Chapter 33: Turn-based action game

This fight scene, worthy of a movie, sent the heat of the Unfilial Son’s livestream soaring to its peak!

During prime time, when all the top streamers were live, Unfilial Son’s stream had climbed to the very end of the first row in the “Biological Son” game category.

Ahead of him were veteran ultimate streamers who had been running their channels for years—untouchable giants for any small-time streamer.

But now, even the expert streamer Dong Ge was left speechless watching Unfilial Son’s gameplay.

Because no one had ever seen a streamer like this before—they couldn’t tell if he was an entertainment streamer or a technical one.

After Xu Bei had thoroughly beaten the frustratingly bad supporting actor, it was clear he was growing stronger with each fight, his speed increasing, and his combat power surging dramatically.

But once the Giant Scorpion’s health dropped below half and it entered the second phase, as soon as that long-haired fruit girl emerged, Xu Bei would fall into a huge disadvantage.

The scorpion woman’s grasp was not something a player could block with just punches and dodging.

Everyone had said before that she could pull players in and squeeze them to death—literally unbeatable.

However, Xu Bei had already died several times, and even a game idiot could learn to avoid the worst of it.

His reckless boxing style was toned down, and his rapid speed became useless; all he could do was desperately dodge left and right while steadily retreating.

Yet this time, Xu Bei’s mentality was much more stable.

This scene felt familiar—exactly like when he had been brutally cut down by the female overseer before.

But this time, he couldn’t use his demon transformation to instantly kill the enemy, nor did he want to.

Was he really so weak that without using demon power, he couldn’t even clear a game?

Without becoming a demon, he couldn’t even beat a virtual game boss?

“One must not accept their own weakness.”

Xu Bei clenched his teeth and kept weaving, searching for an escape opportunity.

“Brother Xu, I just calculated the attack range of the monster’s ghost claw. Using the scorpion’s head as the center, anything within a radius of 131 centimeters is danger zone. If you get too close, you’ll be forcibly pulled in,” the little parrot’s warning rang in Xu Bei’s ear.

“Did you calculate that with your Nen writing too? So precise!” Xu Bei fully trusted the report from his second machine as he joked to himself while maintaining about a meter’s distance from the Giant Scorpion.

“Thanks, Xiao Sun.” The little parrot’s advice really helped Xu Bei avoid death significantly.

It let him know exactly how far to keep away so he wouldn’t be grabbed by the ghostly hand and crushed by the milk sac.

But at the same time, Xu Bei’s short reach meant he completely lost his chance to counterattack—it still didn’t solve the problem.

Against the scorpion’s dual claw assault, he couldn’t fight back.

If he tried to strike, he’d be dragged into instant death range.

A dead end!

“Swish! Swish! Swish!” The scorpion tail kept stabbing relentlessly.

But suddenly, Xu Bei found his opening.

He quickly dodged the tail with a shake of his head, then raised his fist and landed an uppercut on the base of the tail, successfully hitting and shaving off a tiny bit of the boss’s health.

Just that one punch, Xu Bei had broken the deadlock!

Because the scorpion tail’s attack was so long, it extended beyond the female ghost’s lethal range.

So as long as he kept punching the tail, he wouldn’t be caught and crushed by the ghost woman.

From then on, it was a battle of patience!

Xu Bei only needed to wait for the scorpion tail to stab, then dodge and land an uppercut on the tail.

Repeat. Repeat endlessly!

As long as the rhythm held, he would eventually kill the boss.

Compared to the merciless fist exchanges in phase one, the battle in phase two suddenly became weird.

The tail stabbed once, the player punched once.

For the rest of the time, Xu Bei kept a safe distance and didn’t attack proactively, turning it into a turn-based back-and-forth fight.

But!

This was actually the most common combat style in difficult action-adventure games!

Veteran players usually chose long-range weapons and attacked while maintaining a safe distance.

When the monster attacked, they retreated. When the monster paused, they struck once.

So this kind of turn-like battle often happened.

The reason was that virtual game monsters were always artificially designed; no matter how many moves or how unpredictable they seemed, they were fixed patterns—never comparable to the unpredictability of real combat.

Movies, games, novels, and comics all need to follow logic—only reality doesn’t.

“Xiao Sun, you’re doing great!”

Xu Bei praised his second machine while repeatedly landing uppercuts to fend off the incoming scorpion tail.

He felt his uppercut was getting more and more practiced.

Now, Xu Bei finally understood what “a combo” really meant.

To win at games, you had to know combos and use combos.

In more practical terms, a combo was a shortcut, a strategy guide.

Knowing the combos in advance and consulting a guide made beating the game much easier.

They’d talked about this before—a streamer who checks the guide beforehand can’t be considered truly playing the game for the first time. It’s practically cheating.

When facing a new game, most streamers do a little homework in advance, then act like they’re new on stream.

But they never admit to being new, lest they invite criticism.

Many top streamers also use their second machines to check strategies in real time, read chat tips from Dong Ge, monitor comments, and quietly advise their main self.

“Brother Xu, I found the special ability of the knuckle duster—it allows all parts of the player’s body to have attack detection. Other weapons only deal damage with the weapon itself,” the little parrot’s strategy report sounded in Xu Bei’s ear again.

Sun Xiaohui, as a second machine, was dedicated—constantly looking up guides and banning haters in the chat.

She could even use Nen writing abilities beyond the screen to help Xu Bei divine the virtual monsters’ powers.

“What does attack detection mean?” Xu Bei asked back.

In fact, the main player was clueless, not checking anything, and even if he did, he wouldn’t remember.

“Characters in virtual games only deal damage when certain parts hit the monster. For example, if you hold a sword, only the blade hitting the monster causes damage. Kicks or punches only cause slight collision damage. But the knuckle duster is different—when equipped, all your body parts deal full damage. That’s attack detection,” Xiao Sun launched into a long explanation.

“Don’t get it.” Xu Bei was too focused on hitting the scorpion tail to pay attention to Xiao Sun’s little lecture.

Besides, he had already used moves other than fists against those jumping corpse factory girls, like the Iron Mountain Lean.

But later, he felt that except for the stabbing punch, other attacks had no advantage—all damage was basically the same.

“Brother Xu! That means you can kick with full damage too!” Xiao Sun became anxious and shouted.

“Got it!” Xu Bei immediately understood.

In the next instant, he spun sharply, suddenly unleashing a fierce blade whip kick mid-air, intercepting the attacking scorpion tail’s sideways stab.

The powerful kick slammed the scorpion tail hard against the wall, actually dealing two hits of damage.