Chapter 68 – Hidden Challenge Part 5, Kill Stealing and Assassination

Surprising even myself, the spear thrust managed to connect with her shoulder.

In the past month, I spent so much time running and getting overwhelmed that sometimes I forgot I had assassin level dexterity as well as a huge perception and reaction speed buff from my demi-human race state.

[102 damage]

The black garbed assassin looked just as surprised that she could not get out of the way. “Tch,” she cursed while backing off, attempting to re-enter a pseudo invisible state.

My heart pounded watching her health bar plummeted down one-sixth from that single attack. She was a glass cannon just like me, relying more on dodging for defense rather than physical armor.

Some gamers would call her class min-maxed, a term that originated in dungeons and dragons and later expanded to other stat heavy RPGs. However, Eclipse was not a game where you could just press two buttons and spin down dungeons full of mobs with your mathematically optimized invincible character. Min-maxing meant nothing in this game, because relying purely on stats in a realistic virtual MMO was a surefire way to get yourself killed.

Hits weren't decided by little floating numbers over your head via dice rolls. They were decided by actual connections of attacks onto player hitboxes. And thus, this archaic idea of min-maxing to optimize for dice rolls made very little sense. To dodge an attack, you needed to physically dodge it. You couldn't just roll a 0 here and automatically take no damage.

Execution and physical movement were needed to excel in PvP here. It was similar to the difference between kiting with an archer character in a regular video game, and actually running and turning backwards to fire arrows. The difference in complexity between two mouse clicks and a button press versus actually performing the physical action was massive.

Hell, if I didn’t have shadow, I might have run into trouble against that red mage from earlier because of his strong game sense and uncanny accuracy with his crowd control abilities and basic spells, despite the fact that on paper, my character was “min maxed” to excel against his due to my pure magic resistance growth.

I cautiously advanced towards the level 90 or so female assassin, who was trying to escape after identifying that I posed a threat to her. Should I press on with the attack?

Sun Tzu had some choice words about situations like this in The Art of War. When you have the enemy surrounded, he recommended that you leave an opening for them to escape, although this contradicted common sense. After all, why would you let your enemies escape when they were already cornered and done for? This was because a human being cornered without any hope of escape or survival would unlock fighting potential previously restricted by the chains of their desire to survive. A person’s fighting potential could reach 200% of what it was before when they no longer had to worry about injury, or survival. Why worry about sustaining a broken bone or even an amputated arm when the alternative was immediate death? A cornered soldier was dangerous.

But give them an opportunity to escape? Some soldiers would slip away, while the others left fighting would half-ass their way through the battlefield, looking for an opportunity to ditch.

It was a very clever tactic that the ancient general devised through experience in countless battles that played upon, or even exploited, human psychology.

With that in mind, I decided not to pursue the assassin. Just as much as I posed a threat to her, she also posed a threat to me. Right now we held a mutual respect that kept both of us at bay, but I had no doubt that she would bare her fangs if pressed any more. Keeping a watch on that shimmering distortion of an assassin running back up the hill, I refocused my attention back on the four man squad engaged with the fog demon below.

Damn, if only June was still alive to heal and buff me… I even gave him a ticket as upfront payment for our cooperation. Tickets from pk went directly to the killer’s inventory, so I couldn’t recover the two that he dropped either.

After making sure the shimmering distortion left the area, I stalked downwards towards the party of four. They already brought the fog demon to less than half health, but seemed to be bickering now.

“Just finish it, so we can get out of here!” the sword and shield bearer. “We deal with the telekinetic whip user later!”

My entanglement with the assassin wasted precious time and costed me two of my trump cards, a pocket healer and the element of surprise. This engagement just got a whole lot more risky.

Sliding down part of the hill, I activated the magic circle for thunderbolt, but cancelled it. No. I was in no position to waste precious health now that my healer was dead.

“Love whip, attack.”

The whip shot downwards towards the shield bearer, slapping him in the back haphazardly, which did nearly zero damage. I noticed that I stopped moving in an attempt to control the whip better. The amount of concentration that it required was just too much compared to its expected payoff.

Just had to get my hands dirty and risk fighting in melee range, then. I loosened my telekinetic control on the whip.

Gripping adamantite poleaxe in my right hand, I increased my running pace while patiently waiting for the fog demon’s next move.

The fog demon raised its arm and swept down in a very boss monster-like way, slow and deliberate. The shieldbearer raised his shield and blocked the arm sweep just long enough for the mage and that hooded female to get out of the way.

That was my chance.

Leaping forward, I jabbed forward with a two handed thrust at the shield bearer’s back, hitting his armor.

[37 damage]

“Love whip, restrai–”

“Permafrost!”

An icy blast struck me from the side, briefly slowing my movements.

-17 health

[You have been slowed.]

[You have been chilled.]

The mage’s face looked utterly confused at how his advanced tier magic dealt so little damage to me.

“Restrain!”

Upon completing the command, the whip bound the warrior and momentarily incapacitated him. Tch, it was only going to last three seconds.

Without wasting a beat, I activated the magic circle for thunderbolt while placing my hand directly onto his armor.

“Raaaah!”

A halberd axe swing directed at my face forced me to dissipate my thunderbolt cast, and the magic circle fizzled out of existence while taking a chunk of my mana as well.

I ducked, barely getting out of the way of the blade, which took a tuft of my hair with it.

Suddenly, the shield bearer to my left burst into a cloud of bats. And the halberdier as well. Bats. Bats flying everywhere, crowding my vision and disorienting me.

“What the…”

Bats were flying absolutely everywhere, and increasing in volume until I couldn’t see anything but more of those furry little rats no matter where I looked.

Thud.

A sharp pain emanated from my side, and I felt blood dripping from my arm. But I didn’t see anything wrong with my arm. Just bats, and more bats.

-110 health

Health: 737/864

“Shadow!”

Entering a gaseous form, I left the illusion behind and stared at that hooded girl from earlier, who was now visibly sweating from exertion. No wonder it looked like she wasn’t contributing to the fight. She was an illusionist class.

The old man fog demon wailed once again, and swung down with several of his dozen hands. This time, the arm swing attack was swifter and more precise. Without the illusionist concentrating her efforts on distracting the demon, it could now fight at its full strength.

“Nnng!” the shieldbearer grunted, tanking a serious blow on his shield from the fog demon. The illusionist closed her eyes again and put her hands together in prayer, directing her illusion magic back towards the fog demon while their mage prepared another spell.

With each halberd strike on the fog demon, it dropped lower in health. It was at roughly a third now, and dropping still.

Health: 739/864

Damn it. I didn’t have any potions or anything, so only my base regen could help me here. Any damage I took was effectively permanent until I could find a moment of respite to cool off in the dimension room.

Gripping my poleaxe, I circled around the battlefield until I was a bit closer to the illusionist.

The fog demon opened its mouth, charging up another breath attack.

“Permafrost!”

Fulfilling his role as the main dps, the mage shot out another advanced tier spell at the fog demon, chunking it for a significant amount of health. It was now dangerously close to being killed.

Making sure that shadow was off cooldown so I could escape, I dashed forwards towards the female illusionist. She immediately turned towards me and began casting her illusion magic against me.

Right as visions of bats began to crowd out my sight once again, I activated shadow. This was a huge gamble, using my only escape ability offensively, but I decided to take the chance while the two melee fighters were still busy finishing off the low health fog demon.

Bursting into an incorporeal black mist, I rushed straight towards the illusionist. Her eyes locked in on the black cloud that was my body at the moment, and she adeptly pressed a few buttons on her screen.

Suddenly, her equipment transformed. Her hood was replaced by an oversized witch hat, and her cloak became a revealing cut witch robe that showed off her thighs.

I completely misread her class. She was a witch, with a specialization in black magic and access to basic illusion magic, not a pure illusionist. I should’ve realized when she used a rather low level illusion spell on me.

The duration of shadow ran out, and I reappeared in a plume of smoke just a few meters away from her.

“Petrify!” she shouted, and the spell connected with my body. I couldn’t dodge in time after stumbling out of [Shadow].

[You have been petrified.]

[You have been turned to stone for ten seconds. The duration of the effect has been reduced to five seconds because of the demi-vampire blood in your veins.]

Five seconds. A lot could happen in five seconds.

“Entangle!” the witch shouted. Thorny roots sprouted from the ground and wrapped around my ankles, restricting my movement.

Not good. This girl wasn’t hurting me with damage spells, but instead she was layering more and more cc on me, effectively pinning me down for as long as she had additional cooldowns and mana.

But two can play at this game.

“Love whip, restrain!”

The whip wrapped around the female witch’s body in that all too familiar compromising manner, tightening around her chest and legs and waist. Her face began to turn into a horny mess, but she retained enough composure between labored pants to cast another spell.

“Leech!” she shouted.

-3 health.

-3 health.

-3 health.

My health was slowly getting sapped at a consistent rate, and the residue floated towards her body and healed her. Oddly enough, the healing seemed to have a mitigative effect against love whip’s seductive properties as well, as her face alternated between extreme lustfulness and a blushing, angry expression.

Goooooooooooooooooooooo–

The fog demon groaned in pain as the mage landed a crippling blow with [Permafrost]. With only a sliver of health remaining, the fog demon’s head was hung low as it began one last slow attack.

The cooldown to shadow just expired.

“Shadow.”

This time, I headed for the fog demon itself. A fine black mist was seeping from its chest area, and my left hand pulsated in resonance with the mist.

Reappearing right in front of the fog demon, I gripped my left arm and evoked one of my strongest abilities.

“Heart ripper.”

The sword and shield warrior and halberdier looked on in horror as I sank my entire arm into the fog demon’s chest, and squeezed. With one quick and decisive action, I stole their boss kill.

[You have slain the fog demon.]

[Task complete.]

[You have been awarded with 10 tickets.]

[You have leveled up.]

“You-you killstealer!” the female halberdier shouted in anger.

“Get him!” the shield bearer barked.

Extracting my bloodied hand from the fog demon’s corpse, I smiled and waved for just a split second. “See ya,” I said. “And thanks”.

And with that, I started sprinting as fast as I could away from the angry party of four chasing after me.