Chapter 611 Review and Gains

'This is absolutely not an opponent I can handle!' A deep, soaring wolf howl surged around Yorkshaw, accompanied by a fierce wind that faintly stung his skin. The suffocating pressure almost completely stripped him of his ability to think calmly, leaving him to formulate that thought purely on instinct, driven by the sheer will to survive.

For an Adventurer, a direct confrontation often wasn't even necessary; merely observing an opponent's movements in combat was enough to gauge the gap in strength.

If he couldn't even track the enemy's specific movements, catching nothing but blurred afterimages...

If the crew behind him had already been completely routed while he was only just reacting...

...then Yorkshaw felt there was no need to continue the fight.

Offering everything he owned, trampling his so-called dignity underfoot, and giving up all resistance to kneel and beg for mercy might just earn him a way out alive. Otherwise, all that awaited him was a pointless death.

Unfortunately, perhaps the pressure radiating from the black-haired Adventurer was simply too immense, derailing any rational thought. Just as Yorkshaw decided to drop his sword and surrender...

...two of his crew members—whose Class Levels were a mere Iv1—charged at the black-haired Adventurer right before his despairing eyes. One was a sturdily built, green-skinned half-orc wielding a one-handed axe; the other was a lithe Rogue dual-wielding short swords. Having fought side by side for years, the two shared considerable synergy and combat experience.

Even without communicating, they displayed outstanding teamwork in this critical moment.

The two figures flanked from the left and right in a pincer attack.

The half-orc took the vanguard, while the Rogue trailed slightly behind.

The former would draw the enemy's attention and pin him down, allowing the latter to seize the opening and deliver a fight-ending blow from a blind spot.

For a hasty maneuver, their coordination was actually quite decent.

If the target facing their pincer attack had been any other Iv1, or perhaps a slightly weaker Iv2 or even an Iv3 Adventurer, they might have genuinely stood a chance.

But right now...

The probability of their success wasn't much higher than a meteor suddenly smashing down from the sky.

"Ah!!!"

Over two meters tall, his pale green skin looked as if it were about to burst from the bulging muscles beneath.

Seemingly utilizing some sort of dash-type combat technique, every step he took sent cracks webbing across the deck.

The half-orc raised his iron axe high and closed in with a furious roar.

But right at that moment, in the midst of his wide strides, his long-unwashed leather boot stepped on a pile of mangled flesh belonging to some unfortunate sailor on the deck—an outcome with a remarkably small, yet not entirely impossible, probability of occurring.

He slipped violently!

While his physical control at his Class Grade kept him from falling entirely, he lost his balance regardless. His center of gravity shifted backward as his body skidded forward under his own momentum.

There was no time to adjust his posture.

The next second, accompanied by a spine-chilling screech that tore through the air...

...a terrifying deep silver gleam radiating an aura of death struck diagonally upward, slamming right into his skull.

Fueled by the special effect of the [Tidebreaker Anchor Greaves], a kick boosted with bonus damage was unleashed by Xia Nan at full power.

Bracing his right leg against the deck, he twisted his waist and abdomen to pivot his torso, whipping his left leg out like an iron flail.

There was absolutely no possibility of survival.

The half-orc's furious roar came to an abrupt halt. His skull shattered like a watermelon, the chunks carrying enough residual force to fly clean off the deck and splash into the sea.

Fortunately for his partner, even though the half-orc had paid with his life, he had technically accomplished his plan to pin the target.

This allowed the Rogue, who was half a step slower from the other side, to seize the opening and close in on Xia Nan with dual blades in hand.

Hum.

Activating a combat technique, shadow energy wrapped around the surfaces of his blades like solidified smoke.

But before they could fall, an invisible force grabbed the Rogue's wrists in the instant before he exerted force, violently yanking them downward!

The force itself wasn't actually that immense, but it arrived far too suddenly. There was simply no chance to react, instantly interrupting his wind-up motion.

There was no opportunity to adjust his posture and attack a second time.

Laced with gravitational energy that faintly distorted the surrounding air, the Pitch-Black Arm Shield had already smashed into his skull from the side.

"Crack."

Mixed with viscous white fluid, minced flesh, bone fragments, and blood burst outward in an instant.

Driven by the momentum of the impact, the headless corpse flew diagonally away.

A single exchange.

Counting from the moment Xia Nan stepped onto the deck, less than three seconds had passed, yet two Class Holders had already lost any possibility of drawing another breath. Watching this brutal scene unfold before him...

...Yorkshaw stood practically frozen in place.

It was difficult to describe the emotions swirling in his heart with mere words.

Regret for letting greed drive him to approach this target, frustration over the collapse of the crew he had worked so hard to build, and despair at his impending death—these myriad emotions intertwined, hammering against the last shreds of his rationality.

He tried to throw away the longsword in his hand and surrender.

But the whistling shriek of a blade tearing through the air directly in front of him forced him to tighten his grip on the hilt once more. Obeying his combat instincts, he raised his longsword to block.

"Clang!"

Sparks flew.

A pink crystalline Short Dagger clashed against his ordinary-quality blade.

Yorkshaw's expression blanked in surprise.

He wasn't instantly crushed on contact as he had imagined.

The black-haired youth before him, whose exceptional combat prowess starkly contrasted with his youthful face, didn't seem to be using his full strength.

Instead, he was deliberately controlling the force of his strikes, keeping them within a range Yorkshaw could handle.

'Why?'

He simply had no time to think.

The crystalline Short Dagger came crashing down once again.

"Clang! Clang! Clang!"

The crisp sound of clashing metal rang out continuously across the deck.

The battle itself had fallen completely under the opponent's control. Yorkshaw was like a humanoid training dummy. Under the torrential assault and suffocating psychological pressure, he had absolutely no chance to counterattack; he could only block with extreme passivity.

He even faintly felt that every position and movement of his blocks was being guided by the opponent, turning him into nothing more than a marionette. At the same time, being forced to fully immerse himself in the fight allowed him to sense with extreme clarity that as the number of clashes increased, the speed and power behind the opponent's every strike grew stronger.

The offensive, which he could barely fend off at first, gradually became impossible to parry.

And right at that moment.

As if realizing that Yorkshaw was teetering on his absolute limit.

The dagger, which had been striking at a set rhythm and steadily accelerating, abruptly paused!

In just a split second, it completely shifted from fast to slow.

Hrk.

Faced with such a shift in tempo while his focus was hyper-concentrated and his entire being was poured into the fight, Yorkshaw felt a sickening wave of nausea identical to his first time getting seasick. An indescribable sense of vertigo exploded in his brain.

He actually started dry heaving right in the middle of the battle.

His hand, originally gripping the hilt, could no longer muster any strength. Amidst his tremors, his sword was blasted out of his grasp by the descending Short Dagger.

Xia Nan knew the pirate before him no longer had the capacity to fight.

The dagger, which had been strictly holding back at a fixed level of force, ceased its restraint.

Power surged—[Spinning Slash]!

Snick.

A sharp pink arc flashed through the air and vanished just as quickly.

Spraying blood, his skull spun as it left his shoulders, rolling across the ground with a dull thud.

Standing in place, Xia Nan used a piece of gauze to wipe the [Honey Tangerine] dagger in his hand.

The [Scarlet Thorn] armor he wore emitted a faint red glow from the blood splattered on it, its defensive capabilities rising thanks to its enchanting effect. Unfortunately, the fight had ended before he could test its specific defensive performance.

Aside from the three Class Holder Adventurers Xia Nan had slain, the other pirates who had jumped into the sea or hidden in the cabins were chased down and killed one by one by the crew of the "Wave-Chasing Sea Fang".

There was no need to leave any survivors.

Since they had dared to hoist a pirate flag, actively approach, and attempt a raid, they had to suffer the consequences.

It was worth noting that for the trip from Barracuda Bay to Salt Rock Port, Xia Nan hadn't hired any Class Grade Adventurers to accompany him.

On one hand, he was purely just traveling; it wasn't some high-difficulty commission that required combat. Hiring a few experienced, ordinary sailors was completely sufficient.

On the other hand, although Xia Nan's reputation in Barracuda Bay would have definitely drawn responses from quite a few Class Holders had he publicly recruited... the cost-effectiveness was truly poor.

He could solo an ordinary Class Holder Adventurer Squad by himself; hiring them onto the ship would just be a total waste of money.

And elite teams like the "Blade of Vengeance", which had members above Level 5 (Iv5), were simply too expensive. Just for travel—let alone a trip without any combat or precious cargo needing an escort—it was completely unnecessary.

Therefore, none of the current crew members on the "Wave-Chasing Sea Fang" possessed a Class Grade.

This was also the reason Xia Nan had entered the fray alone beforehand, wanting to minimize any potential casualties on his ship. Looking back at the battle on the deck just now, Xia Nan actually could have resolved the fight much faster.

To put it simply, by dashing back and forth a few times with [Fang Hunt], coupled with a [Spinning Slash] imbued with [Heavy Tide], he wouldn't have even needed to use [Gravity Etching]. The Class Holders, including that pirate captain, would have basically all ended up dead.

The total combat time wouldn't have exceeded ten seconds.

The reason he deliberately held back—even going so far as to leave his main weapon sheathed and use the [Honey Tangerine] dagger as a substitute—was mainly because he wanted to test the improvements he had gained from his trip to the Southern Archipelagos in actual combat.

And the results he got were more or less within his expectations.

He wasn't sure if it was due to the three points of luck provided by the [Glimmer] dice, but the half-orc who charged him first had slipped and nearly fallen before he could even swing the axe in his hands.

This allowed Xia Nan to test the kick damage bonus attached to the [Tidebreaker Anchor Greaves].

The effect looked pretty good—blowing the opponent's head apart with a single kick.

But from Xia Nan's own perspective, given that he had never been accustomed to fighting with kicks, it still felt somewhat strange and highly unadaptable.

Furthermore, the damage bonus was actually only average, far from reaching the level where it would compel Xia Nan to change his combat habits.

He figured this ability was going to be benched for a long time, reserved only for extremely special circumstances.

In contrast, [Gravity Control] reaching Iv2 was far more useful.

Even against the sturdy body of an Adventurer who had obtained a Class Level, it could still exert a certain level of restriction, and even achieve the effect of interrupting the opponent's movements.

Moreover, due to the invisible and colorless nature of gravity itself, it was difficult to defend against or react to.

Moving forward, he could increase the proportion of his daily development and training for it, within the limits of what his mental strength could support.

[Heavy Tide] went without saying. Providing both a damage bonus and a chance to cause imbalance, it had long since become one of his most frequently used combat techniques. After reaching max level, its overall effects had seen a massive boost.

Throughout the entire battle, the most important part was his test of [Layered Waves] and [Hunting Arc].

Although that unknown pirate leader didn't seem to have a low Class Level, he was clearly not a candidate Xia Nan could safely use to test his full strength.

He even had to hold back a great deal of his power just so the man could barely keep up with his offensive.

Yet even so, as the number of combat exchanges gradually increased, his attack speed and power grew stronger and stronger under the pull of [Layered Waves], and the opponent ultimately failed to hold on.

[Hunting Arc] went without saying even more.

This Battle Posture fundamentally required alternating between [Spinning Slash] and [Fang Hunt] to unleash its full might.

And given that pirate's performance just now, if he had truly used the combo of those two main combat techniques, the guy probably wouldn't have lasted a single round. Therefore, at the very end, Xia Nan merely tested out a special tempo-changing trick within [Hunting Arc], attempting a so-called "fast-slow blade."

The result, whether judged from the enemy's reaction or his own usage experience, was incredibly good.

Xia Nan felt highly satisfied with this.

If his current self were to fight that Bloodskin Shark Beast head-on again, he figured that although he would still need to activate Stage 2 of [Ember Echoes], he wouldn't be pushed to the absolute limit like before—forced to exhaust every trick and eventually rely on his bare fists to beat the thing to death. After the battle ended, it naturally came to the classic loot settlement phase.

In the Adventurer line of work, the strength of the enemy was often directly proportional to the value of the loot that could be scavenged from them.

Enemies on the level of Dodd the "Algae Scale" and the Bloodskin Shark Beast could provide blue Rare-grade equipment and forging materials. Naturally, from a Ragtag Party like the one right now—which could be taken out in a single half-serious exchange—all they could scavenge was basic white-grade gear.

Fortunately, it seemed they had just recently finished a raid. A few crates of cargo that didn't match their style were stored on the pirate ship.

Adding up all the odds and ends, he estimated it could sell for a three-digit sum of gold coins.

It certainly wasn't a small amount of money, but considering Xia Nan's net worth had already broken into the five digits, and since he needed to hurry and rendezvous with the Barbarian Forgan, time was tight. He figured that if he didn't have time to deal with it three days from now, he would hand this loot over to the crew he brought along, treating it as a bonus for this trip while hiring them to keep watch over his ship.

Just as he was pondering his upcoming plans...

Suddenly, accompanied by a flurry of hurried footsteps, a young-faced sailor ran out from the cabin and urgently said, "Mr. Xia Nan, we found something!"

"We might have to trouble you to come take a look personally."