. He hastily took out a scroll and activated it. A wide wall made of light appeared in front of him. The bomb hit the wall and detonated, shaking the wall in the process, but it remained standing.
"You…" Bigarm was trembling with rage. The guy didn't even let him finish his sentence.
Jack simply shrugged, "I was just trying to make my case."
Bigarm decided he was done talking, he gave the sign to the group lining up beside him. Each of them took out a magic scroll. Jack was surprised, there were twenty of them, each of them was holding a scroll. Those were extravagant spending considering guilds had high expenditure, and from their pose, they intended to use them all at the same time.
No wonder they were clearing the space, Jack thought.
The group proceeded to activate their magic scrolls. Runes were formed and spells were cast. All of those scrolls were Fireball scrolls. Rows of fireballs flew in Jack's direction. They advanced in a linear formation. Jack was positioned in the middle of the path they would be traveling. Jack calculated and surmised that even with his speed, either running to his left or his right, he would not be able to run out of the coverage of this linear fireball formation. The twenty Fireballs were also fired at an interface, making it two lines of Fireball. Each fireball had one more following behind. This was probably to counter his Flash Step skill.
No wonder I can't find any more Fireball magic scroll in that magic scroll shop, Jack thought.
As the fireball approached, he smiled and took out his own magic scroll from his bag. The same Magic Wall which had protected Bigarm from Jack's disruptive bomb was now protecting Jack from the fireball barrage.
"No!" Bigarm shouted unwillingly. "I have bought all the Magic Wall scrolls, how did he still have one?!"
The Magic Wall was broken by the combined assault of the Fireball, but the spells had completed their assault after clashing with the wall, so none of them reached Jack.
Jack had heard Bigarm's shout. So that's why there was only one scroll of Magic Wall left in the shop. That must have been coincidentally the single piece that got restocked after Bigarm bought them all. Jack thanked his luck stat again for that single piece. They had been waiting for him to use his Barrier before executing this tactic because they were confident that he did not have any other defensive method.
Bigarm was pulling his hair in frustration after seeing the magic wall appeared. They had wasted so many coins for these magic scrolls and they still failed? Wait, did they fail? He looked again to where the fireball had collided with Jack's magic wall. The flame was raging at that position. Since the fireball was shot in linear formation, it was like a fence of fire had been constructed at the place. The ground was still aflame and thick smoke was produced due to all the burnings. They could not see through all the smoke. The weird thing was, there was no activity seen. Jack might not be directly hit by the fireballs, but could he be burned to death already from all those flames?
Bigarm walked forward anxiously, he tried to peer through the thick smoke.
A shadow suddenly dashed out of the smoke from his right, Bigarm felt as if his heart almost leaped out of his chest. He ran backward frantically and ended up trip himself and fell.
He looked at the shadow that had scared the shit out of him, it was Jack all right. He was running away from here. Bigarm immediately rose and yelled to the others, "chase him!"
The others looked at him in disdain. He had shown such cowardice even though the opponent was not coming at him, now he still dared to bark orders.
The lower-level members of Death Associates did not dare to disobey though, so they still followed his command and gave chase immediately. However, those experts wind up intentionally pausing for a bit. Their pride made them intentionally do the opposite of this coward's command even though they themselves wanted to chase after Jack. So Bigarm's order had instead caused an opposite result. They just stood there and looked at him as if saying, 'what are you going to do about it?'
Bigarm was fuming with anger and embarrassment. But before he could say any more words, a commotion happened at the opposite side of the smoke where Jack had dashed out from. There was a second Jack there, hacking away at the players who gathered over there.
Everybody looked at the scene with stupefaction. They turned to the other side, there was the first Jack who was still running further away, some of the guild players at that side were trying to block him, others tried to catch up to him. They turned back again and saw the second Jack using Shredding Fang and killing players in drove. The Pyro Lynx had come back to Jack's side and aiding in killing those around him.
Another commotion happened at the side where the first Jack had gone to, they turned back and looked at that side. They saw the players at that side were pausing, their faces expressing surprise and confusion. They then saw the reason for those players' expressions. A group of Fighters with shields had linked together and formed a wall to block Jack's advance. There was no gap in their rank so they expected Jack to ram through them. They held up their shields bracing for impact, yet when Jack touched them, they felt no force. Jack's body when through them as if it was made of air.
"It's just a decoy!" Assistant Manager Ironhand exclaimed after witnessing the scene. He then pointed to the second Jack who was still fighting, and said, "that's the real one, get him!"
The experts rushed over, weapons ready and determination on each of their faces. This was the first time they had to work together and still had difficulty killing a single player. For their honor, they could not let him live.
Scarface and the other guild leaders were still watching from over the small hill. They were silent as they watched the battle. Depicting a thousand people fighting against a single person as a battle was perhaps not appropriate. It was more proper to call such an act as execution. It was indeed a slaughter, yet it was the other way around. One person was slaughtering through the thousand people.
Every each of the guild leaders was having difficulty trying to accept this fact. Not just one of them that subconsciously pinched their arms several times, trying to make sure that they were not currently in a dream.
While they were all looking at Jack continuing his massacre, one among them was looking the other way. Scarface had his eyes on the first Jack that had turned out to be fake. That fake Jack was just a mirage where none of the players could touch, yet it continued to run through the guild members.
At first, Scarface thought that it was just the aftereffect of a unique spell that Jack owned. The doppelganger was just created as a temporary decoy to distract their experts, and that fake image would continue to move in a direction until the spell expired. But then the doppelganger changed direction. In fact, it changed direction several times.
Hm? Scarface slowly noticed that the doppelganger was inching closer to the small hill where they were standing at.