In The Dead of Night (2)
The attackers gave no leeway to Evan's party which consisted mostly of ranged classes. It was a wise decision from the assailing end. The two Warriors closed in further at breakneck speed while the Ranger slowed down as their half-circle turned into a triangle formation.
From the rear of Evan and his party members, another two players emerged from the thicket in two separate locations. They were surrounded!
However, this was a part of their tentative plan. Sightseer had given the party a rough estimate of every enemy location and which directions they would likely come from through her {Detection} skill. What had remained unknown until now was what type of classes would appear from each direction.
Fortunately, Evan and his team had estimated correctly as the enemy melee players approached first while being supported by the backline players.
Now as a D-rank version, Mille hurriedly cast {Bolstera Physicalis} on the party, increasing the party's defenses and movement speed.
—
[System warning!
You have been affected by a Taboo skill, Corrupted Enclosure (D-rank). You will drop 2 equipped items, 2 Inventory items, and 20% of your Aerth coins upon player death!]
—
Evan ignored the system message and mentally triggered one of his traps.
"Boom." He casually added for dramatic effect.
An explosion rang out and caught one of the charging Warriors, sending him flying a couple of meters before taking additional fall damage.
{-58 HP}
{-7 HP}
Evan looked at the HP bar above the Warrior and noticed that it had only been reduced by less than half. The Warrior was clad in heavy armor, but the mine still managed to take out a decent chunk of his health bar due to Evan's high {SPC}.
'Damn, that's the Warrior class for you. And these guys are still in Tutorial Combat mode.' Evan inwardly cursed before he detonated more Unstable Mines.
The other Warrior was now aware of the traps on the dark and grassy battlefield and changed his course and just barely avoided being buffeted by a couple of other Unstable Mines. Meanwhile, a couple of arrows and a magic bolt struck him while he was off-balance.
{-10 HP}
{-10 HP}
{-15 HP}
The former Warrior was less fortunate as he had received the {Concussion} physical ailment and entered the blast zone of yet another mine.
{-52 HP}
{-6 HP}
Mille and Sightseer made quick work of the opportunity and landed a barrage of ranged attacks while {Concussion} was still in effect, debilitating the Warrior's movement and Agility.
{You've killed PlatinumLord!}
{+30 EXP}
The experience was split in three among Evan's party and the heavy armored Warrior vanished in a streak of light after dropping several items on the ground.
"One down!" Mille yelled. "Ouchie!" A Mage had struck her twice from behind while she was occupied.
{-9 HP}
{-11 HP}
The damage was bearable due to her high magic defense.
Sightseer swiftly turned around and reigned down a storm of arrows with {Fussilade}, keeping the Mage and Priest at bay for a couple of seconds.
Mille quickly healed herself back to full health. "He's mine." She said while pointing her staff at the Mage.
"Hey Mille, keep both of them busy while we mop up the other side." Sightseer instructed.
"What?! Two against one?" Mille complained.
"You'll be fine. Just keep healing yourself."
"Not fair!"
"Don't worry, just stall for time. Don't let the Priest near the remaining Warrior at least."
Mille's upgraded proficiency D-rank {Ice Bolt} now allowed her to spend less mana from each casting. Hopefully, this was enough in a two versus one.
Meanwhile, Evan kept the surviving Warrior busy with his boomerang while dodging incomings attacks from the Ranger.
The medium armored Warrior had become impatient and ignored the boomerang attacks while pressing forward with a damage mitigation skill activated.
{-6 HP}
{-6 HP}
{-7 HP}
"Ignore this!" Evan shouted, pitching a Makeshift Grenade at the approaching Warrior like a Tossball athlete.
{-21 HP}
'Damn, the damage is at least halved.' Evan estimated.
The grenade had landed perfectly and inflicted some damage but couldn't slow the Warrior down with {Concussion} effects due to the immunities granted by the mitigation skill.
The Warrior raised his broadsword with both hands, deflecting the incoming boomerang with a practiced sword motion.
"You can't run from me now!" The Warrior yelled as he was about to strike a vulnerable Evan with no weapon at hand. "Triple Axis!"
Several powerful swings landed on Evan, fortunately none occured on vital areas.
{-20 HP}
{-16 HP}
{-16 HP}
The damage was manageable due to Evan's epic armor, D-rank {Resilience} proficiency, together with Mille's buff. Still, he'd been staggered by the sword flurry! It could turn awkward if the next strike hit one of his vulnerable areas.
A powered arrow interrupted the Warrior's momentum, suspending further sword strikes toward Evan while dealing damage.
{-9 HP}
It was the work of Sightseer's {Pinion} attack!
Evan retrieved his returning boomerang and used E-rank {First Aid} and instantly recovered some health.
{+20 HP}
Most likely a Berserker, the Warrior quickly broke free from the pinning attack and continued his unrelenting attacks.
"Hey, guys! I'm running low on mana!" Mille informed the party from where she desperately kept dodging incoming magic missiles.
She was currently keeping the Priest at bay while dodging the Mage's spell bombardments. In hindsight, the situation would have been much worse for her party if the enemy had coordinated an all-out attack from one direction instead of separating their damage potential. 'These noobs have failed to utilize their Priest efficiently,' Mille scoffed.
With Evan's D-rank {Heightened reflexes} and increasing adrenaline levels, he soon got used to the Berserker's attack patterns and started to evade more and more attacks.
What had become evident was that Evan lacked any means of defending himself properly in close-quarter encounters. Kiting mobs and kiting players weren't the same and required separate strategies. The latter was definitely more sophisticated.
Finally, the Berserker's damage mitigation skill ran out. Sightseer fired another {Pinion} right after its cooldown was removed, this time inflicting unabated damage while Evan followed up with both his boomerang and a grenade.
{-24 HP}
{-14 HP}
{-40 HP}
{-12 HP}
{-12 HP}
Arrow, boomerang, grenade, arrow, arrow. Dead.
{You've Killed RabidRabbit!}
{+30 EXP}
"Sightseer, go help Mille. I'll take care of the Ranger" Evan informed and drank a medium health potion, slowly pulling him back to full health.
{+10 HP}
"You sure?" Sightseer replied.
{+10 HP}
"Yeah, I want to test something out." Evan told her and laughed rather maniacally for the first time. Sightseer soon retreated to aid Mille, not able to tell whether Evan was being serious or just an overconfident madman. In either case, Mille was definitely much worse off.
{+10 HP}
{+10 HP}
Unlike {First Aid}, healing potions healed {HP} over time. The 3 minutes cooldown from {First Aid} was still on cooldown so it was convenient that he had other healing options while Mille's healing was unavailable. Though it stung at his heart every time he wasted a consumable.
{+10 HP}
—
[Medium healing potions (Common) – Carry limit: 9/10.
Cooldown: 1 minute(s), 50 seconds.]
—
While being attacked from range, Evan couldn't do much against the Ranger. He had to enter throwing distance with his boomerang or grenades. Thus he tried to move forward with random movement patterns, reducing the Ranger's hit chances.
Arrows that lacked a punch would occasionally hit Evan. As the distance between them was reduced to around 5 meters (16.4 feet), Evan activated D-rank {Ignore Pain}, a much stronger version of the Berserker's damage mitigation skill. However, its 80% damage reduction would only last three seconds!
The Ranger swapped his bow with a dagger, preparing for close-quarter combat. Evan ignored the puny knife and allowed a few blows to land in non-critical areas.
Now that he and Mille were influenced by Soulbound Combat mode, a stab to the heart or neck would be considered fatal by the system in most cases. However, {Ignore Pain} still made it much harder for a weapon to penetrate his layer of armor.
Evan let another dagger strike his bare hand, letting it travel through his palm, and firmly grasped the Ranger's clenched weapon-holding fist in a paper-versus-rock motion.
{-8 HP}
"Gotcha." Evan grinned.
He then brought out an Unstable Mine and a couple of Makeshift Grenades from his inventory and let them drop onto the soil underneath them. The Ranger tried to escape, but their strength levels were comparable to each other's, thus it became impossible to break free in a short amount of time.
"Are you insane?! Let me g-"
"Boom."
The rapid explosions muted the panic-stricken Ranger. Evan would have to remind himself to cover his ears next time. It was quite a deafening experience.
{-189 HP}
{You've killed xXxDarkPrincexXx!}
{+30 EXP}
{Midnight: Critical! -55 HP}
As Evan somewhat expected, a level 6 squishy Ranger couldn't possibly survive the force of three explosives stacked on top of each other. In fact, it was a complete 'overkill in gaming terms'.