“Another perfect headshot,” sneered Ketley from his perch high amongst the branches as he watched the arrow collide with the man’s skull, striking him right between the eyes.
He had known that waiting in this spot would pay off. He’d finally found one of the few, open areas of land in this otherwise crowded forest. And low and behold an idiot had stood still at the top of the mountain, completely out in the open, just begging to be ambushed. The stupid human had stood for so long that it gave Ketley time to perfectly position himself below the exact spot that the man would inevitably run to. And low and behold, the fool had done just that, he’d started randomly running forward with a surprising lack of speed. It was almost too easy. How the man was level fifteen he had no idea, but soon he would be but another notch on his wall of deceased foes. He didn’t even bother to cover his arrow in poison, he was so confident that the arrow would hit its target.
Ketley was proud of his strategy, he’d ambushed and bested many an initiate with this tried and trusted technique, and it had taken him all the way to rank three on the power level ladder. Out of the thousands, millions, billions of people here in these training grounds he was top three. No longer would he be known as Ketley the disgraced trainee of a worthless sensei. No, now he was Arr0w, the archer and hunter, and soon to be leader of this new world. The next task on his list was to confirm the kill of this over levelled fool, and then he would track down and kill the one who forced him to put an ‘0’ in his name.
“That fucker who stole the name ‘Arrow’ will pay,” he growled as he floated down gracefully from the trees, his cloak flapping soundlessly in the air behind him.
Ketley muttered angrily to himself as he trudged up towards the body of the man, “Who the hell chooses the name Arrow. That name belongs to me and me alone. I’ll end them. I’ll make it painful.”
He was surprised that he still hadn’t received the message indicating the man in front of him had died, but it couldn’t be long before it appeared. No one could survive an arrow to the brain. He pulled his twin daggers from within his hooded cloak as he closed in on the man who was now lying unmoving on the ground. The man was bleeding from the wound in his head, but strangely the arrow was not protruding out of the man’s skull like he’d expected, instead it was resting on the grass to the side. The man before him was tall and relatively thin, with auburn hair that was partly stained a deeper red from the blood. He wore a black bandana with silver lines through it around his neck that shimmered impressively in the light of the sun.
“That thing looks valuable,” thought Ketley as he continued to look over the man.
He had a black singlet and dark green trousers on with some large boots over his feet and a small glowing sack hanging from the side of the man’s waist.
“Jackpot,” smiled Ketley as he knew exactly what this item was.
On his hands he wore some slightly tattered, dark green fingerless gloves, that were beginning to glow. No, it wasn’t his gloves that were glowing, it was the man’s hands. Ketley went to leap forward to deliver a killing blow with his daggers before the man could fully activate whatever magical ability he had planned, but he felt something holding him in place. He glanced down at his legs and saw... Chains?
“What the fuck,” Ketley exclaimed just as the man leapt up and swung forward with another chain that seemingly appeared from nowhere.
Barry saw the arrow at the last possible moment. It was too close for him to dodge, or to summon a clone or even a barrier. One way or another it was going to hit him. With his quick wits, thanks to his high willpower, he immediately knew he only had one option of minimising the damage from the attack, his heavy fortification skill. He activated it just as the sharp tip of the arrow slammed into the triangular space between his eyes and nose. He felt the arrowhead pierce his skin and slam into the shallow bone below it. It hurt, but he knew it wasn’t even close to a fatal wound. Even as the force of the blow sent him falling backwards, Barry could see his hooded attacker appearing out of the trees below him and starting to head in his direction, no doubt to finish the job. The man’s long, black, hooded cloak covered his entire body, and any other items or clothing were hidden from view. Barry could only just see the pale white face of his attacker beneath the open hood, but any discernible features were hard to tell from this distance. Reflexively, Barry had summoned a clone on the edge of the forest behind the man as it was just within his duplication skills range. Thankfully, the cloaked enemy seemed distracted by his own thoughts and he didn’t notice Barry’s ability in use. His clone was now his eyes, and Barry waited patiently for the man to approach as he played possum on the ground, planning his counter attack. His health was sitting at around seventy percent, pretty good considering he’d just taken an arrow to the face.
“Thank you high vitality,” thought Barry as he activated two remote chains just as the man got close.
Then, as the surprised man looked down in confusion at his tangled legs, Barry made his move and jumped up, swinging his aura chain angrily at the hooded man’s head. Now that they were closer, Barry saw that the man’s skin was ghostly white, his eyes red, and the few bits of hair that hung down within view under the hood were a distinct whitish blonde, indicating he suffered from albinism.
Whoosh! The chain flew past the man as he somehow dodged the strike by arching his head backwards unnaturally and with incredible speed. Then, like a spring, the man brought his trunk back up and lunged at Barry with daggers that were now glowing purple. The blades emanated a deadly aura as they swept forward towards him. Barry instinctively stepped back and away from the dangerous weapons. However, the blades shot off droplets of purple liquid as they flew through the air, some of which landed on Barry’s skin. The areas hit by the liquid started to sizzle and burn horribly and Barry watched the man form a sinister sneer.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“Something wrong?” mocked the man.
Barry ignored the comment as the burning started to subside as his vitality overpowered the small specs of poison. Instead, he changed the topic of conversation during their brief stalemate.
“Who are you and why are you attacking me?” he asked as he slowly and secretly formed additional links to his aura chain.
“Why not? This world is built for the strong. The weak and foolish, like you, should be culled to make way for the strong. Who I am doesn’t matter, as soon you will be no more. But if you truly want to know my name, then you may refer to me as Arrow,” the man sneered.
“You’re a maniac!” rasped Barry as he finally took a moment to inspect his enemy and see what he was up against.
Inspection:
Race: Human
Level: 16
Stat: Perception
Barry frowned at the information as he realised the man in front of him must have been the ranked initiate known as Arr0w. The rank one perception specialist, and tenth ranked in dexterity. It was so obvious, he actually felt stupid for not making the link from the man’s words alone. But it wasn’t until he’d seen the man’s power level of sixteen that he made the connection between the man’s words and the third ranked individual from the power level ladder. This was not someone he could take lightly, the man was powerful, and clearly dangerous. Barry almost felt a sense of duty to put down such a dangerous and unhinged foe. So, with a swing of his arm he brought his chain forward at the man called Arr0w, this time aiming for his chest. Again, Arr0w managed to contort his body, this time to the side, in order to avoid the bulk of the blow. But, fortunately for Barry, the man’s legs remained trapped, and his chain continued its trajectory downwards and into the man’s knee. Arr0w screamed out in pain and Barry continued to strike forward with his chain, repeatedly slamming it into the legs of the imprisoned man, causing red blood and purple ooze to drop down the man’s legs, dousing the remote chains with the two liquids.
“You have so much power, and yet you use it cruelly!” Barry screamed as he swung forward for the fourth time.
This time, instead of moving his body out of the way of the attack, Arr0w launched forward, bursting free of the chains that had held him as they shattered below him, having been rapidly corroded by the purple ooze. Arr0w slipped inside Barry’s attack, and brought his twin daggers up to slice straight through Barry’s unprotected neck.
“Nice try, but it’s time for you to die!” scoffed a smug Arr0w as his blades crossed over each other and through the bandana and neck of his foe.
Arr0w smiled as he waited for the sudden spray of blood and influx of energy that indicated his foes demise. He found it strange how everyone’s skin felt different as his weapons pierced them, and each person even died a little differently. For some the sensation of his blade sliding through their skin felt like he was trying to tear through rubber. For others, like this man, it was effortless, and appeared to glide through nothing but air. Some gurgled, some groaned, and some died silently. But this man remained standing, and the delay seemed too long. He lifted his head up, expecting to see the gushing blood flowing freely from the wound he had surely just opened up on the man’s neck. But he didn’t see anything of the like, all he saw was the seemingly unscathed man staring down at him with an oddly irritating smirk. Without wasting another moment of thought, he lunged forward again, and his blade pierced smoothly through the man’s chest. But then so did his hand, and his arm. Arr0w flinched, as he retracted his arm back and took a step away from the freak in front of him. What just happened? Had the man used some sort of manipulation skill to deceive him? No, that couldn’t be, he would have felt the invading force enter his mind if only for a moment. It must be something else. Quickly, he swapped from blades to his bow and arrow, and he launched a trio of arrows forward at the man. Arr0w watched with confusion as the projectiles passed straight through the man, without causing a single wound or scratch, as if he wasn’t even there.
“You look upset Arr0w, is something the matter?” teased the man, which only added to Arr0ws growing fury.
“The poison, it must had eaten away at my chain,” Barry realised as the man lunged forward at him.
His movements were so fast, and Barry knew he wouldn’t be able to react in time to avoid the strike as the blades drew closer to his throat. With few other options available, he activated clone transfer, and found himself hiding in the forest, peering out at Arr0w and his clone who were further up the hill.
“Stuff doing my duty, this guy is crazy and I’m not sure I could beat him even if I tried,” he said under his breath as he turned and began running deeper into the forest.
Turning his attention towards the vision of his clone, Barry couldn’t resist the urge to mock the man as he swiped again with his dagger, and then repeated an attempted attack with his arrows. Barry watched the cogs turning over in the confused man’s pale face as he tried to work out what sort of skill Barry was using.
“What trickery is this?” spat Arr0w as he nocked another arrow threateningly.
Barry smiled, relishing in the growing irritation from his enemy, as he lied in reply, “That won’t do you much good when I’m in this form, I am unable to be damaged. Go ahead, waste your stamina.”
Another arrow flew right between Barry’s clones’ eyes and out the other side of his head before crashing into the side of the mountain with a bang.
“All skills have a weakness, or a trick to them, I just need to figure out yours,” Arr0w hissed with venom in his voice. “I bet there’s a timer before the skill ends,” he said with a sinister grin, “I just need to wait it out.”
With that the man sat down in front of Barry, with his legs crossed and eyes focussed, flipping his dagger up in the air and repeatedly catching it in his opposite hand.
Barry was surprised by the man’s blasé actions, but he figured it didn’t really matter for now if he was safe. He’d been caught off guard, and had suffered damage before the fight had truly started, plus it seemed the man was able to counter one of his most reliable skills, his remote chain, with his poison abilities. So, he didn’t really want to get into a life-or-death struggle right now with someone so powerful if he could avoid it. It had been a good wake up call to never let his guard down, but if he was going to face this man, he wanted to be at full strength. As he got further away, Barry could feel his connection to his clone fading, and he decided to put one more failsafe in place to ensure he had an appropriate distance buffer between him and this monster. With his clone, he summoned a complete ring of illusionary remote chains around the man and the clone. Arr0w jumped up at the sight, whilst Barry’s clone maintained a serious stare.
“The next time we meet I’ll make you pay for your actions,” Barry said through his clone, just before the connection broke and it disappeared in front of Arr0w.
“That guy was one scary fucker, and I’m sure my illusion chains won’t distract him for long, so I need to get a move on,” thought Barry as he ran through the undergrowth below a series of tropical, flowering trees that reminded him of frangipanis from earth.
He regretted not being able to defeat the man, and worried that others who crossed his path would not be so lucky. But there was something about the man’s abilities, and the speed at which he fought that just gave Barry the chills. Arr0w was cold, calculated, and ruthless. His poison was strong enough to break through Barry’s own attack, and even when he was locked in place, he was so fast and flexible that he could dodge the brunt of Barry’s strikes. Barry wasn’t confident that he’d even be able to land a single hit if the man hadn’t of been trapped by the chain briefly. No, as much as Barry didn’t like it, escaping was the smart choice at this moment, and their rematch would have to wait for now.