Chapter 28 - Rumi

As the winner was declared, the barrier was removed and hurriedly, Bloodletter jumped right in. Yohan readied his blades, thinking that the woman will attack him but instead, she went towards Breaker with worry on her face.

"Hey! Breaker…" She lifted her lying comrade to her lap and felt his beating heart by putting her ears down beside it. Knowing that he's alive, her worries subsided with a deep sigh. A healing light travelled from a tree and later, Breaker was revitalized. "Gasp—! Thank you for worrying…" He smiled a little.

"We're partners… Of course I will be…"

"I know… so do your part now."

She got up as Breaker also started getting up weakly.

"Hey! It's my turn now." She yelled to Yohan and he answered without looking back while he headed to his friends after being healed too. "Okay, wait."

Yuuki and Rumi looked at each other and he said, "Hey, your turn. They really are pissed now."

"Yeah, yeah… I know. I'm not gonna lose that easily, you know?"

Yohan also spoke as he approached them. "Nah, I think you're gonna get a beating for this one."

"Do you guys not trust me?" Rumi smiled confidently but the two just looked at each other briefly and answered in unison. "Hell no."

"Hmph...! Whatever, I'll go and win too! Just see!" She immediately walked up to the platform and jumped up. Breaker is now away from the platform as Bloodletter helped him out and she swiftly went back after doing so.

With contempt on her face, she spoke to Rumi. "I will destroy you, that's the last thing I could do after us being humiliated like this."

"Eh…?! I don't care, I won't let myself be defeated so easily. I'm gonna destroy you too." She smiles and proceeds to ready her staff and started powering it with magic.

"The leader's right, you outsiders rely on items a lot..." A long red whip then formed from Bloodletter's right hand.

"Huh…? What are you talking about?"

"Enough talk." The barrier was then formed and she began advancing. She lashed her whip forward and Rumi aimed at it with her staff.

"[Water Blade]!" A water projectile shot out which them clashed with the whip, destroying the part that it came in contact with. As it was destroyed, Rumi realized that it was made out of blood. "What!?" She exclaimed in her head.

She began to shoot some more and focused the aim of her staff forward as she retreated slowly.

"[Water Blade]! [Water Blade]! [Water Blade]!!!"

This barrage of attacks took quite a bit of her mana but she's determined, she wouldn't be defeated so easily. She need to put up at least a decent fight compared to the previous two. She glanced to the side and saw them watching her carefully. She cannot afford to lose.

However, Bloodletter just replied with faster strikes of her blood whip forward. The blasted parts of the whip also joined in on the attack, as Bloodletter manipulated them to become very small projectiles.

Due to Rumi's Crude Mana Control, her ability to learn new spells is limited, but her having created these spells that she uses is already a very commendable thing. But as of the moment, she only know three spells.

"[Water Barrier]!" She slammed the tip of her staff onto the floor and water rose up to form a spherical barrier around her. Sadly though, not every projectile were blocked in time and some managed to pierce her body, causing her to bleed bit by bit.

"Shit…" She grinded her teeth because of worry, not out of pain, as she felt not much or no pain at all because of her simply sending her consciousness to the game world using a full-dive VR technology. Despite it transferring her five senses, into the game, the settings regarding pain in the game is extremely toned down by default but not nonexistent, just like 90% of games in the VR market.

However, this settings cannot be changed by individual players in their settings. The only people who would even feel pain in such an absurdly low pain sensitivity setting are only those with such a low pain tolerance. Ultimately however, the pain they'll be feeling are nothing else but illusions in their subconsciousness and won't ever result in any harmful or negative consequences to their real body, as tested tens of times by many institutions.

Bloodletter finally closed the distance and she coats her right fist with her own blood taken from the visibly small bleedings all over her body that can be seen through the robe and her dark clothing. She embedded her fist into the water barrier with a loud thud and slowly, she began piercing through it.

Due to her Mana Control being ridiculously bad, Rumi cannot cast another spell while focusing her mana on maintaining this barrier, so after waiting for a chance, she deactivated the barrier and slipped to the side. Halting her momentum, she casted another.

"[Water Blade]—!" But as she cast her spell, her HP plummeted down suddenly from almost full to less than half. [Health: 296/671]

Out of shock, her thoughts stopped. Even though she is just controlling a virtual avatar, she felt her body getting weak so suddenly. With her eyes wide opened, she looked down and to her horror, bigger wounds are appearing on her body, losing blood steadily as the wounds slowly opens up even more, staining her robe too.

"You really are weak, just as Breaker expected..." Bloodletter said with disgust as she walked forward. You guys dared humiliate my seniors and have them reprimanded, furthermore, harming Breaker to such degree… I won't forgive this!

"Damn Blood Magic…!" Rumi whispered to herself.

She neared Rumi and was about to bring down her whip after raising her hand when the latter had cast her most powerful skill, "[Tidal Surge]!" After shouting her skill, extremely large amounts of water suddenly rushed out from around Rumi, drowning the vicinity in an instant like a tsunami.

Splash—!

An expression of shock immediately appeared on the former's face as she jumped away in a hurry. "Shit!"

As most of the blood were washed away when Rumi had cast this, Bloodletter have no way to attack her unlike before. But before she had landed, Rumi had aimed her staff towards her. "[Water Blade]…!" Rumi had cast five of them in quick succession since she can afford it, after all, her mana pool is rather large thanks to the equipment that she's wearing, greatly boosting her magic potency, mana capacity and its regeneration.

[Mana: 458/1,408] But after the [Tidal Surge] and the five [Water Blade], she is now near to emptying out on mana.

Unfortunately though, those skills never struck Bloodletter as she had formed a barrier of her own blood around herself.

"Dammit!" Rumi was about to aim her staff forward once more when she felt something unbelievably fast struck her on the abdomen. A sense of despair appeared on her eyes thereafter with blood coming out of her mouth, as she witness her blood gushing out from her abdomen. "What…? Oh no…"

"Enough play," Bloodletter's ominous tone rang out.

A long spear made of blood had pierced Rumi from the front all the way to her back through her abdoment with said spear extending from Bloodletter's right hand.

After she dispelled the blood spear, Rumi fells on the hard ground face first, and Bloodletter began approaching her.

"You're weak, unlike your companions…" She then concentrated a large amount of her and Rumi's blood at a single point on her palm and aiming it at Rumi. All with anger written all over her face.

Witnessing this, the two screamed in anger.

"Rumi!"

"Hey! The fuck are you doing?!"

They are of course worried about Rumi, if she is killed now, that's one less of her seven revive chance, although none had yet discovered the full mechanics of this mechanic, they wouldn't want one of their companions to lose one in the very first floor of the game out of the two hundred of them.

But before she fired it, she was struck by an invisible force, sending her away forcefully to crash at the barrier on the far end of the dueling platform.

The Moderator's annoyed voice is then heard by all of them present there. "Didn't I told you guys? Killing will be strictly prohibited now."