Stupefied, Misaki couldn’t get any words out. Her full attention was on the man in front of her.
“It’s been a while, hasn’t it, Misaki?” the man said.
He was one of her saviors; she’d met him in Ilyana Tunnel. He’d taught her the importance of good equipment, and the power of fear. Hearing his voice again, Misaki felt enveloped in comforting security. Tears welled up in her eyes.
Theodore looked down at Misaki’s Silver Bow and let out a pleased chuckle. “I see you’ve been putting it to use. You trained diligently, as you promised. Well done.”
His warm words of praise made her tears flow ceaselessly.
Theodore placed a new quiver of Silver Arrows beside her. “These are an improved version with higher attack power. The quill feathers are arranged in a spiral…”
With an artisan’s pride, Theodore began explaining the modifications to the arrows, but Misaki couldn’t focus on listening. Fear and all the other negative emotions she’d been suppressing throughout the battle finally came crashing down on her. Misaki started hyperventilating, and Theodore stopped talking when he noticed.
“I… I…”
Misaki couldn’t put her thoughts into words. She simply kept on sobbing.
Players around them had been closely watching Theodore, trying to guess who he was. Misaki’s behavior indicated he was not an enemy, and that brought them huge relief. In their eyes, he was more terrifying than anything else they’d seen on the battlefield, including the giant knight that had cut the fort in half.
“Your bow is willing to keep fighting,” Theodore said, looking down at Misaki’s weapon.
She gasped and clutched it tightly in her fist.
“Will you keep fighting, too?” he asked.
Misaki nodded deeply.
“Good,” Theodore said quietly, satisfied.
He slowly reached toward her and held his hand over her head. A black light appeared around her. When it faded, Theodore smiled a kind, fatherly smile. The next moment, each player on the battlefield glowed with that same black light.
Silverstone Lizard Level 46
A monster from the Sorn Mines. Besides feeding mainly on silver ore, it also sticks it to its body as a form of armor protecting it from attacks.
A swordfighter stepped forward to fight this enormous, four-meter-long reptile.
“Damn… There’s no end to this.”
The battle had been going on for so long, his sword was looking battered.
Silverstone Lizards were bulky monsters with very high physical defense. The best strategy against them was suffocation via a combination of Water and Earth magic, but the battle formation had been broken, and the combatants were scattered, making teamwork impossible. Knowing he probably couldn’t hope for timely healing, either, the swordfighter pointed his blade at the lizard, assuming it was his duty to defeat this foe.
Suddenly, the ground below his feet glowed with a black light that proceeded to envelop his body.
A new type of attack?! Eh, my LP’s so low, it doesn’t matter what hits me—I’ll die all the same.
As the Silverstone Lizard assumed a stance to counter, the player put everything he had into one last strike.
“Hrrraaaargh!”
The clang that followed was unlike anything the swordfighter had heard. The enemy was split in twain, and it burst into polygons. The sword strike had been powerful enough to leave a deep gash in the ground.
The swordfighter was panting heavily, adrenaline rushing through his body. It took a moment before he could think clearly about what had just happened.
Did I get a strength buff? Or was my weapon buffed? Whatever this is, it’s incredible… Who cast this?
He reasoned it must have been a high-tier buff, because he felt almost invincible. He was a veteran frontline fighter, but he’d never experienced anything like this before. And he wasn’t the only one affected.
“Dammiiiit!”
A pack of monster dogs was about to tear another player to pieces…but the player’s LP wasn’t going down at all.
“What…?”
His LP was completely full and seemingly infinite. He’d slashed the monsters surrounding him with one last desperate attack…and they died, just like that.
He froze, not understanding, and gazed down at his hands. A faint black glow was emanating from them like heat haze.
This is it… Since this black glow appeared, I’ve been feeling this strange lightness in my body.
Marebito’s guild master, Umineko, was slicing through enemies with ease, wondering why he was suddenly feeling all-powerful. Were the enemies weaker? No. He must have gotten stronger.
“They’re dropping like flies…!” he marveled.
It used to take several minutes of intense fighting to finally bring down one foe, but now it was as if they were fighting monsters from the starting area. Umineko laughed at the creatures, which no longer posed a threat to him.
Perhaps he’d unlocked a secret superpowerful skill? Or a dormant special ability had activated? Was he the chosen one, blessed by the gods with a unique power?
“I’ll take them all down!”
Then he noticed something odd—everyone beside him had stopped fighting. They were motionless, staring vacantly at a fixed point.
“Wake up and fight! Keep killing the enemies so we can win this battle!” Umineko shouted at them haughtily.
He heard his sub-master say quietly, “The battle’s won already…”
Umineko was about to yell at her, “What are you talking about?!” when he, too, finally realized what everyone had been staring at.
He followed their gaze to the half-destroyed Fort Sandras, the broken town gates now gaping wide-open, the carved ground, and the giant knight that had wreaked that destruction. A man walked up toward it, leaped into the air, and brought down his greatsword on the Ancient Knight Rimpeller’s helmet, slicing through it. The boss monster’s insane LP bar instantly emptied.
He killed it in one hit…?!
Umineko looked at the man in complete shock. The mysterious fighter smiled.
The Ancient Knight Rimpeller had survived the attack with a barely noticeable sliver of its LP bar left.
“Hmph. Remarkable endurance.”
No sooner had the man said that than the monster’s LP fully recovered—it had truly astounding regenerative ability. That was the ace up its sleeve. But even faced with this cheat-like power, the man fighting the monster remained calm, stroking the blade of his sword.
“Flame Fencing: Commence.”
Fire began to flicker on his greatsword, spreading all along its length. The mysterious man vanished from sight, and the next moment, the ancient knight’s chest burst into flame. It burned with unnatural intensity, as if a spark had been dropped onto a pile of dry leaves. The fire was relentlessly dealing damage that greatly exceeded Rimpeller’s ability to insta-heal. The conflagration was depleting its LP bar fast, until all of it was gone, and the charred monster fell to its knees limply, dissolved into light, and disappeared.
He killed the level-one-hundred monster with a single attack…?
It was over in the blink of an eye.
Like the other players, Umineko was rooted to the spot in shock, tensely waiting to see what the mysterious man would do next.
“How tedious,” the man grumbled.
He leaped high into the sky, spun around, and began to transform. Beautiful, shiny, armor-like, black scales appeared on his body, and he sprouted giant wings and a long tail. His new form was that of a dragon from Western mythology.
The dragon gazed down with its glowing yellow eyes at the monsters beneath it, flames appearing inside its snout. It was looking toward the entrance to the underground labyrinth, which the invading monsters were coming from. And then it breathed a devastating stream of fire in that direction.