As I turned around, spoils were left behind in the area where the Death Knight had disappeared and the common loot items appeared as usual. However, before I could even take them, I saw a number of Death Knights slowly appearing.
Since hunting just one wasn't enough for me, I wasn't planning to end it here, I stabbed the Excalibur into the ground and stretched out my hand towards the Death Knights. I then provoked them to come by flipping my fingers.
[Roooarr!!]
Seems that my provoking skill worked quite well, as the Death Knights roared out in anger.
Then a number of Phantom Steed starts to sprint towards me with their hooves stomping the ground.
As it was not one or two but three mounted knights charging towards me, it was quite dangerous. If it was my own character, once two of them starts to charge at me I would start running away, but I am using Artoria's avatar, right? On top of that, as my Excalibur was known to be extremely overpowered, I felt like I had a chance.
More than anything, I came to that conclusion since I had plenty of potions ready in my inventory.
The interesting thing is that Artoria has the title 'Never Died'. Although I did die 3 times throughout my game's history, it is extremely low compared to others, showing how experienced and skilled I was as a player. Even so, having the title 'Never Died' showed how much more powerful and skilled Artoria was.
"But then again, drinking these expensive potions means that you would never… Whoa!"
The Death Knight's sword that came sooner than expected grazed past me. If I was just a second late in reaction, I would have been stunned by the first attack that the continuing second and third attack would instantly kill me, so after dodging the first, I tried my best to dodge the other two.
"Urgh!"
But in the end, I couldn't dodge them all and ended up having a huge wound on my left arm area.
Since I hadn't been playing for so long, my movements are a bit sluggish, it was a big mistake to jump into a fight immediately and I regretted it deeply.
Thanks to 80% 'Sync Ratio' of the Real Mode, the pain I felt was immense. Some people call the players using Real Mode as masochists. Some would call them insane, but it's all because they do not know how thrilling it makes the game.
Of course, if it was actually a sword strike in real life, I would have tumbled onto the floor screaming in pain while clutching my arm. However, I stood my ground and revealed a slightly crazed smile as the waves of pain came into my brain. It was time to punish these monsters that had given me so much pain that I haven't felt for so long.
Perhaps due to the fact that I saw my blood being spilled, my willpower and focus became sharp.
I never actually had the leisure to hunt to my heart's desire with my previous character as the price for the potions are extremely high. The fact that I always craved thrilling battles was also the reason as well. And now, that craving has been reawakened thanks to this Death Knight.
"I guess I should thank you."
Even if I say that, the AI wouldn't understand a thing.
During that interval, one more Death Knight joined the fray and I was surrounded by them on all sides. Once four Death Knights come together, there is an 80% chance that they would initiate a synchronized attack called 'Cross Attack'.
The Death Knights circled around me as if they found prey. The four of them would attack at the same time, and I would be assaulted by them from all sides.
To make it all worse, I saw someone slowly approaching from afar with hood up. Looking at its movements, it was definitely not another user. Then the conclusion was simple. It was a mage with knowledge of undead magic.
It was definitely a Lich, a skeletal mage. This was also on par with Death Knights on the offensive damage it can cause. There was no worse situation I could be put in right now. I needed to make a decision.
I pulled out a potion and started to drink it. It didn't taste like any dull tap water, but rather a refreshing sports drink that is often sold at marts. I could clearly tell that it was a high-grade potion compared to the usual low-quality ones I drank.
Although it wasn't a lethal wound, it closed up immediately and fully restored my HP.
"I knew it…"
As I thought, the Death Knights charged in accordance with my assumption. The problem was that as they all attacked at once, their formation had been completely messed up. Originally they would attack one by one with a little gap of time in between, but because I drank a potion, they felt the urgency to attack, meaning they simply changed back to initiating a normal attack rather than a co-ordinated 'Cross Attack'
The confusion amongst them gave me my only chance.
I initiated the skill that I knew I would be using first. Although it had a cliched name called 'Sword Storm', it was nothing to laugh at as it was a skill made with combining two P level skills together, making it an amazingly powerful skill.
I lifted Excalibur upwards as it left a beautiful arc in the air. I had limited time to execute each of the actions, time seemed to slow down as I performed the actions like it was in a Hollywood movie. The skill would only activate if I perfectly followed the required actions needed to execute it within the allotted time, and if I fail I would receive 150% of the damage and it would fail to initiate.
Thankfully as I had carefully practiced this sequence of actions regularly, I was able to complete it without any problem.
[Success] [Success]
With each of my actions, a system message saying I was successful quickly popped up one after another. And along with the messages, the Death Knights that surrounded me received an immense amount of damage over and over as I continued to carry out the actions.
Some skills may fail to initiate sometimes due to various factors such as the difference in Monster Level and skill ranking, but this is a very rare occurrence.
And if the skill failed under those conditions, the user would only receive a portion of the damage rather than 150%.
In any case, my skill activated successfully and while the Death Knights were still in chaos, I deftly dodged all of them before I stabbed the glowing Excalibur deep into the ground.
It was the last action I needed to initiate the combo skill [Burst] after the consecutive activation of [Sword Storm].
B-B-B-Boom!
With a huge explosion, shockwaves spread throughout my centerpoint. As of course, since I was the initiator of the skill, I gain an effect called 'Perfect Defence' which negates all damages to me, while all the Death Knights surrounding me suffer huge amounts of damage.
And so, the Death Knights slowly dissipated into the wind like black sand.
Feeling satisfied with the result, I made an evil smile.
"Heheh…"
I could see the Lich still coming towards my direction, as well as Death Knights that are starting to increase in numbers. I still had plenty of potions, plus the skills that I haven't tried yet