Shadow Clone Technique was originally a skill for confusing opponents, but to experienced players, distinguishing real from fake was easy. So its deceptive effect was more noticeable against NPCs; in fights against players, ninja players more often used Shadow Clone Technique as a form of teleportation.
That was exactly what Jun Moxiao was doing now. His clone stayed in place while his real body used the skill's properties to instantly shift to the four o'clock position, which should have been Yue Zhongmian's to guard.
Everyone was still worried, because at level 10, Battle Mages had no displacement skills like theirs. How was Jun Moxiao going to push the Spider Boss back?
They soon learned they had worried for nothing. Jun Moxiao had no skills, but he had technique. A Sky Strike lifted the Spider Boss into a slight float, and seizing that opening, he fired a Chain Thrust. The Spider Boss took two spear hits and was pushed toward Yue Zhongmian.
Yue Zhongmian was now standing at the eleven o'clock position, which had originally been Jun Moxiao's, with Jun Moxiao's shadow clone beside him. At this moment, Yue Zhongmian felt deeply embarrassed. He almost wished Jun Moxiao had cursed him out on the spot, but the man said nothing at all—just pushed the boss right over to him, dead on target.
Yue Zhongmian knew perfectly well what to do. A Chain Thrust connected, and the big spider was kicked away once more.
He steeled himself for everyone's criticism, but what he heard instead were gasps of surprise: "It's bleeding."
It wasn't a person bleeding, but the Spider Boss. This Bleed status wasn't something an ordinary random attack could inflict—either the weapon had the effect, or the skill did.
Right now, no one's weapon had this effect.
But skills with this effect did exist.
Chain Thrust—the Battle Mage's Chain Thrust. Its Bleed, however, was a hidden effect. It wasn't chance-triggered; it had to be executed manually by the player.
The method: make both hits of the Chain Thrust land completely overlapping on the same spot of the target. "Same spot" didn't mean hitting the arm twice—it meant that wherever the first strike pierced a hole, the second strike had to stab into that exact same hole. Only after achieving this did the Bleed effect have a chance to trigger. As for what that chance was, since it was a hidden effect, no data existed; players who tested it estimated it at around 50%.
That chance was already quite high—but only if you could execute the technique. On a motionless dummy it was easy enough, but in real combat with constant movement, it demanded quick eyes and precise hands.
Glory had many hidden skill effects like this, all of which could only be pulled off with formidable mechanics.
If an ordinary player had procured a Bleed with Chain Thrust, Tian Qi and the others might have chalked it up to luck. But when Ye Xiu did it through Jun Moxiao, they all unanimously agreed it was skill. They were already completely won over by Ye Xiu's mechanics. And it wasn't just his mechanics—his control of this boss fight and his team command were flawless. This wasn't just an ordinary expert; this was the expert among experts.
Tian Qi was now feeling a little embarrassed about trying to recruit Ye Xiu. Their Moon Wheel guild really wasn't anything remarkable in Glory—ranked outside the top fifty in God's Domain, not holding a single dungeon record. Such an ordinary guild, Tian Qi felt, wasn't worthy of a man with skills like these.
Whether the others had developed the same thoughts as Tian Qi was unclear, but in any case, everyone simply attacked in silence. There were a few small slips along the way, but Ye Xiu called out reminders in time, and nothing serious came of them. The first boss was thus killed without major incident. Looting the corpse produced a piece of blue equipment. No one cared much about low-level gear—it would be phased out in a flash anyway—but at this moment, they all unanimously insisted Jun Moxiao take it. Yue Zhongmian, though he said nothing, quietly chose to pass as well.
Ye Xiu took a look: just a level 10 blue belt, better than nothing. Since everyone was passing, he didn't stand on ceremony, picked it up, equipped it, and they moved on.
After that, it was the same approach all the way. The second boss was a ranged attacker that spat webs, the most annoying part being how it often shot webs onto the cave walls and leapt around like some fake Spider-Man. But under Ye Xiu's command, the five of them eventually cornered the thing. This time it wasn't billiards—they took turns using skills with stagger effects, and under Ye Xiu's orchestration, they stunned the second boss straight to death. It never spat out another mouthful of web.
The four players' reverence for Ye Xiu naturally deepened another level. He was their MT, and their main damage dealer, and patched them up with heals from time to time, and on top of all that drew up tactics and directed their execution... The four had no words left to describe him—just worship, worship, and more worship.
The grand boss of Spider Cave, the Spider King, was another of the dungeon's challenges. This creature combined the specialties of both smaller spider bosses—it could spit webs and spray poison. Its furry eight legs and the ringed patterns on its belly, set off by a body yet another size larger than the two lesser bosses, made it thoroughly disgusting.
Facing this final boss, Tian Qi and the others weren't nervous at all, because they knew that under Jun Moxiao's command, dealing with this two-in-one would be no problem.
The result was as uneventful as they had expected. This dual-natured Spider King was merely fatter and a bit trickier than bosses one and two. Ye Xiu directed the four players to control the situation, and they took it down smoothly in the end.
First kill!
At this moment, the five players' names were emblazoned on the system announcement.
Yue Zhongmian, Tian Qi, Mu Yunshen, Qian Shengli, Jun Moxiao—first kill of Spider Cave in District 10!
Tian Qi's four went from astonishment to wild elation. They hadn't been leveling slowly, but they'd never imagined they would snatch the first kill of Spider Cave. This was all thanks to Jun Moxiao, this master expert—otherwise it could never have gone so smoothly.
"Damn it!" At the same moment, in the Spider Cave of some newbie village, five players cried out in unison upon seeing the system announcement.
Before them, the final boss, the Spider King, had only a sliver of health left—less than ten seconds from being taken down. But now, they had lost by exactly those ten seconds.
Regret, unwillingness—the five imagined countless "what ifs" that might have made up those ten seconds, but in the end they could only face reality. They had been full of grand ambitions, planning to have their guild claim the first kill of every dungeon in District 10, yet they had only cleared their second dungeon before the first kill went to someone else's house.
Ten seconds. They lost by ten seconds.
"Jun Moxiao? Is that the guy from the Night Goblin first kill earlier?" The Spider King had already fallen, and the five had cleared the dungeon, but there wasn't a trace of joy among them.
"Looks like him."
"Who is this guy? Two announcements already—Blue River, he's just like you!"
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