Rise Online: Return of the Legendary Player

The Hive Centipedes didn't stand a chance against a duo as skilled as Kaizen and Bleeding Lily.

The two players were focused on the competition between them and had killed dozens of these monsters in less than fifteen minutes since the start of the second horde. However, Kaizen saw his arrow being reflected by the armor of one of these centipedes just as he was about to achieve the same number of kills as the red-headed woman.

*Timm*

The sound of the clang of the metallic tip of Kaizen's arrow against the creature's armor surprised him and Bloody Lily who let his attention be taken for a few seconds, but soon regained his focus on his own kills.

'What's different with that centipede?' Psyker wondered and used the <Analyzing Eye> to see beyond what his normal vision could show him.

[Creature: Hive Centipede

Level: 20 | Attribute: Insect | Nature: Mutant

HP: 300 | MP: 0

Attack: 60 | Defense: 100 | Speed: 37

Strength: 55 | Wisdom: 13 | Resistance: 98

Resistance to Spells of: Stun]

'So, it's a mutated creature. That's a problem. I won't be able to kill a Mutant Rank monster with a Primal Rank bow and arrows.' Kaizen concluded, because his arrow did not take any HP from his target.

Suddenly, a fast and powerful arrow hit the mutant centipede that Kaizen was eyeing.

"That was all you had!? You're weaker than I thought, Kaizen!" Bleeding Lily exclaimed.

Before Kaizen could say anything, the loud noise of an explosion echoed.

Kaizen, Bleeding Lily and Orkoi, who were the only ones on the rooftops of the buildings, watched a huge green cloud rise and the sound of the explosion was so loud that it sounded as if the sky had fallen. Then an overwhelming shockwave spread throughout the entire region, being able to throw Kaizen's black hair and cape back.

From the way the sound reverberated, it was clear that the explosion did not happen as far away as the members of the Crimson Soldiers' Guild would have liked.

'This was only a few blocks from where we are.' Kaizen thought and almost instantly he wondered if what caused the explosion was someone as strong as the Necromantic Witch.

Kaizen was very eager to test his newest Class Skill, so he didn't hold back that urge and started running in the direction of the explosion cloud, which was lowering itself very slowly.

The Bleeding Lily was not far from Kaizen and could perfectly see him running in the direction of where the explosion ran, just as Orkoi also saw him and shouted:

"Hey, Kaizen! Don't get out of formation!"

The Bleeding Lily realized that Kaizen couldn't even hear the warning, so she decided to take action. "Orkoi, use our the defense formation and narrow our area of operation. If any other players appear in that area, send a message to me!"

"Yes, ma'am!"

"Now go relay that same message to the rest of the staff!" She ordered.

The space between buildings was very small in the white house district, and since each of the buildings followed a harmonically standardized height, jumping from one to the next was easy. Thanks to this, Kaizen was advancing through the blocks with great ease. While he was running, he put away his bow and quiver to equip the Butterfly Bear Sword.

When he reached the area where the explosion happened, he also had to enter its dense cloud of dust. The place was reeking of gunpowder and it was impossible not to hear the nearby sound of clinking swords.

Kaizen slowed his running pace greatly and before he could jump into the street from which the metallic sounds were coming, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

He was ready to react to this touch when he heard Bleeding Lily's voice ask:

"What the hell are you doing? You walked out of the formation we established."

"You came after me?" He asked surprised. "You were managing to take good care of support, so I trusted the rest of the staff with you and decided to come here to find out what's going on, after all the explosion didn't happen that far from where we were." He winked at her with his right eye only.

Bleeding Lily sighed and shook her head, as she could hardly believe that he would do such a thing. "You really are a nutcase, Kaizen."

As the two looked down the street, they could see some human figures moving and metallic sounds were coming from the swords that these figures were using to block the attacks of the creatures that invested in their direction.

There were five men and one woman, all of them were dressed in light leather armor and all had only swords in their hands. The style of armor was that of a soldier with helmet and breastplate, but they were obviously not city guards. Kaizen soon noticed that they were not NPCs but players who were fighting the creatures.

"What are those things?" Kaizen asked aloud pointing at the creatures and ignoring Bleeding Lily's critique.

The creatures that were attacking the players had the size of an ordinary wolf, except that the skin of each of them was turned inside out. This appearance was exposing the muscles and red flesh that you can normally only see when dissecting this type of animal. In addition, the jaws of these monsters had almost a hundred teeth and their eye sockets were empty.

"They are Blood Wolves." Bleeding Lily quickly replied.

[Creature: Blood Wolf.

Level: 35 | Attribute: Undead | Nature: Mutant

HP: 500 | MP: 50

Attack: 200 | Defense: 15 | Speed: 40

Strength: 55 | Wisdom: 20 | Endurance: 67

Resistance to Spells of: nothing].

However, Kaizen and Bleeding Lily were able to identify a problem in the group of players that explained why they were losing to these Blood Wolves. The woman who was in the middle of the five men was not using a sword, but a crossbow, a type of longbow, and she was shooting arrows at the Flesh Wolves, but these arrows were not doing any damage.

"Are they immune to long-range attacks or something?" Kaizen asked, thinking aloud, because the arrows the woman was shooting were only rebounding and not doing any damage.

"Obviously not, and the reason she's not applying damage isn't her crossbow either, because it seems to be a good crossbow. There's probably something else..." The Bleeding Lily retorted, and sharpening her vision with focus, she could see, even within the smoke, a faint green aura enveloping the Flesh Wolves. "Ah, so that's it." She uttered and slowly positioned an arrow on the string of her bow.

"What are you doing?"

"There is a mage protecting the Blood Wolves. If I kill him, those people will probably be able to handle these monsters." She said as she pulled the string of her bow and searched for the mage inside the cloud raised by the explosion.

...

Edited by: DrHitsuji

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