The red mage was fuming angrily even as he blasted a sneaking summoned with a fire ball. The damned idiots were cautious and only launched ranged and sneak attacks at them. He was infuriated that he was party crashed when he was the one who intended to do the party crashing.
He was just about to turn his head when he saw a grinning muan, seemingly popped out of thin air jump right in his direction and skillfully threw a fire slash!
The two men guarding his front were immediately assaulted by the flames which were aimed straight to their faces. They screamed as they went down while rolling on the floor to put out the flames but were instantly silenced by numerous arrows from the surrounding players.
Rastel fearlessly charged the retreating enemy as he dodged and deflected arrows from the men surrounding the mage and the warrior. Seeing him leading the charge, the surrounding players rallied behind him to charge at the men.
"DAMN YOU MONKEY! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!!" the mage screamed as he threw one fireball after the other at the face of his hated enemy.
Rastel casually blocked them with earth walls and water shields as he now slowly but surely advanced. The mage was level 10, same level as Rastel and was obviously a fire mage. Although he was confident in taking down someone of the same level, he was still wary of any hidden moves the red mage might have as he had not seen him use any other moves apart from the fire ball.
And as if the mage had read his mind, he suddenly clapped his hands together before slowly pulling them apart as a huge wall of flame suddenly appeared before him. It was definitely not a basic spell as the approaching players felt the blistering heat radiating from the fire wall as they halted in shock!
It was as tall as the average person and about 2 meters wide as the mage waved his hand and had it barrel towards them.
Sensing the danger, the group of players immediately scattered without any thought of coordination whatsoever. They ran behind the surrounding tress as the fire wall brushed past the foliage setting more light to the steadily growing forest fire that was rising.
Rastel was more decisive as he used as earth pillar to blast him off the ground as he leaped over the fire wall. Earth pillar was one of his favorite basic spells as he could freely manipulate the spell based on where he wanted it to appear but only within a limited radius. He had taken the idea off Armanda after watching her PvP battle.
He landed gracefully on the ground and dashed towards the retreating men who had taken the cover of the fire wall to break into a small run. They were seven in total, 5 grunts together with the mage and warrior who was covering their backs with his huge shield. He looked shocked when he saw rastel go over the wall and head towards their direction. After a while of thought, he decided that rastel was a threat too big to ignore and put his shield down in front of him and drew his sword to take him out.
The mage did not even pause to wait for him, this was what he hired him for anyway. He had to run back to base quickly and secure the noble girl before making his early departure.
Rastel on the other hand could not afford to wait and deal with the big warrior. He had a shield so his defenses were going to be tough to break through. He had already noticed the other players far behind him moving in this direction, they were still hoping to grab onto a top tier drop like a magic weapon.
He quickly scaled a tree as he decided to continue the chase up there while circling the warrior. The warrior seeing this was irritated but calmly hefted his huge shield as he turned to the passing muan and threw it!
WOOSH!
CLANG!
Rastel narrowly dodged the shield by swinging down to a lower branch as it hit the tree trunk that was directly behind where his head was supposed to be. The tree shuddered violently making him stumble on the lower branch he was on and almost fell.
He stared in shock as the shield rebounded off the trunk straight into the hands of the already charging warrior who skillfully snatched it with his left hand from the air while his right hand brandished his sword. It was a skill! The man was as expected a shield warrior, aka Tank to players.
The shield warrior stared at rastel ferociously as he slashed down at him on the low branch he stood on. Rastel evaded by quickly jumping to a higher branch where he shot down a fire ball at his assailant. The warrior just lifted up his shield which glowed with a faint dull light as he easily blocked the fire ball.
'Damn these tanks and their defensive skills!' rastel cursed in his mind as he tried to get away from the troublesome opponent, the man just threw his shield again.
CRACK!
CLANG!
Rastel had to dodge by making a couple of clumsy movements as it snapped a thick branch in two and bounced off the tree's trunk to return back to its owner. He shook his head lightly as he tried to stop his head from ringing with the vibration caused by the tree shaking violently.
The warrior approached again and this time, rastel decided to take him on. Their exchange only lasted a few seconds but he could see that the retreating mage had already put quite some distance in. he would be hard to catch up too. The few advancing players were still some distance away and knowing the player level around here averaged around 5, he had no expectations for sufficient support from them. The man was also level 13, significantly stronger than rastel himself who was just level 10!
But he didn't feel outclassed in firepower, he even felt confident. His golems had incredible raw power and damage abilities and he had a total of 4 in his inventory excluding the small golem and Amba who he wasn't sure if he could even count on his help. The golem seemed really pissed at him then and wouldn't even give him face.
The fourth golem was an ordinary looking one that resembled a traditional golem. Rastel wanted at least one like this as he didn't want to be using the hulking hammer golems all the time. He brought out the golem figure from his inventory and held it in his hand as he dashed towards the warrior, he wanted to finish the fight quickly as he didn't want the existence of his golems to be known this early. Golems were too unique of an existence and it would draw him unnecessary attention and problems as he had no backing in game.
The area where he was fighting the warrior was far from the initial battlefield and there was no hovering light to illuminate the place. The warrior seeing rastel charge at him was puzzled to the point of letting out a grunt as he also increased his pace. What kind of mage charges a skilled shield warrior? Is he that desperate?
The warrior felt ready though, whatever the muan was planning, he was sure to be able to counter it. Rastel launched a fire slash as he knew the warrior would be able to effectively block the skill. As the warrior raised his shield up to block, rastel used an earth pillar to launch him up into the air as he flipped above the man and clamped his head in a tight grip with his legs.
The warrior grunted as he instinctively dropped his shield to grab at rastel to free his choking neck. Rastel on the other hand grimly locked tightly as he activated lightning blast and gave the man two hard punches on his forehead!
THUMP!
THUMP!
The warrior was now feeling angered as he decisively swiped his sword towards his head! Rastel was expecting such a move as he flipped off the man's head trying to land in front of him to launch a decisive attack. The shield warrior was quick to react though and lashed out with his free hand as the back of his hand caught rastel in the stomach with a stunning blow!
BAM!
Rastel tumbled back a little as he coughed and wheezed desperately trying to catch his breath. The man was also still stunned by the lightning attacks as he held his head in his hand while trying to recover. He quickly shook off the attack as he slashed his sword towards the still bowed rastel.
Noticing his recovery, rastel quickly waved his hand as he formed a water shield to block the incoming attack. The sword sliced through the shield as it visibly slowed down while rastel took the time recover quick enough to jump backwards as the sword cut through the water shield and swiped viciously at his former position.
Rastel instantly launched two earth pillars which the man smashed to pieces with two swipes of his sword. Not bothering with his shield anymore, he moved towards rastel with his sword held high as he went in for the kill.
Rastel took two large strides towards the man as he used an earth pillar to send him into the air once more. The warrior noticing the attack suddenly dropped low and rolled to dodge the attack he found troublesome. He stayed low as he turned around to swipe his sword behind him where he expected the muan to land.
Rastel seeing the move quickly summoned his blade from the inventory and dived down headfirst towards the sword. He was not launched very high as he quickly performed the set of actions, gripping his blade with two hands and trying to use it to parry the warrior's attacks so he wouldn't get cut into two.
CLANG!!!
A loud ringing sound cried out as the two blades met and rastel was flung sideways by the power sent into the blow. The man felt rattled for a bit as he quickly adjusted his position and stood up. He was just about to charge and finish the downed muan when he noticed something very weird.
Hmmm it was very weird indeed…...
No… No… No… this couldn't be possible right?
"What the fuck!!?" he bellowed staring at his sword wide eyed!
Rastel stood up slowly as he looked at the man's sword and chuckled. It had a huge chunk at the middle straight towards the center sliced off! It looked like a blacksmith had wanted to fit the sword with teeth and had decided to stop after making a single cut out! It seemed like what the immortal had said about the blade been able to cut into most things was true.
The man was still staring in shock when he saw rastel chuckling at him. He was about to angrily charge at him for ruining his priced weapon when he suddenly heard a rumble and heavy steps echo behind him. He turned around just quickly enough to see the giant fist that smashed squarely into his face knocking him out immediately.
Rastel chuckled as he neared the man and collected his golem piece with a wave of his hand. He wanted to end the battle quickly so he decided to distract the man by facing him while he set up the golem to finish him off quickly. He had deactivated the golem as soon as he dealt the blow as their little skirmish took about 2 minutes and the other players now seemed near enough to notice their situation.
His Hp was down by a few percent but he could still fight. He took the warrior's shield into his inventory as his spoils of war and left the sword there as it was already useless. He also searched the man where he found a bit more than a thousand kryts which he very happily put into his inventory.
"This man opens his mouth for the first time and all that comes out is a curse?" rastel chuckled to himself as he held his chest while casting Insta heal to stabilize his injuries.
Seeing the players getting closer, he left the man for them to deal with as he took off after the mage. Age of Magic didn't reward exp for killing NPC's, it was a mechanism set in place to prevent players from engaging in mass murder. The main way of getting exp was still quests and hunting down beasts or demons.
He took off into the trees as he felt he would be faster that way and might stop the enemy from noticing him too early. The mage had made good distance and rastel still couldn't see him until the village walls were within sight. He noticed a lot of noise near the forest boundary as the mage and the remaining five men burst into the clearing while running straight for the village. Straight ahead of them, there was a trio of players who noticed them and were heading to their direction. Not sure of what might occur if they met, he immediately quickened his pace as he also burst out of the trees!
The red mage was tired of running continuously through the forest. He had noticed three people that looked like adventurers in front of him but didn't care much for them, he would just take them down if they tried to block his path. He was just thinking about how he'll escape when he heard a loud voice behind him.
"Hey! Wait up for a bit let's talk for a while!"
'Shit!!!!' he recognized that voice. Turning back, he was shocked to see the muan running quickly towards him.
Even though he knew that the muan had somehow taken down the elf, he had guessed that maybe some trickery or slip up on her part was involved if not it didn't sound feasible. But now that it seemed that he had taken down the sturdier and more capable warrior this time, he was shocked!
'Fuck! Damn these summoned!' it was obvious that the muan was significantly stronger than when they had first met. Back then, the muan couldn't even match his mana output with a fire ball but now it seemed the muan could kill people stronger than him all in a few days!
Although he had become a mage a few years ago and was still young, he was always busy working for the organization and never had much time to practice and study more magic. He felt he had wasted the past few years of his life.
Looking for a chance to escape, he looked at the adventurers coming towards him as his eyes brightened up with a plan.
"Mighty adventurers! Save me! There is an evil man after my life! I will pay you a thousand kryts each!" he cried at them.
The three adventurers who were all men were taken aback before they suddenly smiled back enthusiastically as the one in front replied.
"Don't worry fellow citizen, we will protect you!" and then they rushed passed him towards the inwardly groaning and face palming Rastel.
"Kahahahaha! Fools!" the red mage chuckled darkly to himself as he ran off.
AshSword was a warrior who led his team of friends which consisted of a cleric and mage. They had been one of the few late people to hear of the commotion going on in the forest so they had decided to give up on it. They were just about to go out and raid a cave that housed a pack of wolves when they saw an NPC dressed in mage robes with 5 men around him rushing out of the forest.
Deciding to check out the situation as they thought it might be related to the incident ongoing right now, they hurried towards him. They were soon surprised to see a muan player jump out of the trees and yell for the NPC to stop and chat.
The NPC seemed frightened of the player before he looked towards them and suddenly yelled.
"Mighty adventurers! Save me! There is an evil man after my life! I will pay you a thousand kryts each!"
Suddenly, a quest notice popped up in front of them at the end of his words.
New quest!
Save the mage! - Rank C
A fleeing young mage has requested you to save his life from his assailant. Help him by defeating his assailant or preventing him from reaching the mage.
Reward: 300exp, 1000kryts
The quest notice ranked it C and they were surprised because Ashsword himself was level 6 while his two team mates were both level 5, they were at relatively high levels for a beginner village and the enemy was just one player! It should be a D rank mission if normal logic was followed. What is the level of this player?
They couldn't see his level as the player had hid his information but they still smiled as Ashsword replied the mage.
"Don't worry fellow citizen, we will protect you!"
They then proceed to rush towards the incoming player with glee. No matter what, a C rank mission should not be something they couldn't pass or it would be a shame to them! Even though it was one player, they set up the formation of warrior in the front, mage in the middle and cleric at the back to face off the player.
"Hey bro, you don't mind just waiting here for a few minutes now do you?' Ashwood said with a smile as he levelled a long blade towards the player to threaten him.
The muan had stopped in front of them for a while looking as though he was confused on what to do. Seeing this, the team was at ease. This mission was going to be a piece of cake after all!
Then the muan abruptly dashed towards them which left them startled! The mage yelled as he conjured up a fireball.
"Hey! Stop right there! I said st – URGHK!!!"
20 seconds later, a battered Ashwood looked through half swollen eyes at the quickly departing muan from his position on the ground with the rest of his team.
"How is this even possible!?" he cried silently.