MMORPG: The Elementalist

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

The Last Man Standing Contest was now in full swing.

One after another, batches of deceased players re-entered the contest and were given one minute and fifteen seconds for pre-battle preparations, while some remained in the Purge Tower to continue the unfinished battle.

***

Bam!

Two gray Warriors were seen clashing in one of the battlefields. The more resilient figure did not budge while his Swordmaster opponent backed away a few steps as if he had hit an impenetrable iron wall. The latter quickly took out a potion from his pouch bag and gulped in hastily.

'F*ck, are you even human?' The Swordmaster cussed silently while locking his sights on the Berserker, who did not come after him after the clash.

Although his damage had been halved, he still found it difficult to accept that his Tier 5 Skill couldn't even deal a hundred damage on his opponent.

He was not a newbie. His versatility to survive in the Purge Tower until this point was enough to prove that he was either a Tier 5 Champion or a Tier 4 with a powerful pet. He had stepped over the dead bodies of numerous players to reach this stage.

At first, the Swordmaster paid no attention to the Berserker, who might be an NPC and was always at the passive end of a skirmish. The Swordmaster was not impressed by the number of corpses that were strewn around the Berserker.

This was simply because the Berserker did not display any fancy battle techniques. He used only a primitive Berserker skill during the battle. Under his brief observation, the Swordmaster noticed that the Berserker usually finishes his opponent off in roughly 20 seconds, which was nothing more than ordinary.

Twenty seconds is relatively long…

The players or NPCs that died in his hand? None of them lasted longer than that.

But this seemingly ordinary Berserker gave him a terrific chill right after their first contact. He could sense his opponent's bottomless depths of power.

The head on clash took away one hundred and fifty HP from him while he only managed eighty-seven damage on the Berserker.

The damage difference was close to two-fold (though it did not necessarily reflect the difference of their Attack stats).

The Swordmaster felt bitterly disappointed. He gave a more serious take on the corpse around the Berserker now and finally understood how they ended up that way.

The Berserker's attack was within a normal range, maybe only twenty to thirty points higher than his previous opponents. It was his sustained damage that was absurdly low.

The Swordmaster attack was usually higher than five hundred and fifty points. In the face of his Gale Slash, any defensive barrier of an Elementalist would be instantly crushed. Not only that, but the powerful impact of the skill as a result of its high speed should be quite overwhelming as well.

Nevertheless, the Berserker had absorbed it with ease and only suffered a minor injury.

'Steel Berserker!' The Swordmaster's mood sank after he figured out his opponent's Class.

Only a fully defensive, top-tiered Steel Berserker would be resilient enough to sustain his attacks without being heavily injured.

The Zephyr Swordmaster squinted his eyes and retreated slowly. He glanced around him and thought, 'Well, it's earlier than expected, but I think I have no choice but to summon my pet now.'

Steel Berserker was uncommon among the veteran Champions. Anyhow, a class that relied heavily on Defense to win a fight was nothing remarkable. 'Those had lost to him before because I was simply too flimsy.'

Howll!!!

Roar!!!

Two thundering growls were heard as a giant Elemental Wolf a red and black coat appeared out of thin air beside the Swordmaster. Its height was taller than the Zephyr Swordmaster by at least a foot. It's fiery beastly eyes carried a ferocity commonly found on a wolf monsters. The Pet noticed the Berserker in front of it and instantaneously released Dark, as well as Fire-type Spells at the same time.

Three Dark Corrosive Bombs and three Fireball canons were dished out almost simultaneously.

Zephyr Swordmaster was immediately regarded as the most dangerous opponent by the remaining survivors inside the Purge Tower after they witnessed the gigantic double-headed Elemental Wolf and its horrific overlapping spells.

Just as most players were contemplating on how to resist the imposing Swordmaster after he took care of the Berserker, the Steel Berserker hastily put away his claymore and calmly placed a mighty dark gold Shield in front of him.

Whump… crash… whomp…

The flying dark-corrosive fluids and fireballs were all stopped short by the heavy shield.

The Zephyr Swordmaster did not freak out that his attacks were blocked. Instead, he made a sinister grin.

'Trying to elevate Defense with a Shield? You are underestimating my Abyssal Wolves.'

Poof!

Poof!

The black liquid splashed on top of the Shield upon contact and was immediately met by the incoming Fireball. After a cracking noise, the normal Fireballs exploded and spread into three bursts of Fireburst. The three ferocious balls of flame instantly engulfed the Steel Berserker.

With the Steel Berserker in its center, a five-meter radius around him turned into a sea of dark red fire.

The weariness from the people toward the Swordmaster had just been raised to a higher level. Chain Combo Spells were exceptionally rare.

Even the Winter Demon had only mastered multicast, which consisted of consecutive spells instead of chained spells.

"This player…" While many players gasped heavily out of astonishment, the Zephyr Swordmaster who was full of himself only a moment ago had suddenly turned grim.

"That's… not possible." Shockingly, the Steel Berserker walked out steadily from the sea of fire. He paced slowly and appeared to be unharmed, other than the little burn marks that caught the edge of his equipment.

"Outrageous!" All fighters across the tower stopped their act all together.

Six spells with three chained combos, coupled with additional Burn Damage—To any Tier 5 players, these ten consecutive bombardments will deal substantial damage to any Class including the Elementalist, even if its damage had been reduced to half of its original value.

'What kind of monster is this Steel Berserker? He is like a droid and did not seem to be bothered by the heavy attack at all.

'What kind of joke is this?'

The Zephyr Swordmaster's mimicked face was twisted into an ugly scowl.

The chained spell attack was his ultimate trump card. He was hoping that it would take the opponent by surprise and subsequently kill him with the unexpected attack.

But the Steel Berserker took it all in and had turned up perfectly fine.

'Perhaps I have come across the rumored extreme Steel Berserker with a full set of Legendary Defensive Armor? Or is could this be actually the well-known strongest Boss of the Purge Tower?'

The Zephyr Swordmaster was downright disheartened.

***

Judge walked out from the fire slowly and glanced at the Zephyr Swordmaster, his pet Abyssal Wolves, as well as the more than ten fighters that had stopped skirmishing and looked back at him. His heart finally burned with a faint desire to fight.

"Finally, some worthy opponents…"

It was hard to blame him. Initially, Judge had put a considerably high expectation on this Last Man Standing Contest. He even started the battle with an Advanced Vitality Potion. This brought his Physical Attack close to four hundred and his Magic Defense to about two hundred. After the Berserk, his defensive stat had taken yet another leap. This was already impenetrable by ordinary players. Worse still, the event had limited all the players' damage by half, which turned Judge into an almost indestructible figure within the tower.

The first six enemies that came to him had all turned into corpses without him breaking a sweat…

He had 4500 HP now. Up to this point, not a single attack on him had dealt more than three-digits of damage. The player and the Pet were the only two that had given him the strongest pounce so far, but even that had only cost him two hundred HP.

In summary, the forty-nine players allocated into the same level with him were simply too weak—to the point that he was too demotivated to chase down these weaklings or even move his legs.

But at this moment, there was a slight change in the atmosphere inside the tower. More than ten players who had stopped fighting, tactically moved toward Judge from all directions. Judge finally kept his Shield back into his backpack and took out the broadsword that had gone through fire and water with him. A long overdue earnest expression appeared on his masked face.

***

After the Last Man Standing Contest had proceeded for fifteen minutes, the first batch that entered the tower had almost come to the end stage. Surviving players and NPC had begun their final slaughter.

Inside one of the towers, all but a single Summoner led his spider army to dominate a one-sided slaughter against tens of players.

'F*ck!

'Maniac! This bastard is simply a lunatic!'

More than ten players were cornered by the Summoner with a pair of monster wings on his back. They cursed him with every expletive that crossed their minds. If they could speak, they would have reprimanded the guy who had fused with a Tier 6 Flying Monster, with the most vulgar words they know.

However, they were too exhausted and too frightened to do so.

They had come across crazy ones, perhaps shameless ones, but not such a merciless one before.

They had easily guessed the name of their insane opponent judging by the dense amount of Explosive Spiders, Deathfiend Spiders, and some other unknown species of monster spiders that crowded the ceiling and the walls around them.

Other than the Dinosaurcerer from Violent Army, nobody would have used such a psychological approach to harass them.

But they had no idea that Dinosaurcerer was not entirely willing to do this either. He was somehow being dragged into it.

If not for a winged Warrior and a Tier 5 Elementalist ganking him and nearly taking his life, he wouldn't have used the Great Tree Sap out of desperation which brought forth his ultimate battle strategy.

This was taught to him by the cheeky Black Rock before he entered the Last Man Standing Contest. Black Rock even guaranteed that his footage would be highlighted by the official forum if he executed the battle plan as told.

He had no memory of how he had lost his mind and depleted all the potions and Summoning Mana Cores in his backpack.

As a consequence of his reckless move, a swarming myriad of greenish Goblin Spiders, camouflaging Chameleon Spiders, and Mannequin Spiders popped up from the thin air uncontrollably when Dinosaurcerer's back was being pushed against the wall.

Due to the halved player's damage, the survivability of all the monster spiders increased radically due to their high HP (at least 6000).

The two opponents that pinned Dinosaurcerer were not intimidated at first. But as the number of spiders doubled exponentially and showed no signs of stopping, the Tier 5 Elementalist finally collapsed at one point and was squashed by more than twenty Chameleon Spiders which all jumped consecutively on him.

The winged Warrior was no better.

After the Elementalist was killed, Dinosaurcerer found an opening and let Deathfiend Spider rain some Explosive Spiders on the winged Warrior.

As it turned out, the two formidable foes were defeated by Dinosaurcerer rather easily. This left the Summoner with more than forty spiders and numerous Explosive Spiders to spare, which resulted in people calling him a lunatic or a deranged man.

'Sigh…'

Dinosaurcerer shook his head and mumbled to himself, "Actually, I had no choice too." After that, he ordered his mass spider army to attack.