NPC into Player: Let's Wreck This Game

Chapter 205: A Bold Declaration

As Bloom and his clones stunned the portal, his team started to surround the portal. This time the number of clones wasn't enough to guard them, so they started to divide upon themselves as part defended them and the other kept attacking the portal.

The light daughters played a major role here as their skills had the most impact on skeletons after Bloom and his clones. As for Bloom, when the other players got in their positions he simply moved towards the corridor.

And waited there while hitting all the skeletons around.

His clones had less than five minutes remaining, but he noticed the number of skeletons here wasn't big to begin with.

"I should aim at them for now," he muttered before turning towards all the skeletons around while aiming to kill them.

He began to target two at a time, hitting them first with two dashes then cornering them against a wall where he sent them flying by his skills to return again in no time to take another hit from his swords.

Each skeleton didn't take more than twenty seconds in his hands before being killed. Then he would jump towards another two skeletons and repeat the process.

In less than five minutes he and others managed to clear the hall from all skeletons. The portal had less than forty percent of Hp remaining before it rumbled all of sudden.

"Damn!" he cursed out loud before pointing his sword towards the corridor preparing to shield it alone. "Each hall has a ten percent increase in the threshold of that skill activation. This is just bad!"

He waited while he knew his clones would vanish at any moment now. "Be alert, my clones will vanish and you have to use your dash skills to keep it under control," he shouted to make other team members ready as he knew his hands would be full while fighting at the corridor.

As he waited, no single monster came from the corridor even after the disappearance of his clones after roughly one minute.

"Strange," he muttered before glancing at the portal. "didn't it just activate its supreme skill?" he then ran towards the corridor where he found no single skeleton even from far.

"What's going on here?" he muttered before shaking off his head, "if they aren't coming then I should focus my effort at the portal."

He then turned around and dashed directly towards the portal. "Send a player to the corridor and keep an eye on it," he shouted and Jeffrey simply compiled by shouting at the leveler.

"Tony, move your ass out there and keep an eye over the corridor."

"Alright," Tony jumped at once and ran with his shield towards the corridor. Bloom simply glanced and shook his head while focusing his swords and skills over the portal.

As he kept fighting, he didn't lower his guard and kept an eye over the corridor. He didn't know if he could fully entrust Tony with such a big task, but until the portal was smashed, nothing happened at all.

"Does this portal follow another rule when we link between two halls?" he thought to himself while thinking of the possible explanation for such a thing.

"If so," he smiled, "then we should aim to clear two halls at the same time from now on."

He moved his gaze towards the team where they had some losses this time. Only because the number of skeletons was much lower than usual did they only suffer a loss of twenty players.

"Rest," Bloom said to Nara, "next time we will hit two halls at the same time."

"This" Jeffrey muttered while Nara sighed. "Are we aiming for a clear record now?" she asked.

"It's not that," Bloom shook his head before adding, "linking two rooms together made us clear them with lesser losses."

The two glanced at their team members before Nara muttered, "that's true indeed."

"Nara" Jeffrey was speechless before adding, "the potion here won't satisfy the remaining halls."

"Don't worry about that," Bloom simply smiled, "I'll get you covered once you are run out of them."

"This" Jeffrey paused but Nara pointed to him to stop arguing.

"We need Stamina, Hp, and magic potions. Can you provide them in quantities?"

"I can do it for Stamina and magic power potions," Bloom said before adding, "but Hp isn't needed. Those who fell will be resurrected by the revival skills."

"But they will lose a portion of their Xp," Nara argued, "and they won't gain the full benefit of Xp gained from killing those skeletons."

"Not my issue," Bloom shrugged before turning to start gathering up the black sand, "they need to toughen up. We have hard times ahead of us and they need to be used to losing levels and gaining lesser Xp from now on."

"But" Jeffrey paused again when Bloom took one gear from the ground and threw it to him. "They should work their asses off to acquire these gears. Things can't be given freely anymore in this game."

Jeffrey took the gold grade staff and sighed. He and Nara knew Bloom was right, as such pieces would be sold in the auction house in thousands of gold coins.

And not necessarily they would find it there all the time.

Even if some players lost levels, they wouldn't mind that as they would get their hands over such rare and extremely valuable gears in return.

"It seems you thought of everything very well," Nara muttered.

"It's not me," Bloom simply shrugged, "it's the game."

Bloom then collected his loot from the ground, leaving those worth nothing to him for others to celebrate with. He had many unused gears in his inventory which he would use to turn them into gold coins and materials later on.

He finally sat on a corner and suddenly heard Jeffrey shouting from far. "Who the hell is broadcasting at the forums?"

Bloom raised one eyebrow and the next instant he opened the forums to find a live broadcast from three members in his team. Strangely the names were changed, which was something he didn't hear of before but as he opened the forums he rapidly managed to detect their angles and roughly their positions and identities as well.

"You you and you" Bloom stood up as he pointed out at the three he instantly positioned, "what the hell do you think you are doing?"

Two light daughters and one shield bearers stood with paled faces while they stuttered.

"It's not me" the shield bearer shifted the responsibility away to be met instantly by a dash and then a couple of stabs and slices before falling dead.

"Kick him out of the team now," Bloom casually gave the order to his vice, Nara, who executed the order with no further ado. "What about you two? Have anything to say?"

The two exchanged silent glances before laughing. "We already posted everything on the forums and now your mighty plan is cracked for all to see," one of the two said in strange hatred and obvious envy while the other one laughed and said nothing in response.

"Good," Bloom showed a vicious smile over his face, "anyone who sees himself worthy can try. After all no one has the ability or the guts to do like I do."

He simply killed the two players before opening the forums and started a new thread.

"Think yourself worthy? Come and show me your true color."

He wrote this thread before issuing a direct and bold challenge against all the game teams and guilds out there to outdo him.

"I'll keep hunting down dungeons and keep smashing monsters in thousands while you are still counting who killed more monsters than others in low numbers of tens and twentieth. Come and show me your true value if you dare, and let me start this thread to enumerate the dungeons I will clear from now on.

Status: one dungeon is partially cleared."

In fact he wasn't that enraged by what happened. He already anticipated his news would be delivered all the time by the spies here, but he was slightly stimulated by the broadcast that just happened at the forums.

And as such he made such a declaration while returning simply to sit over the corner and rest again.

"I believe there are still spies here," Nara came and said to him while glancing at the new team members while sitting beside him.

"That's a given," he nodded.

"Then why go all the way to issue such a bold challenge?"

"I should use this chance to boost my fame more," he laughed before adding, "even if my way was revealed to the public, no one copy it as there is only one bow of mine out there. It's not easy to have such a bow or maintain the monstrous expenditure of it."

She glanced at him for a short period before muttering, "from where did you get your hands over such a bow?"

"By luck," he honestly answered but she didn't believe him.

"Y'know," she suddenly said with a long sigh, "every time I think I've known you, I became shocked by your deeds and realize I hardly know you."

He simply smiled and said nothing back. "You still owe me a date," he teased her while her face blushed slightly before sneering.

"You have to deal with this crisis here first."

"We are," he laughed, "we will be the only team to crush the skeletons and clear their dungeons. We will amass many gears and treasures."

"But the team levels will mainly stagnate," she sighed before pointing to her main team, "their levels didn't increase much since coming here, and even some lost a level so far in the dungeon."

"Not my issue," Bloom simply said, "I'm leading them to glory, and they have to do their best to keep up with me."

She didn't say anything while checking him in silence. She inwardly sighs and admits he was telling the truth. After all this team was the one who came to join him, not the one he sought to lead.

"I need to toughen up a bit on them," she slowly muttered.

"Indeed," he nodded while adding, "or else the gap between us will grow larger in time."

"Us?"

"You, Jeffrey, and I," he simply said, "the three of us are the only ones who didn't die even once since the beginning of the dungeon. Let me guess, you are this close from leveling up, right?"

She only nodded as her mind was thinking deeper about his words.

"You are absolutely right," she sighed, "I need to push them a little harder from now on."

Bloom watched her retreating where she met with Jeffrey and exchanged whispers for short period before Jeffrey nodded and went to the old team members.

"Decisive," Bloom nodded, "I liked that about you."