Chapter 128 - 124 : One Hit Man[1]

[Charge]

Blood Sword rushed at Sato using the Berserker's charge with his great-sword held high. Biyo also dashed at Sato but he purposely hid behind Blood Sword being slightly behind him in terms of speed by just 0.5 seconds. Crimson Scar however, went into stealth immediately, as an assassin normally would after all, the only anomaly was Biyo and not him.

Blood Sword's charge was the first to reach Sato as Blood Sword swung his sword down at him. Sato knew that if he were caught up blocking this attack, Biyo would assault him during that time. So the best option was to dodge the sword. With his superior [Agility], Sato moved his body to the left, dodging Blood Sword's strike. However he didn't stop there. Sato immediately stretched out his right leg and kicked Blood Sword right in the chest sending him stumbling 5 steps back. At the same time, Biyo arrived with his dagger slashing at Sato.

*Clang*

Sato swung his sword down at the dagger and blocked the strike as sparks set off between the two.

'He still hasn't made a move yet.'

Even though it looked like Sato was fully focused on the battle, he kept his sense up for any sound that would indicate Crimson Scar's footsteps. Using the stealth skill [Fade], would only eliminate one's presence, aura, smell and figure but the sounds of their footsteps wasn't counted. So whenever an assassin used [Fade], they would try their best to minimize the noise they produce while walking.

Returning his senses to the battle, Sato wasn't inclined to stop blocking Biyo's dagger as he applied more force to his sword in an attempt to bring his sword down on Biyo. Biyo jumped backwards while using his free hand to toss a black dart at Sato.

'Still uses hidden weapons.' Sato smirked.

Infinite Realm classes weren't just limited to one weapon or so. Just as before, when Sato encountered a Berserker with a spear, some other classes are capable of using other weapons. Even the Specialist classes can too but there are certain repercussions. [Rangers] can also use daggers but the amount of damage they can output with it is far worse than their bows and far worse means less than a third(1/3) of their usual attack power. They would need to attain the [Dagger Mastery] passive skill that is usually assigned to [Assassins]. Finally, they would also not be able to use the skills attached to the dagger(if any) and the dagger would be a lot weaker at their hands. But there are also some side weapons players can use that won't be affected by their class. One such example are hidden weapons like darts, small daggers, needles, etc. But due to the fact that in order to use such, one would need a high amount of [Dexterity] and [Agility] to match up, only assassin players actually bothered to use them but they still weren't common.

*Tink*

Sato tilted his sword to impede the trajectory of the dart, effectively blocking it from reaching him. He stomped on the ground with his right foot and was about to dash towards Biyo, when he noticed Blood Sword's approaching figure from the edge of his eyes. Rather than moving forward, Sato then used the force from the stomp to send himself towards the opposite direction of Blood Sword.

*Bang*

Just like before, Blood Sword's black and red great-sword had missed Sato and struck the ground sending off tiny rock particles into the air.

Sato appeared a few metres away and as he was about to rush after Blood Sword, alarm bells rang in his mind as he abruptly took a step to his left while bending his body in the same direction.

At an unknown point in time, Crimson had appeared behind Sato with his dagger lunged at him. But because Sato had made that startling and unforeseen movement, Crimson Scar's dagger had only stabbed through thin air, missing Sato by a 5~6 centimetres.

'He's too slippery.' Blood Sword thought as he glanced at Sato who had gone 6 or so metres away from Crimson Scar.

'And his [Strength]... it's greater than mine'

He recalled how Sato had kicked him back before. From the impact of that kick, Blood Sword knew that if he didn't have his armour on, he would have received damage from it. Receiving damage from a kick! If he told this to anyone else, they would laugh at him for either having a flimsy defense or exaggerating things.

The [Strength] attribute helped to determine one's Attack power but one thing players didn't know was that it had a feature of it's own. Infinite Realm pursued reality and so the producers obviously considered making it possible to take damage from a punch or even a kick. Yes. Without a weapon, so far as their [Strength] was high enough, one could still defeat a monster with their bare hands but it would be a lot tougher than using a weapon. In the same way, Sato, who already had a [Strength] value exceeding 15 points, could make one sustain damage just from his fists and kicks, especially so if the person was lower levelled than he was and also had a weak defense. Blood Sword's defense wasn't that weak but his level was lower than Sato's, and not a simple difference of 1.

'Can we really win?'

"Tch. As slippery as an eel." Crimson Scar cursed after Sato had dodged his sneak attack. He didn't give up though as he dashed towards Sato. On the other side, Biyo also did the same and as such, there were two players heading Sato's way; one from the front and another from the side.

Blood Sword didn't want to be left out so he also attacked from the front but because he was a bit slower than the two assassins, they reached Sato before he could.

Biyo and Crimson Scar both slashed their attack at the same time forcing Sato into a a pickle. Like being between a rock and a hard place, Sato wasn't able to dodge since the two attacks came from tricky angles. His only option was to face them both but the two attacks were approaching at almost the same speed and time.

Sato's pupils moved rapidly as he hurriedly but calmly calculated which attack to face first. In the end, rather than moving away, he lunged himself at Biyo, looking as if he was trying to go in for the kill without bothering about Crimson's dagger.

'Is he crazy?!' Biyo screamed in his mind. He didn't expect Sato to react that way but in the few milliseconds he thought that, he understood Sato's reasoning.

Sato was barely able to face the three of them at the same time but he would surely do better against two. Biyo's HP was currently the lowest and if Sato could land one more attack on him, he would be a goner. Even if Crimson Scar were to attack him, chances are that he wouldn't be able to deplete Sato's HP before Sato had killed Biyo.

'Damn you!' Gritting his teeth, Biyo stooped his attack a d hurriedly retreated away from Sato. The reason why was because he believed that Crimson Scar wouldn't be able to kill Sato in that small time frame and also he obviously didn't want to become a bait. Biyo wanted to kill Sato with his own hands and not be killed by him.

Crimson Scar might not have figured out 'Sato's intentions' but he had seen an opportunity as long as Biyo went on with the assault. Seeing Biyo ditching him, Crimson Scar was totally infuriated, so much so that his face almost turned red, but he still went on with the attack as Sato looked open to him. But oh, was little Crimson in for further irking.

Just as Crimson Scar was about to rejoice that he would finally finish Sato, he saw the edge of sword in front of him, heading straight for his forehead.

[Horizontal Slash] Critical +30%

-125 (5/130 Crimson Scar)

'Huh?' Crimson Scar was stunned.

-5 (0/130 Crimson Scar)

Before he could even react, Sato delivered a punch to his head. Added with the slash that had almost cut it in half, the punch finally separated the upper part of Crimson Scar's head (starting from his forehead), giving Crimson Scar a very miserable death.

Sato, who was thought to be going in for the kill on Biyo, was actually not planning so; his main target all along was Crimson Scar. He knew Biyo's behavior very well. This was a man that would rather save his own skin than sacrifice himself against a personal foe. The lunge against Biyo was actually a trick to force him to retreat while baiting in Crimson Scar to drop his guard down.

This was quite a risky plan because if Biyo wasn't the same as before, Sato would have died. Also, Sato needed to time things very well so that Crimson Scar wouldn't be able to retreat at all and this required him to wait at almost the last moment before counter-attacking. If his [Dexterity] wasn't high enough, Sato would have lost his chance and possibly his life, there and then. However, everything turned out for the best as he had killed Crimson Scar in almost one hit, needing only a punch to finish the job.

The reason for that absurd damage was because Sato had applied a martial skill, to be specific, the Lotus Sword Art's first form, Swift Kill. The overlapping of both a sword art and an in-game skill increased the damage of his attack and with Sato's already high damage value, the critical strike ,Crimson Scar's low HP and the fact that Crimson Scar's head wasn't shielded, all lead to Sato achieving such a superb performance.

"Now it's 2 against 1.. I hope you guys don't disappoint me."