After getting my second chance in life, I wanted to try and be the one standing at the back, giving orders, barely doing anything. However, it seed that the blood of a berserker ingrained in over three decades wasn’t sothing I could fight against.
The fight finally began.
A large wave of monsters began pressuring us from the front.
[Withered Bats Lv. 43]
[Plague Rats Lv. 41]
But level-wise, they weren’t much of a threat. They weren’t bosses either, so they were basically nothing but walking EXP pots for us.
After the frontline stabilized, with the girls handling their section carefully and holding back the monsters coming in droves, I took a deep breath.
"My turn...!"
I shifted the blade in my hand and moved.
Using Shadow Waltz, I appeared at the ceiling of the cave, diagonally upwards—a section directly above and a little ahead of the middle of the girls’ line. The stone above was close enough that I could feel the cold of it before I even touched it.
Before gravity pulled down, I quickly transitioned my sword to my dominant hand and swung around. With Sunny added in, we didn’t really need to fear hitting the rats’ blisters anymore, so I could go all out. No holding back, no calculating safe angles. Just pure, clean violence.
"Revolving Sword Stomp!"
My spinning montum sped up, creating a wild rotating blade spinning at about ten rotations per second. Added with the kick from the ceiling, I fell down like a teor, slashing all monsters around about ten tis in one go.
483!
347!
390!
The damage numbers weren’t really much compared to the girls’, but the number of attacks were more than what they could dish out. aning my instantaneous damage against a single target was almost four tis theirs.
Not to ntion, my attack wasn’t single-target—it captured all monsters within the range of my blade, roughly a little over a dozen of them at once.
That ant my total raw damage in this single attack was almost 50 tis anyone else’s!
’One...!’
I was counting the seconds as I moved.
Right after landing—using my other hand as a spring to kill my montum—I faced forward with my sword angled diagonally before . Then I jumped forward lightly, activating another ability.
"Flittering Sakura Step...!"
The next mont, my figure vanished, replaced by red particles flying along my path. They looked almost like cherry blossoms slowly falling to the ground from a distance, which was where the technique got its na.
But it wasn’t all visuals either.
Any monster that was "within" the range of the sakura petals received about five hits instantly.
And the distance I traveled with the technique was about ten ters, aning over 50 monsters were caught in its range at once. The ones at the edges of it didn’t even seem to register what had hit them before they were already crumpling.
[DiamondBus: Damn... Can’t he solo all monsters if he’s like this?]
[YellowRonin: Teach us, Master! Teach us...!]
[WG_Worshipper: When I grow up, I wanna be WhiteGod!]
Of course, as expected of this much display, the chat was going crazy. Mostly trying to ask about the two new skills I had just showcased.
However, these were just like Moon Waltz—interrupt-combinations.
Though unlike Moon Waltz, which could be used by anyone since it didn’t rely on any skills, the two I had just used—Revolving Sword Stomp (RSS) and Flittering Sakura Step (FSS)—required specific skill combinations.
RSS used Drop Kick and Revolve in a pretty specific activation-interrupt order. FSS, on the other hand, used Sacrificial Charge and Blood Release, along with a basic Thrust skill. Thus, I couldn’t spam them like Moon Waltz, since the prerequisite skills had their own cooldowns.
’Five...!’
Already five seconds had passed, and watching the HP of everyone—even with Eri backing them up—they were nearing 25% down.
Without delay, I spamd Moon Waltz in reverse direction, returning to my position and grabbing the flag once more, reactivating its passive.
"Hold for 20 seconds!" I called. "After that, I’ll charge in again!"
Of course, it wasn’t that I couldn’t handle being in the frontlines. Rather, the reason I returned was to keep the girls alive. Without the buff regeneration from the flag, they would literally die faster. It was a simple trade-off—my damage versus their survival—and survival always won that argunt.
With the flag’s buff, their defense had increased, aning lower damage taken, and their HP recovered 20% per ten seconds—aning 40% in 20.
They should be back to full health by then, and my skill cooldowns would be done as well.
Hmm? Where did I get my skills?
Well, they weren’t class-specific skills, after all. They were sothing you could buy from a Skill rchant and learn as long as you could afford it, and the ones in the beginner village were dirt-cheap—though at the sa ti, weak.
Unlike gas that had skill points used to activate skills, Heaven’s Path didn’t really limit you. How many skills you had was fully dependent on how many skills you encountered, bought, or learned.
In theory, soone with enough gold and enough ti could beco a walking library of techniques.
In practice, most people just grabbed whatever fit their class and called it a day.
Anyway, the girls couldn’t even afford to reply as they were swamped with enemies to kill.
After 20 seconds were over—enough that two ticks of the flag’s regeneration had activated—I moved once more.
Using the sa combination of Moon Waltz, RSS, FSS, then spamming Moon Waltz to return. Each ti I took around 70 to 100 monsters down with it.
There was sothing almost rhythmic about it by the third cycle—jump, slash, scatter, return. Like a pendulum swinging between the frontline and the flag, each pass clearing a little more breathing room for the girls.
With my actions combined with the girls’ efforts, the wave of rats and bats ended in three minutes.
We cleared a group larger than before in a much shorter tifra than before!
"Good work, everyone!"
I greeted casually, watching the girls pant while sprawled on the ground.
By now, I had already gotten used to the rotten, sewer-like stench of the plague rat’s blister pus, so it didn’t bother much. The girls all seed to have disabled their sense of sll already, so they weren’t bothered either.
The looks, however—with them covered head to toe in green sli—was a little... off-putting. Even Sunny, who hadn’t been fighting at all, sohow had a small splatter across her cheek. She didn’t seem to mind. If anything, she looked pleased with herself.
"WhiteGod!"
At that mont, Kiki jumped toward , arms pulled to her chest excitedly, eyes glittering like stars.
"That! What was that?! Can you teach it to too?! Especially that flashy one, with the sakura petals falling!" She asked in one breath.
"Those two?" I snickered.
"They’re the sa as Moon Waltz—an application of skill interrupt combos. I can tell you how to use it, but... I already told you the core idea behind Moon Waltz. Wouldn’t it be easy to guess how I did the previous two?"
"Muu...!"
Hearing my words, Kiki pouted.
"Is that a challenge?!" She grumbled. "As a gar, I’m sure I could figure it out! No need to tell , I shall figure it all out by myself...!"
A thin smile crossed my lips seeing her act so competitive.
But still, I thought she might misunderstand so things and fail to figure it out quickly, so I gave her a clue. "I used two skills for Revolving Sword Stomp and three skills for Flittering Sakura Step. Good luck figuring them out!"
As I watched her walk away, I also saw Miyabi coming closer, sending a sideways glance toward Kiki who was already whispering intensely to herself.
As if looking out for her, Miyabi leaned closer, whispering right into my ear—a little ticklish, and definitely embarrassing. "WhiteGod... Can you tell the skills you used? Unlike Kristal, I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to figure it out by myself..."
"...!"
Feeling the tickle shoot straight down my spine, I jumped aside, holding my ear while trying to calm my wildly beating heart.
This girl, really... And I was pretty sure she had done it all completely unconsciously. How scary.
"T-The skills, right?" I said with a slight stutter. "I’ll DM them to you, including the interrupt and combo timings. Check it later."
"Huh? Alright..."
Although visibly confused by my reaction, Miyabi obediently nodded and returned to where she had previously sat. Her expression was the sa as always—calm, unreadable—which sohow made it worse.
?
I just stayed where I was, taking deep breaths to calm down once again.
As for Kiki, she was trying to figure it all out by herself—with the help of the brainy chat mbers, as expected.
It’s not like I couldn’t see those chats, so I could track the progress of their attempts in real ti. And to my surprise, one of them had already gotten the right skill combinations—not just close, but exactly right, laid out in clean, confident detail.
The na was familiar too—one of the regulars. Bell.
[Bell: I think the combination for the first skill is the Fighter’s Drop Kick 🦶 and a Swordsman’s Revolve ⚔. For the second one, it should be the Berserker’s Sacrificial Charge and Blood Release, along with a Fencer’s Thrust 🤺 skill. 🕵️♀️]
Of course, if he had recorded even one instance of my skill uses, then it wouldn’t have been hard to work out. But to think soone had actually gotten it correct in such a short ti, and laid it out that cleanly to boot—before Kiki had even begun to narrow things down, no less.
’This Bell guy is no slop.’
If possible, I would want him to join my team in the future.
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