MMORPG: The Almighty Ring

0541 groaned, sounding panicked. “What? What now?”

If he could, he would have rolled his eyes at Umbral Jiang Fei for making such a statement in dire times like this!

“What now? Who knows?” said Umbral Jiang Fei, shrugging nonchalantly before suddenly grinning. “There is someone watching us from above. It will all be fine now.”

“What do you mean by that?!” barked 0541. He could not follow Umbral Jiang Fei’s train of thought.

“As I said, all will be fine. My job is done and the rest should be alright. Goodbye!”

Umbral Jiang Fei laughed quietly as he faded away. The black smog that enveloped him disappeared, and when his eyes opened again, Jiang Fei was back.

“Huh? Where are we? How did we enter the palace grounds?”

Assuming that his alter ego would take him somewhere safe, he thought that his problems would be solved by the time he was back in control. The last thing he expected was for his alter ego to ditch him when the situation got out of hand.

As the alter ego was gone, so was the power he held, restoring Jiang Fei’s original combat level. Even though having a combat level of four million at his age was a commendable feat, it mattered not, unless he could somehow gain at least 4 times the combat level right then and there!

“I… I… I don’t know either!” 0541 shrieked.

His confidence in Umbral Jiang Fei was never strong to begin with, but 0541 assumed that he was at least capable of handling difficult situations. That assumption was quickly replaced with one of blatant incompetence when he dug a deep hole, placed Jiang Fei there, and left without even providing a rope for him to escape!

As Umbral Jiang Fei left, all the soldiers who went berserk earlier returned to their normal selves. Right now, there was no way Jiang Fei could defeat an army of tens of thousands of royal guards, much less the three super-powered old men.

“Dammit! Dammit! He left us to die!” thought 0541.

Despite being frustrated by the fact that Umbral Jiang Fei left them for dead, 0541 did not forget about the secret of his true nature. For what it was worth, Umbral Jiang Fei was a necessary existence. Telling Jiang Fei the truth now would cause the two of them to fuse into one being again.

“By the way, you haven’t told me your name,” said Aurelia.

Her hands were tightly wrapped in Jiang Fei’s. Something about him made her feel that he was not the same person she encountered before.

Turning around, Jiang Fei noticed that he was holding hands with an extremely breathtaking woman who was dressed in an equally breathtaking wedding gown.

He was fully aware that they were in danger, but his natural instincts quickly calmed him down. His pride as a man would not allow him to get flustered in the presence of a woman, especially a beautiful one.

“My name is Jiang Fei. I’m here and I’ll take care of everything!” he said confidently.

“Alright.”

The way he smiled and the look of confidence on his face made her feel all tingly, but not in a positive way. Everything about this man was different from the one before.

The man earlier, although devious and filled with malicious thoughts, had a certain charm to him. His look of confidence was one that only someone overwhelmingly confident could have. Right now, Jiang Fei’s expression and smile were utterly repusive to her.

“Perhaps, the enemy is too strong and he lost his composure…” she thought.

She knew the three archbishops well enough to know that they were three of the strongest beings on Alderaan. Jiang Fei was strong, but he had not reached their level yet as he was still too young.

Whilst outwardly maintaining the same confident look, Jiang Fei yelled in his mind, “0541! Quickly think of something!”

Even if he tried to push himself to the limit, he would only be able to bring his combat level to as high as nine million. That might allow him to defeat the massive army, but not the old farts!

As she was drugged and weakened, Aurelia herself was completely useless now. If Jiang Fei could not even secure his own survival, how could he protect this beautiful lady in his arms?

“Captain, calm down! There is a chance to turn this around!” said 0541.

He recalled something that Umbral Jiang Fei said before he left. Something about… it will all be alright… ? What could he mean?

Jiang Fei pressed for more details, “What chance? How?”

“Captain, you need to stall! There could be reinforcements coming to help,” said 0541.

“So be it!”

Jiang Fei huffed and adjusted his uniform. If he was going to stall, the only thing he could do was deploy his best out-of-combat psychological attack—the art of pretense!

It was a skill he perfected after cheating, swindling, and threatening countless victims for his own benefit. The best part was that he had pretended his way out of fights with enemies stronger than him!

Be it a man or an army, Jiang Fei needed to prepare himself mentally if he was going to properly pull off the act. For that to happen, he had to give the right first impression.

For any pretense to work, one has to believe that they are actually strong enough to begin with! If you can’t even persuade yourself, how can you persuade others?

Once he was mentally ready, Jiang Fei changed everything from his posture to his expression. The aura he was giving off did not come from belief in his own strength, but from whatever confidence he could muster, no matter how fictitious it may be.

In a sense, he was trying to hypnotise himself into having the same confidence he would have if his master was standing right behind him.

Noticing the sudden change, Aurelia arched an eyebrow. When Jiang Fei crashed the wedding and came for her, her mental image of him was that of a strong ruffian who doesn’t play by the rules.

His ruthless confidence, bordering on complete disregard for anyone else, was exactly the thing that had smitten her in the first place.

Once they got out of the courtyard, and especially after the arrival of the three archbishops, she could see that he changed into a timid boy. The kind who repulsed her. No matter, she had her own justification for his sudden change—Jiang Fei was momentarily frightened by the appearance of the three archbishops.

Now in his ‘pretense’ mode, Jiang Fei exuded another kind of confidence, unlike the one he portrayed before. This time, he was domineering, like a conqueror of the universe. This sort of aura could only come from those whose strength knows no bounds, or from those who know no fear as they have someone powerful backing them.

It was the latter that caused Jiang Fei’s current domineering aura. Naturally, Aurelia did not know that, since Jiang Fei had been nothing but charming from the moment he arrived.

He crashed the ceremony, saved her from certain death, defeated the Highlord Advisor, and even slapped her would-be husband! Hence, in her mind, Jiang Fei’s current confidence came from his incredible strength.

With that thought in mind, Aurelia suddenly saw herself as one of the princesses in those folktales she listened to as a child. To be honest, she was happy and excited by the prospect of being part of the stories she knew.

At that moment, she realized that she had spent her entire life fighting for the empire, only to receive unjust treatment in return. Right now, as she was reminded again and again that she was a woman at heart, despite her cold front, she realized that her dream was to just be happy and find someone to be with.

While Jiang Fei was getting into character, he did not realize that the woman he was still holding was completely mesmerized by his performance. Of course he didn’t notice her reaction, he was completely fixated on tricking the three ‘demigods’!