"A rare-ranked manifestation, and that too of the king of the Blue Nagas, Vikush. It looks like our region finally has a champion," he said with a smile, watching the upcoming fight.
In the town center, Jonathan, with his sharp blue claws, looked at the members of the Maroon Gang. The gang leader took out his steel gloves, while another member pulled out dual knives, and another drew his sword. He chanted something, and the seemingly ordinary sword turned red-hot, making it easy to imagine getting sliced cleanly by that blade.
Instead of being frightened, Jonathan seemed excited. He was eager to test the amazing power he had acquired. Suddenly, the man with the hot sword charged towards Jonathan. Seeing him approach, Jonathan prepared himself.
The man, running towards Jonathan with his heated sword, suddenly leaped into the air and shouted, "Art of the Sword: Fire Slash!" As he slashed downward, Jonathan waited, watching the red-hot sword approach. Just as it was about to strike, he intercepted it with his long blue claws. Sparks flew as the hot sword clashed with the blue claws.
People couldn't believe that the seemingly fragile claws were so strong that they could stop the red-hot sword. Someone in the crowd commented, "That's the power of a rare-grade manifestation. Damn, so powerful."
The sword's owner was also stunned, but as an experienced Maroon Gang member, he displayed excellent agility, launching a roundhouse kick at Jonathan mid-air. Jonathan, who was enjoying the clash of claws and sword, failed to see the kick coming. Before he could react, the kick landed squarely on his face, sending him staggering back several steps.
The kick made Jonathan slightly dizzy, even though he had experienced harder hits before. But a kick to the face was still painful. He stopped acting excited like a child with new powers, wiped the small amount of blood from his lip, and smiled at the gang members. "Nice kick, but shall we get serious now? I've had enough of you guys."
This time, the blue claws shone with a brighter light. Jonathan, instinctively knowing how to use this skill masterfully, crossed his arms in an 'X' shape and charged at the gang members, taking the initiative.
Seeing him coming, the sword wielder and the dual-knife holder readied themselves. When Jonathan was just a meter away, Adan suddenly disappeared from his place. Everyone recognized Adan's move; they had seen it before.
"Watch your back, buddy!" David shouted. The gang leader smiled, thinking Jonathan had played right into their hands. As expected, Adan appeared behind the defenseless Jonathan, preparing to strike with his blades.
"This is the difference between us and you 'existencers'," Adan said, readying his dual knives to strike Jonathan's neck. The gang members smiled, confident in their impending victory.
But then, the players noticed Jonathan's smile. "Why is he smiling?" one of them asked. They got their answer a second later.
Suddenly, Jonathan's claws shot out from his fingers and attacked Adan, who was completely unprepared for this ranged attack. The ten claws hit their marks, targeting Adan's vital points. Everyone was shocked by this unexpected move from Jonathan.
"What! Those claws can be used as a ranged weapon too?" one of the players shouted.
"Damn, rare manifestations really do offer versatility and power," another player exclaimed.
Adan, struck by the claws, collapsed to the ground, foam seeping from his mouth. Everyone realized that the claws were poisonous and could kill, which unfortunately happened to Adan as there was no movement from his body.
The players didn't have a strong reaction to this death, considering these people as NPCs in the game—more realistic NPCs, but still NPCs. Killing them had no emotional impact, as this was just the start of the game, and the players hadn't developed much attachment to the characters.
Over time, they would form deeper emotional connections, and maybe then, the players would feel something after killing them.
However, a few soft-hearted players who had developed emotional attachments early expressed their concerns in the chat. "Why kill him? Just hand him over to the authorities! You can't kill them—they're like us."
"Yeah, that guy is a murderer, but I'd say he killed in self-defense. Still, a murder is a murder."
The players in Nester Town, especially Jonathan, didn't see those chats. After killing Adan, Jonathan looked at the two remaining gang members and said, "Do you still want to face me? Don't you value your lives? Surrender, and I won't kill you."
The faces of the gang leader and his remaining member grew grim as they saw the claws regrowing on Jonathan's fingers. "Tch, poisonous claws are dangerous enough, but with a long-range attack? This is a problem, boss. What should we do? Abandon the mission?"
The gang leader became fearful, thinking about what would happen if their captain found out they had fled from a Maroon Gang mission. "Idiot, this is a Maroon Gang mission. You know what will happen to us if we fail. We and our families will face a punishment more brutal than death. Haha, dying is better than facing that monster. At least this guy might give us a less painful death. Who knows, we might still have a chance to win this battle."
With that, he took a fighting stance, and his gloves shone with a faint silver light. He nodded to his teammate and punched straight at Jonathan's crossed arms, shouting, "Steel Punch Arts: Hard Punch!"
Jonathan, ready for the attack, immediately backed off, performing a backflip. As the punch missed, the gang leader charged forward, and the sword wielder also engaged Jonathan. People who had thought these two were strong were shocked to see Jonathan fighting them both with ease.
Suddenly, Jonathan stopped the gang leader's punch with his hands, which glowed blue. This move shocked the leader and the others, who had believed Jonathan's strength lay solely in his claws, not in pure strength. Seeing how he couldn't break free from Jonathan's grip, the leader became tense, especially as he saw what his teammate was about to do.
"Damn, what other abilities does this rare-ranked manifestation give him? He stopped that punch with his bare hands!" one of the players commented, noting the force behind those punches, evident in the damage to the walls of nearby houses that Jonathan had dodged during the fight.
The sword-wielding gang member, realizing nothing was working against Jonathan, ruthlessly pulled out a scroll from his belt. He opened the scroll, and one of the NPCs in the crowd shouted, "A common-rank blast scroll! Run! He's going to blow up this area!"
"What!!!" The players and everyone else were shocked. Without thinking twice, they started running away from the location. David, who saw this, didn't hesitate either. In this cruel world, he knew that life was more precious than anything else, and he trusted in the power of rare-ranked manifestations. Without worrying about Jonathan, he too ran in the opposite direction.
The little girl, who had lost her precious drake, couldn't bring herself to run, still in shock. Jonathan, who didn't want to experience the pain of being blown apart, also wanted to run. But he couldn't, as he had promised Vikush to save the girl's life. However, he soon found his hands caught by the Maroon Gang leader.
The gang leader smiled and said, "This is the second art form of the Steel Art: the Steel Grip. No matter how hard you try, you can't break free from my grip unless you kill me. But even if you kill me with your poisonous claws, you'll be too late to stop the blast. Hahahaaaa"
Jonathan became extremely anxious as he didn't know what to do, he first immediately use his other hand and fire the poisonous claws towards the man holding the scroll but expecting this attack the gang leader threw a punch with his other hand right on the chest of Jonathan.
Jonathan who recieved this punch couldn't bear the pain as blood started gushing out of his mouth , the attack' of the claw also miss it's target due to inacuraecy of his attack, Jonathan started panicking as he thinks
"No, no this can't be!! This can't be, vikush please lend me more of your power!! Please!!!".
But he didn't get any response from vikush, suddenly when it's seems all hope lost a sudden blue shield covered the man who was just about to blast and before they all could react they all saw the man who have had reached his limits blasts itself in that sheild, fortunately the sheild didn't break even after the blast.
Everyone just felt a strong gust of wind coming from inside the shield and nothing else, everyone who saw this things from a distance didn't understand at what just happened, but this village people do understand they all look towards one particular tower and says "the lord of the town had protected us, we know he would not let any harm befall on this town, hail the lord of bester town, the most powerful magician of bester town".