Sora was currently hacking away at the giant cocoon, occasionally running to a crevice as the insect guards entered the room. The progress was extremely slow, he didn’t have enough mana to be putting out his maximum damage the entire time and tried to keep some in case of emergencies. Basic attack after basic attack landed on the cocoon, only leaving an almost invisible white mark where the sword hit. After 1 hour of hitting the cocoon, it’s health was at 64% and Sora had to use a repair hammer on his sword. Hitting a monster who had such a high defense took a toll on his sword, it was like using his sword to hack at a rock. Sometimes the cocoons around him would squirm around, making Sora think a insect creature would erupt from them. Sora didn’t sacrifice much of his attention on the little cocoons, if they hatched then there wasn’t much he could do anyways.

2 Hours had passed since Sora started hacking at the cocoon, the insect guards seemed to be appearing more frequently and the smaller cocoons were squirming even more than before. Sora had a bad feeling sitting in the core of his being, he started to only stop attacking the cocoon when the guards were getting close instead of when they entered. It was a lot more risky that way but Sora wanted to deal as much damage as he could. The damage on the boss had slowed down and it still had 37% health, his damage output had drastically reduced thanks to the frequency of the guards rising.

Sora sat behind a crevice in a cavern with a complicated look on his face. The boss was down to 10% health after 3 hours of attacking and the guards were almost in perfect rotation with each other, when one group left the cavern another group would enter. It only gave Sora about a minute to attack, and even that was cutting it close. Some of the cocoons on the outer edge have started to from cracks now, meaning they could hatch at any moment. Sora looked at his surroundings, nearly giving up as he thought it was impossible. He took a deep breathe to calm down and decided to stay on the boat until it sunk. Although he could leave right now, that would mean he knowingly wasted time for nothing. Sora didn’t want to give up just like that, he would rather die trying than to walk out unscathed. He kept attacking, using the minute intervals to attack the cocoon, even after 30 minutes he only brought it down to 5% HP. That’s when the first cocoon hatched.

Near the entrance to the cave, one of the cocoons finally ruptured open to reveal a mantis like creature with red eyes and razor sharp arms. It looked similar to the mantis that were around the cave except instead of being green with white eyes, they were black with red eyes. Then something completely unexpected occurred, the black mantis turned to the green mantis and started to attack it. Above it’s head the name badge showed Level 55 -Corrupted Mantis-, when Sora saw that everything clicked. The mantis itself was not a demonic creature, which means they were made into demonic creatures to serve the demon army. Injecting the demonic power while they were in the cocoon was a easy way to surprise the rest of the insects who remained uncorrupted. This was a chance that Sora needed to take, he would have to kill the big cocoon before the smaller ones can hatch around him, the guards were occupied with fighting the corrupt insect creatures so he could freely attack it until the smaller cocoons hatched.

Sora had already bolted towards the cocoon as he was thinking about why the cocoons were corrupt, he didn’t want to waste any time and immediately started attacking the big cocoon with everything he had. [Slash] [Concuss] Basic attack [Slash] basic attack [Crippling Strike]. Sora continued to chain abilities until he was out of mana. He had taken down 2% after completely draining his mana and was left with 3% to take down with basic attacks and the occasional [Slash] when his mana regenerated enough to use it. Corrupted insects could be seen overwhelming the regular insect creatures. A green caterpillar would be fighting a black caterpillar that would spew flames and devour the enemies he killed. A black mantis could be seen easily fighting two of the green mantis. Demonic crickets would use a high pitched noise to scramble the brains of other creatures around it. It was a complete nightmare for the normal insects.

The small cocoons started to hatch closer and closer to Sora, it was like a domino effect, it all started from the first cocoon and then every adjacent cocoon would hatch, and then the adjacent ones to those cocoons, and so on. Sora had just taken the big cocoon down to 1% when the cocoon started to shake. A large blade like arm burst out, barely missing Sora as it punctured into the ground next to him. The name changed from Level 55 -Cocoon of Visux, The Ripper- to Level 55 -Visux, The Ripper- and Sora suddenly felt his heart drop. The cocoon took a while to open, revealing the giant black mantis like creature while it’s health was only a few hits away from death. Sora carefully watched as the blade like arm came lying at him, just as it was about to land a well timed [Concuss] stopped his attack and stunned him for a short duration. Sora was able to get his health down to a measly 22 HP hit as another attack came flying at him.

[Level Up]

[Level Up]

[Congratulations, your faction has defeated a demon general. Please turn in the bladed arm of Visux, The Ripper to the king of The Eastern Legion as proof of your deeds. Contribution points will be awarded to all participants based on the effect they had in the battle. Long live The Eastern Legion!]

Sora had grabbed everything on the ground as fast as he could and turned to run, just as he turned around an attack from three different corrupted insect creatures assaulted him at the same time. He was cut by a mantis, burned by a caterpillar, and felt a sharp pain in his head as a cricket unleashed a devastating sound.

-346

-322

-432

[You died. Please wait 24 hours to revive.]

…..

Sora took off his VR helmet and sat on his bed in a stupor, he sat like that for a while before finally breathing a sigh of relief and giving a hearty chuckle that slowly turned into a roar of laughter. This is the kind of thing that gets him excited, he didn’t know anything that would happen after he started to attack the cocoon other than the guards coming in. He blindly charged into something that was quite possible to fail at and ended up pulling through. He didn’t even dread on the fact that he died, he gained two levels from killing Visux, The Ripper so his time spent dead has already been made up. Sora happily hopped off his bed before making something to eat and sitting down at his computer.

Sora browsed the forums for “The Divine Path” and didn’t see anything mentioning the event he had just completed, he thought something might have popped up but it looks like that won’t happen until he turns in the bounty to the king. Something that caught his attention was a video of him fighting Julius. There was already three hundred and fifty million views on the video with over two hundred thousand comments. 80% of the comments were praise on his fighting style, 15% were haters, and 5% were the random trolls that didn’t mention anything about the fight. The publicity was good for when he would create his guild, but up until that point the video would only cause him trouble. It was the case of players wanting to defeat him so that they can instantly become famous. In his last life a famous player by the name of Fire Hazard was recorded dying at the hands of some no name guild. After the video went viral the guild instantly shot up in popularity and became strong enough to have their name known. Sora rubbed his head and was glad for the fact that your information could be hidden, as long as he lays low people shouldn’t bother him.

Sora kept browsing the forums and found a semi-popular video that was circulating titled “Boss thieves PK my team”. It was a video that was heavily edited, showing the party that Sora had run into while fighting the bandit boss. From the perspective of the video, it showed the party fighting the boss, then it showed Blossom killing their healer and running away. A lot of hateful comments were thrown around calling Blossom various different names; Scum, garbage, dirt, low-life, even slut was thrown around multiple times. At first Sora had a face filled with wraith, then it slowly transformed into an evil smile as he pulled up his own unedited recording of the fight and made a reply post to the original post. He ironically named the post “Boss thieves get PKed by my team” and logged off to exercise a little.

…..

Blossom and LeeLee were currently taking a break from the game to eat a little and clear their minds. Blossom scrolled through the forums of “The Divine Path” before stopping on a post titled “Boss thieves PK my team”, at first she was angry at the so called thieves that would do something so despicable, until she saw the video. The video clearly cut out and rearranged a lot of clips to make Blossom look like the bad guy. She was fuming as she read through the comments, the harsh names used against her made her feel terrible. Although she knew it was all a misconception, it still hurt her seeing such nasty comments made about her. Some were even attacking her looks, threatening her, so many unimaginable things that made her even feel a little scared. Her eyes started getting moist, then she came across a commenter by the name of Ethereal. It was a link to his own post titled “Boss thieves get PKed by my team” and had a video attached along with a few words reading “You shouldn’t believe an edited video, innocent people have to suffer from your stupidity.” the video clearly showed Sora starting the boss fight, all the way til the end of the boss fight. There was no room for arguing the point, the video was 100% uncut and unedited. The comments section was filled with apologies from people who had cursed Blossom.

“Toad - I can’t believe I said something so stupid, I’m sorry Blossom ( ; _ ; )”

“The Leaping Herron - Ah, kinda hurts when you say it as stupidity… but I guess you're right, sorry Blossom.”

“Gigamail - THOSE STUPID BASTARDS MADE ME INSULT AN INNOCENT GIRL. WHO WAS THE CREATOR OF THAT EDITED VIDEO?!”

The comments went on and on with the words “Sorry Blossom” clearly written over and over. Blossoms face changed from on the verge of crying from sadness to a big smile, releasing a slight laugh as tears finally escaped, but this time from happiness.

…..

Sora got back from exercising and checked his post, it had instantly blown up and the after effects had forced the creators of the edited video into a corner. He took down his post, only to find that other users had already saved the entire video and posted it with the video Sora had made. The creator remained anonymous so they didn’t know who posted it. They only knew the names of the 5 people in the party, due to Sora’s video. Every single party member had received various messages and threats, pushing the party to reveal who made the video. In the end a knight player by the name of “Disrupting Wall” had been revealed as the original video poster. Sora saw many comments saying sorry to Blossom, some even went as far as wanting to give her gold or items to make up for it. Sora scrolled through each one until he saw one specific message that simply said this.

“Anonymous - Thank you, mister fisherman.”

Sora smiled as he closed the forums before laying down to start thinking of more plans for the future.

…..

The next day Sora was finally able to log back in, the good thing about him dying was that he spawned at the village he was previously at, saving him a lot of time by not having to walk through the snake infested jungle again. He didn’t have time to distribute stats or check his loot befor ehe died, so he did so now.

The first thing he had picked up was the quest item which was clearly separated from the rest of his inventory. It was just a single arm that belonged to the giant mantis. The next thing was glowing blue and looked to be shoulder armor, Sora inspected them.

[Layered Shoulders of Frost Steel]

Rarity - Rare

Durability - 60/60

Defense - 9

Requires - Level 35 - Heavy Armor Class

“Shoulder armor made from Frost Iron ore that has been refined and mixed with several other components.“

+15 Constitution

The shoulders were a big surprise to Sora, it usually takes a while for shoulder armor to appear in the game. Low level shoulders weren’t unheard of but it was definitely rare. The next two items were glowing blue and looked similar, they were two necklaces that were both in the shape of a small shield.

[Necklace of Persistent Life]

Rarity - Rare

Durability - 40/40

Defense - 0(10)

Requires - Level 40

“A necklace crafted from mithril ore and filled with the warm essence of life.”

+10 Defense

+10 Constitution

The two necklaces were exactly the same, normally a necklace wouldn’t have a defense value which is why it was set to 0 by default. The necklace had special defensive properties, that’s the only reason why defense was labeled on the item. The last two pieces of equipment were pieces of a light armor, being cloth gloves and a robe. Sora would just sell those, since he didn’t have a use for them. He also planned to sell the second necklace he had gotten, he could give it to Blossom but it didn’t really suit her play style. The only things left was a book and two tokens that shined with a golden light. He first picked up the two coins, because he already recognized them as lucky coins. He used them right away and gained +2 permanent luck. The book was a skill book, he could only pray that it could be used by his class as he slowly willed the information to appear.

[Skill Book: Relentless Pursuit]

-Use this item to gain the skill Relentless Pursuit.

Sora was glad, Relentless Pursuit was only limited to melee combatants so he could use it. He used the skill book, successfully obtaining the skill.

[Relentless Pursuit Skill obtained]

Cost: 100 mana

Duration: 15 seconds

Cooldown: 2 minutes

-Mark a target, for the next 15 seconds you are immune to all movement impairing effects that generate from anything other than the marked target. You gain 50% movement speed while moving towards the marked target.

The skill was only really useful when chasing other players but Sora had a few other ways to use the skill. The target didn’t have to be an enemy so if you needed to rush to a party member you could use this skill to help get there faster. Sora wasn’t happy nor sad about getting this skill, at the moment he didn't have much use for it but he would definitely find ways to use it in the future. With everything sorted out, Sora headed down the road towards the city of Var.