While they were quarreling, Goliath ran at Jack and brandished his two-handed heavy mace.
“Hey, wait! Are you not going to let us have a talk first?” Jack said as he sidestepped to the side to evade the blow.
“No talk!” Goliath uttered. His heavy mace stopped in mid-swing and changed direction to pursue Jack. “Die!” He roared.
“The hell! Wasn’t that heavy?” Jack commented about Goliath’s act of altering the trajectory of his mace. His hand, however, did not stop. His Storm Breaker met with the heavy mace and a loud clang was heard.
Goliath was forced backward. Despite his gigantic frame, his strength still lost to Jack. Jack didn’t let the opportunity go as he fired standard range attacks at the giant. Goliath deftly smacked all the range attacks coming his way.
The others had also moved. Several arrows, Mana Bullets, and Energy Bolts came Jack’s way. Jack used Flash Step to evade the straight traveling attacks while using his sword to slash at the ones that chased after him. A spell rune started forming on the tip of his magic staff.
“Stop! Move back! That was his ice spell!” Assistant Manager Ironhand shouted when he saw the rune forming on Jack’s staff.
Jack had used the Ice Ring spell several times when he was slaughtering the guild members, so many had seen when he cast it. But still, the rune only lasted for a short moment before the spell took effect. To be able to memorize the rune of this corresponding spell in those few exchanges was outstanding, not to mention to be able to recognize it while the rune was still half-formed.
The melee classes that were rushing at Jack, hurriedly back away again after hearing the warning. Nevertheless, some were still hit by the spell, they were either already too close or were too slow in acknowledging Ironhand’s warning. Two rogues, one Knight and Goliath were the ones that were hit. Amongst them, one of the Rogues and the Knight were those unlucky enough to get frozen status.
Jack wanted to capitalize on their frozen status and took them out of the equation, but when he was about to approach, the ground between him and those two frozen opponents flared up.
Shit, the Arcane Turbulence spell! Jack recognized the effect as he retreated back. It was the plump mage, Beauty Beholder, that had cast the spell, effectively saving her comrades.
The ground where Jack had retreated to flared up again.
Another? Jack was speechless, but his body did not stop. His high speed brought him to the edge of the spell area before the spell took effect. However, as he was about to jump out of the spell effect area. The ground in front of him showed the same flaring effect.
These expert mages are good! He gave them his praise in his mind while also making a pledge to kill them soon.
Jack used flash step as the ground beneath him erupted. The spectators only saw his afterimage getting swallowed by the Arcane Turbulence. Common players would assume that he had been stunned still by the chained spells, and ended up not moving on his spot and was hit by the spell. However, these lots here were not common players. They had seen Jack’s Flash Step move many times as well.
Assistant Manager Ironhand who had his arrow readily nocked on his bow, let loose of his arrow as it traveled directly to the spot where Jack appeared. Jack was shocked to find an arrow heading his way just as he teleported, but his reaction was not slow, probably thanks to his high reflex stat as well. He bent his body back as he narrowly dodged the arrow. However, another arrow hit him from another direction.
Spells and arrows continued to bombard him as he danced around the attack. His armor gave him reduced damage from ranged attacks, but these many attacks were still too overwhelming. Not to mention, the current attacks were made by experts who knew how to coordinate and positioned themselves well, unlike the haphazard ones from before.
The melee opponents no longer rushed over to him. They stood at the side and only attacked when Jack was trying to go after the range classes.
“This was troublesome,” Jack muttered. He was not allowed the time to drink potions. His HP kept on decreasing steadily.
“All right, you guys are good!” He paused a bit before correcting, “Oh, I’m sorry, and gals also!”
His opponents glanced at each other. The fellow still had the mood to joke around?
“Now, I will be showing you folks my helper too!” Jack said and tossed three Disruptive Bombs around him in rapid succession.
The experts saw his move, three mages came out to receive each of the bombs while the other retreated. Spell runes were formed and the three of them were covered by Barriers. They blocked the bomb with their bodies as it exploded, keeping the rest of their comrades safe from the explosions.
So they had prepared a counter move in case if he still had bombs, Jack thought. But he had expected as much. No way these so-called experts relied themselves on the assumption that he ran out of ammo. However, Jack was not using the bombs as a killing move. They were only to allow him a breather.
He took out a small figurine from his storage bag. The figurine was of cat shape in red color. It was the Pyro Lynx Figurine which he had bought. He crushed that rare item and it broke into many tiny pieces. Fire erupted from the pieces and they were burnt to ashes before they could touch the ground. The fire from the broken pieces danced in the air, creating multiple flame tongues that rapidly converged in front of Jack, forming a four-legged silhouette.
The silhouette was fuzzy at first, but as all the flame tongues had seeped into it, the shape became more vivid. It resembled a large cat with a slender body, its ears were long with a pointy shape and pointing upward. When its eyes opened, which were two bright glowing orbs where the eye sockets should have been, its body was ablaze with a raging fire.
Jack’s opponents were motionless as they were enthralled by the appearance of this elemental cat.
“Wha–What is that?” One of them blurted out.
The Pyro Lynx stared at the crowd in disdain, but it stayed its place, It didn’t move without Jack’s order. Jack made an Inspect on the summoned creature and it was indeed a level 20 special elite creature.
“Do not be discouraged! It was just one monster,” Stonecleave shouted out to assuage the others.
Everyone agreed with his words. It was just one monster. They had traveled this world and fought countless monsters. Some much larger than the cat in front. This one small monster should not be a problem for experts such as them.
Assistant Manager Ironhand shot an arrow at the fire cat for a test. The cat nimbly jumped to the side, evading the arrow.
“If it is evading such a normal attack, there is no need to worry. It will just be another monster for us to kill,” Assistant Manager Ironhand said, further motivating his teammates.
“Do you still have any toys left, boy?” Lustful Ellie spoke with a teasing voice, “take them all out, madam will play with you.”
“I’m sorry, auntie, you are not my type,” Jack replied. He shivered remembering where this woman almost hit him at.
Lustful Ellie did not appreciate her being called auntie, yet her teasing tone remained, “naughty boy, I will punish you for daring to call me auntie.”
“Heh, let’s finish this!” Goliath uttered.
As they were about to move, Jack gave the Pyro Lynx a simple command. “Go,” he said.
The fire cat vanished from its position. Before anyone could register its disappearance, they heard yells from the side. They turned and saw several of their comrades were covered in blazing flame. They did not understand what had happened at first, but then they saw blurs of shadow speeding around inside the crowd. Wherever the shadow passed through, the players there caught fire. Their HP fell incessantly as their bodies burnt.
Damn, it was really fast! Jack said in his mind.
“That pyro lynx specialty was speed, other than that, it did not have many redeeming qualities,” Jack heard Peniel explaining in his mind. “Its source of damage was mainly from its fire skill. Anyone it scratched will catch fire and suffered flame damage. It is a very powerful summon to use against outworlders at this stage because most of you are still without any elemental resistance.”
“It is indeed so,” Jack muttered under his breath as he admired the work of his summoned creature. The enemies were already in chaos at the time. And when he remembered this summon of his lasted for one hour, he felt slight pity for his enemies.
