Zenith Online: Rebirth of the Strongest Player
Chapter 98: Sanguine Slashes, A Challenge to Cross

With the six Grand Goblin Archers removed from the fight, Luna and Altair had fewer projectiles to simultaneously evade and deflect. Some of their deflections weren't perfect, resulting in the loss of some Health. However, that Health was quickly replenished by one of the Healer's more minor healing skills.

"Crap… the leader's weapon broke," Nemean exclaimed after watching the ordeal from his peripheral vision. He caught Kieran analyzing his broken weapon as he retaliated against a blow from a Giant Ogre. From what Nemean saw, the blade looked like a strong acid had eroded it.

Even now, pieces of the blade continued to break away as if it were brittle bread crumbling to pieces as someone crushed it. Naturally, the crushing in this instance was the pressure imposed on the weapon by the Blood Mania skill.

Nevertheless, despite his weapon's condition, Kieran gazed at it while the exterior began to bubble over. Almost as if he was drawing blood from his body to supplement the blade's loss, it began to take on a form similar to right before he unleashed the Crimson Barrage.

The blade regained its razor-sharp edge, but it seemed inferior compared to the moment before the Crimson Barrage was executed. However, that was understandable given that this was a change facilitated by Kieran's shoddy understanding of the True Berserker's foundational power. The only reason his manipulation of Blood Mania's ability reached this degree of completion was through natural talent and using the image of that skill as a reference.

Nemean was left in awe as he watched the weapon somewhat materialize right before his very eyes. "WHAT?! That's a cheat; there's no way. Wasn't it said that a player couldn't repair a weapon once it breaks? I read that on someone's post."

"Uh, does that look like he is repairing his weapon, idiot? Look at his Health; it was just under 20% two seconds ago. But now, it has plunged beneath 10%! Obviously, he has activated some unique class skill that allows him to make some sort of weapon with the sacrifice of his Health," Alice said in the back.

Nemean was first taken aback by the fact he was called an idiot and by the mute of the party, no less. But, when he failed to notice Kieran's drastic change in Health, he felt somewhat foolish. Still, he couldn't help but feel this fell upon the same lines. "It's still a cheat! It only costs him Health to create a weapon!"

"Oh? What about Mages who create temporary weapons in the form of spells? After all, that only costs Mana. Also, don't forget that his body seems to reject healing, so isn't his Health more precious than our own since our healers can heal us at any moment?" Alice retorted with an uncharacteristically smug smirk.

Nemean was speechless. He tried to utter a rebuttal, but no words came out. Everything Alice brought up was the undeniable truth. Every attempt to heal Kieran was a failure, and Mages pretty much used spells to fabricate weapons through Mana and the elements. Granted, those creations would disappear when a Mage stopped funneling Mana into their magic or after a set duration.

But… wasn't this virtually the same principle Kieran's class operated upon? He couldn't infinitely reinforce his weapon with blood. It commanded a steep price in the form of ample Health. The initial loss of Health only covered the creation of the blood edge. To keep it stable would require a continuous supply of Health.

Fortunately for Kieran, Blood Mania wasn't an incomplete skill with a glaring weakness. To compensate for the consumption of Health required of this skill, Kieran's attacks gained a 1% Lifesteal trait as long as the Bleed ailment afflicted the enemy. The higher the stacks, the more Health Kieran could recover.

Slowly, the blood from the dead Grand Goblin Archers flowed from their body before colliding against Kieran's chest. Despite the scene, the sensation was pleasant as Kieran cracked his neck and loosened up while regaining close to 5% of his Health.

'This class isn't bad at all,' Kieran thought. The pain required to obtain this class seemed worth it now that the effects of Blood Mania were beginning to bear fruits.

After a short pause, Kieran turned toward the others and nodded. "Let's clean this up."

"I'm with you on that one," Nemean exclaimed. Without hesitation, he rammed his shield into the Giant Ogre's torso just as a large fist passed over his head. As said before, defending wasn't the only way for a tank to safely deal with enemy attacks.

As Nemean's shield made contact, he shifted his stance and appeared no different from a boxer as he delivered a fluid combo of strikes that focused on using the tip of his shield for the greatest damage. Pained groans escaped the Giant Ogre's mouth as the continuous damage stacked up.

This was another unique combat system available to most if not all of the classes related to the Fighter Class—Combo-Linking. By landing a certain number of hits with the correct rhythm and enough precision, a small multiplier that could be stacked up would be added to the damage. If the combo number went high enough, a class like Nemean's could reach numbers similar to pure-DPS types like Kieran.

By Nemean's twelfth attack, the combo multiplier increased his damage by three times. Considering that his base damage hovered between 550 and 680, the multiplier brought this strike to well over 1,600 per attack.

At that moment, excitement coursed through Nemean's veins as, despite his large size almost comparable to Bastion's dense class, Nemean moved about agilely, properly channeling his weight into each blow.

As he witnessed this scene, Kieran couldn't help but praise what he saw. 'Not bad at all, incorporating fundamentals learned in boxing on a large enemy that lacks movement speed. It's no different than sparring with a training dummy that can only receive blows.'

"Hehe, I like this guy," Altair snickered as a black shadow trailed behind each of his strikes. If one looked closely, they'd see a second source of damage appearing after each hit. While it was small and barely amounted to 2% of the initial strike, this extra damage would become pivotal later down the line since it was related to some of the hidden attributes yet to be disclosed.

With the help of Blood Mania empowering him, Kieran unleashed a terrifying Crimson Current every time it came off cooldown. Every time he launched the skill, each monster hit by the skill would lose 15% of their Health or more if it was a critical hit.

Furthermore, Kieran introduced a new skill―one of his primary skills that complemented Blood Mania's effects since it was designed to acquire Bleed Stacks rather quickly. Because of this, it wasn't exactly a skill made to deal damage.

「Sanguine Slashes (Lv.1)

Skill Rank: C

Skill Type: Active

Mastery (02.00%)

Description: As the True Berserker burns their vitality, any weapon empowered by Blood Mania's blood casing gains an invasive property. For the next 10 seconds, all physical attacks inflict one Bleed stack with 100% certainty. However, the stacks can't exceed the maximum. If the maximum number is reached, the duration will be refilled before expiring. [Maximum Bleed Stacks: 30]

Consumption: 200 Health

Prerequisites: True Berserker

Cooldown: 15 seconds 」

This skill was essentially the best way to keep the Bleed stacks at maximum capacity. That way, Crimson Current and any other skill reliant upon Bleed stacks could deal the greatest damage possible. Because each stack only had a duration of 3 seconds, it was inevitable to lose some if Kieran didn't intersperse his other skills properly.

Of course, that would take some familiarization to master since it involved learning the proper rotation of skills to match their cooldowns with the duration of other skills.

Approximately 10 minutes later, the last Giant Ogre fell, and Kieran immediately deactivated Blood Mania but kept the broken Scarlet Steel Greatsword in hand. Deactivating the skill healed more than 70% of his Health, bringing Kieran's Health back to over 90%.

In the meantime, Altair and Luna swept through the battlefield since they were the fastest and accumulated the loot. Similar to before, the loot was primarily composed of coins since it appeared these monsters didn't drop much equipment.

Moreover, when they did drop equipment, it was mostly armors and not weapons. Luckily, there wasn't a soul in the party lacking in armor or weapons at the moment. While they would happily exchange with something of a higher rarity, they would need to acquire it first.

Once again, Kieran excluded himself from the loot distribution allowing Luna to take his share while he silently browsed through his skills. There was another skill in his possession, but for some reason, he couldn't pull up its information as it was greyed out. This meant that while the system gave it to him, it was a skill that had yet to take effect.

'Deranged Spirit. Do I need to increase my level, or do I perhaps need to fulfill some unknown criteria to activate this skill? Considering that I've already familiarized myself with Savage Break, Force Slash, and Charge's upgraded version, this would have to be the upgrade of Warrior's Aura. If that's the case, it should be easy to activate. So, what is it?' Kieran wondered.

If this were yet another avenue to increase his damage, he would happily welcome the skill even if it came with adverse effects such as the madness caused by Blood Mania. Of course, Kieran didn't know it yet, but there was a skill even more terrifying than either of these two.

When all was said and done, the fight left Kieran on the precipice of reaching Lv.25, but he was still ways off—just over 10,000 Experience Points to be exact. He would have undoubtedly reached that level if there were two more monsters.

Nevertheless, after recovering some of the lost stamina, Kieran led the others through the expansive passageway while remaining alert. Despite their heightened awareness while moving, there was no more Giant Ogres or Grand Goblin Archers that appeared.

Roughly 10 minutes later, Kieran stopped before an enormous pit with only a thin strip of land stretching across it. The hole was so deep that after looking over the edge, Kieran couldn't even begin to estimate its depth not to mention what lurked in that darkness below.

"Nope, hell no. I'm not going first at all. Are you crazy? Look at that drop!" Bastion screamed at the top of his lungs while pointing below.

〈System: The second floor of the «Underground Labyrinth» has been cleared.〉

〈System: Cross the «Bottomless Pit of G'obow» to enter the third floor.〉

〈System: This floor's difficulty will be set at Very Difficult.〉

'As expected, but asking us to cross this is a little…' Kieran frowned because he estimated they needed to cross more than 500 meters of this thin rock beam.