Chapter 31: First real fight
A Slave Whip is a weapon created and used by a subclass of the Tamer with the name Slaver. Instead of bonding with the creature, the Slaver tried to tame it; he breaks its spirit with his whip and makes it 100% loyal.
There are different types of Slave Whips, and when someone becomes a Slaver, one of the first things he can choose is which type he wants to create and is given free by the System. Still, only specific ones are available that way. After that, he needs to craft others, and their recipes aren't easy to find and are consumable.
This is one of those choices, and the different whips were for the type of target he wanted to Tame or, more specifically, to Enslave.
If the target was a good-hearted one, he had to use the white while the black was for the evil-hearted ones. The grey was for ones who weren't belonging fully at either. If he tried to use one on a target who doesn't belong to the right category, it would just pass through it without damaging him. They were similarly made as Energy Weapons but were enchanted differently to affect specific targets and have unique effects on them.
Shingi took a quick glance at his status and checked his SP, which he had used a little when he used ACCELERATION and his Mana, which was at 80%. He couldn't delay the battle as the Player didn't seem to care anymore, and he was ready for action.
But at least there was some good news.
He wanted to fight Shingi by himself and even made a signal to his Tamed creatures and other players to stay put.
But this didn't mean that this was going to be an easy fight. Shingi's attack abilities were pretty much nonexistent against a player like that. Even casting the DOME OF SILENCE like last time wasn't an option cause of two reasons.
Firstly it took too much time to cast and too much mana, and even if he won the fight with this, he wouldn't be able to fight the other Players after that.
The second reason is that even if he did that, it didn't mean that he would be able to damage him even if he surprised him. His spell won't last for long for him to lower his health to 0.
He could tell that his equipment wasn't as simple as the one the other players were wearing and was granting him more defense. He seemed more perceptive, so he may escape the DOME since it stays in place, and one can get in and out of it or even counter some of his attacks if he was too wise as Shingi thought of him to be.
As for running away, it still wasn't an option as he probably was a high AGI character. The Player could command his wolf to capture him if he tried to escape either way.
Shingi tried to make a plan, but the Player in front of him didn't let him think much as he made his move and attacked with all his whips at the same time. Of course, it was a waste of energy to use all of them as the lashes took some of its user's SP. The more you used at the same time, the more the cost, but he wanted to see what whip would affect him.
Shingi enabled his ACCELERATION, avoided the attack, and tried to keep the skill active only when needed, not to waste any SP.
He focused on his enemy and his surroundings to see if something could be used for his benefit.
Shingi threw some Earth Mana stones he created at his target. Since he didn't do it with casting ROCK THROW, it was using his IMPROVISED THROW WEAPON skill. It made it pretty much impossible for his target to avoid it since the stone was completed quickly; it turned in dust in impact. Shingi was aiming his face; it blinded him for few seconds and gave Shingi some time to breathe here and there.
He wanted to use his MARTIAL ART with his ACCELERATION
to throw him off possibly and may cause some damage. Still, even with his speed, he didn't have enough time to do that, especially since he could maybe hit him with his whip while he was down, and Shingi couldn't allow it.He wasn't afraid of the possible damage but of the effect, it would have on him.
The fight continued like that, with the Player throwing some taunts on Shingi to make an opening. He was mostly saying that he would find his sister and deal with her after dealing with him. Still, Shingi was used on those strategies, and they couldn't affect him, or at least not as his opponent wanted to affect him.
Shingi never had a good relationship with his family. It wasn't like he had considered Annoue fully like his big sister, but she was someone who seemed to mean a lot to her, which was something new for him. Even if he didn't consider her as a brother would normally consider his sister, it was the closest to that than what he had felt with his real-world family.
So those words made him somewhat angry, but he knew to control this anger and made it a weapon and not a weakness.
During the week he passed, he pushed his body to its limit every day, and other than the increase of his stats, he had also unlocked something else. Suppose he reached a similar state of being near his limit. In that case, he could get his body in a state even stronger than it would be past his limits, For a short time. After that, every action of his would use double the SP it would typically use and more frequently, so it was something he couldn't use whenever. He could stay in that state for 5 secs, and no matter what action he did, he wouldn't spend a single SP, and he could also use his ACCELERATION and MARTIAL ART at their real limit.
This way would be the only way to win this fight. If he defeated him since no one could command the wolf but its Tamer, he would have a great chance to escape.
And so he enabled his ACCELERATION skill and threw an Earth mana stone at the Player. Even if he couldn't avoid it in time, he put his hand in the way to not let the dust get in his eyes.
Shingi expected, as he appeared in front of him and cast a Spell right in the face of the Player.
That spell was LIGHT, and he made it to be as bright as he could make it and kept his eyes closed.
The Player was too slow to do something against that, and this let him get blind, but instead of holding his face, he made an attack in front of him in the place Shingi was.
But Shingi had already moved behind him and was moving at a speed, way faster than before. If one could follow his moves and see him clearly and not the afterimages he was leaving, they would notice some differences.
Firstly his neck was full of veins, and they were like spreading and appearing on his face too as time passed, some blood had started getting out his nose, and lastly, his eyes have become pure black. They were usually red, which wasn't normal, but he didn't mind it since no one said anything about it, but it was dark red but not too dark. But this time, it was completely dark without any red left in them.
And so Shingi started his counter by hitting the Player's legs first to make him fall to be easier to reach his face since the Player was taller than his child-size body. Then he attacked his main hand, which he held the whip to make it harder for him to fight if he failed, and disarmed him. And it didn't take too much to make the whip be released from his hand as he kicked it away by kicking the handle and avoiding making contact with any of the lashes. Then he focused on the head, which didn't have any protection by the armor since he wasn't wearing a helmet, and punched him with as many attacks as he could.
The System was telling him how much damage he dealt, but he didn't know how much health the Slaver was supposed to have, but he had an estimation on his mind.
Cause he was entirely focused on dealing damage to the target, he didn't notice that someone else had tried to attack him until the attack happened. Still, fortunately, he wasn't hit since he kept moving around and didn't stay in place; otherwise, his target may have made a counter against him.
The one who made the attack was the other High-Level Player, and he attacked with his whip, which wasn't a Slave whip or an Energy one but still seemed to have some enchantments on it.
Shingi tried to keep his attacks, but with the other Player helping his teammate, his hits became less. His Breaking-Limit state time ended without him dealing enough to kill his target.
But noticing the Player's state, he seemed to be close to death, and at least he didn't have his Slave Whip.
But then the Slaver raised his hand and opened his hand as a crack appeared in the air, and out of it came his Slave Whip.
'It also has a Return Enchantment? How rich is this Guild?' [Shingi]
The Return Enchantment was creating a bond between an item and a person. The person could summon the item at him, but it had to be in a specific range; otherwise, it couldn't be summoned. But still, the least that this range could be was tens of meters. The enchantment wasn't an easy one to make, and few Base Rank enchantments were able to do it, so its price was relatively high, but it could save your life more than once. Putting an enchantment on a weapon that is already enchanted like the Slave Whip, no matter what type of enchantment, was even more challenging to do successfully.
Shingi didn't know what else he could do other than charge with what he had left as he kept using his ACCELERATION and hoped to deal enough damage to the Player.
But unfortunately, he was slower than just a few seconds ago. The two Players in front of him had adjusted somewhat as the second one used his whip and hit him in the leg and made Shingi trip while the Slaver used his Slave Whip to attack Shingi.
Shingi was weakened after using the Breaking-Limit state of his and couldn't move out of the whips' way in time to only pray. And his prays seemed to be heard.
All three of the whips that were aimed at him reached him, and the white and black one passed through him while the grey, instead of damaging him, seemed like it just stopped after making contact with him and froze in place.
================================
AN ENCHANTMENT TRIES TO AFFECT YOUR MIND
================================
================================
THE USER OF THE ENCHANTMENT HAS LOWER CHA THAN YOU, SO THE ENCHANTMENT FAILED
CAUSE OF THE DIFFERENCE OF INT BETWEEN THE TWO OF YOU A RANDOM SIDE EFFECT WILL BE DECIDED FOR THE USER OF THE ENCHANTMENT
================================
At that point, Shingi heard the wolf, who up at that point had made no noise to start growling but not towards him. He was growling towards the low-level players and the bear. At the same time, the Slaver Player started making his attacks against the other High-Level Player.
'Did he got charmed as a side effect and considered me an ally?' [Shingi]
Even if things like the 'Mind control' of the Slave Whip didn't work on Players, there were effects to work on their minds. The most famous ones were spells or charms. Most would call them to lose control of their character as the System would take control and make the Player act appropriately. Of course, the Player could break the charm, but a skill or spell was needed for that.
As for the wolf, one of the Slaver's advantages was that he could communicate and give commands to their tamed creatures by thought. But only if they were near and only pass simple short commands.
Shingi didn't have to think much about it as this was a chance he couldn't pass as he kept using his ACCELERATION skill but not to fight this time but to run away.
'I will remember your faces, and I will make you pay for today, Wolfheads' [Shingi]
Other than Cerberus, he didn't know any of the others in-game names, and since their Guild had the head of a Wolf as its symbol, he called them Wolfheads for now.
And so Shingi, with the help of an unexpected ally, made it out and had barely any SP left when he reached the gate of the town. Fortunately, no one seemed to have followed him, but he saw two girls talking with each other in front of the gate.
One of the girls was his sister, while the other was someone he didn't expect his sister to meet.
It was Little Phoenix.