Ishim

In one of the many crevasses within the Mountain Pass, Felix was leisurely walking, his spear resting against his shoulder.

Name: Odin

Level: 21

Title: Runefather, Otherworlder

Class: Runic Mage

Profession: N/A

HP: 320/340

MP: 952/1100

Vitality: 34

Spirit: 110

Strength: 50

Agility: 52

Intelligence: 100 (104)

Faith: 5

Free AP: 0

Skills: [Expand]

Equipment: [Expand]

These stats were the result of merely ten minutes of hunting for Felix, but he had already grown massively. His Stats were also way beyond anything a Level 21 should have.

Ignoring his Faith, and taking the average of 10 for each Stat, then Felix had acquired 296 AP. Since players earned 5 AP per level, then that was the equivalent of about 59 Levels. In other words, while Felix looked like a Level 21, he actually had the Stats of a Level 59. Adding the Level Suppression into the equation, Felix felt more like a player in the late 40s to the players, explaining how dominated them.

For the past couple of minutes though, Felix did not get attacked. He didn't know whether that was because he had killed all their players in the area, or if they were grouping up to fall on him all at once, but he continued searching anyway.

He had no idea where Isaiah was, so all he could do was wait for Thousand Streams to contact him.

Fortunately, his Communication Token vibrated as Thousand Streams' voice came from the token.

"Good job so far. I should be able to get to you soon. However, someone may manage to reach you before me."

Felix's eyebrows rose as he asked, "For them to warrant a warning from you, should I expect a tough fight?"

Thousand Streams chuckled as he replied, "Ishim, the leader of the Third Division, is coming for you. He also has ten members of the main team with him."

Felix tilted his head at that. A member of the Main Team was supposed to be powerful, as they were the elite of a Guild.

Guilds all had different infrastructures, but the top was generally split as such: Guild Leader, Elders, and Division Leaders.

Because of their numbers, big guilds were often split into several groups, which were spread through the game. For example, not all of Blue Light's 90k plus members were gathered in Fìrma, but instead only the First Division was there. As for the rest of the Guild, they were split among other cities.

After all, while gathering all their players in a single city would allow them to dominate said city, it was far more efficient for a guild of their size to spread around.

Back to the situation at hand, Felix noticed a group coming from the front. As Thousand Streams had said, there were 11 of them, all high leveled, led by a man wearing rare looking equipment.

[Ishim, Level 39, Flame Swordsman]

He was, without question, the highest leveled man Felix had seen since the start of the game. The players following him weren't to be dismissed either as they were all hovering over Level 35.

Felix twirled Skera around his arms as the group stopped around 10 meters from him. Far enough to react to any of his attacks, and close enough to launch a quick attack.

Ishim had a hand securing his sheath and another on his blade's handle as he looked at Felix with cold eyes. He uttered, "Make it quick."

And right as he finished, he suddenly blurred as he leapt toward Felix at great speed, emitting strong Mana as he did.

In an instant, he had arrived before Felix, his sword completely drawn out and revealing itself to be a katana. The silver colored blade was covered with a layer of fire that left an orange trial on the path of the blade.

He was fast, very much so, as he was about as fast as Cailin. His stance was good too, he obviously was an expert swordsman in real life.

However, what should have been a perfect strike to the normal person, looked lackluster to Felix.

Skera moved fluidly to parry the attack as sparks flew all over from the clash between the two blades. Neither of the fighters could follow up with another attack though as Mana moved beneath Felix. Before the Spell could even activate, Felix stepped back, just in time to avoid the dark thorny vines that suddenly burst out of the ground.

What he did not expect, though, was for Ishim to cry out, "Careful, he may have reached the Integration Realm!"

Felix titled his head at the foreign words, and a Runic Circle appeared above him. It looked like it did nothing, but a blade of wind was actually fired from it. Ishim seemed to be the only one to have felt the attack as he cried out a warning, but the mage Felix had been aiming for didn't move fast enough as the spell made a large cut across his chest, sending him to the ground in pain.

This was one enemy neutralized, but this gave the opportunity for several of Blue Light's DPS to surround him.

As four attacks came from different all directions, Felix suddenly picked up the speed as his spear seemed to gain a mind of its own, redirecting Ishim's blade, who was behind him, towards the one on his left, while Felix took a short step towards the one before him, who wielded a giant axe.

Their faces less than ten centimeters from each other, Felix's curious eyes met the fighter's panicked gaze as he tried to stop his swing midway and defend himself, but he only ended up blocking any opening for the fighter on Felix's right.

Felix stabbed his spear towards the feet of the fighter on his right as he stabbed his left hand towards the neck of the fighter in front.

The spear did not make contact with its target, but it forced him back. As for the one in front of Felix, he was far too close to dodge as Felix chopped his hand at his carotid, incapacitating the man long enough for Felix to slip behind him, fully shielding himself from the remaining two fighters and dodging the Spell of the remaining mage.

Then, making a wide swipe with his spear to gather energy, Felix leaped toward the rest of the group while rotating on himself.

His movements were so fast and precise that they looked inhuman as Felix's spear blade hit the axe fighter in the neck, the blade easily cutting through as his head was sent flying, while Felix finished his rotation, once again facing the group of long distance fighters as he landed on his feet.

While it may have sounded like it took a long time to explain, by the time the mage's Spell aiming for Felix, a Dark Bolt, reached his previous position, Felix had already landed before the group, the axe fighter's head flying through the air.

By the time the head of the axe fighter landed on the ground, the physical DPS that had remained with the long distance group was already, and nothing was between Felix and the two Mages, two Archers and the Healer.

The three Felix had left behind tried to chase after him, but a Runic Circle appeared in Felix's back, spitting out a continuous stream of flames that spread wide. This forced Ishim, the fastest of the three, to stop and go around, something that cost him precious time.

Time Felix used to his advantage. One of the Mages and the Healer were essentially harmless, as one had a massive bloody gash on his chest, and the other was busy trying to heal him.

The remaining three did show great team work as one of the archers let go of his bow, rushing at Felix with two daggers in hands while the other already had an arrow nocked. As for the mage, he tapped his staff upward, and it surprisingly stopped and got knocked back, as if it had slammed into something solid.

How the Spell worked, Felix had no idea. However, what he did feel was a wave of Dark Mana washing over him, invading his body as the other two attacks came at him.

To that, Felix snorted in amusement as he mobilized his Mana, easily washing over the Dark Mana in his body while slashing upward with his spear, targeting the archer.

Because of the angle, if the archer tried to dodge, he would put himself in the trajectory of the arrow, forcing him to block. His Strength and Agility were both quite good too it seemed as he managed to block Felix's blow, but this merely allowed him to use the archer as support to slither around him.

The archer was not one to be outdone though as he quickly followed after Felix, blocking the rest of the group with his body.

However, doing so, he failed to notice the Runic Circle that appeared on the ground, and before he knew it, a spike made of rock erected from the ground, piercing through his left leg.

He abruptly stopped his movement as he cried out in pain, but Felix quickly ran past him as another Runic Circle appeared right above the archer, while Felix reached the second archer.

As a fireball exploded on top of the first archer's head, the second one didn't even have the time to draw out his shortsword when Skera pierced through his heart, killing him instantly.

The remaining mage did not manage to stall for long enough as both he and the two others were killed before Ishim and the other two could reach them.

Flicking the blood off his spear, Felix looked at the remaining three and said, "I'm not here for you, so make way, would you?"

Ishim frowned as he looked at the corpses, before he placed a hand at the base of his katana. The flame seemed to do nothing to him as swiped his hand across the entire side of the blade, intensifying the heat of the flames.

The two behind him, one wielding a long sword and the other a large shield and a spear, did their own preparations as their weapons started shining.

Ishim grumbled, "Where the hell did a monster like you come from?"

Felix rested his spear against his shoulder, a stance that seemed full of opening but that would actually allow him to react to any attack, and said, "You were the ones placing that absurd bounty on my head. I must admit to being interested in what you said earlier though. What did you mean by Integration Realm?"

Unfortunately, Ishim did not answer Felix as he instead went directly for the attack. Behind him, the tank released a cry filled with Mana, but Felix did not get himself affected this time as he used his insane Mana Manipulation to form a film of Mana right under his skin.

The tank's skill was turned essentially useless as Ishim arrived before Felix, going for a stab this time. From his movements, it was obvious to Felix that Ishim's Strength and Agility were above his own. However, there still lacked something for him to be a legitimate threat.

Felix once again parried, nonchalantly, as the two started going back and forth. Their weapons blurred out of vision as only a trail of flames and silver flashes could be seen, yet Ishim failed to even nick Felix.

The other two try to come in and help, but not only were they not of any help, they ended up dying to a Spell to the back as they were too focused on Felix.

After a minute of back and forth, Felix and Ishim finally separated as Ishim panted, while Felix barely broke a sweat.

Tapping the tip of his spear against the ground, Felix groaned, "You are just like Euron. You have started tapping into Mana, but you rely too much on Earth's fighting."

Ishim frowned, "What?"

Felix shook his head, adding, "You could make for a good fighter, you are very skilled with the blade. But you need to better understand Mana and how to use it, or you won't ever be able to threaten me. The best you can do is those flames on your blade, but you aren't nearly skilled enough to pull that off by yourself, so… Innate Skill?"

Felix expected the man to get offended, but he instead smiled slightly, his stance dropping a little as he replied, "It is. Any advice on how to improve then?"

Felix felt weirded out by the sudden change in emotions, but he still replied, "Don't just go along with your Skills, try to actually understand them."

Ishim nodded, fully dropping his stance as he took a step towards Felix, and asked, "May I ask, why did you attack us? Was it really because of the bounty?"

Of course it wasn't. However, Felix couldn't tell him the truth as that would ruin the whole plan, so he instead replied, "Well, I can't let people step on my toes and say nothing. Besides, I wanted to see if there was a worthy opponent here. I hope your Guild Leader won't be as much of a disappointment."