The dark clouds finally dispersed. I lay quietly beside the fire, with a grass stick in my mouth.

Perhaps it was because I could smoothly open the attribute panel, giving them some confidence in me, or maybe we had developed some trust during these few days, El finally agreed to arrange my duty of the night watch.

In case of my lack of sleep might slow everyone down, I was assigned to the simpler duty during the first half of the night, while El took over the second.

The crimson moon hanging high in the sky constantly reminded me that this was not a game but a real world. People here could not be revived after death.

Yet those attribute panels confused me again. Was this the real world or merely a game that approached reality?

After a while, several pieces of memory flashed through my mind: Hector's passionate loud voice; El's steady command and patient guidance, and Rogoff's taciturn but fearless personality. Suddenly, I smiled.

Damn! There were vivid people right before my eyes, and I was still entangled by whether this was a game world. I had just been escaping reality.

The crimson moon, the wilderness, the freezing wind, zombies, skeletons, demons—no matter how much I wanted to deceive myself, the real things were always real, and could not be ignored. Moreover, there was no "exit game" option on those panels. Upon waking up, I was still deep in the Blood Moor.

Life is like rape; if you can't refuse it, you have to learn to accept it.

A faint, steady footsteps approached. I knew who it was without turning around.

"Brother El, it hasn’t been midnight yet," I looked up at the crimson moon in the sky and said.

"Go sleep, kid, so that you won't fall behind tomorrow," El said with a smile as he pulled me up.

"Thanks," I accepted El's kindness and ducked into the tent.

During the following monotonous journey, we unexpectedly found a white club after killing a few zombies. El immediately emphasized the accuracy of his exclusive information again talkatively, completely abandoning the steady and humble demeanor of a Paladin. After boasting excitedly for a while, he suddenly shoved the club into my hand.

"El, why..."

Since I was unarmed, I had always been a bystander standing aside during combats these days. Generally, I could not share items from demons. Although it was just a white club, it was still valuable given the drop rate over the past few days.

Items in this world were divided into two categories. The first are daily things without any attributes. Things that civilians could use such as butcher knives, leather coats, leather shoes, and so on, all belonged to this category. For example, the fur coat I was wearing now was quite warm, saving me from the freezing wind, but it could only be used for that; it could not defend against any attack from demons, not even a scratch.

Things that can affect demons were called items, coming with attributes. Items all had attribute descriptions, even if they were white. For example, if there was a knife described as a rusty broken wooden knife with damage of 0-0.1 and durability tending towards zero, no matter how low the damage was, it could be called an item and could cause damage to demons. Civilian could not load most items as there was a loading requirement, either strength or agility.

Venture heroes were noble not only because of their powerful skills but also because they could easily use items and make the attributes of items function as described. Venture heroes possessed superb talents and had undergone much exercise and countless trials, making them much stronger, more agile, and more mentally and physically resilient than civilians. They had been authenticated by the Lord and became venture heroes.

Besides venture heroes and civilians, there were soldiers and mercenaries in the Diablo world. Soldiers were stronger civilians and could also use more items than civilians, so they could also play a role in fighting against demons. However, they are still civilians, as even though they could load items, they could only cause physical damage to demons and could not make any attribute work. Mercenaries, on the other hand, had as much training and physical fitness as venture heroes but limited talents on skills. Compared to soldiers, they could load much more items, although still less than venture heroes, and more importantly, they could make items fully function. There were many more soldiers and mercenaries than venture heroes, so they could work together or follow venture heroes as retinue to cause significant damage to demons in battle.

Items used by venture heroes were valuable because of their low drop rate, even a white one.

As I was kind of lost in my mind, playing with that rotten club, El knocked on my head, and said seriously, "Don't think it's free. Now you have a weapon, you should start fighting. As an honorable venture hero, the responsibilities we bear should be commensurate with the glory and respect we’ve received. Our responsibility is to deport the hellish demons out of the human world."

El gradually became sacred and solemn, like a true Paladin in a temple.

"Yes, sir." This was a reality I would face sooner or later. Since I decided to accept it, sooner was better than later.

So, I embarked on my first battle in two worlds.

My first opponent was, of course, a zombie, with slow movements and dull nerves, being the best choice for training combat skills. If one was careful enough to keep away from zombie groups, it could not harm any venture hero. When fighting against a zombie, one just needed to pay attention to its preparation process for attacking. Either attacking it or dodging its attack, one must act before it finishes its preparation. Once a zombie completed the preparation, its attacking speed would be very fast, like a snake striking its prey. Of course, after one attack, it entered into another round of slow preparation.

So, as a complete rookie in combat, hit-and-run became my only choice for the first experience. I slowly approached with my club, circling the zombie that El left for me.

When I approached within five meters of the zombie, it also saw me and began dragging its feet, slowly turning toward me, trying to attack me. Yet my speed was much faster than the zombie's, so it always turned slower than me and could never confront me exactly, and therefore failed to take its heavy first step. In the end, I successfully circled to the back of the zombie, which still repeating its turning attempts in situ.

This was the best opportunity I created, with no worry of being attacked and watching the zombie's revolting face. Summoning up my courage by shouting out, I swung the club at the back of the zombie's head. The zombie stumbled after my blow, and its attempt to turn around paused, without knowing what to do next, as if the blow had knocked out the very little brain it left.

My first attack triggered the so-called stun effect! It seemed longer due to the zombie's slow movements.

Considering my first successful attack and the zombie's slow turning pace, I completely relaxed and continued this way. Soon, without ever trying to attack, the zombie fell to the ground after several blows to the back of its head.

I immediately rushed forward, forcing myself to carefully inspect the area around the corpse, praying that it could drop something, considering it was my first time killing a demon.

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However, the drop rate was not something that could be improved by a few prayers. I found nothing, even after searching under the body.

Taking notice of my disappointed expression, El came and said, "Item only appears next to the corpse, not under it."

"Your talent is indeed extraordinary. Only a few people can walk away unscathed from their first encounter with a demon, even if it is a dull zombie. When facing demons, the priority is to protect yourselves and our team."

El's talked to me, eyes filling with memories. I wondered if he was thinking of some companions who hadn't made it this far.

In the following days, El continued the tuition. He always demonstrated some combat skills first and then left zombies on my own, hoping I could gradually adapt to fighting with demons.

I didn't disappoint El, progressing from handling one zombie at first to four at the same time. As the number of zombies increased, I could no longer afford to just circle the foremost one but had to take the vision of all zombies into account. Therefore, I needed to speed up my pace. Otherwise, either I might get caught by the nearby zombie, or by the time I made a big loop trying to face the same zombie again, it already regenerated from my previous attack.

Five days after my practice, El gave me new guidance when the crimson moon just rose in the evening.

"Milo, you have a natural talent for battle and learned quickly. You've remained unscathed so far." El's tone was gentle, seemingly praising me, but I knew his real point must lie after a "but."

"But... there are pros and cons for your future combat." El looked at me seriously, suggesting he was not joking. "The good thing is that you haven’t got injured, and the bad thing is that you haven’t got injured."

I was utterly confused. What kind of crab was that?

Well, El didn’t make me confused for quite a long time. He smiled and explained to me: "Can you guarantee that you'll always remain unscathed in future battles?"

I shook my head firmly. Come on, even if I leveled up to 60, or even a hundred, I couldn't remain unharmed during the combat when I was surrounded by demons, or confronted elite demons. That just wasn't realistic.

"So, how will you react when you do get injured?" El led me on gently.

I pondered and replied uncertainly, "My reaction after getting injured?"

"Yes! If you get injured at a crucial moment, what will you do? Will you immediately cover your wound and retreat from the battle, or roll around on the ground painfully, then get killed by the demon, or you continue fighting as if you’ve never gotten hurt?" El continued.

"Uh... I see." This was a real problem. After all, there was a big gap between any practice and actual battle. Many factors could affect how much effectiveness one can exert in battle. Like when I first woke up and encountered that aged zombie, just the feeling of fear and disgust made me panic and flee without realizing it was no real threat to me.

I sighed softly. El meant my second training was to overcome various influencing factors, including injuries, during combat. I had to practice till I wouldn’t change my fighting rhythm even if I got hit or cut. It got to be harder from now on.

The next day, new training began. El lent me his cherished white leather armor for my safety. As a captain, he knew how to proceed with the training step by step. He was strict but not harsh.

This time, El prepared one Fallen for me. Fallen was different from zombie. They had lower defense, weaker strength, and shorter life but were more agile and had a higher attack rate. Such a demon was perfect for my further combat practice. They might injure me, but the harm would be minor. As long as I remained calm, I could easily deal with two or even three of them simultaneously.

After two days of training, I gradually found out that in this world, getting injured was not such a dreadful thing as in my original world.

First of all, attacks on a certain body part wouldn’t cause loss of function of that particular part but only lead to the loss of total life volume.

For example, my arm was injured during my first battle against a Fallen, but it didn't affect the subsequent actions of my arm. The hit was painful, but miraculously, there were no wounds on my arm, not even any swelling. My counterattack was slightly distracted by the initial pain. I only felt an extra wave of fatigue, and my limbs became slightly stiff. Some rules must play a role here the pain in one part of my body was evenly distributed throughout my entire body, reducing my stamina and overall mobility rather than disabling the injured area.

Of course, the same rule also applied to demons. I didn't realize it much while fighting against zombies before. Now I remembered that although I struck the zombie solidly on its head, no obvious signs of injury appeared until I killed it, when its head showed obvious trauma, with blood oozing from its eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. The zombie's should have slowed down after my smash, but I hadn’t noticed that as they were always very slow.

So, no matter how powerful your strength, how sharp your weapon was, or how great your damage was, you could not disable any part of their body until they were dead.

In addition, the attributes of protective items were also affected by this rule. The moment I put on El's leather armor, I noticed that a warm current spread from the armor throughout my body. I guess if you were wearing armor with a defense of 10, those 10 defense points were distributed throughout your body, even if the armor was a sleeveless studded leather or breastplate. Similarly, helmets, boots, and belts could all enhance your overall defense, not that of the particular parts.

El also told me that skilled heroes might cause critical hits or deadly strikes to demons, causing more damage to demon life than the weapon should do, which would happen when certain important organs were hit. Yet, such hits wouldn’t lead to disability of that organ either.

Obviously, it won't happen that a hit to the head will instantly kill you as you were not wearing a helmet, or if you were not wearing boots, stepping on thorns would not make you impossible to walk.

I guess without this rule, those three people watching my practice nearby might have some more titles on the attribute panel, such as an armless Barbarian, a blind and crippled Paladin, and so on...

Furthermore, if it were easy to blind or cripple opponents, many skills of venture heroes would become useless. For example, if someone could just stab at your eyes to blind you, then why did necromancers need to learn Dim Vision, which could only reduce the enemy's vision radius, not blind them?

Although these rules gave me a sense of unreality again, they indeed provided enough courage in the battle. I was still feeling pain after getting cut, but at least I didn't have to worry about becoming disabled in the future.

Finally, after several days of training, I learned to treat all the attacks from demons as nothing and strike back right away, even if the attacks were aimed at my eyes or crotch.

Later, El took back his leather armor to intensify my training...

Such training lasted only for three days. I could still make it, getting more and more used to combat, while El told me in the morning that we could return to the Rogue Encampment by noon. Only then I realized that it had been exactly 20 days since I came to this world.