Chapter 65 - An Unforeseen Occurrence (3)

「Psychokinesis... It seems like she really thought about it.」

Hyun smiled.

While Ain was struggling with facing Mayday, Hyun was thinking of a way to beat her.

In the previous game, there were also many jobs related to Psychokinesis, and there were also many ways to counter them.

The solution Hyun thought of involved a skill he'd seen during the awakening quests.

[«Wind Barrier» Lv.0]

- You can create a wind barrier in any place within 10 meters.

- The higher the skill level is, the thicker the barrier becomes.

What's the most effective way to face a monster that flies?

That's when he thought of using the skill, «Wind Barrier».

When he reached that conclusion, he used skill points.

It wasn't weird that, in the Support's skill tree, there was a skill that the Close-Range Magician also had.

It wasn't weird for different jobs to have skills in common.

"Isn't she acting weird?" Ain mumbled in a low voice.

"She suddenly isn't using the boss's skill."

She correctly analyzed Mayday psychologically.

She wasn't using any dangerous skills to obtain as much information about Ain as possible.

Because she had so much battle experience, she saw through Mayday's passive strategy.

"It seems like she isn't properly attacking on purpose."

「I also felt that. It seems like she wants to see our cards... It would be better if we hid as much as we can.」

Hyun smiled.

「Even so, we have no intention of losing. Right?」

Hyun approached Mayday.

Whir- He felt like his body was trapped by a spider web.

«Air Restraint».

Thanks to that skill, Ain hadn't been able to get close to Mayday.

But things had changed.

Hyun placed a «Wind Barrier» behind her.

At the same time, he stepped on the air and leaped forward.

'What...?!'

Mayday was surprised after seeing Ain use some kind of boost in the air and reduce the distance between them.

Because the «Wind Barrier» was half-transparent, Mayday didn't realize what was going on.

She couldn't understand how Ain had beat her psychokinesis.

Because she didn't understand what was happening, the moment Ain charged toward her, she extended her hands again.

'Ah...!'

That time, she saw it!

She was stepping on something that was in the air!

«Air Restraint» was a skill that could stop light things, but the moment the thing you had restrained began moving fast, the target could easily break free from the skill.

'This doesn't work?'

Fwoosh-

Mayday's eyes widened after seeing the flames approach.

A pair of claws were reflected on her eyes pupils.

The moment she inhaled, she received tens of flame attacks!

Now that she had the speed boost that the Priest gave her and even the buff of the Support, the damage output of the Close-Range Magician was beyond imagination.

[Critical Hit! You've received 19,382 damage!]

[Critical Hit! You've received 19,915 damage!]

She received consecutive attacks.

Mayday was surprised after seeing Betty's HP, which was over two million, go down very fast.

'What's up with this damage?!'

The HP had gone down by more than a hundred thousand.

Because she had more HP than before, she could experience firsthand the destructive power of the claws.

Mayday quickly flew away.

She wanted to get away from Ain's attacks.

Tap. Tap.

Since she was in his attack range, Hyun had no intentions of letting her go.

He made a foothold in the air and approached Mayday while moving in a zigzag pattern.

Suddenly, the only thing above him was the ceiling.

The entire lava city was under him.

「We don't have a lot of time left. You know that, right?」

"Yes, I know...!"

Because Ain's ultimate attack consumed HP, they couldn't drag the fight too much.

Ain was more used to frenetically fighting against an opponent, so he decided to leave things to her.

He just placed Wind Barriers so she could use them as a bridge.

「All right, go on a rampage!」

Air battle…

In the sky, a human and a bird intertwined.

No, you couldn't call Mayday’s form that looked like a bat a bird.

The fact that the «Wind Barrier» skill had become the key to making the strategy successful didn't change.

The flow of the battle changed.

Mayday, rather than surprised, was horrified.

She couldn't believe that a user that couldn't fly could follow a boss that could do it in such ways!

Ain, from time to time, used the ceiling as a stepping stone and turned her body over.

The one responsible for those movements was Hyun, of course.

The reason why Hyun was in charge of moving was that he had to use the «Wind Barrier» skill to create a path.

Ain was in charge of attacking.

At first, legs and arms moving each on their own sounded ridiculous.

—Because a human's body moves in complex harmony.

But if you could read each other's thoughts, something like that became possible.

'How long is she going to follow me for?!'

Mayday was stunned by Ain's movements that reminded her of a stuntman.

The weak point of a user was that they weren't used to the movements of a flying being.

In real life, no human had wings.

Mayday, who was 2nd in the rankings, was no exception.

Maybe the real 'Betty' would've been able to leave Hyun behind, but Mayday was a human.

Her first mistake was choosing to fly to get away from them.

The two million HP kept going down.

The claws that were over one meter long overwhelmed Betty thanks to their attack range.

Because the opponent constantly reduced the distance between them, she interfered with her casting, so she wasn't able to use «Rear Leap».

Just then, she'd tried to use that skill twice, but a critical hit had canceled the skill activation.

To make things worse, they were a hundred meters over the air.

Even if she created a whirlwind on the surface, the wind wouldn't be able to reach where they were fighting.

'Yes, maybe going down is a better idea... Coff?!'

It was at that moment…

Mayday suddenly felt suffocated.

Ain had taken the opportunity and used her claws to grab Mayday.

「Well done, Ain!」

Whir-

Hyun made a platform that was parallel to the ground.

He kicked it while upside down and jumped.

Towards the ground, faster than falling down!

Platforms that connected the sky and surface vertically appeared and then disappeared.

The purpose of those was to increase the speed at which they fell.

The speed was so fast that Betty's wings couldn't resist the inertia.

'What...!'

[Critical Hit! You've received 20,382 damage!]

[Critical Hit! You've received 19,937 damage!]

Even while falling, she kept receiving damage from the fire claws.

An ominous premonition flashed through Mayday's mind.

'Don't tell me... Am I going to die?'

Boom-!

Mayday fell vertically onto the roof of a building.

Just as if a meteorite had fallen, piles of rocks were scattered in all directions.

Because Betty and Ain both had high Agility stats, the damage received wasn't that big, but she couldn't block the abnormal status generated from the impact.

[A great impact has shaken your head!]

[For 10 seconds, you won't be able to recover from fainting!]

Mayday's head was upside down; her mind was blown away.

Immediately, Ain's claws began scratching the unconscious Mayday's body.

—All attacks ended up in a critical hit.

'No way, am I really going to lose?'

Mayday's HP, which only had 1/4 of the starting amount, soon bottomed out.

It was truly an extreme amount of damage.

Mayday was feeling chill at sight. It was so overwhelming that she couldn't tell who the named boss really was.

[You've lost all your HP! The «Assimilation» has been canceled!]

[You weren't able to resist for even 10 minutes! The Great Demon of Deception is disappointed in you!]

[You didn't receive any reward!]

While Mayday was astonished, her HP reached 0. She soon became black energy and scattered away.

She was in the middle of the city's square when she opened her eyes again.

It was where Mayday had been before accepting the Great Demon's quest.

* * *

A few hours after she was unexpectedly defeated by Ain…

It was possible that the news of the Guild's strongest member, Mayday, losing would cause a great commotion.

That's why Mayday decided to show the recording to only the most important Darkness members.

Nobody could hide their surprise.

'What skill is it...?'

XL, who was watching the video, suddenly stood up.

The reason was that he had felt a very strong chill.

Ain was using the skill she'd used during the Count's Quest of her own free will.

Those claws that dealt an unbelievable amount of damage!

XL had thought that skill was something exclusive to that quest.

After all, on all the videos on Reddit about Ain, she had never used that skill, so it was normal that he had concluded that.

'So that wasn't a temporary skill that she received thanks to the help of a quest?'

All his guesses shattered away.

A transformation skill that had an incredibly destructive power…

That was probably an Awakening Skill.

'What grade awakening skill is it? Don't tell me it's over four…'

After incorporating a few Asra Online users, members of Darkness had learned about the Awakening Quests.

According to what they said in Asrian Online, the difficulty of those quests had increased a lot.

In the previous game, a few users had been able to clear the 4th Awakening Quest Trial. But in Asra, there didn't seem to be a single user who had successfully managed to do it.

In the communities, some users had said they'd been able to clear the 4th Trial, but some further investigations had revealed that they were lying.

'What kind of damage…?'

The sight of a million HP going down was unbelievable.

Mayday had «Assimilated» into a monster named Betty.

According to the information they'd been able to get, it was a level 235 named boss.

Ain's attack was high enough to penetrate the defense of the boss monster.

Ain was able to deal such incredible damage thanks to Hyun's skill that lowered the opponent's defense, but there was no way the members of Darkness would know about it.

'Did she clear the 5th Trial...?'

If it's an Ultimate Attack like that, couldn't it be possible that she'd successfully managed to clear the 5th Trial?

That was the only possible explanation for that mind-blowing amount of damage.

Some of the people watching the footage laughed in disbelief.

They couldn't believe that it was from the same game they were playing.

But the reason why they were all so confused was that they didn't know about Hyun, who had «Assimilated» into Ain while fighting against Mayday.

To know about the extra stats that «Assimilation» gave and the «Powerless Wave» that lowered the opponent's defense, they had to read the status window, but there was no way to do that.

"If it's such a balance-breaking Ultimate Attack, it probably has a weakness. It may have a very long cool-down time… Or maybe it lowers your level each time you use it."

"We can't make any conclusions. We have to think and be prepared for the worst possibility. We don't know when we'll have to fight her again."

"Ugh... I can't make a proper guess because we have no information!"

XL opened his mouth after all the important members had given their thoughts.

XL spoke with a serious tone.

"Let's incorporate an Asra Online ranker."

"What? A ranker?"

XL answered Reina's question.

"Ain was also a ranker on the previous game, right? Maybe a fellow ranker knows more about her. Right? Maybe that person will have more information about the Ultimate Attack Ain is using."

Given the circumstances, XL's opinion was the most reasonable.

But there was only one problem…

"But where are we going to find a ranker?"

Fu- XL laughed at Mayday's question.

Finding users and operating the Guild was the thing he was the most confident about.

"These past few days, I've been thinking about expanding operations. We're going to have no problem in regards to incorporating new members."

After looking at XL's smile, everyone reached the same conclusion.

—Their leader had already finished not only the preparations, but he had already put his plan into action.

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