Rebirth of the Thief Who Roamed the World

It would be pretty much impossible for these players to kill Nie Yan. However, they were still troublesome opponents due to their level difference.

A PvP battle was different from fighting bosses, which could be easily exploited as long as you knew their weaknesses. A Level 170 player could even take down a Level 200 Lord if they knew what they were doing. However, most players weren’t stupid like monsters, especially experts who possessed exquisite combat techniques and countless trump cards. When several such experts teamed up together, their combat prowess would be more than the sum of their parts.

Three years ago, Nie Yan was far ahead of ordinary players in level and stats. So, killing them was easy. However, he had lost these advantages. If he were surrounded by many players, he would still have to be careful.

Nie Yan hadn’t done any PvP in a long time. He was both rusty and unsure as to which skills were the current flavour of the month. Fortunately, his bag was chock full with useful items, like the Web Crawler Ring that could help him bait the enemy. Not to mention the Sage-rank potions he’d picked up earlier. His eyes fell on the large pile of Dark Demonic Fragments in his bag. For the sake of maximizing his levelling efficiency, he had yet to turn them all in to Gower. It looked like after this battle was over, he would be making another trip into the Dark Demonic Space.

Nie Yan wasn’t too nervous. Even though he hadn’t logged on in three years, he still had the same domineering style. He counted 12 enemy players. Killing all of them would be difficult, but taking out a few wouldn’t be a problem.

Preoccupied with raising his level, Nie Yan hadn’t taken the time to check his skill window. Until now that was. The biggest surprise he found were three new skills: Helix Edge, Fatal Burst, and Crippling Bellow. They were all high rank skills.

Nie Yan hadn’t learned any skill books recently. How did these skills appear?

A light bulb flashed in Nie Yan’s head. He recalled the Glimpse of Darkness. It contained many skills that still needed to be unlocked.

The monsters inside the Dark Demonic Space were all of the darkness attribute. After grinding there for such a long time, he had no idea how many Dark Demonkin he’d killed, though at least tens of millions.

Unlocking Helix Edge required killing 6,000,000 darkness attribute monsters, 13,000,000 for Fatal Burst, and 22,000,000 for Crippling Bellow. That meant he had killed at least 41,000,000 Dark Demonkin!

The Glimpse of Darkness allowed three to six skills to be unlocked at the same time. Only after raising their ranks to the max could the remaining skills be unlocked. So, it would be some time before he could unlock the rest.

The skills Nie Yan obtained previously from the Glimpse of Darkness like Gale Ambush were pretty decent. He wondered how useful these three new skills would be. He checked their descriptions.

These skills were just like the ones he unlocked before, fairly decent for PvP. If he used them well, he could easily turn the tables in the heat of battle, and he just so happened to have a few practice dummies to try them out on!

The players from the Evil Faction tailed anyone that left the Dark Demonic Space with their appearances cloaked. Even if it clearly wasn’t Nirvana Flame, they wouldn’t be satisfied until that person was dead.

Even though Plenty didn’t approve of taking action, many of the guild members saw Nie Yan as a thorn in their eyes, wishing nothing more than to get rid of this threat as soon as possible. So, some of them set out to intercept him.

Nie Yan who was already Level 177 looked around at the 12 players circling in on him. Averaging around Level 183, they weren’t peak experts. If he couldn’t even deal with a bunch of small fry like them, how could he possibly climb back to the top?

Three Mystics, two Slayers, two Spectral Thieves, and five Necromancers, they were all classes that were powerful in PvP. Apart from a few exceptional top experts, support classes like Dark Zealots and Priests weren’t willing to step in PvP zones because they would instantly become the focus of the enemy.

“That guy looks like Nirvana Flame! Kill him!” one of the Mystics shouted. He conjured up a ball of black flames in his hand. Meanwhile, a thick layer of black ice wrapped around his sword. He blinked in front of Nie Yan and drove the fireball toward Nie Yan’s abdomen.

With his attack mere inches away from Nie Yan, the Mystic’s lips curved into a sinister smile.

The next thing the Mystic saw was a flash as his fireball missed.

Phantom Assassination!

Nie Yan’s silhouette blurred as he dodged the Mystic’s attack, his dagger stabbing towards the enemy’s throat.

The Mystic raised his ice sword to parry the attack. His reaction was incredibly fast.

However, Nie Yan was even faster. Reverse Grip Backstab! His figure blurred as he plunged his dagger into the Mystic’s back with one hand, the other crushing a scroll.

Bewitching Scroll: Cause the target to hallucinate for three seconds.

The Mystic never expected that Nie Yan would use a scroll. Add on the fact that Nie Yan’s actions were extremely subtle, and it completely slipped his notice.

“W-what the hell! What’s going on!?” the Mystic cried out in confusion. One moment he stood on the battlefield, the next he lay comfortably on a lounge chair, numerous scantily clad beauties dancing for him.

Nie Yan followed up with Backstab and Backbreaker as three damage values for a total of 30,000 floated up above the Mystic’s head. However, the Mystic had close to 60,000 health.

Seeing their companion in trouble, the other Evil Faction players pounced forward.

“T-this guy really is Nirva-” the Mystic’s words got stuck in his throat. He never thought this cloaked player would actually be Nirvana Flame. 12 against one, they had naturally underestimated the enemy.

Ordinary skills didn’t deal enough damage. It would take Nie Yan at least a few seconds to kill the Mystic. There was no time for that. Fatal Burst! After dealing this fatal blow, he evaded the oncoming attacks from the other enemies.

In a situation like this, every single skill was precious. If he used them all at the start, he would be powerless afterwards.

“His combat style is just like Nirvana Flame’s! It really might be him! Kill him!” a Slayer shouted.

Nie Yan evaded several more attacks. His gaze locked onto a Necromancer standing in the rear. He pounced toward them.

In the past, Nie Yan could one-shot most players because he was so far ahead of the pack in both terms of level and attack power. He’d already lost count of the number of Warriors that were instantly cut down by his blade. Now, however, after the average level, defense, health, and other stats of the playerbase rose considerably, it was difficult for him to one-shot anyone, unless it was a squishy caster or if he used a powerful skill like Annihilation Slash that had 20x damage multipliers. In his current situation, he was greatly outnumbered. So, he had to take care not to be locked down.

When the several Necromancers saw Nie Yan disappear, they immediately stuck their detection eyes into the ground. One of them spotted Nie Yan’s silhouette dashing straight towards him. He hurriedly shouted, “He’s over here! He’s coming for me!”

The Necromancer waved his staff. A large bone serpent erupted from the ground and shot toward Nie Yan.

Blink Strike!

Nie Yan suddenly disappeared from his spot and appeared right in front of the Necromancer. As his dagger stabbed toward the Necromancer’s forehead, a bone shield shot out of the ground, the spikes on its edge about to snap his arm in two. He hurriedly retracted his arm.

The Necromancer’s reactions were quick!

At the end of the day, the Necromancer was a veteran of Judgement Valley. Even though he couldn’t compare to Nie Yan in skill, he wasn’t easy pickings either.

Gale Ambush!

Nie Yan accelerated, circling round the bone shield and stabbing the Necromancer in the back.

A cluster of bone spurs erupted from the ground beneath Nie Yan. They were incomparably sharp and over six meters long. There were a dozen in total. The other Necromancers also took action. In order to prevent Nie Yan from dodging, all the spells they used were instant cast.

PSFHT! PSFHT! Two bone spurs pierced Nie Yan’s body, dealing 9,000 damage each.

In the instant Nie Yan was struck by the bone spurs, he activated Gale Step to prevent any further damage. Seeing the Necromancer turning to flee, he stabbed forward with Helix Edge. A spiralling attack shot out and pierced the Necromancer’s back. PSFHT! Blood flew into the air.

5x Critical Damage, the Necromancer had no way of enduring this attack. He was instantly killed.

The three new skills Nie Yan had just learned were quite useful.

“Shit! Old Six got done in!”

“This guy is definitely Nirvana Flame! Don’t let him escape!” a Mystic cursed. He was the leader of the group.

Two Mystics and two Slayers charged toward Nie Yan.

Nie Yan swapped his weapon to Zennarde’s Sword and slashed down. A massive slash came cleaving down.

“It’s Annihilation Slash!”

“Dodge!”

They were well aware of the might of this skill. Three years ago, it was called the strongest skill. Even in the present day, it wasn’t to be looked down on.

One of the Mystics and one of the Slayers reacted in time. As the slash came cleaving down, they escaped by a hair’s breadth. The other two weren’t so lucky. By the time they thought to dodge, the attack was already upon them. BOOOM! They were sent flying.

Annihilation Slash was still an extremely powerful killing move. Another two players were killed!

That makes four. Nie Yan licked his parched lips. By PvPing with these players, he was starting to get back that feeling from years ago. Everything was under his control!