Infinite Realm

"Ha. Ha. Ha."

A young man clad in light iron armour huffed and puffed as he drew his sword out from the insides of a kobold warrior.

"Roar."

Before the young man could even relax his body for second, another kobold warrior pounced at him, hoping to ravage this man and eat his flesh.

"Damn creature!"

The young man swung his sword at the creature, leaving behind a terrifying gash on its chest. Despite sending the monster flying, a few more kobold scurried to occupy its spot as they hoped to be the lucky one to feast on the man.

'This is bad.' The young man thought as he saw this. Spreading a bit of focus elsewhere, he noticed that his comrades were also stuck in the same position; all trying to hold their ground against the seemingly never ending wave.

This young man right here was the 5th hand of the Emperor of the super guild Emperor's Might, Chesces.

Even though the monsters weren't all that strong, their numbers still sufficed to put a lot of pressure on the team. Because of this, the team was slowly being forced backwards. Though none of them had fallen yet, it was only a matter of time for that to happen.

"We can't keep going like this." Black Tempest said in the team chat.

The original plan of the group was to hold out against the kobolds while grinding them for experience points so that in the case they(the players) were to die, their loss wouldn't be that much anymore. However, some of them still didn't like this plan. This was because in such a large wave of kobolds, killing one of them was very difficult. It wasn't like the Goblin war event where there were NPCs to assist the players. Here, it was only the players and the kobolds, with no third party present. Even though the players were stronger than the kobolds, it still took some effort to finish off one kobold. During this time, more kobolds would flood in and attack the players. As such, players couldn't just focus on one kobold alone and so, the amount they could kill was too low hence, the original plan of minimising their losses didn't see as viable as it did before.

If Black Tempest could already figure this out, then Azure Dragon would surely have too. The problem was that there was nothing they could do about it. In fact, the only reason that they were alive was because the de-facto leader of this horde, the kobold guard, was being distracted by the [Assassin] who brought the kobolds here.

"...Captain. Let's go with plan B." Chesces suddenly spoke up. While they were heading over to Soran's side to team up with them, the group had made a few plans to use. Most of them weren't so useful in this situation with only two achieving the pass mark. The first was what they originally intended to do. As for the second, that became their plan B.

"Alright. But we have to make sure that they are no longer monitoring us for it to succeed. If we suddenly do as planned, their guards would be raised against us. Also, we would need to make a few changes to the plan. Soran's team would be useful to the success of this plan after all." Azure Dragon replied.

If their first plan was to hold out against the kobolds and kill as much as possible, then their second plan was to sacrifice some of their men to let a few survive. When the enemies in the dark would have ignored them and left them to die, Azure Dragon, Chesces and a few others would sneak out of the encirclement and track down the 3rd party. As the third party would be facing the boss, they would hide behind and with for the right opportunity to lay siege, like a mantis stalking the cicada.

Meanwhile, Lu Zhen was having quite a tough time facing the kobold guard on his own. Actually, it couldn't be called facing it or the likes as what he actually did was just to run around the monster while annoying it with a few sneak attacks once in a while. The reason for this was simply because he wasn't the kobold guard's match and also if he left the kobold guard to its own devices, it would move in and battle the other players. If that happened, they would suffer tragically than they are tight now and die at an even faster rate. This would, without a doubt, affect the plans Sato had made as the longer Azure Dragon's and Soran's teams lasted, the higher the chances of success for the team's raid on the boss. Lu Zhen had even occasionally attacked a few kobolds to help lessen the number and keep the alliance team alive but this act was nothing more than taking a drop of water out of the ocean in hopes of decreasing its size. It was a totally pointless act that lead to nothing.

'It should be about time now.' Lu Zhen thought as he plastered a smile on his face.

Though his role was to delay the death of the 'baits', Lu Zhen still had to regroup with the others. For the raid, every player counted and with him added to the mix, the chances of success would also increase. Lu Zhen was originally to keep the kobold guard away from the others till they were able to hold their ground against the more than 100 kobolds. At least 3 minutes had gone by already. Lu Zhen presumed that at this time, the team should be facing the kobold chief, with the other kobold guard dead. If he joined in at this time, he would not only be able to help the team defeat the monster faster but also be able to reap a bit of experience points once the kobold chief died. Being a level 8 player, the Experience points he would gain from a level 10 monster would be a lot; even if it was the basic reward for participation after being divided among 7 players.

'The issue now is how to take my exit...' Lu Zhen thought. The kobold guard was like a leech stuck to his back. If he turned right, it would also turn right. If he turned left, it would also do the same. The monster was already stronger than him and had more attribute points than he did. In a one-on-one frontal battle, Lu Zhen would undoubtedly lose. The only reason he stood tall till this moment was because the kobold was injured otherwise things would have been way different than it was now.

"Roar!"

While Lu Zhen was lost in thought, the kobold guard abruptly closed the distance between them, leaving only a metre or so between them both. At this range, m the bone sword in its hand could already do a lot of damage.

With the strength rivalling that of 2 or so full-grown tigers combined in one, the kobold guard swung its sword as its terrifying bloodlust locked on to Lu Zhen. The kobold guard had spurred its entire being into putting its strength in this one strike, with the intent to kill the little creature that had been harassing it.

[Bone Slash]!

Even from in front, Lu Zhen could feel the danger within the strike. He knew without a doubt that if the bone sword struck him, even if he didn't die, he would be incapacitated and lose more than 30% of his HP. But it wasn't like this was the first time the kobold guard's attack had threatened him this much.

'Time to make my move.'

Lu Zhen suddenly turned around and as he did so, the bone sword was but a few dozen centimetres away from his face. If he stayed as he was now, the bone sword would certainly severely injure him. But Lu Zhen didn't have plans to die that easily.

It didn't even take a second as Lu Zhen moved his body to the side, shifting his centre of mass over to the side and pulling his body in that direction. Even with the kobold guard's high stats, because of the injuries it had retained -specifically the missing arm part- its attack speed had drastically dropped as compared to how it was originally supposed to be. This drop in attack speed made it so that Lu Zhen could perform such last minute maneuvers without getting injured.

*Bang*

The bone sword crashed on the ground and sliced it apart like tofu. Because of the unexpected movement from Lu Zhen, alongside the fact that the Kobold had focused its full strength on that strike, it suffered a lapse in concentration and couldn't keep it balance properly at that time. The loss of an arm even made things worse such that one part of the kobold felt lighter than the other side.

The direction Lu Zhen happened to move in was his right which in turn translated to the kobold's left. It was this exact left side that had lost an arm and also happened to be the weak point of the monster. If one were to focus on this position, it wouldn't be difficult to take down the kobold. However, Lu Zhen didn't have such plans.

Without bothering to retaliate it anything, Lu Zhen dashed towards the main battle area, precisely where the other players were. He was planning to lose the kobold guard there and escape from this area.. He had already spent enough time here and it was about time for the real chaos to be let loose.