Chapter 199: Rias makes the move!
"He could have killed us with that move," Rias said.
Martin nodded while watching the foaming wake Plume Luna Tic Tic had left across the sea.
Angel floated between the two front ships while the Storm Guild attacked from both vessels around them. Ahead, the wounded Sea Dragon Monster twisted through the narrow channel between the hulls, forcing everyone to maneuver carefully around its enormous body.
A slightly different angle would have sent the Guild Leader of the Storm hurtling straight toward them. With that much speed behind him, he could have crashed into Angel hard enough to knock her off course and remove all three of them from the fight. Even after the Guild Skill ended, the remaining momentum would have made the impact brutal.
Instead, the captain had changed direction at the last moment.
He had not spared them because they were allies. They were still competing for the same monster, after all. He had simply chosen not to take them out with a cheap shot when everyone was clearly enjoying the fight.
Martin glanced toward the Storm Guild.
At first, their formation looked chaotic. Players shouted over one another, argued about missed attacks, and cursed whenever the Sea Dragon Monster disappeared beneath the waves. One mage laughed so hard that he nearly mistimed his spell, while two melee fighters competed to see who could land the next hit.
Despite all that disorder, the pressure never let up.
Spells struck at steady intervals. Frontliners rotated out before their health dropped too low, and the support players covered every opening without waiting for orders. Even while joking and bickering, they moved like people who had fought together for a long time.
The game had become a massive business now that real money flowed through it, and Martin felt that influence as much as anyone. Every rare item made him wonder how much it was worth, while every dungeon offered another opportunity to strengthen the guild created by one of the most famous businesswomen of their generation.
Nobody in his guild had forgotten that they were playing a game, but profit and progress were always waiting in the background. They had schedules to maintain, advantages to secure, and competitors to stay ahead of.
The Storm Guild seemed to have found a better balance. They wanted the rewards just as much as anyone else, but they were determined to enjoy earning them.
Martin’s childish, competitive side had stirred the moment their captain launched himself across the sea with reckless confidence.
[Plume Luna Tic Tic Lv. 60]
The name was ridiculous, but the man carrying it somehow made it sound respectable.
Martin leaned forward and started wondering what he could do to match that entrance.
Rias moved before he came up with anything.
"We can’t let them show us up, then."
One of the black clouds surrounding her drifted past her shoulder. She caught it between her fingers and narrowed her glowing golden eyes at the dark vapor.
Since equipping Shadow Nimbus, the clouds had followed her every movement, but until now, they had seemed like little more than part of the gear’s appearance. When she pressed her palm against one, however, it resisted her touch. Its surface gave slightly before pushing back, almost like a dense cushion made of smoke.
She tested it again with more force.
The cloud slid several inches through the air, stopped, and slowly returned to its place beside her. A small smile touched Rias’s lips when the skill description confirmed her suspicion.
[Shadow Nimbus Skill Activated: Cloudhook]
Before Martin could ask what she was planning, Rias sprinted across Angel’s shield and jumped.
Rather than leaping toward the Sea Dragon Monster, she launched herself sideways and sailed far beyond the edge, leaving nothing beneath her except the churning sea trapped between the front ships.
"Rias?"
She continued falling as the black clouds followed her through the air. Despite the wind tearing at her clothes and hair, they remained evenly spaced around her body, drifting with her while somehow holding the same positions relative to one another.
Twisting in midair, Rias reached for the nearest one. Her fingers sank into its surface before meeting solid resistance, and she immediately tightened her grip.
The cloud caught her weight with a violent tug and swung her beneath it. Instead of fighting the momentum, Rias pressed her legs together and turned with it, completing a smooth rotation around the floating anchor.
At the highest point of the swing, she let go.
The stored force launched her upward.
Martin’s concern vanished.
"Oh, that’s clever."
Catching the next cloud, Rias carried her momentum into another rotation and climbed even higher. Each new anchor let her change direction without touching solid ground. As long as Shadow Nimbus stayed active, every cloud became another anchor waiting in the air.
The possibilities became obvious almost immediately. She could cross gaps, dodge attacks, reposition above enemies, or remain airborne beyond the reach of anyone stuck on the ground.
Martin understood all of that.
His attention still settled somewhere else.
Rias kept her legs pressed tightly together through every rotation, almost like an Olympic diver performing above the sea. Her new equipment clung to her athletic frame, and each controlled spin emphasized the full curve of her ass.
The fitted leggings did very little to hide it.
At the top of every swing, she seemed to hold her position for the briefest moment before gravity claimed her again. Each pause gave Martin another perfect view.
He narrowed his eyes.
She knows exactly what she’s doing.
Rias did not look back at him, but the extra sway she added before her next rotation answered him well enough.
A dangerous thought entered Martin’s mind.
As a package, Encore and Rias are... way too dangerous.
One had huge tits, while the other had a huge ass. Together, they could turn almost any man into a devoted simp.
The Storm Guild noticed her ascent as well.
"She’s hot!"
"She is, but she’s also going after our prey! Captain, what are we doing?!"
Plume Luna Tic Tic looked up at Rias and burst out laughing.
"Let her be! A lass makin’ the first move on a date is a blessing to any man!"
"But she isn’t from our guild!"
"If our whole guild loses to a couple and their pet after I already used the Guild Skill, then we deserve to lose! Keep pummeling the beast and stop yer bitching!"
"Goddammit!"
The captain laughed even louder while his guild members resumed their assault.
By then, Rias had climbed above the Sea Dragon Monster.
The enormous creature twisted beneath her and carved through the waves between the ships, sending water pouring from the scales along its back. The wound torn open by the Storm Guild stretched across its flesh like a bloody trench.
Rias spread her hands.
Several wisps of dark vapor rushed toward her fingers, wrapped around them, and compressed into solid darkness. The mist then stretched past her fingertips until it formed ten long claws.
She aimed directly at the exposed flesh and fired.
The claws punched through the damaged scales and buried themselves deep inside the wound. A shriek tore from the Sea Dragon Monster as its entire body bucked beneath the surface, sending a wall of seawater rolling outward.
Several Storm Guild players abandoned their attacks and dove aside before the wave swept them away.
Rias held her position while the claws remained lodged inside the creature, connected to her hands by narrow strands of darkness. She curled her fingers until the lines pulled tight, then used them to drag herself downward.
A long, narrow dagger appeared in her hand.
[Gloamneedle]
Its black blade extended far beyond the length of an ordinary dagger and tapered into a slender point designed to pierce armor, scales, and flesh.
Rias reversed her grip and aligned the weapon with the deepest part of the wound. As she plunged, the clouds gathered behind her and compressed around her back and legs.
"Blackfall."
The darkness erupted.
Rias shot downward like a spear dropped from the night sky. Gloamneedle struck first, driving the full force of her descent into the Sea Dragon Monster’s exposed flesh.
The blade disappeared almost to the hilt.
A violent convulsion tore through the creature. Its tail burst from the water and slammed back down, throwing up enough spray to hide Rias from view for several seconds.
A large portion of its health vanished.
When the curtain of water finally fell, Rias was still attached to the monster. One hand gripped Gloamneedle’s hilt while several shadow claws remained buried in the flesh around her, giving her multiple anchor points against the creature’s thrashing body.
She pressed herself low against its back and rode out another violent twist, refusing to let the waves or its movements tear her free.
For one brief moment, the Storm Guild fell silent.
Then their surprise turned into outrage.
"Did she just outdamage us?"
"She hit the wound we opened!"
"Then stop making excuses and hit it harder!"
"Captain, she’s making us look bad!"
Plume Luna Tic Tic threw his head back and laughed.
"Then quit gawkin’ at the lass and show her what the Storm can do!"
That was all the encouragement they needed.
The guild’s next barrage came faster and heavier than the last. Spells screamed across the gap between the ships, arrows hammered into exposed scales, and melee fighters rushed forward with renewed determination. What had already been a competition sharpened into a full-blown damage race, and nobody in the Storm Guild intended to lose it.
Martin grinned from atop Angel’s shield.
Rias had found her answer to the captain’s Guild Skill, which meant Martin needed to find one of his own.
He lowered his gaze toward the heavy armor covering his body. The strange material showed no reaction to the battle raging around it.
Martin tapped one armored finger against his chest plate.
"Wakey-wakey?"
The armor ignored him.
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