Chapter 163 - 158 : Problems Cropping Up

"Run!"

Seeing the approaching tall figures, Fudo and Xue Yan quickly distanced themselves away form the monsters as being mages,they had an innate weakness when it comes to defense.

'This is an opportunity.' Sato's eyes flashed.

"Katsuo, Yato, Seiichi. You guys head over to the Exit gate now. Fudo, Lu Zhen; you two handle one Guard Golem while I and Xue Yan take the other." Sato ordered from the party chat while retreating to a suitable distance.

Glancing at the Guard Golems, Sato noticed that even though they had managed to go past the 40 metres mark, they weren't moving as fluidly as they did before. In the eyes of a regular player, it would seem as if their movements were natural but to a martial artist and professional gamer like Sato, the Guard Golems' motions were a bit rigid and impeded.

'It seems like their act of going past their zone has lead to them receiving a kind of movement debuff.' Sato thought. 

Narrowing his eyes, Sato wondered, 'Is it only limited to their movements or their strength?'

Having received Sato's commands, Katsuo and Yato, who were both waiting elsewhere, sprung forth from their posts and dashed towards the Exit gate. Seiichi had also branched from the main squad, moving towards Yato and Katsuo's direction.

No matter how fast Seiichi was though, he still got spotted by the approaching Guard Golems. The one that had confronted Fudo(AN: let's name him Guard Golem A) ignored him as it was hellbent on eliminating Fudo's existence from this floor. The other one(AN: Guard Golem B) turned over to glance at Seiichi and began making its way towards him. The reason for this was quite simple and obvious. 

The Guard Golems' existence is to prevent anyone from making use of the Exit gates. So despite being called Guard Golems, they were more like 'Obstruction Golems'. 

Guard Golem A had been injured by Fudo and Xue Yan's combined attack; far more than the other two had suffered. If that wasn't enough, Fudo had actively mocked and harassed it, hence the existence of the beef between them. As for Guard Golem B, though it was injured, this was a slight one when compared to Guard Golem A. As a result, there wasn't much aggro. This lead to Guard Golem B still being able to recall its instinctual programming, which was to prevent anyone from gaining access to the Exit gate. 

Guard Golem B lifted its foot high up, preparing to stomp the ground with force. Seeing this, Sato knew that it was about to attack Seiichi's team from afar.

To prevent the monster from pursuing the other squad, a sufficiently high amount of damage had to be delivered in one blow, injuring the monster and sowing the seed of hatred within it. The best choice for this act was obviously Fudo, however he was currently preoccupied with his dance buddy. Nonetheless, there was another suitable character for this; the level 7 Xue Yan, who happened to be a fire mage that wielded the [Black Alder Staff].

"Xue Yan." Sato called out.

Without having him to tell her, Xue Yan knew what she had to do.

"[Fireball] [Mana ball] [Mana ball] [Fireball]" Xue Yan chanted multiple times. Though it was actually multiple times, it, at the same time, wasn't. 

Multi-casting was a high level skill that very few players. It can come in the form of an in-game skill or a skill a player learnt. 

In Infinite realm and a majority of other VR games, Mage class players had to channel mana round their body in a specific path in other to cast a spell. Sometimes a chant was required or even a rune, or maybe both. But what remains the same is that mana has to be channeled in a specially different path for each spell. In order to multi-cast, players would have to be able to circulate mana in two or more different paths at the same time, without any of the man flow intruding on the other.

To explain better, casting a spell is like directing water from a source through a channel in a field, reaching the exit; where the water is the mana, the source is the player's mana pool, the channel is the mana vein[1] , the field is the human body and the exit is where the mana flows out from as a spell. For a majority of mages, they use their staffs as the exit. There are a myriad of channels in the human body with each having special conditions. Each spell requires a different channel to flow through and some might need to flow through more than one channel. When a player multi-casts, he/she would direct the 'water' to flow from the source in two or more distinct streams -with each stream being the required mana for each spell- through the different required channels, while making sure that the 'water' not only flows through the correct channel(s) but also doesn't mix together when they reach the exit. From this, one could imagine the difficulty of multi-casting or even average casting. 

Luckily, players had the System's guidance when casting, hence dropping the difficulty by a notch. Nonetheless though, multi-casting was still difficult for current players as the System doesn't even help them in that.

What Xue Yan performed though wasn't the original multi-casting. All she did was to make use of the difference in cool-down time to ferociously cast two different spells. Despite yelling the names out in a row, the man flow for each spell would be completed before the next one followed up. In other wors, she cast the spells quickly rather than at the same time. This could be easily achieved as the two spells, [Mana ball] and [Fireball] didn't have a high requirement for casting and at the same time, had very short cool-down. The [Mana ball] spell didn't even know what cool-down was.

Three different coloured attacks -two blue and one red- dashed towards Guard Golem B's back, with each being just a bit slower than the other. A second later, another [Fireball] darted forward, but it was a bit lagging in distance when compared to the last of the other 3. Because most of her skills were still on cool-down, Xue Yan had to resort to this formation. Thanks to [Black Alder staff] though, the power of these attacks shouldn't be underestimated, especially with the fact that Xue Yan was a level 7 player now.

-74 [Fireball]

- 69 [Mana ball]

-67 [Mana ball] ( 790/1000 HP Guard Golem B)

"Roar!"

By the time the third attack hit it, the monster right fist glowed with a deep brown sheen as it turned around and punched behind. Maybe it was due to intuition or maybe the Guard Golem could sense the approaching heat, but the punch had happened to collide with the last attack, the fireball that came last.

*Boom* 

Just like when Guard Golem A had punched Fudo's fireball, a small boom occurred but compared to that of the previous one, it was really to small; like a firecracker's explosion.

"Roar!" The monster glanced at Xue Yan ferociously while releasing an angered roar. Without bothering about Seiichi and the others anymore, it began to make its way towards Xue Yan.

From the reactions of the two monsters so far, one would notice the difference between regular monsters and monsters with Intellect. The two Guard Golems were obviously regular monsters who only abide by their instincts as they forgot their duties and fueled by rage, charged towards those who injured them. If sufficient aggro was drawn from any regular monster, players could easily fool around with them and defeat them, so far as they(players) had the required strength to do so. If a monster with Intellect where to be in the these Guard Golems' position, it would remain at its post. Even if it were to attack the players, it would fake ignorance and return to its post while waiting to ambush the players once they get closer. Regular monsters however, didn't bother about schemes.

'They are off.' Sato sighed with relief.

"Everyone, focus on holding these two back to buy them sometime. Seiichi, attract the aggro of the 3rd one and make sure it doesn't interfere with their mission. Yato, Katsuo. Once you guys get to the other side, try and clear the area for us ok? Now, move!" Sato gave out orders continuously before he charged valiantly towards the nearing Guard Golem B.

"Xue Yan, work with me." Sato said when he was within 4 metres of Guard Golem B, sneakily withdrawing an object from his storage bag.

Tightening his grip on his new sword, [Astral Blade], Sato swung it at the Guard Golem, with his target being its head.

'Die.'

The Guard Golem didn't block with its arm but instead opened its mouth at that close distance.

"Roar!"

[Earth Roar]!

Sato had previously seen the effects of the skill on Fudo and despite knowing that he had a higher defensive ability than him, Sato didn't dare to receive it straight like that.

'Luckily, I prepared.' Sato thought as he flung out an object with his other hand, towards the Guard Golem B's mouth as it was about to roar.

It was a [Simple Explosive], the kind that Sato had used back when he was level 0 and had to face the wild saber beast. With the current strength of players and the monsters they fought, such an item became almost useless and barely anyone would bother to buy it. However, Sato did and it turned out to be useful now.

When the invisible sound-waves approached the explosives, there was no suspense.

*Boom*

A miniature explosion set off and though it didn't harm the Guard Golem, the explosion had managed to disperse the sound-waves by messing up the air flow with heavy vibrations.

Sato ignored the explosion and still slashed his sword at the Guard Golem.

Because it had opened its out for an attack that was supposed to be a sure-hit, the Guard Golem's defenses were done at that moment. It is said that a monster without a defense is equivalent to a lamb on the chopping block. 

[Horizontal Slash]!

Without being able to resist, Sato's [Astral Blade] easily cleaved through Guard Golem B, slashing apart at its lower jaws as if wanting to separate it from the monster.

Critical!

-160 [Horizontal Slash] (637/1000 HP Guard Golem B)

"Rowww!"

Miniature rock particles splattered on the floor as part of the monster's jaw got decimated. It tried to cry out in pain and anger but wasn't able to produce the usual roar.

Despite causing such a heavy injury on the Guard Golem, Sato wasn't inclined to stop at just one slash. 

Once he concluded with the first strike, Sato held his sword with both hands and brought it down on the monster in a diagonally downward fashion, like a samurai from the Ancient times.

[Chop]!

-124 (513/1000 HP Guard Golem B)

Sato didn't stop there even, as he held his sword in a thrust position, preparing to force it through the monster.

At this point, Guard Golem B had recovered part of its senses and didn't want to keep experiencing this endless 'pleasure'. With the flick of a finger, it manipulated the earth, creating a shock-wave that blasted out in all directions. 

[Diverging Rapture]

Sato was too close to the monster and couldn't avoid this strike as it came without warning.

-28 (122/150 Sato's HP)

He felt a vigorous air-wave of some kind, blasting him backwards until he was 6 metres away. At this point, Sato performed some aerial maneuvers and managed to land on his feet. Truth be told, he could have easily landed within the 2-3 metre distance from the Guard Golem. He only landed this far so as to separate himself from the monster. Why? Because he wasn't alone.

Xue Yan's attack seemed almost perfectly timed as a [Greater Fireball] had closed in on the monster right after Sato got blasted away. Without any time to rest, Guard Golem B hurriedly put a hand in front of its face. The reason was none other than its skills being on cool-down.

*Boom*

With a much more powerful explosion than her last attack, Xue Yan's fireball managed to push the Guard Golem 3 steps backwards with the monster almost losing its footing.

Sato was about to move in for another attack but he halted his footsteps. Because at this time, he managed to get an update on Yato and Katsuo's progress.

They couldn't get into the Exit gate.