Martial Online.

'It has percentages as health.' Ambrose thought. 'That's new. Well, I guess not new, as that dragon from Wild Card also apparently had one.'

"Archers!" Gxel shouted and raised his sword toward the ceiling.

The archers pulled back their bows and aimed towards Keiran, who slowly stood up with a shield and longsword in hand.

Gxel sweated, and then he raised his sword and shouted. "Fireeeee!"

Swoosh!

Several arrows whizzed through the air and rained down on Keiran.

Keiran placed his shield over his head and blocked all the arrows that shattered as soon as they hit the shield.

"Humans, rejoice…" Keiran's otherworldly voice left his mouth, and then he moved his shield to the side and swung the longsword to the ground. "Your death has arrived."

As soon as his sword cut into the ground, the platform started cracking, and a large crevice appeared out of nowhere, which was approaching the party at an alarming speed.

"Dodge!" Gxel screamed and jumped aside.

Archers, with their incredible agility, effortlessly jumped aside as well, narrowly avoiding falling into the crevice.

Ambrose hovered over the platform and gently landed on the other side of the crevice, safe from danger.

However, now half of the party was split because of the crevice.

"I'll take the aggro!" Gxel called out, put his sword into a tight grip, and started rushing towards Keiran.

While running, he shouted. "Ambrose, assist me!"

Ambrose swung the swords in his hands and ran after Gxel.

As Gxel approached the boss, Keiran raised his sword and smashed it down.

BANG!

Gxel quickly blocked the sword with his shield, but his knees almost gave up, struggling to bear the weight of the impact.

Keiran immediately put the longsword into a thrusting stance and stabbed it forth.

"Ngh!" Gxel's eyes widened in shock, as he didn't believe he could dodge in time.

At that moment, a crimson sword appeared and parried the longsword away just barely in time to save Gxel from being struck.

Gxel heaved a sigh of relief and glanced at Ambrose in gratitude.

"High Pain!" Ambrose screamed hoarsely and swung his sword at Keiran.

As if he could sense the danger, Keiran retreated with a jump backwards and dodged the two swords.

However, Ambrose didn't let him escape too easily and jumped after him with a long leap.

"Humanoid Imperfecta!"

The crimson swords rained down and smashed straight into Keiran's shield with a deafening crash.

"Mh…" Keiran let out a single gasp of pain and used his shield to deflect the swords away from him.

Ambrose rushed straight at him and started delivering quick, decisive blows that immediately put Keiran on his backfoot, endlessly retreating as Ambrose pressed his advantage with relentless force.

Each strike of his put immense pressure on Keiran's defense, as he felt like he was constantly hit by a battering ram.

"So powerful…" Gxel exclaimed, completely amazed at the strength of Ambrose.

'He has qualified for the finals of the tournament for a reason!' Miss Broken thought as she was running towards them with other members of the party.

"Leader, what shall we do?" One of the party members asked.

It shook Gxel awake from his thoughts and shouted, "Archers, shoot at Keiran if he tries to retreat. Everyone else, let's block all escape routes!"

"Yes, leader!"

As Ambrose continued pushing Keiran back, he noticed that Gxel and others moved behind Keiran and to his sides. There was no place for him to go.

"Gxel!" Ambrose screamed.

"Yes!" Gxel answered.

"Tell everyone to cover their ears!" Ambrose screamed.

Gxel looked surprised, but did as he was told and shouted even louder, "Everyone, plug your ears!"

His party members didn't understand why, but they listened to the orders and plucked their ears with their fingers.

"Howling Rage!" Ambrose screamed with a powerful force that struck Keiran like a wrecking ball.

"Ngh…" Keiran immediately stopped moving, his body paralyzed by the strange voice attack.

There was now a clear opening for Ambrose to strike.

'I don't think defeating this boss is possible with a single attack, so I must think further—I have to use a skill that will help the party defeat this boss.'

Ambrose raised his right-handed sword and whispered, "Humanoid Imperfecta…"

The sword glowed a bright blue, and then it slashed straight through Keiran's shoulder, causing a burst of energy to explode outwards.

"Ngh…" Keiran gritted his teeth hideously and stumbled backwards, a strange feeling filling his body.

Now, Keiran was feeling how it feels to live as a person with Humanoid Imperfecta.

Ding, ding!

In Ambrose's vision, several status windows popped up in front of him.

[You have inflicted Keiran with a curse—Humanoid Imperfecta!]

[His movement is now impaired, reducing his speed by 100%]

[His defense has been reduced by 1000%]

[His attack power has been reduced by 50%]

[Time till purification: 1 minutes]

"Everyone attack!" Ambrose screamed. "I inflicted him with a curse skill. You have one minute!"

'Curse skill!' Gxel's eyes brightened up, and he immediately screamed. "Attack, put your all into attacks!"

Without further ado, the archers pulled back their bows and shot arrows non-stop, immediately putting Keiran under heavy assault.

He couldn't block it all as his movement was impaired, and several arrows stabbed through his limps.

[HP: 81%]

"Argh!" Keiran screamed, surprised by the amount of damage he took, and then turned his head towards Ambrose, realizing that he had done something to him.

"A human sorcerer!"

At that moment, he sensed several more enemies closing in on his position.

Gxel and several other party members lunged at him, slicing, slashing, and stabbing.

As he moved his shield to block them, another arrow suddenly flew past his defenses and stabbed through his thigh, causing a searing pain and another drop in health.

[HP: 70%]

Keiran's eyes shook, and then Gxel and a few others launched their attacks and landed on his body, sending him flying away with a loud crash.

As Keiran crashed on the ground, his clothes were in rags, and he was bleeding profusely from multiple wounds, his breathing ragged and shallow.

[HP: 49%]

"Good job, everyone!" Gxel shouted with a triumphant smile. "Archers, fire again!"

After the order landed on their ears, they pulled back their bows and launched the arrows with a twang of the strings.

Keiran watched as the arrows flew in the air, about to start descending towards him.

At that moment, his body twitched like he was having a seizure, and then he collapsed to the ground, unconscious.

The arrows were about to stab through him like a porcupine, but then, for some odd reason, the arrows moved in a different direction, missing him completely.

"E-eh?"

The archers looked dumbfounded, as they had never missed their target this badly before. It made them remember the first days of Martial Online, when they were only learning archery and were horrible at it.

However, since then, they had gotten so much better, but now, for some odd reason, they have completely missed!

Ambrose narrowed his eyes, feeling like something was horribly wrong.

Without any warning, Keiran suddenly sat up straight with a nonchalant look on his face. It was as if he hadn't just been stabbed ten times by both arrows and swords.

At that moment, Keiran picked up his sword, pointed it towards the ceiling, and a strange black shadow shot out of the blade.

Around six, shadowy orbs appeared and flew towards the players around him.

"Dodge!" Gxel shouted and retreated with a strong leap.

Everyone was already dodging, as they also saw the dangerousness of those orbs.

Strangely enough, those orbs landed on the ground, nowhere close to them, and from the orbs, strange, small black-skinned creatures started to emerge.

They had pointy ears and sharp claws, and their eyes glowed with a malevolent red light. They resembled goblins quite a bit, but in a sense, they also looked distinctly different.

Especially their faces, as if they weren't from this planet.

"My Dark Ones, go on, kill them!" Keiran ordered loudly.

'Is this why he is called the Little Dark One?' Gxel thought with a frown.

After being ordered, the little creatures let out strange, screeching voices and launched themselves at the players with incredible speed and ferocity.

Immediately, the members of the party struggled with the little creatures, and most of them got injured as they slashed them with their long claws.

While other members of the party were struggling with them, Gxel and Ambrose rushed at Keiran, as those creatures would vanish if he died.

Keiran slashed through the air with his longsword, creating a strange rift in the air that seemed to destroy reality itself.

At that moment, the rift turned into a swirling vortex of energy that began to pull everything around it into its depths.

Gxel's eyes widened as he felt himself getting sucked into the vortex, and he immediately used his vast fighting knowledge to stab the sword into the ground, desperately holding on.

Ambrose used Formlessness and started flying against the powerful force, trying to fly away.

…

Real world, Loch City, Martial Company.

At the control room, the A.I. started showing bright, beeping lights, and the metallic, giant football-looking machine started humming with eerie sounds.

No one in the other room managed to see the strange sight.