Battle Royale of the Sinners

There was a reason why the Chinese battle helmets in ancient era covered the back of the wearer's neck. In polearm martial arts, there was a technique called [Mowing Sickle]. It was a move that could be applied to halberds, bardiche, poleaxes, and pikes with a sharp blade extended to the side.

The martial artist could pretend to thrust the polearm at the opponent's face. If the opponent fell for it and dodged by tilting his head, then he could flip the blade part to the back of the enemy's neck. From this position, the user could use the polearm as a scythe or a sickle to reap the head of his opponent as if he harvests a bundle of rice straws from the farm field by simply pulling back the weapon and letting the shaft sliding the opponent's neck.

This move was often used in a duel on horseback, so the helmet was designed to counter this action. Huang Zhong was a martial artist who mastered this move, and he also wore this type of helmet to protect his neck.

…

Sensing the martial art move, Tong bent his body forward, making his chest touched the neck of his horse.

*WHOOSH*

The scythe pull by Huang Zhong missed Tong's neck.

The Mowing Sickle missed the target, and Huang Zhong lost his attacking momentum. Tong pulled his glaive back, pointing the tips to the sky with a kendo overhead stance. He swung the weapon down, aiming to cleave Huang Zhong from the top of his head.

Huang Zhong regained the momentum in time. He raised his halberd shaft to parry the incoming glaive blade.

*BANG*

Because the impact was buffed by all passive skills, which contained 25 times of ordinary human's strength, Huang Zhong felt the pressure and the force coming from the impact. His halberd shaft bent from the extreme force. The horse under the general also felt it as its legs trembled from the sudden weight.

The horse neighed and fumbled on the ground with Huang Zhong on top of it.

Huang Zu, who was observing them from the side, was shocked. He wanted to rush in to help, but he saw a menacing glare from Xu Huang. Thus, he swallowed his heart pain and continued watching.

The archer general panicked as he fell from the horse which it fell on one of his legs. He took 10 seconds to drag his leg out of the fallen horse body. To his surprise, Tong did not pursue or attack him when he was down.

Huang Zhong glared at Tong while he was standing. He asked, "Why didn't you attack me? It was clearly a golden opportunity!"

Tong, who still rode on a horse, looked at the general and snorted.

"Normally, I would have killed you a hundred times over. However, this is a gentleman duel where we gamble the fate of both armies using our skills on the equal ground. I won't resort a dishonorable trick to disgrace this sacred duel!"

Tong bit his tongue and spat out such cheesy lines while he felt guilty from his past experience. He managed to capture and kill Pan Feng because he interfered the duel between Zhou Cang and that general. Yet, at this moment, he spoke about the sacred duel etiquette.

'Yup, I'm a hypocrite.' Tong thought.

<<Your [Pride] has 10.85% chance to take over your body>>

'Oh, being stupidly chivalrous works? Neat!'

A new inspiration swelled up in Tong's heart.

Although he could have defeated Huang Zhong with a simple activation of [Time Stop], he chose not to do so as he started to get addicted to the fair contest between martial arts. This feeling was with him since the day he visited Lu Bu's camp, but Tong did not realize it.

If he were to follow the path of an honorable martial art, his troublesome [Pride] could be overcome as well.

This was like killing two birds with one stone.

On the contrary of Tong's thought, Huang Zhong was impressed by this young man's chivalry. Xu Huang and Huang Zu also looked at Tong in awe and respect.

"Well said! Then, instead of fighting on horseback, I want to resume our fight from that day without any interference!"

Huang Zhong wanted to fight like the other day that he and Tong exchanged their projectiles. Horseback fighting was not his main forte. His true skills lied in archery.

Tong knew what this archer general wanted to do. He nodded and jumped down from his horse and walk away from Huang Zhong.

Tong did not try to run away or leave the dueling ground. He wanted to fight Huang Zhong on the open space without horses or any cover. It would be a fair fight between a gunman and an archer on the open field.

Huang Zhong also understood Tong's gesture. He took his great bow and all quivers with him and also walked back to keep a distance away from this young lord. The moment their distance between them was a hundred meters, Tong turned around to look at the other party.

"The last time, I shot at you first. This time, I'll give you the first move!" Huang Zhong shouted.

"Very well."

Tong checked his remaining bullets in his inventory for the last time. He had three clips remaining. It looked plenty from the first glance, but Tong knew that the fight would be difficult and resource consuming. He had to be efficient with every shot.

'Overclock mode!'

Tong steeled his heart and pointed both his gun at Huang Zhong.

However …

*BANG*

Tong only fired one pistol as the other one in his hand was a decoy.

Instead of dodging, Huang Zhong stepped back his left foot. He faced Tong's incoming bullet in a slant stance.

*GONK*

The bullet ricocheted with his iron armor!

"I see. You fired something from those black objects, but if that's all what you can do then you've lost!"

Huang Zhong pulled five arrows and nocked four of them onto his great bow at once.

*WHOOSH* *WHOOSH*

Four arrows flew at Tong's both side, blocking his path to escape. Two arrows went to his sides, and the others went to the sides of his head, not allowing him to tilt his head to dodge another arrow.

While Tong glanced at the four missed arrows which were about to fly passing his sides, the fifth arrow came toward his face at the same 350 km/h speed with that day.

"Humph!"

*POEK*

A fist with a gun handle hammered down onto the incoming arrow to the side, changing its trajectory.

"Don't be too hasty to judge. The dance is just starting."

Successfully parrying the arrow, Tong aimed back with the other gun which was still pointing forward.

'Full overclock!'

For one second, Tong went over his brain limit. Since Huang Zhong wanted to use his armor to deflect his bullets in this fight, he aimed at the weak parts and the joint of the iron armor … with an extra trick.

*BANG* *BANG* *BANG*

Tong fired with the burst fire mode with the full limit overclock mode on, aiming the bullet at three different weak points in Huang Zhong's armor.

*TINK* *TINK*

Two sounds of deflected bullets could be heard, but one sound was missing. The last bullet did not make an impact sound as it penetrated the place where it was aimed.

Huang Zhong managed to react and moved his body slightest bit, but he did not move his legs. As a result, the one bullet that was sent into the armor gap between the knee-joint hit the target.

The archer general sensed that something bit into his knee flesh and hit his knee cap. It was not painful, but Huang Zhong could feel that his balance and his knee strength was somewhat missing.

'Scary weapons! But relying on those things have its limit!'

The hand of Huang Zhong grabbed five more arrows. This time, he did not bother using a trick shot. All five arrows were fired one after another in one breath.

Left foot of Tong kicked the ground, making his body leaping to the side. Two arrows missed the target, and three were coming at Tong in the direction that Tong was jumping toward.

'I can't dodge these.'

Like Huang Zhong, Tong turned his body sideway into a slant stance with his left leg behind his right leg. The free right hand with the gun parried an arrow. One arrow scratched Tong's helmet and did not penetrate through the outer layer. The last one went into Tong's left knee, which was the same spot that he had shot Huang Zhong with his bullet.

'Is this karma!? I got an arrow in the knee again!?'

Instead of crying in pain, Tong laughed as he felt a déjà vu.

As he smiled, Tong overclocked the brain to the limit again. His thumbs flipped the two pistols' switches into burst fire mode.

*BANG* *BANG* *BANG*

*BANG* *BANG* *BANG*

Six bullets were fired, but all of them missed.

Huang Zhong was prepared as he already leaped away from the muzzle points beforehand. He countered with more arrows.

*WHOOSH* *WHOOSH*

*WHOOSH* *WHOOSH*

During the burst fire of the two pistols, four more arrows came at Tong. From Tong's vision with overclocked sensitivity, he could not dodge these four arrows.

'I won't use my [Time Stop]! I'll use my true ability without the system skills!'

<<Your [Pride] has 7.50% chance to take over your body>>

'Time AltOr! Double Accel!'

Tong's chunnibyou spirit resurfaced at a critical time. For a split of a second, blood vessels bulged under Tong's facial skins, and his face reddened. Tong's world turned into a colorful aurora world, but everything got slower than Tong's full overclocked sensitivity mode.

Tong double-overclocked his brain!

Within this short split of a second, Tong leaped further to the side, dodging all arrows coming at his vital spots. As soon as the effect was over, cold sensation came from the back of Tong's head. Several small blood vessels in Tong's brain had ruptured, and his nose started running blood again.

Meanwhile, Huang Zhong was shocked by Tong's sudden afterimages and his burst of speed.

*BANG*

"Ugh!"

In that split second when Huang Zhong stopped, a bullet went through his hand which held the bow.

'Not good! At this rate, I'll lose!'

Huang Zhong sensed a crisis. He had to finish this fight as soon as possible. He decided to use his trump card.

"ZHANG TONG! IF YOU CAN SURVIVE THIS, I'LL ADMIT MY DEFEAT!" Shouted the archer general.

Huang Zhong took out a large quiver which had 50 arrows in it. He took all of the arrows inside and fired all of them toward the sky without stopping.

Despite the fact that Huang Zhong gave Tong an opening to shoot back during his rapid-fire to the sky, he could not shoot again. His vision was fuzzy and blurred as he overused his brain, so he could not even aim properly. The last bullet was everything he had.

Furthermore, he had internal bleeding in his brain!