NOVEL NEXT Chapter 167: The Hunter’s Rebellion
Ryan left Sunstone City with a new quest item in hand. The artifact pulsed faintly against his palm, a strange little thing that would release a subtle pheromone once placed at the entrance of the Giant Insect Nest. That, he knew, would draw Bishop Dimia out from her hidden sanctuary. If she truly was the figure he believed her to be, she would have no choice but to appear.
A quiet calm settled over him. Most of his objectives were already complete; all that remained was to set the item in its place and bring this long quest to an end. With the city behind him and the wilderness stretching forward, Ryan opened the guild channel, ready for a bit of lighthearted chatter.
"Boss, you won't believe the noise on the forums," chirped Solo Blade, one of the guild's more excitable members. "I just ran a pick-up dungeon, and the whole group was buzzing about a new video. Some hunter called Cblack pulled off a technique nobody's ever seen before, and he cut through melee fighters like he was slicing warm butter."
"I watched it," Solo Blade went on, laughing. "It was like watching a rerun of that Smoking Gun versus AJ duel, just with different names. If I hadn't known better, I'd have sworn it was Smoking Gun himself putting on the show."
"I saw it too," said SwordSaint01, his usually casual tone edged with a rare seriousness. "That Orc hunter, Cblack, is frighteningly skilled. Far more polished than Smoking Gun ever was. You can tell he's the kind who lives and breathes this game. Who would have thought the Dark Horde could produce someone like that, and so quickly at that?"
"If it's Cblack we're talking about, I wouldn't get too worked up," Nightwalker cut in, his message dropping into the channel like a cough to clear the air. "Back during Smoking Gun's duel with AJ, I happened to be watching an Orc rogue through Eagle Eye. That hunter on the sidelines? If my memory's right, it was Cblack."
Nightwalker's casual remark hit the guild like a spark in dry grass. Outrage erupted instantly. Members accused the Dark Horde of stealing their guild's glory, of hijacking the fame that rightfully belonged to Smoking Gun. The chatter turned into a frenzy, with vows to swarm the forums and shout Cblack down until the whole server knew the truth.
What began as playful teasing had boiled into something much more serious. The longer they argued, the more determined they became, their banter sharpening into genuine conviction.
"Alright, alright, cool it already. It's just a trick," Smoking Gun typed again and again, trying to smother their anger with half-hearted reassurance. But it was like trying to put out a wildfire with a teacup. Their indignation only burned hotter until Ryan finally stepped in.
"Enough," he said, his voice carrying the weight of command even in the sterile space of the guild chat. "It's a small trick, nothing more. Even if Cblack hadn't seen Smoking Gun and AJ's duel that day, with his persistence he would've stumbled on the same thing sooner or later. What you should be focusing on right now is leveling. None of you are at max level yet, so what's there to worry about? From what I've seen, the real game doesn't even begin until you reach the cap."
That was the end of it. The guild channel went quiet as members one by one logged off, each claiming they needed to power-level. Whether they actually did was another matter entirely.
Ryan didn't give it another thought. He turned his steps toward the Giant Insect Nest, the artifact steady in his grip. As far as he was concerned, Cblack's so-called breakthrough was nothing to fret over. At best, it put hunters back on equal footing with the other classes.
For the wider hunter community, though, that video was something else entirely. It was as if Cblack had thrown open a door they hadn't even realized was there.
Hunters rejoiced, realizing they were far from weak. In fact, they could be devastating. Hadn't Cblack toyed with a warrior of the same level while keeping more than ninety-five percent of his health intact? That single feat earned him the admiration of countless hunter players, who soon began calling him their "Hunter Mentor."
The video itself carried the title The True Combat Style of Hunters, but at first it slipped past unnoticed, buried among the endless flood of theorycrafting guides and combat breakdowns that hunters had been posting for a while.
Still, there are always curious eyes willing to click on something new. One such viewer opened the thread, watched the entire duel from start to finish, and then passed it along.
At first, many dismissed it as fake. Everyone knew the rule of thumb: a Protection Warrior could crush a hunter of equal level without breaking a sweat. Yet the warrior in the footage looked like he was simply absorbing blows without ever mounting a real counter. His single attempt at offense, a half-hearted throw of his ranged weapon, was laughably useless.
A few trolls were already sharpening their knives, ready to flood the comments with "fake AF" accusations, when the truth surfaced.
The recording wasn't from the hunter's perspective—it was from the warrior's. Other warrior players, stepping into those shoes as they watched, quickly realized the nightmare: they wouldn't have fared any better. No matter how they replayed the fight in their minds, they couldn't find a single opening. Against this style, they too would have been completely dismantled.
The revelation spread like wildfire. Warriors talked among themselves, and of course hunters were part of those circles. Soon enough, word of the video's legitimacy began to ripple outward.
Time passed, and more hunters climbed to level thirty, gaining access to Aspect of the Cheetah. When they copied Cblack's methods, they discovered the same shocking truth: melee classes they once dreaded were suddenly reduced to easy prey. These hunters flocked to the forums, praising Cblack with almost religious fervor.
The irony was that the video hadn't even been posted by Cblack himself. It had come from one of his warrior friends. When Cblack first challenged him to a duel, the warrior had laughed at the idea of a hunter daring to test himself against a Protection spec. But after several matches, his laughter died.
Cblack lost their first fight—his execution was still rough. But in the next few duels his technique sharpened, his movements more precise and calculated. Before long, he overwhelmed his friend in a fight that ended with the warrior landing just a single Shattering Throw before being run into the ground.
Only a handful of Cblack's close friends had seen these duels, and even they could hardly believe what they witnessed. The so-called perfect counter to hunters was reduced to flailing helplessly before kneeling in defeat.
As a gesture of support, the warrior had recorded that final duel and uploaded it to the forums. At first, when the thread sank without a trace, he thought little of it. Only later, when the video exploded in popularity, did he realize what he had unleashed.
Cblack himself seemed almost bewildered by the attention. After all, the technique wasn't entirely his. He had learned it from a hunter in the Flowing Light guild. Now the entire server was treating him like a pioneer. Was he really going to claim ownership of something that had never been solely his?