"None of you read a walkthrough to prepare for your battle against me! You want to kill me without even reading a walkthrough?! Ha! That"s suicide!"The silver-winged, red-armored me kept shouting "You are not prepared!" arrogantly from midair. The panicky squadron below me was such a familiar sight.
In a cooperative player vs. AI video game, what gave me more of a headache than a difficult boss were garbage teammates who recklessly started fighting the boss without having even read a walkthrough. In this world, too, these types of garbage teammates were common.
Dark priests would attempt to use negative energy spells against the undead, fire mages would attempt to throw fireb.a.l.l.s at fire elemental creatures, idiot a.s.sa.s.sins would try to use stealth against true sight Beholders, and so on. Every year, the fairies" monthly magazine"s most popular feature was forever the portion t.i.tled "The funniest one hundred ways to die this year."
If I recalled correctly, the one ranked first on the list of idiots last year was a Demon Warlock grandmaster who decided to transform himself into a demon when faced with a Three-Headed Horned Demon Lord"s might.
It turned out that the demon the Demon Warlock chose, a Speed Demon, was the favorite type of demon the Three-Headed Horned Demon Lord loved to eat. That Demon Lord apparently broke out into laughter and directly used an "Intimidating Stare" ability to freeze the Demon Warlock in his tracks, making a nice meal out of the warlock.
The smart ones who weren"t as dumb as the idiots in the fairies" magazines would take advantage of their enemies" greatest weaknesses—obviously far more effective. For instance, the fact that Holy Knights greatly preferred battle hammers over swords wasn"t actually due to personal preference. It was because their main enemies would forever be the undead and demons.
Due to the nature of their bodies, skeletons, zombies and other undead would typically be highly resistant against slas.h.i.+ng and stabbing attacks. It was far more difficult for them to defend against bludgeoning attacks capable of crus.h.i.+ng their bodies and bones.
Rangers who roamed the forests preferred barbed arrows as their main weapon because their primary enemies would be the unarmored beasts and beastmen. Barbed arrows were capable of opening up wounds that would continuously bleed, making them an effective weapon. Sometimes, all a ranger would have to do was follow a blood trail, and then he"d discover a corpse at the end of it. But using such barbed arrows against the undead wouldn"t be as effective as throwing a rock at them.
Battle hammers and maces were also very effective against the heavily armored knights typically referred to as tin cans, which was why battle hammers were jokingly referred to as "can openers." They were capable of creating tremors from a collision against armor that could kill a knight even though the armor remained undamaged. Actually, since demons had magic armor protecting them, they could be treated as a type of heavy armor unit as well. That was why battle hammers were also the most effective "can opener" against demons—this was the logic behind why the Snake Archd.u.c.h.ess had begun her attack with a battle hammer. It was simply a test. But since her battle hammer was a weapon barely at the Myth rank, even she herself didn"t have much hope it would succeed.
For any powerful individual who had lived for a sufficiently long period of time, obtaining information on one"s enemies would become a daily habit. Investigating specific information about one"s enemies was something absolutely necessary when facing someone powerful. Fighting without any preparations would be tantamount to suicide—it would be necessary for game players to check a video or a walkthrough before fighting against a video game boss.
Of course, at the same time, it would be fine for game players to not check walkthroughs as well. Game players had the privilege of dying over and over again to probe a boss"s abilities—all they had to do was load their previous save file. In real life, however, people only had one life. "Please try again" would only happen in games.
Hence, it could be said that the fight between truly powerful individuals would begin before the battle itself. Those who had critical information about themselves exposed would find themselves killed off quite quickly. As a video gamer would put it: "As long as you have the information, you can defeat the boss sooner or later, but without any information, the boss is undefeatable." Or, another video gamer"s phrase would be "without a walkthrough or any preparations, it"s like trying to farm a wasteland. But if you have a walkthrough, experience, and you"re prepared, then it will be like speed grinding. There"s no comparing the two."
Everyone would want to hide information about themselves, but for those who had reached a certain level of power, their fighting style would typically be fixed with its specific advantages and disadvantages. As long as there were records of that person fighting, it would be impossible to keep everything a secret. Still, powerful individuals would always have their hidden aces. Unless the difference in power between the two sides was big enough for one side to completely suppress the other, the fight would end up in a compet.i.tion of who had the better aces.
The undead had indeed investigated and prepared themselves thoroughly, and they"d also extrapolated what possible aces I might have hidden. In the past, I had showed off in public Sword Saint level swordsmans.h.i.+p, excellent ice magic abilities, and the ability to use G.o.d"s Descent. As for my Holy Light magic and undead magic, there was basically no record of me using them in direct combat.
No matter if it was Holy Light or undead magic, any path would need a lifetime"s worth of experience and time to cultivate. It would be impossible to create a Legend"s Soul Imprint unless one was able to face their true selves and desires with absolute sincerity, unless they started over from a new life… Fine, my resurrections were probably different from most other undying individuals. At the very least, I doubted that any other existence would be capable of retaining their sense of self while in the River Styx.
"His proven abilities are Sword Saint level sword techniques, and the frightening forbidden spell Ice Aeon. We also need to defend against his ice magic. Of course, since he"s an Undead Emperor, he"ll be skilled in undead magic. As for Holy Light, there are no records of him using that in combat, and Holy Light clashes with the power of undeath—his Holy Light is probably nothing more than a political trick used to obtain the favor of the Holy Church."
If I were the undead, even I myself would have come to such a conclusion. But sometimes it would be impossible to measure certain people by common sense.
Judging from what I"d seen so far, the undead had indeed made excellent preparations.
The female vampire before me was as slippery as a snake. She knew more than one hundred ultimate monk techniques and could use them all with ease. Her Dexterity stat had likely far surpa.s.sed 30; although I was a Sword Saint, I was clumsier than a bananthrowing monkey in front of her. Meanwhile, that curse expert Agfan had used a Curse of Fatigue on me, making me lose stamina at twice the normal rate. My sweat now reeked of fresh blood.
If I tried to a.s.sa.s.sinate that annoying bald-headed curse expert in order to remove the Curse of Fatigue on me, Alexandra would interrupt me and keep me busy without even caring if she was injured. At such a time, the Blood Tribe"s regenerative abilities would show their disgusting prowess.
As for that death G.o.d like a.s.sa.s.sin, he used the tactic of "striking me only once and then instantly disappearing for another blow" upon failure. The entire time he was the only one to attack me while I couldn"t even counterattack. I also needed to divide a part of my attention to stay on guard against him, which made me only more frustrated as I fought.
I had now confirmed that the three of them were equipped with far too many anti-ice magic equipment, thus limiting my large-scale AOE ice magic. The vampire monk wouldn"t give me a chance to speak if she saw any signs of me attempting to utter an incantation. As for using undead magic… they wouldn"t even need to prepare against it as undead creatures were powered by negative energy to begin with. Either they"d be highly resistant against undead magic or they"d absorb it. The current me was incapable of top-level undead magic that"d be effective against a Myth-ranked Undead Lord.
My sword techniques made me seem to be nothing more than a no-good slacker disciple in front of the Snake Archd.u.c.h.ess who had likely cultivated as an ascetic for thousands of years. And my ice magic had been specifically targeted against with all that anti-ice magic equipment. If I had met these three Undead Lords two months ago, I would have probably been killed off by now with all these preparations against me.
Should I say that I was fortunate or unfortunate? My recent battles had been against Undead Emperor Aso and then the t.i.tan Giants. Both were ones where I"d brushed by death, but they"d also helped me discover my insufficiencies.
I was the type who loved to reflect on my mistakes after every battle—this would help me get better and improve myself for the next. "What if Aso had gone all out against me?""What if the t.i.tan Giants had directly tried to ambush me without any warning?" Even if I did my very best, perhaps I"d…
"I can"t always hope to get lucky. In the future, high-level opponents will only become more and more numerous. At the very least, I have to think of a method to survive. Only by surviving will it be possible to win in the end and use an ace to overturn the situation."
The current situation proved my choice. These three veteran Myth-ranked Undead Lords were more than enough to suppress me when counting their actual power levels against mine. If it weren"t for my new dragon armor, perhaps I"d have been instantly killed.
[Full-body Dragonscale Ice Armor: Guardian of Eternal Night. System Evaluation: Legend rank, capable of growing in power.]
[Enchanted t.i.tan"s Thunder Metal: This armor possesses Legend-level damage reduction properties. All weapons that aren"t at the level of G.o.d Equipment will have their damage reduced by 30 against this armor. System Notification: It"s ridiculous how you managed to come up with the idea of embedding that Thunder t.i.tan Giant"s broken s.h.i.+eld pieces into your armor to strengthen its defense.]
[Ein Mezus"s Protection: Her Dragon"s Bloodline is coursing through this armor. She"s protecting the wearer of this armor, which is bad news for any attacker. Her protection will automatically absorb 100 points of damage every day before the wearer can be damaged. This ability will recover after a period of twenty-four hours.]
Agile monks were one of the best melee fighters, but their high-speed barehanded attacks and the fact that they relied on Dexterity as their main combat stat meant that each attack of theirs would not independently have much damage. My top-level armor would greatly reduce the penetrative force, too, and with my damage reduction abilities, Alexandra was probably only damaging me with about three to four percent of her actual attack power.
When dealing with an armor like mine, only a G.o.d Equipment level "can opener" battle hammer or a top-level forbidden spell attack against the soul would be effective. But, for obvious reasons, these two options would be difficult to come by.
Practical battle had proved my choice. Only defending would still result in death. The loss of stamina and the acc.u.mulation of injuries would be enough to kill a person.
The reason I was able to last for this long—apart from my dragon armor"s astonis.h.i.+ng defense—was that Erebella was sharing my injuries. Moreover, I had a "s.h.i.+eld Slime" within my armor as a second layer of defense and a "Life Slime" that healed my injuries.
This battle appeared to be one against three on the surface, but if you counted my two Slimes, it was three against three.
While the undead were frustrated as they weren"t able to achieve anything after so many attacks, I, too, was similarly frustrated as I hadn"t achieved anything after so long.
Even though I was in a position where I wouldn"t be defeated, if I continued like this, it would be impossible for me to win. It was true that the undead would never open up this "tin can" of mine, but I was also unable to cause any actual damage to them.
"It would seem that I can only use my second form… For the Holy Light!"
Instead of my Ice Calamity sword, I brought out a silver holy battle hammer especially made for Holy Knights.
[Myth-Ranked Weapon: Slayer of the Undying.]
[Attack Power: 40-40 Holy Light damage. Attack Speed: Very Slow.]
[Special effect 1, Undead Slayer: Any undead that comes into contact with this weapon has a probability of being instantly destroyed.]
[Special effect 2, Divine Protection: Summon a golden divine protective field which can resist against the invasion of evil. Lasts for thirty seconds. Any that forcibly invades the field shall receive 5 Holy Light damage per second.]
[Special effect 3, Divine Strength: When using this weapon against the Undead, the wielder will gain +2 Strength. Limited only to Holy Knights.
[Special effect 4, Wrath of Holy Light: This battle hammer is enchanted with ten extra points of Holy Light damage. Limited only to Holy Knights]
[There is crooked line of silver words on the hammer"s handle:This war hammer once belonged to a true Holy Knight. Only those who are truly holy will be able to utilize the full power of this hammer. System Reminder: You"re a Sword Saint, but you"d rather become a Hammer Saint? Comrade Rolo Big Hammer.]
This hammer wouldn"t be anything more than just a good weapon against an ordinary person, but against an undead, it wouldn"t be worse than a G.o.d Equipment.
When Harloys devoured this hammer that I had obtained from Baron Matt, she gained the ability to take this form. But if she entered this battle hammer form, she would have to enter complete hibernation to prevent damage to her soul, which would occur because she wasn"t very compatible with this hammer.
The undead below me were shocked. How could an Undead Emperor possibly use the Holy Light? A former SemiG.o.d Undead Emperor was now using the Holy Light against some Myth-ranked undead? Wasn"t something severely wrong with what was going on here?
No normal individual would even think of the possibility that the powers of undeath and Holy Light could be used in tandem. The information regarding the Humiliation of Soros had been forcibly suppressed by the Holy Church. According to the undead, I obviously could use undead magic, so even if I could use the Holy Light, it would be nothing more than a few tricks performed with the help of external items.
"Such pure Holy Light! How is this possible!"
Everyone knew that the purity of a Holy Knight"s Holy Light was directly dependent on the power of his faith. The purer the Holy Light, the greater its power would be against the undead and demons. That was why demons and devils would try to tempt Holy Knights into becoming fallen. The more faithful a Holy Knight was before becoming fallen, the stronger a Black Knight he would become.
Such pure Holy Light was more incomprehensible than even an Undead Calamity. Who could possibly imagine that an Undead Emperor would have such pure belief in the Holy Light?
A holy battle hammer, a solid new set of armor, and blinding Holy Light and holy flames. I was now a slayer of undead, a Holy Knight! It was as if I had returned to the past.
I unfurled my wings and stood in midair, observing the undead below me. With a wave of my hand the sky was filled with dropping feathers, each feather a bomb filled with the power of Holy Light.
Holy Light illuminated the entire sky—it was as if the sky started pouring holy rain.
After condensing my bloodline, my War Angel form had also received improvements. The greatest improvement to this form of mine was to my pure power of Order.
"All of you shall be eradicated by the flames of Holy Light!"
My golden wings were covered with faint holy fire, while my golden feathers shone brilliantly in the sky. Amid their pitiful wails, every undead being my feathers touched immediately melted to their demise.
"The boss is now flying! It"s the second mode! Everyone, run to your prea.s.signed positions to dodge the boss"s fixed AOE attack! The AOE is beginning its countdown—three, two, one! Martin, you bone lich, you"re running in the wrong direction! See, you died as expected! Lich Team Leader, remove all of Martin"s rewards… darn, it feels rather boring to make comments only to myself when the silly cat isn"t awake."
[Only now do you realize you"re boring!? What kind of boss playacts at being the video game players attacking him? Do you want me to pretend to be a game system reporting the combat situation against a boss!? System Notification: 5 Justice Points have been deducted for this wonderful commenting service. Thanks for your patronage!]