Chapter 178: 178
The Void Destroyers were not ready when the Orb of Destruction hit them . Then again, would one ever be ready to get hit in the face with a black ball of pure destruction?
It was highly doubtful .
The Orb of Destruction did not create any flashy explosions when it connected, instead, the projectile just flared up silently into blackish energy that covered the Void Destroyers that surrounded Draco .
After the energy died down, only 3 of the 10 Void Destroyers remained . The area they stood in was left ravaged and had turned into a wasteland, with a very thin hue of blackish energy surrounding it .
It was a sight that rendered logic and common sense useless . An attack from a Rank 1, level 30 player should not be able to insta-kill the wounded Void Destroyers much less the healthy ones who had higher levels and millions of HP .
Yet this was what Riveting Night had explained very delicately to the Five Generals when she sought to teach them the fundamentals of FIVR .
She had asked Uno to relate his experience in using a skill, and then use a technique afterward . She had explained the differences between the two, as well as their merits and demerits .
Skills were assisted by the system, so one could skip the learning process and use abilities that would be impossible to cast otherwise, or would take years to learn . The downside was that such skills were limited to the player's stats and Rank .
Techniques were given no assistance by the system officially, with only the Training Hall and the statistic called 'Focus' put in place to assist them, but those were indirect at best .
Still, a technique was great because it exerted its original power, while being boosted by the stats and abilities of the user .
For example, if Player A used a dash skill, its effect would be something like 'charge in a straight line with 110% speed and deal 110% blunt damage, stunning the enemy on collision for 1 second . 3 minutes cooldown' .
This sounded great, but a 10% quicker snail was still useless . The stun effect was great, provided one hit the target, but only lasted 1 second, with a 3-minute cooldown .
However, if one were to possess a technique that allowed them to dash at an enemy, with proper footwork and a well-angled body, one could deal just as much - if not more - damage while the same was true for their movement speed .
Ultimately, techniques factored in physics and facts relating to the circumstances . If a large man like Uno dashed at someone using a skill, it would be based on his strength stat as well as any items or skills he had that contributed to his strength .
This didn't mean techniques were necessarily better than skills . Otherwise, how was one supposed to conjure fireballs or cast healing spells without the skillbooks?
Granted, it was technically possible to learn how to use it without skill, but one would have to be like Hikari or Roma, someone who didn't rely on 'mana' and directly used Worldly Energy for everything .
'Mana' was just a purified and refined Worldly Energy from the body . A higher Spirit stat lead to an increased Mana regen exactly because it allowed one to convert Worldly Energy to mana faster .
This process was automated and taken care of by the system, depending on one's stats . Only the expert, legend and god-tier mages had managed to discover methods to manually convert Worldly Energy to mana after years and years of research .
As such, a technique like the Orb of Destruction, which was facilitated by Draco's Manifestation technique from the Serpent God Inheritance, was able to display power that was above his Rank .
After all, it relied on a resource Draco possessed, which was bloodline energy, and the Black Dragon then used a general resource of the game, Worldly Energy, to fuel the skill itself .
If Draco were to rely on a system skill to do this, its cost would be prohibitive and the cooldown would be measured in weeks or months . Not only that, but it would also be - at least - 70% weaker .
Since it was a technique of his bloodline, all he had to do was either wait for his BP to refill or pop an Angel's Kiss potion . Players were ranked based on their techniques rather than their raw power exactly for this type of reasoning .
On the downside, he received no experience or drops from killing them like this, as the technique utilized the rawest and most destructive form of Destruction Energy .
However, it worked great in terms of reducing his workload . Apart from the Void Destroyers on Riveting Night's side, there were only three left on his own side at the moment .
He didn't lament the lost experience because that would be foolish . Against 10 of them, he would be pushed to the absolute limits . It was better to cull their number and handle a manageable amount at a time .
Besides, they were just barely 15 minutes into the fight . Rina's Supernova was halfway completed, and would end the Emergency Quest . As such, they only needed to hold out for 15 more minutes, as opposed to 45 minutes .
Shockingly, Draco passed a command in the Guild Voice Chat . It was then shared with all the members of the other partner guilds through word of mouth . This command chilled their hearts as they understood that they were the bad guys .
"Allow some Void Fodder and Void Monsters to break through and attack the spectating players . Rina, set your targets to everyone aside from the members of the Four Guilds . - Draco"
This was a ruthless command that established that Draco wasn't the hero . He also wasn't some sort of anti-hero . No, this bastard was the main villain, and he acted like one .
The AI was thrilled though . It had conducted another test on Draco, which was how well he knew about its systems and the balance of the game .
This one was an indirect test, not to gather information from him, but to gauge how much importance he placed on Boundless and the AI itself . It was naturally ecstatic to find out that Draco went above and beyond its predictions .
Let's go back to when the Emergency Quest had been launched . It was explained that the AI expected a low survival rate, which was why the rewards were so great .
However, look at what Umbra and Draco were doing . With the way they had monopolized the void monsters, it was clear that the mass of spectating players would end up surviving the ordeal .
Unless the AI introduced some elements that could upset the flow of battle, things would end like this, with millions of players earning 100 gold among other rewards .
This would greatly disrupt the balance .
'Unfair' it may be, the AI could neither interfere directly after it had set the events in motion, nor could it suddenly raise the difficulty to an unreasonable level because it would be a breach of protocol and go against its directive .
It had to follow the lore and continuity of the world .
So, the AI, with how much it had learned about Draco, his power and his personality, had made a gamble . It gambled on Draco's understanding of the game and the game's importance to him .
If Draco didn't understand the fundamental rules of the game, he should not see these many players earning such high-tier items and money as something dangerous . He might even welcome the collective average improvement in the player base .
Reality was different, though . Umbra's Guildmaster knew a lot more than the elite and above players who understood that this should be impossible to survive . Draco knew very intimately the kind of consequences that would emerge .
On the flip side, it was downright ironic how the AI had failed to account for the fact that Draco would do everything to preserve the timeline for as long as possible . Millions of players - noobs and pros alike - gaining Epic Treasure Chests would be… bad .
If Draco did not hold Boundless with importance, he would not care if millions of players gained all this power . He was already equipped with so much, so even if players gained a lot of good stuff, it wouldn't change much .
In fact, given his way of thinking he might even rob those players of their newfound riches .
However, Draco - and Riveting Night - understood the influence Boundless would have on the human race in the future . Not only that, but most of their skills and prowess had also been honed through the game, and back then they hadn't even reached their peak .
As such, they saw it as a second world . How could they allow such a massive disruption that would upset the natural balance to occur?
Those players could not be allowed to survive, especially those rats who had chosen to hide . All of them would have to die, leaving only the members of the four guilds to enjoy these benefits .
That was Draco and Riveting Night's thoughts on the matter . The AI would have preferred that some of the members of Umbra would also perish, so the number of beneficiaries would reduce .
As it turned out, the AI was worrying too much . The Void Monsters were being handled by the members of the Four Guilds expertly, but there was a limit . First of all, stamina . Second of all, mana .
Players had been fighting high powered enemies - relative to their skill level - for 15 minutes non-stop . While they had received training and were elites, expending mana and stamina on skills naturally drained them .
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