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Compared to the numbers that the enemy forces had, our numbers weren’t much. We’re currently standing at the top of a tall tower, so there were only 6 other allies together with us.

There was only one mercenary that had a red outfit on as well.

The enemy forces looked to be over 20 in numbers, and most of them were wearing red outfits.

“What’s this? Looks like the first enemies we’re fighting are just a bunch of rookies and girls.”
“Hey come on, this is good for us! We’ll just kill ’em quick and go around gathering up kill points!”

The enemy mercenaries advanced towards us as they talked amongst each other. Looking at their class composition, it looked like most of them were knights, with thieves, mages, and healers mixed in, making it look like this entire group was from a single guild. This was further proven by the fact that they were talking to each other as if they knew each other ‌well.

“But they’re still red outfits, so be careful.”

A female user with an attire that looked like a healer spoke to them with a somewhat cautious tone.

“As if! We have several times more numbers than them, and can’t you see their class composition?”
“In any case!”

As I didn’t want to wait for them to finish their little talk, I dashed in towards them.

“Wha…!?”

I activate all of my passive skills¹. Among them is the ‘Force Blade’ skill, which is the only skill that drains mana even though it’s a passive one, a unique skill that’s only given to Grand Masters.

To explain, when you reach the 1st proficiency tier in your class, you’re called a ‘Master’, and users that achieve this tier can then use the passive skill called ‘Aura Blade’. For users that raised their character with a mixture of both solo play and party play, they usually reach around the level 700~750 mark when they reach a ‘Master’ proficiency tier.

This passive skill can be activated at the same time as any of your active skills differs in the ‌time it can last depending on how much mana you have left. If you have enough potions, you can continuously keep this passive skill, and it doubles all melee damage. If you were to use an active skill on top of this, your total damage output could reach 3 times the normal amount, so it’s definitely a very useful passive skill.

It’s enough of a difference that some in Blue Sky say the real game only starts after you reach Master tier proficiency. Usually, ‘Aura Blade’ differs to each individual user, but it covers your weapon with a colored aura that uses up your mana and is used to both show off an aesthetic look and show how powerful you are to others.

However, with ‘Force Blade’, it’s different. Currently in the world of Blue Sky, as far as I know I am the only user who has reached the Grand Master tier in proficiency, therefore I am probably the only one who knows about this‌. The effect of the skill isn’t known to the public as well. I only figured out that it makes the blade completely invisible when I was testing it in the Red Plains previously².

Therefore, the enemy mercenaries didn’t realize just how dangerous and powerful I am when they saw that I had activated the ‘Force Blade’ passive skill and simply lifted ‌their swords in defence to my attack, but the result was gruesome for them.

“Arrgh!”

With a single strike, one of their arms gets sliced off, and the 2nd strike cuts their head off³.

Not stopping there, I cut down two more mercenaries that were in a stunned state before one of them shouted out, waking them up from their stupor.

“A… Attack her!”

As their voice was feminine and shaking a bit, I presumed that it belonged to that healer.

“What is that? That doesn’t look like a Master skill though!”

One mercenary that successfully fended off my Force Blade with their Aura Blade spoke with a frown.

Sorry, but I had no intention of explaining what my skill was.

I swing my Excalibur down right on him. As he had successfully parried my attack once, he assumed that he could do it again a second time. However…

Slash!

Together with his own sword, my blade goes right down on his face. Together with the gore mod that was added to the game some time ago, the realistic gore that portrayed by my brutal attack was sickening enough to make anyone almost puke, but I’ve become desensitized by it after 5 years of experience to a similar degree. Some people claim that because of the violent nature of the game that the people in society are becoming more violent as well, but there had been very little case of the average people committing murder or violence because of those influences, and those that do commit murder were already psychotic people that could murder without hesitancy‌. Playing these kinds of games is a way for people to relieve their stress and violent tendencies safely, causing no problem in my opinion.

“Damn it! It’s a high-ranking player.”
“Damn…!”

The enemies then realized the situation and bunched up together defensively. In the meantime, the mage among the enemy group attempted to attack the low level users on our side.

However, Katalina easily destroyed their attempt.

“No way! To complete a whole spell within that time frame…!?”

It sounded completely plausible for me, as I knew about the extremely short casting time that Katalina had achieved, but it seems like it was a massive shock to the enemy mage.

But in any case, it looks like they’re bunched up together!

That means it was a chance for me to rack up high amounts of kill points. I glanced at Katalina. She nodded her head as if she already knew my intention, and I prepared to cast the active skill ‘Sword Storm’.

Before I cast it, I carefully step towards them and study their movements.

“Haah!”

It seemed like one of them thought I had a gap in defence, as an enemy soldier jumped out from the bunched up group and tried to attack, but with a single counter attack execution, the enemy soldier immediately flopped dead.

Feeling our overwhelming power against them, they looked like they wouldn’t even think about fighting back. Now was the time.

A magic curse that decreases the stats of users was cast on them, which had a relatively short casting time.

“Ugh! It’s a curse.”
“Healer, quick, get it off us.”

Since there was a powerful opponent standing in front of them and their own stats were decreased by the curse, they hurriedly asked the healer to dispel the curse from them.

The healers try their best to undo the curse, but…

“My god, the curse isn’t getting off!”

They all stare at Katalina with fear in their eyes. She simply smirked and looked smug.

Finally, I completed the preparation for the skill ‘Sword Storm’. I wonder how many users can withstand the damage output of a Perfect tier active skill that has been augmented with the ‘Force Blade’ passive skill?

With over 400% increase in my movement speed, I dash around the group, stabbing multiple enemies rapidly. The execution of the skill is very difficult as I needed to accurately stab the exact location I need to continue the combo and move onto the next target right away, but I had already practiced executing this skill often back when I was fighting many Red Orcs, plus the enemy users who had their stats lowered by the curse made it even easier for me to take them down than Red Orc monsters.

They were easier to take down as the curse cast on them brought their stats lower than the minimum requirement to ‌dodge or reduce the damage they received from my attack. As my attacks scored critical hits multiple times in a row, every single enemy that was hit by my Sword Storm skill was put into panic status. Characters put in a panic status have the control and movement of their body limited temporarily.

It’s a phenomenon that would occur on targets when they receive terrifying amounts of damage from any active skill attack. However, with the active skill ‘Sword Storm’, it occurs to the enemy 100% of the time.

Finally, in order to complete the final ‘Burst⁴‘ movement execution, I stepped off the ground as hard as I can to jump up as high as possible, concentrated my mana into my sword till crackles of electricity ran across the blade, which was stabbed directly onto the ground as I landed.

And then I regretted it.

“You freaking idio…!!!”

Katalina’s voice filled with shock rang across the land.

Boom!!

An impact that I had never felt previously exploded throughout the castle tower. The enemy users that were directly in the centre of the impact all immediately got a Game Over. My finishing move was honestly a good one, but the tower had taken all the impact of the explosion directly…

“It’s falling down!!!”
“Run away!”

The mercenaries from our side all ran around crazily in a panic, trying to escape from the falling tower. After the skill effect had concluded, there was only thick dust and the tower itself leaning to one side, falling over.

I guess the one good thing about it falling is that it’s not falling towards the inside of the castle walls, but ‌outwards.

“Everyone, please gather around here!”

Hearing Katalina’s hurried shout, the allied mercenaries all converged to her direction. They must have judged that since she proved herself to be a powerful mage, she must have some kind of answer to this situation.

In no time, Katalina cast a magic that granted flight ability to many people. The allied mercenaries start to float one after another.

Finally, as I watched the mercenary users and Katalina safely land on top of the castle wall next to the falling tower while I was still standing inside of it, I understood the terrible situation I was in.

She knew that I couldn’t possibly die from this situation if I acted with common sense. Since I was the idiot who had caused this problem in the first place, Katalina was punishing me by not casting ‘Fly’ magic on me as well, which I could totally sympathize with.

I cursed in my ‌mind for not having the foresight to see this kind of thing could happen, as I tried to escape the falling tower.

“The repair fees would probably be really high!”

Although the castle walls itself weren’t heavily damaged since the tower had been snapped from its midpoint rather than the entire length, it was still a very tall tower, so the cost of repairing it would be quite high.

The enemy mercenaries standing on the ground outside of the castle walls were in a bigger panic than we were. Whether you’re high level or low level, being crushed beneath rubble of this size means that you’d be dead immediately. The best tactic was to run away. But because of its immense size, the area that the rubble will impact was too large to run away in time.

I had already jumped point to point as the tower crumbled and escaped safely onto the castle wall. Even though I was the one guilty of breaking down the tower, I still watched it fall onto the group of mercenaries as if I was no more than an on-looker.

My mouth was agape and couldn’t close, as I found out ‌I had achieved 63 kills with that single attack. I’ve received a hefty amount of money for their demise as well. I had to deal with Katalina glaring at me with murderous intent and the allies who weren’t looking at me with all too friendly gaze, but it was something I can handle.

The quietened battlefield was only for a moment as it once again fell into a chaotic fight. The damage I inflicted on them was way too little to turn the tide of the battle and was nothing more than a minor event. Although it was remarkable to score that many kills in a single attack as an individual user, considering that there were fifteen thousand enemy forces, ‌they didn’t even lose 1% of their total force.

She still wasn’t looking at me with kind eyes, but Katalina and I still worked together to kill any enemy forces that tried to climb up the castle wall one by one. She wouldn’t forget to cast a large spell to blow away groups of enemies from time to time, but every time she did, I needed to hurry so ‌I could block any enemy force that could interrupt her as she was preparing her spell.

Thankfully, there were several ally mercenaries that helped me out, as without them I could have easily fallen into a terribly dangerous situation multiple times.

And so Katalina and I worked together to block the enemy forces from getting over the castle walls around us, but other places were much more pathetic in terms of defending.

With magic explosions here and there, and people slaying each other left and right, the brutality of the battlefield showed its ugly face. Those that recognised each other as powerful users acknowledged and actively avoided each other. As both sides recognise just how much you could lose from risking a fight and dying, they instinctively found those that are weaker than themselves to kill instead.

By that logic, the mercenaries that were bunched up with us were on the luckier side. They would benefit from our power and skill by occasionally killing any enemy that survived Katalina’s powerful magic, or my sword skill, which left them with very low health, giving them a high amount of experience points for finishing them‌. Of course, it’s not like such acts are strictly looked down upon by us. I was also very weak like some of them in the past where I couldn’t effectively get a whole kill by myself, and in a siege battle like this where there are plenty of supporters, the enemy could easily and quickly become fully healed before I could finish them off, so the best thing to do if you’re weak in this situation is to make sure you help ‌by finishing off any that have low health before they can heal back up.

Whoosh.

With a sharp whistling sound as it cut through the air, an arrow flew at me, which I quickly dodged. The arrow which was aimed at me while I was taking the small-breather-that-I-could barely-afford flew past the point where I just was.

As the aim was directed at my head, it could have easily been judged as a perfect headshot and killed me instantly.

“Phew…”

As the feeling of relief passed over me, I knew that I should be more careful.

I suddenly realized that the number of screams and clashing of metals between soldiers became much more numerous around me. Looking around the battlefield, I noticed that our allies were in a very favourable state, and the number of enemy soldiers that made up the first advance group had decreased dramatically.

“Did we somehow successfully defend against them?”

The mountain of corpses that stacked high within the castle walls depicted the gruesome nature of war clearly.

“No, it looks like it’s just starting…”

Seeing as how Katalina was surveying the surroundings with a solemn face, I also turned my gaze towards where she was looking.

A new line of enemy soldiers were heading towards our direction with numbers far exceeding the previous one we fought off, with siege weapons upfront as they marched towards us.

1. Lilith: Aren’t passive skills always active?
2. Silva: Invisible blade huh, author must be an avid fan of Fate series
3. Silva: Again, is it that easy to cut off someone’s head in the game? Isn’t there such a thing called HP? Wouldn’t they be flung off to the distance instead, or did she have enough firepower to OHKO them?
   Anonymouss: Yes, its combination of them.
   -Weakpoint hit
   -massive difference in levels and stats
   -realism is emphasized for the whole game, even though she has tons of HP, she still explained that even a moment of carelessness can get her into a bad situation where she could die. So therefore perhaps “realistic damage”, i think.
4. A skill called “Explo” in Chapter 7, we changed it to Burst