Legends Rise - Chapter 31 Spearman Vs Swordmage

Kaori, who had previously been dual wielding shields, was now forced to hide behind her shield as she faced a violent torrent of spear strikes from the female swordsman and the berserker’s violent swings. Her other shield had been knocked far away into the forest.

However, what surprised Li Ming the most was the technique that disarmed Kaori. It wasn’t just familiar, in fact, he had only learned it earlier that day from the old man. Not only that, he had been able to use it against the Dark Knight he faced earlier to disarm the Dark Knight’s shield and lance.

To see it again so soon, Li Ming was definitely caught off guard. Not wanting to waste any more time, Li Ming quickly used his [Ghost Strike] on the Mage that only had 5% of his health left, reactivating his [On the Hunt] which gave him stealth while the Mage was executed and became another cluster of pixels left to be blown away.

The Mage was executed before he could even spit a curse at Li Ming’s stealthed figure. Li Ming, who’s [Shunpo] had come off cooldown, went ahead and started to repeat the process with the cleric.

“Hanzo! Focus the Cleric!” Ken called out as he noticed Li Ming’s sudden arrival, “Support Li Ming!”

Before the female spearman and berserker to fall back in time to defend against the oncoming onslaught by Li Ming’s spear strikes and magic as well as Hanzo’s bullets, their cleric was brutally taken out of commission.

At this point, the balance of the battle had tipped wildly in the favor of Ken’s party. The enemies had lost their backline Mage and Cleric, and their Swordmage had been eliminated by Li Ming despite attempting an ambush from atop the tree.

Suddenly, the 5v5 battle became a 2v5.

“Nee-Sama, run, I’ll handle these buffoons!” the berserker shouted as he activated his ultimate ability, [Demi-God of the Undying]. Seizing this opportunity, the spearman made a sprint towards the gate.

[Demi-God of the Undying] was considered one of the most critical skills in the Tokyo Boar’s Team Strategy. It allowed the berserker to taunt every enemy that had attacked him within the last 10 seconds, granted a 250% damage and dexterity buff, as well as keeping the user of [Demi-God of the Undying] at 1 health for 15 seconds.

This would allow the berserker to tank an infinite amount of attacks for those 15 seconds. Unfortunately, after the ability’s duration ended, the berserker would only require 1 attack from anything before they would face death.

To keep the berserker alive, the Tokyo Boars would normally have their Paladin Knight cast [Angel’s Blessing] towards the end of [Demi-God of the Undying], which would grant the berserker invincibility for 4 seconds, which would be enough time for the cleric to cast any needed heals.
for visiting.

However, Li Ming had eliminated the team’s cleric, and their only member remaining was the spearman, and there was no way that the spearman would hold an ability that would grant invincibility to another teammate.

Seeing the berserker use [Demi-God of the Undying], Li Ming understood why the swordmage that he faced earlier had used a similar skill, [Grasp of the Undead], which would place a mark on a player. If that player would be defeated, that player would then be revived. Surely, it was to use in combination with this strategy.

The berserker had now taunted his entire party. Ken was incapable of casting any cleansing ability, as he was forced to target the berserker. Hatori’s assassin character was forced to target the berserker as well, meaning he would have to get within the berserker’s range, which would be fatal.

Thankfully, [Demi-God of the Undying] did not make the user immune to status effects, as Hanzo’s [Frost Bullets] and [Enchant: Static] were enough to interrupt the berserker’s attack rhythm a few times, which allowed Hatori to dodge a few of the incoming axe swings.

“Kaori! Fall back!” Ken warned, “[Dragon’s Heart] is about to wear off! Li Ming! Cut off that spearman, the first person to enter a gate can revive their teammates!”

Unfortunately for Ken, Kaori was unable to dodge the axe swing that the berserker had thrown at Hatori. That swing flew past the assassin’s nimble dodge, but struck Kaori straight in her abdomen. Coupled with the 50% stat decrease and the built op damage that she had endured throughout the combat, Kaori was instantly brought down to 0.5% health, and was forced to jump as far away as possible.

Hatori, who was trying to continue dodging the attacks until the duration of the taunt was over, was now forced to become the main tank against the raging berserker to prevent Kaori from fatal damage or the berserker targeting Ken and Hanzo.

Li Ming, however, had left to chase the spearman. He was faster than her, thanks to the burst of speed gained from [On the Hunt] from when he took down the cleric. Using this speed, he got within range to use [Shunpo] and immediately moved to strike the spearman’s neck for a critical strike!

*CLANG!*

Surprisingly, the spearman turned around just in time to parry his incoming stab with her own sweep. Li Ming, who had been parried, used the momentum to flip over the spearman in order to place himself between the gate and her.

“The emblem of the Phoenix, and a spear user huh…” the Kikyo greeted, “Hi there again, Li Ming. Seems like you really were ‘The Dawn’, huh.”

“Kikyo?” Li Ming realized who the spearman really was.

“Pardon me~” She said playfully as she twirled her spear around, “I’m going to need you to move aside for me!”

Li Ming understood from watching her that the old man he had learned from had also imparted his knowledge onto his granddaughter. Fortunately for him, she was obviously of a lower skill level at handling her spear than the old man.

“Well then,” Li Ming greeted her in return, “Let’s see if you can make me!”

Li Ming, who had used shunpo to close the gap between them, had to wait a tad bit longer before he could use that ability again. Knowing this, he led off the fight with three [Fire Lances] while dashing towards her.

Seeing this, Kikyo activated [Enchant: Mana] on her spear again to block the incoming attack. [Enchant: Mana] to block the incoming fire lances. But before she could do so, Li Ming’s [Shunpo] had come off cooldown, which he immediately used to get in front of her to activate [Ghost Strike].

With this sudden attack from Li Ming, Kikyo was forced to parry the [Ghost Strike] instead. However, one of the three strikes had slipped by to strike her in the abdomen. With that strike landing, Li Ming’s [High Tempo] had started up once again. As soon as the strike landed, Li Ming immediately ducked down and allowed the three fire lances to crash straight into Kikyo.

With at least three strikes hitting within the space of a second, Li Ming’s [On the Hunt] ultimate passive reactivated once again. However, instead of stalling for time, he placed a [Grass Roots Trap] on the floor in the same ducking motion and proceeded to circle around her.

After being hit with a barrage of attacks and having her opponent disappear on her, Kikyo was naturally irritated. However, she could sense hostility from behind her!

“You’re going to have to hide your killing intent better than that!” she shouted as she turned around and stabbed into the air!

Li Ming, who had intentionally revealed his killing intent, parried the stab from Kikyo instead of blocking it. At this point, he reactivated [Ghost Strike] to push forward again. This time. [Kikyo responded with [Three Pronged Strike], a spearman’s technique that increased her attacking speed and would knock away any weapons or equipment it came in contact with on the third strike.

*BOOM*

The two attacks met evenly in the middle, and neutralized each other. The first two strikes of [Three Pronged Strike] met with Li Ming’s real spear and one of his phantom spearheads that were generated by [Ghost Strike]. The last phantom spearhead was knocked aside by the last strike of [Three Pronged Strike].

Her frustration growing, Kikyo jumped up and activated her ultimate ability: [Meteor Skewer]. [Meteor Skewer] was a spearman’s ultimate ability, which would send out a flurry of spear stabs straight towards the target. Every hit landed, regardless of whether the hit was blocked, would knock the enemy back about 2-3 inches. With about 20 attacks per second, many player’s considered getting hit by [Meteor Skewer] the same as getting hit by a train.

The only downside to [Meteor Skewer] or any spearman ultimate was that you yourself would be knocked back slightly after your ability was used, and you would be silenced (unable to use abilities) after the ability was over for 15 seconds.

Normally, this ability was used to temporarily suppress a taunted target, or to finish off a stunned enemy. However, Kikyo had figured that since Li Ming had recently used [Shunpo], he would be unable to do so again any time soon.

Clearly, Kikyo had jumped to ensure that she would become a harder target to hit after the ability ended, as her character would spend at least 2-3 seconds falling back to the ground.

However, Li Ming, who had been anticipating this moment, activated one of his trinkets, [Concussive Flare]. This ability was a projectile that stunned and deafened any enemies caught in its area of effect. Knowing this, Li Ming threw the grenade straight at the incoming spear strikes.

As the concussive flare detonated, Kikyo was unable to see whether or not her ability had landed on Li Ming. Li Ming, who knew this, used this exact opportunity where Kikyo was blinded and deafened to dodge the incoming spears and circle around to her.

Kikyo, who was also deafened by the [Concussive Flare], was unable to detect Li Ming’s circling around. However, as her [Meteor Skewer] ended, she suddenly detected a strong killing intent in front of her as her avatar fell towards the ground.

Upon landing, Kikyo found that despite her blindness and deafness dissipating, she had been caught in a [Grass Roots Trap]! Normally, in a team battle, this would not be an issue, but now, she was forced to stand her ground against Li Ming.

As she saw Li Ming approach her, she activated her last ability [Draconic Spear Shield], which would generate a shield in front of her that would block one attack every time her spear was thrust. She coupled this with the one technique she had learned from her grandfather at an early age: Dragon’s Breath!

However, she gasped in surprise as Li Ming threw out a Dragon’s breath of his own!