DarkNight was a player that had started playing UniTale since the first day it was released. He started in the human faction and played as a Knight since he thought it was a nice play-on-word with his name.
He wasn’t part of any guild but had been fortunate enough to meet with an adventurer team that made him their primary tank player. With his skills, he was thankfully able to fulfill that role quite easily. He played frequently with his adventurer team and ran dungeons and raids with them on a daily basis. Thanks to that, he was able to get to level 100 and complete his class upgrade into a Paladin. Today, he was just going to do a daily quest that required him to fight a player in random matchmaking but he didn’t expect to meet a random player who was overwhelmingly more powerful than him.
When Maria appeared on the arena’s stage, DarkNight couldn’t recognize the person’s class nor race. The description of her opponent did indicate that she was a hybrid class player, but it was hard to determine accurately what her real class was since she was divided into 3 categories. He would normally make an observation and gauge the skill level of his opponent by looking at how they carried themselves, the quality of equipment they had on, and the description from their player bio. Unfortunately for him, his current opponent felt completely unknown, so he expected that this fight was going to be pretty tough.
Even though it was hard to accurately gauge his opponent's strength, DarkNight knew that this person was strong just by taking a look at the large, ominous battle ax they were shouldering. To his memory, there wasn’t any player out there whose race was an eight-winged angel with black-feathered wings wielding a large demonic ax. Well, since his opponent was an angel race player, DarkNight wouldn’t have much information on them anyway because the angel and devil race players had been isolated from the start of the game since their starting points were different from the other races and due to this fact, he wouldn’t know of their races' powerhouses, except for the ones that had recently established themselves in the Arena and were sweeping the rankings.
The angel and devil race players were now present on Gaia and had joined up with the rest of the player base but unlike the other players that were able to pick a side, the Angels were unconditionally siding with the Pantheon while the Devils were on the side of the Celestial Order. The Devils didn't have a side to begin with, but they were with the Celestial Order because they were against the Pantheon who the Angels had sided with.
At the moment, there were only 2 Angel-race players that had recently made a name for themselves. One for being quite a strong player and the other as a professional shout-caster that loved hosting and commentating on other players’ matches. The former was a player named Caedes and the latter was called Hadez.
As for the devils, there were plenty of them actually, but the ones that made the most impact on the arena were called Satania, KillYouAll, and Mach. They were really skillful players and all 3 of them were part of the Devil-only guild called The Nine Hells.
It was quite ironic, but the Devil race player base had more solidarity than the Angel race player base. Every player that played as a devil was part of The Nine Hells guild while the Angel players were divided into 3 guilds, Angel’s League, Celestials, and the most significant guild of the 3, Testament. Both Caedes and Hadez were part of Testament while the other 2 guilds didn’t really have anyone notable besides their guild leaders.
DarkNight noticed that his opponent was a girl so despite being skeptical of her power level, he didn’t treat her as too much of a threat since she was a ‘girl’. The few female players that he had to be worried about were the recently famous unique Scylla race player named Sky, who could create giant monsters from her tail and dominated everyone in her arena matches, the Guildmaster and Vice Guildmaster from the Fallen Angel guild, and a few other famous female streamers on the Switch platform.
He knew about Maria, the famous female streamer who played as a Fallen Angel, but he completely ruled her out because, from the most recent news about her, she was stuck on a different planet due to a quest and couldn’t move to Gaia. Unfortunately, for DarkNight, the black-winged angel in front of him was, in fact, the person he had ruled out from the start.
In the Arena, Maria had read that there would be many restrictions on a player’s passive skills, title effects, weapon, and armor bonuses, and race-specific abilities were completely disabled so her passive [Charm] didn’t affect DarkNight.
The Arena also leveled out the participating players’ HP, MP, and SP values along with their 4 main stats if the differences in their stats were too big. This was to make the battles a bit more leveled and fair, but it wasn't a really fair solution since players who had overwhelmingly higher stats than others could absolutely steamroll their opponents. In this kind of stat-based game, it couldn't be helped since some players would be lucky and obtain stat points via class changes, equipment, items, quests, race advantages, skills, titles, etc.
There were plenty of ways to earn stat points in Unitale. Players just had to diligently play the game, know where to look, or in some cases, get lucky and stumble upon them. The widely known source of extra stats would be the game's Main Scenario Quests and Sub Scenario Quests that frequently rewarded players with FSPs. The players who had arrived on Gaia had all completed Planet Eur's Main Story Quests and its branching quests, so it was expected that they were all pretty strong in their own right. However, Maria was a little bit special in this regard because of her pretty broken race advantage though she did have the level-up penalty and she didn't participate in any of the Main Scenario Quests of the first world, so she missed out on a lot of those FSPs.
At the start of every arena battle, there would always be a stat calculation period where the system would even out the stats between the two players if it saw a need for it, which was then followed by a 30 second wait time before the battle began. When the calculation timer was finished, DarkNight’s eyes rounded in shock by what he saw.
“What the actual hell?!”
He currently had a little over 100,000 HP and that was after his class upgrade so he expected to only have around 50-60 thousand when the calculation was finished, but the value he saw was against all his expectations because he had almost the same amount of HP as before, but this wasn't what surprised him. What really surprised him was his absurd Rage Points or RP value. He rubbed his eyes a few times and doubled―No―he triple-checked the number to make sure that he wasn’t dreaming or reading it wrong.
"3-300,000?!"
When he finally confirmed it and came to terms that he really wasn’t dreaming or hallucinating, DarkNight shouted once again, “What the hell?!”
This was the second time he exclaimed these words. However, before he could finish processing all of his shock, the timer on the battle hit zero and his opponent was already rushing straight at him.
*****
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Just earlier, when Maria first entered the stage, she had been chatting with her viewers for a bit while preparing for the battle.
She was a bit nervous when she saw the player standing on the opposite end of the stage looking at her menacingly. At least, that’s what she thought her opponent was doing when in reality, he was only checking his stats and was being surprised by it and giving her some weird glares which she thought looked menacing.
Maria felt that she had to take this more seriously because of how her opponent was acting, so the moment the timer hit zero, she immediately jumped into battle without any hesitation even though she didn't bother checking her opponent's stats. Making the first move and taking the initiative would let her set the pace of the battle. She didn't want her opponent to dictate the battle's pace because it would put her at a disadvantage, especially since her opponent was a knight class player.
Maria quickly arrived in front of DarkNight who reacted half a second late but was still able to expertly defend himself with his shield. Thinking that she would strike with her ax, DarkNight raised his shield to try and defend, but Maria changed course and abruptly jumped into the air.
She showered her opponent with a rain of sharp black feathers. DarkNight instinctively rolled away, but Maria wanted him to do this, so before DarkNight could even raise his shield again after rolling away from her previous attack, Calamity was already on top of his head.
Her [Calamity Cleave] connected and stunned DarkNight for a second, but all Maria needed was a second to chain her next sequence of attacks on him. She tugged on the chain attached to her Calamity and bolted to the ground, arriving right in front of her opponent. She didn’t even grab Calamity and just launched a fist at DarkNight’s face.
DarkNight panicked a little bit after being stunned but after seeing Maria's dainty fist approaching his face through his helmet's visor, he calmed down and didn't think much of his opponent's attack.
'Why is she punching me instead of swinging her ax at me?' Was what DarkNight thought. It was quite obvious that attacking with a weapon would definitely deal more damage and since Maria was just punching him with her bare hand, he thought the damage would definitely be low. At least, that was until Maria's 'dainty fist' suddenly transformed into a demonic claw.
'Ah, shit―'
Maria fist struck him and it felt like a bat had hit him. Obviously, he couldn't feel the pain all that much since his pain setting was set to low, but he did feel the shock from the punch. That wasn't the end, however, because what followed was a kick to the gut that sent him flying away. The stun still hadn't worn off and DarkNight thought about using a quick recovery skill that dispelled the stun so that he could quickly launch a counterattack, but Maria didn't give him that chance. She tugged on the chain that was connected with her ax and smashed her opponent again with Calamity.
It was quite frightening to see something so dangerous and menacing descend on you and DarkNight was forced to watch as the dangerous ax slam right on top of him, flattening him into the ground the moment it struck. Maria didn’t stop there as she flew above DarkNight and sent a round of her deadly feathers at him and started charging up her [Dark Ray] skill.
DarkNight was only caught by surprise but being a regular arena competitor, he didn’t panic and quickly used his Knight-class skills, [Quick Recover] and [Purify] to quickly get back on his feet as he raised his shield in front of him.
Maria knew a little bit about the Knight-class since her friend played as one, so she knew the activation animation of the two skills her opponents just used. She smiled since this meant that her opponent no longer had an instant-use cleanse skill anymore.
She launched her [Dark Ray] skill and the attack struck her opponent's shield. DarkNight managed to block the damage of her skill, but it didn't stop the skill's status affliction from hitting him. The black light from his opponent's skill spread to his face and he was inflicted with the [Blind] debuff.
Maria took note of this and quickly swapped her Calamity to its scythe form and hurriedly launched her [Decrepify], [Doom], and [Enfeeble] skills on DarkNight which added more status afflictions on him. She then spun Calamity around with her chains and struck her opponent from afar a few times with her scythe since he was practically a sitting duck who couldn't dodge any of her attacks right now.
DarkNight remained calm despite seeing his HP bar plummet and all those debuffs affecting him. He waited for a bit to see if Maria still had any more debuff-inflicting skills and after seeing no more status afflictions being placed on him, DarkNight quickly used [Sacred Heal] and purified himself of all the annoying debuffs. He then followed up with the healing spells [Regen] and [Cure] to replenish the HP that Maria took from him.
With all the status afflictions gone, his vision was clear again and he thought about mounting a counterattack but then he noticed something quickly approaching his face... once again.
Maria didn't know about the [Sacred Heal] skill that removed debuffs from a Knight since it was the Knight class' unique second advancement skill, but after seeing him suddenly start healing up and recovering from all the debuffs, she quickly made her move so that her opponent couldn't recover.
When her kick connected to DarkNight’s face, she was able to knock him down again. DarkNight tried rolling away but Maria had wrapped her chains around one of his legs when she got close just now, so he couldn't move away. She quickly activated [Calamity Cleave] and swung her scythe down at him. The point-blank [Calamity Cleave] struck DarkNight and the red energy wave that briefly flew out of Maria's scythe split apart on contact and lacerated the poor man's body, inflicting him with [Bleed].
'What the hell is with her skills?!' DarkNight inwardly exclaimed.
There were just too many debuffs. First was the [Stun], followed by the [Blind], and then the consecutive [ATK Down], [DEF Down], and [Confusion]. Finally, this energy wave skill that caused [Bleed].
DarkNight suffered debuff after debuff and he had a feeling that this wasn’t even the end. Despite having the upper hand in a melee battle, his opponent suddenly backed off and this only caused alarm bells to ring in his head. He didn't see this as an opportunity at all because there was definitely a reason why his opponent suddenly moved back despite obviously having the advantage. He was right to assume that because the moment Maria backed off despite having the advantage, she immediately started casting her [Fire] spell.
'You've got to be kidding me!'
When Maria launched her spell at DarkNight, he quickly raised his shield and blocked it, but the [Burn] debuff luckily procced and began ticking away at his HP alongside the [Bleed] debuff that was inflicted earlier.
“Shit!”
DarkNight had just used his [Quick Recover], [Sacred Heal] and [Purify] skills that could purge all of the debuffs he was afflicted with, so the only remaining debuff removal skill that he had that was off cooldown was his Paladin class' trump card, [Holy Purge], but he wasn’t willing to use it just yet because he felt like Maria had more up her sleeve than just this.
His opponent attacked him as if she was a Warrior and even used punches and kicks like a Pugilist―the advancement class of a barehanded Warrior. She then continuously inflicted debuffs on him like a debuff-focused Priest and had now cast a magic spell at him like a Mage.
With so many ways of attacking, DarkNight couldn't even mount a proper counterattack by the time he fell to Maria’s Calamity. Throughout the entire fight, he was completely at her mercy even after he used his Paladin class' secret skill. It was already hard enough for him because he could obviously see the disparity between their priority main stats and their game mechanics. Maria's damage was really high and the way she controlled her character completely floored him, literally.
DarkNight prided himself as being one of the Knights in the game with extremely high defense stats that even put him onto the game's stat specific rankings, but even then, his opponent's damage numbers were really absurd. He had over 20,000 DEF and M.DEF, but Maria was able to constantly inflict 4-digit damage numbers on him though this was highly attributed to her skill that could apply the [Def Down] debuff on him.
He had checked his opponent's arena details before the match started and saw that her class was separated into 3 different categories, Warrior, Priest, and Mage. There were only a few people in the Arena rankings that had a class that fell into 3 categories, so DarkNight could only curse his luck because he didn’t expect to face one in a random matchmaking battle. Moreover, it was someone who still wasn't even on the rankings yet.
Even though the outcome was rather unfortunate for him, the battle was still a very good learning experience so he decided to Follow Maria so that he could watch her future battles and after following her, Maria's name was now displayed for him on her arena details menu and he doubtfully questioned himself, “This player’s name is Maria...there’s just no way, right?”
When he thought of the very famous streamer that had just recently become infamous for a video she uploaded, he quickly opened up the in-game browser and saw her sudden stream announcement post and that she was indeed currently streaming at the moment.
DarkNight wasn’t a member but he immediately subscribed to her channel and posted in the chat.
DarkNight: I knew it! It was you! Mr.SoSo: Oh, look guys, it’s the dude Maria just demolished! Anon1: Hello, brother. Have you come to join our cult after being destroyed by our angel? Hexhex1: Hah, look at this guy! He's been converted, lol! ... ... ...