Infinite Realm

'If I'm to escape without getting tracked, the [Assassin] has to go.'

Atop a 10 metres tall tree, Sato hid in between the branches, preventing his figure from being spotted by the individuals below.

To escape the crew below, Sato could simply slaughter them all, but as he was about to enter the town, doing so wasn't advisable. When a player kills another player, they have their name written in red alongside a red marker above their head, replacing the usual green marker. 

There were a few ways currently known to get rid of the color change but the most simplest and employed process was to wait it out. Depending on the number of players killed, the marker would slowly return to its original colour with time. 

Since Sato wasn't too far from town and he also didn't want to waste any more time, he could only kill one player. Any more and that would intesify the shade of his marker and he would need to wait longer to get rid of it.

'Looks doable but won't be easy.' Sato narrowed his eyes.

The [Assassin] was beside the [Cleric] making him located in the safest place in the battle formation. Apart from that, Sato noticed that the [Cleric] wasn't an ordinary player. From what he had seen so far, the [Cleric] was most likely a commander-type player. Having such an individual in the opposing team would make it difficult to break through their defence. However, this was for a player who wasn't Sato.

'Strength prevails over all.'

Without further ado, Sato propeelled himself down towards the group as he swung the black demonic sword at them.

"Look at out!"

The [Cleric] who stood in the middle of the team alerted everyone.

"[Iron Wall]"

The [Guardian] brought his shield in front of his hefty frame with a yell.

A silver coloured light sprung forth from the shield, forming a wall that stood between him and Sato.

*CRACK*

The silver wall, which had a damage absorption capacity equivalent to two times the [Guardian's] HP, had cracked in one hit and looked to be close to breaking apart. This meant that the attack from Sato was equivalent to 170% of the [Guardian's] HP. In other words, if that attack had landed, the [Guardian] would have died before he would notice it.

"Im, impossible!" The [Guardian] screamed in shock as realised this fact.

"!!!" 

Even the [Cleric] was alarmed by this but he managed to regain his composure almost immediately.

"Attack!"

Before he had completed the order, Sato had already brandished his sword for the second time, turning the once solid silver wall to nothing but tiny silver shards that glinted like fireflies.

The remnant force from the sword had propelled it to land on the [Guardian's] shield, sending him flying away.

"What?" The [Cleric], who was about to give out more orders to his teammates was stunned by this. 

'Too strong.' 

Even though he thought this, the [Cleric] couldn't back-off now as the battle had already begun. He guessed that for someone like Sato, once he had decided to kill, he would definitely get it done. And with them constantly harassing him by giving chase earlier, they had definitely entered his bad book.

"It's just a buff![1] It won't last long." The [Cleric] said as he discovered the 'truth'. This was done not only to comfort himself but his teammates as well or else, they would all lose the will to resist against Sato.

Though scared, the other two understood the meaning of the [Cleric's] words as they suddenly scattered. 

As a team that took on bounty-related missions and the likes, they had prepared certain contingencies and plans for different scenarios. For a situation like this where the target was simply too strong to take on head-on due to a buff, there were two options; one was to hold out till the buff's duration was over while the last was to escape and regroup later.

The team automatically went for the last option as the strength Sato had displayed was enough to show them that they weren't a match for him, even if they ganged up on him.

Of the players, the [Assassin] was the fastest since the class was biased towards speed, but the [Swordsman] was the one who had gone the farthest as he was already located behind the others. The [Cleric] looked to be the most likely target since he wasn't so far from Sato and his speed wasn't up to par to the others. 

Even though he knew this, the [Cleric] didn't panic and just kept on running.

Just as the others thought they could breathe a sigh of relief, since they all thought that Sato would chase after the [Cleric], the [Assassin] was given the shock of his life as he saw Sato's eyes glancing in his direction which also happened to be the opposite direction of that of the [Cleric].

'What's going on?' The [Assassin] thought in fear as he ran as fast as his legs could take him.

His question was finally answered as Sato began to make his way towards him. At first, Sato was about 10~12 metres away from him but within a second he was only 7 metres away. In the next second, Sato was just 3 metres away from him.

Before the [Assassin] could scream out in both fear and shock, Sato was already beside him with [Drakken] moving towards the player.

Added with the manner of Sato's appearance, the black edge of [Drakken] looked like a horrific weapon of death as the [Assassin] felt chills over his body just by glancing at it. Alarm bells rang in his head as he saw the incoming blade, but it was as if time had paused as his body was too slow to react.

 'No!'

There was only enough time for a single thought to go through his head as the cursed sword sliced through his body, cutting it apart cleanly into two different sections. Following that, the corpse began to collapse into starlight as a shocked expression was displayed on the [Assassin's] face.

AN :

[1] Buff : As a gaming terminology, refers to an equipment, item or spell that increases the ability of the user.