21 Chapter 21 - Sooto, the Mountain Bandit Leader (1/2)

Sure enough, Sooto shoved two fingers into his mouth and blew air through them as he charged outside.

Gu Fei nervously checked his surroundings as a high-pitch sound pervaded the air, yet not even a monster's shadow appeared. Sootu did not seem to mind this as he headed toward Gu Fei with a large knife in hand after he was done whistling.

Sooto was a humanoid NPC with average height, muscular bare chest, and a cruel face. He fit exactly the developers' image of 'a mob boss that would be difficult to defeat.'

With his grotesque appearance, Sooto arrived in front of Gu Fei and unleashed a slash with a wave of his hand.

Gu Fei nimbly dodged the attack but did not retaliate; he did not dare clash forcefully with Sooto. Based on his observation, Sooto was the type of monster with superb speed and power. Gu Fei would have to rely on his fighting techniques to win against him.

What exactly were these 'techniques'?

Of course, it was kung fu! Kung fu allowed one to overcome powerful enemies in combat through domineering techniques.

The legendary Eighteen Arms Martial Technique, consisting of sword, spear, staff, club, axe, trident, and so on, actually referred to the fighting techniques of eighteen different types of martial arts.

Nine Blades of Tang!

This was a very offensive fighting technique that solely relied on the Tang sword. Gu Fei wielded his current longsword precisely because it resembled a real Tang sword, allowing him to apply that particular fighting technique.

Gu Fei firmly gripped the sword handle with his two hands and alertly looked at Sooto who was two meters away.

Here it comes! Gu Fei's eyes twitched as he saw Sooto lean in and shrug his shoulder blades backward.

Gu Fei sidestepped just as a bright red light narrowly swept past him. That must be the move called Red Blaze or something, Gu Fei recalled Young Master Han mentioning it; one of the advantages for trapping Sooto inside the hut was he would not be able to use this particular move.

”The move's damage is too high. Nobody could withstand it right now with the measly defensive equipment we have, even if we put all our stats to Endurance,” Young Master Han said this before as well.

”Why not dodge it if we can't block?” Gu Fei asked this question back then.

”You try dodging it, then!” Young Master Han replied snappily.

Gu Fei successfully dodged the move right now; it was just a shame that Young Master Han was not around to witness it. Gu Fei's father said that fighting techniques could be summarized into eight words: ”Eyes on the hands, hands on the eyes.”

For a regular person, keeping up with the hand movements of the opponent with their eyes was hard enough already; keeping track of the opponent's eyes to counter the next attack was even harder.

Gu Fei was capable enough to keep up with his opponent's movements. As for countering the attacks, stat points were necessary in this game to make that possible. Gu Fei fortunately added all his points to Agility, allowing him to deal with Sooto.

Of course, all of these were possible due to Parallel World's incredible simulation. The NPCs' actions were similar to how real human beings would move. Even Red Blaze, an imaginary move made possible by the game, could only be unleashed by the NPC Sooto if he moved his limbs in a certain way. There were signs when he would attack.

Thus, Gu Fei currently had the ability to dodge the attacks of the Mountain Bandit Leader. Since Sooto was bounded by the usual NPCs' habits where he focused on single-mindedly attacking and not on dodging, it was obvious who would win this fight.

Gu Fei's only concern was how much damage he could inflict on Sooto with his attacks.

His entire focus was on the sword in his hand. He was convinced that he could rely fully on it for this fight and did not need to use spells just yet.

The sword was just a common weapon, however. Although it was good enough to handle the regular monsters with its high damage output, Gu Fei was still worried that it might not be enough to deal with the Mountain Bandit Leader that possessed high health and defense.

But when Gu Fei managed to perform a horizontal slash – one of the moves from the three forms of Fenliu – on to Sooto's lower abdomen at the first window of opportunity, he gained a huge boost in confidence. This was because he felt quite an impact from the tip of the sword.

Previously, Sword Demon deduced how much damage Gu Fei could cause by comparing the health of a monster and the amount of attacks Gu Fei needed before he could slay it. After days of immersing himself into this game, Gu Fei could actually determine how high the damage he caused just from the sensation he felt with his hand when an attack connected.

His slash on Sooto just now undoubtedly possessed high damage. He never felt such a high damage output before even when he was fighting the usual monsters. Gu Fei felt perplexed. How was it possible that a mob boss had even lower defense than a regular monster?

After skirmishing for a few more rounds and managing to slash Sooto's left leg, Gu Fei finally understood the situation.

He was able to deal so much damage to Sooto because he was topless.

It seemed that Sooto had zero defenses for his upper body for some unknown reason. The slash Gu Fei had attempted on Sooto's left leg did not even cause any damage as he had some sort of armor on it.