- You have dealt a critical strike.
- You deal consecutive critical strikes.
- Your continuous attack succeeded. Do you want to save the series of strikes?
Skillfully moving from enemy to enemy, Weed was dealing series of critical strikes. If you were to deal an exceptionally successful series of strikes in the game, you would be able to save it, to later use at will as a individual technique. However Weed just dismissed the message and rushed back into battle.
For Weed fight was something living, unpredictable and extraordinary. Sometimes you have to act as your instinct tells you, and by using of fixed techniques you just restrain yourself.
- Sculpting blade!
After killing three monsters he dove right in the middle of enemy group. With trust in his skill and polished armor he was eagerly spilling enemies' blood.
Though a bit later, but Hwaryung and Zephyr also joined the battle.
- Charming dance!
Enemies, who watched erotic and tempting moves of the girl, froze in confusion and embarrassment. Their cheeks reddened and eyes filled with desire.
- Such a beautiful girl.
- Oooo! Why did I go from knight to thief, if only i still was...
- She melted my heart of stone!
Having captured the enemies attention she exclaimed:
- No introductions! I have no interest in you!
- Eeeeh?!
Her words left enemies stunned, and she proceeded to dance with another group. Not forgetting to cooperate with partners of course.
- These ones won't be attacking us.
- For how long? - immediately asked Zephyr. Their lives depended on that information.
- About two minutes. Their level is too high, you must deal with the rest by that time.
- Swing!
Zephyr swung his fishing rod and joined the fight. Every time he extended his rod a few enemies were knocked down.
Weed and Van were holding back main forces of enemy. Hwaryung tamed enemies to the right and Zephyr was fighting the ones on the left! Compared to previous fights, their situation was complicated, so they had to give their all to stay alive.
Hwaryung incapacitated 12 more opponents and fell on the floor exhausted.
- I'm done... can't continue...
She spent all of her mana, and was sitting on the floor completely drained. Up to this time Hwaryung always tried to pick the weaker monsters not to exert her too much in a fight. But this time she had to give it her all and she realized, that her dance techniques and attributes weren't developed enough. She wasn't strong enough.
"That's hard... I probably should have fought stronger opponents before?" - slowly thought Hwaryng, expecting some monster to end her life at any moment.
But then there appeared Zephyr, who came to cover her from advancing enemies. Thanks to fishing, his attributes, especially fortitude and stamina, were highly developed, so he handled this fight better.
Zephyr fighting surrounding monsters at his limit. He wasn't hitting opponents one by one, but all of them at the same time! Fisherman's skills allowed him to damage whole bunch of enemies at the same time.
When their health was dropping to about a third they were dying, as they were immediately finished by a series of critical strikes from suddenly appearing Weed. It seemed like the situation was straightening out, when enemies, incapacitated earlier by Hwaryung started to come to their senses.
The intense battle continued without a single moment of rest.
- Sculpting blade!
Weed was trying to move as fast as possible, but still the moment he was finishing one opponent another was already attacking him. He had to hurry: if he was to stop even for a moment monsters would come closer and completely surround him, which would be a sure death.
Hwaryung regained some strength and hurried to back Zephyr up. She was dancing like a butterfly, stabbing exposed sides of enemies with her daggers. It seemed that the battle will never end. However a few moments later deeply surprised Hwaryung realized that there was no one else to fight. She didn't remember how she was fighting and who dealt the last blow. In her chaotic memories fight looked like a fragment of hell. It was hard, long and extremely dangerous... She couldn't believe they won!
"Phew... That was hard, but... fun..." - she wiped sweat off her forehead and smiled.
That was the only fight on her memory where she had to exert herself by 110%. Her mood was great.
Well, if not for death knight's help, they'd all be finished by now. But that didn't upset her at all, their victory was well-deserved.
- Weed, do you always fight like this? - asked Hwaryung the question that's been growing inside her since the beginning of the fight.
- Yes, - calmly answered Weed. He already started to repair damaged armor.
If armor or weapons were losing even a bit of durability, first thing after a fight Weed was repairing them.
- But that is so dangerous! And hard! Are you not afraid at all to fight monsters, whose level is a lot higher than yours?
Hwaryung got a little frightened. She couldn't imagine how one could be able to fight alone with only enemies all around you. Even though they were playing a virtual reality game the fear was real.
In tight situations the stench of blood and the feeling of opponent's strength were often stunning players by fear. After that they were easily killed.
- You know, Hwaryung, in Lavias I had to climb very high, and from up there all the monsters looked so small. It seemed like I can squish them with a finger. That's when I realized that they're just food. Food that makes me stronger.
Hwaryung let out another of her dazzling smiles.
- Seriously, with you, Weed, there's no time to be bored.
However not everyone was celebrating the end of the fight. Zephyr was watching death knight with fear.
- Zephyr?!
- Hwa... Hwa... Hwaryung. - worry made him stutter.
- What happened?
- Look at the death knight...
- Huh? Death Knight?
She looked at Van and noticed that he's preparing another of his techniques. Hwaryung was oblivious to what was going on so she became curious.
She was unaware of what Zephyr realized long ago. He got to fish with Weed for quite a long time, so he had an idea on what was about to happen. Did you think after fishing Weed was sitting in a shade to relax? Not at all!
Having finished fixing armor, Weed applied a number of bandages and got up on his feet.
- Hmmm... - he said, - now it'll get a bit dangerous. Don't worry too much, but I think we might have a couple close calls this time.
- ...
- You know, I'm not in my best shape. I haven't been fighting for a long time. To be honest, I don't even remember the last time my health dropped below 15%. Even in Odein I was fighting mostly weak opponents.
- ...
- Let's see. After this battle only my Endurance slightly raised. That's because i made a miscalculation and the battle wasn't as hard as I expected. Next time I should aim to drop my health to 3%. I'll tell you a secret: when your health gets very low, your Endurance attribute increases greatly. So in following battles you should try to lose as much health as you can. Trust me, that'll pay off handsomely. For example, at the moment enemies' hits feel like tickling for me.
Zephyr and Hwaryung were speechless from surprise.
"That's something! So the blows of thieves of Basra are 'ticklish' for him?"
"How? Even though he has an intermediate blacksmith skill, he's can't be..."
"My armor isn't any worse, but every hit of a monster hurts like hell!"
"Damn masochist!"
But his next words shaken them even more.
- Well, now that the scouting and warm-up is over, time we fight for real.
Scouting? For Zephyr and Hwaryung previous fight was living hell!
Having seen their twisted in horror faces, he asked in doubt:
- So... Do you accept me as a party leader? If so, then the hunt goes on.
They hurriedly nodded. Having accepted Weed's invitation, they automatically assigned him as a party leader. And also he was the strongest of the three.
Even though Zephyr's fishing and Hwaryung's dances allowed them to raise their attributes quite a lot, they still were as far from Weed as from the moon.
"He has 5 crafting skills at intermediate level..."
"He's a beast. A machine... To do all those things..."
He was odd, of that Hwaryung and Zephyr could agree.
Let alone his crafting profession having battle techniques, his attributes were ridiculously high as well! Looking at Weed they could feel their inferiority, even though compared to other players they were pretty normal.
"So there exist people like Weed...