Combination Attack
Several transparent domes that loomed over Rising Demon Peak had begun to slowly shrink. Inside the numerous domes, gripping and mesmerizing fights were taking place, some fights more captivating than others.
It was like witnessing warfare of the Old World but with a trace of magic and mysterious combat arts, all without having to worry about casualties!
The 95 percent game immersion and smooth, lifelike graphics made it hard to tell whether these events were happening inside a game or in Ferventia if not for the supernatural powers and the inhuman movements many of the swifter players displayed.
A basic human on Ferventia would average at two or three combat points in each of the respective combat stats. The players demonstrated through the Recordigoes to the audience possessed much higher capabilities.
However, possessing 2 STR and possessing 20 STR did not mean a player was ten times stronger than his or her initial state. But it was still a good indicator that the player's strength had reached beyond natural human capabilities.
The audience from the Harshwood Colosseum, including the royal family, and millions of Holovision viewers all supported their favorite teams by cheering boisterously from the crowds or their homes.
Camille's livestream viewership had reached a new height as a total of 70.000 viewers were now paying close attention to the fight between the Havocking Bunnies and the Relentless Iron Fists.
Most of the chat was filled with cheers and random spam messages due to its rising popularity. Thus Camille had opened a new premium channel, dividing the chatroom into Normal Chat and Exclusive Chat.
The Exclusive Chat had gained a lot of popularity among many of the chatroom users that wanted to hold a more thorough discussion.
[BladeGOD: "How does an Unstable Mine deal so much damage? I thought those consumables were expensive trash?"]
[VRguru: "@BladeGOD: He most likely put all his stat points into SPC. This is strange considering that he's a physical class that requires STR and DEF to function optimally. It might work for him now, but once he enters mid-game levels, he'll definitely struggle to keep up with the more balanced players."
[FleetingPhoenix: "@VRguru: He's definitely a physical class, considering he's using a sword and a boomerang that deals physical damage. But he has an interesting build, so I think it's too early to say what he can or cannot do."
[Controller: "@BladeGOD: I'm a ranker myself, although I didn't make it into the tournament. My class is quite similar to his as I possess a class that isn't among the starting classes. I don't think using consumables is necessarily a bad choice."]
[SightseerNO1Fan: "@Controller: What class do you have? How did you get it? Very interested to hear!"]
[Controller: "SightseerNO1Fan: It's called Seeker. It's an offshoot from normal Ranger classes. I obtained it not long ago through an Exclusive Quest. You can look at it as a slightly upgraded or rare version of normal classes.]
[SightseerNO1Fan: "@Controller: Sounds cool, man! Is it a lot better than a typical Ranger class?"]
[Controller: "@SightseerNO1Fan: Not really. I don't get any combat stat advantages per se, but I did get a new combat proficiency and a specialization proficiency tied to my new class. They both work well with SPC and STR stats, but mostly the former. Also, I obtained a C-rank class Quest.]
The Exclusive chatroom was filled with speculation and hearsay. Although these users provided a lot of knowledgeable in-game information, not everything was accurate and needed to be taken in with a grain of salt.
Controller had thus far given the most accurate depiction of the SPC combat stat and had realized that he and Midnight were both tied to auxiliary class types that were unusual in Soulbound Online.
Interest had fluctuated toward Evan and everyone wanted to know what class he possessed!
Facebasher was currently in a battle against two other Warriors. One of them was a Guardian, thus Facebasher had an immediate advantage as a Shieldbreaker that naturally countered the opponent's defenses.
The problem was that the other Warrior, a heavy armored Lancer, constantly pestered Facebasher with his far-reaching longspear.
Getting into the Guardian's reach proved to be an issue even with his new greataxe, Great Cleaver, a Rare level 15 to 25 item that had recently been looted.
Even though the item rating itself was one quality rank lower, the Rare weapon was better than his previous Unique level 1 to 15 greataxe because of its higher level ratings and thus the item swap had paid off to a certain extent.
The Lancer continued to harass Facebasher and finally delivered a couple of glancing strikes.
[-23 HP]
[-22 HP]
With Facebasher's high HP, the longspear attacks were endurable. With Camille supporting him from the rear, occasionally casting the single target heal skill, Sana, it would take more than a few non-critical hits to take out the Shieldbreaker.
Camille also eased Facebasher's struggle with her upgraded C-rank Ice Bolts that the low magic defense Warriors had to be extremely wary of.
The initial stalemate started to shift in the favor of the Havocking Bunnies.
Since Camille had previously acquired the Intuition proficiency from her first E-rank (WIS) Soulstone of Intuition, then later upgraded the proficiency with one of the rewards received from Evan's Exclusive Party Quest, she now possessed a D-rank version of the proficiency.
—
[Pattern Indicator (D):
Skill-type: Self-buff (from D-rank Intuition)
– Grants the user of the skill the ability to read movement patterns more precisely for 2 minutes (active skill).
Cooldown: 10 minutes]
—
Camille decided to activate Pattern Indicator, and after plenty of missed Ice Bolts, she unexpectedly started to get more accustomed to the enemy's footing and movement patterns.
Ice Bolts weren't fast projectiles like Sightseer's arrows, hence the slower magical projectile travel speed, and hence her spells needed to be timed more precisely.
The two or three seconds delay from the spell's release until it found its mark or whizzed past the target needed to be carefully calculated from her current distance to the opposing Warriors.
"Two minutes! Can you finish off your targets in two minutes?" She asked the two flankers of her party.
It was the amount of time Pattern Indicator lasted. She would only use Sanctum Aqua if things turned for the worse. The trade-off was that the skill would rapidly deplete her MP. If her magic failed, the battle might turn its tide if she lost consciousness!
No response.
'Wait… If I use it now, the chance to hit is much greater!'
A devious laugh left Camille as a blue aura gathered around her new level 15 to 25 Rare staff, Wise Staff, taking only a few seconds to charge up now that her proficiency with the skill had risen.
"Aqua Sanctum!"
Ever since Aqua Sanctum gained its new C-rank, the stream of water magic had formed a new shape.
A blue water dragon escaped her staff, pouring out with great potency!
The targeted Lancer activated his live-saving buff, hoping it was enough to mitigate the incoming blue dragon.
In combination with Camille's Aqua Sanctum, Facebasher used Bash, hoping to stun the Lancer with a Concussion.
Facebasher's greataxe pommel failed to land on the Lancer as the latter narrowly parried the attempt with his longspear. Regardless, the parry had tipped the Lancer off-balance as a result and gave way for the water dragon that Camille steered in his direction.
[-44 HP]
[-47 HP]
[Critical! -112 HP]
[Missed!]
The water stream first struck the Lancer square in the chest and traveled upward to his head, resulting in a critical before going off target.
"Why is it so damn hard to control the skill?!" She whined.
The chatrooms exploded with comments. This was the first time they witnessed such a devastating spell coming from a Priest Healer!
Even with damage mitigation applied to the Lancer, the skill still successfully dealt a significant amount of damage!
This was possible because the damage mitigation seemed to be ineffective against magical attacks.
The Lancer rushed to retreat mode and applied a Bandage and drank a health potion to heal up.
[+20 HP]
[+10 HP]
[+10 HP]
Camille altered her aim in harmony with her Pattern Indicator, trying to readjust the course of her attack.
The Guardian rushed forward in front of the targeted Lancer and planted his sturdy tower shield on the ground as the water stream returned to its former trajectory.
This meant that the Guardian had made himself immobile while the water stream now continued to ram into the tower shield!
[-20 HP]
[-20 HP]
This time Facebasher ignored the Guardian and went after the still recovering Lancer.
"Split n Cleave!"
A vertically aligned greataxe honed in on the flustered Lancer. The strike landed and successfully applied a debuff that reduced a portion of the target's physical defense!
[Critical! -82 HP]
The follow-up horizontal swipes thus scored well on the damage front.
[-45 HP]
[Blocked! -16 HP]
The last strike might have been blocked, but the Lancer's HP was already marginalized to a sliver of health and he began to notice that his connection to his character had started to fade.
"Ugh. Well fought." The Lancer said his parting words and turned into a streak of light.
On the left flank of the Havocking Bunnies, Evan had laid out new Unstable Mine traps across the jagged territory that hid them.
He wasn't afraid of wasting his mines as he could always pick up the ones that hadn't been detonated. Or else he wouldn't have been so casual about setting up so many traps. The enemy Rogue had turned more cautious as a result!
He responded to the request Camille had solicited a few moments ago.
"Kinda busy here. This Rogue is hard to track because he keeps spamming his invisibility skill whenever my Detection is on cooldown." He grunted.
Sightseer finally also decided to reply. "I'll come help out, Midnight. Just finished off the Mage."
A momentary pause formed in Camille's perplexed chatroom and in many other crowds. The silence then erupted into cheers, everyone dumbfounded by the ease displayed when she had taken care of business.
"A no-skill kill!"
"She killed her opponent with standard attacks?!"
"I thought all participants were top rankers. Was I wrong?"
"Is the game bugged?"