Chapter 104 – The North Cross Alliance – Part Three

(Ricardo’s PoV)

“Seven, eight, nine… You’re not really dying this time around, are you?” The Genocider asked us as she beheaded my allies a few more times.

“Oh, did we surprise you?” I told her as she continued her slaughter. Even though her attacks are usually able to one-shot us, we’re surviving them due to the shared damage. It’s a bit weird to put our heads back in place after a beheading though.

“And you’re using healing skills on your own selves instead of trying to heal your damaged allies… I guess you’re sharing HP?” She totally got us…

“Well… Yeah?” I replied honestly. She understood it so clearly, even though this skill hasn’t even been shared on the forums yet… The longer the fight takes, the less tricks we’ll have available. This is bad.

And yet, even as we tried to sneak attack her from the back while putting distractions from the front, nothing ever seemed to work, she just kept on dodging, blocking, parrying, and attacking us with extremely powerful blows that would surely kill us if our HP wasn’t shared.

Or rather, she actually dealt enough damage to kill us all just now, we ended up bursting into flames as soon as our HPs hit 0 simultaneously. We still got up again due to the revival items, but our stock is running low…

And even a surprise post-flame-burst attack had no effect on her, she simply used her threads to grab me and throw me away… And then, she seemed tired of playing around.

She threw the ‘luggage’ she was carrying on her back high up in the skies and tied ‘it’ to the upper part of the ruins of a building with some threads, then started throwing poisonous explosives left and right… We started trying to escape it simultaneously due to the hive mind, but there wasn’t much that could be done against poisonous gas…

Meanwhile, the NPCs started panicking and running away while swearing at the Genocider for involving them in the battle, can’t say I blame them.

“This is really bad…” One of my companions commented.

“It is indeed…” Especially because our status are shared right now, so the poison will stack up really quickly on us all, “Seems like we have no choice. Our last resort, let’s go!” I told them.

“Alright, we’ll be waiting at the temple!” My friend shook my hand and got ready for it. We won’t be able to win an endurance battle, so we’ll have to defeat her with an unparalleled speed and a superb firepower that not even her can endure. It’s risky, but we’ll have to do it!

“<Limit Break: All For One>!” We shouted in unison.

“Oh? You still had a trump card?” She commented as our skill resolved. All of our stats, buffs and debuffs were added to me at once now. My friends’ HP instantly went to 0, but my stats became incredible… The downside being that the HP Decrease from the oath plus the many stacks of poison will make me die in no time… There’s no time to waste!

“Prepare yourself, Genocider! <Sword Of The Glittering Night>!” I shouted as I ran after her and hit her with my skill. It was so fast that even she couldn’t block it, and I was able to pierce her chest…! It’s my win!

“Ricardo… I’ll remember that name.” She told me.

“It’s an honor.” I replied… To think I would be the first to beat the Genocider…! She’s even going to remember her name! Even Hannes took way longer to be remembered!

“Alright, now you can’t revive anymore.” She then told me.

“Wait what!?” I just noticed that she stole my revival item… And then her shortsword passed through my neck, and my vision went dark.

******

(Rena’s PoV)

<Your Level has increased>

<You earned Skill Points>

<Your Karma has dropped>

<The Level of your servants has risen>

<You acquired a new Mobility skill>

<You acquired a new Endurance skill>

<New Title: Personified Chaos>

<New Title: Living Pandemic>

Well, that was enjoyable. After checking the notifications from defeating the North Cross Alliance (?) and Ricardo (?), I just relaxed a bit while remembering the battle. It was entertaining to see so many new skills in one fight… Oh well, let’s get the princess back.

I pulled her down with my threads and carefully landed her on the ground, “Alright, you’re safe now.” I told her, but she seemed to be quite angry, and shaking, and tearing up a bit and… Oh? Did she leak it…? She’s glaring really hard at me right now… “Should I get you a change of clothes?” She seemed to be even angrier at this question.

Ignoring that though, I decided to leave the place with the princess in toll… Wait, aren’t those knights surrounding us? Since when were they here? And why aren’t they doing anything? Rather, aren’t they all trembling right now…?

Oh, the camouflage is off… No wonder they can’t move properly. Though coming to think about it, the princess was still able to glare at me even when I’m like this… Isn’t that pretty impressive? I never met anyone with a higher Raw Karma Value than mine, so I don’t really know how it feels, but I think it’s not easy for NPCs to… Oh, right, Karma differences don’t affect players, I wouldn’t be able to know how it feels anyways.

In any case, I left the region and activated the camouflage again afterwards. And once we got back to the mansion, I logged out.