Infinite Realm

"So, what will it be then?"

Sato stared at Reeves before responding, "What do you mean 'what will it be'? I said it before and I will say it again." 

Sato slowly raised his sword and pointed it at Reeves.

"You will all die for pursuing a comrade of mine."

[Sprint]

Like a cheetah on the run, Sato dashed at Reeves. 

Reeves wasn't expecting Sato to reject him much less attack him. His statement was almost flawless and very reasonable. Plus if Sato were to attack him, he(Sato) would have to not only watch out against his(Reeves) attack but also Rolo's. Even if Sato was an Expert, he wouldn't be able to protect his teammates neither would he be able to hold out against them all so easily. So from a logical point of view, even if Sato wanted to kill him, it would have been best to team up with him and then finish off Rolo and teammates first before attacking him, and Reeves had planned for that.

In retrospect, Reeves never really wanted to team up with Sato. All that stuff he spewed out back then was shit. Though they were bits of truth in them, the reason wasn't as he expected. For example, when Reeves said that his teammates were holding back because they didn't want to kill Lu Zhen and Xue Yan, that was shit. His teammates only held back because Reeves had told them to do so, simply because he wanted Rolo and his teammates to spend more energy battling Lu Zhen and Xue Yan, that way his own men would still have a bit more strength and stamina left. Also, when Reeves had spoken about staying behind, the reason was similar to the first and he also felt that Lu Zhen and Xue Yan might have been leading them to a trap so he took a careful approach and hid behind.

Reeves had forged all those stories to get them to work with him to finish off Rolo's team and once that was done, Reeves' helper would arrive and together with him, Reeves would have dominated the battle , bearing the least casualties.

Now seeing Sato attack reject him, Reeves was a bit stunned as he couldn't figure out why he did so. That marginal error of being stunned resulted in him being slow to react to Sato's incoming attack. Sato had obviously expected this and that was why he attacked right after he rejected Reeves' proposal. 

Without having the luxury of time to wonder why Sato had rejected him, Reeves prepared himself to face the attack.

With Sato having attacked at the right opportunity, Reeves was too slow to counter with his sword. However, he still managed to react reflexively, moving his body a little bit to the side. This little movement of his couldn't avoid Sato's attack but at the very least, it prevented Sato's sword from stabbing a critical point by just one centimetre.

-49 (121/170 Reeves HP) 

'Damn. His attack power is so high?' 

Reeves was shocked at the damage value he received. Usually, one would think that a damage value of 49 is quite low but Reeves didn't think such. He knew how high his defense was. It might not have been as absurd as those weirdoes who would go for broke and place all their attribute points in defense but it was still considerably high. As an MT, his [Endurance], [Vitality] and [Strength] were his highest stats and his major areas of focus. Reeves' [Endurance] way past 10, reaching 14 points. Together with his high HP and [Strength], he was a true walking tank. And yet, even with a plate armour on, Sato had been able to take 49 points out of his HP with an average strike. Reeves wondered what would have happened if his [Endurance] was lower than it was.

Sato was nonplussed at the damage he had given as he expected it to be so. Unlike back when he the [Paladin] Fiko, Reeves was a bona-fide MT and his level was much higher than Fiko was back then. Even if Sato was two levels higher than Reeves, he had to balance out his attributes in such a way that he would be able to get the best of them all. But Reeves didn't bother abut such and would have most likely focused his attribute points on a few stats, leaving the others at a minimal value. Hence it would take a bit more to finish him off but that was just a bit more.

Without taking a break, Sato brandished his sword at Reeves once more but this time he used a skill.

'[Hack]!'

It wasn't like Reeves was only staring at Sato all this while. Just before Sato's sword had earlier stabbed him, he had already begun moving his sword. As Sato had thought, Reeves had focused a majority of his attribute points in the trinity of MTs[1] leaving his [Dexterity] and [Agility] points at a serious low. Hence he was too slow with making an attack but after Sato had stabbed him, withdrawn his sword and slashed out again, Reeves' sword finally arrived close at Sato.

'[Execution]'

From the way things were going, Reeves was going for a blow-for-blow!

Reeves knew that his [Agility] and [Dexterity] was too low to a majority of lightweight classes like the [Swordsman] and [Assassin]. In a battle against these guys, Reeves would be like a sitting duck. But with the advantage of a stronger defense and higher HP and attack power, Reeves wasn't scared. He knew that if he were to turn the battle into one of attrition, he would come out on top. Reeves believed that since Sato must have distributed his attribute points on more than 3 different, his defense would be low. 

The [Swordsman] class usually focused on dealing damage over defense and this quality wasn't only achieved through adding a majority of points into [Strength]. one would also focus on [Dexterity] and [Agility] and since they would act as the main damage dealing force. They still need to take care of themselves too, hence the addition of points into [Endurance] too, but the focus here wasn't as much as in the other stats. Hence, in a contest of [Endurance], Reeves had a lot of faith in himself. Together with his absurd [Strength] value that surpassed a majority of player sat his level, Reeves believed that Sato would get the lower hand of the fight if they both went for a blow-for-blow, and in fact he was right. But he made one fatal flaw; Reeves presumed that Sato was the same level as he was with the same equipment as he had.

'A blow-for-blow? Let's go.' Sato's eyes glinted with fighting intent. Sato, with his superior [Agility] and abilities, could easily avoid this attack but he saw it as an opportunity to deal a lot of damage 

Within a second, the two attacks made contact with their targets and the result was made visible for all to see.

"Arghh." With a scream, a body was sent flying for at least 3 metres before crashing on the ground with a thud. Looking at the only standing player, everyone realised that the one who got tossed away was Reeves.

-59 (62/170)

"How?" Blue Banana stared in shock. He originally didn't have any faith in Reeves defeating Sato but when he saw that it was a hit-for-hit scenario, he expected Reeves to come out on top. As the two were teammates, they often sparred with one another, as such, Blue Banana knew how strong he was and didn't expect a [Swordsman] similar to him, to do much different. Now seeing this, it would be a lie to say that he wasn't shocked.

Not only Blue Banana and his teammates, even the forgotten Rolo was stunned. Seeing the result of this clash, he now understood why Sato felt it beneath him to team up wit any of them. This 'revelation' however, didn't only bring fear to his mind; it also made his heart cold. Rolo knew that if he kept wasting time, his death would come soon. He had already died once and lost a massive amount of Experience points. If he died again, he would undoubtedly go down by one level and that isn't something any player would want to experience.

On Sato's group's side, none of them were surprised at the result. On the contrary, they were mocking Sato for 'bullying' Reeves. They all knew that not only was Sato a level 8 player with a subclass, but he also wore an Upper tier Mortal rank armour. With such high stats and good equipment, it would be foolish to try and face him in a such a way.

In the contest of strength, Sato had only been forced back 3 steps while losing 37 HP. Reeves on the other hand, was sent flying 3 metres back while losing 59 Hp. The difference was already very obvious and if that wasn't enough to convince one, the kill Reeves had used was the [Guardian] class' current top skill; the [Guardian] equivalent of the [Swordsman]'s [Horizontal Slash], dealing 140'% of the user's attack power. Sato had only used the common [Hack] skill that dealt only 110% of his base attack power yet, had been able to do that much damage. Unless one was stupid, he or she would obviously be able to tell that Sato was the stronger figure here. 

Sato glanced at Reeves' downtrodden face and said,

"Next time, I'm not going easy on you."