A New World (Gamer, Book 1) (17 page)

As the fight begins, Harry sees that the
combat is relatively simplistic. The mages fire off spell after
spell, burning into the front ranks of the enemy moving towards
them and Harry gets to stand there until the wolves manage to get
into close range.

Bursts of energy pound the front ranks of the
werewolves and they fall to the dirt in droves. Multicolored light
dances in front of Harry in a blinding display of different kinds
of magic; however, it’s not long before the monsters get close
enough to attack.

When they reach the six meter mark from the
group, they leap into the air and to Harry’s surprise fly up and
over his head. He spins and activates his Cap of Speed. The first
three werewolves die in seconds and the next two not long after.
The healer casts a spell on him that mitigates his health loss and
he looks at her with an impressed expression on his face. He has
never worked with a healer before, but he is beginning to like it a
lot.

He twists around in a sharp arc and charges
back through the group to chop down a werewolf that is trying to
bite a mage’s head off. His stroke is clean and perfectly severs
the creature in two. He then turns to the werewolves dashing
towards them and brings his sword firmly back into the rear
position. A little bit of concentration on the weapon calls forth
its flames. He swings it around as hard as he can and a sharp
scythe-like blade of fire flies out in front of him. He charges
behind it, in perfect coordination with its flight, as he
concentrates on his weapon, making it as heavy as he possibly
can.

Harry hasn’t received the blue bar yet, but,
in Josh’s opinion, he doesn’t need it. He is doing just fine as he
is.

The scythe impacts the front lines and Harry
slashes out in quick compact groups of three thrusts that take
monsters in their vital points and send them on their
way.

He sprints through the front ranks of the
wolves and begins hacking and cutting as he turns and runs back
around the group, being careful to keep deep enough in to allow the
mages to do their work.

Eventually, he exits around the side and uses
a burst of speed to rejoin the group and kill off two werewolves
that have gotten too close.

“
Harry, the rear!” Axel
yells.

Harry spins just as a huge wave of nearly a
hundred or more werewolves bursts from the woods behind them. It is
now a four sided game and there’s nowhere left to run.

He sprints to the back of the group and puts
his weapon out in front of him. The wolves, seeing him standing
there alone, perhaps assume he is easy prey and charge foolishly
ahead.

Harry grins. This is not the first time that a
mob of creatures has made that assumption on seeing him alone and
seemingly only armed with only a sword. He reaches into his shirt
and grabs hold of the amulet he received from the rare
monster.

“
Five.”

His image blurs and there is suddenly five
Harry's standing in the way of the wolves. All of them have swords
that glint wicked sharp and equal expressions of amusement at the
wolves surprise, which doesn’t stop them from charging
on.

The wolves rush in and Harry at his other
selves begin to fight. The other versions of himself aren't quite
as strong as he is and lack most of Harry's special abilities, such
as the sharpness of his sword and his speed; however, it is enough
to destabilize the charge. The beasts fall back and circle him with
angry looks on their human-like faces. Only a few seconds of combat
has hacked down twenty of them. It is a death rate that is
shocking, considering it was created by only five skinny looking
men in tattered leathers, who are also seemingly quite experienced
fighters at the same time.

He doesn't give them much opportunity to think
their losses over though. He comes into the group at an incredible
pace and works together with his fellow clones to eliminate the
werewolves with authority.

Limit Reached.

“
Already?” Harry
mutters.

His other selves disappear and he is left
alone in a circle of the dead and dying. There are the sounds of
more coming from the woods, but for now he is alone.

Activating his Cap of Speed, he bursts through
his group to the other side. The grind is now a three way attack
and Harry does his best to reduce that by one side. He whips around
with his weapon as the mages fire beams of energy into the
creatures that try to attack him. They concentrate their assault on
his movement and for a time the carnage is incredible. Dozens fall
per second and in less than fifteen seconds a hundred monsters have
died and the remaining ones on that side are running in fear of the
wickedness of the players that they have found themselves defeated
by.

“
The other side,” Harry yells as
he stops in mid-run and spins to arc into the mass of
werewolves.

He whips out in a thick arc of fiery heat and
continues his laser like run of destruction. He can see that the
other group has just reached the mages and so increases his speed
to a lighting fast sprint that virtually makes him disappear and
reappear in front of the enemy thanks to the dexterity increasing
effect of the potion.

He cuts out a dozen times, but it is not him
who saves the day. Axel uses a new technique that fires seven
arrows at once that Harry has never seen from her before. She pulls
back her bowstring with a single arrow nocked and lets fly. It
splits as it hurtles towards the enemy and becomes several arrows,
all the same as the original arrow. The power of the strikes is
enough to drop a werewolf each and their accuracy is deadly. She
has clearly been hard at work developing her own skills in the last
two weeks as well and it's quite a sight seeing her at full
assault.

Multiple Rare Monsters
Detected.

Harry rushes back to the group and Josh looks
to him in fear. They both know what this means and it's not just
one this time.

Something wobbles underground and a large
clawed hand reaches up to grab at one of the mages, who jumps out
of the way in the nick of time. It's clearly a very big werewolf by
the thickness of its muscles and the deepness of its skin
color.

Around them a variety of different noises can
be heard from the woods. Wolves scream from the left as something
charges through the trees. On the right there is the sound of heavy
footsteps coming and on the left everything is dead quiet except
for a small mist, which is wafting up from the bottom of the
trees.

The large wolf hiding underneath the dirt
jumps out in the middle of the group and Harry meets its claws with
his sword. Josh switches his equipment in midstride and puts on his
metal suit once more. It glows red and gold and the other mages
look on his weaponry with respect.

He comes forward and slams his fist into the
beast’s stomach to which the beast barely grunts. It increases its
press on Harry and he is pushed down to a knee as the other
combatants appear around them.

“
Out of the frying pan and into
the hot water,” Axel says, looking over their new
assailants.

Harry couldn’t agree more. There is a huge
giant with large tattoos all over its body and a stone club at its
side lumbering their way. On the other is a very misty creature,
which looks like a ghost and has a crown on its head. Finally,
there's a skeleton with a thin bladed sword and top hat. It moves
with incredible speed and in seconds severs off one of the mages
heads, creating the first fatality in a way that was so fast that
Harry had trouble following the movement of the creature’s
weapon.

"Protect the healer!" Josh cries to Harry as
he starts burning the wolf with his laser fingers.

He spins and sees the ghost appear next to
Erica. It grabs her by the throat and holds her up with one hand.
It is doing something weird with its mouth and a colorful bluish
light appears from Erica’s own, which is stretched painfully
wide.

"Take your hands off her," Harry says
activating his Cap of Speed and surging into the beast.

He collides with the monster and his sword
passes through its body. The weapon seems to have no effect
whatsoever and his second swing using the wind technique that
defeated so many ghosts before doesn’t seem to work. Thankfully,
the warlock steps in and throws a blackish liquid at the ghost’s
chest. It cries out in pain and Erica falls to the ground as it
releases her.

The warlock and the ghost square off and
there's an intense killing intent from both of them. There is a
sense that only one of them will be left alive after whatever is
about to happen next and Harry isn’t putting any bets on either
side. This fight is anybody's game.

Something cuts across Harry's chest, breaking
his contemplation, and he barely manages to defend himself. The top
hat skeleton stops in front of him and gives him what Harry
believes might be a skeletal grin. They cross swords and Harry has
to activate his cap to keep up. His health is burning away at an
insane pace and he won’t last more than a few seconds at this
rate.

Axel saves him in the end by firing another
seven arrow shot at the skeleton. It turns and hacks all of them
out of the air, but it gives Harry the time to step back and
deactivate is cap, so that a slightly recovered Erica can cast a
wave of golden light on him that heals him back to full
health.

“
This is too dangerous,” Axel says
to Harry as he jumps in front of her to block a barely seen speedy
strike from the skeleton.

“
I know, but we have to keep
fighting. These things will one shot kill us if we end up all dead
and respawning in lots. We have hours left. They will take our gold
in no time,” Harry says as he tries to get an opening so Axel can
fire an arrow at the skeleton again, which seems like the only
strategy that might work against the creature.

Amulet Recharged.

“
Yes!”

Harry swings his sword in three wild arcs and
pushes himself back. He reaches inside his shirt and grabs some
exposed flesh on Axel’s side as she fires again and again at the
blur that is the skeleton.

“
What are you doing?”

Harry answers by saying, “Three.”

Three Axel’s appear around them and begin
firing non-stop. The skeleton ends up on the defensive and Harry
takes the opportunity to set his sword to the rear
position.

“
Now!” he cries as he swings it
around with a massive burst of raw flame chasing the
blade.

Axel jumps away and two of the mages die in
the fire, but the skeleton is consumed.

“
We got it.”

It’s the last thing Harry says before he dies.
A slim white skinned man with dark hair appears behind him and
slits his throat with his slim bladed sword.

“
Talented, aren’t we player?” the
man says in a voice as cold as death.

He kills Axel a second later. After that it
becomes a kill session with the players dying over and over again
and the monsters taking barely any damage.

The swordsman skips among the mages and Erica
and chops them down. He does an excellent job of it and in seconds
they are either on their way to dying or near dead. Every time they
come back to life they are killed again, not even given the chance
to recover from the disorientating effects of death.

As this reaping reaches a crescendo of
violence, the giant finally enters the fray and starts hammering
down on the group with its club, striking them like moles in a VR
hit the mole game. The situation has become critical and it’s only
getting worse.

With a great cry of satisfaction the werewolf
tears through them and takes Harry down before he can even take a
breath. The ghost rushes over to his dying body and starts to tear
his fingers from his hand as it claws at his sword.

The other surviving players are experiencing
much of the same with the reviving players being killed moments
into their new life. It is a terrifying death camping that is
obliterating their gold supplies at vicious speeds that are enough
to cause Harry, for one, great concern as he realizes that he can
do nothing about it.

"We can’t keep this up," Harry gets out as he
comes back to life once more.

Josh glances at him, but Harry’s head is cut
off before he can receive his answer. It takes two more tries to
hear what the man has to say.

"If you have any ideas, I'd love to hear
them."

Harry has one death’s worth of thinking time
and realizes that short of killing all of the enemies at once, or
at least knocking them back, there is nothing he can do.

He grips his sword more firmly in his hand and
comes back to life to chop off a finger from the werewolf. It howls
in pain and the other monsters laugh loudly. The ghost appears
behind Harry to stick its arm through his chest and tear out his
heart. He slashes backwards at the transparent creature, but it has
no effect on it and just passes through.

Just as he’s about to die the swordsman takes
that moment to chop off Harry's head and the giant slams down on
the remains of his body with his club. There is so much
electrically charged pain going through Harry that he still aches
when he opens his eyes.