Challenger (V): A Regretful Decision
While Nehar rushed forward, the Warriors who were supposed to stop him at the front, only gawked at his back.
It was hard to believe for them that a guy just randomly jumped on them and killed one, and sent another two flying.
They looked at each other in a daze.
Two Warriors, who were sent flying by Nehar's sudden attack, directly crashed into the line behind them.
Other Warriors, who were preparing to receive Nehar by creating an impenetrable Shield Wall, were knocked back by the sudden impact.
They were not prepared for their allies to get crushed on them.
With a single move, Nehar destroyed the former Warrior's
Nehar didn't bother to observe them anymore as he rushed forward through the center of the destroyed formation.
A chaotic melee broke out soon.
Stab…stab…stab…
Nehar continuously swung both of his daggers while running forward.
After swinging once or twice, he didn't even look back to see his handiwork.
Blood-red smoke continuously generated from Nehar's right hand and covered his victims one after another…System notifications also continued to ring in his ears without stopping even for once.
[System: Skill: Backstab (Common) has activated.]
[System: Skill: Dagger Arts (Common) is in use.]
[System: Backstab successful!]
[System: Backstab successful!]
[System: Your Health has recovered slightly. Your Current HP: 376/380]
[System: Your mana is decreasing. Your Current MP: 311/325]
[System: You've successfully slain a Warrior!]
[System: You've successfully slain a Fighter!]
[System: You've successfully slain a Warrior.]
[System: You've successfully slain…]
...
Continuous ringing of the System notifications proved how fast he was eliminating his enemies this time.
Whenever he swung his daggers, a head or an arm would fly.
The Warriors and Fighters, who had faced him bravely at first, suddenly felt their necks were being stabbed, their arms were missing, and they were unable to see the attacker in front of them clearly as a blood-red smoke was covering their eyes and senses.
The Special Effect of Bloodkin's Dagger was actually quite special.
Not only it was able to supply its user with an unlimited amount of Energy to recover his Strength and Stamina quickly in the midst of a battle, but it was also able to block people's senses and perceptions using a blood-red fog-like smoke.
This was the real reason Nehar chose to buy it before anyone else.
Killing an enemy when that person doesn't even understand what killed him/her was for the best, which suited his fighting style greatly.
Many Warriors tried to stop him using their Shields only to find they were getting backstabbed repeatedly.
They couldn't even block it as they were no match for Nehar's speed.
Nehar didn't use his
He just modified his most basic Dagger Skill,
His
Thus, Nehar just spammed it repeatedly.
In the past, he had fought hundreds of battles where many of his Skills were not readily available to him or even under some constraints.
But he never faltered because of this.
With his Dominating
Later, when he was able to upgrade his
This was the reason Nehar single-handedly dominated many battlefields and even killed enemies with huge level gaps.
His unorthodox battle style and inhumane control over weapons made him an Insidious yet Dominating battle fiend.
During that time, a certain Celestial gave away their thoughts in a single line while observing Nehar's battle.
"The One, who crosses Blades with the Fiend, will never be able to come back from the Battle-Field."
Later this line almost became a prophecy in the Heavens.
This was the infamous Battle-Fiend, who killed hundreds of thousands and never felt sorry for them.
Thus, mimicking a simple Skill like
"What the hell?..."
"H-How is this possible…"
"Do his Skills not have a cool down like others? How is he executing them repeatedly?"
"Shit…I can't hold him down….help me…Arghh!..."
"Let's run away….we can't kill him…"
"Shit…arghhh…"
The man who was trying to run away got his face slammed into the Bloodkin's Dagger.
"Argggghhhh….save me….my body is getting weak….ahh please…"
Bloodkin's Dagger Special Effect triggered continuously and absorbed people's Life-Force without taking a break.
As its Energy meter started to rise slowly, people had gotten weaker and frail.
The Dagger continuously sucked their blood, absorbed their various Stats into it…making them feel weak, frail, and void of life at the end.
Seeing his buddy's miserable condition, a burly Fighter rushed towards Nehar and directly threw a punch at his face.
Nehar subtly blocked the incoming punch using the dagger in his left hand.
Tang…
A crisp metallic sound reverberated.
Seeing his dagger visibly shaking from the impact of the punch, the burly man became happy as he cursed, "Yes, that's it. Fucking bastard, your dagger is going to break apart soon and then we'll kill you without a mer-eek…"
The man wasn't able to finish his words as his head suddenly flew away.
Nehar chopped his head clean using the Bloodkin's Dagger without batting an eye.
He kicked at the man's body, which was still flailing after his head suddenly cut off, and threw the dagger towards the middle line.
The dagger flew away with great speed and impaled itself on a running Caster's back, killing him instantly.
When the surrounding people saw Nehar throw away his dagger, they became elated.
They were quite sure that now as he threw his dagger away, his attack power would surely decrease.
But their happiness ended shortly as another dagger appeared in his left hand.
"Wh-WHAT THE FUCK?"
A middle aged yelled seeing this unbelievable spectacular.
"Shit…there's another dagger in his hand…"
"How can he carry more than two daggers at the same time?"
"Are you an idiot or what? He threw another dagger before, don't you remember?"
"Yes but how? How is he getting more weapons?"
"Is the Tutorial not fair for everyone?"
"It must be that woman…she must have given him those extra weapons…"
People started yelling and shouting frantically while seeing Nehar's new weapon.
Nehar chuckled while listening to their banters.
He knew very well that he would require many weapons to survive in this Tutorial.
Although he had planned to buy the Bloodkin's Dagger even before coming to the Tutorial, he knew he had to collect a large number of TP to buy that from the Shop.
Thus, he needed more weapons…cold weapons.
And he did buy over 70 daggers and 30 swords from the black market, using every bit of money he had.
Black market sellers almost thought that he was going into a gang war later that night, seeing his rapid procurement of all those weapons.
Although, according to System's grading they were only Inferior Grade Weapons, unable to withstand mana for a long time…it was more than enough for Nehar to begin with.
He had a clear plan for his Skills, thus he bought those weapons in large numbers to use them one after another in battles.
The System didn't restrict their storage in the Inventory or their usage as they were easily identified as Inferior Grade cold weapons.
Nehar planned perfectly for these kinds of situations, where his weapon's durability becomes close to zero.
He had plenty of experience with the weapons as he held those illustrious Traits before.
Thus, he used them perfectly…he kept attacking with those weapons while imbuing them mana and when he felt that the weapon in his hand was about to fall apart due to less durability, he threw it to kill some Caster or Archers, who were either shooting at him or running away from him.
He continued to do these actions repeatedly, without stopping, without taking a break.
[System: You've successfully slain a Caster.]
[System: You've successfully slain an Archer.]
[System: You've successfully slain a Fighter.]
[System: You've successfully slain a Warrior.]
[System: You've successfully….]
[…]
[…]
[…]
[System: Your attacks are overwhelming your opponents completely. Your Current Attack Power: 70]
[System: Your Current Agility: 43.9]
[System: Your Current Strength: 24.79]
[System: You're currently overwhelming your enemies in every aspect.]
Nehar saw those notifications which were constantly appearing before his eyes without any shred of emotion on his face.
After activating
Buying this Dagger was his best choice so far, as Nehar silently acknowledged the killing machine in his hand.
This dagger already had a high attack power even before its unsealing process, but now it also has a Special Effect, which is perfectly suitable for group melee like this.
But that's not the end of it.
Although Nehar didn't know, he had guessed this dagger was made of some invaluable metal…as it had never shown any sign of getting weaker or less durable.
He felt the dagger even getting stronger after continuously sucking his enemy's blood energy and absorbing their Life-force.
Nehar didn't mind those thoughts anymore and continued attacking relentlessly.
Most of his enemies had near 100-120 HP and 7-9 points of Defence.
None of them were enough to face his overwhelming attacks head-on.
The only thing that kept Nehar in a dilemma was his mana consumption.
Every Skill in this world needs a certain amount of mana to activate and perform.
Although the required amount of mana is currently not specified in his Skill descriptions, Nehar had a rough idea about the mana consumption for each of his Skills.
While
However, currently, he was mimicking many of his Skills using his most basic Skill
[System: Your health is decreasing. Your Current HP: 349/380]
[System: Your mana is decreasing. Your Current MP: 281/325]
[System Alert: Your Control over mana has increased. Skill Proficiency has increased for the Passive Skill: Mana Control (Inferior)]
[System: Current Skill Proficiency: 27.57%, Current Skill Completion Rate: 4.74%]
[System: Quest: Eliminate Your Enemies (49/113)]
[System: Quest: Remaining Time: 00:03:01]
[System: Fatigue: 38]
[System: You've earned EXP points. You've earned TP. Currently calculating…]
Nehar saw the notifications silently.
His health and mana were decreasing fast, as he was getting struck with arrows for some time and executing different Skills using mana continuously.
He also saw the remaining time for the Quest completion.
'I'm losing Health and Mana in such a high speed that my 'Regeneration' process couldn't even match it properly....think it's time for me to unleash everything I have…let's see how my new Skills work this time…'
'If I can do this right, I'll able to walk the path to finally trigger the First Technique completion needed for the
'To achieve my first goal, the
Nehar took a deep breath and observed everything around him calmly.
Remaining calm in a chaotic situation is a must.
He counted the number of enemies quickly while observing them.
'There are around 15 Casters, 12 Archers, 5 Priests, 3 Healers, 11 Warriors, 10 Fighters and 12 Swordsmen. If they weren't wearing their respective clothes and robes, it would've been problematic in identifying their Skills one by one.'
'These numbers are fine for me to go for a final decisive battle….okay, let's go.'
Nehar started channeling mana over his whole body, just as he did before while rushing towards them from a distance…and then he sped forward towards the remaining Warriors, Fighters, and Swordsmen first.
Those people were constantly stopping him from reaching the Casters, Healers, and Priests in the back.
His target was to take them down first.
Seeing him disengaging from the battle and rushing forward again, the Priests hurriedly cast
They didn't know why their Skill didn't work on him for the first time, but this time there was no chance to miss at all…their enemy was directly in front of them.
No matter what, he wouldn't be able to nullify the mental effects of this Skill
And once the Skill effects took place, it would be easy to kill or even capture him.
Some people were still thinking of killing and capturing him even after so many deaths.
But soon, their thoughts came to an abrupt end as System notifications greeted them this time.
[System Alert: Your Enemy's Mental Resistance is too high!! The Skill Effect has been nullified.]
[System Alert: Your Enemy's Mental Resistance is too high!! The Skill has been cancelled.]
The Priests stared blankly at their respective System screens, unable to believe the message in them.
"His Mental Resistance is too high….our Skills are not working on him…"
"Shit…how did this happen? I wasted 15 MP to activate this Skill and it just got wasted on him…"
"Same here, fuck…"
"Just how high is his Mental Resistance? And how is that even possible?"
Chaos spread rampant among them.
When the Priests were yelling in disbelief, the remaining Archers in the front suddenly started to yell.
[System Alert: Your Skill: Basic Archery (Inferior) is not working on your Enemy.]
[System Alert: Your archery attacks are ineffective.]
[System Alert: Warning!! Your Skill: Archer's Eye (Common) is unable to detect your Enemy's Strength or Power.]
[System Alert: You're unable to detect anything from your Enemy.]
"What the fuck is happening?"
"Why are our attacks not working anymore?"
"Our arrows were working fine before, chipping his health slowly…but now look at him, every attack is being repelled somehow…."
"Wh-WHAT THE HELL? That Common Rank Skill is not working on him too…" "Yeah, it says unable to detect…is his Stats that much high?"
[System Alert: Warning!!! Danger detected. A huge concentration of mana detected, surrounding your Enemy.]
[System Alert: The System strongly advises you to run away!!!]
One Archer was finally able to discern something with his Common Rank Skill
The System was advising him to run away!?
That Archer didn't dawdle anymore as he disengaged himself from the battle and directly started running away towards the back, where Healers and Priests were standing.
"What the….why is he running away?"
"We can't stop that monster anyway…let's run away."
"Fuck…how it came to this…"
[System Alert: Your Skill: Lesser Fireball (Inferior) didn't do any damage to your Enemy.]
[System Alert: Your Skill: Lesser Fireball (Inferior) is ineffective.]
[System Alert: Your Skill: Lesser Ice-Shield (Inferior) is ineffective.]
"What is that bluish aura on him?"
"D-Don't tell me that's mana? How is he using magic to cover his whole body?" "Just how high is his MP Stat?"
Along with the Priests and Archers, now Casters also started yelling and cursing too as their
[System: Chaos is spreading throughout the Battlefield.]
Nehar also received continuous System notifications about their attacks.
[System: Skill: Slow Move (Inferior) has been cast against you. Your Mental Fortitude (Passive) is too high: 35 (60). The Skill Effect has been nullified.]
[System: Skill: Slow Move (Inferior) has been forcefully nullified.]
[System: Skill: Slow Move (Inferior) has been…]
[System: Skill: Basic Archery (Inferior) is being used against you. Your Skill: Mana Barrier (Common) has defended you perfectly. Enemy's Skill has been nullified.]
[System: Skill: Archer's Eye (Common, Rank: D-) is in use against you. Your Skill: Mana Barrier (Common, Rank: D) and Stat
[System: Your enemies are unable to detect anything…]
[System: Skill: Lesser Fireball (Inferior) is being used against you. Your Skill: Mana Barrier (Common) has nullified the Skill perfectly.]
[System: Skill: Lesser Ice-Shield (Inferior) is being used against you. Your Skill: Mana Barrier (Common) has nullified the Skill Effect on you.]
[System: Your enemies are in despair!]
Nehar observed the messages silently while relentlessly swinging his dagger and killing his enemies.
His new Common Rank Active Skill,
While rushing forward, he made some preparations that emboldened him to charge through the enemy ranks and tear them apart.
Currently, enemy bombardments, whether it's a spell or an arrow, were ineffective against him.
Nehar checked his mana bar and other important messages for one last time.
[System: Skill: Mana Barrier is in use. MP Consumption Rate: 3/sec]
[System: Your Current HP: 289/380, Your Current MP: 187/325]
[System Alert: Your Control over mana has increased. Skill Proficiency has increased for the Passive Skill: Mana Control (Inferior)]
[System: Current Skill Proficiency: 42.78%, Current Skill Completion Rate: 6.13%]
[System: Quest: Eliminate Your Enemies (72/113)]
[System: Quest: Remaining Time: 00:02:13]
[System: Fatigue: 54]
'It's fine…let's chop the head of these snakes first, then I'll easily take care of the remaining.'
This time, Nehar was determined to rush towards the end, where Priests, Healers, and the most important person of all, the temporary Leader were standing.
'Those Lackeys and their higher-ups are having too much fun. Now I'm almost Invulnerable to any Inferior Rank attacks, let's show them more…so that later I'll able to attract the attention of the higher-ups easily.'
Seeing Nehar rushing towards them, the Priests and Healers became frantic.
But the most fearful among them was their temporary Leader, the Strategist, who was leading this attack force to bury his enemies here.
He didn't plan anything for such a reversal of fortune.
"Healers cast
Hearing the Strategist's frantic yelling, the rest of the people lost their morale soon.
Many of them started to run away from their positions, leaving the people behind them open to receive Nehar's monstrous attacks.
Blood-red smoke continuously covered his victims and sucked them dry voraciously, feeling his Energy meter greatly.
"Fuck…I don't have enough mana to cast
"Ahh, you idiot, do whatever you want…if you can't do anything, just run away…only 2 minutes are left, if we run away he will not be able to finish us in time and fail the Quest."
"Run away…."
People started running away in all directions to avoid Nehar in battle.
Many of them pitted against that White barrier to open it forcefully. They cursed and appealed to the System that they had surrendered, but nothing happened.
Neither the Barrier opened itself, nor did Nehar stop his rampage for a single moment.
Nehar didn't chase away the deserters as his set target was different this time.
He had already taken out most of the Warriors and Fighters, leaving a small segment of them behind who chose to run away as far as possible from him.
Some of the Swordsmen still tried to stop him from approaching the hind line behind them, leaving Nehar no choice but to retaliate and take them out first.
At that moment, Nehar finally used all the new Skills that he prepared for this fight.
[System: Skill: Deflect (Inferior) is in use.]
He easily deflected one incoming Sword strike with the Bloodkin's Dagger, which was aiming for his head, quickly sidestepped, and stabbed the Swordsman in the eyes with his left-hand dagger.
Kicking him swiftly, he moved to the next opponent and struck the vital points of his upper body with inhumane accuracy.
[System: Skill: Vital Strike (Common) has been activated. Strike successful.]
The swordsman's face contorted in pain and his grip on the sword loosened.
Taking this opportunity, Nehar plunged the Bloodkin's Dagger directly into his throat.
Leaving him behind, Nehar confronted an Archer, who tried to stop him in melee combat.
[System: Activating Skill: Lacerate (Common)]
Nehar didn't falter and unleashed a barrage of dagger strikes on him. His powerful and extremely accurate attacks cut his skin and muscles and left the man to die, by bleeding profusely.
Nehar moved forward once more.
The last line of the Casters started raining Fireballs on him, but this time Nehar didn't try to run away or dodge their attacks.
He knew if he dodged, he would miss the most opportune moment to take down the Leader of his Enemies.
Thus he boldly stepped forward and activated his final Skill, which no one would've expected from him.
[System: Activating Skill: Lesser Magic Reflect (Common)]
[System: Reflecting Enemies Magical Attacks coming towards the user by creating a Mana Pulse. Redirecting the incoming attacks towards the Enemies. Mana Consumed: 100]
[System: Reflecting the incoming attacks successfully.]
Over 10 Fireballs and 25 arrows were launched towards him simultaneously.
Taking all those attacks head-on while fighting at close range would be nothing but suicide for one.
With those combined attacks, they thought at least they would be able to incapacitate Nehar temporarily.
The Strategist started to become somewhat relaxed after seeing the Fireballs raining down on him.
He was sure Nehar wouldn't be able to dodge or run away this time from their attacks.
From both sides, the remaining Archers flanked him and from his back, the remaining Swordsmen and Warriors were trying to reach and hack him down by any means.
At that time, he saw something that he never expected to see.
A large mana pulse spread from Nehar's body and collided violently with the incoming attacks.
Arrows were deflected and flew back to all sides, injuring many.
The Strategist became stunned as he saw the Fireballs also getting deflected along with the arrows.
But soon, he understood that his calculations were utterly wrong this time.
Those Fireballs were not getting deflected to all sides like before; they were directly coming back towards them, the Casters and Priests.
"He used
The Strategist mumbled slowly in a low voice.
He tried to move away from his original position to avoid the bombardment and only then he saw a blood-red Dagger coming straight towards him with a tremendous speed like a missile.
He hurriedly tried to block the incoming dagger using his sword, but the dagger easily broke apart his sword into pieces and stabbed him in the chest.
Sword pieces flew away from his broken sword…and he vomited blood after getting stabbed in the chest by the Bloodkin's Dagger.
And soon, it's Special Effect triggered once more.
"Arghhh…."
[System: Skill: Dagger Throw (Common) was successful. Eliminated the Targeted Enemy.]
Nehar saw the System notification expressionlessly.
His face was cold, void of any emotion, and his whole body was covered in his enemies' blood.
The surrounding people watched this blood-soaked figure in fear.
While everyone was watching him in fear and trepidation, Nehar observed the dying figure silently from a distance.
He had thrown the dagger in his right hand, the Bloodkin's Dagger towards the Leader, the moment he activated his Skill
And the dagger did a wonderful job of breaking down his enemy's defense and taking him down.
The Strategist was lying on the ground, desperately trying to breathe inside the blood-red fog-like smoke.
Many System notifications continuously rang in his ears, but he was in no condition to check them.
He regretted his actions dearly.
'….Ahh…I shouldn't have come here to kill someone I didn't even know, I should've refused their proposal, haa…ahh,… a Natural born Leader huh…It was a regretful decision to come here…'
Before he closed his eyes, he heard the last System notification.
[System Alert: You have died!!]
It felt like mocking, but he was in no position to retort.
He silently closed his eyes while mumbling a single word, 'Monster….'