Chapter 373 - 367 : Half-way There

While Azure Dragon and his teammates were about to face off against the three [Guardian Golems] that helmed the path towards the 10th floor, Sato, Xue Yan and Seiichi had already been engaged in a battle with the Kobold King for more than 10 minutes. During this time, Sato and Xue Yan spammed almost all their strongest skills to prevent the Kobold King from regenerating its HP back to the top.

*Boom*

Just when Sato had separated himself from the Kobold King, a fireball blasted forward, forcing the Kobold King to a halt in its chase and exploding right after coming in contact with its bone saber.

"You vermin!" The Kobold King cursed as it glared at Sato before giving chase once more.

Xue Yan and Seiichi would continuously hinder its movement with their long-range attacks and the worst part was that once the Kobold King turned to face them, Sato would immediately turn around and attack it.

Originally, the Kobold King wasn't bothered about Seiichi's attacks and even Xue Yan's weren't as deadly as Sato's so it could ignore them both. However, even if a single bite from an ant couldn't hurt an elephant, countless bites would do the job. Under the incessant harassment from Xue Yan and Seiichi, the Kobold King had been irritated without end. Worst of all was Sato, who stood between it and them. If the Kobold King were to turn its attention towards the duo, Sato would launch an assault on it. Compared to Xue Yan and Seiichi, Sato's attacks were the real threat so the Kobold King couldn't just ignore him. Hence the reason why despite being attacked by Xue Yan, the Kobold King had cursed at Sato instead.

"If you have any problem with me, then shut up, and let's settle it." 

"Grawrr!" 

In anger, the Kobold Kind suddenly accelerated and closed the gap between it and Sato, bringing its saber down like a guillotine.

Sato, in turn, brandished his [Astral Blade] with full force, clashing with the Kobold King's bone saber with none of the two weapons coming out on top. Using his left hand, he then thrust [Drakken] through a tricky angle, managing to pierce right through the scales of the Kobold King.

-107 (4789/10000 Kobold King's HP)

The black sword drilled itself into the Kobold King's flesh, ignoring the scales on it that acted as a natural defensive layer.

During the 10 minutes Sato and the rest had been engaged in battle with the Kobold King, they managed to bring its HP down to the 50% mark. It was thanks to Xue Yan and Seiichi's incessant harassment as well as Sato's double-wielding ability that resulted in the Kobold King losing so much HP. Even though the Kobold King was a world-class BOSS monster, it was still a level 15 monster and no match against the cursed sword, [Drakken], especially with its increased penetration effect. Even the scales it was most proud of couldn't hinder the sword one bit.

"Grawr!"

The pain from having a sword stuck inside one wasn't something anyone would enjoy and the Kobold King was no exception to this.

With its bone saber being restrained by Sato's [Astral Blade], the Kobold King -who seemed to have no other weapon left- suddenly swiped at Sato with its left claw. Considering that the Kobold King had only attacked with its saber this move would come as a surprise to anyone and they would get caught by it. The Kobold King's base attack power was at a whopping 150 points. There was also the 150% boost to claw attacks and the 140% increase in attack power of physical attacks. That would equate to roughly 300 points of damage in total. 

In summary, just the one simple claw attack, which was a rushed move and wasn't registered as a skill, was capable of taking down a level 9 [Guardian] with all his attribute points in defence, apart from the basic 10 allocated to [Vitality]. Even if that were included, the [Guardian] would still end up as mashed potatoes. Not only that, even a level 10 or 11 [Guardian] would lose a piece of skin to that. At the very least, they would end up losing a third of their health to just this random attack of the Kobold King.

Unfortunately for the monster, the sudden attack it had made was still something within Sato's range of consideration. Having both the memory of his battle with the Kobold Chief as well as the information on the Kobold King's skills and abilities, Sato already knew that it could attack with its claws. Apart from having to watch out for the attacks executed with the bone saber, Sato also kept an eye out for its claws, hoping to avoid a scenario where he would suffer due to a sudden lapse in concentration. Luckily for him, or maybe not, Sato's fears happened but as he was prepared for the attack, he didn't lose out much.

Taking one step backward, Sato evaded the trajectory of the claw while at the same time pulling out his sword from the insides of the Kobold King. Even as he did that, Sato had no intention of making things easy for the Kobold King. He didn't take back his sword in a straight-line path but pulled it out while slashing upwards, adding to the injuries of the Kobold King whilst spilling deep crimson blood on the ground.

[Critical Hit]

-178 (4611/10000 Kobold King's HP)

"Grawr! Bastard!" The Kobold King yelled. But it couldn't chase after Sato right away as the slash had induced severe injuries to it

'We are too slow.' Sato thought as he stared at the incensed creature.

While they were battling and it seemed like they were the only ones here, Sato wasn't the one to relax cause of that. On the contrary, he was feeling a bit tense. Of the 7 of the present, Sato was the one who knew more about the top guilds as he had once witnessed them in combat, face-to-face. He had even fought with some of them in the past and this time around, they were contending with a bunch of them. Though Sato and the rest had indeed made use of the teleportation arrays to get a headstart ahead of the guilds, they had also taken a day off to prepare for the raid. This ended up turning their original advantage into nothing more than a temporary one. So sooner or later, the top guilds would make it here; it was just a matter of when.

But even though he knew this, there was nothing Sato could do. The Kobold King's defence was too perverse that apart from him, only Xue Yan could deal damage to it but the effects were incomparable to Sato's attacks. As for Seiichi, unless he used his expensive arrows, coupled with his ultimate skills, his attacks only served as a distraction to the Kobold King.

If Sato were to his ultimate skill, [Gratitude of Races], he would be able to bring the Kobold King's HP down to 30% at the very least, but once that happens, he would have nothing to use and contend with the Kobold King in its berserk mode.

'There's only one other option then.'

"It's time. Use everything you have on hand now guys.. We either win it here or lose."