VRMMO: World's First Glyphborne-Chapter 105: The Smell of Fear
"Booyah! See? I told you I could hit it. That’s real hunting skills dude." A hunter class player, who had called himself Quiver4me, shouted as he moved from his hiding spot and high fived his friend. A group of five players moved out of the brush towards the two monsters.
They had been hunting beasts and other monsters in the forest for days, just mindlessly grinding and trying to carry out as many quests as they could. The Wizard within their group was always bringing new quests to them, and even if they were simply, they paid pretty decently.
Their current quest had been to gather some mushrooms, which had eventually led them to stumble across this strange monster attacking a standard mob.
Since their hunter class member was an actual hunter in real life, he was always great at making kill shots. They had even ambushed a few players that way. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢
"Yeah yeah, Whatever. It looks pretty unique, I bet it has good loot on... Woah, Is it still alive?" Muttered the Leader of this rag tag group, a knight dressed in slightly dull looking armour, as he came to a sudden stop.
Slice’emup, the Knight in question, raised his shield up slowly as he watched the creature in front of him.
It swayed slightly, the arrow still visibly sticking out from its throat, but it didn’t drop. Instead it stepped off the two headed cow, moving like it was drunk, and turned to face them. The moment its pitch black eyes locked onto the group, they were overwhelmed by a tidal wave of bloodlust.
It was the same feeling they got from any monster that was way above their level. But this was the first one they had ever seen that was humanoid, and wearing armour to boot.
The creature raised its hand, grabbing the arrow still sticking from its throat, and yanked it the rest of the way through, making the group wince in pain. But the monster didn’t care, not even about the gaping hole in its throat, which quickly stitched itself back together until it looked good as new. There wasn’t even a scar.
It dropped the arrow, tilting its head as those pitch black eyes looked over them with an unmistakable intelligence that made them shiver in fear.
"Dude... Do you think its a special elite or something?" The Wizard asked as they sunk into a defensive position and started to stir up the mana in the air in preparation.
"I don’t know. But let’s not take any risks. It’s clearly smart so let’s just keep our head and-" Slice’emup started to explain to his party, when the monster suddenly disappeared and melted into shadows. His eyes widened in shock and horror, but he didn’t have a chance to shout warnings to his party before a scream tore through the air.
They all whipped around, raising their weapons before pausing for a second at the scene before them. Their cleric was being held in the air with a hand speared through his chest.
Crimson stained his pure white robes, as he let out choked screams of terror. Even if his pain senses were dulled, his mind was still processing everything that he was seeing.
"Hey! Over here! Come have a piece of me instead!" Slice’emup shouted, casting his basic taunt skill [Compelled Duel] however when he should have felt a bond connecting them, forcing its attention onto him, instead he felt the skill shatter like class.
It recoiled back to him, sending him staggering back a few steps as he coughed up a mouthful of blood. His eyes widened as he stared at the monster with utter bafflement.
’That’s.... That shouldn’t be possible. There’s no way it’s strength is more than triple mine!’
The Clerics eyes glowed with a soft white light as he started to cast a healing spell, attempting to sustain his own life and put him back into the fight now the monster was taunted. But with all his attention focused on the hand bursting from his chest, how could he notice the failure of a skill that had never failed before?
A second hand erupted from his chest, causing him to cry out again, before the fingers curled around the edge of the hole. Then, with one singular movement, the monster tore the Cleric in two. Splitting him clothes, flesh and bone.
It was not an even split, nor was it anything close to perfect or pleasant. Blood spilled from the body, showing the monster in crimson along with everything else that was supposed to stay inside the body.
A barrage of arrows was launched from Quiver4me’s bow, flying through the air as they hummed with the rangers power. But the monster anticipated it, raising one half of the corpse like a shield, letting the arrrows burrow them into their teammates remains, before it whipped around and swung the corpse like a bat.
Their Assassin, the final member of their party, was smacked from his hiding spot in the shadows and sent hurtling through the air.
Before he had even hit the ground the monster was already moving, and doing it so fast it was barely a blur.
It appeared in front of the Wizard whilst he was in the middle of his chants. One of hands clamped around his, halting his intricate hand movements, before it yanked him off balance and swept its talons across his throat.
The Wizard’s face was still twisted in shock when the red lines drew themselves across his throat before his head fall from his shoulders.
Slice’emup let out a rage filled roar as he rushed at it from behind, his sword already descending towards its neck to take this monsters head, just like it had done to his friend. But just as his sword was about to hit, all of his momentum stopped dead and his sword halted in the air.
It trembled in his grasp as he strained his muscles, trying desperately to make it move. But it was as if it had been snatched by a colossal magnet.
The monster whipped around and delivered a palm strike to his chest that sent him flying back until he slammed against a tree, all whilst his sword remained stuck in the air where it had halted.
He slid down it, slumping on the ground and coughed up another few mouthfuls of blood. His ribs were completely shattered, and a visible handprint had been left in his armour from where it had hit him.
’That’s not an elite... We have to have found... a world boss...’
Quiver4me trembled in his boots as he drew back another arrow, but the monster snatched the hovering sword from the air and, with a flash of silver, Quiver4me’s bow collapsed into a pile of sticks and broken string as it threw it towards him.
The monster slowly stalked towards him as he stumbled back. One moment it was far from him, the next it was right in front of him, its hand around his throat as it breathed its warm, iron tinted breath across his face.
And then it spoke,
"Are you afraid?"
Quiver4me whimpered in response, a warm sensation spreading down his leg. That was seemingly all the monster needed as an answer as his vision suddenly turned black. The last sound he heard was the loud snap of his own neck being broken like a twig.
