Chapter 403: Pirate

In team fights, you must cut the back row first.

For any Adventurer in this world with even a little combat experience, when fighting in a squad format, targeting the enemy's vulnerable points is a matter of course and perfectly normal.

Whether it's a Mage, an Archer, or even certain Priests inclined toward functional fields, they often possess powerful abilities capable of deciding the course of the battle. However, compared to the Warriors and Barbarians in the front row, the distribution of their professional characteristics in physical attributes makes their fault tolerance in battle relatively low, making them easy to target and force out of the fight.

In this situation, how to maintain the stable output of one's own team's core back-row characters and how to break through the enemy's peripheral defenses to attack their interior becomes an important game of wits when two Adventurer squads clash.

Take the encounter battle between the *Black Gull* and the pirate ship on the sea today as an example.

The Half-Elf Archer in the "Silver Claw Osprey" squad, the moment she discovered the pirate ship sailing toward them, had already retreated to the side of the deck furthest from the enemy's direction of attack under the cover of her teammates. She didn't participate recklessly when the sailors were shooting with the advantage of height and distance, exposing her own existence.

Instead, while maintaining concealment as much as possible, she carefully observed the opponent's movements while remaining vigilant of the entire environment, including the sky and the sea surface, to avoid being ambushed by undetected enemies.

An ordinary three-person squad is destined to have a relatively conservative and passive battle plan; compared to aggressive adventurism, stability and caution are the keys to the three of them surviving to this day and living on this ocean.

And on the "Flying Fish Oil Barrel" side.

Don't look at Captain "Greasy Hand" Ba En charging at the front, looking incomparably brave.

If you observe carefully, you can find that when he rushed onto the boarding plank, he was only followed by two ordinary sailors standing close by.

The true backbone of the pirate ship, the professionals who support the team, a large part of them stood relatively far back, hiding among the sailors, vaguely protecting the Spellcaster "Grass Snail," clearly also having a fixed and mature group combat strategy.

Xia Nan felt his combat talent was quite good.

Many times he might not consider so much, but he could often instinctively grasp the key points of the problem and make the most correct choice.

In his view, the situation on the field now is actually very simple.

The *Black Gull* is just a standard medium-sized wooden ship, belonging to an average level in terms of sailing speed, and now it is loaded with a large amount of cargo, causing its speed to plummet.

Facing the pirate's single-masted fast ship on the vast ocean, there is no possibility of dodging or running away.

Therefore, battle is inevitable.

With this as a premise, the main combat power on the *Black Gull* is the five Adventurers, including himself.

He is not very familiar with the three people in the "Silver Claw Osprey" squad, but under aura perception, their strength is relatively average, at the level 2 or 3 average.

The Halfling Alton's profession is Bard; perhaps his professional level isn't very high, but his identity as a God-Favored makes his actual combat power a mystery. For now, to be safe, he is treated as a support character.

And the lineup on the pirate ship on the other side is much stronger than theirs in perception.

The number of professionals is about 6-8, and the vast majority of their auras are relatively condensed; clearly, they are not the kind of novices who have just completed their promotion.

Even that man standing at the very front of the team, holding a scimitar, looking fierce, probably has a professional level exceeding level 3, and his combat power is quite impressive.

Under normal circumstances, facing the opponent's impact, the *Black Gull* basically wouldn't have the ability to resist, and being looted and slaughtered is already a foreseeable thing.

But right now, there is this only variable of his own on the field.

Knowing clearly that his teammates probably won't be able to withstand this fierce battle, he needs to exert his role as much as possible and cause enough damage before the enemy reacts.

Utilize his combat ability, which is far above the average level, to the extreme in a short period of time.

It's just a pity that Xia Nan doesn't possess stable long-range attack capabilities, and his own 【Gravity Control】 hasn't developed to the point where he can escape gravity, fly, or glide briefly.

At sea, he can only wait for the opponent to actively close in, allowing the decks of the two ships to be close enough, before he has the opportunity to use 【Tooth Hunt】 to break into the battlefield.

But fortunately, it is precisely because of Xia Nan's patient move of suppressing his inner fighting intent and waiting for an opportunity,

That he sensed the existence of the Spellcaster on the pirate ship through the sharp arrows that had their kinetic energy greatly weakened and were falling freely in the air, as well as the chaotic and restless magic particles in the air, and locked onto the opponent's position through keen perception.

Thanks to the influence of various works in his previous life and the considerable number of bad experiences after crossing over, Xia Nan has always maintained the highest degree of attention to Spellcaster-type enemies.

If feasible, he doesn't even want to leave the opponent even half a second of spellcasting opportunity.

And so, combining his own intuition, combat inspiration, and the information collected on the field under the effect of perception.

The moment the pirates' boarding planks smashed onto the gunwale, Xia Nan moved.

The target, naturally, is the Spellcaster on the opponent's deck who has just finished spell focus under heavy protection.

Xia Nan's move can even be called aggressive to some extent.

Deciding to implement the decapitation plan, he almost actively rushed into the enemy's encirclement.

Regardless of success or failure, after the opponent reacts, he has a high probability of facing the siege of enemies from all directions.

But at the same time, he also maintains relative caution.

Perception ability has been maximized, carefully paying attention to every move of all enemies on the deck; carefully set aside a tiny bit of intent to remain on the 【Dead Line】 ring, ready to release "Deflection Field" to block attacks at any time.

【Tooth Hunt】 starts, the eerie wolf howl that suddenly rose at sea almost instantly attracted the attention of all enemies, allowing the deterrence and fear effect of 【Night Mother's Gaze】 to be covered to the maximum range.

Almost half of the sailors on the pirate ship failed the check and were affected by 【Night Mother's Gaze】, immediately dropping the weapons in their hands and falling into boundless fear.

The professionals performed differently; some, like Ba En, were only slightly dazed and quickly recovered; others had relatively firm wills and resisted completely.

Perhaps because the distance was relatively far, the only one whose psychological defense line was completely destroyed by fear and who lost combat ability in extreme panic was a Rogue—subsequently, while fleeing, he was accidentally relieved of an arm by Xia Nan, who was in the 【Tooth Hunt】 charge state, along with several unlucky sailors behind him who were stirred into meat paste by the sharp energy carried by 【Tooth Hunt】.

As for that young Spellcaster targeted by Xia Nan...

To be honest, the process was much easier than he imagined.

The three-point attribute bonus brought by upgrading to level 3 and maxing out 【Gravity Etching】 not only caused his physical fitness to explode, but also caused his speed burst when using 【Tooth Hunt】 to rise to another level.

Dynamic vision combined with exaggerated speed, the whole world seemed to enter a slow-motion state.

When he shuttled through a path of blood and meat to reach the opponent's front and placed the black-gray blade of the 【Ember Meteor】 straight sword on the opponent's neck, the expression on the opponent's face hadn't even had time to change.

The whole process was simply unbelievably smooth.

There were no protective magic items to protect himself as imagined, nor were there any defensive spells prepared in advance.

He didn't even need to use 【Gravity Etching】 and 【Heavy Tide】; just a light exertion of his wrist following the inertia of his body, and the opponent's head was cut off by Xia Nan.

It wasn't like those academy-style Mages who had to prepare for half a day before every battle; it was more like some kind of "partial student" who was self-taught and hadn't grasped the key points.

"Hum-boom..." ===== CHAPTER 404 =====