Volume 1: Awakening Chapter 5: Elegant Music
Have you ever seen an angel?
Before this, I had never seen it either. But now, I think I saw it. The angel had a soul mark with the name "Xiange Yayi" written on his head. He descended to the world in the form of a male elf, carrying a warm and sacred light. He pulled up the crystal bowstring like stroking a harp, and shot the arrow of salvation at the tyranny behind us.
Yes, maybe he is just an ordinary elf. But when you are in a desperate situation and your life is hanging by a thread, and someone takes the initiative to lend you a hand, what will you think of him?
This elf man named Xian Ge Ya Yi is a ranger. Even if you know nothing about the concept of "ranger", just hearing such a poetic and romantic name will make you feel the warmth of chivalry and saving people from danger. Rangers are sons of the earth, friends of nature and harmony, and enemies of tyranny. Most of them are proficient in bow and arrow skills, and can use a light string to control your life and death beyond your sight. A very small number of rangers also like to use swords to communicate with the enemy at close range - of course, the elf in front of us is obviously not one of them.
Taking the arrow, putting the bow on, pulling the string... This elegant pure-blooded elf turned every detail of the archery action into an art. His movements were gentle and slow, with a certain pious meaning. When he held the longbow horizontally and pointed the sharp arrow at the target, his eyes suddenly changed, not becoming sharper, but becoming more hazy. There was a certain mysterious meaning in his eyes, which seemed to be a trace of compassion, and also a layer of helplessness. He seemed to have seen the miserable end of the prey he was aiming at, and therefore felt a little bit reluctant.
The strings were plucked lightly, producing a clear sound. Who could believe that this elegant, song-like syllable was actually closely linked to killing and death?
When held in the elf's hand, even the most ordinary feather arrow looked delicate and elegant, as if it had nothing to do with blood. But once it was released from the string, the arrow immediately revealed its brutal side. The feather arrow tore through the sky, emitting a ferocious scream. Time and distance seemed to disappear in front of it, leaving only an indistinguishable black shadow passing through the sky.
"Zheng..." In a flash, the arrow had traveled dozens of steps and hit the target accurately...
My...thighs?!
My body immediately shone with light, and a big red cloud floated above my head. The life force that had just been replenished was reduced by nearly one third in an instant.
All the praise and gratitude that had been felt towards him just now vanished in an instant.
Damn it, this is murder!
"Hey, what are you doing?" I endured the pain and pulled out the arrow, waving it angrily at the elf ranger named Xiange Yayi, not daring to stop for a moment.
"I'm so sorry..." The Elf Ranger bowed to me from a distance to apologize, "...I...missed the target."
If I could still regard the first arrow as an accidental injury , then when his second arrow pierced my shoulder, I was really in tears.
And this was just the beginning, as the enthusiastic elf ranger then began to demonstrate his amazing and breathtaking archery skills.
He shot no less than fifteen arrows, half of which flew to some corner of the forest, and some were aimed at our lives ; one arrow was so powerful that it pierced Niu Baiwan's horn and was firmly embedded in it, while the other two fell to the ground less than five steps away from the bowstring. In general, there was no safe place in this forest except the place he aimed at.
Just like that, we went from being merely chased by wild beasts to being in the unfortunate situation of having soldiers chasing us from behind and arrows flying at us from the front.
It is said that the elves are naturally good at archery. Even young children who have just grown up can use their bows and arrows to remove insects from the trees in the Elf Forest.
If I knew who made up these lies, I would pull out his tongue and nail it to a tree with a bow and arrow.
As we got closer, the elf's arrows became more and more random. He was frantically shooting arrows everywhere, like a rain of flowers, and no one could find them. When we finally ran to his side in the rain of arrows, he finally made the only right choice in our opinion:
He let out a strange cry, picked up his bow and arrow, and ran away with us.
Without the threat of Xian Ge Ya Yi's elusive bow and arrow, we suddenly felt much less pressure to escape. After many escape experiences, Niu Baiwan has gradually adapted to the rhythm of running. Although his movements are still stiff and unbalanced, his steps are no longer swaying and staggering, and his escape speed has greatly increased. He even has the energy to have a "warm and friendly" exchange with our new fellow refugees:
"You can be considered an archer like this?!" Niu Baiwan said word by word, veins popping out on his neck and staring at the male elf with red eyes. The name "archer", which is a respectable and even fearful name, took on a strong ironic meaning in his mouth.
"Look at what you have done!" Niu Baiwan pointed at the feather arrow stuck between his eyebrows, "You almost killed me!"
If the red in the minotaur's angry pupils were turned into flames, the elf ranger would probably have been burned to ashes.
"And mine..." Because I was running away, I never had time to pull out the arrow stuck in my shoulder. Until now, it is still flashing in front of my eyes as I run, making me feel like a scarecrow with branches stuck all over his body in the field.
"I'm really sorry..." Even while running for his life, the Elf Ranger still maintained his good manners and upbringing, and expressed his apologies to us very sincerely. He looked at us sincerely, revealing his emerald green eyes, which looked bright and beautiful. But for some reason, I always felt that his eyes looked a little strange, as if they were covered by a cloud of morning mist, as if he was disdainful of facing us head-on, and his eyes never focused on us, with a kind of proud, hazy and mysterious alien beauty.
The agility of the elves is enviable. His steps are light and nimble, as if he is not running for his life but dancing briskly in the moonlight in the woods.
"I..." He just uttered another word to us, but he didn't notice that a branch was slanting in front of him. With the unique agility of the elves, he stabbed his head, and several brilliant blood flowers appeared on his head. He screamed "Ah", covered his scratched face in pain, and said with tears in his eyes:
"…He is nearsighted…"
After hearing his words, Niu Baiwan's legs went weak and he almost fell to the ground.
"Myopia?" His eyes almost popped out.
"One thousand two hundred degrees..." the Elf Ranger added.
"Then how did you think of using a bow and arrow?" the Minotaur roared in a mad voice.
"I used to use a bow and arrow for everything I played, but recently there was a problem with the optic nerve conduction system of the brain wave sensor, and I can't adjust the optic nerve focuser. This thing is too expensive, and I can only afford a second-hand one. It's out of warranty, and I don't have the money to repair it. Besides..." Xiange Yayi glanced at us shyly again, and said hesitantly: "...Can you... return the arrows you have to me? I have lost too many arrows, and the money left is not enough to buy more arrows. Please help me, save as many arrows as possible..."
Although I didn't quite understand all the content of the conversation between the two air operators, I was able to guess some things from their expressions and gestures, for example: the elf man had a pair of dim eyes comparable to those of an underground mole. On the bad side, this guy who was eager to rescue us was completely unreliable and had become a complete burden to us. On the good side, we were lucky enough not to be shot to death on the spot by this blind man just now.
"What's the use of these junk now!" Niu Baiwan complained angrily as he pulled the feather arrow from the horn and handed it to him.
"That's not necessarily true." Xian Ge Yayi hurriedly took the arrow handed over by Niu Baiwan, with a sly smile on her face, "Anyway, I'm already level six now, and this is not just due to luck."
After saying this, he suddenly quickened his pace, ran about three steps in front of us, and shouted without thinking: "You two, pay attention to cover me!"
His words left Niu Baiwan and I confused. While we were still pondering the meaning of his words...
He suddenly stopped.
He turned, bent his bow, and put the arrow on it in a split second. By the time I realized what he was going to do, we had already run side by side with him.
The bow is like a full moon, holding a stream of light, drawn but not released, like the soul of a star in the dark night.
Rushing towards the arrow were the greedy teeth of a mountain cat.
At this moment, the speed of time seemed to slow down. Niu Baiwan and I stopped at the same time, turned around, and watched the mountain cat pounce on the ranger's face.
Three inches, two inches, one inch. The distance between the beast and the ranger was shortening at a speed that was difficult to discern with the naked eye. Just watching from the side, I felt it was thrilling enough. The distance between them was really too close. If I were in a different place from the elf ranger, I would have avoided it long ago. It was dangerous to come into contact with such a beast at such a close distance. If I couldn't give it a fatal blow, its counterattack would definitely be very dangerous. What's more, behind it, there were three equally ferocious beasts.
But Xiange Yayi just stood there, like a rock, like a sculpture. His arms were still steady, his eyes were still empty. The swiftly approaching mountain cat seemed to be non-existent in his eyes - of course, it was also possible that he really didn't see anything - his movements even gave me an illusion: this arrow was not aimed at a certain target, but was shot simply for the sake of shooting. This elf holding the bow seemed to be waiting, waiting for an opportunity, waiting for a mysterious hint. When the opportunity came, it would be a shocking arrow.
In the last section, the mountain cat's sharp teeth almost bit the elf's left hand holding the bow, and its claws were about to climb onto his arm. Who is the prey? Who is the hunter? The answer will be revealed in an instant!
At this last moment, the Elf Ranger 's eyes suddenly changed.
The eyes that had been empty and hazy without focus gathered at this moment, and the pupils shrank instantly, narrowing into a thin line along with the eye sockets. The eyelids almost covered the entire pupil, but a gleam of brilliance still burst out from that thin line.
At this moment, I couldn't tell which was sharper, his gaze or the sharp arrow.
"Puff!" With a wet reverberation, the sharp arrow entered the mountain cat's mouth and pierced through its brain, sending the beast flying. Three milky white balls of light floated up from the mountain cat's body and shot into the bodies of the three of us.
This was a fatal arrow. The wild mountain cat, which had been so ferocious just a moment ago, now lay motionless on the ground. A huge wound on the back of its head had blossomed into a terrible flower of blood and flesh, silently narrating the terrifying lethality of the arrow.
After Xiange Yayi shot an arrow, he was immediately knocked to the ground by the two cats and one dog that followed. Even though he had reached level six and all indicators were much higher than ours, his life bar was decreasing at an alarming rate.
"Old Niu, step on me!" He shouted as he dodged in a panic. Niu Baiwan used a "War Trample" without hesitation, dragged him out of the beast's grasp, and stuffed him with a few bottles of homemade life potions.
"Your move is simply too powerful..." While the Elf Ranger was guzzling the potion, Niu Baiwan shouted at him in amazement, "...it was actually a critical hit, and it was a 'mouth explosion'!"
"Cough cough cough cough..." The Minotaur's admiration made the Elf Ranger who was drinking the potion choke hard. It seemed that Niu Baiwan 's description of this wonderful blow was not so appropriate to him.
"What is 'mouth explosion'?! Don't use your dirty words to describe my self-created archery skills." He explained righteously, "This move is called 'head-on shot', which increases the attack power by 100% and has a 30% critical hit chance."
"'Face-to-face shot'?" Niu Baiwan repeated the name with amusement, and then as if he had suddenly realized something, he gave this powerful and wonderful archery skill a very appropriate abbreviation, "Oh, it turns out to be a face shot!"
The Elf Ranger was choked and speechless.
From Xian Ge Yayi we learned that his "face shot" - er, "head-on shot" - skill, although extremely powerful, is only effective within one step in front of him - in other words, his eyesight can only fully see the target at such a distance.
With a successful experience, we immediately became confident and circled around the open space, waiting for the two of them to cool down their skills. The second time, we did the same thing, first killing the half-dead big wild dog with one shot, and then spent two rounds to shoot the second "angry mountain cat". When there was only one mountain cat left, we did not miss this opportunity to avenge our shame. The three of us took turns to beat the long-haired beast that had just arrogantly chased us and made our legs weak. In the end, Niu Baiwan and I forced it to the ground despite being tickled to death, and Xian Ge Yayi shot its brains on the forehead, making it experience what a real "face|shot" is.
The elf ranger who had found a target was not satisfied enough, so he shot all his feather arrows through the body of the mountain cat, turning the mountain cat skin into a fishing net. He laughed nervously while shooting, and his evil expression made me feel cold. It seemed that he had been suppressed for a long time because of his failure to hit the target. If he didn't take this opportunity to vent, he would have become a psychopath sooner or later.
We also got a wild dog skin because we killed a wild dog. These animals died very tactfully. Even though they were dead, they laid their fur, bones and flesh neatly in a pile, waiting for us to pick them up.
"Where are you going?" the Elf Ranger Xian Ge Ya Yi asked us. The poor Elf unceremoniously picked up a bag of beast skins and flesh scattered on the ground, intending to return to the city to exchange for some money for arrows.
"We are currently on a mission to hunt down wild dogs..." I replied, "...but now, I need to return to the city to repair my armor."
"I have to buy some clothes too..." Niu Baiwan snorted, then muttered softly, "...It really hurts to fight monsters with bare chest."
"Then we can all go together..." Xian Ge Yayi said happily: "...I have completed the mission of the wild dog, I will take you to do it later. I know a few spots, there are not many people there, and it is a good opportunity for me to level up..."
Just like that, a new member was added to our small adventure team.
