Chapter 29: Impossible

[Tenacity Prayer]
School of Holy Light Active Skill
Mastery Requirement: Holy Lore Level 1
Consumption/Restriction: 15 Mana, 10 Faith Points, must possess vocal ability.
Effect: Prays for a designated target, increasing their Constitution by 3%, increasing stamina recovery speed by 5%, and significantly alleviating bleeding effects. Duration: five minutes. Cooldown: 120 seconds.
[Note: You may eventually die in battle, but please make sure to hold on for a few more minutes and offer a deathbed confession to help me boost my performance stats.]

Mo Tan’s reaction was arguably the fastest, aside from Ned’s. Almost before the latter had finished speaking, he had already taken action, casting "Command: Shield" on Shuang Ye, who had the lowest Constitution. Immediately afterward, he cast "Tenacity Prayer" on Ned, who was charging at the front. The interval between this holy spell—which provided a fairly strong buff for the time being—and the previous holy word spell was less than a second.

In [Cradle of Sin], there is no such thing as a global cooldown for spellcasting. Theoretically, as long as a player’s movements are fast enough, they could chain together a large number of skills that are not on cooldown. However, this theory is actually impractical, because even the most basic, mindless skills require corresponding actions, gestures, or incantations at the moment of activation. Even some low-level skills in the warrior class require an action like raising a weapon.

Shooting requires drawing a bow or pulling a trigger; spellcasting requires chanting or making gestures. If you’re using a Whirlwind, it wouldn't make sense if the character didn't spin, would it?

The two skills Mo Tan just activated might not count for much in the eyes of some NPCs or battle-hardened high-level players (of which there were none at the moment), but for a rookie player, it was textbook-level skill execution.

While whispering the "Command" to Shuang Ye, Mo Tan’s other hand had already steadily aimed at Ned. Then, the moment "Command: Shield" took effect, he immediately turned back and made two gestures toward him that carried the meaning of "blessing" within the sect.

(PS: In the skill description, the gesture involves lightly touching the pinky and thumb, curling the index finger slightly, extending the ring and middle fingers, and following with a palm-down motion at a forty-five-degree angle.)

This wasn't because he was naturally gifted or born to be a gaming prodigy; it was simply because, compared to other players like Shuang Ye, Mo Tan possessed one very distinct advantage.

Experience!

Although the character "He Fan" had only used a skill once since the account was created—and it was just a simple illumination spell—that did not mean Mo Tan lacked relevant experience.

As "Tan Mo," he had once faced two Red-Spined Beasts simultaneously and subdued them in an instant.
As "Mo," he had accumulated a great deal of combat experience while under the attacks of numerous cannon-fodder enemies.

Although the techniques mastered by each character were relatively limited, if you added them all together…

"Nice!" Ned, who was drawing his sword backhanded, praised Mo Tan without looking back, then gestured behind him: "Follow me!"

Yinna, who had been a bit listless just moments ago, was the fastest. Relying on the innate agility and flexibility of an elf, she stayed close behind Ned with just a few leaps. Simultaneously, two feathered arrows were already nocked on her longbow, which was pointed diagonally at the ground. Her pointed ears twitched slightly as she said loudly: "About four hundred meters ahead, behind the slope, there is a battle taking place! I can't tell the numbers!"

"That’s too unreliable!" The Lizardman monk Salazar stomped his feet—which were twice the size of an average human's—against the ground. The next second, he appeared seven or eight meters away, faint currents of energy flowing around his gauntlets. While quickly following the two in front, he looked back and shouted: "Krabb, you take He Fan and the other one!"

Krabb, the dark-skinned orc who looked like he had come from an African tribe, had already climbed up and muttered with a curled lip: "You don't need to tell me that."

He then strode toward Mo Tan and Shuang Ye…

"Hey! Wait! Big guy, what are you doing?" Putting together Salazar’s words just now, Shuang Ye suddenly had a bad premonition.

Krabb chuckled, sheathed his axe on his back, tucked one person under each arm, and began to stride forward: "You two spellcasters are too slow; someone has to take care of you."

Shuang Ye immediately dismissed the fireball in her hand, covered her nose with her sleeve, and rolled her eyes incessantly. Even though Krabb was a fairly clean orc with no strange odor, she just couldn't psychologically accept this…

Mo Tan, tucked under the other arm, was much calmer. He was currently staring at his character panel, calculating his mana and faith point recovery rates, striving to improve his understanding of this character.

As the only support in the team, and with one of his few skills being a flashlight, Mo Tan felt that the pressure was a bit high…

Four hundred meters passed in the blink of an eye. Even an ordinary person wouldn't take more than two minutes to cover that distance, let alone Ned and his group.

In less than half a minute, everyone had crossed the low slope nearby. The terrain here was desolate and not far from the border of the Marshall Territory; usually, there would be no one around.

But now…

Mo Tan had just been set down on the ground by the dazed Krabb when he saw a tall figure fly through the air and crash in front of the group with a thud.

This was a young man whose entire abdomen was almost torn open. He was wearing simple leather armor, and there was a flame emblem on his chest. His long chestnut hair was matted against his temples by sweat and blood, and his lips, pale from excessive blood loss, trembled incessantly as bloody froth bubbled from his mouth.

"Ah!" Shuang Ye hid behind Krabb almost instinctively, covering her eyes.

"So many well-trained orc soldiers!" As the only other lady in the team, Yinna’s tolerance was much higher than Shuang Ye’s. She looked at the small, dark mass of figures not far away and reported loudly: "They are wearing the emblem of the Fireclaw Territory!"

"I know! Check on him first." Ned’s expression suddenly turned grim. He knelt on one side and pressed hard on the young soldier’s abdomen, only to find that this still couldn't stop the blood from seeping out of the numerous wounds on the man’s body. He immediately looked up and shouted: "He Fan, he needs hemostasis!"

Mo Tan shook his head helplessly. "Tenacity Prayer," which could alleviate the effects of blood loss, was currently on cooldown. His purpose in casting the prayer on Ned earlier was actually to cycle the cooldown as quickly as possible so that he could cover more people in potential future battles, but he hadn't expected things to turn out like this…

[If I were in my "Tan Mo" persona, I definitely wouldn't have made such a mistake…]

Sighing with self-mockery, Mo Tan extended his hands horizontally. A pale golden light appeared out of thin air around the critically injured soldier and then slowly merged into the numerous gruesome wounds on his body.

Yes, this was the "Holy Heal" he had learned at the very beginning, the low-end version…

A healing skill that restores a small amount of health to the target, with a cooldown of only one minute~

Of course, Mo Tan hadn't forgotten to take out that scripture worth 20 copper coins. Although it had no combat capability (please don't think about attaching a ram or a chain to use it as a flail), this off-hand equipment at least added 1 point of Intelligence, so it should be of some use, right?

As it turned out, it did provide some use, although it was merely "some"…

The young human soldier swallowed a mouthful of blood and gripped Ned’s hands with difficulty, as if trying to say something…

Ned leaned down quickly, while Mo Tan was staring at the "Healing Prayer" that was about to finish cooling down. His other hand, not holding the scripture, was already pointed at the soldier from the Ignite squad.

10 seconds until the skill cooldown finishes!

If he could stop the bleeding, there was still hope of saving him, even though those predatory orc warriors had already started slowly closing in…

4 seconds until the skill cooldown finishes!

Almost there!

Just as Mo Tan was beginning to prepare the first gesture, Ned stood up straight and let out a long sigh.

"He’s dead…"

[Skill activation failed. Target status: Deceased.]

The voice of the system came at the same time as the spoken words. The soldier from the Ignite squad ultimately didn't make it until Mo Tan’s skill finished cooling down. The previous "Holy Heal" was merely a drop in the bucket, enough only to delay the footsteps of death and allow him to leave behind a final word…

"They're coming!" Salazar walked to the front of the team, his eyes fixed on the twenty or so orcs wearing matching breastplates down the slope. He said in a low voice: "It seems they don't intend to let us go back in one piece…"

Ned stood up with a gloomy expression, his brow furrowed: "Trash game, terrible experience."

!?!?!?

Mo Tan, who had been feeling a bit dejected, and Shuang Ye, who had been hiding behind Krabb the whole time, were both stunned, staring at Ned with horror.

What did he just say?

Trash what? What kind of experience?

"I have witnessed death many times." Ned raised his sword and muttered: "But this young man’s final words were definitely the strangest… Alright, everyone prepare for battle! Otherwise, we’re going to die here too!"

Mo Tan and Shuang Ye exchanged a glance, both realizing at the same time that the fellow who had just died was not an NPC, but a player like themselves. After all, that "final word" didn't sound like anything an inhabitant of the Cradle of Sin would say.

For some reason, knowing that the "dead" wasn't just a pile of data, but a living player, Mo Tan actually felt a sense of relief, and his previously heavy mood eased quite a bit.

Well, anyway, no matter how harsh the death penalty was, players wouldn't actually die for real…

"What about the rest of the Ignite squad?" Krabb drew his battle axe and walked to Yinna’s side to ask her: "Are they all… finished?"

Yinna gave a bitter smile: "There are a few corpses in the distance. Comparing the numbers, the soldier who just died should have been the last of their squad…"

Crack!!

Salazar suddenly lunged in front of Yinna, raised his hand, and delivered a side-slash, smashing a spear that was flying toward them into two pieces. He growled: "Forget about that, they're here!"

Before he finished speaking, the large group of orcs not far away drew their weapons in unison and charged over with a roar, closing the distance between the two sides at high speed.

Because of the time wasted trying to save the soldier, it was no longer possible for them to escape the enemy’s attack range. The result of turning and running would undoubtedly be getting skewered like kebabs by a sky full of thrown spears!

And as for a head-on collision…

The gap in numbers seemed a bit large!

"We can't escape now!" Ned stood at the very front of the team and shouted loudly: "Retreat in a double-right-angle formation! I’ll be the arrowhead! Drag them toward Dieyan City!"

With that, he turned, and with one sword stroke, slashed fiercely at the chest of an orc who had just charged up the low slope, forcing the enemy to block while he used the momentum to retreat. But when he looked back…

His own little leap had actually put him at the very end of the team; the members of the Fenrir squad hadn't moved an inch.

"What are you all standing there for?!" Ned was so angry that he saw stars: "Do it!"

"But Captain…" Krabb was currently swinging his axe at an enemy who had just crossed the slope, shaking his fellow orc—who had tried to match strength with him—so hard that he vomited blood. He blinked and roared: "What is a right-angle formation, and what does 'arrowhead' mean?"

Salazar hooked an orc warrior’s shoulder with a backhand, took a side step, turned, and delivered a spinning elbow strike hard into the opponent’s back, then whipped his tail to knock the orc off balance, finishing the dazzling monk combo with a knee strike. He shrugged at Krabb: "The Captain said a double-right-angle combat formation."

"Can you understand that?" Yinna seemed to blend into Krabb’s tall shadow for a second, then reappeared simultaneously with three feathered arrows flying out. With a dagger in her mouth, she tilted her head vaguely at Salazar.

"Can't understand it." The latter shook his head naturally, then pulled a dazed Shuang Ye behind him, helping her avoid a powerful jump-slash from an orc, though he himself was nearly scratched: "Focus! The enemy is well-trained!"

By now, Ned had hurried back, shielding the two spellcasters, Mo Tan and Shuang Ye, behind him, and said with a dry laugh: "Sorry, I forgot we’re a bunch of rabble."

At this moment, the small low slope had been completely overrun by the twenty-plus enemies, and the two orc warriors who had been knocked down earlier had also climbed back up, appearing not seriously injured…

"Dogs of the Marshall family!!" A gray-haired old orc holding a warhammer roared as he charged straight at them, his eyes splitting with rage, and bellowed: "You all must die!!"

Two trajectories, one gold and one red, whistled out from behind Ned, forcibly curbing the enemy’s charge!

Fireball, Piercing Light Arrow.

Mo Tan and Shuang Ye attacked almost simultaneously, but after curbing the old orc, they realized this was merely a drop in the bucket…

"Kill!!"

A series of roars tore through the curtain of the battle. These orc warriors, who were by no means rabble, pressed in from all sides in unison, crazily attacking the vastly outnumbered Fenrir squad with weapons, bodies, roars, and teeth—ferocious and insane!

Everyone fell into a bitter struggle almost the moment the battle began. Ned, Krabb, and Salazar were each dealing with three or four enemies at the same time. Yinna’s agile and nimble movement style lost all its advantages on this tiny slope, and she could only fumble through the skirmish, seizing opportunities to fire an arrow here and there.

As for Shuang Ye and Mo Tan, who were protected in the very center…

The former was pale; although the short staff in her hand was waving continuously, the low-level fireballs and arcane missiles scattering outward could only barely break the enemies' defenses!

They had all been strictly calculated by their master, shot out at the best angles and rhythm, yet these spell offensives—which would have amazed even an Archmage—were still struggling to make a dent.

And the latter…

At the very moment when all his support and healing skills were on cooldown, Mo Tan helplessly dropped his hands.

[I can't do it…]

[I… I can't do anything…]

Chapter 29: End