Infinite Realm

Chapter 378 : Retreat!

"Haha." The kobold King abruptly laughed.

"It's too late!"

Sato was about to attack the Kobold King, since its words seemed to target their morale, when out of the blue, Xue Yan released a cry of alarm.

"What's wrong?" Seiichi, who was the closest to her, asked.

"There are some people approaching us. They aren't far from us." Xue Yan said as she closed her eyes and tried to grasp that feeling.

Because she was too focused on the battle, Xue Yan had not been able to spot Var and his men before. However, the Kobold King's words forced her to be on alert and so, her sensory abilities were raised to the max. Together with the fact that Silver Wolf's team was made up of quite a lot of people, hence resulting in the conglomeration of mana being thick around them, it became easier for her to sense them despite the distance. 

If Silver Wolf had ordered his men to scatter and surround them or even use a screening scroll to block their presence, Xue Yan wouldn't have been able to sense them but since they were in a hurry in fear of losing their target, Silver Wolf didn't bother with any of that. Because of that, it became a lot easier for Xue Yan to sense them even though she wasn't intentionally looking for them. The large number of players made it easy for her to spot them especially with the fact that the Kobold King had forced her to be on alert.

"Hehe." The Kobold King suddenly moved forward and grabbed at Xue Yan. 

It intended to use this moment of distraction to take down one of the two strongest of the trio. That way, not only would its chances of escaping increase but the chances of Sato and Seiichi dying at the hands of Silver Wolf's team would become higher.

"Don't you dare."

Sato dashed towards the Kobold King as he swung [Astral Blade] and stabbed himself.

-40 (336/1700 Sato's HP)

While this looked like a pretty dumb move that had no reason behind it, there was indeed one.

If one can recall, there was a very special kind of skill attached to the cursed sword, [Drakken], which increased the ability of the user by 10% for each 10% loss in HP below 30%.

Sato's HP was currently at 336, below 510 which was exactly 30% of his entire HP bar. 10% below that would be 340 but since Sato's HP was at 376, he couldn't access the skill, hence he had to injure himself and bring his HP down. This meant that the condition for using [Hopeless Hope], the passive skill of [Drakken] had now been met. Currently, all of Sato's secondary attributes experienced a meteoric rise of 10% and this included his movement speed which was already a tad bit than that of the Kobold King.

Though it was true that the Kobold King had taken on the battle style of tit-for-tat, now that there was a chance of survival, it didn't want to take any more unnecessary risk. 

Seeing Sato's approaching figure, it then abandoned its actions and retreated away. Sato chased after it as he intended to use this momentum to force it to its end. But it was at this moment that Xue Yan spoke up, and her words shocked him.

"Players are approaching here at a rapid speed. About 20 or more and they are really close to our location. Just about 100 metres or less."

For a level 7 player, a 100 metres gap could be covered in a few seconds so that meant that the trio didn't have enough time to finish up. They either retreated at this moment or get caught in what might be a messy situation.

"20 plus players…"Sato muttered.

"Retreat!"

"?!" Xue Yan glanced at him in surprise.

"Didn't you hear me? Retreat. The same with you three. Fudo, Yato, Katsuo, you guys retreat immediately."

"But why?" Xue Yan asked.

This was the second time they had embarked on this mission and why the first could have been said to have reaped them some rewards, they were still forced to retreat. Having tasted that feeling before, together with the fact that the Kobold King was pretty much on its last leg, Xue Yan was a bit unwilling to retreat.

"Don't ask any questions and just go. Seiichi, take her with you and leave." Sato ordered.

Seiichi only nodded in reply before he grabbed Xue Yan's arm and dragged her away. While she was indeed unwilling, Xue Yan wasn't stupid. Seeing as how serious Sato was, she let Seiichi take her away as she gave a departing glance at Sato.

"I will be right behind you." Sato smiled as he could guess what she was thinking.

The order to retreat and his remaining behind wasn't due to Sato's overreaction but a simple analysis. From Xue Yan's report, Sato had reached 2 conclusions.

One, the team heading their way was definitely not a simple one. There was a 100% chance that the raid team of the super guild, Emperor's Might, was a part of them. Even if the duo's levels were higher, facing against such a team of Experts armed with raid items and equipment, their chances of winning -especially as they were quite exhausted already- was very low. There was also the Kobold King who was on standby. The numbers weren't on their side and neither was the location, there the most logical course of action would be to retreat.

Secondly and most importantly, the team was heading their way and from Xue Yan's description, they were running towards them. The noise of the battle wasn't much so unless the raid team was quite close, they wouldn't have heard it. But for them to be rushing over in full force rather than taking a careful approach meant that something was up. A super guild team or even a regular guild raid team, wouldn't make such a mistake unless they were noobs, and there was no way for any noob team to make it this far before the other top guilds. This meant that the team rushing over here must have already investigated the source of the disturbance via their scout team and they already knew that another team was facing the Kobold King right here. This was something they couldn't tolerate hence they began rushing over to the site. This meant that from an unknown period till now, Sato, Seiichi, and Xue Yan were being monitored by a concealed team. 

As a result of such an almost certain analysis, Sato chose the best course of action which was to retreat.