—-
With the six Grand Goblin Archers removed from the fight, Luna and Altair had fewer projectiles to simultaneously evade and deflect. So of their deflections weren’t perfect, resulting in the loss of so Health. However, that Health was quickly replenished by one of the Healer’s more minor healing skills.
“Crap… the leader’s weapon broke,” Nean exclaid after watching the ordeal from his peripheral vision. He caught Kieran analyzing his broken weapon as he retaliated against a blow from a Giant Ogre. From what Nean saw, the blade looked like a strong acid had eroded it.
Even now, pieces of the blade continued to break away as if it were brittle bread crumbling to pieces as soone crushed it. Naturally, the crushing in this instance was the pressure imposed on the weapon by the Blood Mania skill.
Nevertheless, despite his weapon’s condition, Kieran gazed at it while the exterior began to bubble over. Almost as if he was drawing blood from his body to supplent the blade’s loss, it began to take on a form similar to right before he unleashed the Crimson Barrage.
The blade regained its razor-sharp edge, but it seed inferior compared to the mont before the Crimson Barrage was executed. However, that was understandable given that this was a change facilitated by Kieran’s shoddy understanding of the True Berserker’s foundational power. The only reason his manipulation of Blood Mania’s ability reached this degree of completion was through natural talent and using the image of that skill as a reference.
Nean was left in awe as he watched the weapon sowhat materialize right before his very eyes. “WHAT?! That’s a cheat; there’s no way. Wasn’t it said that a player couldn’t repair a weapon once it breaks? I read that on soone’s post.”
“Uh, does that look like he is repairing his weapon, idiot? Look at his Health; it was just under 20% two seconds ago. But now, it has plunged beneath 10%! Obviously, he has activated so unique class skill that allows him to make so sort of weapon with the sacrifice of his Health,” Alice said in the back.
Nean was first taken aback by the fact he was called an idiot and by the mute of the party, no less. But, when he failed to notice Kieran’s drastic change in Health, he felt sowhat foolish. Still, he couldn’t help but feel this fell upon the sa lines. “It’s still a cheat! It only costs him Health to create a weapon!”-.
“Oh? What about Mages who create temporary weapons in the form of spells? After all, that only costs Mana. Also, don’t forget that his body seems to reject healing, so isn’t his Health more precious than our own since our healers can heal us at any mont?” Alice retorted with an uncharacteristically smug smirk.
Nean was speechless. He tried to utter a rebuttal, but no words ca out. Everything Alice brought up was the undeniable truth. Every attempt to heal Kieran was a failure, and Mages pretty much used spells to fabricate weapons through Mana and the elents. Granted, those creations would disappear when a Mage stopped funneling Mana into their magic or after a set duration.
But… wasn’t this virtually the sa principle Kieran’s class operated upon? He couldn’t infinitely reinforce his weapon with blood. It commanded a steep price in the form of ample Health. The initial loss of Health only covered the creation of the blood edge. To keep it stable would require a continuous supply of Health.
Fortunately for Kieran, Blood Mania wasn’t an incomplete skill with a glaring weakness. To compensate for the consumption of Health required of this skill, Kieran’s attacks gained a 1% Lifesteal trait as long as the Bleed ailnt afflicted the enemy. The higher the stacks, the more Health Kieran could recover.
Slowly, the blood from the dead Grand Goblin Archers flowed from their body before colliding against Kieran’s chest. Despite the scene, the sensation was pleasant as Kieran cracked his neck and loosened up while regaining close to 5% of his Health.
‘This class isn’t bad at all,’ Kieran thought. The pain required to obtain this class seed worth it now that the effects of Blood Mania were beginning to bear fruits.
After a short pause, Kieran turned toward the others and nodded. “Let’s clean this up.”
“I’m with you on that one,” Nean exclaid. Without hesitation, he ramd his shield into the Giant Ogre’s torso just as a large fist passed over his head. As said before, defending wasn’t the only way for a tank to safely deal with enemy attacks.
As Nean’s shield made contact, he shifted his stance and appeared no different from a boxer as he delivered a fluid combo of strikes that focused on using the tip of his shield for the greatest damage. Pained groans escaped the Giant Ogre’s mouth as the continuous damage stacked up.
This was another unique combat system available to most if not all of the classes related to the Fighter Class—Combo-Linking. By landing a certain number of hits with the correct rhythm and enough precision, a small multiplier that could be stacked up would be added to the damage. If the combo number went high enough, a class like Nean’s could reach numbers similar to pure-DPS types like Kieran.
By Nean’s twelfth attack, the combo multiplier increased his damage by three tis. Considering that his base damage hovered between 550 and 680, the multiplier brought this strike to well over 1,600 per attack.
At that mont, excitent coursed through Nean’s veins as, despite his large size almost comparable to Bastion’s dense class, Nean moved about agilely, properly channeling his weight into each blow.
As he witnessed this scene, Kieran couldn’t help but praise what he saw. ‘Not bad at all, incorporating fundantals learned in boxing on a large enemy that lacks movent speed. It’s no different than sparring with a training dummy that can only receive blows.’
“Hehe, I like this guy,” Altair snickered as a black shadow trailed behind each of his strikes. If one looked closely, they’d see a second source of damage appearing after each hit. While it was small and barely amounted to 2% of the initial strike, this extra damage would beco pivotal later down the line since it was related to so of the hidden attributes yet to be disclosed.
With the help of Blood Mania empowering him, Kieran unleashed a terrifying Crimson Current every ti it ca off cooldown. Every ti he launched the skill, each monster hit by the skill would lose 15% of their Health or more if it was a critical hit.
Furthermore, Kieran introduced a new skill―one of his primary skills that complented Blood Mania’s effects since it was designed to acquire Bleed Stacks rather quickly. Because of this, it wasn’t exactly a skill made to deal damage.
「Sanguine Slashes (Lv.1)
Skill Rank: C
Skill Type: Active
Mastery (02.00%)
Description: As the True Berserker burns their vitality, any weapon empowered by Blood Mania’s blood casing gains an invasive property. For the next 10 seconds, all physical attacks inflict one Bleed stack with 100% certainty. However, the stacks can’t exceed the maximum. If the maximum number is reached, the duration will be refilled before expiring. [Maximum Bleed Stacks: 30]
Consumption: 200 Health
Prerequisites: True Berserker
Cooldown: 15 seconds 」
This skill was essentially the best way to keep the Bleed stacks at maximum capacity. That way, Crimson Current and any other skill reliant upon Bleed stacks could deal the greatest damage possible. Because each stack only had a duration of 3 seconds, it was inevitable to lose so if Kieran didn’t intersperse his other skills properly.
Of course, that would take so familiarization to master since it involved learning the proper rotation of skills to match their cooldowns with the duration of other skills.
Approximately 10 minutes later, the last Giant Ogre fell, and Kieran imdiately deactivated Blood Mania but kept the broken Scarlet Steel Greatsword in hand. Deactivating the skill healed more than 70% of his Health, bringing Kieran’s Health back to over 90%.
In the anti, Altair and Luna swept through the battlefield since they were the fastest and accumulated the loot. Similar to before, the loot was primarily composed of coins since it appeared these monsters didn’t drop much equipnt.
Moreover, when they did drop equipnt, it was mostly armors and not weapons. Luckily, there wasn’t a soul in the party lacking in armor or weapons at the mont. While they would happily exchange with sothing of a higher rarity, they would need to acquire it first.
Once again, Kieran excluded himself from the loot distribution allowing Luna to take his share while he silently browsed through his skills. There was another skill in his possession, but for so reason, he couldn’t pull up its information as it was greyed out. This ant that while the system gave it to him, it was a skill that had yet to take effect.
‘Deranged Spirit. Do I need to increase my level, or do I perhaps need to fulfill so unknown criteria to activate this skill? Considering that I’ve already familiarized myself with Savage Break, Force Slash, and Charge’s upgraded version, this would have to be the upgrade of Warrior’s Aura. If that’s the case, it should be easy to activate. So, what is it?’ Kieran wondered.
If this were yet another avenue to increase his damage, he would happily welco the skill even if it ca with adverse effects such as the madness caused by Blood Mania. Of course, Kieran didn’t know it yet, but there was a skill even more terrifying than either of these two.
When all was said and done, the fight left Kieran on the precipice of reaching Lv.25, but he was still ways off—just over 10,000 Experience Points to be exact. He would have undoubtedly reached that level if there were two more monsters.
Nevertheless, after recovering so of the lost stamina, Kieran led the others through the expansive passageway while remaining alert. Despite their heightened awareness while moving, there was no more Giant Ogres or Grand Goblin Archers that appeared.
Roughly 10 minutes later, Kieran stopped before an enormous pit with only a thin strip of land stretching across it. The hole was so deep that after looking over the edge, Kieran couldn’t even begin to estimate its depth not to ntion what lurked in that darkness below.
“Nope, hell no. I’m not going first at all. Are you crazy? Look at that drop!” Bastion scread at the top of his lungs while pointing below.
〈System: The second floor of the «Underground Labyrinth» has been cleared.〉
〈System: Cross the «Bottomless Pit of G’obow» to enter the third floor.〉
〈System: This floor’s difficulty will be set at Very Difficult.〉
‘As expected, but asking us to cross this is a little…’ Kieran frowned because he estimated they needed to cross more than 500 ters of this thin rock beam.
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