Rise Online: Return of the Legendary Player

With the <Corrupted Warrior's Fury> skill active, Leohorn became almost unstoppable. He advanced violently against Ravastine.

When the noblewoman saw her opponent get close enough, she swung her purple sword against his warm hilt. A few moments later, she heard a shattering sound, similar to the sound of a glass window being shattered by a stone. However, in the blink of her eyes, she heard Leohorn's fist shatter her steel sword into dozens of pieces.

Ravastine believed that her sword was indestructible as it was an ancient, family heirloom sword made by powerful dwarves of the past. Therefore, as she watched her sword get into pieces, she went into shock. Her eyes went wide and fear completely contaminated her veins.

She had no time to scream or cry at that moment. Before she could even react, a sequence of punches hit her. The first punch was to her right ribs, then one to her left eyebrow, and the last one hit her in the middle of her nose.

When the girl fell to the ground, all the spectators were bitter at the brutality.

"Is he really going to kill her? It's just a challenge, isn't it?" Someone from the audience asked, and this generated a massive wave of discussion.

Some players agreed that Ravastine should die, while others disagreed. Just as, there were more radical NPCs who agreed and others who disagreed.

Anyway, Leohorn didn't care about these discussions that were irrelevant to him. He looked at the woman below him, and when she insisted on trying to get up, he stepped on her head.

"What are you doing, you stupid little bitch? Where's all your noble pride? It was here just a few minutes ago, and it's already gone? You don't look so confident anymore!" The Viking asked, disgustingly, as he returned to his normal animalistic behavioral transformation.

"Argh! You-"

*Tump*

Before Ravastine could finish speaking, Leohorn stomped on her face. Then he smiled and stomped once more, and then once more.

Therein lay the greatest danger of VRMMORPG games to their players. The sense of power within the games was toxic to some people because it potentiated everything that was already inside a person, corrupting or transforming them. In Leohorn's case, he could be a normal person in real life, dining with his family and engaged to a beautiful pregnant wife, however, from the moment he entered Rise Online, he could transform into any other person, without the burdens of his 'true self'. This could happen, perhaps to squash some feeling inside him, or simply because it was fun.

However, from the first moment Kaizen had his first conversation with an NPC, the fencing instructor named Berni Coyle, he did not see him as just another character commanded by Artificial Intelligence.

In Rise Online, everything was so realistic that it would be weird not to humanize the characters. Everyone had their own stories, voices, ways of acting, speaking, and thinking. So Kaizen thought that everyone saw the NPCs the same way he did, which is why he was so displeased and completely outraged when he saw the way Leohorn treated Ravastine.

Kaizen would normally not interfere in a fight, he would choose not to draw attention to himself, only Leohorn gave him no choice.

By the time the sighs of the onlookers were fearing for the life of Ravastine, who kept getting hit, with each step taking a significant part of her HP, Kaizen walked to the staircase he came from and put on the Guardian's Elm.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing!?" One of the spectators shouted, but Kaizen had already jumped into the field before he could finish speaking.

When he landed, Leohorn was still focused on destroying Ravastine, not noticing Kaizen's presence initially, however, when literally everyone in the arena started talking, it was impossible for him not to notice.

"Hey! You can't interfere in this duel!" Leohorn shouted without thinking, surprised by Kaizen's presence.

Kaizen said nothing and continued to slowly walk in the direction of Ravastine and Leohorn.

The moment they all saw this stranger storming the battlefield and saw the warning floating in the arena sky that the battle was paused, they felt like going to stop him and forcibly remove him from the place if need be, only it took one comment for everyone to realize a paramount detail and change their minds.

"Hey guys, isn't that the guy from that strange video that went viral!"?

The video of the masked figure starring Kaizen was still marked in the memory of everyone who watched it.

Some viewers did not recognize that fellow who stormed the arena wearing a mask that looked like a wolf skull, yet the overwhelming majority had seen the video or simply heard about it. After all, within a short time the nickname Kaizen was already recognized by all avid Rise Online fans, especially the newbies who still frequently left the game to look at social media.

"What is he doing here?"

"Leohorn is from the Desert Lions Guild, so I wonder if he has something to do with it? They're the ones who declared a hunt for Kaizen, right?"

"Nice! I have to start broadcasting that!"

"Invading a duel for rivalry? Isn't that against the rules?"

"Fuck it! Leohorn was slaughtering the girl. He's got to get a lot of beatings from someone."

Although Kaizen is a very new figure in the Rise Online community, he has gained enormous respect from a number of people as by the description of the video, in which he first appeared to the world, stated that he solo killed a Mythic Rank Boss.

Also, the fact that lightning struck the Centaur Druid exactly when Kaizen faced him caused several theories to emerge on forums about him being the incarnation of Thor or that he had somehow gotten such a title. Since Rise Online had its base world inspired by Norse mythology, the theory gained notoriety from some avid fans.

The theorists could not imagine that the origins of Kaizen's achievement in 'conjuring' thunder lay not in his magical abilities, but in his intelligence.

It took a few seconds for Leohorn to recognize Kaizen. When he finally reminded him of the mask that Taznaar had commented so much on, he smiled with excitement and let go of Ravastine's hair, dropping her to the ground on her knees after lifting her up to be able to strike her face more.

"I couldn't be there that day in the Howling Cliff, so you're making me the happiest person in the world by saving me the trouble of hunting you down, Kaizen!" exclaimed the Viking, who at that very moment started running towards the Psyker.