Fatal Shot

Chapter 12: Double Armor-Piercing Round

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

There were a lot of special damage effects in War. Among them, the “Heavy Injury” and “Weakened” states were ones players encountered most often.

Heavy Injury

When HP is below 5 %, the character will be in a heavily injured state. All life indicators will be at their lowest point. Movement will become extremely difficult. Plus, in combat, one might not even have the strength to apply a blood tonic to replenish HP.

Apart from that, when HP was below 15 percent, players would be in a weakened state. This status was a negative status similar to the heavy injury status but on a less severe scale.

Feng Luo’s shot had shaved off over 95 percent of the heavy Machine Gunner’s HP straight away, sending him directly into the Heavy Injury status. And because of the shot’s impact, the Machine Gunner’s body was knocked backward.

His hands still tightly gripped the Hydra heavy machine gun the moment he was shot, and the angle of his aim shifted just a little. Very unluckily, several of his bullets hit the gray-armored warrior hiding behind a pile of dirt, who was just about to administer some blood tonics on his body.

−245!

−214!

−199!

−203!

−235!

Consecutive damage numbers appeared overtop of the head of the gray-armored warrior. The impact from several bullets sent the blood tonics in his hand to the ground.

The gray-armored warrior was stunned by this attack from behind, and his reaction was to shout at the machine gunner who had fired those bullets. “F*ck! Old Huo, what the hell are you doing?”

It was important to note that in War, there was no setting that nullified friendly fire just because players were in the same team. There were also no settings such as “Peaceful mode” or “PK Mode.” In truth, under whatever circumstances, players in War could attack each other at any time. The only difference was that after teaming up, damage from members from within the same party was regarded as “Accidental Injury,” so the damage would be reduced to one-third of the original damage.

The gray-armored warrior was less than 200 meters away from the Machine Gunner. Within this range, the Machine Gunner’s damage was not reduced due to distance. As such, even if the damage was only one-third of the original, it was still high, shaving off almost 1,000 HP of the grey armor warrior’s remaining HP instantly.

The “Accidental Injury” setting of the game undoubtedly made the game more realistic, while at the same time substantially increasing the difficulty of the game. In this case, players could no longer swarm high-level boss monsters with high numbers like in normal online games because when the number of players hunting a boss exceeded a certain quantity, it was highly likely for hilarious situations to occur—such as a Warrior tanking on the front lines to be killed not by the boss monster but by the attacks of Manipulators and Gunners standing behind him.

Assuming that he had suffered an Accidental Injury, the gray-armored warrior turned around looking annoyed, but then the scene that awaited him left him dumbfounded.

The Machine Gunner known as “Old Huo” was on the ground, his eyes filled with panic while the Heavy Armor Warrior rushed toward him with his shield raised to protect him. However, an armor-piercing bullet was one step ahead. It had already flown past the shield and hit the head of the Machine Gunner!

Pang!

−145!

Although it was simple, white normal damage, it was enough to take care of the last drop of HP of the Machine Gunner!

As he watched his teammate die in a matter of seconds and turn into a flash of white light, the Heavy Armor Warrior’s face froze. Machine Gunners needed a wide field of vision and plenty of space to shoot; he clearly could not have stood directly in front of the Machine Gunner to block him, but he could have held the shield while standing beside him. He knew that there was only one opponent, and that opponent was being suppressed by the heavy firepower of the machine gun. As such, he had not been worried because he didn’t think anything would go wrong. He would never have imagined that the Sniper would still dare to counterattack under this situation, let alone actually manage to break the defense of his teammate’s headgear in one shot, placing his teammate in a Heavy Injury condition.

By the time he had reacted and tried to raise his shield to protect him, it was already too late.

“Just what is the grade and level of his gun?” said the Heavy Armor Warrior. “How can it have such destructive power? He only used one shot to break the Excellent-Grade protective facemask of Old Huo!”

The heavy armor warrior was puzzled by this, while Feng Luo was satisfied with the effect of the new bullets inside his M110 cartridge.

Double Armor-Piercing Round (D-Grade Ammunition)

Increase attack by 5%, attacks inflict damage twice. The first attack will have an extremely powerful effect in piercing the defense of equipment below D grade.

The structure of this bullet was akin to putting a small bullet inside a larger bullet casing, so the second damage that appeared would have stronger weak-point damage. The principle was similar to the effect achieved by Feng Luo’s previous two shots, which had hit the same point twice. This was also why a white and yellow damage value had appeared overtop of the Machine Gunner.

Feng Luo had manufactured this type of bullet himself. The cost for each bullet was as high as 80 credits. They were expensive, but the effects were outstanding. That was because there was a high probability that the double armor-piercing round would directly break the defense of equipment below D grade.

Defense coefficient, attack coefficient, material coefficient… These were all the special coefficients used in War, and they affected the attack and defense of players substantially.

The higher the attack coefficient, the easier it was to break the defense of the opponent. If the gap between the two was larger, one could even completely ignore defense and penetrate through. Even with a piece of equipment in between, the shot could still deal weak-point damage or even lethal damage. Apart from that, the disparity between attack and defense coefficient also affected the value of the damage.

When the gap between the attack coefficient and the defense coefficient was one whole grade, the damage would be reduced by half. When it was two grades, the damage would be reduced by 90 percent. And when it was three grades, it resulted in a special characteristic called “anti-defense break.”

However, the attack coefficient of the M110 was “D+.” Compared to the more common D or E-grade defense coefficient of most players at the moment, its destructive properties were quite significant. Adding the armor break characteristic of the double armor-piercing round that increased the probability of breaking armor, normal defensive equipment below C grade would not be able to withstand more than a few shots.

“Sh*t!” said the Heavy Armor Warrior. “If this bastard managed to break the Excellent defensive mask of Old Huo with one shot, then wouldn’t it also be possible for him to break my armor in one shot?”

The Heavy Armor Warrior made sense of things and knew that the attack coefficient of Feng Luo’s sniper rifle was astounding. Or perhaps he was using some special ammunition. After that, the Heavy Armor Warrior immediately crouched behind his shield, not exposing any parts of his body whatsoever.

The armor on his body only had D or D+ defense coefficients, and his boots were only E+. It was clear that his defensive gear did not guarantee safety.

Although Heavy Armor Warriors were the natural enemies of Gunners, in situations when the armor of a Heavy Armor Warrior could not compare against the destructive power of a Gunner, the advantage was reversed. The slower Heavy Armor Warrior would undoubtedly become the best target for the hit-and-run tactics of Snipers.

However, at the moment, Feng Luo did not have time to deal with this Heavy Armor Warrior because another Heavy Armor Warrior, who was at Level 47, had already led three Energy Manipulators within less than 300 meters away of Feng Luo’s position.

Two light green wind blades, one blazing fireball, and three crystal clear ice spears all flew toward the forest where Feng Luo was hiding!