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Volume 5

Chapter 222: First Minute Heavy Punches

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Kladis was dancing in midair, his absolute control over the timing and boost of his flight armor is something that every player who was watching it right now could see very clearly.

Every boost and body movement was like an art and if one was a fan of novels or manga, they’d immediately connect his movements to those mysterious and eye-catching effects they call [Movement Art].

But of all the impossible things for a normal human to do, dodging and parrying a barrage of bullets like this was something that is really miraculous.

Perhaps it may only be possible in this game but even in here, maybe it’s Kladis alone who is able to shoot a bullet in midair using his own gun.

“Fuck! How are you doing it?!” Siva roared angrily but his rebuke was met with laughter.

“Ahahaha! A God is being mad at me! Ahaha! What an honor, what a great honor indeed! He’s even cursing at me like a mortal! Hahahahahaha!!!”

“Damn you!” Siva’s patience was running out with his provocations and mockeries. “Damn you. Damn you! DAMN YOU!!! Aaaaaahhh…!!”

He’s fired hundreds of rounds already but yet to hit and damage Kladis with one single bullet.

Kladis’s sword was flashing every now and then. It would create either a bluish round arching shield comprised entirely of the after images of the sword at times, or a few illusory slashes that would cut and parry the bullets, followed by the clanging sound and the flying sparks.

His sword was moving at a frightening speed that was hard to follow with the naked eye!

Furthermore, as far as Siva was concerned, Hagrid is part of The Legion but the strength he saw from Hagrid in the videos and his own fleeting experiences with his strength was not only a far stretch of a comparison from Kladis, the latter was also more….. aggressively dominating.

Kladis’s elegant speed is something that causes fear.

This made Siva think about his own advantage during fight as well as his own weakness.

“My aggressiveness and momentum is both my strong point and my own weakness. If the momentum is stolen from me, I lose my ground and become irritated like this!”

It may even be said that Siva, at this moment, was in some way evolving and maturing.

He was able to see his own weaknesses and lacking in regards to battle.

Thinking about it, 15m is a very close distance that a bullet can traverse in but a moment’s time for a spark to fly off a flint. To be able to actually dance around and slash, parry, or dodge a speeding bullet was mortally impossible.

“Shet! I can’t let this continue.”

Siva was cursing inwardly.

BANG!

BANG!

“I will dictate the flow!”

After these two bullets, Siva paused but didn’t dare to lower his barrel. What he did was to take a stride and BOOM, approached the man in an explosive step-in.

From the steady 15m distance he had maintained with Kladis, he decided to close in within a 10m mark.

The golden hammer appeared on Sivas right side and he twirled in the air to kick it like a soccer ball towards Kladis.

And then, as Siva turned back around, he pointed his guns and fired.

B-BANG! ……BANG! …BANG! ………BANG!

The bullets were placed as both distraction and cover fire, flying in between the narrow spaces around the speeding Godhammer.

“What the fu—!!”

Kladis was so surprised on how ‘light’ it looked when Siva just kicked it like it was a throwing weapon. And yet, that’s it.

He was only surprised by his action of kicking that big warhammer but its speed was slower than the bullets so dodging this attack was simpler than simple.

“You crazy son of…” Kladis berated Siva as he dodged and parried the bullets and then sidestepped the Godhammer.

As Kladis moved to the side to dodge it, just as he did and turned his attention back to Siva, he heard swishing sounds from behind him. A familiar sense of crisis erupted in his heart.

He felt his hairs stood as he threw the notion of taking a step to close in the distance with Siva into the air and turned his head back in yet another sneak attack.

SWOOSH!

“It’s this trick again...!!”

With a full-bodied swing, he brandished the sword behind him. A loud sonorous metallic collision rang in the immediate surroundings and the falling rain whose only about to fall had to part for them again.

CLANG!

BANG! BANG! ………BANG…!!

Following this action, Kladis also unleashed three fire bullets that twisted the air as it went through that frozen moment and went straight at the rushing Siva.

Siva stopped, surprised, and crossed his arms to block the bullets. Although it dealt minimal impact damage and there was no major injury to him, it was still [Impact Damages] nonetheless.

It was enough to let him loose his balance and also causes his mind to be rocked giving a stun effect that lasts for about two seconds.

“Argh—shet!”

Except for being pushed back and stunned, there was no more effect to Siva. Three resounding clangs and three exploding fires hit his body as he fell back like a kite who lost its strings.

Siva mislaid his balance and his chance for a follow up attack vanished along with his momentum.

On the other side, the half-meter sized hammer head with intrinsic runes and symbols on the sides were being held on the shaft by a pitch black-colored looking rope that served like a fulcrum to change the direction of the hammer to follow up an attack on Kladis.

This sight greatly surprised Kladis.

Tw simultaneous attacks from behind. One was that sneak-attacking something, now this heavy hammer that, if he didn’t bock or parry it, will crush his bones under his clothes even in midair.

Kladis saw the black rope-like hands that held the huge hammer and his cry spread into the skies as he was pushed back as he blocked, failing to gain his balance.

“What are these things?!”

BANG! BANG! BANG…!!

When Siva recovered, he pointed his guns at Kladis and pulled the trigger to release the fastest three bullets he can fire at that moment.

The gun fires came from behind him and Kladis didn’t have the time to think as he pressed his feet on the hammerhead like a platform to kick and dodge.

Simultaneously, he also used swordplay and footwork to block, parry, and guide the bullets away from him.

Sparks flew as Kladis moved and he leaped on empty space as if dancing in the wind —going straight for Siva!

“I have to keep the pressure!” thought Siva and fired his guns without conserving anything. He didn’t need a magazine and his bullets are reliant to how many nanocubes he had in his arsenal.

Nanocubes had so many uses, after all.

XIU! XIU! …XIU! ………XIU!

Siva used a combination of summoning sneak attacks in the dark sky and as well as a bombardment of gun fires to suppress and gain distance from Kladis.

But although Siva has two guns, Kladis is still dodging here and there and the space between them was beginning to thin out as he felt the approaching attack headed to his neck and chest.

“I can feel his intent!” Siva mused to himself.

Although Kladis looked like his movements were randomly made so as he dodged, he was actually trying to close in the distance and was expertly setting up an attacking method and trapping Siva to a psychological barrier.

Kladis was making Siva believe that he was being cornered.

Nine meters…

Eight…

Seven…

Six…

Although it looked like it was easy, Kladis is sweating as he paid extreme amount of his concentration into accomplishing this task.

“You really are tricky!” Kladis hissed as he kicked the air and fired his gun at Siva. “But if you didn’t have this level of ability, why are you even called a God? Hahaha!”

Five meters…

Kladis took a step and his left hand’s fingers played with his sword as if there was an invisible wedge that served as a pivotal wheel in the middle of his blue-bladed weapon —CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

To Siva’s surprise, six bullets —all having been fired with his carefully thought precision— were rendered into small ashed sparks that scattered into nothingness.

Kladis was still laughing.

Siva became aghast but more than that, furious!

“Weak!”

As Kladis’ movements entered the 4m distance from Siva, Siva gritted his teeth and decided.

The barrage of bullets stopped and Siva released his guns as he took a leaping step forward.

“Raaaaaaa….!!!” A frantic cry of anger bellowed.

A ring of wind was left on where Siva once stood as he dashed straight towards Kladis.

It hasn’t been that long since the duel started but they were already on a critical juncture and were going all out on their own attacks.

“HAHAHA…!! You’re going straight at your end!”

The sword in Kladis’s left hand steadied straight as his palm pushed the hilt and stabbed it forth, feeling the sword effortlessly pierce through that writhing black clothing, straight where Siva’s chest should’ve been.

Even Siva was surprised by this. It only proved that that sword that Kladis has is what he thought it was.

If not Unique, then it’s a Legendary Equipment.

Pain assaulted his mind, anger and irritation eating his rationality. It was a cold and chilling pain. As of this moment, Siva realized how his bullets were being melted into nothingness once it hits the blade. As it turns out, Kladis’ blade was kind of a Frost Blade!

His mind was ordering him to back off or he will freeze but he just gritted his teeth and pushed forward.

*****

The battle has started. Everyone swallowed and didn’t mind the rain falling on their faces as they all watched the battle that could only be explained in one word:

Very Thrilling!

Forget the adverb, these guys are still players and no matter which faction they belonged to, they play this game and is used to fighting but… it wasn’t everyday that you actually get to see a high-level fight that could send your blood boiling and your mind reeling.

Many players studied Kladis’ movements, trying to divine some sort of way that they could copy his moves and improve their own.

Kladis’s sword mastery is something to covet but no matter how they think about it, all they could do is to look at his skills and dream that one day, they’d be able to fight like that.

Of all the set skills and abilities available in the game to be either found, purchased, or produced (via the Invention’s [ability function] and via Talisman effects), what this game really emphasize are [player skills] that cannot be cheated or replicated by just anyone.

As such, Kladis’s sword mastery is his real skill. Even though dodging and parrying bullets are effects of an unknown ability/spell, his sword mastery is not.

Kladis is a real Sword Master!

But he’s not the only one. Some players also studied the NPC Donar’s movements.

His style was really close to a player’s and his raging attitude and cries of anger that resounds every now and then are also things that made these players somehow wear the sane shoes as him.

They thought that if one day, they face someone with the same skill as Kladis in the sword, how would they be able to counter it?

As such, Siva became their guinea pig and also their prototype for such a time.

Regardless of anything else, these two dancing lights in the sky… every time they clashed and then parted and then clashed again, sent their rippling effects down into the crowd below like a nail to the heart.

No matter the reason of their fight, the audience could feel their emotions disturbed every time they crash.

They held their breath…

They watched with unabated gazes…

They listened with focus and attention…

They felt for the tiniest of ripples that stirs the heart…

Every sound these two made resonates in everyone’s mind and these were things that are rare in a game world such as Terroa.

A battle that poured all their hearts in every swing and fire of their weapons was something that the audience would always notice taking their breaths away.

One fights for a ruined pride.

One fights for personal justice.

Right now, the two had parted for a bit. And based on their actions, they are planning to crash at each other again, but, at the moment that clashed, the darkened sky crackled and the first lightning appeared…

…along with the loud cry of pain and wrath…

…and the lighted background highlighting an unforgettable image.

*****

”Aaaaaaaaahhh…!!”

Siva’s roar resounded along the clapping of thunder as the silence of the crowd down below saw the image of a sword stabbed right through a body.

His scream reverberated in all directions, echoing loud in many places for all to hear along with the sound of falling rain.

Some even thought that it sounded like a monster’s growl. The loudness and madness within that one single cry spoke of pain and agony.

But above all else, there was anger and boiling anger.

The blade stabbed his right shoulder and went straight through until more than half of the blue-bladed sword went through his body.

“Crazy son’f a—grrrr!!”

Kladis went pale as he felt his sword effortlessly went straight at Siva’s body. The sensation wasn’t new but the manner at which Siva decisively went so was something he didn’t expect him to do.

Siva’s cry of pain proved everything. He could only imagine how painful it was for an NPC who doesn’t have the [pain absorption] function of NLD.

The pain was great but his anger was just as so. In return for this agony, Siva used that right hand to grab his opponent’s left arm and ordered with his mind.

“Cut him!”

Within a moment’s time, a black mist materialized above Kladis and this black mist formed into a blob of black matter that then formed its own staff until—

SHING!

As loud as the sound of a Lapis Lazuli roaring right beside one’s ear, the blade of the scythe that formed at the end of that shaft ‘accidentally’ cut through a few strands of hair that alarmed Kladis of the danger.

His eyes widened with shock drawn all over his face, and he, on those little moments that the blade had materialized faster than a blink, stared at its black luster in the dimly lit eternal night curse.

The blade descended and its target wasn’t his head but his left arm that held the legendary blade.

“A scythe!” roared Kladis. “No!”

FLASH!

His mind reeled at the impending catastrophe. A flash of light engulfed his body and a suit of soft-looking yet sturdy navy blue armor materialized on top of his clothes faster than the descending blade.

CLANG!

“……!!” Siva was utterly shocked at this.

The blunt sound of a knife hitting a rock rung on Siva’s ears as if a bomb had exploded right on his face. He saw the black scythe turn into black ashes as soon as it made contact with that armor part on his left arm.

Kladis also saw it and as soon as he did, he realized what that black thing was right at that moment.

“Only the lowest-grade Black Tech can have that kind of effect when making contact with a Rune Armor!” Kladis laughed and a wide sinister grin appeared on his lips. “So that’s why you’re weak! You’re really not an Immortal! I knew it. I knew it! I KNEW IIIIIITTTTTT!!!”

Kladis hissed the words in anger.

“You’re not Donar. You’re Dilim from The Company!”

“……”

Siva could feel his face twitching.

He didn’t know if he’d laugh because he’s happy that he wasn’t found out, or laugh because he found out that Kladis was an idiot.

Did he really not doubt Donar in the slightest?