Chapter 182 - 176 : Holding On

"Attack!"

With his yell as a prelude to the battle, Azure Dragon pointed his staff at the approaching creatures. He wasn't alone though, as the other players worked alongside him.

This was a battle that would determine their life and death. As such, no one shirked away from it. They couldn't just die either. Being experts, they all had their pride. After realizing that this was nothing more than a setup, even though they knew that willingly dying would ruin the plans of the opponent, they still didn't want to. Instead, they all harbored the hope that they could survive through this and face against the other party. The sight of a combined 30 players facing off against, at least, 100 kobolds was really impressive at the least.

Of course, Azure Dragon and Chesces didn't have the hope of living through this unlike the others. The reason that they fought, instead of simply dying, was to earn enough Experience points that would counter-balance the loss from their deaths.

"Ahhh!"

With loud screams and fierce roars, the melee players dashed towards the kobold horde with the myriads of attacks from the back acting as their support. Even though it seemed, no. Even though it was a like a pointless endeavor, they still faced off against the intimidating force of the other side without any intention of retreating or skirting the threat in front.

*Boom*

The first spell landed and this one happened to be from a Fire [Elementalist] from Emperor's Might.

*Boom* *Boom* *Bang*

"Roar!"

"Growl!"

Less than a second later, the other attacks from the others arrived too. With at least 8 [Elementalists] launching attacks at the kobolds, they were still able to cause a sizeable amount of damage to the monsters.

Kobold body parts flew into the air as the smell of roasted meat permeated the air. Blood spilled as some of the kobolds either roared or growled in pain. Nonetheless, the effects of the attacks were still limited as more kobolds rushed from the back and went past the victims of the first volley. Some of the forerunners also went uninjured from the wave. Even Lu Zhen had managed to dodge a shot from Riley, who had rejoined the group for this battle.

"Charge!"

With the limited effects of the long-distance attacks doing their deed, the melee players then charged at the kobolds. Altogether, there were 6 MTs participating in this raid, of which 4 of them were [Guardians] while the other two played the role of [Paladins]. Funny enough, the distribution was even for the two different parties.

The 4 [Guardians] stood their ground at the very front, alongside the 2 [Paladins]. Apart from the mage class players, there were 17 melee players available. With 4 of them forming a wall in front to intercept the horde, the remaining 13 prepared themselves to confront the predominant force in this battle.

4 seconds later...the two parties collided.

"Roar!"

"Haha." With a laugh, Soran welcomed the first kobold, ignoring the defensive line formed by the players before diving into the kobold horde.

'Looks like he's lost it.'

Recalling his title, Chesces' lips twisted with a wryly smile as he watched Soran slay his way through.

Being a [Berserker] and a Warrior job player, Soran's strength couldn't be doubted. With a blood red axe in hand, he cut his way through the kobold army. Soran was originally a level 6 [Berserker] but after his journey through the lower floors till this point, he had managed to become a level 7 player, with just a few Experience points short of becoming a level 8 player. Because of his amazing strength, very few kobolds could match up to him. A majority of them were just level 6 and 7 monsters, with a few level 8 monsters present. Against the level 6s and 7s, Soran didn't have a hard time. Even though monsters were said to be stronger than players on average, this was only in attributes. In skills, players had the advantage to grow. Unless he encountered a level 8 kobold, Soran was a dominating force in the battle.

"They aren't that strong..." One player suddenly said out loud with surprise.

The imposing momentum of the kobolds together with their current location, made the players to take the kobolds as high levelled creatures. They never thought that they were monsters that even Soran alone could take on. Though it was actually a stretch to say that Soran could take on 100 kobolds, a unit of 7 wasn't such a difficult task for him. Ignoring him too, there were still 16 other melee players with skill close to his. Even with a conservative estimate, each of them should be able to hold on against 5 kobolds. That would now become at least 80 kobolds. With the assist from the long-range players, they might be able to hold on against this 100+ army. Thinking of this, the moral of the team increased even more as some of the other players left the back-line and darted into the horde to conduct a massacre. Unknown to them though, things weren't as easy as they thought.

Back when the kobolds were about to clash with the players, Lu Zhen had taken a turn to another direction, avoiding being placed in between the two camps. The monsters had already laid their eyes on the bigger party which happened to be the alliance of Azure Dragon and Soran; ignoring Lu Zhen's sneaky actions. Well, they all did except for one.

The other guard who led the kobolds here had kept its sight on Lu Zhen throughout the entire time. Even as he tried to escape quickly, the kobold chased after him. Originally, Lu Zhen's speed wasn't much faster than it but after Sato's 'gift' to them, it had lost an arm and had its abilities reduced. Hence, it wasn't able to catch up to Lu Zhen once again as it did the previous time. Nonetheless, chasing after him wasn't difficult for it.

"So you want to be a dog plaster huh?" Lu Zhen glanced at the kobold behind. If this were before, he wouldn't dare turn back while running, but with the kobold losing an arm and having its abilities being affected, Lu Zhen wasn't as scared as he was before.

Lu Zhen then glanced back to see how the players were handling the monsters and discovered that they were doing okay and even having a slight advantage. However, the mission wasn't for things to be so easy for them.

'7 minutes at least. That's what Sato needs. The two side have to be equal then.'

Thinking like this, Lu Zhen made a curve and turned back, heading towards the battle zone with the kobold guard behind him.

Because of this action of his, Lu Zhen had inevitably reduced the gap between himself and the kobold guard.

Seeing an opportunity, the kobold guard immediately drew its bone sword as swung at Lu Zhen.

'Shit.'

While cursing, Lu Zhen made a narrow dodge before retreating a few steps backwards. As a result, his attempt of trying to re-enter the battlefield had been blocked by the kobold guard. He was now forced to face it in a one-on-one battle. Realising this, Lu Zhen grimaced.

'Even though it has lost an arm, it should still be a level 9 or so monster. I'm already quite lucky that speed isn't its forte but with things being like this, my chances of victory are quite low.'

Staring at the kobold guard, Lu Zhen tried to think of a plan to quickly subdue it, but it wasn't like his opponent would just let him be.

The kobold guard brought down its sword again, as if it was a butcher that was about to chop a piece of meat.

'Dodge!'

Lu Zhen didn't dare to presume that his [Strength] was higher than the kobold's so he quickly moved to dodge the attack. Like an ant to sugar, the kobold guard chase after him forcing Lu Zhen to pay attention to it and not giving him any opportunity to escape. From this action, it was as if the monster was intelligent. Lu Zhen might not claim to be one of the top strategists or pros in gaming but he easily noticed this point.

'Not just the boss but also this guy?!' Lu Zhen exclaimed. In most VR games, intelligent monsters and monster with intellect were quite rare. But in this raid, there were already 3 of them spotted in the same place! This was unimaginable in other games.

'It's forcing me to face it in battle and I hardly have enough time to-whoa.'

Lu Zhen had his thoughts interrupted by an unexpected slash from the kobold guard. Even though he tried to dodge it, he was a tad too slow and almost ended up getting his skin marred. If not for the leather armour he wore, he would have been in deep sh*t. Nonetheless, the force behind the attack still took 5 HP from him.

'I need to force it to focus on those guys but how...' Lu Zhen thought.

As he faced off against the kobold guards, the other players had their own problems to handle.

They originally thought that the kobolds weren't much of a big deal after seeing Soran take on 5 of them at once. With Soran as their role model, they had dashed into the horde and began battling the kobolds. Things were going smoothly for them but that was just for a few seconds as some of the kobolds behind suddenly sprung forward. Unlike the ones they had been confronting, these guys were actually level 7 Elites and 8s.

With the new vibrant force added to the mix, the players began having a hard time, needing heals every 3-5 seconds and relying on the long-range players to help them and hold the kobolds off. This was unavoidable as from the usual trend of Black Grill's Cave, as one goes to a higher floor, they encounter stronger monsters. How could the Middle region's 10th floor, which housed a suspected level 10 world class boss, be filled with a mere level 6 and 7 kobolds?

The majority of the players were level 7 with the only high levelled ones among them being Chesces, who participated in the Goblin battle event and raked in a lot of achievements. However, he was only one man and would certainly focus more on assisting his original teammates. Even so, his ability was limited in this regard.

"We have to hold up, men. Try and kill as much as you can and don't die so easily" Azure Dragon yelled from the back as he blasted out two water type spells at almost the same time, blasting two level 7 kobolds away from one of his teammates. In Black Grill's Cave, Fire [Elementalists] could be said to be the real winners in life but against kobolds, they didn't have much of an advantage over the other [Elementalists]. As such, Azure Dragon didn't face any suppression and was more than capable of taking on 2 level 7 kobolds on his own.

'Damn it. After this is over, I swear I will track down those bastards and end their careers.' Azure Dragon thought.

Meanwhile, 'those bastards' were about to complete their goal on this floor, or so they thought.