Second World

Jack was caught off guard by the puppet's speed. He barely managed to parry the puppet's attack which was using a heavy mace. The strike pushed him back several steps until one of his feet stepped on the blue floor. The puppets at the blue area came to life again and rushed towards him. Jack was given a fright as he hurriedly pulled his foot back to the green area, and this caused the puppets behind to stop moving again.

Before he could let out a relieved sigh, his attention was taken again by the puppet with heavy mace in front, who swung its weapon from high up towards his head. Jack was caught off guard before because he had expected the puppets in the green area to have the same attributes as the blue area ones. Now that he knew they were faster and also stronger, he adjusted his pace. He jumped sideways to avoid the strike.

When he landed, another puppet was already throwing a slash onto his neck. Jack ducked then roll forward to put some distance, but he caught from the corner of his eyes the other puppets were closing in. He only needed to pass through them, so he tried his best not to make any physical contact with the puppets. He waded through the puppets one by one, but somehow when he was making some distance forward, one of them always managed to get ahead and pushed him back. Their teamwork was meticulous. Jack was having difficulty proceeding as he kept moving to keep them from surrounding him. He would be in danger if they managed to encircle him.

The rowdy men who were having ugly expressions when they saw Jack had made it to the green floor area easily, now wore a wide grin again.

"Hehe, does he think it will be easy?" One of them said.

"Yeah, he had overestimated himself," another added.

As the rowdy warriors were returning to their merry selves and made fun of Jack, Jack continued to observe the puppets' movements and actions. Their strength and speed were indeed superior compared to their blue area's predecessors, yet their moves were the same monotonous operation. They were only capable of normal melee attacks, no skill nor any ranged attack. As Jack got more used to their repeat actions, he led them to one side and then ran again to another side, causing them to move in a single line one after another. This way he could deal with them one after another.

Time to counter-attack, Jack thought. He had learned to treat this world as real life, hence he considered how to deal with his opponents the way he would if it was real. He saw that the wooden puppet's body had hard skin which reduced the damage they receive. Yet their joints seemed fragile, as it was required in order for them to move fluidly. Thus, he targeted the puppet's knee joints.

When the closest puppet arrived and was delivering its monotonous attack again, Jack easily dodged it and sent a Power Strike to its knee joint. It made a loud clang sound and the puppet fell to his knee. It rose up again promptly, but it was now moving with a limp.

It worked! Jack celebrated in his mind. Normally this method would not have worked in previous VR games. No matter which vital part he hit, it would only cause damage, or at best a critical damage, but it would not impair the target movements. Even if you hack the target legs thousands of times, it would still move normally afterward. This game world here was completely different and much more real.

As he saw that his method had borne results, he used the same method to the second puppet. And then to the third, and so on. As they had been set up in a linear formation, he managed to deal with them one by one. Each had their knee joints incapacitated to a limp.

The rowdy warriors who were laughing in merriment a while ago got their smiling faces reduced little by little with each cracked knee joint. When the seventh puppet fell on its knee due to Jack's stab, their expressions were completely serious, not a hint of a smile could be seen.

"We have seriously underestimated him," the female warrior said.

"There is still the red area. I don't believe he can really pass it!" Announced one of the men behind her.

"Naturally," another agreed.

Gruff made no comment as he continued to observe.

With the seven puppets crippled, they no longer had the speed to chase after Jack. He put a distance between himself and the puppets with ease as he entered the red floor area.

The red area only had three wooden puppets, but as he came near them, he could see that they were completely different than the ones before. Their wood skin was steely dark instead of the healthy brown color of the wood. And their sizes were twice compared to the other puppets. However, despite their sizes, their speeds were slightly faster than the green area puppets. These red area puppets did not carry any weapons. Instead, their hands were replaced by large round iron balls.

The first puppet charged at Jack like a mad bull. Jack had expected these puppets to be faster so he had made preparation. He leaped to the side once he saw the closest puppet made a movement. He rolled on the floor and rose as he saw the puppet rammed past where he stood. He would have been slammed back to the green area if that had happened.

The second puppet which saw his move had made its way towards him. It lifted its steel ball high and slammed it down. Jack managed to jump to the side to dodge, he then used the opportunity to attack its knee joint, hoping the same trick will work. But the sound when the attack hit was different, he knew immediately that his attack had failed to deliver sufficient damage to cripple the knee joint.

The puppet suddenly swung its steel ball horizontally, almost took out Jack's head with its violent lurch. Jack bent his body backward and managed to evade the swing, but he lost his balance and fell to his back. The puppet jumped at him and was about to use both his feet to flatten Jack on the floor. Jack rolled sideways to evade. Although missed, the puppet didn't stop as he continued to stomp its foot one after another in the attempt to trample Jack.

Jack continued to roll to avoid the stomping. Upon his rolling, he halted as he found out another puppet had come from the direction he was rolling towards.

Crap! He cursed in his mind. He made a quick-thinking and do a back somersault, narrowly avoiding the second puppet as it slammed down to the floor. Jack quickly rose and made a couple of backsteps. The two puppets who had failed, came chasing after him with fervor.

It was no use fighting with them, he thought. Their skins were too hard, even their joints were tough. He would just waste time if trying to deal damage to them. All he had to do was to escape from the red area to the platform with the statue. So he maximized his speed, and weaved through the two puppets as he crept closer to the platform.

His speed was thankfully still a bit faster than these puppets due to his dual-class attributes, but as he got closer, he found that the third puppet was standing in his way. The red area was the smallest compared to the other two prior areas. Hence he had much less space to move around, and the speed and size of the puppet made it easier for them to cover the range.

With his front blocked and another two menaces coming from behind, Jack had no choice but to run to the side. The puppet in front followed his movement but do not come forward, as if knowing that Jack might use the chance to sneak past him.

Shit! They were intelligent too, Jack cursed in his mind.

He had no choice but to fall back. The other two puppets continued to dog him while the third one kept watching near the platform. After running around for some time, Jack saw that there was no way to outmaneuver these puppets.

Seeing no other options, his left hand took out his magic staff.