Discord Link ~ https://discord.gg/smAesXp
***
"Have you heard of him?"
"Who?"
"You know… the 'guy'," muttered a man geared in some light armor.
The light armored man was talking to another man, who was wearing a chestplate and some arm guards.
"What guy?" asked the man wearing the chestplate.
"Bloody Knight!"
"You mean the person who goes around killing Field Bosses and being bathed by the monsters' blood?"
"Yes!"
The man with the chestplate stopped and looked at the light armored man, "How can I not know about him? After he appeared a month ago, we have been able to quickly enter the room of the floor bosses. I've even heard of stories where he goes in to fight the floor bosses by himself!"
"It's wild!"
…
In just over a month, Sora had made a name for himself rather unknowingly as the Blood Knight. A figure who is alway covered in blood from the monsters he takes down himself. His strength is above any person and his skills are unheard of.
The man himself was currently fighting the 26th floor boss by himself.
Da da da!
Running around the huge centaur warrior with a silver white spear in his hands, Sora shot to the legs of the centaur like a bullet.
Sora thrust the spear that was glowing white forward, piercing through the front leg of the centaur. Following the piercing spear, purple Ki escaped from Sora's spear, quickly moving into the wound and remaining there, keeping the centaur from moving like before.
Boom!
The centaur roared and smashed the greatsword in his hands over to where Sora was. When the dust cleared, the centaur focused to where it sliced down onto, frowning at the fact that there's a dead body missing.
Snikt!
"RAAGHHHH!!"
The huge centaur roared angrily as it used one of it's hands to hold it's bleeding neck. It looked over to the bloody figure that was falling to the ground with bloodshot eyes as it lifted the greatsword and swung it over to the falling figure.
Yet before the greatsword could fall on the falling figure, the figure moved in the sky as if avoiding the greatsword. Like a leaf affected by the wind, gently moving to the side and avoiding whatever it would have touched.
<100 Puppet Warriors>!!
Before Sora landed on the floor, he took out some strings and threw them around the boss room rapidly. Once the balls of thread landed on the floor, 100 puppets rose from the ground without armor and any defining feature to distinguish them.
All the puppets were like mannequins with no armor and only a sword in their hands.
Standing behind all puppets, Sora raised the corner of his mouth into a smirk before hitting the ground with the flat end of the spear onto the ground.
ROOAAR!!
HOOUU!
Two different noises erupted from the boss room as the hundred puppets on Sora's side ran to the centaur who roared at them.
Raising his hands in the air, Sora moved his fingers in an elegant manner whilst swinging his arms from side to side occasionally. The puppet moved along the way Sora controlled them, swiftly evading every AOE attack of the Warrior Centaur.
Quickly, all the puppets moved according to Sora's wishes, making many moves and entrapping the Warrior Centaur in the middle of 100 puppets.
The Warrior Centaur had a scowling face as it's legs were riddled with hundreds of wounds front from the puppets.
ROAR!
Kicking up it's front legs, the Warrior Centaur was prepared to suffer some more wounds in order to kill some puppets.
However, kicking up it's legs had instead sent it to it's doom faster.
Swish!
Lines of purple entered all the puppets, dying them and their Thread Swords in a purple color. Boosted by the purple Ki, all the puppets flashed from their location and performed many powerful moves onto the Warrior Centaur's body.
Puchi!
The body of the Warrior Centaur was split in half, spilling it's guts and blood all over the puppets that were under it.
"That took me an hour," muttered Sora as he walked over to the puppets that were standing still in the middle of the split body of the Warrior Centaur.
Touching one end of the Warrior Centaur, Sora put everything in his inventory, leaving behind only the large weapon of the Warrior Centaur.
[Titan Centaur Greatsword]
Sora smiled and put it in his inventory.
"I got a new and nice material to make some armors and weapons," muttered Sora as he took back the thread, making the eerie puppets disappear.
Sora had frequently used his Puppet Master Skill alot lately, knowing that it's increasing the nimbleness of his fingers and his control over things.
'I should head back to the first floor now,' thought Sora as he headed for the door next to the stairs in the boss room.
…
On his way to [Myriad Paths], Sora passed by floor 10, where he can gather some ingredients for some meals.
He had already gone and collected quite a bit and is only missing one more ingredient.
'Where are you Hornet Queen?'
Brandishing his spear, Sora walked quickly through the snowy forest.
The Hornet Queen is a Field Boss that appears on the 10th floor, dropping some very delicious honey and deadly poison.
However, just as Sora was about to make it to the area where the Hornet Queen usually appears, Sora heard a scream for help from deeper in the snowy forest. A call for help which Sora took the chance to listen to carefully.
"Heelp!"
Sora quickly ran to the location of the voice as he analyzed the voice in an instant.
'A girl… 17… a good voice for singing… must be using a dagger…'
Sora quickly appeared at where he heard the call for help and instantly smile seeing his prey over here hunting a young woman.
"Haha! You stupid hornet!"
Jumping into the sky, Sora's spear glowed red and was covering in a soft glow of his purple Ki.
Stabbing forward, Sora's spear had gone forward and pierced through the air. Whilst it looked like Sora had completely missed, the purple Ki had rained down onto the Hornet Queen.
The Hornet Queen didn't have time to yell out in pain nor to welcome the uninvited guest before perishing under the purple Ki.
CLANK!
"Huh?"
The girl who had called for help raised her head at the sound of something hitting armor. Her eyes didn't last long on the red armored person before she began glancing around nervously.
"Where's the Hornet Queen?" asked the girl nervously.
"Dead," said Sora looking at the large amount of honey and poison he got.
"That's impossible," said the girl, turning to Sora as if he was crazy.
She had been fighting the Hornet Queen for the past 3 hours in hope of bringing it down. However, right when she was going to land the killing blow, she had been dealt a fatal strike which she healed with the last Healing Crystal she had.
However, right when she was going to continue fighting the Hornet Queen, she noticed the Hornet Queen quickly regaining her health by eating the tree leaves.
Thinking quickly, the girl had run from the fight and looked for a good place to lead the Hornet Queen into a trap. If things went to plan, she would have been able to kill the Hornet Queen after an hour whilst the Hornet Queen was trapped, unable to fight back.
The call for help she did was just a precautionary in case the trap didn't work.
'There's no way he one shot killed the Hornet Queen who had recovered it's health,' thought the girl as she looked at Sora with some caution.
"Believe what you wish," said Sora before waving his hand and leaving with a smile.
So what if she didn't believe, it's not like his life was at stake. Sora decided to not bother with the girl anymore, not deeming it worthy to waste his time on explaining something so trivial to him.
"W-wait!"
The girl quickly tried to stop Sora by running up to him and grabbing his arm.
"Hm?"
Successfully stopping Sora, the girl pulled back her arm and pointed right at Sora's face.
"If you really killed the Hornet Queen, then hand over two vials of Hornet Queen Poison," said the girl in a demanding voice. She stood there with her hand out, looked right at Sora's helmet.
"..."
The awkward silence began to creep into the girl as she began to shrink back, feeling as if Sora was glaring at her through his helmet. Feeling tense, the girl quietly spoke out in a quivering voice, "... please~..."
"... No." Sora turned around and continued to walk to the nearest town. Right when he was ten feet away from the girl, Sora stopped, "After seeing your low-grade equipment, high level, need for Hornet Queen's Poison, and recklessness in fighting alone against the Hornet Queen with no real skill- you must be power leveling and attempting to fight against this floor's boss and poisoning it with the Hornet Queen's Poison."
"What? How'd you find out from just that?!"
Taking a couple of steps back from shock, the girl looked at Sora with some interest after hearing him. From just a simple observation and little to almost no evidence, he had already figured that she was power leveling and planning to fight against the tenth floor's boss.
"Enough of that, this strategy will only work on this floor, and I'm sure you would find a way to defeat the boss by yourself, but the Hornet Queen's Poison won't work on the tenth floor's boss.
This strategy also won't work after the tenth floor if you don't increase your skills and experience. Try going under a hidden master, or go to a dojo, I'm sure you will learn something amazing," said Sora, sending the girl one last look before walking away.
"My skills… and experience?"
The girl stood there quietly, letting the snowflakes fall on her head softly. She stayed there for some seconds, thinking hard about what Sora said.
'Experiences… does he mean experiencing more fights?'
Blinking her eyes, the girl realized that Sora had disappeared and got flustered.
"Where'd he go?!"
Quickly running off to where she had last seen Sora go, the girl quickly ran in a straight line, eventually making it out of the forest.
'Where was he headed?'
Looking around after leaving the forest, the girl tried looking for Sora's figure. However, the only thing she could see was a town not that far away from her.
'Wait! A town? Maybe he went there!'
The girl ran all the way to the town, searching for Sora in every corner of the town. However, with no luck, the girl did not find Sora in any part of the town.
"I'll get stronger! If I do that, I will eventually find him and I will have him train me," muttered the girl as she clenched her fists and held tightly onto the dagger on her waist. "For now, I will listen to him and train my skills."
The girl had given up on the tenth floor boss and trained her dagger skills on some low level monsters. She took breaks and spoke with her best friend and the info-broker Argo, looking for any good hidden master or dojo.
"There's a good dojo out on the first floor. Where the Inhuman Swordmasters came from," whispered Argo, with her hood over her head. 'I'll be going here soon too. I need to protect myself during these types of situations after all...'
Amazed by Argo's words, the girl excitedly asked, keeping her vision away from Argo, "What's the name of this dojo?"
"Eh-hem!"
Argo coughed, signaling the girl to come closer to hear the name of the dojo.
"[Myriad Paths]..."
'[Myriad Paths]? I've never heard of it during my entire time in the first floor. I traveled to each popular city and never heard of this place,' the girl frowned after hearing Argo.
The girl had spent over 5 months on the first floor because her friend asked her to stay behind and out of danger. However, her adventurous side and her resolve to clear Aincrad couldn't keep her on the first floor anymore.
"It's in Dragon City," continued Argo. "I have one more piece of information if you want to pay for it."
"Let me hear it," the girl lightly said after dropping a little pouch on the floor and lightly kicking it over to Argo subtly.
Argo picked up the pouch and stuffed it in her cloak before speaking, "The owner and master of [Myriad Paths] is a player. Meaning, that he was the one to teach the monstrous little kids who are leading the frontlines."
"Thank you for the information."
The girl stood up and was about to leave before hearing Argo's last piece of information.
"This info is just my thoughts and cautiousness, but be careful with [Myriad Paths] master. With his amount of strength and skill, his personality might not be the greatest, nor his appearance. No one has ever seen his face, and whoever has, whenever asked just look run away with red faces."