Chapter 13: Knowing When to Fold Is the Greatest Virtue for Staying Alive
"Hey, this kid's got some guts — he actually made the first move."
Lu Chengzhi, the head of Seven-Star Studio, let out a soft laugh. "I haven't seen anyone this brazen in a long time..."
Before he could finish, a flash of blade light sliced past his ear and shot forward, punching clean through the skulls of three or four players in a straight line.
Several heads dissolved into white mist and vanished.
The crisp sound of steel tearing through flesh rang clearly beside Lu Chengzhi's ear, and the smile on his face froze completely.
"Everyone, my apologies — I don't have time to stand here listening to your gossip. If you're blocking my path, you can all go offline and get some sleep."
Chen Sui let his voice carry across the entire plaza.
In Chen Sui's mind, once you confirmed the other side had ill intentions, striking first was simply common sense — was he supposed to stand there quietly and wait for them to attack?
The Fishfolk Wavecrest kept his spear whirling without pause, his movements swift and his strength overwhelming.
The players in front of him charged in alongside their Flyfish and sea-star pets, and a single thrust of the spear cleaved both player and pet clean in two.
In the blink of an eye, the opposing side had lost nearly a third of their numbers.
"Nobody said this guy was this strong! Weren't we told it was just one dumb Fishfolk?"
Watching that spear whirl with its cold, merciless blade light, Lu Chengzhi's expression changed and he cried out — this thing, this level of combat power, was clearly wrong!
"What kind of sea beast is this? Can a sea beast really be this strong at this stage of the game? Is he hacking?"
Another studio manager kept backing away while his people pushed forward to fill the gap, and he started shouting too:
"How is he not on the leaderboard? Those Shafu guys from that so-called 'strongest virtual-game intelligence organization' definitely didn't count this person in their data!"
"That's exactly why I called you all here!"
Zhang Yuhao's expression wasn't looking great either. He could clearly see that the Fishfolk in front of him was completely different now — compared to the bare-handed fighter from last time, this one was clad in Hardened armor and gripping a razor-sharp spear, ferociously powerful, its combat strength in an entirely different league.
The studio members here were of wildly uneven skill, and some of them had even brought along Poor Quality sea beasts — none of them were a match for Wavecrest in a single exchange.
The gap between Quality tiers was simply enormous, and it was one of the game's hardcore elements.
It made you feel as though no numerical balancing had been done at all — the disparities between units made it look less like a game and more like reality.
At this point, Chen Sui was perhaps even stronger than a hacker.
The noise and commotion drew more and more onlookers; idle players who spotted the action immediately crowded over.
"What's going on? Why is there a fight?"
"Looks like a brawl — wait, no, it's a whole group ganging up on one person."
"Is that a Fishfolk? Holy shit — one spear throw and it wrecks a whole bunch of people. Whose subordinate is that?"
"That's Qihai Studio, Seven-Star Studio, and Quhua Studio — all famous gaming studios. Did someone trigger a hidden quest? Are they here to fight a BOSS?"
"It's that person in the middle — no name tag. Must be some kind of NPC, right? I've never seen them before."
"That person... I think I recognize them. Just now there were two screams from the alley over there, and when I went to check, he was walking out carrying a little girl."
"..."
Everyone's attention was naturally fixed on Chen Sui. Since Chen Sui had deliberately hidden his ID, people instinctively assumed he was some kind of NPC.
After all, when you thought about it, at this stage of the game, no player should be this strong.
Take that Fishfolk — they hadn't seen so much as a trace of one, and searching the forums and message boards turned up zero sighting records for that kind of monster.
In no time at all, the studio players rapidly disappeared one by one.
The density of the crowd thinned considerably.
The heads of the various studios took a few steps back, their gazes drifting over to Chen Sui, who stood not far away.
In an instant, the group exchanged glances, eyes flickering — each reading the same thought in the others' faces.
As more and more players and pets fell as ghosts beneath Wavecrest's spear, they absolutely could not keep this up — the losses would only grow.
Right now, Wavecrest was over there killing without pause, but Chen Sui stood alone in place.
So...
Three voices rang out at the same time.
Zhang Yuhao: "Surround and kill him!"
The other studio heads: "We surrender."
The moment the words landed, everyone on the field seemed to freeze for an instant, then instinctively turned to look.
After a brief exchange of glances and a quick repositioning, the members of the other studios rapidly pulled back and created distance.
Only the members of Qihai Studio remained where they were, caught in an awkward limbo with nowhere to advance or retreat.
Wavecrest showed no mercy whatsoever, swinging his spear and sending every last Qihai Studio member offline to sleep.
Zhang Yuhao looked as though he'd been stabbed in the back, staring at the other studio managers with an expression of disbelief. "You people..."
The others paid him no mind and turned their eyes toward Chen Sui.
Lu Chengzhi clapped his hands and called out cheerfully: "Sorry about that, buddy — we were just brought in by Qihai Studio. We failed to recognize a true master. Seven-Star Studio is withdrawing right now — please let us off the hook."
He then turned to his crew. "Brothers, fall back!"
"Quhua Studio is withdrawing too..."
"Same here!"
The heads of the various studios declared their positions one after another.
You had to be joking — with that level of combat power, whether they won or lost was beside the point. If they provoked him further and he camped outside the fishing village hunting their studio members, who could possibly endure that?
This was still the early-access period for new players. For professional studio members, dying even once meant falling directly behind in progress.
Forget about the hundred-player instance or the Mysterious Horn.
They wouldn't even make it through the beginner phase!
The studio members moved with remarkable speed — they had absolutely no desire to waste a day on respawn, so their retreat looked almost premeditated.
Chen Sui waved a hand dismissively, not particularly bothered. He was in a decent mood right now, and the other side hadn't really made a deep enemy of him — since they knew when to fold, there was no need to wipe them out completely.
"Sorry about this, Ahao — you keep fighting if you want, but we're done. The cost is too high. You managed to provoke someone like this, so think it over — maybe take your crew and quit the game, or find another way out. We'll be heading off now."
Lu Chengzhi said this with complete sincerity, his words carrying a heartfelt undercurrent of mockery.
"If you can't win, just admit the loss. With this Buddy's combat power, even a stray dog walking by would get smacked twice."
"Exactly, Zhang Yuhao — the Mysterious Horn is great and all, but if things keep going like this, Qihai Studio might not even survive the early game."
The other studio managers chimed in with well-meaning schadenfreude.
Getting beaten so thoroughly that you couldn't even get angry — it almost made you want to laugh.
And now that only Zhang Yuhao's side was taking the beating, it was even funnier!
"You people! A bunch of cowards!"
Zhang Yuhao glared at them through gritted teeth.
"Buddy, are you out of your damn mind? Being too scared to fight something you can beat — that's cowardice. Forcing a fight you can't win — that's just being a Shafu!"
"It's fine, it's fine — don't bother arguing with him. Qihai Studio isn't cowardly at all; in fact, the whole studio gets a day off tomorrow."
"Hahaha, that's brutal."
The studio managers traded barbs back and forth until Zhang Yuhao was nearly grinding his teeth to dust.
Zhang Yuhao was about to say something when an urgent voice called out from behind him:
"Brother Hao, watch out!"
Zhang Yuhao spun around and saw a streak of snow-white blade light drifting straight toward his face. His pupils contracted sharply — he had no time to react before a spear thrust took his head clean off.
Thud...
His body collapsed to the ground.
The onlookers and survivors looked over to find that Qihai Studio had been completely wiped out.