: A Berserker’s Rise - Chapter 9

After an entire minute of running into what seemed to be an endless tunnel, they finally spotted the first opponent. Three of them actually.

[Fire Demon] (Common, Level 5)

HP: 500/500

[Cultist Fire Elementalist] (Iron, Level 5)

HP: 300/300

There were two Fire Demons, who were merely red skinned demons, and one Elementalist. Among the three, the Elementalist was no doubt the most dangerous despite his lesser HP. If he was allowed to keep the distance, then he could dish out insane amounts of damages.

Adam saw King Slayer starting to fade away, he was probably using the [Sneak] skills all Assassins spawned in. It wasn’t hard to guess his intention.

Adam grinned, and as the monsters started spotting him Adam released a battle cry. In Epoch, monsters didn’t only rely on their aggro range, if someone shoots at them or attacks them, they would still attack, even if the other isn’t in the aggro range.

As soon as he finished roaring, Adam saw the two demons were running his way, and the cultist had raised his staff, red magic swirling on its edge. He was preparing a spell.

Adam used Charge on one of the demon, stunning it, and dodged the claws from the other demon. Then, he saw a fire ball heading his way. It was surprisingly fast, but not enough for Adam.

He kicked the free demon away, and grabbed the stunned demon by the neck and used it as a meat shield.

-25HP!

-23 HP!

It looked like [Fire Demons] had a certain resistance towards fire attacks, as a fireball from an Elementalist would do way more than 23 of damage to him.

Adam quickly looked at the Elementalist, and saw that he was preparing another attack. However, in the middle of his casting King Slayer appeared behind him, and used [Stab], a skill that allowed to stun the victim.

Now he didn’t need to worry. Those two demons weren’t much of a threat to him, with his two Level 5 Uncommon equipments that both focused on Strength, and the points he added to Agility, his stats were higher than them, especially his strength.

Just one of his kicks had taken 25 HP from the demon, so a slash from his sword would take much more than that.

The demon he had kicked came back to attack, its claws forming flames, but Adam just used the stunned demon to take the hit for him, again.

Critical Hit! -61 HP!

Adam grinned, their skills were a mix of physical and fire attacks, so they didn’t have much resistance. However, the stun on the demon ended, and it got out of his grip. Taking a step back, Adam dodged another claw and finally took his sword out.

The two demons rushed at him unafraid, but that didn’t change anything. Adam activated [Mighty Strike] and slashed at the first demon’s neck. The blow was so powerful that the demon was swept off its feet and sent flying to the wall of the cavern.

Critical Hit! -250 HP! (Author’s note: If you wonder how he did so much damage, his Strength is at 55, meaning 55 base damage. His sword adds 25 to go to 80. It is a Mighty Strike, and at its level it deals 160% of damage so 80*1.6=128. Also he hit on the neck so that negates pretty much all of the demon’s defense and allow Adam to deal a Critical Strike, so 128*2=256. To even that out I decided to take away some damage, it’s the demon’s defense on the neck.)

-25 HP!

Meanwhile the sword continued on its course and slashed at the second demon, who could protect itself with its arm. Still, he got sent flying all the same.

-50 HP! (Author’s note: For the record, if he hits multiple people with one Mighty Strike, the 160% effect only applies to the first one hit. However, the special effect of sending people flying is applied to all those hit, because its funnier.)

-27 HP!

Adam laughed out when he saw the damages he just did. But he didn’t let the two breath as he attacked the one to whom he dealt a Critical Hit. He was able to attack twice before he had to dodge a claw.

-50 HP!

-48 HP!

As the demon only had slightly more than 30 HP left, the other one attacked. Adam dodged its claw and kicked its legs, making it fall.

-38 HP!

He then turned his attention to the other demon, who was about to attack. He quickly slashed his sword at the demon’s neck, and actually beheaded it!

Critical Hit! -155 HP!

Although he was stunned from all the blood, Adam didn’t stop and attacked the other one. He had already accustomed himself to such gory stuff, after all how could a VRMMO claim to be realistic if there wasn’t this kind of stuff in it?

That was also one of the main reasons it was forbidden to play for those under 18. When this first appeared in a VR games some years ago, people were outraged and protested, but after some time they got used to it, because there was no other way to go.

Adam then began attacking the other demon, who was on the ground. It took him less than 10 seconds to finish this one off.

[Your party has defeated ‘Fire Demon’! XP +35]

[Your party has defeated ‘Fire Demon’! XP +35]

[Your party has defeated ‘Cultist Fire Elementalist’! XP +40]

As expected, the XP he got wasn’t much, since it would be split in two.

King Slayer, who had the dead Elementalist at his feet, asked “How do we do with the loot?”

Adam proposed “If an item is needed by one of us he takes it, and for the rest we split the profit once outside?”

King Slayer raised an eyebrow and asked “How do we know the other will really split the money?” Adam smiled and said “Take the items. I trust someone like you won’t cheat me out of my money. And even if you do, it will only amount to a Silver or two at most, and in that case I would know I can’t trust you in the future.”

King Slayer smiled back and said “You are interesting, Valiant Heart. Still, the Coppers that drops, let’s split them directly.”

Adam nodded and took half of the Coppers and King Slayer took the other half as well as everything that dropped. There were materials, and a staff for Elementalists that boosted fire damage.

Now that they had finished splitting the loot they continued on their way. They eventually discovered that they were actually in a big temple, and were fighting a sect that was summoning demons. They crossed three other similar groups as they bolted their way through the dungeon. As the two set the XP system to be split between the two of them for every monster killed, Adam got 220 XP out of this. In term of equipment though, they weren’t able to find anything good for themselves.

After that, they found a big wooden door, which was guarded by a squad of 5 demons, and one Cultist.

They stopped out of their aggro range and began whispering to each other. King Slayer asked “How many of them can you take?”

Adam looked at the demons, and seeing all five were level 5, he said “I can definitely take care of the five for some time, I don’t know if I can kill them, but blocking their aggro on me is easy.”

King Slayer nodded and said “Good. I’ll kill the mage and give you a hand.” King Slayer disappeared, and Adam moved into their aggro range, and did the usual battle cry.

The five demons charged at him, all of them swinging their claws his ways, some of them using their skills. Adam didn’t use any skill and instead for them to be on him before acting. He planted his sword in the ground and lowered himself, sweeping his leg in a crescent, making three of the fall to the ground.

Then, he used [Charge] on one of the remaining two, and dodged the last one’s attack before activating [Mighty Strike] and slashing on its shoulder, making it fall to the ground too. As they tried to get up, Adam activated [Wind Blade] for the first time and started slashing at them like crazy, every attack hitting at least two or three.

Even when they got back up, Adam attacked so fast that they couldn’t even defend themselves. As the skill duration ended, two of the demons had died, two had about 200 HP, and only the one he stunned in the beginning had 400 HP.

The three demons suddenly started breathing in, and seeing this Adam hurriedly moved back. Then, the three suddenly breathed out flames. Fortunately, Adam was prepared for this and was able to get out of range. Currently, he was really a glass cannon, so getting hit by those attacks would probably kill him. He really needed that Class Armor.

But suddenly, one of the fire breath stopped. A few seconds later, the other two stopped too, and Adam saw that one of the low health demons had died. He two others looked in confusion, leaving their defense open.

Adam activated [Mighty Strike], and slashed out. The two were sent into the wall, losing a big part of their HP. And just as they landed King Slayer appeared and finished them.