Joe continued into the forest with a tactical overlay on his hud of where and how to hit for the biggest impact and movements needed to be taken, with any animal or beast display markers displayed on the hud within 30 meters of him as well as on the radar, being quite lucky that only animals are in the vicinity, not beasts.
Joe gripped the longsword with both hands and swung it about in the air so that he could get a feel for the weapon, the lightness enchantment making the semi-heavy weapon light enough for him to handle efficiently, Joe continuously made practice swings at all sorts of different angles and positions to get a feel for how the sword handled and to find better ways to hold and use it while trying to make his moves smooth and continuous, obvious to anyone that has had a lot of practice at a sword that he is still new to using one but would be happy enough learning that he was at that level after only 5 minutes of practice and following how the blade wants to move.
The earthen smell of the forest was pleasant for Joe who used to spend most of his time in a town or city on earth, the air here being fresh. Joe was soon alerted to two beasts coming his way and judging from the fact their markers were quite faint red that they were probably giant rats, and seconds later they were upon him with his AAP (Attack avoidance protocol) saving him from getting hit moving his body to an 's' shape avoid them, as they both turned around, the tactical overlay on his hud already located their vitals and weak spots.
'mental command: activate swift step' Joe thought, immediately getting a boost in speed, as he rushed at the giant rats that were still turning around, before solidly planting his foot into the ground right in front of one of the rats and bringing the longsword under and through almost like cricket but with a form better for wielding a sword. The sword effortlessly cut through the softer underside of the rat's neck with just enough force from all the extra movement and sharpness to kill the rat outright the level 2 rat flew back a meter or two as a damage number floated above the body.
[101 critical strike! vital strike!]
{20 exp received.}
Joe knew that that notification meant that the rat that he just hit was dead, so he ignored the contents itself for now, immediately turning to the other rat that was making a leap toward him. swivelling on the foot Joe just planted he focused so that his mana 'shield' appeared parallel to his arm, the giant rat that was in mid-air had no way to avoid ramming into the 'shield' slamming into it at full force, glancing off the side, conserving the momentum of the previous strike with the sword behind him from the swivel, Joe brought the sword over and down, the tactical display guiding him to between several vertebrae on its back, with the extra force and sharpness causing the sound of bone cracking as a damage number appeared above its body.
[-43 critical strike!]
The rat now slowed due to the split in its spine, squealed in pain as Joe pulled the sword back and began to do a sweeping downward strike, however, this gave the rat just enough time to scramble out of the sword's range, the swing missed as the sword continued to ark round, so to not waste the momentum of the sword Joe turned around and leaping in the direction that the rat went in, aided by the force of the blade made a giant stab and following the tactical overlay to hit slanted in an area just below the ribcage that had been torn open from the last attack.
[-58 vital strike!]
{20 exp recived}
Only after hearing that final notification and seeing that there were no other beasts around on his radar did Joe lat up a bit and temporarily placed his summoned weapon in a holder on his back, as he saw for the first time the giant rats turn into white light and leaving behind a few coppers each. He quickly went to pick them up and then moved on quickly as the smell of blood lingered in the air.
Checking back he saw that the levels of both the giant rats were level 2, and he took them both of them down in less than 10 seconds, especially with the fact that he was still only level 1. Not that Joe was going to overestimate himself here as he knew that there was still a lot of work to be done, but the bit that pleased him was that his system, abilities and enchants actual worked as he wanted them to, but the purpose of his expedition wasn't to test out his sword skills that he knew were most defiantly lacking, but his spells, primarily magic missiles as he has an intended effect for them to be a decent enough damaging spell, he would be happy for them to only do between 50 and 100 damage and function with a shotgun type effect but has no idea how the purity of his mana will affect them with that being why he wanted to test them out.
Joe continued in the direction that the wolfs were in still with the aid of swift step as unlike other people, his skills and abilities didn't have a cooldown so only using 1 ability put would put a minimal drain onto the Burst mana store so could be left on for now. As he got to within 200 meters of where the wolf pack reached out, he used 'swift step' and the movement boost that it provided to make his way up into the trees that were nearby. Joe was correct in overestimating the amount of wolfs as it turned out that there were only 67 of them but dam was that a large number of wolves and realistically more than he thought that he could handle but Joe wanted to check the stats just to be sure.
'mental command: mass inspect properties' Joe thought while targeting the wolfs,
{species: dire wolf
level range 14-17
level 14; 16
level 15; 41
level 16; 7
level 17; 3
average health: 15,642
average Strength: 50
average Agility: 35
average Dexterity: 25
average Intelligence: 18
average Endurance: 27
average Vitality: 52
Strengths:
claws, thick skulls, thick hide.
weaknesses:
stomach, neck, fire}
Seeing this, Joe immediately had second thoughts as wiping out this group you should at least be level 15 - 20 with a whole party with you, However, there was a small voice in the back of his head saying that his mana has the purity to rival gods and that it is way more powerful than any other 'mortals'. Remember what happened to that guy's arm, like that but to a much higher extent. That he designed magic missiles to be more or less like a frag grenade, think about what would happen if the power of that was increased 100 fold, and he certainly knew that it was possible as he could feel the highly energetic mana flowing through his body. And after deciding to go through with the test, Joe got ready to cast magic missiles, casting invisibility on himself as a precaution.
'mental command: cast magic missiles, hold fire' and with that, some of the mana moving at immense velocities within Joe's body moved into to area around him forming 10 orbs. Joe hesitated for a second before thinking 'fire m-1' and with that one of the orbs bolted off, taking around 10 seconds to get there as he was still about 200 meters away. After it arrived at the target it did exactly as Joe set it to do, however, he didn't expect the extent of what it did.
[-15,724 critical strike! vital strike!]
{500 exp recived}
As soon as the tip of the magic missile touched the wolf's hide the piercing phase was initiated, tearing open the impact site with minimal effort, before the bulk of what was to come happened just a split second later, When the main bulk went off there was no way to avert what happened as a flash of light accompanied by an electric reverb as it fried the wolf's nerves, while making way for the hundreds of pieces of shrapnel that rode along with the compression wave of the ensuing explostion of the decompression of gas tearing the rest of the wolf, apart aided by the shearing force that had already been applied across the whole beast as the sudden heat conversion creating an even further temperature gradient vaporising the surrounding matter, instantly evaporating most of the water within the target creating a secondary explosion of the decompressing water vapour that had increased in volume by about 1000 fold, sending any remnants of the spell and the charred shrapnel that was any part of the wolf as well as the multiple shock waves of the explosion that just occurred into the surrounding wolfs doing 1500-3200 damage to any of the wolfs that were in a 15 meter cone behind the site of impact, the sound of the explosions rumbled through the landscape as the remaining smoke and mist raised up into the atmosphere, being heard for kilometertes around with any and all flying creatures tacking off and leaving the area, with the wolfs mostly all being deafened.
Seeing what has just unfolded, instead of going mad with power or hiding and shying away afraid of what has just happened, Joe looked down with a solemn expression before looking at the sky and repeating the code that he sticks by anytime the creator consortium is used in the other universes he made for himself.
"Use as little power as necessary only when necessary,
that is one to stick with.
Never be cruel,
Never be cowardly,
Never give in,
Never give up,
and if I'm ever not, seek to make amends.
however remember that violence is a solution,
but should be the last solution,
murder is always an option,
but is always the last option.
never underestimate your enemy even when sure of victory,
as that will lead to your downfall in the end.
That the east is where the westward fall,
the saved need help to survive.
Respect the laws of the land, as the land is where you live,
but if people get up into arms, principle is the only guide you have,
as people can be mean, hurtful, manipulative, overbearing,
and tyrannical when they have no guide to lead them"
Before focusing back on the wolfs and taking a deep breath," I am level 1, and so are the others, if they try to fight them, all they will do is be slaughtered. I, however, have the power to prevent that, a death swift and painless though maybe not merciful to creatures that would kill and maim given the chance, heading towards the village slowly but surely. Expending the minimum power to help those that can't currently protect themselves, I extend myself forgiveness based on the rules that I have laid out for myself for the atrocity that only I and the gods shall fall witness to."
And taking 1 last deep breath Joe thought to himself 'fire', at that moment the remaining 9 missiles flew off and flanked the sides of where the wolf pack was, encapsulating the entire pack.
[-15,535 critical strike! vital strike!]
{500 exp recived}
{level 2 reached: /2000 exp}
[-3453]
[-2424]
[-1353]
[-2535]
[-15,756 critical strike! vital strike!]
{500 exp recived}
[-2453]
[-2426]
[-1867]
[-2432]
[-15,486 critical strike! vital strike!]
{500 exp recived}
[-2434]
[-3242]
[-2424]
[-2743]
[-15,375 critical strike! vital strike!]
{500 exp recived}
[-3242]
[-2345]
[-2532]
[-1278]
[-15,678 critical strike! vital strike!]
{500 exp recived}
{level 3 reached: /3000 exp}
[-2423]
[-2341]
[-3324]
[-1265]
[-15,475 critical strike! vital strike!]
{500 exp recived}
[-2424]
[-1412]
[-2323]
[-3442]
[-15,786 critical strike! vital strike!]
{500 exp recived}
[-1312]
[-2323]
[-3231]
[-2321]
[-15,767 critical strike! vital strike!]
{500 exp recived}
[-1231]
[-3523]
[-2424]
[-1341]
[-15,587 critical strike! vital strike!]
{500 exp recived}
[-2524]
[-2411]
[-3423]
[-1365]
After the first salvo was launched, Joe watched with a solemn expression as explosions on the same level as the first rung out one after the other, the wolfs in the middle stunned as their eardrums were blown out due to the proximity. Taking no pleasure in what he was doing as this was something that had to be done to avert a tragedy, for both the players and the village folk alike . Joe muted the damage numbers before he continued casting 6 more salvos one after the other to deal with the rest of the wolfs, Joe was not opposed to the amount of damage or the deaths that were going on but the fact that it was in such an undignified manner, half vaporised, half-blown to smithereens, despite the fact that this is what the spell can do, Joe will still use it as most of the damage shown here is from emergent properties from mass real-world influencing, and that this won't happen at lower power levels of the spell.
{ cluster notification: 57 direwolfs killed
27,500 exp recived}
{level 4 reached: /4000 exp}
{level 5 reached: /5000 exp}
{level 6 reached: /6000 exp}
{level 7 reached: /7000 exp}
{level 8 reached: /8000 exp}
And after the minute that the remaining salvos took to pass, Joe once again looked into the sky as the remnants of the explosions rose and stated in a respectful voice with his modulator off, "To those that lives that I have just mercilessly taken, I plead that your souls are shown bounty and respect, that any of the gods that witnessed this atrocity show you mercy and dignity, where I, unfortunately, could not as I currently lack the abilities that could have resolved this matter in a better way, may the gods be kind and merciful to you, is the only thing I will ask them to do."
Joe said as the deaths that he just witnessed were why he had that first part of his code in the first place, however, because of his development in this world and the spells he had access to it became necessary to use that kind of destruction, seemingly following what he read somewhere before, that the strong can lend aid but only the truly strong can show kindness. This being a stark reminder that this kind of violence should only be used only when necessary. However, soon after Joe received something that he wasn't expecting.
{title received: keeper of the oath of dignation}
{keeper of the oath of dignation:
description: some of the gods have witnessed the events unfold and heard the oath that you follow and abide by and agree that you have followed your oath, one on dignation and grant your request to honour those that have fallen in disgrace, and grant you the status of a keeper of the oath of dignation.
effects: you will be welcomed into all places of worship in the alternate realm regardless of race or restrictions, and have been granted the favour of any paladin or cleric order while you follow the oath.}
After reading that Joe muttered a small, "thank you" before going to leave before another notification popped up
{quest completed(1)}
{10,000 exp recived}
{level 9 reached: /9000 exp}
Joe thought that now might be a good time to start heading back to the village before he receives anything else to add to the notification pile that he has just received while saying one last thing,
"verbal command: assert administrator authority, despawn loot drops held under CCSS user id 0" with that the shine from loot dropped amongst the carnage disappeared as Joe turned and left the area.
After the scene from before, the village moved on and the boy with the obliterated arm was no longer screaming due to respawning to stop the pain that no one had the ability to fix. For a few minutes after that, everyone there decided to turn on the recording function of the system. All the guild and government agents in the area were told to at least record everything to gather as much material to review in case anything else came to light about anything that happened in the village, and to try and find out anything about the person with the mask who has been theorised to have an s grade or above innate talent as they would be a great asset to have in their organisation, and could possibly be grown into a powerhouse, unfortunately, he had a mask on from the beginning so they couldn't figure out who this was so they could contact him in the real world.
Time passes as everything goes back to how it was before with the gloating in the streets as well as people trying to form parties, along with the squabble on the forest boundary as some players are now starting to level up to level two as the synergy and teamwork starting to increase as more people pile into the battle, with everyone over the incident that happened 15 minutes before, apart from 'invincible fists' that was still angry at what happened before with that guy with the weird mask, everyone was just easing up as nothing seemed to be happening when suddenly a large explosion was heard as shock waves passed through the area startling everyone there including the beasts as the shock wave passed them and hearing the low rumbles after, everyone was stunned as they didn't know what happened as all the flying beasts in the area all started flying away at once, everybody looking over into the forest as a plume that you would expect from a bomb rose above the canopy of the forest from about a kilometer however tainted red. This caused panic among the players in the village as they did not know what to do or if this was some sort of wild boss.
The agents, however, who now all faced and got a clear view of the forest knew that that sound and plume were from a large explosion that occurred and that there were no beasts that had or used an attack like that, the thought that the masked man was headed in that direction crossed their mind and that he would be in that area right now if he did continue in that direction, however, there was no class that could use that type of spell, especially at low levels. Though that was the person suspected of being the cause of the cross-platform notification so there is no telling at this point, with all the agents whispering their speculation so it was picked up in their recordings.
20 seconds after the first explosion more sounds of explosions happen with the rumbling and shock wave after shock wave of explosions rung out as another 9 explosions happened as if someone just called in an airstrike on that location with a bomber that had overpacked bombs, with the players in the village taking a point or two of damage due to the repeated concussive shockwaves causing damage to softer tissue in the body and hurting anyone's ears that didn't immediately cover them and causing partial deafness and a slight ringing as a result. Now with everyone looking over at the forest, they could see huge plumes of red-tinted smoke coming from about the area of the first one. All the teenagers that just joined for the first time and those that had just spawned into the village were severely panicked as they had never experienced this sort of situation before and even took some minor damage from it. The agents in the area that had experienced this kind of thing in the real world as part of training were concerned for a different reason, as one of either two things could be happening. First, something could be coming at them that had that kind of firepower although that should be what is referred to as an ultimate skill with a long cooldown, meaning that everyone in the village is screwed. Or the second even worse possibility being that someone else has that sort of firepower and is using it on something else that is coming towards the village that needs that kind of firepower to stop, the fact that that skill would have a very long cooldown would have to have a long cooldown relived the agents but concerned them that someone or something has that sort of ability and they could be heading their way.
To the horror of the agents, however, they were about to be proved wrong as 15 seconds after the last explosion stopped, what before sounded like an artillery strike now sounded like the middle of a war zone the likes that none of them have ever seen, as explosions were heard continuously one after the other sending out a whole multitude of explosions and shock waves for just over a minute sending plumes of the same red-tinted smoke into the air over the site, as all the players begged for it to stop as all the villagers were already bunkered down in their houses, with the players taking another few damages from the shockwaves. Horrifying the agents as whatever that was, it didn't have a cooldown time meaning that it could be used whenever who had it pleased. After just over a minute passed, the garage showed no signs of slowing down before everything suddenly went quiet. People still on the floor and had their hands over their ears, not trusting that the explosions were over, until the first few people got up slowly and stopped covering their ears over a minute later. With all the guild and government agents immediately after people started to recover sent off the footage to their respective organisations. While everyone else just stood there in a daze as they didn't know what to do after that, and started turning to the agents present for advice.
The agents slowly started to take charge of the situation and made their way to the entrance of the village, ushering the other players in along the way, treating this like a real-world event, then started to wait at the entrance while others from their organisations were doing their job and managing the younger players that were still shocked and dased.