The noise came from a good distance away, from the same direction Arthur was heading in. He immediately crouched to avoid anything seeing him. His aura quickly retracted to his body to not expose him.
In a split second, Arthur was able to completely eradicate all traces of himself from his environment and blended into the darkness with amazing agility. This was an ability he learned with days and days of traveling and fighting.
If he senses any threat, he can easily disappear before the threat can locate him. Such a skill was required for all environments and all situations to avoid disaster as much as possible.
‘That noise, it’s not just wood falling… Something is moving in the distance.’ Arthur sucked in a small breath and peeked through a small hole to see what the source of the noise was. Far in the distance, walking through the remains of the ships, was a group of individuals that Arthur couldn’t identify from this far.
However, purely from the way they were walking and their general silhouettes, Arthur immediately identified them as…
‘Humans!’ Arthur exclaimed in his head with wide eyes. ‘Wait, there are people down here? How is that possible? Wait… Did they perhaps fall down here with these ships?’
The idea wasn’t really too far-fetched if Arthur took into consideration how strong humans are in this world. However, there was still a large flaw in that logic.
‘These ships are at least dozens of years or even hundreds of years old… How could they still be alive?’ He mused.
Looking at these walking humans, a sense of eeriness filled Arthur’s heart. The boy was deep in thought and didn’t realize something important. The humans he was seeing weren’t using any source of light to move through the ship graveyard.
In fact, if it wasn’t for Arthur’s extremely sharp senses, the group could’ve easily gone under the radar with how seamlessly they blended with their surroundings. They even wore dark or colorless clothes so that it was even harder to identify them.
‘Interesting…’ The boy watched them quietly, not daring to make a move. He didn’t know if they were friendly or hostile yet and didn’t want to start an unnecessary fight.
But, he also didn’t want to remain there and wait for them to completely disappear somewhere. He had to follow them and see where they went. So, while keeping his eyes locked on the group, he tried to take a step to the side and move to a different spot.
But he didn’t notice a small wooden plank right beneath his feet and stepped on it gently. The step made a very faint, almost inaudible noise.
*crack*
It was so faint that Arthur didn’t even focus on it. However, as if they were struck by lighting, the humans stopped and immediately turned their heads to stare at Arthur like robots that sprung into action.
The moment that happened, Arthur felt as if his heart was about to burst as he quickly stepped back. His face paled visibly.
‘Did they hear me?! From that far?! What?!’ He clenched his teeth as he looked down at his foot. ‘D-Dammit!!’
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHH!!!!!”
At that moment, a loud howl shook the entire graveyard to its core. It was so loud that Arthur felt his ears ringing, threatening to burst his eardrums. He closed his ears quickly, trying to stop the noise from shaking his brain.
But even that didn’t stop his ears from ringing, even after the noises had stopped. Arthur felt delirious for a second, but he still looked up to see what had happened. Much to his horror, the humans… were nowhere to be seen.
‘S-Shit!’ A chill ran down his spine as he stood up and looked left and right. ‘Where did they go?’
Without wasting time, Arthur unsheathed his sword and activated Frostborn. He didn’t anticipate such a turn of events in such a manner, but the game kept surprising him every time he expected something.
‘Left? Right? They’re moving around me. But, I can’t pinpoint their location accurately. They’re really fast!’
Just like ghosts, they moved around him at extremely high speeds. The situation reminded him of his first meeting with Finlay and Serko, except way worse. These humans weren’t just way faster, but the darkness around him was too blinding to actually see or feel anything.
The hostility of these enemies was also way higher than what he felt from the two dwarves back then.
A few tense seconds passed as Arthur brandished his sword. He knew that an attack was coming at any given moment. But, he didn’t know when.
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*Swish*
‘From behi-‘ Arthur suddenly heard a sound behind him and quickly turned around to deflect the hit. However, by the time his eyes looked there, the enemy’s fist was already hurling toward him. He didn’t have time to react, nor even understand what was about to happen. All he felt was intense pain as his head was yanked back with sheer force.
*BANG*
“AGH!!!” Arthur’s face snapped back as he felt the immense power of the punch sending him flying several feet back as he smashed into a wooden wall, breaking it into small pieces.
“Cough! Cough!” He spat out a mouthful of blood mixed with bits of broken teeth. ‘What the hell is that speed?! I couldn’t even react!’
Arthur couldn’t believe that he was unable to perceive the punch before it reached him. He had 73 points in agility, which was the highest in the entire player base. He was faster than even the fastest agility-special classes.
‘It’s not enough… My agility is not enough… They’re levels above me in speed.’ Standing up as he adjusted his jaw, Arthur looked around him. The enemies were still moving around him as fast or even faster than before. They were using the darkness to full advantage and it was causing the boy a huge headache following them with his eyes or senses.
The sight gave Arthur a grim expression. It was clear that this battle was not going to be easy at all. He was facing several enemies at the same time, all faster than him and all possessing immense power.
But Arthur didn’t think about escaping. He channeled his mana, fueling his body even more as he glared powerfully.
“If you think you can just bully me without resistance, then you’re mistaken! I’m far from the prey you can underestimate!”
For a second, when they heard his voice, the enemies stopped moving for a few seconds. Arthur noticed that but didn’t say anything else. At this point, he wasn’t even sure if they were truly humans or if they were just monsters disguised as humans. This wasn’t the first time he encountered monsters of that type; the woman of the river was the most recent example of that.
‘It doesn’t matter, really. I need to get out of here alive if I want any chance at escaping this hellhole!’
The goal was very clear, and there was no room for hesitation. The monsters resumed their movement a second later as if they were also agreeing with Arthur. There was no room to talk, the fight must happen.
A//N: Thank you all for the gifts, golden tickets, and PS. Let’s keep it up!