Four Split Personalities

"Calculated..."

Agitated Jiawen led a few hundred elite warriors through the fringes of the battlefield, charging left and right. At times, they tore through the Lord’s Allied Forces’ peripheral defenses by leveraging their strength’s local superiority. At other moments, they masqueraded as common soldiers, fighting while tactically retreating. Amidst the chaotic din and the full throttle rhythm of the main battlefield, they had managed to drift until now.

"Pull out, we’ve attracted attention."

When had Jiawen, now disguised as an elf girl, sharply raised her right hand to halt their advance? She ignited a row of neatly arranged shields with a tar bullet and turned to ask the tall man beside her. Dressed in pitch-black plate armor, wearing a bull-ghost helmet, and wielding a saw-like sword, "Mr. Quinn, did our earlier feint work?"

The man’s red eyes flickered beneath his helmet. He strode to the front of the formation, holding off the pressure as the assassination squad prepared to reform and withdraw, his low and respectful voice responding, "It should have worked, Lady. Our previous organized assaults have drawn the attention of the enemy elites. They are trying to compress the encirclement. The Crystal Wolf Family, who were originally at the rear, have already dispatched troops to seal our retreat. The shield guards of the Fernan Family have also begun to consciously squeeze this area. And the Simon Family’s spellcasters... At least three commanders are watching us now."

"I don’t understand what you’re saying."

Jiawen exhaled, activated "Shadow Skin" and flickered behind Quinn. With an almost hug-like, somewhat intimate posture, she extended two flintlock guns from over his shoulder and under his arm, pulling the trigger to precisely shatter the forelegs of two charging horses, causing their riders to tumble embarrassingly to the ground. In the next second, having just cooled down, "Rapid Reload" was used to blow the heads off the two Pan Mountain Knights who hadn’t gotten up yet.

Although it was difficult for Jiawen, with her original strength, to make much of an impact on this battlefield, once Buffi of the Marshall Family had personally blessed her weapons with the power of the Evil God, the originally well-crafted "Exquisite Flintlock Guns" now possessed power comparable to that of epic quality weapons of the same level. Under the influence of "Whisper," the firepower and firing rate of a set of dual guns were tripled. In situations of ambush or sniper shots, they could completely blow an intermediate professional’s head off.

Of course, only Buffi of the Marshall Family could manage such a degree of "Whisper" on inanimate objects. As for the common heretics living as civilians in Mercury City, under the current unsettling BGM, they couldn’t even manage to "Whisper" to themselves.

"So tell me straightforwardly, how many more ’feints’ we need to make here before a gap appears in their elite defense line on the other side."

Jiawen took a breath, crouching behind Quinn as she drank a Healing Potion. Though beads of perspiration emerged on her forehead and her delicate, slightly flushed face showed three parts resemblance to herself, this level of fatigue still couldn’t interfere with her thoughts.

Quinn covered her retreat while fighting, until the more than three hundred people behind them had completed their reformation. Then, supporting Jiawen’s back, he quickly carried her away from the current battlefield. Because of their smaller numbers and superior average strength, it wasn’t difficult for the assassination squad led by the two to break through a gap in the chaotic army.

At least, it wasn’t difficult before the enemy committed an equal number of high-level fighters to fully contain them.

"Three times... or four times."

Quinn answered in a low voice while easing Jiawen’s burden as they moved quickly, "If we want to achieve the results you expected when you planned, we need to conduct quality feints in this area at least three more times. But the Violet Falcon Array is too mobile. With the enemy already targeting us, and now three families have begun to join forces to block us. If we delay too long, it might be impossible to break through, even with our master’s strength."

"I see."

Jiawen nodded slightly and squinted her eyes as she asked, "So what do we do now?"

Although she could be described as a genius, Jiawen was someone with a clear self-awareness. She was aware of her strengths and more aware of her weaknesses. Intelligent, she never pretended to be more clever than she was, and she wouldn’t waste time on areas of little interest or low cost-benefit ratio, draining her mental energy for vain pride.

A genius is not an all-rounder; no one can peak in every field. So when faced with a problem that is difficult to solve on one’s own, one should either decisively avoid it, trying as much as possible to bring the rhythm within their domain, or seek the help of corresponding talents. Meaningless bravado is simply foolish.

Whether as Bai Fu Jin in reality or Jiawen in the game, she always embraced this belief, never once allowing herself to become a fool.

That’s one of the traits of truly intelligent people, and here, it refers to the really smart ones—those who are extremely rare, endangered species, perhaps one in millions.

But there were at least three ’smart people’ on this battlefield...

Jiawen, Motan, Double Leaf—these three chess players who had been strategizing in the shadows since the Marshall Family’s slave trade incident surfaced, finally stepped out into the open at this moment.