“That must be the boss of this event.” The players whispered among themselves.
“That HP amount is scary…”
“His HP is a lot if this were one-versus-one, but we have a thousand players here!”
“That’s right. Killing him will be easy, but getting the final hit on the boss will be the difficult part!”
Most of the players had the same thought of greed—getting the final hit—a common term used in video games. Whoever got the final hit on the boss, which meant delivering the final blow to the boss and eventually killing him, would receive the greatest reward.
However, since it was the boss, not only the person killing him would receive rewards. Even though others weren’t part of the same party, the ones participating in fighting the boss would share the rewards.
The players with the highest damage dealt would receive the greatest rewards, and since there were thousands of players, most of them wouldn’t receive anything if they didn’t get a single damage dealt.
The players greedily looked at Karma as if he were nothing but a bag of experience points and rare treasures.
“What should we do, boss?” Worshipper, a member of Prince’s party, asked.
Prince stood on the frontlines of the players army. He was holding a white napkin and wiping the dirt off his face.
After hearing the question, he pocketed the napkin and unsheathed his sword. “Attack and try not to die.”
“That’s it?” Worshipper asked with a brief shock on his face.
“This will be a messy battle. This street is far too narrow for a large scale fight, and since there are thousands of players wishing for the final hit, we need to get close to the boss immediately.”
“I understand.” Worshipper nodded and unsheathed his longsword. The steel blade glowed in the sunlight.
A player who was only a short distance away from Prince heard his plan.
‘I need to get close too. My agility is not great, so players could overtake me and reach the boss first. The boss has a lot of health, but when hundreds of players attack him simultaneously, that HP becomes very little.
‘Therefore, I need a head start!’
The player looked at the dark-cloaked man and pulled out his steel shortsword. He glanced left and right before shooting forward. All the other players weren’t prepared, and it took about a second for them to realize what had just happened.
“Shit, go!” Prince shouted and ran forward, with his party following suit. After that, all the players screamed and began running wildly forward.
Shoulders bumped, players were knocked down, and swinging swords accidentally cut players near them. It was absolute chaos.
“A chaos, feast for the eyes.” Karma chuckled and opened both his palms. A small black feather appeared on both palms before it turned into small crows, just barely the size of a nail.
He then tossed them into the air, and those miniature crows turned regular sized. The crows screeched menacingly and flew towards the incoming players.
The players gasped, and many stopped in their tracks. They still had vivid memories of the information. They knew if they got even a small scratch, they would die.
However, the player in front only screamed and didn’t stop running as he saw himself leading the pack. At that moment, the crows appeared in front of him and attacked him from all sides.
The players screams were soon subdued by the sound of a large number of crows flocking around him with their wings flapping. Soon, only pixels remained, and the player was nowhere to be seen.
“L-Leader.” MysticKnight glanced at Prince and saw him only running straight towards crows. She gulped and clenched her spear tighter. She was a blue-eyed woman with rather exotic orange hair and a bronze complexion.
“Just keep running.” Prince said sternly and tightened his grip on the sword.
Then, hundreds of players crashed into the crowd of crows and all began swinging their weapons wildly without caring if they struck fellow players.
Arrows swooshed over the players heads and shot crows down from the sky.
Several players used different-looking weapons than most were used to. They were Unique players. Some had one-handed axes, knives, and daggers, while a rare few used blunt weapons such as hammers.
The Unique playerbase was the smallest out of the five. It was because not many wanted a handicap so early in the game, but there were still a number of players who thought they would have an advantage later in the game.
The weapon stores sold all sorts of weapons because of Unique class; therefore, they could use any weapon they wished and also go for any style they wanted to.
Martial Company hinted a month ago, before the game was released, that the Unique class was the most versatile and content-packed class in the game. The players wondered what they meant by that.
But one thing was clear: Unique class had secrets that were yet to be discovered.
The crows died at a blazing rate while players after players got scratches somewhere on their bodies. However, the crows couldn’t finish them off, so players soon overwhelmed the crows and finished them all off.
The players felt dread when looking at the scratches, but the scratches were magically recovered. Their eyes widened in realization. If they killed crows, the Black Smoke of Verhan wouldn’t be a threat.
And now that they had killed all the crows in the vicinity, the scratches weren’t deadly to them!
They all heaved a sigh of relief and turned their anger towards the dark-cloaked man, who was still casually standing as if nothing was bothering him.
“Haaa, the kill is mine!” A player lunged forward, wielding a blunt wooden hammer. It looked bigger than an ordinary hammer and even bigger than a sledgehammer. Its hammer was square-shaped, the shaft was a meter long, and it looked like it could deliver a crazy amount of damage.
“Haaaaa!” The player swung the hammer above his head and smashed it down with burning rage. The hammer approached Karma, and everyone was clear that if this attack landed, his head would explode.
The archers hurriedly pulled their bowstrings and shot their arrows. They also wanted damage dealt before the Dark Magician got defeated.
“Heh.” Karma grinned hideously and put his hand forward. The hammer smashed into his palm, and the ground cracked before exploding. A dust cloud appeared all around the Dark Magician and hammer-wielding player.
The players stopped in their tracks and groaned in disappointment.
“Already defeated? God damn it!”
“That guy killed the boss single-handedly? His rewards must be enormous; shit, I am jealous!”
However, Prince, Barbarian, and every other experienced player stood their ground with weapons in ready position.
At last, the dust cloud was cleared away by the wind.
The sight players expected didn’t happen.
Instead, Karma was effortlessly holding the hammer with his palm. The hammer-wielding player stood blankly on the ground. Both of his arms were missing, as they were still holding the hammer.
The player stumbled backward, looked at his armless torso, and screamed hoarsely. 𝑜𝓋𝒩xt.𝒞𝑂𝗆
“You players are so fragile.” Karma chuckled and grabbed the hammer’s shaft. He looked at the two hands that were still wrapped tightly around the shaft. He then tossed them away and took the hammer for himself.
“This is how you do it…” Karma swung the hammer over his shoulder and then smashed it into the player’s face. The player’s face exploded in a shower of blue blood. Its headless and armless torso fell to the ground and soon turned into pixels.
The players looked blankly at the scene. No one dared to move.