Chapter 54 -54-One Against Ten Thousand
Seeing that Link and the Alliance Leader still wore those utterly expressionless faces, the vice guild leader of War God Guild could not help joking,
"What’s with you two?
You just got the first kill on a Gold-Grade Boss, and you’re still making faces like dead fish.
Isn’t this something worth celebrating?"
"Exactly, exactly."
Someone beside him picked up the thread with a laugh.
"At this rate, if we kill one Gold-Grade Boss a day, won’t catching up to that John from Zone 5 be easy?"
"Catching up? We’re going to surpass him!"
"That John means nothing. Right now, we’re leveling with the combined strength of our entire zone.
No matter how strong he is, can he really stand against the cooperation of a whole zone?"
"That’s right. John is nothing but a selfish bastard. There’s no way he can get people united the way we have!
A miser like him who only takes and never gives back is going to get beaten to death by his own people in Zone 5 sooner or later!"
"Hahaha, exactly. We’ll probably get to watch the joke of Zone 5 tearing itself apart soon enough.
There’s no way that bunch can truly unite."
Just as the Zone 4 players were mocking John to their hearts’ content,
a system announcement suddenly rang out across the sky.
[Global Server Announcement: Congratulations to Zone 5 player "John" for the first kill of the Gold-Grade Boss "Abyss Wolf Lv.40"!
Rewards issued: EXP +1,000,000, Gold Coins +10,000, Fame +10,000!]
"Great! Finally, it’s Zone 4’s—...wait!"
At first, the vice guild leader had assumed it was Link’s announcement.
But the moment he heard the rest, he abruptly realized something was wrong.
Why was it John from Zone 5?
Just as the players froze in stunned disbelief,
a second announcement rang out.
[Zone Announcement: Zone 5 player "John" has killed players "Link" and "Aivanka" of this zone. He has now been marked with a red name!]
[Global Wanted List has been activated!]
[Wanted List]
[Rank 1]: John (Zone 5, Overlord Guild)
[...]
At the sound of this second announcement,
the players at the scene sank into an eerie silence.
They looked at one another, still unable to process what had happened.
What was going on?
How had the Alliance Leader and Link suddenly died?
And at John’s hands, no less—John from Zone 5!
Everyone’s gaze fell upon "Link" and the "Alliance Leader" standing in the crowd.
If that was true... then who were these two?
"Run!!!"
The vice guild leader was the first to react. With a scream, he spun around and fled.
The Zone 4 players all turned deathly pale and hurriedly backed away from the two figures.
Unfortunately, it was already too late.
A cold sneer appeared on "Link’s" face.
"Trying to run now? Too late."
In the next moment, both his face and the face of the "Alliance Leader" beside him began to change.
The effect of the [Thousand-Faced Mask] was undone.
John’s true face was revealed!
Immediately afterward, he activated [Lightning Double] once again.
More and more white-robed figures split off from him.
4... 8... 16... 32...
He continued dividing until there were 999 clones in total, finally stopping only when he reached the limit.
At a glance, the countless white-robed figures stood there like incarnations of death.
"Leave no one alive."
At John’s command, the many clones instantly turned into streaks of light and shot off in pursuit.
The fleeing players had not even had time to react
before daggers pierced through their chests, and the surrounding players suffered the same amount of damage as well.
[-50006!]
Even though it was only the most basic normal attack,
the damage it unleashed instantly emptied their HP bars.
Almost in the blink of an eye, John slaughtered nearly a thousand Zone 4 players.
That brutal scene instantly ignited both fear and hatred among the remaining players of Zone 4.
...
"Don’t run! He’s an assassin—showing him your back is just asking to die!"
Someone stepped forward, trying to lead a counterattack.
"There are so many of us. Are we really supposed to be afraid of him alone? Everyone, charge together!"
"This bastard stole the Gold-Grade Boss we worked so hard to grind down, and now he wants to come after us too.
For the dignity of Zone 4, we have to kill him!"
"Charge!!!"
Under the rallying cries,
the more than ten thousand Zone 4 players stopped fleeing, turned around, and charged toward John’s clones.
In their eyes,
if they could slowly grind down even a Gold-Grade Boss with its absurd HP pool to a sliver of life,
then no matter how strong John was, he could not possibly handle so many of them at once, right?
Under the pressure of human-wave tactics, so what if John had taken the first kill on a Platinum-Grade Boss?
Surely he would still run out of mana and HP all the same?
For a moment,
large numbers of shield warriors, greatsword warriors, and knights charged forward.
None of them showed the slightest fear as they rushed toward the white-robed figures now surrounded on all sides.
...
John’s 999 clones looked at the crowd, and at the same time, every one of them revealed a cold sneer.
"You really don’t know your place."
They all raised their hands at once.
In an instant,
lightning rained down from the sky.
999 Chains of Lightning descended simultaneously,
instantly placing the same mark on every single Zone 4 player.
At first, the players assumed this was some kind of AoE magic attack and hurried to evade.
Only after the marks landed did they realize there was no damage at all.
Everyone immediately let out a sigh of relief—and at the same time, their desire to kill John only grew stronger.
"Looks like this John is all hype after all. All that lightning and it doesn’t even do any damage!"
"He doesn’t seriously think some flashy effects are enough to scare us, does he?"
"This is hilarious!"
Because Chain of Lightning itself dealt no direct damage,
the Zone 4 players’ confidence surged!
Their various skills crashed down upon the 999 Johns.
[-1!]
[-1!]
[-1!]
Because player-versus-player combat had a forced minimum damage rule,
even though John’s defense was already high enough to completely ignore the damage of these players,
he still took the mandatory 1 point of damage.
But for his HP, that was less than nothing.
The real problem was the opposite.
Since John’s damage reflection had now reached an extreme level,
their attacks landing on him instead caused them to suffer dozens of times that amount in reflected damage.
And because Chain of Lightning was in effect,
the reflected damage numbers were transmitted to the other marked players as well.
[-39991!]
[-39455!]
[-31899!]
They stared in stunned confusion as their HP bars were inexplicably emptied.
Their bodies turned into streams of white light and vanished from where they stood.
John had not even truly made his move yet,
and half of Zone 4’s players had already been wiped out by reflected damage alone.
Looking at the remaining Zone 4 players—still unwilling to give up, still charging at him—
John’s eyes turned cold.
"You overestimate yourselves. It seems that unless I slaughter every last one of you here, you won’t be satisfied."
The next moment—
before those players could even react,
the 999 Johns moved again in unison.
The daggers in their hands turned into throwing knives, launched with perfect accuracy and covering every remaining Zone 4 player.
In an instant,
every last remaining Zone 4 player had their HP erased to zero!
Across the entire mountain range, white death-lights burst forth everywhere as players died.
In a single round, they were annihilated on the spot—completely wiped out to the last man!