Four Split Personalities

Was he aiming for a quick victory or trying to buy time?

What to do...

Sergei quickly calculated in his mind and, in the end, decided to stick to his original idea, to respond to changes with constancy, just as Motan had anticipated.

He could afford to spend this bit of time. If the other party was just bluffing, then all he had to do was wait for the duration of that secret technique to end, and he could then kill or capture his opponent without bloodshed. And if this person truly became stronger over time, there was no reason for him to not sense it. He would just charge straight in and launch a fierce attack. Either way, he would suffer no loss.

And this was exactly what Motan wanted to see.

Although he did not understand Sergei, his insight was incredibly sharp. He had analyzed Sergei’s character quite accurately, which is why he chose to use this simple and practical language trap to respond.

Since he was inferior in strength, experience, and even understanding of the worldview, he used this disadvantage itself to mislead. With the assumption that Sergei could roughly guess the traits of his [Scale Against] talent, he led Sergei to believe he was just posturing. As a result, Sergei, who was likely to guess rightly, would choose not to take the initiative to strike. Instead, he would wait and see, under the premise that he was indeed bluffing. By doing so, the time taken for reinforcements to arrive would be much more comfortable since the support Jadka mentioned was information only his own side knew.

He went with the flow, hiding fatal elements perfectly under a poor lie, leading the opponent to make a conventionally correct yet wrong judgment. This kind of skill was something even the ’Orderly Good’ personality of Motan could handle, though not as professionally as when he was in a ’Chaotic Neutral’ state.

After all, Motan was still a person. Even though most of the extremely vile actions originated from his ’Chaotic Neutral’ persona, it was ultimately still him who did them. So, even if there were differences in thinking and character, experiencing something first-hand, such as eating pork, was always more powerful than watching a pig run in third-person perspective.

But the ’Mor’ at this moment was not the ’Tan Mo’ who could forcefully kill Medea and Dave, who had tricked tens of thousands of Gold Coins from the Big Thief Muse, and who indirectly doomed Marshal Baphie to utter destruction. So, even though he had deceived Sergei, he did not deceive another person...

Of course, it couldn’t be said that he hadn’t deceived them at all, rather, he did not provide a strong and convincing reason that would make the other person willingly cooperate and drag the time out.

"Kill him, immediately."

The cold voice rang out in Sergei’s ear, making this third-grade agent shudder violently. Then, without a second thought, he leaped towards Motan, sending out two spiral Qi Forces, aiming directly at the latter’s raised dragon wings.

Sergei did not know, nor did he want to know why that superior issued this command. He only understood one thing: if he dared to disobey, regardless of whether the strange Half-Dragon was bluffing or not, his own death was certain.

So he struck without hesitation.

"How odd..."

Motan didn’t try to sidestep or simply take off flying, but instead immediately went down on all fours on the ground, narrowly dodging those two sharp Qi whirlwinds, and then immediately propelled forward to escape the sudden overwhelming Qi forces pressing down. Only after that did he fiercely flap his wings and accelerated in front of Sergei, exchanging a tough punch with the latter.

Bang!

A visible shockwave burst between the grey stone gauntlet and the purple scaled dragon claw. Sergei and Motan both turned their fists into palms, chopping at each other’s necks, then each raised their other arms at their sides, parrying the opponent’s consecutive strikes as if mirroring each other.

"I didn’t expect you to be such a good fighter, kid."

Seeing that the opponent’s strength had increased a lot, but was still within his control, Sergei sneered and launched a surging punch, "But you still have to die!"

Shaken in both hands, Motan stepped back half a step, flicked his dragon tail sideways against the opponent’s arm, then suddenly flapped his wings and soared into the air, bowing his head to breathe out a thunder-wrapped breath.

Sergei opened his hands, erecting a dome-shaped Qi wave wall, perfectly neutralizing that ball of thunder fire, then leaped high to grab Motan’s ankle, slamming him hard to the ground, bellowing, "You’re still too green!"

Motan took advantage of the roll on the ground, propelling himself upright with his dragon tail’s force, and said gravely, "These days, the green ones are more popular, auntie."

Ji Xiaoge snorted with laughter from a distance as she watched.

In the next instant, the two were once again locked in battle.

Thanks to the massive boost from his Talent [Scale Against], Motan wasn’t instantly blown away like before. Although he was still outclassed by a full level in terms of raw strength, he was far from powerless. Setting aside how much damage he could inflict, at least, he could now break through his opponent’s defenses with basic attacks, and his Dragon Breath, which combined the attributes of fire and lightning, proved to be quite troublesome for Sergei, who had to use skills like Qi Shield to defend each time.

But the situation was still far from optimistic. Even Ji Xiaoge, watching from afar, could see that with each exchange of blows, Motan’s situation rapidly became more perilous. It must be remembered that his character class in the game was a Knight, which basically lacked any close-combat skills, and now he was even without any sort of weapon in hand. Aside from his Talent-given Dragon Breath, he could only make common attacks.

Sergei, on the other hand, was an expert in close-quarters combat with an extraordinarily rich experience in real battles. He had almost immediately taken control of the rhythm as the fight began. Using his agile movements and a myriad of short-range combat techniques, he launched an aggressive and relentless offensive, steadily pressing Motan. It took merely one minute for Sergei to leave a multitude of marks—fist, palm, finger, and shoe—on his opponent.

This was the gap in foundation—not unlike a navy admiral who achieved a combat strength of 100k by going Super Saiyan but wouldn’t stand a chance against a regular who had 100k combat strength without powering up. Although both had similar nominal strength, compared to the latter, who had fully mastered his own power, the former, who forcibly pushed himself to the same level, stood no chance. Unless he stumbled into a Gundam after his power-up or was directly chosen by some cosmic will to receive a ’divine intervention’, he was bound to get whooped.

If we assumed that Sergei’s constant combat strength was one thousand, then Motan, before activating [Scale Against], would at most be a measly two hundred and fifty. Even if his physical fitness was enhanced threefold, reaching the level of three two hundred and fifties, he was still short of another two hundred and fifty compared to his opponent. Adding the disadvantages of his class, being unarmed, and unable to use skills among many other restrictions, he stood no chance of winning.

"Ugh..."

Motan, who was knocked down for the seventeenth time, desperately scrambled to avoid Sergei’s following cleave. Holding his chest, he gasped for air; his health points, previously augmented to 250%, had now plummeted to just over 60%, while his physical strength value remained less than one-third due to frequent emergency use of Dragon Breath. It wasn’t even about winning anymore—continuing like this, he might not last another minute if nothing unexpected occurred.

So, would there be an unexpected turn of events?

Yes, there would be. Right as Sergei caught him off guard and punched him in the chest, Ji Xiaoge was already preparing to unleash [Muse’s Favor].

And then...

[Activating Trait [Muse’s Favor] will cause extremely unpredictable and extreme consequences. Please confirm again if you wish to proceed.]

And then the system issued another routine warning.

Ji Xiaoge’s face turned white with anger as she snapped, "Hey! Can we not do this every single time? I’m very sure..."

"Arrrrrooo!"

A white blur whooshed past her, and in the next second, Sergei, poised to finish off Motan, was smashed into the ground with a thunderous ’boom’ by a massive exotic weapon.

"WOOF WOOF WOOF!!"

The girl, clad in metal-colored skin, her eyes red with fury, swung the massive two-handed weapon—a combination of a heavy maul and an electric drill—yelling angrily, "Try being cocky now, I dare you!"

[Dog Language Magic • Colorful Dog Scales] + [Dog Language Magic • Dog’s Claw] + [Rage]!

The genuinely ultimate, full-fledged, Universal Language Expertise maxed-out, absolute raging big sister, with Colossal Strength, The Frenzied Canine, Ya Ya...

Once more enters the fray.

Chapter 495: The End