Chapter 28: Identify yourself, intruder!
The player was shocked down to his core by what he had just witnessed.
His breath caught in his throat as he stared blankly at the completely empty street where the low-level stranger had been standing only a second ago.
’Where the hell did he go?! How could a level four player move that fast?!’ he thought in disbelief.
He didn’t have another moment to ponder the mystery, however, because his fellow party member standing right by his side suddenly shouted at him at the top of his lungs, "Focus, you idiot! The gate has officially opened right in front of us!"
The distracted man’s eyes widened in panic, and he quickly snapped his body completely around to face the center of the street once again.
The exact moment he turned his head around, his vision was instantly filled with a truly terrifying sight.
What he saw was a massive, predatory monster covered completely in thick red and black stripes all over its hulking body, which was already lunging directly at him with ferocious speed.
The striped beast was already incredibly close to his body, having jumped across the short distance in the blink of an eye.
The terrified player could clearly see its two massive, razor-sharp fangs, each individual one measuring about one feet long, snapping wildly directly in front of his face.
He completely froze in horror, his muscles locking up entirely as the rank smell of the creature’s breath hit his face.
His survival instincts screamed at him to move, but he was completely paralyzed by the sudden proximity of death, fully realizing in that split second that this was absolutely it... the definitive end of his short life.
Just as those two massive, terrifying fangs were about to violently close down onto his bare neck and rip his throat completely out, the giant monster suddenly halted mid-air.
Its forward momentum instantly evaporated into nothingness, and it hung suspended before him for a fraction of a second as if time itself had stopped.
A very thin, glowing red line slowly and sharply appeared right from the exact middle of its striped head, cutting a perfectly straight path all the way down across its thick torso.
The mysterious line began violently sizzling with an intense, supernatural heat, illuminating the dark shadows of the street with a bright, fiery orange glow.
The massive monster slowly and cleanly split directly into two perfect halves right before the player’s stunned eyes.
Both separate sections of the massive beast slid apart effortlessly, dropping heavily to the cracked asphalt below with a loud, resounding thud that echoed through the empty neighborhood.
The perfectly sliced parts of the creature’s body kept sizzling violently with thick, dark smoke as they rested on the pavement.
Not a single drop of blood dripped out onto the street, because the heat of the attack had completely cauterized and burnt the exposed flesh to a crisp in a fraction of a second.
The player remained completely frozen in absolute shock, his entire body trembling as his mind struggled to comprehend how he was still alive.
His breath came in short, ragged gasps as his terrified gaze slowly lifted up from the smoking halves of the dead beast on the cracked pavement.
Only a few inches away from his face, he found the exact same mysterious hooded man from before standing calmly right in front of him.
The stranger’s posture was completely relaxed, and his right hand was still outstretched in the air, positioned exactly where the massive monster had been cut in half just a second ago.
The rescued player’s heart hammered violently against his ribs as a wave of pure bewilderment washed over him, and he thought frantically, ’When... when the hell did he even get over here...?!’
He was completely sure that the strange man had been standing quite a distance directly behind him only a brief moment ago.
There was simply no logical way for any human to move across that distance so fast without making a single sound.
There was also the fact that the system had clearly displayed this man as being only a pathetic level four player.
Yet, despite that low level, he had just taken down a ferocious C-rank saber-tooth tiger with an unbelievable amount of ease, treating a deadly monster like a mere annoying insect.
The player shook his head slightly, realizing that he didn’t even remotely understand what had just happened right in front of his face.
He widened his eyes, scanning the stranger’s body intensely, but he couldn’t see a single sword or weapon anywhere in the man’s hands or hanging from his waist.
Neither had he seen the stranger chant a spell or manifest the bright light of a standard active system skill... so how exactly did he kill the massive monster so cleanly?
Leon, on the other hand, completely ignored the terrified player and lightly clicked his tongue in disappointment.
His dark eyes stared down at the two smoking, cauterized halves of the dead monster resting on the dirty floorboards of the street.
’I truly thought I might get incredibly lucky right off the bat and get a l monster drop from this beast...’ Leon thought bitterly, a slight frown forming under the shadow of his hood.
The sudden death and splitting of the monster’s body had already drawn the immediate attention of every single other player standing in the street.
The remaining thirteen elite combatants from the Rainy Shine Guild and the Cross Block Guild snapped out of their competitive stances, their eyes widening in surprise.
They quickly and aggressively drew their heavy weapons, the steel clanking loudly as they pointed their blades and staves directly at the center of the zone.
"Who the fuck are you?!" one of the cross block leaders shouted at the top of his lungs, his voice echoing fiercely through the abandoned city blocks as his aura flared up. "Identify yourself right now, intruder!"
The tension in the air skyrocketed instantly, becoming far heavier than it had been before the gate even fractured.
None of the elite C-rank players standing on the front lines had any idea when the mysterious man had magically appeared in front of them, or when he had even managed to kill the tiger.
