Zenith Online: Rebirth of the Strongest Player
chapter-67

Naturally, Kieran understood the importance of conserving his Mana in his current state. If he was wanton with his skills, it'd lead to a ludicrous expenditure of Mana which his current stockpile of Mana potions couldn't support. Therefore, not even Warrior's Aura was active currently.

All of the death he caused were strictly done by manipulating his current environment. Those spears wouldn't be included in the setting for no reason. They served a purpose that required intricate knowledge of environmental damage to capitalize on.

Whereas Kieran's attacks dealt moderate damage, when impaled by the bone pikes littering the platform's outer ring, a damage value exceeding 50,000 appeared above the heads of each Goblin Minion.

Obviously, Kieran could only rely upon this feat that much more once he accomplished this!

Over ten goblins jumped toward Kieran, but he slid underneath them before recovering his footing. The change in position lined them up so that Kieran was farthest away from the spears. In under 10 seconds, Kieran piled the bodies up on four different spears by utilizing movements the minions could hardly track.

It was a gruesome sight, but Kieran was unaffected as he shifted and grabbed one of the goblin's cranium and smashed it into the ground. Right after, he picked it up and flung it towards the other stacked-up bodies.

Only once he kited upwards of 20 Goblin Minions did Kieran use Force Slash once to simultaneously kill them with the help of the spears.

Suddenly, Kieran felt the skin on his back crawl as he flipped to the side with unsteady footing. A large sword cleaved through the air and smashed against the platform, which left a deep scar that made Kieran's eyebrows furrow.

'The power in that attack is enough to eat away half of my Health!' Kieran inwardly noted. His first thought was that he couldn't afford to be hit by such a strike. Although it didn't seem like a skill, it carried the destructive power of one.

However, Kieran expected as much since their goblin titles indicated their specialties. A Warrior was naturally endowed with great strength.

While Kieran wasn't sure how helpful this would be, he plunged the Scarlet Steel Greatsword into the platform and created a Flaming Circle that separated him from the Goblin Warrior and even more Goblin Minions.

To ensure that they'd be restrained for at least a few seconds, Kieran combined the Flaming Circle with the Spirit of the Bear King. Once he confirmed that he sensed no movement, he focused on any stragglers left outside the Flaming Circle's radius.

The wonderful thing about these skills was that they consumed no Mana. So, as long as the cooldown elapsed, he could use these skills together to effectively crowd-control the mass amounts of goblins.

Of course, it had limited use against monsters of Kwozma's caliber. Although the duration was supposedly 15 seconds for the Flaming Circle and 10 seconds for the Spirit of the Bear King, Kieran would be lucky if they were even 50% effective.

Fortunately, various lesser Goblin Minions were forced into a state of Fear by Kieran's Goblin Hunter III title. Whenever he came close enough to a large cluster, they froze up. This gave Kieran the perfect opportunity to uninterruptedly slam the goblins on the spears until the point they looked no different than goblin shish kebabs!

"How delectable," Kieran chuckled amusedly before raising his guard exponentially.

Kwozma's large sword ferociously cleaved through the raised Flaming Circle, shredding it apart with every swing that seemed to pick up in velocity. This steady increase in attack speed resulted from his Barrage trait, which increased the attack speed of every successive strike by 5% until it capped at 50%.

A 50% increase was enough to fundamentally change the properties of an attack. It could be the difference between a moderate gust and a raging tempest produced by fearsome physical attacks.

'Hm? He's completely unaffected by the title for the most part. Though, I should expect as much when trying to use a Normal Title on Champion monsters. At the very least, I'll need a rare one to pose any threat to them,' Kieran thought before launching his second Force Slash since his arrival.

An area of freedom opened up because of Kieran's action, allowing him to breathe.

"Filthy hoo-man! Stop all your pesky tricks and fight me," Kwozma roared before charging at Kieran. Its movement speed wasn't excessively quick, but it wasn't something to scoff at either. In terms of Agility, Kwozma surpassed Kieran.

However, that didn't mean it was better in regards to their application of Agility. In the end, Agility and Strength synergized well to produce an instantaneous boost of speed. When combined, one could even push past their speed limitation by right of acceleration alone!

Bang!

Kwozma attacked with another fierce slash, but it didn't connect with Kieran. Before the attack reached his vicinity, Kieran evaded with a subtle twist of his body before slashing at Kwozma's exposed forearm.

Shnk!

The attack drew purplish blood and created a sizable wound. However, when Kwomza glanced at the injury, he treated it as no more than a minor cut and scoffed. "Slip-puh-ry!"

Because of their racial barrier, some of the words these goblins spoke sounded unusual to Kieran. Perhaps it was their girthy tongue, or maybe it was due to recently gained sentience; still, Kieran understood them since there wasn't a noticeable language barrier.

At any rate, there wasn't a language barrier present when the remarks were directed toward Kieran. Kwozma released a series of unusual noises followed by a light white glow surrounding his body. His attack suddenly shot up, and this time, Kieran couldn't dodge properly.

Thus, Kieran could only activate Hardened Skin and defend while retaliating with Heavy Strike.

Bang!

-165 [Aatrox's Health: 495/660]

Although he used Heavy Slash to fortify his attack, Kieran still lost more than a quarter of his Health to Kwozma's attack. What's more, a large shadow appeared overhead that rapidly grew in size, prompting Kieran to leap backward.

Booom!

Ezgal's shield smashed into the ground where Kieran previously stood. Because Ezgal slammed it horizontally while intending to flatten Kieran into a paste, it didn't impale ground like before. In light of this ferocious slam, a tremor surged throughout the platform.

It was no different from Bastion's Shield Tremor, except it was more prominent because of the disparity in attributes.

Meanwhile, Kieran's eyes darted back and forth before planting his hand on the ground and pushing up to somersault while avoiding the well-timed attack of two minions.

'Holy shit, what a terrifying unison!' Kieran inwardly muttered. Ezgal didn't even require a successful attack on its comrades for it to respond in an arguably terrifying way.

For some reason, Kieran felt the stats of these monsters were ballooned and their reactions more pronounced. 'Could it be because no one has visited this special zone yet, so the unique properties haven't been exhausted? If that's the case, then my question is, why was there no indication of this situation in the beginning?'

In the past, Ezgal's rendition of Shield Tremor wasn't as exaggerated as the one Kieran currently faced. Only the platform's core would shake briefly, not the entire platform rumbling.

If it had not been for Kieran's exceptional sense of balance, he would have undoubtedly lost his footing and inevitably fallen victim to Kwozma's onslaught.

Instead of rambling about the shocking inconsistencies, Kieran regained his footing before pointing his sword at Kwozma.

"Hoo-man, ignore?!" Ezgal shouted in fury when he noticed Kieran's lack of attention.

"Ezgal, calm," Kwozma responded before stepping forth, followed by an explosion of momentum. The light hue around Kwozma's body was still present. So, both its attack and movement speed were currently heightened. Kieran wasn't sure how long its duration was, but he knew it was something he needed to exhaust.

Therefore, Kieran keenly studied Kwozma's movements and compared them to what he knew. The result was an estimation of a 40% increase. This increase was indeed worth mentioning, but Kieran was also proud of his current attributes.

Kieran only failed to dodge earlier because he could not account for the increase in speed at such a close range. The brief period before Kwozma's attack wasn't enough to adjust his position or adapt to the circumstances.

Sometimes, reacting too quickly was just as bad as responding too slowly if the opponent was strong enough. Both predicaments could lead to unfortunate results.

Kieran and Kwozma became involved in an inadvertent game of cat and mouse, with Kwozma trying his darnedest to hack Kieran to pieces. One second grew into ten and ten into a minute before Kwozma failed to keep its rage in check.

Rooarrrrghhhh!

Kwozma released a bestial roar while abruptly changing how it held his sword. The light hue surrounding his body gained an orange color before dissipating into his muscles, making them swell to the verge of rupturing.

Once Kieran noticed this reaction, he separated himself from Kwozma and ran towards the remaining Goblin Minion, who steadily tried to attack his rear.

A violent gust circled Kwozma before brandishing his sword three times. Despite how far from Kieran he was, the attack's linear range was stupendous! The three attacks formed huge wind lassos that lacerated the platform and moved toward Kieran rapidly.

When Kieran felt the wind nearing his back, he cut to the right abruptly, leaving the remaining Goblin Minions to suffer the consequences. Their bodies were shredded to bits, including those impaled by the spears.

This attack completely ignored their health bars, killing them all alike.

Afterward, Kwozma was forced into a groggy state. But, while he was vulnerable, Ezgal situated his shield before Kwozma to protect him. While it was a practical action, it wouldn't help much with what Kieran had in mind.

He disappeared behind the large rocks, and when he reappeared, he was much closer than before. This happened multiple times before Kieran appeared at an odd off-angle that Ezgal didn't account for.

With the Warrior's Aura set ablaze, Kieran executed a Force Slash aimed at Kwozma's neck. Rather than the AoE effect, Kieran minded his blade primarily. Kwozma's head flew and rolled off into the distance with a single strike.

〈System: You have gained 19,404 Experience!〉

"Nooooooooo!" A bloodcurdling roar sounded from Ezgal.