026 First Blood!

The two approached the Giant Wasp; Mercury took the point and James followed not too far behind. The two readied themselves for battle. Mercury changed her polearm into the battle axe form and got into an offensive stance.

Two glowing symbols started floating above James's gloved palm. He activated both Leech Defense and Leech Strength. Colorful auras started to wash over the Wasp, Mercury and himself.

[Maddening Strength!]

[Maddening Speed!]

Mercury started to glow even more as she started her direct attack on the Wasp. She made sure the battle would be anything but quiet.

* Rumble! *

The ground at her feet crumbled into dust and pebbles. She brought her axe up and cleaved towards the Wasp.

* Crack *

The sound of two heavy objects hitting each other rang out. The sound distributed birds and other wildlife in the area.

Mercury had used the flat part of the axe to smash into the side of the Wasp. It flew sideways and crashed into some trees nearby.

* Crash *

* Snap *

Trees broke in pieces at the time of impact. Branches and leaves flew into the air as the dust settled.

* Woosh *

Two large fireballs whizzed past Mercury as she landed on the ground after her engagement with the Wasp.

The Wasp picked itself back up from the ground and started to fly in the air once again. It turned and noticed two fireballs hurling towards itself.

It picked up speed and flew upwards to avoid the incoming projectiles. Due to its massive weight the Wasp was not able to keep altitude very long and descended shortly after the fireballs passed by below.

* BOOOM *

Two explosions went off just behind the Wasp; while the Fireballs missed the Wasp they hit the trees just behind it.

The Wasp once again was thrown to the ground due to the shockwave of the explosions.

.

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"We found a battle between some players and an elite tier monster not far from here." reported an assassin

Scarlet was looking over her platoon while she thought about what to do. The battle had ended roughly ten minutes ago but they all needed a rest. Should she wait and give them more time to reset to move out now and try to steal the kill?

"Hmm, do we know the players involved?" she paused to look at the platoon again, "Do they have less than 20 people?"

The scout hesitated for a moment, "There are only two people in the group fighting the elite."

Scarlet abruptly turned to face the scout, "What? Is that some sort of joke? It takes our guild, and the other large guilds, more than 25 players to kill an elite!"

The scout saw that she was angry and got scared. His partner took over the conversion. "I can verify that there were only two people in the fight."

Scarlet took a second to cool down. "Makes it easier for us then. They won't be able to hold on for much longer. I'm guessing they are the only survivors of a larger group that bit off more than they can chew." She said in a disdainful tone.

The scouts only looked at each other for a few seconds.

Hearing their silence, Scarlet turned to look at the pair again. "What? If you have something to say, do it."

"Ah, well… The duo are not struggling in the slightest." one assassin said.

"Yeah, if I was to be more accurate, I would say they are doing very well." said the other.

"WHAT! I'm getting tired of your jokes!" screamed Scarlet. "I don't know why Rend always suggests you two for scouts while all you do is joke and goof around."

"Scarlet, their names were Reaper and Blaise." The second assassin finally couldn't take her rudeness any longer.

Scarlet didn't miss a beat. "What direction is that b**** in?"

The scouts pointed in the same direction. Scarlet ordered the whole platoon to move out and close into the direction the duo was in.

The closer they got the louder the battle got. They heard explosions, shattering earth, and the buzzing sound of bug wings flapping in the air.

They started to have to walk around large rocks, downed trees, and fires as they continued their trip. The battleground had stretched out as time went on.

The platoon finally was able to two two people fighting a massive wasp all by themselves. Many of them were awe inspired. What typically took over 20 people to accomplish looked like a walk in the park for the two people currently fighting.

Even Scarlet was surprised by the sight. Rather than jumping in for the kill steal and man hunt many of the platoon got distracted by the battle while others got more and more mad. All of the mage classes started to feel green with envy.

They all watched as the young mage frequently chugged down mana potions! Not only that but he threw the empty vial to the ground! What a waste of money!

One Fire Mage could not take it any longer; he started chanting a spell to attack the wasteful mage!

It was then that Scarlet snapped back into reality, "Stop!" She turned back to stare down the Fire Mage.

Just as Scarlet was going to berate the mage one of her officers spoke out, "Mam, it seems like Reaper is directing the battle away from us. She must have noticed us."

She turned to the fight and saw the duo had drug the wasp several meters away from their last position.

"You can't escape b****, enter positions! Do not let them get away!" she commanded.

Like a well oiled machine, all 60 members of the platoon started to advance towards the duo.It had seemed like the duo noticed the charge so they turned to run away.

The Mages and Archers were firing spells and arrows trying to slow the duo down.

.

James and Mercury were notified that they were under attack.

* Ding, player had been attacked. You may retaliate without penalty. *

.

"Mam, two duo left the elite behind. Should we start to kill the Giant Wasp now?

"The Giant Wasp? No! We will be killing THEM!" Scarlet was frantic.

Seeing the state their leader was in, the platoon leaders followed her orders. The chase began between two individuals and their platoon.

The chase was going on for only 5 minutes when Scarlet started to roar with laughter. "She is running! The great Reaper actually ran away!"

Soon a canyon appeared in front of the two groups. To Scarlet and the party leaders it seemed like they successfully chased the duo into a deadend.

"Haha! They are trapped! Move in for the kill!" yelled Scarlet.

The whole platoon was now inside the canyon walls. They were gaining ground on the duo as well!

Scarlet was intently watching the duo when she swore she heard them saying something.

"Now?"

"Now!"

"Huh? Did they just say something?" questioned Scarlet.

It did not take long for her to get an answer. The ground below the platoon started to glow!

Everyone in the platoon stopped in their tracks. Looking both in front and behind them all they saw was that the canyon floor was glowing!

"What's going on?" questioned Scarlet.

The glowing got brighter and brighter. The magic classes felt like there was a large amount of mana below their feet.

"Mam! I feel like there is a large amount of mana below us!" shouted one of the platoon leaders.

"It's a trap! Defensive positions!" commanded Scarlet.

Just as soon as she made her command the rune detonated!

* BBBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMBBBBBBBBBBB

The canyon floor exploded. For a brief second screams were heard as an explosion went off and a massive billow of smoke started floating to the sky.

As the smoke cleared a massive crater was formed where the rune once was.

* Ding *

-----------------------------

Player has killed 50 players,

Gained 480 PK points!

Gained a rampage metal for a large multikill!

Player has not lost karma due to attacking in retaliation.

-----------------------------

.

"What is a Rampage Medal?" James was curious.

"You got a Rampage? I have only gotten a Frenzy Medal." She was excited for James. "They unlock new tiers of the PK shop. You can get good items by exchanging your PK points."

"Sounds interesting, let's finish up here. There appears to be some survivors."

"M'kay! You were right, that was fun to see!" She said delighted.

James looked for a survivor to leech some stats from. He looked around and found Scarlet. He had a wide smile on his face.

"Mercury, looks like you get to have some revenge on Scarlet yourself." James gloated.

[Crushing Assault!]

Mercury dived right in. She leaped in the air towards Scarlet, who was still getting her bearings.

Scarlet looked at her platoon UI and saw that they were nearly wiped out.

She quickly looked at the kill feed to see just what happened.

.

-------------------------------

06:51:32 Player Blaise killed ExtremeTank.

06:51:32 Player Blaise killed Scorpion.

06:51:32 Player Blaise killed Fodder01

06:51:33 Player Blaise killed Not_Fodder

…

Etc.

-------------------------------

She was terrified at what she saw. 50 members of her platoon were killed in merely 2 seconds of each other.

[He might be more dangerous than Reaper, Tempest kicked a rock with this one. I hope they are not a permanent party.]

She wanted to think more about what just happened but she saw something in the corner of her eye. It was Mercury who was quickly approaching.

"Don't think you have won just because of this!" threatened Scarlet.

Scarlet activated Quick Steps attempting to get away from Mercury's attack. She was almost out of reach when she noticed something strange. She had a slight glow that washed over her. Then she got a notification.

* Ding, player's agility and defense has been decreased by 10%. *

"What?!" Scarlet had no choice but to get into a defensive posture since she was not completely out of range.

Mercury's [Crushing Assault] had missed a direct hit but caused the ground between her and Scarlet to shatter and rocks flew into the air.

Scarlet blocked or parried some of the rocks. There were a few that hit her causing some slight damage.

Scarlet was not able to see that Mercury had kicked one of the flying rocks directly towards her due to the dust and other debris in the air.

* Boom! *

Scarlet heard another explosion and feared that another bomb went off. She quickly looked around as she was backing away from Mercury.

She saw that James attacked some of the remaining members of the platoon. The kill feed showed another 2 deaths. There were now only herself and 6 other members.

[Damn you Blaise.]

Scarlet looked back at Mercury to keep focused in their fight. When she turned back she saw a medium sized rock flying towards her. Mercury had kicked one of the rocks that flew into the air when she was not paying attention.

* Bang *

Scarlet took a direct hit with the rock and was knocked backwards towards the canyon cliff. She feared the wrose and watched Mercury intently to see when the killing blow would come. Right before the attack would hit she would activate her trump card, [Unexpected Counter].

She noticed that Mercury was not going directly towards her but off to the side. She was confused and thought Mercury had made a weird mistake. That was until she looked back at her platoon members. She saw a fireball heading towards her.

She tried to get up and move out of the way and the fireball hurled it's way past and behind her.

[He missed, he lacks skill! Time to punish his mistake.] Scarlet was about to move towards James since Mercury moved out from in front of him leaving him exposed.

That was until she saw him crack a smile.

* Boom! *

The fireball exploded behind her knocking her sideways, directly in front of Mercury.

Scarlet landed on her back and was looking up at Mercury. She had her axe already positioned overhead and had [Crushing Assault] activated.

"B-Bye Scarlet!" Mercury added insult to injury while she swung the massive axe down onto Scarlet.

.

***************************

* Ding, you have died. Respawning at your respawn location now. *

[- We need to talk. -] She sent a message to Rend.

[- Scarlet: Reaper and Blaise just wiped out my platoon of 60 while we were hunting elites. -] She posted on the group chat for the large guilds.

[- Alexander: Provoked or unprovoked? Everyone knows your history with Reaper. -]

Scarlet did not respond right away.

[- Author: I take your hesitation that you provoked them. I am going to ignore the attack but it is interesting to hear they are working together. -]

Scarlet was annoyed, she felt wronged…

[- Scarlet: Blaise killed 50 members by himself, in less than two seconds… -]

The whole group chat was active now.

[- Tempest: How is that possible? Even with a hidden class that would be far too powerful. -]

[- Alexander: Was it a large area of effect spell? -]

[- Scarlet: I do not know. One second everything was normal then the next the ground was glowing. An explosion nearly wiped out my whole platoon. After that the both of them worked nearly perfectly to finish me off. Just now I got the notification that the rest of my platoon were killed. -]

[- Author: I will send scouts to watch over them. We need to know if they are a permanent team or not. Where were you before you died? -]

[- Scarlet: Zone 28, in a canyon. The explosion collapsed the entrance that we went through so I do not know if you can enter the same way as we did. -]]

***************************

.

"Did they drop anything good?" asked James.

"Sadly no, they got lucky for the most part." grumbled Mercury.

James walked over to the rubble wall. When the explosion went off it collapsed the nearby canyon walls. He walked around trying to find a way to get out of the canyon but found nothing.

James was worried, "Looks like we couldn't leave the way we came in. We jumped up two zone levels."

Mercury walked over to give a quick look over the rubble wall as well.

She sighed, "You're right, we will have to go deeper into the canyon to try to find an exit."

The duo started heading deeper into the canyon in search of an exit.

More monsters spawned together as the zone levels increased, which made the duo have to fight it out with larger and larger packs of monsters. They even had to find a way to avoid some of the larger packs.

James took a second to look over the leaderboards. There was no overall change to the players positions but the minimal level to potentially get on them increased to 21.

Both Mercury and himself leveled up once during the search for a way out of the canyon.

"Blaise, what are you doing with your attribute points and skill points? I have not noticed any changes to your health and mana pool. You are drinking mana pots at the same rate as normal. Are you pushing for an unorthodox build?" wondered Mercury.

"Hmm, well I have yet to spend any of my attribute points or my skill points."

Mercury turned around and stomped on James's foot. "What?! Why not? You know we would have an easier time fighting in these higher zones if you increase your stats!"

James felt a little embarrassed and had a slight blush. "Well, ah.. I have not decided how to use my attributes just yet. My class is different from other magic classes. The only thing I know for sure is that I want more mana. Apart from that I'm trying to figure out if dexterity increases rune drawing speed, etc."

"We are not moving from this spot until you use up your free attribute points!" Mercury was adamant.