“What do you think the odds of them passing the last stage of the arena are?” Bin Yong asked Shi Zuo for his honest opinion.
“Not sure, Boss Jin seems to have been injured badly by the previous fight. Considering that he is still barely alive means that he was fighting a boss we might have difficulty encountering.” Shi Zuo deduced, and Bin Yong pondered for a moment.
“The beatings he took was so drastic, and he should have just used his cultivation to take it down instead of continuing to hold back.” Bin Yong replied, but Shi Zuo shook his head when Ripcaller took no mercy in charging head on against Jin who was battered down by his previous wounds.
“Perhaps he did utilise his cultivation, and that was when the camera turned away. Or maybe he was earnestly testing himself out against the monsters. Perhaps, Jin does not really want his customers or other people to know his true cultivation.” Shi Zuo suggested as he saw Jin struggle against Ripcaller, the dagger goblin.
“Why would he even do that? Have we not seen that his cultivation grade was at Grade 3 last month when he was fighting against the very same goblins?” Bin Yong continued to survey Jin’s desperate actions against Ripcaller as their blades clashed against each other.
“Don’t you remember how Jin fought rather easily against those goblins? I figured that Boss was hiding his actual ability to showcase how strong the goblins had become.” Shi Zuo responded.
“Are you saying the AI that controls the goblins is improving day by day, battle by battle?” Bin Yong took a step back to analyse and realised what he said contained some truth. He remembered not being able to use the same tactic repeatedly against the same group of monsters.
“Yeah, remember how we fought against Sir Bacon in the past and how we fought him in the very same random arena about a week ago? His actions were less predictable, and he managed to break our technique. We barely scraped through the last fight.” Shi Zuo was praising how much potential Jin’s monster AIs had, though he did not know the fact that his monsters were all real.
“Even so, Jin is fighting handicapped with a restriction of his abilities on top of his wounds. I think if he can win this round, it would be a pyrrhic victory.” Shi Zuo said as the urge of wanting to go into the battlefield to help him was strong for some reason.
The battle ensued for both Qiu Yue and Jin, and each of their individual contest of strength felt like it had a reached stalemate. Both sides were waiting for each other to make a mistake so that they can clinch victory over the other.
Qiu lashed her katana at Slashreaver, the sword goblin, yet the sword goblin had kept his trump card for this particular moment. He stepped back and imitated Bu Dong’s Angry Ape style sword art which almost everyone in the auditorium recognised.
Some could not believe the goblin was able to perform such an act but they realised they were the ones who were wrong. Slashreaver’s attack went through and Qiu Yue who underestimated the sword goblin paid the price of a severe slash wound at her stomach.
“Urgh!” Qiu Yue deflected another blow before she fell to the ground with her wound overflowing with blood to the point that her innards were exposed. She was trying her best not to aggravate the wound, but Slashreaver’s relentless attacks did not give her any time to even drink a potion.
However, even in this situation, she did not wish to call for Jin’s help since it might make Jin lose his focus in battle.
“Ah…in the end, I am still the useless one in dungeons.” Qiu Yue thought to herself as her hands started to feel weak, unable even to block another blow against the sword goblin.
“It’s the end.” The goblin exerted out a fair amount of chi, and an amalgamation of half goblin, half angry looking ape silhouette appeared above it.
“Angry Gob-Ape Pronounces Its Superiority!” The goblin shouted which attracted the attention of Jin.
“That little bastard! How dare he use that skill!” Jin realised what was going on and gritted his teeth as he executed a panda rolling without care of being stabbed in the back by Ripcaller to save Qiu Yue.
He tolerated the pain and knew full well that the dagger was poisoned but this was not the time to overthink. He had to save Qiu Yue or else his mission would fail, and Yun might not reveal to him the entire truth.
Slashreaver noticed that Boss Jin was coming and decided to aim his attack at him instead of the dying Red Panda cultivator. Jin, on the other hand, tried to utilise the Inverse Eyes ability once more, but to his dismay, it was not activating so he jumped out from his Panda Rolling and held his sword backwards.
Jin pounced forward and utilised Lazy Panda Swipe without thinking too much to deflect the blow against Slashreaver copied sword art.
As Jin clashed swords with the goblins, the Pandas silhouettes came out, but it was too brief that the customers were unable to count how many pandas were in the skies. One thing was for sure. There was a sufficient amount in the sky to let the customers be in awe even for just a moment.
The Lazy Panda Swipe blasted Slashreaver out of the floating platform, and Ripcaller tried to save his friend. However, he too had underestimated the power of Jin’s Lazy Panda Swipe at maximum power, and he was being pushed out of the floating platform too, causing a very lucky win for Jin.
Qiu Yue was fainting out from the excessive loss of blood, and she did not manage to see the battle that was happening right in front of her. Jin quickly ran towards her and aided her up. “You are stronger than I expected you to be…What have you been hiding Jin?” Qiu Yue was gasping for air as she held onto her wounded stomach. Her clothes were entirely stained with blood, and her consciousness was beginning to fade away.
“Shh..drink this potion. Sip it. Swallow it. Do not stop drinking.” Jin said his instructions in steps because he knew being hasty would not help the current situation. Although he knew that this was just a dungeon, he simply did not want her to fade away at that moment. There was still a lingering attachment of wanting to save her no matter what.
Qiu Yue followed Jin’s instructions and tried her best to sip it. The bleeding stopped momentarily, and Jin proceeded to give her a stronger chi potion to compensate for the loss of health and chi.
“Why did you want to save me…? Isn’t this just a dungeon?” Qiu Yue managed to stabilise when the potion’s effect kicked in after a few minutes.
“I cannot bear to see you die. Be it in a dungeon or in real life.” Jin scratched his head innocently. It was at that time the magic eye closed up in the random arena, and the System had already replaced Auditorium Six’s screen with another dungeon run.
“To have the damsel rescue the shining white knight. How embarrassing this is for such a turn in events.” Qiu Yue said as she had the strength to place her hands on her face to hide her blush from Jin. “This nostalgic warmth of his arms. I really did miss this.” Qiu Yue thought to herself maybe she could just relax in his embrace for a moment.
In the meantime, the customers who were watching in the auditorium were discussing what they had exactly seen in the random arena instance. “I think I saw at least four pandas.” A customer said as he confidently raised four fingers.
“I will say six.” Bin Yong gave his own opinion though others began to disagree. Some even tried to look into the Pandaflix for the playback, but to their surprise, it was not in any of the streams at all.
“Sorry guys! The video would not be up unless Boss Jin allowed it. Till then, we will be heading to Auditorium Four to check out the PvE Card Battle that is happening as we speak!” Mr Patsu and Bear Cub One quickly squeezed through a small vent that connects every auditorium, so that they do not have to fight against the crowd to get out of the hall.
