"What the hell is this damn thing?!" exclaimed Arthur, narrowly managing to parry the enemy's attack in the very last second.
Now Lizzard moved much more agile and faster. The mob tirelessly swung its rusty, crooked blade, something resembling a falchion, while Arthur, focusing on blocking the endless barrage of strikes, gradually retreated, clenching his teeth.
No matter how hard he tried, the guy couldn't find the right moment for a counterattack or a chance to step back to catch his breath and prepare for the next onslaught because the enemy attacked with unimaginable speed.
Every time their blades clashed, a loud, ear-piercing ring of steel echoed, and sparks scattered in all directions (oh, those meaningless and ruthless special effects).
Suddenly, Lizzard slowed down, and then stumbled altogether. It was unclear what exactly - the floor here was perfectly flat. Unfortunately, Arthur was completely unprepared for such an outcome, so he couldn't launch a counterattack. However, he managed to glance at the upper left corner at the transparent health bar. As soon as his gaze focused on this interface element, the bar immediately filled with color, and Arthur, with relief, noticed that his health points hadn't decreased.
"Well, great, figured that out - when blocking attacks, you don't lose HP, so let's keep going." thought the guy, immediately deflecting another strike from Lizzard. And then another, and another.
But at first glance, it seemed that everything was going well. In reality, however, Arthur was getting tired naturally. After each hit from the Lizzard, he felt the growing pain in his arms - apparently, the game had a realistic element, and the recoil was taking its toll.
His fingers weakened and numbed, and the sword threatened to slip from his hands literally any minute.
Suddenly, Lizzard changed his battle tactics: instead of the endless and rapid strikes, he, for some reason, raised his scaled, clawed paw over his head and froze. Finally, the perfect opportunity for a counterattack presented itself, but Arthur still didn't seize it because he was completely unprepared for this turn of events.
The crooked blade in Lizzard's paw glowed with a bluish light before forcefully descending onto Arthur. Fortunately, this time the guy didn't lose his composure and managed to position his blade to intercept the strike.
Instantly realizing that the better option would be to evade rather than block, as the Lizzard's attack was so powerful that it caused an unpleasant tingling in his entire forearm, and Arthur's legs slightly buckled. The health bar, which he didn't even have time to glance at in the heat of the moment, flickered and illuminated. He immediately understood that the interface was signaling damage received.
But what the hell, he did block the attack!
Then came the second strike, and Arthur, unable to withstand the pressure, dropped to one knee. And then the third, seemingly the most powerful. With peripheral vision, Arthur noticed a small, barely noticeable blinking icon appearing beneath the health bar. A wave of weakness rolled through his dominant arm.
He wouldn't be able to deflect the next attack, so he needed to act quickly: alt+f4 (but alas, that was impossible). Fortunately, Lizzard slowed down again, and the glow on his blade suddenly disappeared. Arthur reacted swiftly - in an instant, he calmed down, collected his thoughts, and dodged to the side, avoiding yet another strike.
And only now did Arthur notice something very important and intriguing: Lizzard, despite all his high speed (and he indeed moved incredibly fast, as if he were another player – in games, mobs are usually a bit sluggish) - turned out to be extremely clumsy.
Lizzard couldn't boast massive dimensions: it was only slightly taller than Arthur and a bit broader in the shoulders—and yet, incredibly strong but quite lean. Therefore, Arthur couldn't have imagined that his opponent would have such a weakness: the crooked paws of the Lizard allowed it to move quickly only in a straight line, but turning around was a real challenge for the monster.
Arthur intended to exploit this weakness: now he understood how to attack and was about to charge at the enemy, but alas, the right hand holding the sword almost didn't obey him.
Now he finally paid attention to the health bar and the icon beneath it: the health points decreased by 27 units. So, when the Lizzard's blade was covered with a bluish glow, its attacks penetrated the defense.
But how much damage did they deal? Well, Arthur had blocked only 3 enhanced strikes, resulting in 27 damage. So, 27 needed to be divided by 3, and it seemed like such a trivial task, Jesus Christ, they teach the multiplication table in the first grade, but now, around Arthur, the atmosphere was extremely tense, and a dangerous enemy stood right in front of him. So, the guy simply couldn't focus on the numbers and decided to postpone the mathematics for better times.
And beneath the health bar, there was a red icon (clearly a debuff), depicting a crossed-out hand and a timer counting down. How much exactly – Arthur couldn't say because as soon as he glanced at the icon, the timer counted the last second, and the debuff was immediately nullified. Arthur felt the sensitivity and strength return to his right hand.
However, it was already too late to attack: Lizzard turned toward Arthur, stared at him, and slightly bending, touched the ground with his left paw. So now, he stood on three limbs – undoubtedly about to make a leap towards Arthur!
The guy prepared and raised the sword at face level, then noticed that the blade was completely covered with chips and cracks.
“What the fu...?”
Arthur got distracted for no good reason – Lizzard swiftly lunged forward and attacked. In a blink of an eye, he was beside Arthur, delivering a slashing blow. Fortunately, Arthur – once again! – narrowly managed to dodge, but he got entangled in his own feet and almost stumbled. The Lizzard, however, instantly reoriented itself and struck again. The blade of its weapon cut through both of Arthur's hands and his torso; he felt a not very intense but quite unpleasant pain in the "wound" area, and the health bar blinked once again.
However, the pain was so insignificant that it didn't hinder Arthur from striking back. He knew perfectly well how the combat system in games worked: even if he managed to touch the mob with his weapon just a bit, the foe would immediately experience a brief stun lock. It happened now – as soon as the blade barely touched the scaly face of the Lizzard (more like a scratch), Arthur noticed how the monster froze and took a full 7 points of damage.
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Arthur involuntarily smiled – excellent, now all that remained was to finish off the enemy! Arthur wouldn't let the Lizard break free from the stun state; he would keep attacking until it was defeated.
But Arthur overlooked one crucial detail: the Lizzard had a freaking tail! The stun didn't affect it, so Lizzard took advantage of it, smacking Arthur in the face. The pain, once again, was barely noticeable; apparently, the tail wasn't considered a full-fledged weapon, so it inflicted a minimal amount of damage – just one point. Another player might not have paid attention to such a thing, but Arthur simply lost his composure and instinctively recoiled.
"Ha! Imagine, bro, I got wrecked like freaking dogshit!" – an enthusiastic shout came from his cousin. Because of that, Arthur completely lost his composure and started to act foolishly.
"Hey, Max, is this REALLY just training?!" – exclaimed Arthur.
"Uh… well, yeah," his cousin replied, not entirely confident. "What's wrong?"
"Well, you see…" Arthur began with emphasis, intending to deliver a long rant about the completely broken game balance, when suddenly someone grabbed him by the shoulder.
The grip was so strong that Arthur practically felt the claws, quite painful, digging into his skin. Fortunately, Arthur didn't receive any damage.
Lizzard abruptly turned him to face itself, raised a scimitar-like weapon above its head for a strike, and emitted something like a roar.
Or rather, an attempt at a roar – it opened its mouth wide, filled with very small but frequent crooked teeth, and produced some guttural and gurgling hissing sound. If one could abstract from the dire situation Arthur found himself in, listening to this hissing in a calm setting would seem somewhat amusing.
"Mmm, w-wha? I mean, see - what?” Max asked again, as Arthur hadn't finished his thought earlier.
“QUIET!” the guy barked, cutting off his cousin.
Arthur had already prepared for death and relaxed, but, as it turned out, in vain - Lizzard, for some reason, didn't finish him off. The monster froze in place, perhaps giving a chance to emerge victorious from the confrontation.
So, pulling himself together, the guy attacked - raising his sword sharply, he thrust the blade into the monster's paw. The grip weakened, and Arthur immediately broke free, then tried to cut off the Lizzard's paw. But alas, the game apparently did not provide for the possibility of dismembering opponents' limbs.
On the other hand, this was not necessary because the infamous stun lock came into play. Arthur began to relentlessly strike blow after blow, each time reducing the lizard's hit points by 7 units. The guy slashed the paws, the muzzle, the stomach, once even tried to "cut" Lizzard's neck (albeit unsuccessfully), leaving only a barely noticeable dark stripe on it resembling an old scar.
And finally, Arthur plunged the sword into the heart of Lizzard, then successfully finished the "combo" with a kick to the stomach, throwing the monster back.
Behind him was a table strewn with numerous alchemical belongings. The table itself split in half; splinters, jars of colored powders, dried plants, and vials filled with liquids of various colors flew in all directions. Breaking on the floor, the liquids mixed with each other and the powder, foaming and sparkling.
“Wow…” said Arthur.
The impact turned out to be more powerful than the guy thought because at this point, Lizzard not only did not stop its flight but did not even slow down: at full speed, Lizzard crashed into a massive bookshelf. There was a terrible creak of wood and the scraping of metal, a thick cloud of dust rose into the air, and splinters, books, and individual sheets of paper scattered in all directions.
Well, in principle... the destructibility in this game is quite decent, that's for sure.
And yet…
“Damn it!” exclaimed Arthur.
“What's up?”
But he ignored his brother again.
Even before Arthur downloaded this game, Maxim told him something interesting about the combat system of typical VRMMORPGs: if a player performs a combo of at least five consecutive hits and then finishes it with a kick, this very kick will deal, firstly, pure damage (ignoring armor values), and secondly, double damage (the maximum damage value of the main weapon will be doubled).
And that's where the problem lay: Arthur dealt a colossal number of blows, successfully finished the combo, looked at the health bar, and... was stunned.
Lizzard had 260 HP left.
Arthur had 33 HP left.
Why such a huge difference? Everything is simple - Arthur, at level one, had ONLY 70 hitpoints.
Yes, the difference was colossal, and it seemed like there were no chances, but still, now Arthur was angry and had no intention of giving up.
Lizzard climbed out from under the debris and stared at Arthur. It did not attack but seemed to be waiting for his opponent to attack first.
Unexpectedly, Arthur, even for himself, straightened up to his full height (although he usually hunched over), sighed, and pointed the sword at his opponent:
“Remember, crocodile snout!” the guy spoke in a very low voice, quite unusual for him, and, moreover, different from the one he had set in the character editor earlier. “You will remember this day for the rest of your short life... you, you will remember our meeting even after billions of years in the digital hell! You will curse the day you dared to stand in my way... no, you will curse even the day you were born, you will curse fate itself for intertwining our life paths!”
Arthur's voice, strong, even authoritative, echoed off the dark walls of this strange place.
“Remember, I won't give up! In my lexicon, there's not even such a word! I will always move only forward and will never lose to someone like you! I am the Alpha and Omega; I am the sword of Damocles, like the fate's rock hanging over everyone who dared to stand in my way; I am the God of Death, who, with a snap of his fingers, will turn anyone to dust, be it a wicked peasant or a ruler of an entire state! And if you, a digital code error, don't get out of my way right now... well, your end will come. Soon.”
In the air hung an awkward silence. Arthur could feel his face turning red with embarrassment, and a digital drop of sweat trickled down his avatar's forehead.
Nevertheless, the guy continued to stand still, pointing the sword's edge at Lizzard.
"A-Arthur..." his brother hesitantly spoke up. "Uh... you know... let's both pretend, like, well, nothing... you didn't say that. Just forget it. Okay?"
"Okay..." Arthur agreed in a hoarse voice.
But neither the guy nor the Lizzard budged. Arthur was now only thinking about one thing: he urgently needed to come up with a tactic to follow in order to defeat the mob.
Simply beating it, holding it in an endless stunlock – that was cool, impressive, and useful, but unfortunately, even here, there was a limitation: the longer the combo, the less damage the mob received with each hit, and the weaker the impact of the stunlock became.
In short, if Arthur overdid it, Lizzard would simply start moving freely even while taking damage.
However, he didn't have endless time to ponder. Suddenly, the lizard dropped onto all fours and slightly opened its mouth, tongues of flame emanating from it. Lizzard's neck swelled, as if it... was about to breathe fire.
"Hey, dude, did you accidentally hit hardcore mode or what?" Max suddenly quizzed, still trying to wrap his head around the bizarre wordplay Arthur had unleashed a minute ago.
Meanwhile, Lizzard widely opened its mouth and indeed spewed forth a powerful stream of infernally hot fire.