CHAPTER 20 - SHINOBI MICHAEL
May 8th 2023
FLOOR 25
The branches were shaking in the wind in response to the flow of cool night breeze.
The visibility in the forest was quite low, the low growls of monsters could be heard close by next to the swamp stomping through and disturbing the calm waters.
This was the common sight in this part of the wild fields here.
The monsters look like giant green scaled lizards in humanoid form, carrying rusted swords and shields, some rare ones also equipped helmets and spears.
These would be the elites of the group stronger than the average rabble. These are called lizardmen.
This quiet scouting regiment began to move quietly through the nearby forest searching for prey.
They numbered about twenty lumbering around the woods with sharp and vigilant eyes.
A swift shadow moves through the forest and approaches the swamp quietly. The shadow stood still for a second before vanishing as quickly and quietly as he came.
He appeared behind a lone lizard separated from the group and dealt a crit 3 hit combo to it's eyes, throat and heart with his short sword.
He disappeared and appeared in front of two more alerting them but before they could react, he attacked them in a beautiful flurry of strikes to their vital spots earning critical hits with each attack and stunning them till they broke down to polygons.
The others where still unaware of the assassin in their midst, but he began to reap their lives silently and without pause.
He stopped in front of 3 opponents and began another bout.
He stabbed the first twice in the eyes and proceeds to disable it's limbs.
The other two retaliated by slashing towards his midsection but he jumped into the air, spinning around in mid air allowing their rusty swords to sail past him harmlessly as he slashed at their throats stunning them, then performing a split kick to their chest and torso launching them away.
Landing back on the ground, he moved about the 3 downed monsters, dispatching them quickly with sharp and precise combos.
His movements looked more efficient and ruthless as the fight carried on.
This has already attracted the attention of all the remaining lizardmen and the shadow didn't shy away from the challenge but rather charged into the midst of the 8 monsters.
Running forward he got into a stance, then muttered lowly
This caused the remaining 4 to pause but their instinct overruled their logic and they charged head first to their deaths without hesitation.
Making use of his precog skills, the shadow weaved and dodged all their attacks while retaliating back slowly chipping away at their health, it looked like a dance but a deadly one.
He ducked under a strike to the head and stabbed into the lizard's chest, spinning around to avoid two overhead strikes he used the momentum to cut off their heads.
Leaning backwards, he dodged another swing followed with a backflip kick to it's head and lifting the mob to the air and stabbing it repeatedly on it's head while in mid air.
He vanished and reappeared behind the last monster while sheathing his swords leaving the monster to pause mid swing then a red line appears on it's neck before it broke down into polygons.
The figures steps into the light and his features could be seen, he had long dreadlocks style hair tied in in a ponytail, about 175 cm in height and mocha color skin.
He had a black band with a silver cloud motif tied to his forehead, a black upper face half mask rests on his face with black long sleeve with silver metal sewed into the sleeves and vambraces attached to his hands and the front being open with only the arms covered leaving him open chested.
He wore off white baggy pants with black wave like pattern, held up with black gi-like belt with a silver metal cloud buckle and black boots to finish up his ensemble.
This figure is michael in disguise and he was training his ninja and assassin skills with his daggers and short swords.
Right now he is at a satisfactory level of skill with these weapons but he needs to get better to breach that gap.
He looked around the swamp and noticed the lake bubbling before a gigantic lizardman burst out of the swamp roaring to the sky outraged by someone killing it's minions.
This was the area boss of the swamp and this was unexpected to him.
It looked like some kind of godzilla rip off but he wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth, he needed a stronger a opponent to push past his limits.
facing the beast and locking eyes with it, they were about 30 meters apart but in that moment, michael threw something to the monster and it went over it's head with the monster locking on to the object which turned out to be a stone.
before the boss could look back at the player in front of it, it felt a stab to it's leg and then 3 more slashes around it's side.
michael quickly backed away after checking the bosses defenses, seeing as it's scales are very sturdy he decided to take this seriously.
Putting all focus into the attack, He activated rudimentary observation haki watching the boss closely and reading it's moves ahead of time.
ROOOAAAR
The boss was enraged that it got tricked then attacked the player.
it swiped it's heavy axe towards the player, but michael skillfully jumped over the attack, flipping in the air, he landed on the downed axe and before the axe could be pulled back, he dashed towards the boss in a burst of speed.
starting off with two stabs to the boss's eyes rendering it blind then continued with triple slashes to it's wrist disarming it.
Jumping to it's chest level, he kicked away it's clumsy claw strike and used that foot hold to spin in mid air and began a flurry of strikes, spinning like a top, stacking up strikes to the chest, heart , head, hands, even groin leading to a 30 strike combo.
ending the strike with a strong downward kick to it's head blasting it to the ground helplessly forming a crater beneath it.
Stomping on the boss's head, he proceeded to stab both shortswords into it's head ending it's life.
Looking ahead, he saw
CONGRATULATIONS
YOU HAVE LEVELLED UP
LEVEL 49 > LEVEL 50
He walked back to the boss's giant axe and stored it into his inventory, it seems that was the boss's drop item.
LEVEL 50
HP : 9800
STR : 77
AGI : 90
He wasn't surprised by what he saw as he was already expecting this to happen sooner or later.
Done with hunting for the day, he decided to go back to their house on the 25th floor and have some of miku's delicious cooking, he just couldn't get enough of it and she seems to get better with every passing day impressing him with every new dish she manages to come up with.
Lost in thought, he accidentally ran into hostile territory and this was the jackals hunting ground.
He began to quickly dispatch the encircling monsters but before he could finish he heard a player's voice behind him.
"Hey that's our prey, get out of here, we were here first" The random player said.
Michael paid no heed to him as he didn't wander into this place intentionally and just wanted to deal with these nuisances before being on his way.
Furious because he was ignored, the player proceeded to attack michael forgetting the fact that he just slayed a pack of jackals effortlessly.
Michael easily sidestepped the slash and punched the player in the gut sending him flying into the distance and crashing into a tree with a loud
BOOM
His companions quickly arrived to his aid and he told them that he was attacked by michael first without provocation as he didn't want to admit his fault.
Michael on seeing the other players, decided to explain things to them to defuse the situation but it seems that wasn't an option anymore as look on their faces was only screaming vengeance and promised pain.
He couldn't entirely blame them as he would be pissed if he found miku in that state too but they could at least hear his side of the story before jumping to conclusions.
On second thoughts if this was miku they would already be dead before they could say
"hey" Thought mikey with narrowed eyes while unconsciously releasing his aura causing the players to stiffen up and step back.
he let up when he realised his slip up, reminding himself that she would never be caught dead in such a situation.
The players began to advance towards him steadily as they were now more cautious of him after feeling his aura.
Michael just looked at them disappointed as he could tell that this would be an easy fight but just prepared to finish them up quickly so he could eat miku's cooking.
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