<< You have killed a level 7 Undead Hound. You have levelled up to Level 3 >>
Meanwhile, Ethan who had killed he last undead hound suddenly felt a chill up his spine. His body tensed up as he turned his head around and looked everywhere but to his dismay, he discovered nothing. However, discovering nothing just made him even more tense.
There was no need to be told as he already knew what was going on, after all, he always had such a feeling before in his past life when going on some dungeon raids at powerful maps.
It was the feeling of being watched, being watched by a terrifying being with no good intentions. Strangely enough, Ethan's reaction was completely different from what one would imagine.
His body wasn't tense from fear or cautiousness. On the contrary, his muscles had tensed up due to excitement, the excitement that came along with playing the game.
Looking upwards, Ethan raised his head up to discover something peculiar. He suddenly smiled widely as if he had just seen an old friend, after a while he waved his hand as if he was sending a greeting. On the receiving end of his friendly gesture, was a vulture like monster that was flying over him at the moment.
He had already long since guessed that someone else was behind the appearance of the vulture. Despite being far away, he could easily spot this creature and could tell what kind of monster it was.
A level 3 Undead Vulcor, and a common monster to boot. However he wasn't very interested in common monsters as they would do him little good and the soul power he could gain from such a monster was little.
It could be more accurate to say that, he disdained going after such a creature. Instead, he turned his eyes to the dark castle with a meaningful look.
"Am guessing the boss of this map must be there right? Looks like he is very anxious to meet us, yes, anxious indeed". Ethan nodded his head as if he had figured everything out.
He rummaged through the corpses of the hounds that had been fried to crisps. As the power of the blast had damaged majority of their body parts and blasted it away, Ethan didn't bother about saving their bodies in the storage and just continued rummaging with a carefree expression.
Meanwhile
The Vulcor was stunned, seemingly stupefied that it had been discovered. Moreover, what the hell was with that friendly expression? It looked like he was saying hello to an old friend, and that creepy smile! The Vulcor suddenly felt a little uneasy under that seemingly harmless smile.
Meanwhile, Ethan continued his corpse raid with ease, however only he knew that his senses had been pushed to the max which enabled him to accurately attack or move if the need arose.
Unfortunately, just like he had expected, there were no skill books at all, and hounds didn't use weapons so there was no way that he would find any equipment like he did the poison dagger from the group of goblins.
If not for the fact that he had broken the undead Archers bow earlier, he would have taken it with him despite the fact that he didn't know how to use one. Unlike skill books, equipment was harder to obtain at the start.
Even a common rank weapon or armor was insanely expensive at the early stages of the game. Even blacksmiths shops were only able to sell bronze grade armor at best and players would not be able to obtain it until they moved to higher level maps.
Since there was no need for the corpses this time, Ethan simply got up and sighed. Even the suppression chains that had been on the hounds had disappeared into thin air as if it didn't exist in the first place. Helpless, Ethan could only turn his attention back to the castle.
"Solovon huh? I can't wait to meet you". He advanced towards the undead tower. His moves were fast and precise as he eliminated every single undead that he came across in the way while paying little attention to the monitoring beast in the air.
As for the person on the receiving end of the waving, he was silent on his throne and couldn't move an inch. Possible due to shock or disbelief. From the humans actions, it was clear that it saw through him, or at least, he was sure that this human knew that it wasn't a regular beast circling the air.
At the thought of this, the figure on the throne frowned intensely as a budding curiosity appeared in his heart. Was this human actually an agent of the Order Council?
He did sense a little bit of angel energy on him.
"Interesting!" He mumbled as he continued to watch the screen. Then he turned his gaze to the kneeling subordinates and gave his orders.
After which, they all let out terrifying cries and descended down the castle.
.........
Ethan's speed truly was terrifying for his level. He was able to arrive at the foot of the tower in a matter of minutes despite the fact that he had strayed a farther distance away during his escape from the undead hounds. Luckily, on his way here, he didn't run into any more speed type undead.
He could say that his luck was good as he had managed to avoid a vast majority of the undead on his path due to his superior speed. At this point, Ethans speed was already close to a level 10 despite being a level 3 and the highest being in this realm for the moment was level 10 because of the restrictions accompanying the suppression chains.
However, as he came close to the castle entrance, he could here the sounds of fighting up ahead. He hurriedly came to a halt as he pushed his perception forward and closed his eyes slightly.
Sure enough, there was definitely a battle going on in the distance as the sounds of collision were amplified due to his perception stat. As his perception had crossed the 30 point mark, he had already gained the right to unlock the passive skill that came with the perception stat called 'Sixth Sense'.
It was also as a result of this stat skill as well as his past life's battle experience that he was able to realise that someone was watching him. After hearing the sounds of battle, Ethan had no desire to rush up and engage in the fight with an unknown party.
He didn't need to rush in and jump into a fight as he understood the situation going on here. Currently, Ethan could sense the presence of a powerful lifeform nearby and he could even sense the presence of other Players.
However, judging from the intensity of the fight, he could tell that these weren't your average run of the mill players you would usually find among the masses.
From this, he could tell that these were expert players and possibly awakened Newborns. The passive skill sixth sense was more than useful in such cases as not only did he feel the strength of he opponents by the vibrations from their attacks, he could also feel a certain sense of threat from these players.
Curious, Ethan didn't hesitate any further and leaped upward while grabbing hold of leverage points from building to building as he rapidly advance upward. His ascent could be described as a splendid show of skill.
Ethan quickly arrived at the top of ruined building with a still stable foundation. He looked ahead and discovered the dark castle right ahead by only a few dozen meters.
Soon enough, with his enhanced senses, a scene playing out could be seen in the distance.
In the empty space ahead of him, about a dozen or so Awakened were hot on their heels while laying attacks on a giant lifeform. As for the lifeform, Ethan quickly recognised it due to his past experience as well as the aura it emitted.
The dozen of so Awakened were surrounding a rather peculiar, giant skeleton.
"A Elite boss monster!" Ethan exclaimed inwardly as he saw the giant skeleton that was wielding a longsword as he laid siege to its enemies around it. However, this skeleton was..... Well...Huge.
It was about a whole foot taller than the tallest awakened currently fighting it and its bony body was twice as thick as a regular humans, yet it was able to move around with such precision and nimbleness.
Ethan quickly used the systems identification to find out the monsters exact level.
<< Skeleton Elite: Boss monster Level 10 >>
<< HP: 2000 >>
"A level 10 monster! Finally!" Ethan said as he gazed at the undead boss that was wielding the sword skillfully. However, his attention was soon drawn to the group of a dozen players currently engaged in combat.
He wasn't the least but surprised when he discovered that majority of these people were way older than he was. By his estimation, the youngest person there was already in their mid twenties.
However, what surprised him was that he saw some faces he recognized among those people.
"Rwarh!!!!" The skeleton let out a deathly screech which more or less was supposed to serve as some form of deterrence as it released its level 10 death aura in an attempt to make these ants disturbing its peace cower.
Of course, such tactics against these hardened veterans who had gone through blood and gore would usually only cause a faint tremor in their mental state as their will had been hardened and tempered. However, if there was one thing that levels were considered useful for, it was stun tactics.
While payers didn't need levels to beat up other entities with higher levels than theirs if their strength was up to the task, it was a different story if the level suppression was this insane.
Currently, not one single one of these so called veterans had reached level 1. Although their strengths were higher than level 1 or regular level 2 entities as they were awakened in the real world, in the game, their strength and spirit power had been reduced leaving them with only their battle experience and quick wits.
Plainly put, if their strength was at least half of their enemies current strength, they could ignore the deathly screech as if it was a lullaby with their hardened will, but none of these veterans had any stats that had surpassed 20 points.
The deathly screech proved effective as the players were stunned on the spot from the attack that had targeted their spirit. This gave the skeleton an additional few seconds as it waved its sword upward and slashed down comprehensively.
In a moment, two veterans had been cut in half as their blood oozed all over, however, the rest were still frozen as the effect would need a few seconds to clear over. However, in a battle between experts, a second was more than enough to decide the winners and losers between the two parties.
Ethan's eyes lit up as he gazed at the giant skeleton and nodded inwardly. He had already noticed that the skeleton was well versed in weapon arts and would probably contain a battle skill on using weapons.
As for the screech, he was too far away to hear it as the attack only had a distance of 5 meters which was more than enough to enslave the gathering fighters.
The eyes of the skeleton were blazing with flames as it swung its sword downwards in an attempt to cleave a few note of these lowly ants before its stun effect was over.
However....
"Blood Rise!" The voice of a husky male sounded out timely. Before anyone realized it, the blood drops that had been spilled all over the ground due to the death of the others earlier had rise from the floor and formed a short blood lance.
The lance flew in midair and intercepted the crashing sword as both the blood lance and the swinging sword clashed against each other.
Both weapons came to a stalemate as neither the blood lance or the sword was willing to give way, however, the result quickly changed as the sword was o ly delayed for a moment or two and it pressed forward and gradually dispersed the blood lance.
However, that had given the awakened enough time to hurriedly leap out of the way and escape their stunned state. The sword crashed against the floor creating a small crater in their previous positions.
The faces of the Awakened were a bit grim as they looked at the destroyed spot and the enraged skeleton who had witnessed its prey escape from its certain doom.
"Fuck! What kind of monster is this? Is it really a game?"
"You asking me? Who will I ask? This thing is too freaking strong".
"Oh please, if I had even half my original strength, I could flatten this thing into skeleton powder".
"Its regeneration is too much, we can't kill it in a short period of time.
Meanwhile, the skeleton turned its head to look at a man who looked to be in his late twenties and just like everyone else, he was fighting without weapons or armor.
However, his eyes were cold and carried a sense of aloofness and pride within them. This was the same man that had done something to stop its attack as the skeleton could clearly feel there was a disruption of Mana in the environment a second ago
Meanwhile, some of the awakened turned their heads to look at the young man who had saved them from their certain doom. Although dying in the game wasn't exactly real and wouldn't kill someone in real life, who would want to experience death when they could escape?
As they looked at the young man, a small feeling of gratitude wanted to sprout in their hearts, however it was squashed in the next second by the mans words.
"Humph! A bunch of lowly ants can't even kill a level 10 stupid skeleton. How low are your stats?" The man asked in a mocking voice at the other awakeners.
The awakened all sported different expressions on their faces as anger clouded their heads. Their faces were looking remarkably gloomy at this point but they didn't dare to make any sudden moves against him.
What do you mean that we can't kill it? You can't do anything to it by yourself either, but instead of being straightforward, you are being as cocky as hell.
Meanwhile, Ethan had a look of displeasure written over his face as he gazed at the young man in particular. He snorted coldly clearly showing that both him and this man were not on good terms.... Well... They were not in good terms on his previous life.
As for this life, the young man probably wouldn't even know who Ethan was..... Yet!
"I have been looking to see you old friend!" Ethan's displeased face quickly turned into a sinister smirk as his gaze on the young man deepened.
Meanwhile, the young man who was acting nonchalant suddenly felt a small chill run down his spine. The feeling of being targeted by someone was faint but he could still feel it.
This youth who could control blood was none other than the talented and lucky awakened who had cleared the undead ruins and gotten the special rare grade prize, Bloodstorm