Chapter 81 - 78 : Silver Fury

"Devis is dead? Just like that?" Rock stared in utter astonishment at the body of his comrade that laid on the floor.

Devis was an expert player and even though he wasn't the strongest of his rank[1], he was an undeniable expert player. Yet still, he couldn't last against Sato; even worse, he perished under 3 moves.

Even though this could be attributed to Devis placing most of his attribute points in [Agility] and [Dexterity], he still had at least 100 HP. Adding in the attributes gotten from his defensive equipment and the rest, among which his short sword was a level 5 Upper tier Mortal rank weapon, Devis should have lasted more than 3 strikes. Even a level 5 elite monster or a level 6 common monster couldn't achieve what Sato had done.

'Is he a demon?!' Rock stared at him with fear in his eyes.

In fact, Sato wasn't really a demon but it was due to the extra attributes and higher level he had that gave him the upper hand. But even that wouldn't have been enough to overpower Devis and end him in 3 moves. A major part to Sato's success was his exquisite control over his ability and strength together with his wise planning. It might have looked like Sato had struck randomly but in actual fact, he hacked at Devis' open and weak points.

Earlier on, Sato had reached the conclusion that if one strikes at an obvious critical point for example the knee, their chances of landing a critical hit increases and even if the critical hit didn't appear, the damage they would deal would be slightly higher than other parts. Sato confirmed this fact while battling the one-horned trolls and so he decided to try it against a player after all, players and monsters were two different creatures. The end result was Devis' death.

"I can't believe that kid succeeded…" Swift Blade stared at Sato in awe.

Initially, he didn't have much faith in Sato being able to hold back those two despite so, he still retreated to recuperate from the damages he had sustained. Swift Blade only hoped that Sato held on for just a few seconds after which he would make his second appearance. However Sato had brought him shock, and of the good kind, as he not only held on against the two but he had also eliminated one of them, giving the team the numbers advantage against their adversaries.

. . . . .

Three Kills frowned in vexation, upon seeing the result of the confrontation between Sato and Devis and Rock. Even though he was faced with the strongest player present, Three Kills still held on, having enough time to even survey the other battles that were going on.

When he saw that Sato was still holding his one against the onslaught of two of his expert class players, Three Kills was slightly surprised but he still believed that Devis and Rock knew what was best and would finish him off before Swift Blade returned to the fight. Never in his wildest dreams did he think that Sato would actually end the life of one his men.

Nonetheless, Three Kills didn't overreact but kept his cool. This was because the deciding factor of the battle would be his and Yukino's fight. As long as he quickly finished off Yukino, no one present here will be able to hold him off.

For this part, Three Kills had a lot of faith in himself even though the one before him was a 'Queen'. The reason why? Because the way he saw it, Yukino was just recently rewarded the title plus despite having the title, she was still in essence, a Pinnacle expert; the exact same rank as he was. Three Kills believed that no matter what, Yukino couldn't defeat him. To even prove this, he was battling her but still had the time and opportunity to pay attention to the other fights going on.

. . . . .

"Good." Chesces smirked after he caught a glance of Sato killing Devis.

Chesces had originally decided to let Sato work with Dream Tiger as reinforcement and he didn't have so much faith in this decision of his. It even became worse once he saw Sato being pushed back by Devis and Rock. In Chesces' won opinion, he would have handled things a lot better than Sato. Nonetheless, he could only regret as the decision had already been made.

Now seeing Sato end devis so easily, Chesces became happy and thought maybe leaving Sato to handle things wasn't a bad decision.

"Krawww!"

"Captain, pay attention."

"Oh! My bad."

. . . . .

After killing Devis, Sato didn't hurry off to finish Rock rather he went to Devis' lifeless body. Once he was close to the body, a [Loot] icon appeared on top, visible to only him. Clicking on the icon, Sato waited for just a millisecond before a bright flash appeared accompanied by the appearance of a weapon; the short sword Devis had wielded.

[[ Silver Fury : Upper Tier Mortal Rank : Level 5 : Durability 30

Requirement : Level 5 || 12 [Agility]

[Attack Speed] +10

[Attack Power] +15

Skills :

Silver Fury : Active : Slash out 3 silver slashes with 140% [Attack Power] as base damage. Cool-down : 7 seconds. ]]

"An upper tier mortal weapon? It's stats are quite impressive but it lacks when compared to Fudo's Black Alder Staff."

If Devis was alive to see this, he would pretty much spit blood and a huge amount of it at that.

The short sword was his precious weapon which had gotten from a field hunt earlier on. It was the only piece of upper tier mortal weapon he had. Devis couldn't be blamed for this as weapons were quite rare and unless one had a lot of money to spare(AN: In-Game money of course), one could only depend on their luck to get a good weapon like this.

To make things worse, Sato was actually looking down on the weapon. However, he shouldn't be blamed. Fudo's Black Alder Staff was made with a 2 star material by a Master Scribe so of course it would be stronger. Even for weapons of the same rank and tier, there would still be a few obvious differences in strength between them and this was mostly due to the material and the maker.

"Alright. Now, who's next?" Sato said as he stared at Rock the guardian.

When his eyes met with Sato's, Rock felt a slight shiver run through his spine as cold sweat drenched his back. Even still, he stood firm and held his axe and shield because there was no path to retreat once he had stepped into this chamber.

At that time, Rock had thought that if he were to die, it would be at the hands of the boss at most. Never did he know that there was another demon in there but it was now too late for regrets.

AN :

Might as well spoil it here; even though I have given the general categorisation of player skills(Check in Infinite Facts), there are still slight differences in skill. For example, not every expert player is equally ranked. A perfect example would be the 'title level'. Though not an officially ranking, as it contains both Monster ranks and peak experts, it clearly differentiates between regular peak experts and the more stronger ones who end up receiving a 'King/Queen' title. You can take it as the individual ranks further being divided into 3, example: peak, mid and early experts.. Devis is in between early and mid.