“What the hell is this damage!”

“I died instantly when the explosion blast grazed me!”

“My EXP’s dropped so drastically!”

The first wave of players eliminated died tragically, leaving the rest of the players in awe of the Germinal Organization’s firepower.

SliceYouUp gritted his teeth. “Task requirement is to achieve highest damage. Doesn’t matter if you die, just deal damage! Go!”

The penalty in Galaxy for dying was not light to say the least. EXP was deducted proportionally to a player’s level, and the player could only be revived up to a maximum of ten times within six days. With every death, the waiting time before the next revival would increase. After hitting the limit, there would be a temporary ban on the player. Despite all this, it was worth dying once or twice for the Prize-Pool Missions.

The players from Sky Territory also had the same thoughts, and all the other players followed suit and fearlessly, albeit tactlessly, made their attack on the Germinal soldiers, giving the latter a shock.

“All these enemies are rushing to die?” Seiberre was surprised; he had never seen such a fearless army, like a pack of starving wolves, dying to get a piece of them.

Their spirit and momentum were impressive, but in terms of combat ability… they were shamefully pathetic.

“They are just a motley crowd, let’s satisfy them since they want to die so badly!” Freire snorted and promptly commanded the surrounding troops. Since there were mines buried in the forest, the Germinal troops stopped their armored vehicles and started using as their armored vehicles as a temporary base for their counterattacks, killing off waves of players with ease.

“Shit… Can’t even touch them!”

“I already died twice! Goddammit!”

The Germinal troops was dominating the fight. The other players were being massacred, yet they refused to give up in the hope of dealing some damage to claim the quest rewards.

“I will give them a surprise.” Seiberre smirked. He saw absolutely no threat from these enemies. He was itching to toy with them.

Freire frowned slightly. “Don’t go crazy, we are in a rush.”

“Humph! I’m always quick with my kills.”

Seiberre hopped off the armored vehicle. With his strong physical attributes, all he needed was a slight push against the floor with his feet, and he was off dashing toward the players like a cannonball. His foot landed on a player and instantly caused the poor soul’s chest to cave in before the player was sent flying, hitting against a tree with an explosion of blood and flesh. The shooters dealt no damage to Seiberre, since he would dodge way before they could aim. Even if some bullets did hit him, it would be nothing but single digit damage.

Seiberre went on a killing spree like a tiger among the sheep, and the players were desperately trying to retreat. However, Seiberre would catch up and kill them before they could react. Many tried to assess Seiberre’s stats.

_____________

Seiberre – ?

Level – ?

Class – ?

Threat Level – Extremely fatal

_____________

Another extremely fatal dude! No one knew what this threat level meant until this moment, but the contrast in skill level was apparent.

The combat strength of a high-level character was indeed to be feared.

Black Phantom and Seiberre have about the same combat strength. This thought flashed across the minds of many of the players.

Seiberre was covered in his enemies’ blood, like a ravaging beast. The scene looked so realistic that it scared some of the more timid players, who quickly adjusted the graphics to PG mode to reduce the gore. Some turned on the recording function to capture this highly bloody scene.

A panic-stricken player fell, and Seiberre, in the midst of his killing spree, laughed as he started to crush the poor player like a cockroach. Suddenly, blood spilled out from Seiberre’s chest, and a gaping hole appeared at the place where Seiberre’s heart was supposed to be.

Seiberre stopped moving, his entire face frozen. Then, he collapsed and fell to the ground without a sound.

“Is he… dead?”

“He just got killed in one shot!”

Everyone was thrown into shock and confusion. How did the blood-lusting monstrous enemy just get defeated in a split second?

Then, the electrical current buzz of a sniper rifle from afar came within earshot.

Jade Green Sky, SliceYouUp, and all the other players that were still alive glanced unanimously in the direction of the rifle. Everyone remembered that it was roughly where Black Phantom was camping.

This snipe kill was by Black Phantom!

“Even such a vicious enemy was killed by Black Phantom in one shot!”

The players all gasped in disbelief. Black Phantom was also extremely fatal in terms of threat level, but this was way more fatal than Seiberre!

Black Phantom was obviously on a higher level than Seiberre, but it was still incredible that the fearsome Seiberre got killed in a single shot. Han Xiao left a mysterious and immeasurable impression on everyone.

Nothing was scarier than a killer who could instantly kill his victims.

Seiberre is very strong in terms of Energy attributes. How could he have been killed instantly? Freire was shocked.

This shot sounds familiar… the ability to instant-kill a Superhuman… Only one person is capable of doing this.

Freire’s face changed immediately.

“Must be the Ghost-level Black Phantom from the Blood Pact Society! Goddammit, why is such a high-level monster finding trouble with us? I thought he only does bounty hunting?”

Black Phantom’s reputation preceded him in the Underground World in these two months because of his amazing stats. He had killed ‘The Raging Bolt’ Bai Jin in an instant. Even the famous Invisible Demon was running for his dear life from Black Phantom. It was no wonder that Black Phantom rose to fame as the best assassin in the Blood Pact Society and his name began to instill fear in many.

The Germinal Organization gave a command long ago, asking its members to avoid direct conflict with Black Phantom. It would be troublesome to deal with this type of super assassin, even for big organizations.

Freire wanted to retreat, and he ordered for it with no hesitation. “All force retreat!”

It was too late!

Han Xiao activated the EMP Disruptor he had buried. Some of the Germinal troops’ armored vehicles were in the effective range of the disruptor, and they broke down immediately, crackling and sizzling with electricity. One third of the vehicles were fortunate enough to be outside of the effective range; Freire’s was one of them.

Freire could not be bothered with the rest of the troops. He knew that he needed to retreat.

Don’t even think about escaping after you have entered my sight.

Han Xiao’s glaze was as cold as the frozen ice as he activated a particular program. Having max leveled [Basic Programming], Han Xiao could bind most mechanical control systems to his computer.

Three metallic plates were lying at a spot three hundred meters horizontally away from the Germinal troops. Suddenly, they all cracked open from the center and started a series of self-folding, forming a multi-barreled heavy machine gun, with the metal plate as the base of the battery. This was the foldable portable battery that Han Xiao had buried beforehand. They were equipped with automatic firing systems, and the ammunition loaded was all highly explosive and could pierce through armor. The firing range had a five-hundred-meter radius.

The portable battery was one of Han Xiao’s new blueprints. It was the product from a mixture of various technology—a fixed battery combined with folding technology and many other designs. Han Xiao had spent a lot of effort and had failed countless times before arriving at the final model, which was very handy. He could have arrived at something similar by merging different ideas, but inventing the fort by himself saved him from using EXP.

As Han Xiao learned more and more blueprints, it was becoming obvious that he was capable of grasping the functionality and usage of knowledge.

Within the last two months, he already bought the last three types of basic knowledge that he had yet to acquire from the slightly friendlier camps. They were [Basic Energy Conversion], [Basic Thermodynamics], [Basic Acoustics]. To learn all fifteen types of basic knowledge was a feat even for some full-level players, not to mention players under level forty.

The multi-barreled machine gun aimed at the Germinal troops, who were a few hundred meters away, automatically, warmed up for one second, and fired away. The fiery metallic storm blew all the trees in the way to bits, and the immobilized The Germinal troops’ armored vehicles could not escape the same fate!

There was nothing but screams of agony and firework-like explosions.

The cost of a small foldable battery port was high, as was the ammunition. Wars fought by Mechanics were all expensive like this, but with sufficient funds, Mechanics were capable of having dominating firepower. Only a rich and resourceful guy like Han Xiao was able to fully utilize the abilities of a Mechanic to the fullest extent.

The firepower from the battery turret gave the rest of the players a huge shock, but this shock quickly turned into a craze over Han Xiao.

“So, this is how Mechanics fight!”

“One guy soloing against the whole army!”

“He is way too strong!”

Han Xiao did not idle either, he began sniping the enemies one by one. He smiled upon seeing the excitement among the other players. He did not have to use the battery turret against the small Germinal troop, but he did so anyway for the sake of demonstrating the destructive power of Mechanics.

However, looks could be deceiving. When the players went to research about the actual cost to play as a Mechanic, they would find the painful truth behind this vocation–”Using Ona to create happiness, GTFO if you don’t have money.”

Mechanics would be very weak in early games because most mechanics were poor.

With the enemies mostly defeated, the rest of the players realized that it was the best time for them to deal extra damage, and they all began to rush forward to attack the army. Maple Moon also started firing. Her sniper scope was equipped with Electromagnetism Detector and aim assist, so almost every shot of hers could hit the Germinal soldiers. She gained momentum, and her damage output became steady.

Although the realistic battle scenes were too gory for Maple Moon, she got used to it quickly as she had experience with gory scenes from other games. Moreover, she could change the game setting to make the graphics less bloody.

Han Xiao shot through Freire’s knees but spared his life. Then, he switched to Red Falcon and started clearing the remaining Germinal soldiers at a rate much more efficient than normal players. One shot, one kill.

The sound of gunfire gradually ceased; the battle had come to an end. Many seemed like they wanted to watch more.

The paralyzed Freire could not be bothered with his own agony but looked at the crowd of spectating players in shock. He had been watching the battle very carefully, and he noticed that many of the players, who were killed earlier on, came back.

“Are they zombies or what?”

Freire was confused.

Han Xiao, clad in full black, appeared. The players started to quieten down despite their excitement.

He stood in front of Freire, squatted down, and stared into the latter’s eyes that were filled with shock and anger. “Where were you all heading toward?”

“Black Phantom, Germinal will never let you off!” Freire was furious.

“You got it wrong.”

Han Xiao expressionlessly dragged Freire into the forest by his collar. Shortly afterwards, bone-chilling screams could be heard.

It was not difficult to imagine that Freire was being tortured, and everyone felt a shiver down their spine.

After ten minutes, the screaming finally ended. Han Xiao reappeared but without Freire.

He wiped his hands clean of blood using a rag. He glanced around and saw that all eyes were on him. Now that he had the information that he wanted, he was free to end the mission.

All the players received a notification simultaneously.

_____________

[Hunt Down Germinal] has been completed. The Prize-Pool has 520,000 EXP.

Damage Output Ranking:

– No. 1 – Maple Moon (Solo)

– No. 2 – Jade Green Sky (Team)

– No. 3 – SliceYouUp (Team)

– No. 4 …

Reward pool will be allocated 30%, 25%, 20%, 15%, 10% of EXP accordingly.

_____________

Everyone was shocked. No one expected this ranking.

“She overtook Sky Territory and Kill-all.”

“Hitting the scoreboard with solo output. Incredible!”

“Who is Maple Moon? Is she a professional player?”

“I never heard of this ID before though.”

The crowd was going crazy.