Chapter 251: Momma Said Knock You Out

Chapter 251: Momma Said Knock You Out

Finley I could use my wings Aegis called out with a strained voice, barely audible across the arena over the sounds of clashing blades. Finley was staring down Iouen, who had an arrow pulled back in the drawstring of his bow and was aiming it directly at Finleys head. He wasnt firing, however, but waiting patiently for any sort of movement out of the Harbinger of Darkness that stood before him. Similarly, Finley stood completely still, weighing his options. He knew full well that with his cooldowns unavailable to him, every single minor decision he made from this point on would be incredibly significant.

Finleys eyes wandered down towards Iouens feet briefly, gauging his stance to get a feel for what he was posturing to do next. It was somewhat intimidating to see how prepared he looked to dodge Finleys next move - his stance was better than that of Quivers, who hed had plenty of experience sparring with in the past. This was enough to tell him that engaging Iouen, despite being so close, would be a mistake.

He took a deep breath, and with a wiggle of his fingers, canceled the dark aura of abyssal mist that had been floating in the skies above the arena, allowing once more for the sunlight to shine down on the battle. He then jumped backwards and to the side as Iouen fired off his next few shots, parrying away any arrows that were not marked as pinning shot arrows, while Iouen curiously tilted his head to the side at this decision.nove(l)bi(n.)com

Youre running away? Iouen asked him in a condescending tone. Finley didnt reply, but instead smirked while a flash of light erupted from the wings of Aegis - their forms now fully restored.

With glowing wings, Aegis utilized the shield that he had fastened on his pack to repeatedly cast two guard projections around himself to block incoming strikes from the 7 opponents wailing on him. Frontal attacks, hed parry with his claws. Back attacks, hed deflect and redirect upwards or downwards using his wings, and any he couldnt block, hed turn his back towards so that they hit his shield instead. From the sides, he made use of the guard projections, changing the angles and their elevations to make it impossible for anyone to find an opening.

Adding onto his defenses, the 7 melee strikers coming at him from all sides were getting in each others way. The two dragoon players and Maul wielding player required wide swings to land their most powerful attacks. The assassin, monk, and druid needed much less space, and the battlemaster was forced out completely - relying solely on angling in his floating weapons to strike at Aegis, which he easily managed.

The only reliable source of damage on Aegis was that of the wizards cinderbolts, but Aegis aura of healing was managing to offset it.

Still, even when attacks were blocked and parried, he was taking damage, and forced to heal himself with his fast casted heals in between strikes. With his stat points dumped into mana regeneration, he wasnt at risk of dying immediately, but simultaneously he wasnt managing to land any significant retaliatory damage.

Worse, was that structured PvP in this game world was designed specifically to counteract stalling playstyles like Aegis, in that after 5 minutes of this match starting, his healing would be halved. 10 minutes, and hed not be able to heal himself at all anymore. This meant he was on a timer, and as the 2 minute mark went by, he began to feel the pressure. His stamina was beginning to near its halfway point, from all of the blocks and parries that he was executing.

In between his defensive moves, he found himself looking between the gaps in his opponents at Finley to see what he was doing, but only found him struggling to dodge ranged strikes from Iouen, and a still yet unseen Ranger who was firing across the arena at him. Worse for Finley was that the final and 11th combatant, whod been standing towards the middle of the arena seemingly unsure what to do, finally jumped into action by engaging Finley with his scepter and shield - wielding the typical attire for a cleric class player.

With this in his view, Aegis knew he wasnt going to get any help. He only had three minutes left to do something about this extremely lopsided battle, and he had to do it himself.

He made use of the training hed participated in over the past few weeks, and started leaning into the movement of his opponents. To conserve his own stamina, he instead began redirecting the attacks at his back to hit the other opponents that were adjacent to the attackers, utilizing their stamina to deal damage to each other rather than use his own.

Hed managed to get a handle on a few of the opponents fighting styles and attack patterns - some were using oddly static damage rotations that youd expect them to use on an NPC boss as they attempted to maximize their damage output onto Aegis. Others, like the maul-wielding fighter at his front, who was attacking recklessly with no rime or reason. The frustration from all of them however was easily seen on their faces, as at least for now, Aegis was able to prevent any direct hits on himself.

Enough dancing around. World piercing strike! A dragoon player behind him finally shouted out in frustration, charging up a glowing strike on the tip of his spear. Aegis had little time to react, and quickly gauged his options as he saw the orange glow from the spell mix in with the white glow of his wings from behind him. He thought of dodging, or redirecting it to make use of this dragoons cooldown skill, but then had to decide who to redirect it at. A quick glance with his eyes told him that the Monk, Druid, Assassin, and other Dragoon were all glancing in the direction of the attacking dragoons skill, being mindful of where it was going. The battlemaster was too focused on controlling his five floating weapons to look, and the Maul-wielding fighter didnt care to look.

Both would be prime targets to redirect the strike at, but Aegis knew hed still be able to make use of the reckless behavior from the fighter and instead, made the split second decision to strike both his wings out at the glowing orange spear, grabbing the shaft just beyond the dangerous bladed tip so that he could apply force to angle the shot towards the battlemaster.

The opposing strength stats of himself and the dragoon doing the attack went in his favor, given that dragoons are a dexterity-based class. This allowed Aegis plan to go off perfectly - the orange beam of light shot out from the dragoons spear just as Aegis shifted to the left and re-angled the spear to the right enough so that it shot out at the assassin player and battlemaster player. Of the two, the assassin was the only one to jump out of the way, while the battlemaster looked down at the beam as it impacted him, like a deer caught in headlights.



Combatant Ladran has been eliminated.



Tch, move out of the way you moron. The offending dragoon shouted out in frustration as the battlemasters weapons fell to the ground, ready to be looted by the victorious player. His body hadnt even finished dissipating from the gameworld before the assassin player let out an angry roar.

Back off, and Ill keep him busy until the healing timer kicks in. The assassin ordered the others as he spread out the fingers on both of his hands. Both dragoons complied first, followed by the monk. The maul-wielder hesitated in backing off, but eventually did so as the assassin used his spell quickly after his warning went out. Ten wires formed on the tips of each of his fingers, and at the ends of each wire appeared a dagger. Immediately after theyd finished forming, all wires began to rapidly spin around the assassin, cutting into anything and everything around him as he lunged at Aegis. Rather than completely try to dodge the attack, however, Aegis lunged at the slow-to-react druid with less dexterity and strength stats than the other classes, and grabbed onto the druid in his cobra form as he attempted to slither away.

The other players whod backed off were weary of intervening due to the violent, high damage nature of the wire attack from the assassin as it engulfed Aegis, but Aegis made sure to yank the druid with a grapple back into the wires alongside himself, so that he too was taking damage.

Desperate, the druid quickly shifted back into his humanoid form to break out of Aegis grapple, with a bright puff of green mist erupting from his body which momentarily blinded Aegis as he lost grip of the druid - but Aegis had seen Ren beast shift enough times to have a sense for where the druids real body would form after the transformation and was able to quickly re-grapple the druid, then yank him with great force into the assassin player, allowing the wires and daggers to rapidly slice him up.

Aegis then quickly cast a heal on himself to recover from the massive damage he was taking from the wires, while watching as the druid failed to get out of them or heal himself enough to offset the damage they were dealing to him.



Combatant Chijio has been eliminated.



What are you idiots doing? Iouen shouted angrily at the central part of the arena where the others were fighting. It wasnt just him whod gotten annoyed by how events were unfolding, as the hidden ranger suddenly fired a large volley of arrows at Aegis while he was trapped in the wires, still taking cinderbolt damage. The amount of damage he was taking, despite his mithral armor, was massive. He was forced into repeatedly healing himself to survive, and the two dragoons, monk, and maul-wielding fighter were eagerly readying ranged attacks from outside the wirestorm to join in on the damage.

Finley, however, wasnt letting the chance go to waste. The moment the volley of arrows had been fired at Aegis, hed managed to finally pinpoint the location of the last combatant - a ranger hiding camouflage near the southern end of the arena. He was leaning against the wall similarly to how Iouen had been hiding, with his skin and clothing morphed to match the colors and textures of the object he was up against.



But it also means their damage cooldowns will be up soon. The cleric commented.

Precisely. However, we still have the numbers advantage. If youd all just listen to me, I have a strategy that can guarantee our victory. Iouen replied confidently, though the others did not look so confident.

Oh really? Care to share it with the rest of the class? Finley asked in a mocking tone, but got no response.

Hm. Emerill smirked as he was led back inside the meeting chamber of the Sages of Destiny guildhall. All the officer's eyes were on him, and he was reveling in the attention. Figured youd want me back.

Makaroth looked up at the livestream of Aegis as he stood in the arena alongside Finley, with only 5 opposing players remaining, then glared back down to Emerill.

Tell your friend well pay. Im hiring him. End this. Makaroth spoke coldly.

Seriously? Synopse asked with a tone of disbelief, but he got no response.

We dont work on promises. Emerill shrugged.

Pay him. Makaroth ordered the VGN employee, who stood relatively close to the doorway that Emerill had come through. He ignored Synopses reaction completely.

Yes sir. The VGN hurriedly shot up from the table and rushed towards Emeril.

Isnt this a bit much? Is it really that bad if he makes it to the tournament? Well be- Synopse was cut off.

Im not gonna have that little shit ruined everything Ive worked towards. This tournament is OUR big show. Not his. Makaroth snapped back at Synopse angrily, silencing the room so that the only sounds to be heard were that of the VGN employee trading a large sack of coins to Emerill.

Pleasure doing business with you. Ill let Finley know about his new mission right away. Emerill replied with a devious tone, before opening up his interface and fidgeting around with it for a few seconds.

Pyri, who was seemingly watching Aegis live stream alongside the others, let out a long, drawn out sighing sound as she canceled her invisible spell that shed cast in the center of the old, run down registration hall. Once the invisibility faded on the spell, the others were able to see it - a scrying spell had been up in front of her the entire time of which she was keeping an eye on Emeril, utilizing the equipment that hed dropped when Aegis had defeat him back in the graveyard of Orm.

Lina, Sapphire, Herilon, Rakkan and Darkshot were all shocked to see the appearance of the scry out of the corner of their eyes, beyond the transparent livestream viewers they were watching in their interface.

You were scrying? Sapphire asked curiously.

What did you see? Lina asked worriedly.

One moment. Pyri replied, as if she was inconvenienced by something minor. She then quickly logged out of the gameworld. As Jillian, she then hopped out of her Simbox and ran over to Elis, and hit the Simbox communicator to speak to him directly.

Makaroth just paid him 2 million to turn on you. Knock his ass out. Jillian said as quickly as she could, knowing full well the time shift between the gameworld and the real world was unforgivingly not in her favor.

Aegis, who remained standing beside Finley with their wings glowing closely, heard her voice traveling to his ears through the Simbox interface. He saw the five enemies in front of him, and pulled his shield off of his back as if he were preparing to engage them.

Be careful of his Virabhadra, its a slow spell animation once hes casted it, all you need to do is keep your distance and not let him gra- Iouen began to explain to the others, but was interrupted.

VIRABHADRA! Aegis shouted, slamming his shield into Finley as he stood beside him, as Finley was in the middle of swinging his greatsword down on Aegis.

Pierci- Finley wasnt able to get the spell off, despite them both casting nearly at the same time. Pyris warning had reached him just as Finley had received the message from Emerill through his friends list, but Aegis was the first to react, causing an undeniably deadly amount of damage to Finley and killing him instantly.



Combatant Finley has been eliminated.



Two million well spent. Aegis called out with a big grin, speaking to no one in particular. The other five combatants were looking at him in complete shock.