"Let me at him!" A large man with a scowling face came out. "I have longed for a worthy opponent."
"All right, Wrathful Tom will take point. Everyone rushed in and support!" Prideful Josh said.
"No! Let me have a duel with him!" Wrathful Tom uttered.
Josh eyed his teammate for a bit before saying, "I will give you five minutes."
"Haha! It will be enough!" Tom laughed and walked towards Domon. He was a level 37 Berserker. He carried a very large double-headed battle axe. He swung the axe around with his two hands as he approached.
Domon watched his play and then commented, "You use too much flair in your swinging, it opens you to too many weak points."
Wrathful Tom who heard it, immediately spat, "Old fool! Who do you think you are? A school teacher? You want to see flair? I will show you flair!"
He activated Berserk mode as black tattoos covered his exposed body. His strength and speed escalated. He made a lunge and used Heavy Cleave. The battle-axe came down heavily and cracked the ground below. Domon was standing beside where the axe was planted.
"Too wide," he said.
Domon could have struck at that time but he just stood there, this angered Tom instead. Tom shouted as he pulled his axe out. He twirled his axe around as he slashed multiple times at Domon, but none of them hit. Domon continued to evade them by a hair as he continued to comment.
"You put too much force here."
"This is too soft."
"Too fast, you can't see where you hit."
Each comment turned Wrathful Tom's anger up a notch. Even Prideful Josh felt ashamed seeing his teammate getting played that way. He gave a silent hand sign to the others, 'prepare to engage.'
"Aren't we waiting five minutes?" Lustful Elly whispered.
"Look at that! Do you think there is any point waiting?" Josh said.
Trinity Dawn and some of the other core members that followed here could sympathize with Wrathful Tom. They had to go through similar treatment every morning.
While he continued evading his opponent's battle-axe, Domon suddenly felt another attack coming from his dead spot. He leaned back just as an arrow sped through. Domon noticed other players were running toward him as well, with some magic class started casting spells.
Wrathful Tom was not even in the mood to be angry because Prideful Josh had cut his five minutes short, he just wanted to cut up this old coot in front of him to alleviate his fury. His body started spinning at high speed like a top, his battle-axe was positioned straight by his side, so when his body spun, the axe became a deadly mower blade.
Domon realized this was a game skill. No way a human body could spin like that. He backstepped rapidly as the spinning Tom chased after him.
The move executed by Tom was indeed a game skill, it was Punishing Cyclone, a skill Berserker acquired after reaching level 35.
Domon gave the spinning move a test. He swung his glaive and hit the highly spinning blade. His arm was smacked aside by a very strong impact. Domon also received a little damage, which meant the damage caused exceeded three times his normal attack.
"Very strong," Domon commented while he continued backstepping, keeping the moving spinning blade from hitting him.
"But a top has one weakness," Domon said as he squat down and stabbed his glaive.
A bright shine enveloped the blade of Domon's glaive as it struck Wrathful's Tom legs which were the axis of his spinning. The impact exploded with a burst of blue-colored energy. It was Weapon Master's Ki Strike. Domon seldom used game skills, but that didn't mean he doesn't know how to.
Wrathful Tom's Punishing Cyclone stopped as he lost his footings and suffered damage from the Ki Strike.
Domon followed up with an upward slash before giving Tom a spinning back kick which threw him back to the throng. He suffered damage from both attacks, including the kick. He crushed into his advancing teammates and was already in critical health.
Domon had spared the guy, but Trinity Dawn did not. She threw Arcane Turbulence right on the ground where Tom landed. Her Arcane Turbulence was special. Instead of spewing out multi-colored elemental energies, it was mainly ice energy. The damage inflicted was higher and all the ones hit by the spell suffered stronger slow than the standard Arcane Turbulence spell, if not outright frozen.
Wrathful Tom's remaining HP was depleted after this spell.
"Useless!" Prideful Josh cursed. The only consolation was Tom was wearing Amulet of Rebirth. Still, they were down by one top combatant.
All pretense was tossed, the battlefield was back to being messy. Crowds of Sins heavily outnumbered Domon and the others, but the cave entrance served as a choke point. So, their benefit was curtailed, especially with experts such as Domon and Trinity holding the line.
Yet, Crowds of Sins were not amateurs. Prideful Josh quickly reassembled their formation, putting the defensive players to keep on pushing in a line while the ranged players continued tossing attacks and spells beyond the front line.
Even Domon had trouble evading so many ranged attacks coming his way, especially the AOE spells. He was denied the freedom to fight the advancing melee players and was forced to retreat step by step. Trinity and other ranged players tried to do their parts, but healers sustained the HP on the front melee row and kept them advancing without worry.
If they continued to be pushed back, the cave would soon open up to the larger cavern, where Jeanny and the others were still fighting the trolls. Their chokepoints advantage would then be nullified. Enemy large number could swarm them from every side. At that time, things would take a turn for the worse.
Everyone knew this predicament, but the best they could do was also simply delay the inevitable. Many of their melee players even died trying their best to halt the enemy's advance while being bombarded by range attacks.
Domon stole some rare chances when Trinity's spells managed to disrupt the enemy's ranged players. He slipped into the gaps between arrows and spell bombardments to batter the melee players, but he was soon forced to retreat. The downed enemy players were soon replaced by their comrades. The enemy simply had too many backups to spare.
While they were almost being pushed into the larger cavern hall, they heard a commotion further back at the enemy's backline.
Some players from the Warriors of Solidarity gang exclaimed, "Big boss has arrived!"
The others from the gang uttered a loud war cry after hearing it. The others who used to complain about them being noisy and rude had to admit that this lot was also a very efficient morale-rising group. The Warriors of Solidarity who were already at the front line halting the enemy's advance, issued a rallying cry while doubling over to push back. The others were affected by the mood and doubled their effort.
"What was that?" Prideful Josh shouted. He was in the middle of their formation and was pushing forward with the others when a commotion suddenly happened at the backside. His surroundings were too noisy, it's as if everyone was shouting. He also had to shout when he asked Lustful Elly.
"Look at leaders' party chat!" Elly shouted back.
Josh opened his message. There were multiple messages from the leaders placed on the backline. The messages were all the same, "the demon is here!"
Due to the sudden commotion at the back, Crowds of Sins players started to get confused. They asked their friends what was happening at the back. Due to this, their advance lessened. The front line also weakened their push as they felt the loss of support from the back.
Added with the rise of morale on Everlasting Heavenly Legends players, Crowd of Sins' push was completely stopped.
Seeing the reduction in ranged bombardments, Domon took the chance to make a gambling move. He rushed forward and punched through the front defensive players. Somersaulting over them and then used Death Carrying Cyclone to push everyone back. Before rushed in deeper and started hacking.
The Warriors of Solidarity made use of this gap and also rushed in. Creating more havoc as they followed Domon's wake. Crowds of Sins' formation was completely in shamble because of it, but Domon was also in the middle of the enemy's group, besieged from all sides.
Domon didn't have the overpowering attributes as Jack, if he used Jack's tactic of delving into the enemy's formation, there was a chance he might get overwhelmed. If enough people held him and applied their weights to hold him down, he would be helpless. But his expert footwork prevented that from happening. He might not have the uncanny speed of Jack, but his perfect control and awareness of the surrounding allowed him to evade anyone who tried to brute force him.
His glaive also continued dancing around players. At one point he tapped his glaive and a miniature image of the weapon appeared beside him.
It was Weapon Master's level 35 standard skill, Spirit Weapon.
