58 - Outpost Destruction [Cast: Friction Coefficient Adjustment]

“Hmph, what do you think you’re doing?”

Even as I cast my spell, the knight snorted dismissively, completely unfazed. So this level of magic wasn’t enough to take him down. Was it his perfect balance, or was his armor enchanted with anti-magic treatment? It didn’t matter which—it wasn’t important.

I’d cast it in one more spot, after all.

“Nyaaaaaaaack!”

Adella slipped from the knight’s grasp and tumbled to the ground. If he grabbed her ankle now, it’d feel like it was slathered in oil. She crawled back toward me, catching her breath.

“Haaack... haaack. These guys are playing dirty, ganging up like that?”

The knight raised his greatsword from his waist, and Adella gulped. She’d already taken one hit from that strike, it seemed.

With her sprained ankle, Adella was worthless in combat now. In the end, time dragged on, forcing me into the worst scenario: facing twenty enemies alone. To make matters worse, she’d even given them time to regroup.

I spun my brain into overdrive. Could I use the terrain? There were options, but the guards were more familiar with this area. Twenty in number, but they couldn’t attack from all directions. I couldn’t rule out scouts, though. Unreliable as she was, I’d have to trust Adella with my back.

“Surrender, and we still won’t let you live.”

The knight growled in a low voice.

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

I quickly scanned for usable weapons around me. Tree branch? No, too weak. Rock? If it bounces off the armor, I’m done.

As I glanced around, Adella’s necklace glimmered in the moonlight.

“Borrowing this.”

“Wha—? Nooo! That’s mineee!”

I yanked off her necklace and scattered the beads across the ground. These threads should be enough to subdue them, at least.

“That bitch is the mage! Don’t give her time to cast!”

The guards weren’t yielding the first strike either. The ground shook with their stomping feet. Dust kicked up. The knights charged with terrifying speed, brute force and all.

Two blades sliced toward my shoulders in a diagonal cross—falling for the gap I’d deliberately shown them.

The necklace threads stiffened rigid. I split them in half and whipped them toward the knights’ helmets.

“Agh, my vision!”

A well-trained knight didn’t deviate from his initial sword path. He bent one knee, lowering his stance to easily dodge both threads. One pierced an eye perfectly, taking him out of the fight, but the other only blinded him temporarily.

But in this humid forest, even peeling off threads near negative 150 degrees couldn’t remove the frost coating his helmet.

Perfect—there was a sharp rock right behind him. I wrapped maximum aura around my foot and kicked the knight away, snatching the groaning other knight’s sword. I figured he’d just slam into the rock with his back, but the guard staggered wildly and tumbled off the cliff.

Idiot? For an AI, anyway.

“...Good. Now it’s fair.”

No spears, thankfully. In VR games, real-world logic applied—if a spearman existed, it’d take three swordsmen to take one down. A fact often overlooked in games and movies, but reach was crucial in standoffs. Conversely, a mage with a sword became deadly up close, letting me play mind games.

I checked the priest’s skills.

Far too inadequate for direct combat.

Penalties on top of wielding the sword. I hadn’t looted a single priest weapon on the way here—probably the effect of exploration difficulty 10.

But system exploits were all about creativity. I separated the blade and hilt with aura, then sliced them vertically into two pieces.

I fused the two blades to the backs of my hands.

As expected, the “holding a sword” detection vanished. Reminded me of some berserker from an old game.

I channeled aura through the attached blades to generate sword aura. The HP loss from my burning skin was manageable with the priest’s skills.

“Haven’t done this in a while, so my body might not move as I want.”

Of course, if there were general story guides, there were Nightmare-specific ones too.

For players overflowing with passion but stuck on arena scores, Nightmare guides hand-written by rankers were a beacon of hope for gamers.

With tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of guides on communities, but ask newbies what class they recommend? They all say tank.

The advantage of recoverability from “mistakes” was enough.

A class handy for clawing back from攻略 slips via sheer tenacity.

Shield Knight, Blood Knight, Dark Knight, Paladin—these guaranteed at least Tier 2 in every arena meta, the so-called national dish characters.

But dealers always tempted more than tanks. Once somewhat accustomed to Nightmare, players sought DPS classes. Arena powerhouses with firepower, but exponentially harder clear difficulty made mage and archer classes for the elite few.

What about healers? Healers didn’t need guides. At least, until now.

Wearsoft, the makers of World of Arceria who’d been agonizing over healer balance in arenas, eventually jacked up single-player difficulty for healers. Clears dropped, pick rates fell, arena balance got called “broken” and “god-tier” again—muting the minority main-healer users was a success.

Healers had long playtimes, so no one wrote guides for shifting boss patterns. Highest scores topped out at shaman (Nightmare 3/3/3) clears.

But after “Daesal” posted a holy knight (Nightmare 8/6/7) guide, healers split into two tiers: physical attackers and pure magic ones. The former hit Tier 0 beyond Tier 1; the latter settled at Tier 5 post-patches.

Why? The answer lay in Dimension Descent Scroll’s 2nd Circle magic “Tissue Regeneration” infinite use.

Dump all MP into spellcasting ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to max holy knight HP, then hundreds of non-mana stabs to fell bosses sequentially. Thus born the 100k combat power holy knight “endgame char.” No further growth needed—an endgame char viable even in Challenger made you the envy of World of Arceria.

Daesal had once spent two weeks on holy knight Matam-ak 8/6/7 to clear 8/7/7, skipping arena scores to lead healers at the forefront in a reckless challenge.

Holy knight was tough; priest with near-zero physical attacks made 10/10/10 impossible by consensus. Plus, NoName was a newbie, so he’d been about to advise rolling a new char.

But NoName’s performance was unbelievably flashy and original.

The moment she downed two knights, the remaining eighteen lost reason and charged.

NoName didn’t retreat. She didn’t parry every swinging blade. Vertical strikes? Dodge. Horizontal? Twist with sword aura to cross paths with allies’ charges.

Blade on blade, blade on aura— the battlefield became indiscriminate chaos.

Even as guards impaled on their own swords crumpled, those behind charged madly. No reason left—just instinct to tear NoName apart.

A fact unclear when facing two or three, let alone ten.

But NoName held her ground to the end. She knew how to use her small, agile frame.

No [Acceleration] for evasion—pure instinct, near precognition, to counter blades aiming to dismember her.

Only at the split-second her ruthless sword aura pierced a guard did her skill trigger, accelerating the blade.

Not stopping there—on cooldown, she swung her sword while perfectly casting a transmutation circle with her free hand.

In a moment she seemed doomed to a horrific blow, NoName reversed the enemy’s sword path 180 degrees. Perfect timing to finish nimble prey—the knight overloading his blade with explosive aura backfired catastrophically.

Boom! A deafening explosion erupted with acrid smoke.

No way! Was priest originally that kind of character?

Her play transcended “creative”—Daesal could only think to post this on the community ASAP.