chapter 11

At the fight between Illfang the kobold lord and the groups of a ragtag bunch of adventurers.

The fight was intense, the giant red monster was relentless in its attack, swinging it ax crazily at the party that was in front.

They switch party after party, just to try and wore the creature out.

However, their potion was starting to run low but the boss health point was still in the green bordering yellow.

Even with the intense fight, the groups moral was still high, it's all thank to Diavel giving them commands on the back, it also thanks to him that no one has died yet.

"Get ready to switch out!" Diavel called out, he then turned his attention to Leonard group.

"Backup's party! Keep the minions off of us!" he shouted out his order.

"Yeah yeah, keep your attention on the boss! We got this side cover!" Leonard answered the man while slashed and finished off another one of the ruin kobold sentinels, Asuna and Kirito also managed to kill off one as well, with a bit of difficulty due to their level and stats.

"How can he keep on fighting solo like that? Just how high is his level compared to us?" Asuna questioned Kirito, hoping to get the answer she was looking for since she knew they were a team from the very beginning.

"He's the same level as I am, it's just his stats and fighting skills are better than mine- SWITCH!" Kirito answered her as he fended off an attack from a minion while called out for Asuna turn to attack it.

"I was looking for the how though!" she immediately rushed in front of him with a rapier ready and quickly made roughly five stabs on to the chest of the kobold minion, killing it and finished off the last minion that spawned.

*****

Suddenly Illfang let out a loud howling sound as his health dropped into the red zone due to the constant barrage of attack from the boss fighting teams.

The howling got everyone attention.

Kirito quickly shifted his attention at the boss

"Look like the guidebook was right!" Kibaou smirked as he saw the scene unfurled before his eyes just like how it was described in the guidebook.

"It's about time," Leonard said as he saw the giant kobold tossed off his current weapon and shield and grabbed onto the giant cleaver on it back.

"Hey! It's no good! That thing ain't a Talwar! It's a Nodachi!" Leonard shouted out.

"Stay back! I got this!" Diavel finally decide to make his move, Leonard has notice from the very beginning that Diavel was standing on the back giving out commands while trying to conserve his health point, even though he has a tanky looking build, instead of helping the party fight the boss, he was just hiding in the back, the reason why nobody noticed it was because they were too busy fighting off the boss minions or the boss itself to notice him.

Diavel charged at Illfang with a sword and shield in hand, expecting that it was going to be an easy kill and getting the experiences and the bonus loot.

He was activating his skill to finish off Illfang, but funny enough, the boss monster had a nasty surprise hidden just for the fool.

It pulled out a Nodachi instead of a Talwar that was described in the guidebook and quickly made a few combos that connected to Diavel body, sending him flying across the room and crashed onto the floor right in front of Leonard.

"Diavel NOOO!!!!" Kibaou shouted out after seeing his new friend being kicked around like a ragdoll and sent across the hallway and crashed onto the stone floor.

However, immediately Illfang leaped right in front of Kibaou group with a face full of rage.

*****

Leonard glanced down onto the now dying Diavel.

"Such a fool, you were a beta tester aren't you?" Leonard held the man up and asked.

Diavel just looked at Leonard while giving him a weak smile seeing Leonard pulled out a red potion and was ready to give it to him.

However, Diavel stopped his hand.

"You were like me...a beta tester too..right?" he asked.

"I nope, it's the other guy, not me," Leonard told the dying man honestly.

"...please...you must defeat the boss.." Diavel was now glowing since his hp was running really low to a critical level.

"You're staying with us." Leonard shoved the bottle content into Diavel mouth and immediately his health potion began to recover slowly and out of the red zone.

"Why.." Diavel asked Leonard, as he was mentally prepared to die if his plan were to failed.

"You may be a greedy dumbass, but at least you have some valuable skills, you're better off alive than dead to us," Leonard told Diavel before dropping him down onto the cold stone floor and headed off to fight Illfang with his sword in hand.

"Kirito, Asuna stay back, I'll deal with this one," he told the two of them.

"What are you saying! Even if it's close to dying it's still a floor boss! It's not the same as it was in the beta! don't be crazy!" Kirito yelled at him

Leonard charged at Illfang with his full speed ignoring Kirito warning.

******

"Howl!" Illfang howled as he was busy ruthlessly swinging his giant cleaver demolishing the player's party that was the task to hold him off until the attacker could switch in to do some damages.

"Ahhh!!!" the cleaver manage to slice a player and sent him flying, the attack from Illfang took half of the man health, even though he had focused on heavy armor that's specifically made to reduce the damage taken.

Illfang then switched to another target and ready to swing the giant cleaver at another unfortunate victim who was now frozen in fear.

"Howl!!-" Illfang howled out in rage but suddenly something happened.

"Negative- BURST!" Leonard suddenly appeared from behind of Illfang by using the skill [Shadow Step] and used his sword for a sideways swing onto the giant kobold back.

*Booom!

When the blade made contact with the skin of the kobold, the black energy and gases exploded out and sent the monster flying and crashed into one of the large stone pillars within the room.

"Don't just stand there, move your ass!" Seeing the player that he had saved still stood rooted onto the spot and not moving, he yelled at the man to move.

"R-r-right! Thank you!" the player thanked Leonard and quickly ran to the sideline where he got himself a potion to recover some of the health points that he had lost.

"Alright, time for me to test out something new…" Leonard now faced Illfang, he raised his sword upward with both hands.

"Negative Energy Manipulation- activate." he silently called out the skill name and suddenly his sword began to glow dark purple as negative energy began to pour into the blade and charged it, the baleful aura of the sword blade immediately sent a chill running down the spine of all the players who witnessed the scene.