The expanding pillar of stars dissipated, and the starlight particles filling the air drifted away, turning into tiny specks of luminous dust.
Colorado was nowhere to be seen on the stage; he had been caught in the girl's previous attack and annihilated within it.
Inside the Light-Chaser Garden's waiting room, Bai Youyou glanced at Xu Xiaoyou. "She doesn't seem to be acting according to your plan."
Xu Xiaoyou crossed her arms, looking unsurprised by the scene before her, and tapped her forehead with her finger.
A heavy silence filled the entire venue as the host began to announce the results of the match.
"The winner of this match is..."
"Wait!"
At that moment, a young man's shout interrupted the host. In the center of the ruined arena, Colorado rose unsteadily. The clothing on his upper body was shredded, and cross-shaped flames wrapped around his chest; if one listened closely, the spirited cry of a bird could be heard.
"I haven't lost yet!"
"The Phoenix Shield Badge?" Bai Youyou frowned slightly.
She was all too familiar with that item. It was a one-time consumable, but the rights to the Flame Sparrow Cave belonged to Light-Chaser Garden, and they had long since monopolized the item, ceasing its sale to outsiders ages ago.
With the league having been underway for so long, the stockpiles of the major guilds should have been nearly exhausted. How could the Heterogeneous Front afford to equip such an expensive item for a minor bounty match?
She glared at Xu Xiaoyou, who was acting as if it were none of her business.
Aside from this girl being blinded by profit and secretly selling the badges to other guilds, she couldn't imagine a second possibility.
"I couldn't help it." Xu Xiaoyou sighed, knowing she couldn't hide it. "Heterogeneous Front just offered too much. A single badge is worth one of Little Blue Bird's concerts."
"In that case, she really knows your character well enough. Knowing you'd do such a low thing is probably why she used her ultimate right at the start?" Angelina said.
"Yes, but not entirely." Xu Xiaoyou's lip twitched. "Maybe she really did intend to just one-shot Colorado..."
"I haven't lost yet." Colorado wiped the blood from his mouth. "If I really lost to a buffer, it would be far too embarrassing."
"Way to go, Colorado!" the Heterogeneous Front teammates cheered in unison.
Excited shouts erupted from the spectators in the stadium.
Tang Xin's gaze remained steady as she lifted her slender string sword, pointing the tip directly at the youth. With a soft whisper, she chanted, "Pale Silent Raiment!"
A deep blue gown enveloped her, its fabric trailing down to the floor.
"Differential Mirror Garment!"
Colorado let out a low shout. Prism crystals rapidly sprouted from beneath his skin, covering his entire body in the blink of an eye. A mirror surface split from his chest, immediately pulling out a mirror-image, dividing his body into two identical individuals.
In a heartbeat, two Colorados with identical auras appeared on the field, each wielding a curved wheel blade.
"Isn't that just a shadow clone?" someone complained.
"You're oversimplifying it. Just watch," said an analyst who was very familiar with the members of the Heterogeneous Front, his tone full of meaning. "There's a reason Colorado was voted the most troublesome support."
"His divine endowment, Differential Mirror Garment, possesses the entanglement domain. Upon liberation, it splits into two entangled versions of himself."
"Unlike a shadow clone, he not only has to control two mirror-selves at once, but any damage taken will ultimately be borne by his true body."
"That sounds even worse than a shadow clone..." the person muttered weakly.
On the stage, the two mirror-images moved simultaneously, flanking her as they rapidly closed in on Tang Xin's position from different directions.
The analyst chuckled. "I said, ultimately."
The situation on the battlefield changed in an instant. Tang Xin calmly observed the two mirror-images rushing toward her, attempting to find any anomaly, but both their auras and attributes were identical.
The first mirror-image to arrive shouted and crouched slightly, thrusting its wheel blade upward with extreme speed.
Tang Xin's reaction was equally swift; she blocked the attack with her conductor's string sword, and at the moment of impact, she flicked her wrist slightly, causing soundwaves to surge from beneath her feet and vibrate through Colorado's body.
Unexpectedly, the opponent passed through the soundwaves effortlessly, as if facing no obstacle at all.
Tang Xin quickly looked at the other mirror-image not far away; instead, it was that mirror-image's movement speed that showed a significant delay.
Without time to think, Colorado's attacks struck again. The curved wheel blades spun rapidly, sending out dozens of sharp blade-lights every second. Tang Xin shifted and dodged amidst the edges, her footsteps changing gracefully as she retreated step by step, like a dancer performing a minuet.
Colorado gave a low shout and maintained his assault. The high-speed spinning wheel blades clashed frantically with her string sword, constantly pressuring the girl's position. Blade-shadows and sword-light flashed between them—testing, observing, and searching for the right moment to strike. The dozens of exchanges every second were accompanied by bursts of rhythmic clashing of weapons.
As he had anticipated, aside from her ultimate skill, the Starry Singer's own combat capabilities were not strong. As long as he got close, she could no longer hold the initiative—at least at grade 4.
What he didn't understand was why the girl had chosen to use her ultimate at the very beginning.
No matter what, giving one's all on the stage was the greatest respect one could show an opponent!
With that thought, Colorado increased the tempo of his assault, the two of them fighting as they retreated. Suddenly, the surrounding space began to warp. Numerous mirror surfaces bloomed like a kaleidoscope, surrounding Tang Xin. Colorado entered one and vanished into thin air, turning into a red shadow that refracted and jumped back and forth among the countless mirrors.
Tang Xin pressed her index finger against her string sword and slowly adjusted her stance, scanning the surrounding mirrors and observing the refraction path of the red shadow.
As the red shadow flashed faster and faster, the densely refracting red lights wove into a net above Tang Xin, moving so quickly that she could barely track it. A heavy hum echoed in her ears.
Until a certain moment, Colorado burst out from a mirror behind her, his wheel blade driving straight toward her. Countless entangled red shadows converged at this point, all the previously gathered power focusing into a single strike, trailing a violent blood-red afterimage!
Tang Xin's gaze shifted as she turned rapidly. The opponent's speed far exceeded her own. She decisively abandoned the idea of intercepting with her string sword and took a half-step back to adjust her stance. The Coronation of Poppea appeared in her arms; she lightly drew the string sword across the cello, playing steady yet sharp notes in a rapid, resonant rhythm.
These notes transformed into countless fluttering blue butterflies, swirling at high speed around Tang Xin to form an invisible barrier. Any attack attempting to cross this barrier would be struck by the hidden edges within.
Yet, Colorado passed through this barrier as if unaffected, the violent blood-red afterimage easily tearing all the blue butterflies to shreds!
Under the blessing of the Pale Silent Raiment, a Silence domain would form around Tang Xin. The closer an attack got to her, the more it would lose its original sound. Energy would diminish, speed would slow, and properties would change until reaching silence. When the Silence domain was fully expanded, any attack that could not transcend it would come to a complete stop.
At grade 4, although she couldn't make this silence absolute, she could at least weaken an attack by ninety percent upon impact, though the cost was a massive consumption of her mental energy.
Even so, she could only barely block that red shadow. Like a butterfly tossed by the wind, she experienced a brief loss of control before regaining her balance, her toes tapping the ground as she retreated a step, her string sword carving a trail of starlight in the air to shed the force.
Before she could react, the other mirror-image rapidly approached, its wheel blade cutting inward to clash with her string sword.
"Your ability is to transfer all damage received to your mirror-image, right?"
Colorado's strike forced Tang Xin back. Simultaneously, his mirror-image acted, slaying from behind. The two of them pinned Tang Xin in a pincer attack.
"It's not that simple. It's entanglement."
The wheel blades struck from different directions at once. Tang Xin struggled to keep up, maintaining her dance steps as she retreated. Her string sword flicked rapidly, blocking the attacks from both sides. Even with the protection of high-tier water arts, she still sustained several minor injuries under the continuous assault.
She keenly noticed that the mirror-image before her was covered in fine bloodstains—left behind when Colorado had passed through her barrier earlier.
As for what he meant by entanglement...
Tang Xin understood the meaning soon enough.
She saw one of the mirror-images retreat rapidly and perform a Phantom Wheel Dance against thin air.
Then, Colorado himself surged forward, his wheel blade swinging just as before. It seemed like an ordinary attack, but Tang Xin felt a sense of crisis. The string sword she held in front of her was mysteriously repelled by a massive force. Had she not reacted quickly enough to summon her cello for protection, her shoulder wouldn't have been the only part injured.
Could the attacks launched by the mirror-image also be stacked onto Colorado's own body through entanglement at the same moment?
No, it was more accurate to say that both mirror-images were Colorado's true body, connected through this bizarre relationship of entanglement. Everything—whether passive or active—attached to one individual would be reflected one hundred percent onto the other.
Tang Xin retreated quickly, but Colorado's two mirror-images gave her no room to breathe, pressing in step by step.
"This isn't looking good," Xu Xiaoyou said.
"Isn't it great? This guy seems much more troublesome than the main attacker. Doesn't her losing play right into your hands?" Angelina said.
Xu Xiaoyou shook her head, her gaze fixed on Tang Xin through the floor-to-ceiling window.
Tang Xin's feet crossed as she lifted her string sword. She brushed her fingertips over the blade, and a deep blue magic circle expanded at the tip. The condensed stars transformed into countless shooting stars, flying out to strike Colorado from different angles.
Colorado quickly controlled one mirror-image to charge from the flank. The shooting stars exploded continuously behind him while the other mirror-image stayed in place and threw its wheel blade with force. The wheel blade sliced through the air, forming numerous rotating shadows that lined up one after another until a half-moon of hidden brilliance appeared in the air!
Seeing this scene, the crowd erupted in shouts. Those familiar with Colorado turned grave.
"He's going to use that move."
The host's voice became even more fervent. "Oh, look at this formation! Could it be that Colorado is about to use his famous signature technique?"
It was well known that a wheel-blade user's attacks could apply bleed effects, and the grade 4 ultimate, Extinction Wheel Meteor, could detonate those effects to cause laceration damage. Each layer of bleed could add ten percent of the target's maximum health as laceration damage.
In other words, once a person's bleed reached ten stacks, a wheel-blade user's Extinction Wheel Meteor could instantly empty their health bar.
Of course, in a team battle, no one would be foolish enough to stand still and let a wheel-blade user stack bleed layers. Most buffers could cleanse negative effects, so the detonated layers usually didn't exceed three.
Because of this, for a long time, Extinction Wheel Meteor was considered a useless skill, even becoming a laughingstock among other classes.
Until Colorado appeared.
Yes, you can periodically purify my bleed effects.
But what if I can apply ten stacks of bleed to you in a single instant and then detonate them?
Crescent Moon Wheel Flash can apply two layers. Sky Wheel Shadow Chase is a fire-and-forget skill; while active, other skills can be used, and it applies two layers of bleed on hit. Thousand-Blade Wheel Dance, a wheel-blade user's grade 3 ultimate, has a delayed damage property and applies four layers of bleed.
And Flash Shadow Wheel Strike can designate a target for bleed and blink behind them with high priority. As long as the target's speed is lower than his, the next attack is guaranteed to hit.
For a Colorado using Differential Mirror Garment, any skill could be treated as fire-and-forget. He could use Sky Wheel Shadow Chase with his mirror-self in advance, throwing two wheel blades, which meant four layers of bleed were already circling above the arena, waiting for their chance.
Then, he would have the mirror-self use Crescent Moon Wheel Flash while he used Flash Shadow Wheel Strike to blink behind the enemy, activating his grade 3 ultimate, Thousand-Blade Wheel Dance, timing it perfectly to bury four layers of bleed into the enemy's body in advance.
At the exact moment the delayed damage of Thousand-Blade Wheel Dance triggered and applied four bleed layers, the two initially thrown sky-wheels would strike simultaneously,
Adding another four layers of bleed. Then, through the entanglement effect, the subsequent two layers from the mirror-self would be stacked on. Finally, he would finish with the grade 4 ultimate, Extinction Wheel Meteor, detonating all ten layers of bleed to cause one hundred percent true damage!
No matter how thick the enemy's health bar was—whether they were a main attacker or a support, whether they were grade 1 or prism grade—as long as they were hit by this combo, they would be killed instantly.
Because these ten layers of bleed triggered and exploded at the same time, enemies in team battles often had no time to react before Colorado took out a key target, instantly turning the tide of battle.
This was his famous signature technique. Because of it, Colorado was generally considered the most troublesome and aggressive support, with a performance closest to a guerrilla. Even the Assassin's Creed had once made an exception to reach out to him.
Of course, the true damage from detonating bleed did not work on nightmare-level or higher dungeon bosses.
Before anyone could blink, Colorado had blinked behind Tang Xin. With him as the center, countless phantom wheel blades bloomed, passing through the girl's body. The two sky-wheels circling above flew in at the same time, carving a lethal arc in the air.
Immediately after, the wheel blade in Colorado's hand began to charge. Red light pulsed and electric arcs jumped; Extinction Wheel Meteor was ready to fire.
"I'm sorry, Miss Tang."
Looking at the back of the girl he admired, Colorado had no intention of holding back.
The opponent's speed was far lower than his own; this strike could not possibly miss.
In the next second, Colorado would empty Tang Xin's health bar!
Rate on N.U.
