The days of being a spiritual mentor in Meiman.

Chapter 4273 Heroes Strike! (Part 5)
Natasha showed no mercy, immediately unleashing a "Widow's Sting." Gray Mist tried desperately to dodge, but clearly couldn't. It started losing health after taking the hit. Even more absurdly, this thing had two negative status effects: bleeding and poison. With both applied, its health plummeted.

"Ahhh!" Gray Mist panicked, saying, "Why am I losing health so fast! What do we do?"

"I bet the probability of those two states triggering isn't 100%. We're really unlucky," Greed sighed. "Don't worry, remember the items we equipped earlier? They're definitely more anxious than we are."

Natasha hit her target with her first shot and found that both status effects had been applied. She was a little stunned and couldn't help but complain, "Dr. Schiller is still so unlucky. Poisoning is one thing, but bleeding only has a 10% chance..."

“Wait a minute,” Bucky interrupted her, raising his voice, “You’re losing health too! You’re losing health at about the same rate!”

Natasha was stunned. She quickly checked her health bar and found that, just as Bucky had said, she was also losing health.

At this moment, Greed activated its infiltration factor, completely negating Natasha's "Widow's Sting" attack. Natasha, however, refused to believe it, thinking the opponent had activated some kind of damage-over-time skill, and unleashed another "Widow's Sting," which triggered the damage-over-time effect again.

Bucky quickly pulled out a S.H.I.E.L.D. toolbox and selected a healing potion. Natasha injected herself with it, and her health instantly returned to full. Bucky then pulled out an obelisk from the toolbox and removed all negative status effects from Natasha.

Even so, he was still losing health. Natasha finally realized, and exclaimed, "Burrito! That bastard bought a Thornmail!!!"

This time it was Bucky's turn to be shocked. He said, "No way, there's equipment like that? Then why are we only finding junk?"

"You damn bastard!" Natasha stopped pretending and started cursing in Russian, unleashing a string of profanities at greed.

“See what I told you?” Gray Mist said to Greed in the earpiece, “We’re definitely going to get scolded for doing something this despicable.”

"Don't worry, this isn't even the worst part. The real show is about to begin," Greed said with a smile.

Although the players in the group were using voice chat, which others couldn't hear, Natasha still stood with her hands on her hips and yelled, "Damn Schiller, your wicked schemes are filling this hole! Take that piece of junk off!!!"

"What are you chatting about? Count me in." Pikachu hopped into the arena, and once he joined the battle, the square he was in would be incorporated into the battle area.

"Long time no see, Natasha. And this one... Wu, what brings you to this game? Didn't you dislike fighting?"

Gray Mist felt a little guilty and didn't dare to speak. But the next second, Pikachu jumped up with a shriek.

"Why am I losing health?!?"

"It's probably because I'm losing health," Gray Mist said.

And that was indeed the case. After being bound to the poison and bleeding statuses, Gray Mist began to lose health continuously. However, the other equipment he was using increased health and defense, so even after losing health for a while, he still had more than half of his health left.

However, the description of the "Grandmother's Thorn Necklace" he was equipped with was: "Grandmother's vines are no joke. They reflect 30%/50%/70% of the damage you take to all enemies within your attack range. The exact damage value depends on the number of enemies that can attack you."

That's right, this is practically a godsend for the Gray Mist build. The necklace's skill means that everyone who can hit you will suffer reflected damage. And it's not just damage you inflicted yourself; damage from others will also affect those who can hit you.

Gray Mist's passive skill is that everyone in the entire combat area can hit him by default, which means that everyone will suffer this counter-damage.

Furthermore, this game doesn't allow you to specify attack targets. To be precise, you can't lock onto targets. For example, if Natasha fires a shot at Pikachu, not only will Pikachu be damaged, but the gray mist spread out in the battle area will also be injured.

However, because of this necklace, the damage that Gray Mist suffers will be reflected back to Pikachu and Natasha, since Gray Mist is within the attack range of both of them.

Where there is gray fog, not only will they be damaged by attacking the gray fog, but they will also be damaged by attacking each other, which is equivalent to attacking the gray fog.

Pikachu fared even worse. As soon as he entered, he was within range of the gray mist, which was continuously losing health, so he lost health as soon as he entered.

Although the damage reflection hasn't reached its maximum level due to insufficient numbers, it's still painful enough. Both of them are squishy, ​​high-damage attackers, and they've been taking damage like that for several seconds, leaving them with only a sliver of health.

Natasha at least has a built-in healing ability, but Pikachu is in a much worse situation, having to rely on items. Peter used two bandages on him to barely restore his health.

Pikachu had no idea what was going on, but thought he had been ambushed. He was furious.

He originally intended to walk over in a friendly manner to say hello and have a friendly spar, nothing more. But these two bastards started attacking him the moment they saw him. Can't we just be friends anymore?!

Pikachu took a deep breath and shouted, "Play your card, Peter! I'm going to electrocute them!"

Peter sensed something was wrong, but seeing Pikachu's bad mood, he still played a card.

"Volt Attack!!!"

Pikachu's moves are basically the same as those in Pokémon, including Electric Shock, Thunderbolt, and Thunder, with Volt Attack being one of them.

After launching the attack, Pikachu charged towards its opponent like lightning. Natasha shouted, "No!!!"

But it was too late; the lightning struck the gray mist. With a sizzle, the gray mist's health was reduced to zero. Pikachu, meanwhile, instantly transformed into a streak of white light.

Peter, who was completely bewildered at the research station, suddenly found himself on a snowy plain. He slapped his forehead: "Pikachu's health is all gone?!"

"Hello? Hello, Pikachu, are you still there?"

After a couple of seconds, Pikachu replied, "I'm here, I'm in the command center right now. What's going on? Why were you forced to switch people?!"

“It seems like it’s because you’re low on health,” Peter said. “I just checked the rules. If either the red or blue bar goes down, it forces a player to switch. To completely eliminate a player and force them out of the game, both bars have to go down simultaneously. And each time a bar reaches zero, it lowers the maximum health. Do you see your maximum health has dropped?”

“…That’s true,” Pikachu said. “But I don’t understand, how did my health go away when I just fully recovered?”

Peter, having recovered, said, "The opponent might have a skill like a counterattack, and it's a group counterattack. During the fight, Natasha injured Gray Mist, and Gray Mist activated its counterattack, which reflected the damage back onto you. Then you attacked Gray Mist, and since its skill effect hadn't ended, a lot of damage was reflected back onto you. Plus, the 'Volt Attack' skill itself deals damage to yourself. Your health was already low, and this will take it all to zero."

"I got one-shotted?!" Pikachu said angrily. "I should have worn a hat!"

“Actually, it was my mistake,” Peter said. “I was thinking that using ‘100,000 Volts’ wasn’t safe enough, so I decided to try a normal skill first. It seems like I should have just used ‘100,000 Volts’ instead.”

"Sigh, it's all Schiller's fault for being so cunning and treacherous," Pikachu said, folding his two little arms. "This was definitely his idea. Humph, I hope he doesn't get caught."

"Stop hitting him!" Natasha quickly called out to Peter, then said, "This guy probably has a Thornmail..."

"You actually know about anti-armor?"

“What’s there not to know?” Natasha said. “Are you discriminating against centenarians?”

Peter rubbed his nose and said, "I thought you didn't play video games."

"I didn't play much before, but Bucky loves it, so I watched a bit. Those games the Americans make aren't very interesting... Wait, let's get down to business. This guy can reflect attacks in groups, so we can't attack him, or we'll all get killed by the reflections."

“Alright, let’s have a fight then.” Peter said, rubbing his hands together. “Not everyone can get into that spaceship; maybe only the winner can. We’ll have to fight sooner or later, let’s go.”

Natasha nodded, agreeing with Peter's assessment. This spaceship was definitely a very lucrative structure, and its purpose was to encourage player competition. It couldn't be a free-for-all where everyone could get a piece of the pie; only the victor would likely receive the crucial items.

So they decided to start fighting, but they made a very wrong decision: instead of leaving the battle area first, they started fighting right there in the battle zone.

Pikachu had already taken this time to look at Peter's deck and said, "Dude, you're the kind of beginner-friendly character. Simple skills, no complicated calculations, but each one is very useful and well-balanced."

"Really? That's great!" Peter stamped his foot and said, "Let's begin!"

The instant Natasha drew her gun, Pikachu threw out a card. The skill couldn't be simpler, but the name was quite interesting: "Hey! Look here!"

As Peter activated his skill, he shouted, "Hey, look here!"

Natasha turned her head and was immediately covered in a spider web in her face. She cursed, and then Peter leaped high into the air and threw a punch. This was one of his skills, called "Good Neighbor Here!"

After knocking Natasha down, he grabbed her foot, swung her around, and threw her away. This skill is called "Sorry, buddy!"

That's right, Spider-Man only has three skills. But unfortunately, his passive ability is that "after a skill hits the opponent, it immediately refreshes the cooldown of all remaining skills and the delay in playing cards."

Most skills in the game have no cooldown, but there is a slight delay in playing cards. Cards must be played one at a time, not all at once. Furthermore, there is a fraction of a second between each card played.

It might not sound like much, but it's actually quite tricky. Especially in crucial moments of battle, those fractions of a second can be the difference between life and death.

Spider-Man is indeed a beginner-friendly hero. As long as you can hit someone with one skill, you can just throw all the cards without thinking. There is no cooldown or delay, which is incredibly satisfying.

Natasha realized that fighting Pikachu was less effective than fighting Peter. Pikachu was a high-burst mage, but such characters generally had long cooldowns and high mana costs, making them more suitable for assassins like Natasha. But what was that windmill coming from?

It's no exaggeration to say that Peter's punches were so powerful they left afterimages, and he unleashed one skill after another, leaving Natasha somewhat disheveled.

Fortunately, Bucky seized an opening and played a "High-Speed ​​Retreat" card. Natasha quickly retreated to avoid Peter, interrupting his skill rotation.

Peter, caught up in the action, hadn't paid attention to his health bar until he stopped and glanced at it. That glance sent shivers down his spine.

"Where's my blood?!!"