Chapter 209: Pull His Wires! Cut His Internet!

While Venom was complaining, Thor and Frank had already engaged Artorias.

The Wolf Knight lived up to the reputation of the Four Knights of Gwyn; in terms of martial arts, he was no weaker than Thor, and perhaps even a cut above. After all, most of the battles Thor had fought in his life were favorable matchups, and the divine Hammer had limited the improvement of his martial skills.

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Simply put, if you can smash something to death with one swing of a Hammer, why bother with a bunch of fancy techniques? As for those you can't smash to death with one swing, or who can even suppress you, Thor generally wouldn't encounter such people in war—Odin wasn't dead, after all.

Furthermore, in a battle between an absolute powerhouse and a weaker opponent, things like martial arts basically don't play much of a role. They only have significance when the sides are relatively balanced or when the weak are facing the strong. Thor was currently the weaker party.

But now, the strong one's technique was even better than the weak one's.

For every attack Thor made, Artorias could perfectly predict it and counterattack with great speed.

This resulted in many instances where Thor had to forcibly change his moves before they were even fully executed, either to defend or to parry; the entire engagement was filled with a sense of powerlessness.

However, this was not a one-on-one; it was time for a righteous group beatdown.

Frank hovered outside the melee circle, providing Thor with a very high margin for error. Whenever Artorias attacked, he always had to divert a portion of his energy to guard against that long-range gunman, unable to focus wholeheartedly on fighting Thor.

Thor's Hammer swung continuously, faster and heavier with each strike. The surrounding lightning wrapped him into a small sun, and the Artorias before him was the iron block he intended to melt.

Seven! Eight!

When the eighth hammer fell, the power of the previous seven had already stacked together. This strike was as heavy as a mountain and as fierce as a solar flare; the Hammer had smashed the surface of the Great Sword so hard that some of its patterns were no longer visible.

Artorias remained exceptionally calm throughout. As the ninth hammer was about to swing down, the Great Sword in Artorias's hand suddenly changed speed, shifting from a parry to an attack, stabbing toward Thor's chest at a very bizarre angle.

While attacking, Artorias's constant footwork shifts brought his body to Thor's side. This direction happened to align him with Frank on the ground, which meant Frank had no way to intervene.

Frank had not yet developed the technique of making a Holy Light Bullet turn corners.

"Damn it!"

Thor gritted his teeth. He also roughly knew his teammate's position and whether Frank could step in to help.

This shifting in space was also a form of initiative that Thor and Frank were vying for against Artorias. Clearly, the two of them combined still hadn't managed to outmaneuver him.

"Under what circumstances did he hone such outrageous skills? Was he always surrounded?" Frank thought continuously while moving on the ground.

When Frank was still a special forces soldier, the course on spatial positioning in combat was already very important—even more important than marksmanship. Unfortunately, he had met a true master of this craft today.

However, this situation was understandable; Artorias had spent half his life surrounded.

Charging into the Abyss alone was not that simple. The monsters in the Abyss wouldn't talk about one-on-one duels; they would only swarm you all at once. If he hadn't honed this skill, Artorias would have died shortly after entering the Abyss, and he never could have held out for so long.

The saying that paratroopers are born to be surrounded did not apply to Artorias; he himself was the lonely Wolf Knight who was forever surrounded.

No matter how much was said, it was useless. Thor couldn't allow his chest to be pierced by the Great Sword, so he had to change his move, moving his body backward to create some distance. With this movement, the momentum he had painstakingly built up was interrupted, and the sun set.

Artorias was relentless, stepping forward to press the attack. The opportunity Thor had to build momentum was one Frank had helped create; now that it was missed, there wouldn't be a second time. He would not give another chance like that.

【Blazing Sincere Bullet】

A mass of scorching Holy Light erupted from Frank's muzzle, flying into the sky in a hexagonal formation. It exploded at Artorias's side, and the scattered light filled the area like cosmic rays, shooting toward Artorias.

Thor subconsciously prepared to block Artorias's path, forcing him to take this attack from Frank. That was exactly what they had done earlier to gain the chance to land the first hammer strike.

However, the moment Thor moved, he found that Artorias was half a beat faster than him. The Great Sword in Artorias's hand seemed coated in glue, entangling the lightning and hooking the handle of the Hammer, forcibly pulling Thor in front of him.

Upon realizing the position was the opposite of what he had anticipated, the Hammer in Thor's hand exploded directly. The lightning smeared across Artorias's face, and at the same time, it allowed Thor to break free from the pull. With a rapid descent, Thor dodged the 【Blazing Sincere Bullet】 attack.

Of course, without Thor's restraint, the attack couldn't hit Artorias either.

After trying so many times, Thor gradually lost hope. Artorias's technique was simply better than his; this was an indisputable fact. No matter how unwilling he was, he couldn't change it. Therefore, the only thing he could change was himself.

"Frank! Clear the soldiers, I'll handle holding him back!" Thor shouted.

While they were engaged with Artorias, the battle between the other soldiers and the players on the ground had also reached a critical moment. Both sides had suffered heavy casualties. With no pressure from morale, it was now just a matter of which camel would be the first to have that final straw placed upon its back.

"Copy that!" Frank chose to trust his teammate and shifted part of his attention to the nearby Undead Legion soldiers.

If it were a sneak attack, Frank was confident he could take down an Undead Legion soldier in ten seconds without using his ultimate to save energy. If the person engaging the soldier was a cold-weapon master or someone like Peter who could actively coordinate, this time could be shortened to three seconds.

In the sky, Thor re-condensed a Hammer, holding it across his chest, his eyes fixed tightly on Artorias. He was no longer attacking, focusing primarily on defense and restraint.

Artorias raised his Great Sword and swung a blade of energy toward the group of players.

Thor flicked his hand, and lightning fell from the sky, shattering the sword energy.

After two or three exchanges like this, suddenly, after swinging his sword energy, Artorias charged straight at Thor.

Thor had just habitually guided the lightning to fall, and by the time the energy flowed up, Artorias was already in front of him.

Various methods flashed through his mind, only to be crossed out one by one. Thor chose to take the hit head-on.

Lightning and thunder concentrated on his torso and right limbs, while his body shifted rapidly to the right.

The crimson Great Sword slashed down, and an arm detached from his body, flying into the air.

As the Armor on his body blocked Artorias from expanding his advantage, Thor's right hand, which had been raised early, smashed the Hammer into Artorias's Armor. The lightning erupting from the top of the Hammer blasted Artorias away.

On the ground, several Holy Light Bullets were fired, forcing Artorias to stay away from Thor.

"No need! You continue, I can hold him!" Thor said to Frank while floating in the air.

"Are you sure?" Frank asked this time; after all, if this happened two more times, Thor would be hacked into a human torso.

"Sure!" Thor knew very well what he was doing, and he knew what he had to do.

He didn't need to beat Artorias; he only needed the battle to be won. Once all the Undead Legion soldiers were dead and only Artorias remained, the crisis would be resolved. In just this short amount of time, Frank, in coordination with other players, had already killed dozens of soldiers; the situation was shifting in their favor.

Seeing Thor so determined, Frank shifted most of his energy to the battlefield below.

"Plant! Come again!" Thor roared at Artorias. This time, he would be very careful to guard against Artorias's sudden speed changes; this guy's rhythm shifted too fast and was too catching.

Artorias charged straight at Thor. This time, he wouldn't use any small tricks; he would just hack Thor to death head-on.

Having fought for so long, Artorias also understood that the players below could revive multiple times. Killing hundreds of lives was useless, but hacking Thor to death was different. Power must surely come with a price.

If there were no price, Thor's attack style wouldn't be like this; he would have just come up and fought for his life, leaving a few wounds before reviving and doing it all over again, eventually grinding him to death.

Every time he was slashed by Artorias and lost a little something, Thor would roar once. This could boost his own morale, and normally, this should have deterred his opponent—after all, the fierce fear the reckless. Unfortunately, the one facing Thor was not fierce, nor was he reckless; he was someone who had long since lost his life.

On the ground, after Frank joined the battle, the situation reversed rapidly. The Undead Legion soldiers who had originally charged to the third line of defense were forcibly pushed back through the efforts of all the players.

There were even instances of severely wounded players dragging the corpses of Undead Legion soldiers into the Bonfire. The bit of Soul gained from this was nothing to the overall situation, but the act itself said everything.

Just a moment ago, no severely wounded player could have withdrawn from the engagement; they would have died on the spot. Now, the Undead Legion soldiers couldn't even finish off the wounded anymore. This was the victory of numbers.

As the situation on the battlefield changed, the one who became anxious shifted from the World Consciousness to Baron Strucker.

Summoning the black clouds to awaken the Undead Legion and Artorias from death, and controlling them, consumed most of the power accumulated within the Dark Ring.

Amidst the black clouds in the sky, Baron Strucker gripped the Dark Ring tightly, with all the players from the Secret Prayer Church who had entered this world floating beside him.

These church members now had their eyes tightly shut, with the power of the Abyss flowing all over their bodies; their consciousness and their thoughts served as the seal preventing the soldiers below from regaining their self-awareness.

Without these players, the Undead Legion soldiers and Artorias would either be as stiff and lifeless as characters in an ordinary game, or some would truly awaken while fighting and turn against them.

Furthermore, this was also the reason why the player command had always been on guard against undercover agents appearing from within, yet none had ever emerged; after all, the players capable of being undercover agents were now all by Baron Strucker's side.

Everything has its cause and effect; there are no perfect options.

With the situation below becoming increasingly unfavorable for his side, Baron Strucker waved his hand to pull two players from the sealing formation, their Abyss power being distributed among the others.

"Log off, find the real-world residences of these people below, pull their network cables! Cut their power!" Baron Strucker commanded sternly.

That's right, this was the solution Baron Strucker had come up with; since he couldn't win by playing fair, he had no choice but to resort to underhanded tactics.

Any little bit of influence he could cause was worth it; after all, things like 22=35 having no effect, or even being at a disadvantage due to 22ms, simply did not exist in reality.

As for whether they could find the players, there was no need to worry too much; Kingpin knew how to collect various intelligence within the game, and the Secret Prayer Church knew even more.

Perhaps they didn't have the records of every single player, but they could certainly find a portion of them.

"Yes." The two Secret Prayer Church players responded mechanically with stiff and dull expressions; their wills were already on the verge of collapse.

They logged out of the Dark Souls world in a flash, and the World Consciousness looked up at the black clouds on the horizon.

With Dark Souls present, she couldn't find the Secret Prayer Church players, but the login and logout records were still there; you logged out in that place—isn't that as obvious as a louse on a bald man's head?

At the Secret Prayer Church network terminal center, the two church members took off their Helmets and walked toward the door with dazed expressions.

They had to go to the network supply room first to obtain the intelligence from there before they could proceed with the next step.

But before they could even walk out the door, two hands reached out from the shadows, gripped their throats, and lifted them into mid-air.

After having their throats gripped, the two did not struggle; their will to live had been shattered by Baron Strucker's actions.

Woody walked out from the doorway, glanced at these two fellows with disgust, and tossed them in front of the medical personnel behind him.

"Take them down and see how this condition should be treated," Woody said; these two fellows were die-hard loyalists of Baron Strucker, and Woody originally didn't want to care, but he had to understand the situation to find a way to heal the normal church members.

Woody's eyes swept across the hall; all the players here had a deathly look, and the entire area was filled with Dead Energy, like a graveyard—Baron Strucker was treating them as disposable items!

"Damn guy!"

Woody stood before Baron Strucker; he really wanted to forcibly pull the plug right now and then crush this guy to death.

However, things had already reached this point, and Baron Strucker's periodically sent reports stated that he could allow the Lord to descend further this time, so Woody could only endure it for now.

"I hope you really succeed! Otherwise, you're dead!" Woody closed his eyes, and the Spirituality within his body began to surge.