There were two groups, five men on one side, four on the other.

  At the head of the smaller group, Cassian's face was twisted with rage as he snapped. "LiveFastDieYng, you lot are absolutely shameless! It's just a lousy Bronze Bracers, for fuck's sake! Was kicking us from the party and ganking Jorren just to get his gear to drop really necessary?"

  In response to his accusation, the bald, hulking man leading the other group, the red-named player with the ID LiveFastDieYng, twirled the silver sheened greatsword in his hand and scoffed. "Oh, please, Cassian. You lot are running around in garbage gear, and you've got the nerve to call a Bronze Bracers trash? You got one thing wrong, though. I didn't kill him for the bracers. I've had my eye on that Silver Greatsword he was carrying for a long time. If he hadn't gone red-named, I never would've gotten the chance to make my move."

  Cassian's face turned bright red with fury. "He only got that red name because he took the most kills when we were fighting over grinding spots earlier! How the hell do you think we leveled up to 4 so fast?"

  "Haha, these idiots actually thought we were being nice, carrying them through the grind!" A Mage in the five-man group snickered, leering at his teammates with zero regard for Cassian and his group: "He got all those kills because we left the mobs at low health for him to land the final blow. We set him up to go red-named just so we could gank him for his gear, hahaha…"

  Cassian was struck speechless, his whole body shaking with rage as he pointed at them. "You… you bastards…"

  Kairon had pieced together the whole story by now. It was nothing more than a party falling apart over gear, a classic backstab. What he hadn't expected was to run into LiveFastDieYng, the very player he'd just seen in second place on the level leaderboard, here of all places.

  Wait… what was the name of the guy they killed? Jorren?

  He glanced down at the player's corpse still lying on the ground, not yet despawned, and his eyes turned ice-cold in an instant.

  "You what you? Get the hell out of here! You bunch of trash really thought we wanted to party with you? You've been slowing down our leveling this whole time!"

  "Yeah, exactly. Don't make us kill you, too. It's just two more red names; at worst, we can't go back to town for a day or two. Big deal."

  The rest of their group jeered in chorus, their voices dripping with contempt.

  Cassian was a Priest with no ability to lead a fight like this. He glanced back at his three remaining party members.

  "Cassian, we need to fall back! We don't stand a chance against them!" the Mage behind him urged, his voice tight with panic.

  The Gunslinger beside him chimed in immediately. "He's right. Jorren already messaged us, told us to get out of here. The gear's gone, we can farm more later. If we all die here, they'll definitely camp our corpses, and we won't even be able to do a corpse run to rez."

  Cassian's gaze fell on the last member of their party, the Paladin.

  The Paladin didn't hesitate for a second. He stepped forward to stand shoulder to shoulder with Cassian, drawing the greatsword from his back.

  Cassian nodded at him, then looked toward the Rogue at the very back of the party. But the Rogue wouldn't meet his eyes. Instead, he stepped back two paces, his form fading into stealth.

  Ding! System Announcement: Player LeafFall has left the party.

  Hearing the system prompt, Cassian let out a bitter laugh. It was true what they said. You never really know someone's heart, and when disaster strikes, everyone looks out for themselves.

  Seeing this, the Gunslinger and Mage in the party also left one after another, turning and retreating toward the level 4 mob zone.

  Cassian stared at the only party member left beside him, the Paladin, and spoke in a low voice. "Phelan, it's just the two of us in the end. Worst case, we lose a level right alongside Jorren and start over."

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  "Nothing to say. We fight. We never backed down in the real world, like hell we're gonna chicken out over one death in a game." The Paladin grinned. "Pull out whatever ace you've got up your sleeve. We might even take two of them down with us."

  Just as the two of them were about to fight to the death, a sharp cry of alarm came from the other group. "Shit! There's someone nearby!"

  He had to hand it to LiveFastDieYng, the guy knew what he was doing. Even with Kairon's higher level, he'd picked up on his presence the second Kairon had closed to within two meters.

  He had to have a piece of gear that boosted his perception range. If he didn't, then the guy was a genuine top-tier player, and yet Kairon had never heard his name once in his past life.

  Before LiveFastDieYng's words had even finished echoing, Kairon had already issued an attack command.

  The Shadowwood Panther exploded forward like black lightning, slamming straight into the Rogue behind him, whose form was just fading into stealth, and pinning him to the ground. His stealth was broken instantly.

  At the same moment, Kairon darted out from cover, his staff wrapped in thick, roiling nature energy, and cast [Rake] with pinpoint precision on the pinned Rogue.

  The Rogue was immediately stunned for 5 seconds, and a persistent bleed debuff was applied to him at the same time.

  Kairon paid no mind to the stunned Rogue. He twisted his wrist, sweeping his staff in a wide arc, and channeled [Nature Blade], slashing it hard into the Mage standing beside the Rogue.

  -243! Oneshot!

  He snatched up the helmet the Mage had dropped on death, spun on his heel, and charged straight for the enemy Shield Warrior.

  In barely two seconds flat, LiveFastDieYng's party was down one dead, one critically wounded.

  The Rogue afflicted with the bleed debuff was as good as dead already. Their party didn't have a Priest at all, and even if they did, barely any Priests had unlocked healing spells at this stage of the game anyway. Hit with Kairon's [Rake], he was losing nearly a sixth of his health every second.

  Even if he recovered from the stun and chugged the highest-tier health potion available right now, it would only buy him a few more seconds of life. The bleed effect from [Rake] lasted a full 18 seconds.

  He had to give them credit. The party's reaction time was solid, and they shifted their formation in an instant.

  The remaining Warlock ducked behind the Shield Warrior, waved a hand to summon two Imps, and began channeling his cast time ability [Bolt of Destruction]. The two Imps began casting [Fire Bolt] in sync.

  LiveFastDieYng, meanwhile, charged forward with his greatsword in hand, trying to put himself between Kairon and his party.

  Kairon shot him a glance, a flicker of disdain crossing his eyes. Killing LiveFastDieYng would take nothing more than a single [Nature Blade].

  But he was saving this man for last. Killing him once? That wasn't nearly enough to avenge his brother. He didn't have the time to hunt him all the way down to level 0. So he'd make his death slow and brutal instead.

  A cold, sharp smirk tugged at the corner of Kairon's mouth. He'd clear out these yellow and white-named nobodies first, then kill the red-named ringleader last. That way, none of his dead teammates could risk their necks to grab his gear when it dropped, and Kairon could keep every last thing he looted.

  That silver greatsword in LiveFastDieYng's hand had to be the one he'd looted from Jorren's corpse. He leaped high into the air, using the momentum of his fall to bring the greatsword crashing down in a brutal slash toward the Shadowwood Panther.

  The whistling greatsword was on it in the blink of an eye.

  But under Kairon's direction, the Panther's body suddenly coiled in on itself. Its meter-and-a-half-long frame arched sharply, paws tucked tight together, its whole body bending like a drawn bowstring, and it dodged the slash by the narrowest of margins.

  Kairon nodded to himself inwardly. Even that single slash would never have one-shot the Shadowwood Panther, but he had no intention of letting his enemies see his hand this early.

  In World of Eldrath, the threat of melee attacks could be avoided with nimble footwork.

  Skilled players could even adapt evasion techniques from real-world boxers and martial artists to dodge them. Ranged attacks, by contrast, had auto-tracking trajectories and could only be dodged with a well-timed roll the moment they closed in or by using cover.

  That was why Kairon had no fear of straightforward overhead slashes like this. In his eyes, the move was as clumsy as a child swinging a stick around at random.

  LiveFastDieYng's slash hit nothing but thin air, and he froze for a split second, stunned. What kind of move was that? How the hell did it dodge that from that angle?

  By the time he snapped out of it and spun around, Kairon had already charged to within three meters of the Shield Warrior. He could only sprint after him in a panic, greatsword still in hand.

  But he wasn't too worried. This Shield Warrior had the best gear in their entire party. The Rogue and Mage had both been one-shot by Kairon in a surprise attack. There was no way in hell Kairon could oneshot a shielded Warrior head-on, not a chance.

  All he needed was to close the distance, land a Shield Bash to knock Kairon back, and the Warlock's [Bolt of Destruction] would finish casting any second. That would be the end of Kairon.

  Whoosh whoosh! Two [Fire Bolts] from the Imps arced toward him in a crossfire, closing in fast on Kairon when he was still two meters from the Shield Warrior.

  Boom! Boom! The two Fire Bolts slammed into the ground behind him, erupting in twin explosions. They didn't even graze the hem of his robes.

  "Shit, Phelan, let's move in and help!" Cassian shouted.