[Year 20xx]

The sun was shining brightly, illuminating the distant horizon. Two moons floated across the clear blue sky, with each having a distinctive blue and green color. Their appearance can be clearly seen with the naked eye even during the day. It was clear from the existence of the two moons that this planet was not Earth.

Below, a vast and lush forest stretched far away, with its inhabitants living in harmony. Birds chirp in the trees, rabbits jump around looking for food, crickets occasionally make their sounds, and deer drink the water in the river happily.

However, in certain parts of the forest, this calm was disturbed by a fierce fighting.

It wasn't hard to find the source of this disturbance, as various deafening explosions and roars sounded from time to time. The smoke from the battle rose high into the sky and could be seen in the distance.

Many humans and demi-humans in their strange outfits, wielding various weapons as if they were cosplaying, were currently fighting a large winged reptile-like creature in battle.

If one were to describe this creature in one word, this creature... would be a dragon.

[🚫][Sharknath, the Calamity Dragon - Lv160]

This dragon was shrouded in black miasma all over its body. Anyone who touches this miasma will definitely be poisoned as their skin turns purple. If not treated in time, the poison will spread throughout the body, causing a buildup of poison damage over time. However, it was clear they had made the necessary preparations.

One of the humans, clad in the most advanced armor, shouted in a loud voice.

"Tankers! Prepare for impact! Dragon's Breath is coming!"

"Healers! Don't heal if the Tank's HP doesn't drop below 50%, just use Regeneration! Save MP!"

"DPS! Quick, retreat to the back row! Those who have run out of Antidote also leave! HURRY UP!"

They orderly form formations, following the leader's orders. Everyone complied and carried out their roles with careful steps. Even so, there will be some mistakes and accidents. Not everything is smooth.

Flames coalesced within the dragon's mouth, and with a single roar, it shot flames towards the flock of people.

But then, 6 people in the vanguard, or the tankers came forward with their shields and shouted.

“Shield  Reflect!” "Defending Aura!" x6

At that moment the Tankers, or rather, their shields shone. Dragon's Breath hit their bodies hard with a boom, but it didn't do much damage. Instead, their shields flashed for a moment before they released some sort of shockwave that knocked the dragon back.

GUOOAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!

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Seeing the dragon's HP drop slightly, the leader... or Leon as he was known, smiled.

Yes, this world was not the real Earth, but the world in a VRMMO game called Ascension. The people who were fighting just now were the players, and the dragon was the boss monster.

After the emergence of Virtual technology more than 20 years ago, various breakthroughs occurred in this field of study. Using the latest full-dive technology, people can dive directly with their minds inside Virtual Reality. And Ascension is one of the games that use this VR technology.

At present, many online games use this technology to bring realism to their users. Only 3D was not enough, people wanted something they could feel and touch with their own hands. Ordinary online games that only use 3D were unable to meet demand.

However beautiful 3D is, it is only 3D on the monitor. When your finger touches it, it is just flat.

Shortly after the first and second VRMMO games appeared, those online desktop games quickly died out.

Well, some of their servers should still be around for a while, but few people continue to play such games. Most of the logins are just farming bots. The atmosphere, the economy and the competition are not very good.

In the end, the games were shut down for good and their company jumped on the trend, using VR technology to make new VR games.

"YOSH! GOOD JOB! DPS! PREPARE YOUR POSITION!"

"OOOOHHHH!!!!

At Leon's signal, many Wizards readied their spells, Rangers readied their arrows, Knights readied their swords.

Healers, Priests, and High Priests were busy healing Tanks that were retreating, as well as buffing DPS that were advancing.

Leon himself is a Templar, an advanced 3rd Job class that comes from Knight. He drew his sword and jumped. With his agile movements, he slashed his sword in a precise motion towards the dragon's torso.

"Double Slash!" "Vital Strike!" "Raging Thrust!"

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-15456
-12500

Various damage pop ups appear above the dragon's body.

Other DPS also do not want to lose. They released their skills in quick succession, while calculating the skill cooldown time in mind. After the cooldown time was over, they bombarded their skills once more.

"Firestorm!" "Ice Barrage!" "Wind Scourge!"
"Blade Aura!" "Double Slash!"
"Double Strafe!" "Arrow Charge!"

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-7800  -7800
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(× Okay, that's a lot of skills, I'm not gonna make tables explaining each of them. That's just like spamming this chapter with a longcat image.)

They repeated the process using the Tankers to block the Dragon Breath, and then ganged up on the dragon.

This process lasted for over 20 hours, with Player battalions changing shifts every 2 hours or so. Day turns into night and night turns into day. Everyone who participated in this raid was patient, diligently eroding the dragon's HP.

The dragon's health bar slowly but surely fell, and when it dropped to less than 10%, the dragon's eyes suddenly glowed red, followed by a kind of crimson mist that enveloped it.

GRRRRROOOOAAAA!!!

Suddenly the dragon's attack pattern changed to become more and more vicious and fierce. Realizing this, Leon did not panic. This situation had already been taken into account during the team briefing.

"BOSS is entering the berserk stage! Everyone, wait and do as we discussed earlier!"

Leon shouted excitedly.

“Just a little more and we, Genesis Guild, can kill this World BOSS!!”

He then took out an MP Potion from his inventory and drank it in large gulps. In an instant, his MP bar was filled and he could use his destructive skill combo again. He was confident he could cut off the remaining HP of the BOSS with a combo or two.

Unfortunately, he was too careless. Leon's attention was entirely on the BOSS, he didn't realize that one of the party members he brought had a different agenda.

A girl with a petite body and shoulder-length blue hair in the middle of the Mage's army, surveying the battlefield quietly.

She cast the spell "Ice Barrage", befitting any other caster class. But even in their wildest dreams, they couldn't imagine that this girl had only used her spell less than 5 times since the battle started.

Other times she just shouted out the spell name, not activating the spell at all.

"Now should be the right time..."

The girl, looked at her status screen first.

A typical min-max avatar type, all Stat Points are poured into INT leaving nothing for others. Her avatar only focuses on firepower and has unbelievably very low HP. A scratch from the BOSS could definitely kill her in one shot.

Despite that, she was truly an Archwitch, one of the advanced 3rd Job-classes, much stronger than a normal Wizard/Witch. Using that status, she was able to join the raid party...

No, more precisely to say, infiltrate.

She then checked her skill tree.

Another abnormal skill tree. Except for Soul Strike, she didn't learn any offensive spells. Instead, her Skill Points are used on boost damage Passive Skills.

But, if so, how could she cast another spell like Ice Barrage?

The answer was because of her equipment. Other than relying on their Skill Tree to learn skills and spells, players can also use the Skills built into many equipment, even if only for limited activations.

For example her +7 Moon Glacier Armguard which contains the Ice Barrage spell that can be used 14 times per day.

Although the spells attached to the equipment were only spells that any Witch or Wizard could learn, but thanks to Hecate's stacked passive damage skills stacked, its lethality was comparable to a 3rd Job class Skill.

Damage increase details are not displayed in skills. However, after calculating from various trials, she was able to roughly guess how much increased damage each skill dealt.

Water Mastery (+10%) , Water Boosts (+25%), and Water Amp (+50%) => +85%

And if she wanted to, she could cast Mystical Amplification, a unique self-buff spell only Archwizard or Archwitch possesses that increases the MATK of whatever next cast spell. And at level 10, the MATK amplified into twice the total amount.

♠♠♠

 

Hecate closed all the windows and quickly readied herself.

"Okay, overview complete. Mystical Amplification!"

She cast the skill as she silently withdrew from the battle, then hid in a blind spot.

After making sure her figure wasn't visible to everyone, she opened her inventory and immediately used 2 items. A Crime Scroll that can hide her name from anyone to see for 10 minutes, and a Life Insurance Scroll that can nullify death penalty for 30 minutes.

But, she wasn't finished yet.

With a wave of her hand, she activated a hotkey that changed her Equipment set in an instant.

And then, she directly pressed the X button on her own name in the Party List.

Instantly, her appearance changed drastically.

The cute staff she was holding was replaced with a gruesome wand with a human skull attached on its tip that gave off a thick aura of death.

Next, a mask with an eerie design that looked like a mockery of a human being hid her adorable face.

Then, the fancy garment that could evoke her girlish charms was replaced by an ominous black cloak that hid her entire stature. Rings glowing with green light appeared on each finger of hers. Not only that, her newly equipped boots increased her height by 7 inches, disguising her real height as the average height of players on the field.

Hecate let out an evil smirk.

Now, no one could link this mysterious figure with the cute girl before.

No one noticed that someone had left the party because they were still busy with the BOSS. If they checked the logs, maybe they'd see a note that said [??? has left the party]. And even if they did, nothing would change.

Her name was obscured because she used the Crime Scroll. With more than 100 people present, how was one supposed to determine the name of the leaving member?

The chances of them realizing it was Hecate were close to zero.

Now is the moment of showtime!