Haruka suddenly appeared in the air, but then the monster's hand grew from the soil with force and slapped Haruka into the air. Fortunately, she had used her shield to block the attack beforehand.
She was thrown a distance upwards. She felt a huge impact on her body but didn't sustain any injury. When she reached the highest point, she teleported downwards to cancel the kinetic energy. The teleport had a maximum distance of 150 meters.
**Skill: Teleport
Rank: S (G)
Allows the player to teleport to a certain distance instantly. The player's location will be adjusted if there is an obstacle in the location.
Teleport distance: 150 meters**
Seeing that Haruka was coming towards it from the sky, the monster got ready to clap her in between its palms but she appeared behind the monster and slashed it again without causing any damage.
Only then did everyone breathe freely. No matter how profit-seeking people were, it seemed they still cared about one another.
Haruka continued to slash at the monster while dodging its attacks.
"Will he be alright?" Yamamura asked Akira, thinking, 'This is giving me a heart attack.'
Akira simply replied, "Yes."
On the 9th slash, she suddenly made a one-foot cut on the monster. Akira became anxious as he clutched his folded arms. 'Be quick, Ruka.'
"I guess his attack power will accumulate," said a viewer, but suddenly the one-foot cut got sliced on its own, creating a one-meter-deep cut. However, Haruka was far away from that spot. Everyone was taken aback, unable to understand what happened.
"Is that a delayed attack?"
"With that kind of skill, you can create pain 2 times, a good skill for distraction."
**Skill: 108 Sword Strikes
Rank: SSS
9th, 27th, 54th, 81st, and 108th slashes damage is increased by 10 times.
After the 9th, 27th, 54th, 81st, and 108th slash, the player can activate the delayed slash effect one time.
Delay slash effect: Upon activation, a slash will occur at the last slash spot, which unleashes a slash a few times stronger than the last slash. The longer the delay slash effect is delayed, the higher the damage.
The power of the 9th, 27th, 54th, and 81st slashes will be carried by further slashes done in the sequence.**
After the delayed slash made by Haruka, the next slashes were one foot deep every time she cut the monster. Haruka's speed increased due to her confidence after scoring an injury, and the monster also became wary of Haruka. Haruka was flashing left and right, making the monster aggressive.
Haruka noticed blood slowly dripping from the one-meter-deep wound and realized the soil armor of the monster had been nearly that thick.
Suddenly, the monster slammed in the ground with hands, and nearly a hundred spikes rose from the ground. Two more hands grew from the monster's back, and with four hands, the monster took the four spikes around it.
That scene shocked everyone watching. It was the first time the monster used that move. They didn't even know it could use four arms. Haruka also became anxious when she saw that.
The monster stretched its arms back and threw the spikes at Haruka. She teleported and dodged them, but the spikes hit the safe zone, causing panic among the people inside. They fell back in fear and tried to cover themselves, but the safe zone stopped them, albeit with cracks. It quickly recovered in a second.
The monster continuously threw the spikes, and Haruka became unable to reach the monster for further slashes.
At that moment, she remembered Akira's warning. 'Ruka, you can't delay the slashes once you start. The monster will become very aggressive once it gets real injury; teleport towards it as it gets aggressive.'
As there were only four attacks per second, she was able to dodge them with teleportation, focusing fully.
Due to the spikes, the coins to uphold the safe zone increased a lot, so the player association became anxious.
"Can we even kill that? If we had gone in groups, half of us would have been wiped out by now."
"Then it's a good thing that he is testing the waters. We can plan for tomorrow."
Haruka finally reached its body, and the spikes on the ground also completed. Seeing Haruka next to it, the monster tried to use soil from the ground to form a shield, but Haruka slashed it without caring for the defense. By the 26th slash, the monster formed another meter-thick layer of soil around it.
"Now his slashes are wasted; he must be out of mana by now."
"His brother should go and save him already. He already became famous by forcing that monster to show its trump card."
While taking a stance to do the 27th strike in mid-air, Haruka remembered Akira's words again.
'Ruka, you can only perform up to 27 slashes. The 27th delayed slash might even make you faint. No, it will definitely make you faint because it is as powerful as a level 100 player's full strike. So, activate that slash at 3 seconds; if it exceeds 5 seconds, you might die, and if you do it before 3 seconds, the monster might not die.'
Keeping that in mind, Haruka lifted the sword with her right hand and swung it diagonally which cut more than 3 meters into the monster's left shoulder.
Then suddenly, Akira dashed towards Haruka. Everyone saw Akira making a move and became excited to see him in action, which also meant they thought Haruka couldn't do it.
Haruka was floating in mid-air while holding the sword, patiently waiting. '1...2...3, go.'
Suddenly, another slash occurred at the shoulder cut, and the monster's left arm fell down, while its upper body slid towards the right side as the monster got cut into 2 pieces, not including the arm.
Everyone became silent, gawking at the incident. Even though super strength became a possibility for humans, they still couldn't comprehend Haruka's strength.
They had experienced a little strength; most of them were level 60 with S-rank skills and items, and they knew level 60 was the limit at that time, so how did White Rabbit do it?
All the soil armor collapsed, and everyone finally saw the monster's true body. It was a mummified upper body, which was how the monster was naturally born, but the body had the look of a root with a lot of wrinkles. It was brown in color.
Everyone stood still in shock. Haruka suddenly started to freefall, but Akira caught her before she fell to the ground. She was unconscious. He held her with his left hand while supporting her with his waist. "Well done, White."
Everyone felt awkward as Akira walked towards the safe zone. 'There are plenty of ways to hold an unconscious person.'
As Akira came closer to the safe zone, Yamamura was waiting to congratulate him, but suddenly, a man rushed to Akira. He was so slow that Akira yawned for a few seconds.
That man was Tsukamoto Hirotoshi, the father of the man whose arm was cut by Akira in the first dungeon Akira raided. He had a sword in his hand and jumped to attack Akira.
Yamamura also dashed to protect Akira but stopped as Hirotoshi was paused in mid-air, unable to move. "What is this?" Hirotoshi asked in irritation.
As Yamamura reached closer, he heard Akira asking, "What did you intend to do?" His tone was serious.
White Rabbit had just become a hero; Yamamura was unwilling to let the public see Black Bear harm a human at such a crucial moment.
"I just came to congratulate you…" Before Hirotoshi finished, his arm holding the sword was cut into several pieces. Now, the arm wouldn't be able to be reattached.
Akira lifted his free right arm, and then everyone understood why he held White Rabbit with one arm. Akira had already anticipated someone would try to do something.
Akira placed his palm on the injury and healed it. "Okay, tell me your motive now."
"What is the meaning of this? Do you think the player association will let you go?" Hirotoshi yelled at Akira.
Akira patiently listened and then cut off another arm, making it into pieces without lifting his hand. Then he lifted his hand again to heal the injury. Hirotoshi had lost two arms.
"Black Bear, please stop. This is too much," said Yamamura.
"What will you do?" Akira asked.
Yamamura firmly said, "We will arrest him and give him a lifelong sentence."
"No, why should I care what happens to him?" said Akira. "If releasing him now means I am scared of powerful people, then everyone will come and try to stomp us. It will cost us to show that we are non-aggressive even to our enemy."
"Then tell me what you want as a reward for saving a lot of lives," said Yamamura, unable to give a reward in the name of not killing someone.
Akira understood his words and said, "I want to rule any land that I conquer after it is established as fallen land to the monster."
Now Yamamura vaguely understood Akira's future plan but strictly denied it. "No, there is too much land taken by the monsters; we might take it back in the future, so we can't promise that."
"No, you misunderstood," said Akira. "I am not asking to form a new country or become the owner. I am establishing an organization. The government alone can't protect everyone. So give us some rights to exercise in a certain area.
The government can still establish its influence and conduct duties there, but when disaster strikes, we will have the right to mobilize troops and make decisions on how to tackle the disaster."
"Isn't that more favorable to us?" Yamamura asked.
"Of course, the dungeons that spawn in that area will directly belong to us."
"That's too much to ask."
"No, I mean… we should discuss this later. I should take care of him," said Akira, indicating Haruka.
He released Hirotoshi and said, "Well, he is all yours." Akira left the site.