Chapter 1 A City of Sin

The moment you step into the leveling area of the City of Sin, even the sky changes. Dark clouds gather overhead, a misty rain falls, and the occasional muffled thunder rumbles.

The entire city is cast in an ominous black hue, shrouded in the rain and fog, greatly reducing the players' visibility. The rustling of the rain and the sporadic thunderclaps challenge their hearing. In Glory, many dangers from behind are discovered through sound and experience.

The instant Ye Xiu's Lord Grim stepped onto the street, a thunderbolt crashed, and a blinding flash of lightning descended from above, illuminating the entire street in a ghastly white light. At that moment, Ye Xiu made his move. With a flick of the mouse, Lord Grim twisted his body and extended the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella to his left.

The umbrella opened, flipped upward, and closed.

With a soft "噗" sound, the Dragon Tooth strike accurately hit its target on the left.

In the lightning's flash, a pale, menacing face appeared, drenched in rain. He wielded a gleaming dagger, aiming to stab Lord Grim. However, Lord Grim preemptively struck him with a spear.

This was a resident of the City of Sin, one of the leveling monsters here. Glory's attention to detail is meticulous; even NPC monsters are randomly generated using character templates within the game. Even the goblins in the forest, upon closer inspection, would reveal slight differences in their appearance. It's just that these non-human monsters all look the same to people. But with humanoid monsters like this, players can instantly discern differences in facial features, gender, and build.

However, all of this is merely to make the game world more realistic and vivid; it has no impact on a character's combat abilities.

The Dragon Tooth connected, followed by a Sky Strike that launched the resident into the air. The man's face was fierce and malevolent, and the attack came suddenly. An ordinary player would surely suffer some damage. The City of Sin's unique environment and weather already brought some annoyance to players, and the resident monsters here were extremely aggressive with a very large aggro range. Like this one, who was squatting in a roadside drain just moments before. The moment Lord Grim stepped onto the street, he was immediately alerted.

Unfortunately for him, he encountered Ye Xiu.

The arena maps in Glory are often based on environments from the online game. Similar streets and environments to those in the City of Sin can be found in arena battle maps.

However, ordinary players probably wouldn't go out of their way to try different maps. But Ye Xiu was different. He was a professional player, and he needed to practice and familiarize himself with every kind of map. With so many years of gaming experience and a professional career, what kind of environment in Glory could possibly be unfamiliar to Ye Xiu?

The City of Sin?

New players arriving here for the first time might feel oppressed by the reduced visibility and the chaotic sounds. The sudden attacks by the residents might even frighten them. But for Ye Xiu, these were all too common. He dealt with them as easily as he would the simplest map environment outside the novice village.

After the Sky Strike, the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella freely switched between combat forms in Lord Grim's hands, and various skills were unleashed at will. If a mere leveling monster could cause trouble, Ye Xiu would truly be unworthy of his reputation.

However, the significant level suppression did weaken Lord Grim's damage output after all. Although there was no suspense, it still took some time to kill the resident. It was a pity that every resident in the City of Sin was five levels higher than Lord Grim, so the experience gained was like killing a monster in the novice village – so little that it wasn't even worth a consolation prize.

Ye Xiu certainly didn't want to waste time on these residents that yielded no experience. After killing this one, he carefully observed his surroundings.

There were residents wandering at 9 o'clock, 11 o'clock, and 1 o'clock. Players had long since researched and compiled data on the aggro range of these residents. However, most players had to rely on moving their mouse to confirm coordinates and gauge distances. Ye Xiu, a top expert with his level of experience, could capture the sense of distance with his own eyes.

The current positions of these three residents completely blocked the street. No matter which way he advanced, he would inevitably enter the aggro range of one of them. However, the three of them were not very settled; they were all wandering back and forth. Ye Xiu saw this clearly, and Lord Grim stepped forward.

Forward charge!

Seeing the resident at 9 o'clock shift two positions to the left, Ye Xiu quickly seized the opportunity, ordering Lord Grim to sprint past.

Back hop!

The resident at 11 o'clock suddenly stopped and turned around to stroll back. Ye Xiu quickly manipulated Lord Grim to perform two consecutive back hops, circling on the edge of the resident's aggro range.

Thirty degrees to the right!

After confirming the positions of the three residents once more, Ye Xiu made his next judgment, and Lord Grim charged in at a 30-degree angle to the right.

During the movement, the character's view constantly shifted, observing the actions of the three residents. At the slightest reaction, he made immediate adjustments. Finally, advancing, retreating, turning, and zigzagging, Lord Grim passed through the three residents without alerting any of them.

The process was somewhat tedious, but it was still quicker than killing a resident to clear a path.

"Are you all here?" After entering the street, Ye Xiu opened his friends list and greeted Su Mucheng and Tang Rou.

"Here," the two responded one after another.

"Good luck!" That was all Ye Xiu said. There was no need for the three of them to meet up at this time; that would only result in them stealing each other's thieves. Although the rules allowed for team-ups, each person's score would be greatly reduced. Whether teaming up or going solo was more efficient, no one had yet determined since the event had just started. But based on his experience, Ye Xiu believed that teaming up made combat easier, resulting in less points but a higher frequency of acquisition. Therefore, if a player had sufficient combat strength, going solo would be more efficient.

Without a doubt, Ye Xiu certainly had the combat strength. Not only him, but Su Mucheng and Tang Rou were far more capable than ordinary players, and there was no need for them to team up.

After greeting the two with "Good luck," Ye Xiu gave Tang Rou, who was new to this place, a few reminders about things to be careful of in the City of Sin, lest her lack of experience cause her to stumble.

"Listen carefully. Although there's a lot of noise here, the sounds of the monsters attacking won't be completely masked. You need to get used to hearing the sounds you need to hear amidst the noise." Ye Xiu had just sent Tang Rou the last message. This was not just about dealing with the City of Sin, but about mastering a skill that should be part of every player's game expertise.

"Understood," Tang Rou replied. The two were actually just one computer apart, but since they needed to hear the sounds in the game, they didn't communicate outside of the game.

However, Chen Guo didn't care about any of this. At this moment, she glanced at Tang Rou's screen and immediately exclaimed, "What level are you? You're in the City of Sin already?"

As she spoke, she turned back to look at Ye Xiu and was once again surprised. "You too!"

Before Ye Xiu could answer, Chen Guo became extremely agitated, her finger directly poking at Ye Xiu's computer screen. "A thief!!!"

"I see him!" Ye Xiu said helplessly to the person outside the game.

"Hurry up and hit him!"

"I don't want to alarm the monsters!" Ye Xiu said. He had already set his sights on that Christmas Thief, but the guy was currently surrounded by two residents of the City of Sin. Attacking now would definitely alert the two residents. Ye Xiu wanted to wait for the right opportunity.

Of course, Chen Guo understood Ye Xiu's intentions, so she ignored her own game and helped Ye Xiu keep a close watch on his side.

The Christmas Thief seemed to feel very safe, squatting in his corner without moving. The two residents of the City of Sin around him were constantly wandering back and forth.

"Hey, hey, hey! Quick, do it!" Chen Guo suddenly nudged Ye Xiu.

"He's still one body position off to the right," Ye Xiu said.

"No way?" Chen Guo muttered.

Ye Xiu moved the mouse over the Christmas Thief. The Christmas Thief's coordinates and position were displayed. Then, he moved the mouse over the resident on the right, and naturally, the resident's coordinates and position were also displayed.

And since these two characters were not on the same horizontal or vertical axis, it was impossible to tell at a glance. The distance between their positions had to be calculated using the Pythagorean theorem.

This was the reason why ordinary players couldn't grasp the distance well. There were so many steps involved, and most of the time, they couldn't figure out the Pythagorean theorem in their heads. If it were in the middle of a battle, there wouldn't be time to calculate it. Even in the current situation where there was more time, Chen Guo used a calculator to do the math, but by the time she calculated that it was indeed one body position short, the resident was no longer in his original position. Meanwhile, Ye Xiu was still calmly waiting for the opportunity.

"Why don't you just go up and kill them all? You have the strength to do that, right?" Chen Guo said.

"Don't rush," Ye Xiu said calmly, as if he was confident that he would seize the opportunity.

"I'll see how long you can wait!" Just as Chen Guo was saying this, the two residents to the left and right of the Christmas Thief simultaneously took a step to their respective sides. At that moment, Lord Grim raised the weapon in his hand, and a flash of fire erupted. A shot was already fired.

The speed of the bullet was naturally extremely fast. Chen Guo couldn't hear the sounds from Ye Xiu's game, but she saw the shot hit the Christmas Thief squarely in the forehead. A burst of blood bloomed, and the Christmas Thief jumped up and charged towards Lord Grim.

At this time, the two residents on the left and right had already turned around and were strolling back. However, the attack was over, and this shot had detonated outside their aggro range. As they turned back, they only saw the Christmas Thief charging towards Lord Grim within their aggro range. They wouldn't bother with that.

In just a split second, he had actually seized the opportunity. The calculation of distance, the consideration of the bullet's flight speed – he probably had to understand all of these. Could I do that? Although she had long known that Ye Xiu was no ordinary expert, anyone who witnessed such a scene would put themselves in his shoes and try to measure themselves against him.

That's what Chen Guo did, but the result was a huge blow to her. As for how Ye Xiu killed the Christmas Thief, she didn't want to watch anymore. Because watching Ye Xiu's battles directly on his screen, Chen Guo couldn't understand anything at all. She had known this for a long time.