Infinite Realm

"He has other teammates outside. I think he\'s holding us back while they take on the Kobold King!"

The [Ranger] who survived Sato\'s previous assault exclaimed.

"!!!" Azure dragon widened his eyes at those words.

While their previous speculations sounded reasonable, they weren\'t fearful of them. It was only the words of the [Ranger] that had managed to ignite a bit of trepidation in their hearts.

\'If that\'s true, then...\'

"Yukino, Griffin, Ore, Kylian, ignore him and look for the BOSS. All [Assassins] and mages, work with each other and try and pin him down even for a second. The rest of you, make use of that time and use your greatest attacks on him. Chesces, get your a** into that battle and help them! Use all items on hand and end that b*stard!" Azure Dragon shouted his orders with an anxious tone. 

Yukino hesitated a bit before she spoke up.

"But-"

"But nothing! Get going, now!" Azure Dragon cut her off.

Silver Wolf also gave out similar orders as Azure Dragon but he sent only 3 players to escort the other 4. The reason was simple; a mere team of 4 players wouldn\'t be able to handle the defeated Kobold King without any additional help. There was also the unknown team from Sato\'s side who would definitely interfere in the fight. From just this, Silver Wolf realised that the team Azure Dragon had sent out wasn\'t to take down the Kobold King but to interfere in the \'outsiders\' battle. Of the 3 players he sent, one was the only [Druid] in his team while the other two were a [Berserker] and an [Elementalist] respectively. Excluding himself, the [Ranger], and 3 others, these were the last surviving players of his team since Sato had already killed off 7 out of the 14 men he came with.

\'They\'ve finally realised it.\' While Sato didn\'t believe that they would discover his true intentions, he had still prepared for it.

\'This would be tricky now. Switch.\'

[[System notification :

Title [Savior of Races] has been removed.

Title [The Precursor] has been equipped. ]]

With the duration of [Gratitude of Races] being passed a while ago and the skill currently under cool-down, Sato decided to trade it [The Precursor]. While the title\'s effects were ineffective in group battles, as long as he could isolate himself with a single opponent, defeating them would be even faster. However, that would be difficult to achieve and so to some, this title could be regarded as useless but Sato decided to retain it just in case it was needed.

"He\'s coming for us." Kylian reported with a mixed tone. 

He never thought he would have lived to see the day where he had to run from an opponent who was not a peak Expert nor part of any rival guild but had also fought alongside him before.

"He\'s a haughty b*stard." Ore snorted.

"Ignore him, the rest would hold him back." Yukino said.

While it was true that she wanted to face off against Sato, the guild came first and the guild leader\'s orders were the same as the will of the guild.

Of the 8 players Sato had killed, only 1 was from Emperor\'s Might. While Sato had indeed traded blows with the others, he avoided killing them unless necessary, only setting his target to those of the 1st tier guild. This was because it was much easier for him to handle the fury of a 1st tier guild than that of a super guild even if it were just a branch. However, that didn\'t mean that he would let them keep harassing him continuously. In the end, every human had their limits.

More than 10 players surrounded Sato in a bid to hold him back and prevent him from chasing after the others. Though they knew that they were no match for Sato, they only had to hold him back for a while as the others escaped.

"This is your end." Monolith, a [Guardian] player who was also the second highest-rated MT in the team, said.

"Sato, we\'ve spotted him. Just give us a minute and we\'ll be done." Fudo\'s voice sounded in his ears.

Even though he was in an intense battle, Sato had set all audio messages from the team chat on auto-play. This way, he wouldn\'t miss out on any important information.

From Fudo\'s message, two details were could be interpreted. First of all, he alongside the other 3 has caught up with Xue Yan and Seiichi. As for the second detail, it was laid out in full in the message.

"1 minute. No problem." Sato said.

The players surrounding him heard his words but they were confused. Before any one of them could think up a meaning, Sato had already made his move.

[Linear Strike]

Sato chose a target in front of him and thrust his sword immediately at the player. With his already superior attacking speed and movement speed, the player couldn\'t react to Sato\'s attacks and got stabbed in the chest. 

-1230 (???/??? ???)

Sato had targeted an [Assassin] as that was the only class that might be able to give him a headache considering that their reflexes were naturally above that of the other classes. Also, the class\' outfit was leather armour which Sato could easily pierce through by making use of either of his swords.

\'Too fast\' were the only words that went through the assassin\'s mind as he felt to the sword.

\'Another one.\' Azure Dragon frowned.

He had noticed that Sato took down their players in either one or two moves. He would only use a third one against MTs or players that were lucky enough to live through the second strike.

"[Entangling Vines]."

The players Sato faced off against weren\'t average players but veterans and experts who had experienced several fights already. Their reaction speed and decision-making abilities were something regular players couldn\'t compare with. Hence, while Sato had the strength to slaughter them like mobs, that wasn\'t necessarily true.

The [Druid] who stood on standby was able to react quickly to Sato\'s assault on the [Assassin]. This was because the players were already prepared for it and also, this certain character had an innate rapid response speed compared to regular people. In other words, his reflexes, in reality, were faster than others. Since IR tried to incorporate every part of a player into the game world, the [Druid]\'s quirk also accompanied him.

*Rustle* *Rustle*

Dark green vines sprung up from the ground and entangled themselves around Sato. They had occupied a small area around him making it difficult to dodge them. Even though Sato was a level 15 player, if he got caught by those vines it would still take him a while to get rid of them. And the time he would spend doing that would be more than enough for the 10+ players to attack him.

[Astral Blade]

Sato used the last [Astral Blade] on his sword to slice apart the vines in front of him. 

"Ah!"

-700

-678

-879

The remaining energy in the crescent blade sped forth and hacked at 3 players. While it wasn\'t enough to send them to their respawn point, it still brought their HP to the red zone.

"Damn it." The [Druid] who attacked earlier cursed.

"Stop wasting your energy and use the items." Chesces yelled as he took command from the front lines.

Azure Dragon had sent him to control the players from up close but in reality, Chesces knew that this was an effort to burden him with responsibilities. Supposing they were to fail in defeating Sato and eliminating the Kobold King, as one of the commanders of a unit, Chesces would have to share the blame with Azure Dragon. So to avoid that, Chesces had to do a good job and succeed with his mission even though he was a bit unwilling to attack Sato.

"I apologize for this but as you\'re currently our enemy, I have no choice but to do this." Chesces said. 

As they had both fought alongside each other before, Chesces had gotten a hint of Sato\'s personality which he approved of. Therefore, despite standing on opposite sides, he still treated Sato with respect.

"Mages, cast the fort!"

The mages who all stood at the back lines each took out a scroll that they hurriedly unfurled. Before Sato could try and guess at what they were planning, the scrolls suddenly lit up with blue flames and burnt to ashes within a second. Following that, a blue barrier was erected from the standpoints of the mages. As the mages had all surrounded them, the barrier took on a hemispherical form, encasing Sato, Chesces, and all the other members of Emperor\'s Might and Howling Wolf Battalion who stood at the front lines. This excluded Azure Dragon, Silver Wolf, the [Ranger] from before, as well as another player. In summary, there were at least 16 players stuck alongside Sato and they were all his opponents.

[[ System notification :

Pressure Barrier has been activated.

Player will experience a special pressure that decreases movement speed and attacking speed. Attack power will also be affected.

-30% to movement speed.

-15% to Attack Power. ]]

Barriers weren\'t a new thing to IR but this barrier was one that mainly focused on a target\'s secondary attributes. The cost of ignoring the Main attributes was that the effects on one\'s secondary attributes were severe. The pressure barrier also has a special feature that enabled it to ignore allows and only targets foes. Who was an ally and who was the foe would be identified by the mages who operated it from the outside. 

At least 5 mages were needed to operate the barrier and their mana was constantly fed to it to operate it. The meaning of this was simple, to escape the barrier, one would have to deplete the mana of the mages if they lacked overwhelming strength to shatter it all at once. This was because by relying on the mages\' mana, the barrier would be able to tank average damage and could even heal itself of minor fissures.

"Trident formation." Chesces ordered.

The players in the team then followed their proper training and organised themselves in the appropriate formation. The speed at which they went about this was incredible as within 2 seconds, the formation was completed.

Chesces smiled as he glanced at the stunned Sato.

"From here on out, you can start counting down to your death."