Four Split Personalities

Game Time PM17:44

Misha County, in front of the long bridge of Ebby City

Xia Lian struggled to lift the cross in her hands, toppling seven or eight mutants that refused to retreat in fierce battle, seizing a few seconds of respite before the next wave of monsters surged forward to gasp for air. Her originally clean and refreshing flaxen short hair had been stained with much blood, and her set of advanced-stage priest robes were almost dyed black. Sweat streamed endlessly down both sides of her face, dripping off her sharp chin onto the ground...

The last glimmer of dusk was still trying to hold on at the horizon, but it couldn’t slow down the approach of night. Visibility was already low on this land that had always been shrouded in a layer of gloom.

By now, the first Saintess of the Church of the Dawn, Xia Lian Bamboo Leaf, had held out here for a full ten hours.

"Goddess above..."

The Elf Saintess took a shaky half step back, leaning on her cross, and bitterly muttered, "Hei Fan you little bastard, you’ve really made me suffer. Is this the so-called seven to nine hours? Is this what he called seven to nine hours?!"

Her last sentence was a roar turned towards the Messenger behind her.

Not far off, the Ranger player known as ’Yarist is lacking in virtue’ shrank his neck and offered a bitter smile, saying, "Well, Her Highness the Saintess, what Lord Hei Fan said was more like ’at least seven to nine hours’."

"I don’t want to hear it! I don’t want to hear it!"

Xia Lian kicked away two mutants struggling to stand up with a sweep of her leg, scuffing her blood-streaked boots on the ground fiercely and demanded, "Damn it, did he ever say how long it would take at the very latest to get things sorted out?"

Yarist coughed dryly, turning his head away with some embarrassment, "Lord Hei Fan said..."

"I don’t want to hear it! I don’t want to hear it!"

"..."

Of course, the worst outcome would be the complete annihilation of the joint forces on the Hodir mountain path, with none coming to her aid. Xia Lian was painfully aware of this, even more so than the Messenger, and her near-hysterical state was not only because she was indeed reaching her limits, but also because she was worried about Yu Chen and the others on the other side, afraid that something terrible might happen to the joint forces before she herself succumbed.

[No, I mustn’t think wildly. Even if something really went wrong, they would definitely inform this side to organize civilian evacuation as soon as possible. So, no news is good news, right, no news is good news.]

Xia Lian calmed her agitated emotions and continued skillfully fending off the seemingly endless stream of monsters in front of her. Due to the terrain, Xia Lian, standing alone at the head of the bridge, would not face more than thirty mutants at the same time. Moreover, the high piles of ’bodies’ of the fallen on the bridge also served to delay their advance somewhat. However, this did not mean her task was any easier. Although unable to use Divine Arts, Xia Lian still had enough strength and skill in melee combat to overpower most high-level professionals, but after fighting non-stop for ten hours, she was gradually finding it harder to continue, with both her physical and mental state beginning to plummet dramatically...

This was to be expected, after all, even if Xia Lian enjoyed fighting with a cross as if it were a bayonet, and despite her proficiency in melee, she was ultimately ’an amateur’ in close combat. Perhaps the long life of an Elf allowed her to learn a vast array of combat techniques, and master different weapons to split open foes’ skulls, but at the end of the day, she was still a spellcaster, different from those professionals who relied on heavy swords, battle axes, or large hammers.

Even with strength and physical fitness far beyond ordinary people, and the ability to flatten a great Knight with pure melee force, the position of this first Saintess remained that of a spellcaster, implying she could never fully exploit her strength through close-quarters combat.

Simply put, with identical strength, constitution, and speed, it would take Xia Lian five minutes to subdue Kordo, while a Sword Saint, Knight Lord, or Thief who had advanced to an Assassin would need less than ten seconds.

To be more blunt, using player character panels as an example, if Xia Lian had a set of Basic Attributes identical to a common Sword Saint, her proficiency level in specialization would surely not surpass one-tenth of the latter’s. Put simply, things like one-handed weapon specialization, two-handed weapon specialization, and more complex stuff like the application of one’s own strength, the angle of attack, and the mastery of footwork. Even if the Basic Attributes were completely the same, there was absolutely no comparison between the two.

Swinging the same weapon, Xia Lian could use ten points of strength to deliver ten points of effect, while a Sword Saint could leverage ten points of strength to achieve thirty or forty points of effect, while also reducing consumption to one-tenth of the former’s.

Although both could wipe out swathes of the weakest mutants, the nature of their capability was fundamentally different.

After ten hours of holding out, if it had been a great Knight on this bridge, he would still retain at least half his strength.

But Xia Lian could hardly lift her arms now...

Therefore, she had to rely on some miraculous abilities to assist her. Even though she was severely backlash-stricken by a direct reprimand from the Dark Goddess Delia, and thus unable to use Divine Arts freely, as the first Saintess of the Church of the Dawn, Xia Lian still had other powers at her disposal.