“One of you must survive for five minutes and you all pass the test,” Sardon lets out a puff of smoke and settles down to watch. My priorities lay in the huge creature lumbering towards us. The instinctive fear affected not only me but also visibly affected Alixandra. Axel and Cassidy were unperturbed, and Axel emptied the cylinder of his revolver into the armored giant. The creature with the label [Death Knight lv. ? HP: ?/?] over his head in red lettering ignored each shot, despite them ringing against his armor like a gong. He stopped moving for a second and I analyzed him.

[Death Knight (lv. ?)

HP: ?/?

Description: Among the most powerful of necromantic minions summonable by a mortal. Just a few of these creatures would possess power enough to devastate a small kingdom. Anything they kill rises again as an obedient zombie.

Weaknesses: Insufficient Analysis Level

Resistances: Insufficient Analysis Level

AI Rank: C]

I finished thinking over the information quickly, aided by the ambient Enhanced mental capacity (lv. 2). Then I learned why the opponent had stopped walking. He slammed his sword into the ground, and the entire floor shook for a moment. The sword was about as tall as he was, and He plunged about a foot of it into the marble stone. A message popped into existence at the small ravine it created. I didn’t get a notification, but I think my actual fear exponentially expanded. But when a ripple of dark energy exploded from the edges of the dark blade, I would have pissed myself if that was possible in the game. The ripples struck every member of our team, and all of us became stuck in Midair, as though time had trapped us. I probably would have hyperventilated, but I couldn’t breathe under these effects.

[Status Effect: Shadow Binding III (00:04:59)]

Movement caught the corner of my eyes. I was surprised to see a shadow double of Cassidy pulling her new dagger out of her hands and cutting the air around her. Cassidy straightened up and took the blade back from the strange start toward Alixandra nearby. She repeated the process, cutting into the air between her and her shadow until she was free. Alixandra thanked her and began charging a spell. I heard a primal roar from Axel as he tore away from the binding and rushed toward the monster. The Death knight had his sword back out of the ground, and he swung it toward Axel, faster than a creature his size should be able to. I watched in horror as Axel was chopped cleanly in half, and his pieces fell to the ground. There was no gore, only a clatter as his blunderbuss fell to the ground. But his top half struggled forward toward our party. But his name was in red now, and I could hear him growling in a deep voice that didn’t belong to him. I started to feel that gnawing uselessness again and it didn’t go well with fear for my life, so I made my way to regroup with the rest of the team. Alixandra was the only one here likely to be able to do any kind of damage to the monster, so we had to cover her while she charged. That meant distracting the monster. The death knight hadn’t killed us all, so I assumed he was instructed to go easy for the sake of giving us an opportunity to survive. I closed my eyes, activated sixth sense, and rushed towards the monster. He swung his sword downward at me, trying to cleave me in two, but I saw the attack before he started it. His strike sliced through the air, dealing over 1000 damage to the ground. I slid across the smooth marble floor to the flank of the knight and smacked the armor in the leg with my staff.

[0 damage]

I kept up the distraction, and Cassidy fired off a volley of shadow nails from above the Death Knight. None had any effect, but he was plenty distracted by it. But then he started running toward the other two, sword outstretched. I jumped towards the monster again, but I may as well have been a fly. Cassidy stood between the walking armor and Aixandra, bravely readying her dagger. Her shadow double stood by as well. Losing options, I hurled my staff, and it clunked ineffectively off the armor. The sword swung towards the shadow double of Cassidy, and it reached forward, grabbing the sword’s edge in it’s dark hands. The swing slowed to a stop, pushing the clone onto her back foot. Lounging forward at the speed of darkness, the shadow double smashed it’s fist into the dark chestplate, and the huge hulk of black metal and ghostly fire stumbled backwards a step. It stomped it’s foot in impatience, and stabbed it’s sword towards the shadow. Cassidy collapsed, panting and sweating. The shadow double crossed it’s arms to receive the blow, but disinegragted as Cassidy's mana gave out. Then a portal opened as Alixandra finished channeling her attack. But instead of the shimmering gold disk just appearing above the enemy, another also appeared below him. He fell through the portal at the bottom, appeared near the ceiling, and fell back towards the portal at the ground. The process repeated, gaining speed every time, until Alixandra’s hold on the skill slipped and the portals disappeared. Mid-falling at terminal velocity, the armored bastion slammed into the marble floor. Alixandra collapsed out of exertion.

[19,453 damage]

The force of the impact between the monster and the floor caused a spider web of cracks to erupt, pieces of marble flew in all directions, causing damage to the three remaining party members. As we both stared at Alixandra, even Cassidy’s jaw seemed to drop. Cassidy gave us a trademark grin from her awkward position on the floor.

We would have celebrated, but we turned in alarm toward the pile of metal as we heard a creaking. The death knight started to regain its footing. Smoke rose from the armor, and it pushed off the tip of its sword to stand once more. The metal groaned and marble dust sprinkled off of it like fresh powdery snow. An arm was missing and chunks of the helmet were cracked and chipped. He took a step towards us and I raided my staff.

“We have to cover Alixandra,” I said to Cassidy. She prepared her dagger next to me. The monster took a step towards us- and promptly fell apart.

“Congratulations, adventurers,” Sardon growled in his smoky voice, “You have exceeded my expectations,” Black fire surrounded Axel as the Dragon spoke, and Axel was raised back to full health, no longer undead or in two pieces.

[Your party has defeated Skeleton Warrior (x4)]

+150 exp

+15 silver

Participation Rating: 6.5/10]

[Hidden Quest Complete: Dragon’s Approval

Conditions: Your party must deal at least 5,000 damage to the Death Knight

Rewards: 500 EXP, +5 stat points, 10 Gold, Variable Boon]

[Level Up!

You have reached Level #8:

+20 to all stats

+35 stat points

EXP to next Level: 25/110]

[‘Dodge’ has Leveled up to Level 3!]

[‘Enhanced Mental Capacity’ has Leveled up to Level 3!]

[Name: Archangels_Advance

Race: Human

Class: Analyst

Sub-classes: - none -

Active Titles: Champion in Training,

Alignment: 0 (Neutral)

Health: 190

Mana: 100

Stamina: 90

Level: 8

Exp: 69/139

Strength: 38

Agility: 45

Constitution: 38

Willpower: 38

Intellect: 40

Wisdom: 40

Perception: 43

Charisma: 38

Luck: 39

Unallocated Points: 40

Skills: Analyze (lv. 3), Bullet-time Processing (lv. 2), Sixth Sense (lv. 2), Enhanced Mental Capacity (lv.3), Dodge (lv. 3)

Status Effects: Champion’s blessing (∞)]