Chapter Eighty-Nine: The Sword That Kills Through the Strings of a Zither

As expected, the AI still lacked sufficient intelligence, even though its attributes were the strongest in this instance.

A faint curve appeared at the corner of Night Feather’s mouth. He shifted his body slightly, and the sweeping spear attack instantly missed its mark. With his left hand, he unleashed three palm strikes in succession. Three ripples of purple light spread outward in concentric waves, and the three points where his palm shadows landed in the air remained suspended. Then the three beams of palm-force actually connected into a single line.

Night Feather drew his left hand back, his left palm turning into a sword gesture. He pointed forward, and a purple beam shot out with a piercing whistle.

In an instant, the head of Dark Soul was pierced through by the purple beam. Wherever the beam passed, it left a mark behind. Night Feather’s eyes turned into violet pupils—deep and eerily strange—and the trail left by the beam was actually forming chains, winding around and binding Dark Soul in layer after layer.

The scene looked indescribably uncanny, as though the chains were shooting out from within Dark Soul’s own head.

Lightly Plucked Strings to Still the Wind.

Night Feather’s left hand brushed across the ancient zither, and a violet rainbow of light burst forth. With this move, Lightly Plucked Strings to Still the Wind, Dark Soul was immobilized. Under this double-layered restraint, there was no way for it to break free.

At that very moment, Old Hu in the distance narrowed his eyes slightly. Beneath Night Feather’s seemingly fluid, seamless handling, damage effects were being stacked, and at this point Night Feather’s damage attribute had reached its peak.

“Three layers is the limit, and the damage output is increased by thirty percent. For a skill setup this ridiculous, to actually pull it off... That calculation ability is no ordinary thing. Next, he’s probably going to unleash something astonishing.”

Old Hu thought to himself, admiration overflowing as he looked at Night Feather before him. For a class to be played to this extent, it was clearly not just because of an extra talent tree; it also depended on Night Feather himself.

Sure enough, Old Hu’s guess was correct. Night Feather directly tossed the zither upward, and boundless, dazzling purple radiance erupted from both hands. In the next instant, the zither itself was completely covered in purple brilliance. Under that veil of light, Night Feather’s fingers lightly plucked the strings, and within the exquisitely melodious music, a chilling killing intent suddenly surfaced.

Strings to Death, Sword.

Immediately, everyone could clearly see countless purple beams of light shooting forth. The music was filled with an endless coldness, and the violet beams continually transformed into brilliant purple blades, all aimed at Dark Soul’s position. As the dazzling purple swords surged past, they left behind streaks of sword marks in the air like trails of violet light.

A vast storm of razor-sharp purple swords swept everything into its path, pinning Dark Soul at the center. Even the air seemed to be shattered and torn apart by those violet blades. In only an instant, Dark Soul was swallowed by the endless rain of purple swords. The assault continued for nearly ten seconds before finally coming to a stop.

What everyone saw was Dark Soul’s body covered in wounds. Even with a certain degree of recovery, it had been battered into a severely injured state by this astonishing attack. In that condition, all recovery effects would be reduced by nearly eighty percent. Even Old Hu was utterly stunned.

It seemed that Night Feather’s talent tree skill unquestionably increased the final damage of his techniques. Clearly, it was a skill with specific requirements.

Moreover, although his attack skills consumed the buffs Night Feather had stacked, if the attack skill was of a different type from the previous ones, it could trigger yet another layer of buff. This made Night Feather’s attack patterns far more varied, preventing other players from discovering a routine. Under this system, Night Feather had undoubtedly pushed the restrictions of the string-class talent tree to the absolute limit. That was also why Feng Ling had personally monitored the direction of the Heaven Nexus server, and why most of his attention had been focused on this player who was the first to reach the highest talent tree rating.

However, before the purple sword rain had fully dispersed, Dark Soul’s spear shot out from within the sea of blades. At this moment, Night Feather held the zither horizontally in a defensive posture, violet radiance continuously surging from his body to form a barrier flickering with purple halos. This barrier deflected the sudden spear strike. Although it was difficult for the barrier to withstand a boss-level melee attack, it was more than capable of defending against and rebounding most ranged attacks.

“Close call. Good thing I added this layer of protection to my talent tree. Seems I made the right choice.”

Night Feather’s lips curved faintly, and he sighed inwardly as well.

Then, after Dark Soul had endured all of the sword rain in its grievous condition, it moved and grabbed the spear that had been knocked back. By then, however, its health had already dropped to sixty-seven percent.

“That attack actually took off so much health!”

Lowe exclaimed in shock. Everyone’s expressions were filled with astonishment. They clearly understood that the reason Night Feather, in this class role, could deal such damage was undoubtedly due to the recent talent tree update. But with damage this high, if it were a PVP battle, Night Feather’s skill chain could probably eliminate any player currently on the server in a single burst.

“Dark Soul was directly restrained by Cool Night, so it can be said to have taken every skill hit full on.”

Old Hu answered calmly. “More importantly, the design of Cool Night’s customized skill talent tree is extremely peculiar. In this respect, his setup may very well have reached the highest tier for string-based classes. Haven’t you noticed how much preparation he made just to release one skill?”

At this point, Luo Feng also came to his senses and nodded, understanding Old Hu’s meaning. He replied, “That’s right. First he used countless layers of control to bind it, then, since Dark Soul was trapped, he could stack his own buffs, and finally launch the attack everyone just saw. Third Brother’s setup can be said to be at the very top of the string class’s standards; even if it isn’t the absolute limit, it can’t be far from it.”

But at that moment, Night Feather frowned slightly and complained, “It’s still a bit short of the damage I imagined. This is still a little too low. It only took away this much health—at this rate, my mana just won’t be enough.”

That string of skills had consumed a great deal of Night Feather’s resources, nearly sixty percent of his mana.

“In truth, I had planned not to use this move.”

Night Feather sighed, helplessly shaking his head. Then the zither sounded once more, but this time the music carried a calm, tranquil tone. The purple motes drifting in the air around him slowly turned into streams of violet wind, flowing into his body.