Chapter 198 - 192 : Battle Progress

*Bang*

*Boom* *Boom*

*Clang*

At an obscure location on the Middle region's 10th floor, a very important battle was taking place between a team of 7 players and one monster. The result of this battle would surely cause great waves to the local players of the neighbouring towns and most likely affect the planning and decisions of the top guilds around, irrespective of the winner of the bout. Not only that, but if the player side of the battle were to win the fight, they would enjoy not just riches, but also fame that would come about from being victorious in the battle. As a result of this, the range of activity that would be affected by the result of the battle would increase from the surrounding towns to the entire player community in Infinite Realm. Of course, following the law of equivalent exchange, it would be very difficult for the team of players to win the fight.

The team engaged in the battle with the monster was indeed Sato's team. As for the identity of the monster, it was without any suspense nor surprise, the kobold chief.

The two different parties had been going at it for a while now and the battle was looking different from before. If earlier on, Fudo and the rest could be said to have an advantage over the kobold chief, as they were now, the battle had turned into a stalemate with neither side getting the better of the other. In fact, it was looking more like the kobold chief even had a slight upper hand. All these was because the kobold chief had entered its berserk mode, the [Enraged] state.

Sato discovered that he had made a slight miscalculation in his plans. At the mark of 478 HP rather than 450 HP, the kobold chief had entered [Enraged] mode. This happened to coincide exactly after Xue Yan's fire ray had found its mark. Because of the early and unexpected change in the progress of the battle, Yato and Katsuo had almost lost their lives as they were the closest to the monster at the time of this development. Actually, Sato couldn't really be blamed for this. Normally, the kobold chief would go berserk below the 30% mark(450 HP) but after having been played around and irked countless of times, this mode arrived sooner than expected. However, apart from Yato being hurt quite badly, that he had to exit the fight, and Katsuo almost dying, the team didn't suffer any losses from this. Eventually, they had slowly adapted to the monster. But because the [Enraged] state had nullified most of the effects of the [Aghus's Potential Disperser] and the [Low Class Earth Suppression Array], the team couldn't suppress it as easily as they did before. Forget that, they couldn't even suppress it again. Katsuo had been turned into a volleyball as the kobold chief had tossed him up and down with 'special care'. If not for the timely aid of the others and also Sato's return to the fight, assisting him with the pressure, Katsuo would have been a goner. Of course, Sato's addition didn't change the state of the battle, only helping them keep the status quo going.

The only advantage the team had in this battle was Fudo's [Explosion]. Almost a minute had gone by and during this time, Fudo had managed to use [Explosion] once more. Causing quite a sizeable amount if damage to the monster. But when compared to the previous one, it was considerably weaker. 

As Sato joined the battle, he had shared with them the stats of the kobold chief he had gotten from before, which updated with the kobold chief's transformation and the development of the fight, to better help them get a grasp of their enemy's abilities.

Kobold Chief (Elite)

Level : 10

HP : 314/1500 (x15)

Physical Attack Power (-7%) : 78 (70)

Magical attack power : 0 (39) (AN : Can't use magic.)

Physical Defense : 40 (-17 [Injured]) (22)

Magical Defense : 18 (-10 [Injured]) (

Attack Speed : 45

Movement Speed : 34

Attributes (-13% + 10%) [1]

Strength : 26 (25) 

Endurance : 27 (26)

Vitality : 100 

Agility : 17 (16)

Dexterity : 15 

Intelligence : 13 

Willpower : 12 

Skills :

Razor Claws : Passive Skill : Basic Attack. All claw-type attacks contain 140% of basic attack power.

Lesser Strength : Passive Skill : Though called Lesser Strength, this is in comparison to a dragon's strength or a purer blood. All Strength-based skills and physical attacks possess 120% of basic attributes.

Tough Scale : Passive Skill : Defensive abilities against physical attacks increased by 10%. 

Bone Slash : Active Skill : Gather power into one strike to cleave down the opponent. 150% of attack power as base.

Cool-down : 7 seconds.

Slithering Strike : Active Skill : A thrust like a snake. Launch an attack that has a very evasive motion making it difficult for the target to keep track of the attack's direction and location. Attack possesses 140% of user's basic abilities.

Cool-down : 4 seconds.

Wild Burst : Active Skill : Gather potential and momentum just to release it all in one strike. Attack power increases by 50%.

Cool-down : 10 seconds.

Kobold Supreme roar : Active Skill ; Under this roar, all kobold-type creatures and dragon descendants with lesser purity than the user have to bow. Refusal leads to a 15% decrease in all abilities. Non-draconic creatures are also exposed to the skill but with lesser effects. If the victim happens to be weaker in both strength and life order when compared to the user, they experience from 3-5% decrease in all abilities. Due to weak bloodline, the user would have both their potential and bloodline severely weakened, if not drained.

Cool-down : 30 seconds.

Fury : Active Skill : By burning the potential and bloodline within one's blood, all attributes increase by 10% for 20 seconds. With each usage though, bloodline purity and potential decreases. But this can be regained with the aid of high quality ingredients.

Cool-down : 2 natural days. ]]

The kobold chief's abilities were very impressive and beyond anything they had experienced so far. This was understandable as the kobold chief was the first level 10 monster the group had encountered so far and added with the information they had received, it was supposed to be a boss figure so the skills added to it fit the match. Both passive and active, altogether 8 skills were in the kobold chief's arsenal. Of all the monsters they had encountered, this was the one with the most. It even surpassed a majority of players in both quantity and quality of skills, especially [Fury], which Sato surmised that once the kobold chief activates it in tandem with [Kobold Supreme Roar], the group would surely suffer some casualties.

The strength increase to the kobold chief wasn't as simple as 1+1=2, because a lot of factors were needed to be considered in order to get an accurate tag on the kobold chief's strength. Even though it still suffered a 3% decrease in attributes, for the little numbers it possessed, this was almost negligible[2] and didn't affect its strength by much so it was still considered a tough figure to handle, giving the team a to of pressure. A majority of this could be said to be thanks to the miniature draconic bloodline within. Even the [Burn] effect of Fudo's [Explosion] never occurred because of it.

In Infinite Realm, there exists a race of creatures known as Godly monsters or God beasts. They were monsters, true, but the word "Godly" largely separated them from your everyday creatures. Ranging from Phoenixes to God apes and Dragons, there were a bunch of such species of mass destructive powers in existence.

Of the various God beasts, the Dragons were said to be one of the most overbearing ones, even more so than the God apes. It was to the extent that most of their descendants even had this quirky characteristic in-built within themselves. That was why despite having such thin traces of Dragon bloodline within them, the kobolds were prideful.

For the pure-blooded kobolds(kobolds with a higher draconic concentration on their bloodline), they were able to exude an overbearing pressure that could affect living beings weaker than them. It was this very pressure that had affected Sato and the others back when they first saw the Kobold chief[3] and bred fear within them. However, once they had realised this fact, it was quite easy for them to ignore and negate the pressure [4]. But with the [Enraged] mode being activated, this pressure had become even stronger. To start with, Sato and the others were lower in level when compared to the Kobold chief. Being able to hold out the first time was already amazing but such a thing couldn't be easily replicated this time around. The pressure had affected them a lot, most especially to the weaker ones like Katsuo and Yato Their reaction time, ability to gather strength/energy for an attack and movement speed had degraded. It went to the extent that Sato was forced to act as the main MT, while Katsuo acted as a secondary figure.

In a raid, the MT was one of the most important figures and with the MT now having lost his value, the raid would inevitably end with their end. Sato knew this but there was nothing he could about this matter. The kobold chief had become too strong for Katsuo to handle for just a few seconds on his own much less the entries duration of the fight. If not for the fact that he had a hidden card for the fight, Sato would have given up on this battle.

'Okay. It's about time.' Sato thought as he switched roles with Katsuo.

"Everyone, get ready to go with Plan C. It's about time we end this." Sato said in the team chat.

During their battle preparations, they had come up with a bunch of very possible scenarios that would occur. In other not to be surprised it anything, they also came up with strategic approaches to the various scenarios. Plan C was the tactic they would use just in case the monster was too strong and couldn't be defeated within 3 minutes or so. As for plan A and Plan B, the first was the main approach they would use to finish things off while conserving a majority of their resources. It mostly centered on them being able to win using only the poison gas and the array. The latter was a plan to combat the situation where the kobold horde would have eliminated the alliance bait quicker than expected.

"Alright." Everyone nodded.

If everything was left to continue for just a few more seconds then the team would have a much higher chance of victory. This was because Fudo's [Explosion] could go off cool-down and they could use it to their advantage to win the fight.. But due to the fact that they lacked time and they also didn't know the state of the battle on the other side, Sato didn't want to take any risk and wanted them to finish the battle as quickly as possible.