44 Mastermo sends his lover away

Kaoru seemed to have got an amazing idea which was rather kind of stolen from Li Ling or perhaps given by the man willingly. 

"The trees." Kaoru pointed out and Andy looked at them with no idea on what to do with the information. Thankfully, Kaoru had realized the lack of strategic brain cells in this man so he continued, "The trees. Tie your rope to the trees and create a trap. Cat's Cradle."

Andy suddenly gained knowledge and did just as the man had instructed him to. Kaoru kept fighting the beast and made sure that it was busy enough not to notice Andy's movements. 

As expected, the immortal turtle completely focused on defending against Kaoru's attacks and trying to attack the player in turn. In the meantime, Andy took this chance to go around the turtle and wrapped the strings around the trees. The string that Andy had used was no ordinary string, it was thin and strong, a high-grade tool that he had somehow got his hands on. It could slice anything and bind anything, super durable and strong. 

The string was not the perfect weapon and many people would look at it and just decide that it was useless based on appearance alone. Only those who owned this item would know the value and the right uses of it. Earlier, this was also the item that had helped them catch the deer. If one asked Andy why he loved this string, he would say 'because it was like a sword that could not be seen.' 

When Kaoru glanced at Andy's masterpiece he could not help but give an approving nod, feeling that this man was certainly talented in making cat's cradle traps. It was certainly not an easy task to do especially on such a large scale where the string was so long that it needed trees as support.

Andy had played cat's cradle a lot as a child and could now be considered somewhat of a professional at the game and hence, he had a hundred percent confidence in himself and knew that this trap would not fail. 

When the trap was finally completed and Andy was done with the preparations, he returned to Kaoru's side with a string in hand. 

Kaoru looked back at him and asked, "What do I need to do?"

Andy, "Get it to go over there and make it jump a bit so that its neck is stretched out."

Kaoru looked at the giant beast and commented, "Sounds easier said than done."

Andy nodded, even he had no idea how they'd get the beast to do such a thing. 

At this moment, like an angel in disguise, Li Ling came over to help the fellow players out. 

"That looks good enough."

Kaoru was shocked to see the man suddenly appear by their side since the man would hardly ever leave Mastermo's side but here he was, leaving Zhihao behind to help out some random players he had met today. 

In reality, unbeknownst to Kaoru and Andy, Li Ling had not actually come over with the intent of saving these two all too willingly, he was forced to, by none other than Mastermo himself who only glanced at Li Ling and said, "I have a plan but I need them out of the way. Go and help them."

Li Ling would never disobey or question something Zhihao had said so with an expression that said, "I understand." He left Zhihao behind and headed over to this set of players who had been struggling with the immortal turtle for a while now. 

Andy, "I need it to go over there and stick its head out."

Li Ling nodded and suddenly took out Huo

Kaoru looked at the spiritual sword and his eyebrows scrunched together forming creases, "What are you going to do?"

Li Ling smirked at the question, "I'm going to teach you how to train a turtle."

"..."

Neither Kaoru nor Andy commented on what Li Ling had said. This man was Mastermo's partner so it was only natural that he had some skills of his own and a few tricks rolled up his sleeves. They didn't want to question the man's capabilities, they just wanted to observe it and see for themselves. 

(Disclaimer: This is not how you train a turtle.)

Huo moved forward and made a few slicing motions at the turtle but it had no intentions of hurting the turtle, it brushed past its skin and caused a few scratches on its shell, seeing which, the turtle was shocked that something had actually managed to scratch its protective shell like this. 

The immortal turtle, after having been scratched for more than a minute, had finally concluded that this sword was its sworn enemy and it had to either destroy it or run away from it. 

As it stood, the immortal turtle had no special powers of its own, or even if it did, it had not shown it yet so there was no way this turtle could destroy Huo—stepping on the sword was just not enough to destroy it.

So the turtle looked for the next best option and decided to run away. It took a few steps back but the sword had started to surround it with attacks, sometimes attacking from the front and other times it would attack from the sides and even poke it from the back.

The turtle stepped back, stepped forward, and even tried to step aside, but no matter where it stepped, the sword would follow and attack it from that direction.

The turtle was cornered into a spot and this just happened to be the spot Andy had pointed to.

Kaoru had a mouth that was ready to spit out praises as he was amazed by the man's strategy which was extremely hard to execute. The amount of commands and the speed at which you'll have to give them, just to have this scene happen was beyond a normal player's capacity or level.

Andy was also shocked to see such gameplay but his reaction was not as visible as Kaoru's but it was still noticeable as he nodded in satisfaction, expecting nothing less from the partner of the top player, Mastermo.

Andy, "Now we need it to stretch its neck upwards or make it jump."

The sword started to circle around the beast and stopped it from going anywhere. Seeing that the sword didn't attack the beast anymore and only circled around it, the beast also stopped moving and stayed on the spot, it was confused but it was a mere computer code and couldn't comprehend the situation. This was the biggest weakness of an NPC (Non-playable character). There was only so much coding can do. At the end of the day, no coding could replicate the working of the brain.

Li Ling didn't make any further movements as he appeared to be thinking about what he was supposed to do next.

Kaoru, "I have an idea."

Li Ling looked at the man, "What is it?"

"But I'm not sure it would work."

"Any idea is a great idea. Unless we put it in motion, you'll never know if it works or not."

Kaoru nodded as he heard the man, feeling a bit more confident in himself, "Every time it tried to attack us, it jumps up and tries to stomp on us. Maybe we can use that for our benefit and one of us can go as bait and make it jump."

Li Ling patiently listened to the idea and felt like it was actually a good strategy, "Definitely worth a try."

Andy looked at the two players, "So who's the bait?"

Li Ling glanced at the two and the two glanced at him.

Kaoru, "Devilmagiclover is amazing, I want to see more of your skills."

Li Ling, "Flattery will get you nowhere." 

Andy moved closer to Kaoru and stared at Li Ling, "Majority wins."

"..."

Li Ling was left speechless by the two shameless players and glanced at Zhihao, his eyes pleading for help and glinting betrayal however Zhihao was too busy fighting against RoRo hence, he didn't notice Li Ling's stare.

Li Ling had just come over to help the players because of Zhihao and instead of being grateful, these two brats were actually cunning and shameless enough to ask him to be a bait for them. This was unacceptable but for Zhihao's sake, Li Ling had to accept it.

He sighed in defeat and looked at the players with an expression that screamed 'I am being wronged here.'

Kaoru patted him on the back, "It's okay. I believe in you. We'll have your back."

Li Ling wanted to curse at the two players but he was just too tired to so he walked over towards the turtle and summoned back his sword.

When Huo had returned back to his hand, the turtle looked down at him and it's sworn enemy, the sword that could scratch its impenetrable shell. Now that the sword had reunited with its owner, the two became one in the eyes of the turtle, and the hate it had summoned up for the sword was directed towards Li Ling.

Li Ling wasn't scared to be facing the turtle from this close nor was he worried about it. He was tired and didn't want to be in this position, but it didn't bother him too much. He glared up at the turtle and pointed the tip of the blade on the treasure beast.

The beast got angry at this action. Now that its enemy had gained a flesh form, it could easily crush it under its feet.

The immortal turtle huffed out a breath and leaped up higher than it had previously done when it was attacking Kaoru—this could well define the amount of pent up hate, it had contained for the sword.

Li Ling didn't move nor flinched when he was being attacked since he already knew the outcome of this. It was going to be a success and the only way this plan would fail was if the cat's cradle was wrong somewhere and didn't close in to trap the beast.

Li Ling had not clearly analyzed the trap he created, he had only looked it over and felt like everything was in place. If by any chance, the string was caught up somewhere and the trap failed, Li Ling was as good as a dead man—a dead man who would be deeply missed or at least he hoped he would be.

When the beast jumped up in the air, Andy closed his eyes and pulled the string as hard as he could, he trusted his abilities but he was only trained in playing cat's cradle with his fingers. When he created this trap, he had tried his best to replicate something that would work, however, it was yet to be tested so there was no way he could be a hundred percent sure that this was going to be a success. All he could do was close his eyes and pray for it to work.

Kaoru kept his eyes open and saw the whole scene unfold in front of him. The turtle that had jumped up, outstretching its neck was suddenly trapped in midair as strings from all four sides closed in and wrapped around its neck.

The string was thin enough to cut open the turtle's neck but Andy had turned off this ability of the string hence, it didn't amputate the turtle's head from the rest of its body.

The turtle struggled for a good few minutes and finally, seeing that it had no way out, it quickly admitted defeat.

By this time around, Aunt Su who was fighting against the white Lion had given up and was sitting on the floor waiting for the Lion to devour her. It wasn't like this was the real world so it wouldn't hurt anyway, why should she continue fighting this useless fight?

The white Lion saw the player sitting in front of it with a defeated expression, waiting for the lion to kill her and the treasure beast was in no manner kind hence there was no way it would just pass this golden opportunity.

It leaped towards aunt Su with an open mouth that was ready to gulp her down in a single bite however, just when it reached near enough to the player, the only thing the lion had met with was an axe.