Infinite Realm

"Tell me, how did you sense me?" The lady smiled at Sato. She was quite young, averaging around the same age as Sato but the way she spoke to him was as if she was talking to a little kid.

"I was originally thinking she was interested in you but nah. This babe has some serious issues. Plus there's no way you can luck out on such a chick." Fudo suddenly said. He was utterly disregarding her words as he took the opportunity to jab at Sato with his words.

"Did I permit you to speak?" The girl glanced at Fudo as a gloomy aura suffused from her body, dropping the surrounding temperature to a minus.

"Tch. What a tough chick. Your problem might be worse than I thought." Fudo twitched his lips as he ignored the girl's aura that was targeted at him. Despite his lackadaisiacal attitude, Fudo was a bit shocked or you might even say, scared, of the girl. 

With advancements in technology and government, wars were hardly fought and so barely a few people could generate any special kind of aura, standing out from the billions of people on the planet and beyond. The introduction of advance VR games gave these people an opportunity to shine while also enabling more people to be exposed to a more ferocious and bloody environment; one they would never find in the current society. As a result of these, more people could generate auras even so, the difficulty of doing this was hard. One would have to go through a lot of life-and-death experiences and be able to come out alive to do so.

'She's a pro and not your average one.' Fudo narrowed his eyes as he thought.

"Fudo, Seiichi. You two handle the others." said Sato with his eyes still on the girl. He didn't ask Lu Zhen to help them because in his opinion, Fudo and Seiichi alone were enough.

"Be quick with it too. The others are still waiting." 

Before coming here, they had left behind Yato and Katsuo at a safe distance. With their strength, the two would end up as nothing more than cannon-fodder. Though it's true that they would inevitably get involved in PvP matches, Sato felt that it was too early for the two. They had just migrated to Infinite Realm plus their levels were low; very low. Hence, despite the opponents being weaker in terms of battle skills, the difference in attributes couldn't be easily breached with just martial arts or battle sense.

"No problem." Fudo grinned.

"You think you can beat me with my cousin here? Haha. You're nothing more than a frog in a well. You just a step away from deat-"

Just before Reeves could conclude his words, Lu Zhen suddenly appeared beside him.

"You talk too much." 

Having been chased around by a bunch of weaklings beneath him and even almost forced to a corner, it would be a lie to say that Lu Zhen wasn't vexed. He had already set his sights on Reeves long ago, like a hawk would target its prey. As a true [Assassin], Lu Zhen had silently withdrawn his aura long ago while stalking Reeves for the perfect opportunity. Now with his guard down, there' was no way Lu Zhen would let such an opportunity go.

"You dare?!" The black dressed girl glared at him. The distance between her and Reeves was quite substantial, but it still meant nothing to her. The only problem was that she never expected anyone to make a move in her presence. 

The girl had only focused on Sato due to the impressive strength he had displayed earlier, ignoring the others as if they were nothing more than walking corpses. She had never imagined that another player would actually dare to make a move especially after her short but bone-chilling performance. Due to her underestimating them, Reeves would have to bear the consequences as it would take her at least a second to make a move.That was more than enough time for a level 7 [Assassin] to wreak havoc on a level 6 [Guardian] with less than half his HP left.

[Shadow Strike]!

-49 (13/170 Reeves HP)

"Ack!" Reeves tried to hold back the pain of the stab.

'What a tough defence!' Lu Zhen exclaimed internally. Normally, his base damage figures, with his dagger's abilities added, was about 49. Despite having applied one of the trump card skills of the [Assassin] class to his strike, Reeves only received the base damage value and this was thanks to a sneak attack! One can only imagine how much damage he would have received if he was prepared. This isn't to say that Reeves had somehow neutralized the effects of the skill [Shadow Strike] but instead the amount of damage neutralized thanks to his defense happened to lead to those values. In other words, it was just a coincidence.

'Even so…' Lu Zhen glinted his eyes. He had already guessed it won't be so easy, seeing as Sato couldn't kill him in 2 moves. The effects of [Shadow Strike] wasn't only limited to increasing his attack power but also his attack speed and the best part, the effects weren't limited to one strike.

'Die!'

Lu Zhen brandished his dagger oat Reeves. With only a meager 13 Hp left of his initial 170. It would only take one move to finish him off but Lu Zhen had struck out at least 3 times at that very second. There was no way Reeves would be able to withstand all these.

"No!" Reeves tried to retaliate but compared to Lu Zhen, his movement speed and attack speed was like that of a professional boxer to a snail; there was no space for comparison. 

*Puah!*

With a final thrust at him, Lu Zhen had finally ended the life of the crafty turtle. However, before he could revel in his victory, he sensed a terrifying aura locked on to him.

"Die!" The dark clothed girl yelled. 

Without turning to take a glance, Lu Zhen immediately used a skill and suddenly vanished from from the spot, appearing 3 metres away.

*Boom*

A small explosion reverberated at the spot Lu Zhen previously stood, tainting the crater an ominous black. Apart the shield that had dropped from Reeves, everything else was black in colour. The plants at the spot were already dead with the ones by the crater's boundary shriveling at a visible rate. 

'That was close.' Lu Zhen oozed off cold sweat. He could still sense the cadaveric aura from this distance so he hurriedly retreated a few more steps.

With Lu Zhen having blown the horn of war and the unidentified girl responding in kind, no one was bothered to keep speculating or chatting with each other. When everyone's focus was on the Lu Zhen and the lady, Fudo and Seiichi had used that opportunity to prepare their attacks and fired them at Reeves' men. With Reeves dead, there were only 3 of his men left. Even if Lu Zhen and Xue Yan's presence were ignored, Fudo and Seiichi were more than enough to handle these bunch of misfits.

[Spiral Shot] 

Seiichi had targeted Blue Banana with his shot as he knew that right after Reeves, Blue Banana was next in control. With the general gone, he was planning to take the deputy's head.

Blue Banana could be said to be lucky as while he was staring agape at Reeves' death, he managed to catch a glimpse of Seiichi's movements. But catching a glimpse wasn't enough as before he could react, the arrow had already left the bow. 

When Blue Banana had taken notice of the approaching arrow, he saw that it had it wasn't actually heading towards him but seemed to have veered off course. Thinking that Seiichi might have missed it, Blue Banana prepared to dash towards him to prevent him from attacking again as just like the Mage classes, a [Ranger]'s weakness was close combat. However, this was a very bug mistake on his part. 

The [Ranger] skill [Spiral Shot] could be said to be one of the most impressive basic skills for players. The reason was because of a very special feature or ability it possessed; the arrow could curve.

As Blue Banana took the first step, something unexpected occurred. The arrow that had long gone off to the side, suddenly bent inwards and darted towards him. Because his attention was no longer on the arrow, Blue Banana didn't notice this. He couldn't be blamed after all, who would focus on an attack that seemed to be a wasted shot. He placed his entire attention on Seiichi so as to prevent getting hit by another arrow. Unknown to him, the previous one was approaching. As such, without any suspense, an arrow lodged itself into his head before he could react.

Critical -87 (33/120 Blue Banana HP)

'How…?!' Blue Banana was stupefied at the amount of HP he lost. Even when Seiichi had attacked previously, the damage he caused wasn't this high. Even if this was still a critical hit, it was insane. In just one shot, he had dropped his HP by ore than 70%!

But how would Blue Banana know that the bow in Seiichi's hands was an Upper tier Mortal rank one and a system customized one at that. Even if it wasn't customized for him, the bow was still much more powerful than your average Upper tier Mortal rank weapons, even going so far as to rival Fudo's Back Alder staff. 

Earlier on, Seiichi hadn't been able to use the full strength of the bow after all it wasn't your average ones. As the saying goes, practice makes perfect, Seiichi had only been able to get the hang of it after sniping down Rolo's men from a distance. With the passive skill, Star sight, Seiichi's chances of a critical hit was increased. With the abilities of the bow added too, Seiichi's strength had experienced a qualitative growth, surpassing what an average level 6 [Ranger] should possess.

'No. I have to escape. I have to escape otherwise I will die.' 

Panic flashed in Blue Banana's eyes as he dropped any ideas of retaliating and turned around to escape. But how could Seiichi let him go just like that.

With [Dexterity] surpassing the level 8 Sato, Seiichi had already reloaded his bow and aimed at Blue Banana. 

"Bye, bye." 

Seiichi released the arrow.

*Twang*

With the effects of his own attacking speed together with that of the bow added on to the arrow, a retreating Blue Banana with his back left open was nothing more than a pig open for slaughter.

*Puah*

An arrowhead dug from behind, passing through his heart as Blue Banana's footsteps halted.. With blood dripping from his lips and eyes filled with dissatisfaction, Blue Banana's frame began to fall as his body slowly disintegrated into starlight.