-Vol 6: Dusk Of An Era-

-Renewing The Contract(7)-

Boom!!

Rings formed in mid-air together with a banging noise, as suddenly the humanoid skeleton that was standing in front of him vanished out of thin air.

“What?” Kenshin was surprised due to that, as even with his high agility, he couldn’t track where the beast vanished. But his surprise turned to horror when it appeared just behind him with another booming noise with a bone spur aiming to his heart.

“Shit!” cursing loudly, he activated [Opposites], reversing the property of air and solidifying it rapidly while at the same time he implemented [Five-point Movement] to its limit and stepped forward to avoid the stab. Everything happened in less than a second. From the activation of the skills to the solidification of the air. Later turning the air into a thick ice wall that froze the bone spur and prevented it from moving forward. The movement skill sending him skidding a few meters ahead… everything literally happened within a second.

It's only after a few rolls on the ground that he finally stabilized his footing. After that, he fell back to the defensive position once again. This time he didn’t let the thing out of his sight. Its agility was beyond his comprehension… period.

The creature was standing motionlessly in front of him in the same place where it appeared to stab Kenshin. Even after Kenshin changed places, it didn’t and stood there as if to think or wait for something. Its unholy eyes were too stagnant, looking something beyond him, but he couldn’t be too sure.

Suddenly its eyes moved as it stared at Kenshin, then its image slowly faded like a mobile app filter that used to edit videos.

Ting!!

Sword met bone spur making the noise as Kenshin pushed back several steps from the force. The thing moved so fast that only an afterimage was left behind. Its only thanks to Kenshin’s vigilance that he was able to save his ass, literally. The bone spur was aiming to his waist as this time, the creature appeared behind him.

“Flame Slash” even while he was pushed back, he swung his sword using the very old skill that he had gained when he obtained his first class. The skill that had evolved to its origin by becoming Fire Manipulation manifested and condensed into a zagging semi arc as it traveled towards the enemy that was too unprepared to dodge.

[-5000]

[-2100]

Two damage values floated above the creature, one was the physical damage value which happened when their sword and spur collided, and the other was his magic attack. Even when the creature that attacked first and Kenshin could only block, it was the creature that still took damage.

It was only possible because of the buggy nature of the system he got, it was like a pirated copy of a game that was mainstream across the internet. Normally, a block could never calculate as an attack unless an option was there in the equipment, and an attack could never calculate as a defense unless it perfectly counters the attack of the opponent.

But Kenshin's system allowed a certain amount of freedom in that regard. Though he was not attacking proactively, since he was using his sword to block directly, a certain possibility that it would count as an attack was created every now and then. And that’s the exact thing that happened in this situation. Despite the monster attacking first, it was still received the damage caused by the buggy system in Kenshin’s possession.

‘I am not sure about the old man or others, but this thing is quite the OP ability…’ even he recognized this after having a system for this long. Stamping one of his feet on the ground heavily, he used a Five-point movement once again and ran towards the monster with his sword coated in fire skill.

Ting! Ting! Ting!

Unexpectedly, the undead was able to perfectly keep up with his movements even with his higher agility and skill on top of that. Unfortunately, due to his buggy system and its limited intelligence, it continued to take on damage. Each time their respective weapons clashed, the monster would take at least 18k damage. And they clashed at least 50 times a second. Which means it was taking close to 900k damage per second.

In ten seconds, that becomes 9 million damage.

In a hundred seconds, that would become 90 million damage.

…thousand seconds…900 million damage.

“16 minutes is what it needs for me to kill this shit…” coming to this conclusion, Kenshin redoubled his effort. Well, although he thought of that, actually doing it was impossible in one go. The Boss monster in this form was highly agile and was sturdy enough to keep up with him, who currently had the most outblown stats possible for someone of his level.

But this stalemate was just an illusion, the fight was clearly weighing in favor of the monster that with every transformation had doubled its stats. And finally, when it achieved this bipedal form, it’s basic stats had already surpassed Kenshin’s. That’s why it was able to ambush Kenshin almost twice, even while the latter was prepared for the second time.

As the battle continued, Kenshin slowly pushed back by his aggressive enemy. Small injuries appeared all over his body, starting from his arms to his torso, his legs, and even his face sometimes. But his high physique and [Passive Regeneration] would kick up and heal them before the injuries could even bleed.

But… this undead’s attacks contained some sort of curse that didn’t allow him to heal from certain injuries. Despite allowing his skill to gain huge experiences, he didn’t heal at all and was bleeding profusely.

[Passive Regeneration gained experience]

[Passive Regeneration gained experience]

[Passive Regeneration gained experience]

[Sword Mastery gained experience.]

[Weapon Mastery gained experience.]

[Flame Manipulation gained experience.]

His skills those were involved in his actions, be it passive or active, were level upping the real-time with Passive Regeneration as the flag bearer. Even the dragon sense was leveling up while helping him predict where the enemy’s strike would come next and acting accordingly. Even so, he couldn’t avoid getting injured. Before even one minute passed, he already sported multiple wounds that didn’t heal with his passive.

With wounds all over, his ability to keep up with the enemy faltered. Eventually, Kenshin, who wasn’t undead like his opponent, slip up, allowing a kick to land on him and send him flying to the distance.

“Argh!” the kick was so heavy that he nearly coughed blood from it even with his overwhelming defense that was further enhanced by the armor he was wearing. Even so, no matter how good an armor was, it was still a C-ranked one. The problem was he didn’t have enough access to higher ones unless he clears some absurd conditions that were set upon by the system.

Yes, that’s the new thing that happened after his system upgraded. New options and levels were now accessible in the system store, but for now, to unlock such higher levels, he had to fulfill some conditions first. As to buy the equipment of B class or higher, he had to complete the task of killing 1-second awakened being and absorb his or her experience.

Even this Boss he was facing wasn’t a level 150 being, and it was already giving him troubles like this.