Chapter 41: 41. Frightened To Submission

The Fighter's face was red with anger due to Jack's insult. He threw away all thoughts on caution and lunged at Jack. Jack saw his longsword moving in an expected arc and sent his own swing using his black sword. The two swords collided, and the Fighter was sent flying backward.

All the eyes of the people watching greatly widened. They had seen plenty of fights since the world changed, including fights between players, but they had never seen someone got sent flying with one stroke. The ranger who was about to flank Jack stopped on his track with a stunned expression.

Jack didn't plan to continue being passive in the fight. He made use of the pause in his enemies' movements due to their surprise, and dashed towards the Ranger.

"So fast!" The ranger was shocked again, this time for a different reason. His shock made him forgot to use roll, and instead, he tried to block Jack's attack with his dagger. The dagger was immediately deflected from the blow, his hand was thrown to the side.

He felt as if he had blocked a blow from a sledgehammer, his hand felt numb. If the game system didn't help in keeping the dagger on his hand, he thought it must have been thrown off already. Since Ranger didn't have Parry skill, he received full damage from the blow. Red number of 56 appeared on his head.

The eyes of the people watching widened again seeing the number.

Before the Ranger could return his balance or think of a countermeasure, he was hit by another two rapid slashes. It was not a skill, but a martial move that Jack had used often in his previous VR RPG games. It was a flowing movement using a sword that did three consecutive slashes in a circular motion. It was done by twisting motion of the wrists.

This was a move that had been taught by his grandfather when he was young. It was originally a skill done by using a long staff. But after he immersed himself in VR RPG games, he incorporated the move into his favorite weapon, which was a sword. It was normal attacks so they didn't cause extra damage, yet the effectiveness was undeniable. Furthermore, the move didn't use any stamina and had no cooldown. Two damage of 59 and 61 appeared on top of the ranger's head.

The ranger was terrified. His 190 health was almost immediately depleted just from three normal slashes. At this moment, Fox lifted her staff and pointed at Jack. She was just about to cast her spell when she saw movement from the corner of her eyes.

"Watch out!" She heard her leader's warning at the same time.

Fox ducked to the side, but a flash of light passed by and she felt cold pain at her waist. She fell to the floor as she saw her leader moved and made a slash with his broad sword at the place where she was, and saw a woman roll back and evade her leader's slash. It was the woman that was the loudmouth's friend, who said she didn't want to be involved in this fight.

As it turned out, it was just a ruse. She was keeping an eye for an ambush and stroke at the precise time that Fox was about to make her move.

Fox was outraged by this humiliation. The fact that the woman managed to sneak up on her had made her looked incompetent, and she cared very much for her image. She rose up and prepared to cast a spell to retaliate on the woman, but she caught the sight of a blue ball rushing in her direction. She immediately cast Magic Shield before the Magic Bullet hit her. She looked and saw that the Magic Bullet was cast by that loudmouth.

Bowler called out with joy when he saw Fierce Flame's action, "I know you wouldn't abandon us, sister!"

"Shut up and concentrate, you fool!" Flame reprimanded him as she jumped around dodging the gangster leader's assault.

The other members of the gangster were about to join in when they heard a loud clash and saw a figure crashed hard on the ground not far from them. It was the Fighter. He looked miserable and his health bar only had 10% left. They were flabbergasted, the fight had just started and the two people that fought with the loudmouth's friend had almost died in mere seconds. Even the gangster's leader stopped his move due to the scene.

Jack stood beside the ranger who was lying on the floor. He was still alive but too terrified to make a move.

"Should we continue this?" Jack asked with a domineering tone.

Silence descended on the groups.

"Who are you?" The gangster's leader broke the silence at last.

"I'm just a guy who wished to pass the bridge," Jack answered.

The leader looked around at his members, and finally said, "You can pass."

Bowler immediately took this chance to utter, "and all the people here will pass as well! Do you have a problem with that?"

The gangster's leader glared at Bowler with an ugly expression. If he could kill the hateful guy with a look, he would have done so.

"Fine!" The leader said reluctantly after a long consideration. He waved to his people and asked them to step aside.

The folks that were originally depressed for not being able to cross the bridge immediately ran forward with joy. Some didn't forget themselves and came to thank Jack and Bowler before following the others.

'Well, at least some are decent enough to express gratitude,' Jack thought in his mind. He, Bowler, and Fierce Flame were the last to cross after the others went over the other side.

The gangster's members glared at them from the side but didn't dare to make a move. Especially Fox, she stared at Fierce Flame intently, intended to remember her to get her revenge later. Flame just glanced at her and grin disdainfully, this infuriated her even more. She would have pounced forward if her leader had not noticed and put a hand on her shoulder to stop her.

"That's what you get for double-crossing me!" Bowler didn't forget to make a remark towards his two old teammates. The two were too frightened to give a retort, as their health was just a hair away from zero.

The three finally left the bridge and came into the city park. There were numerous people around the park. There were even old people and children, it seemed like when the world changed, it didn't discriminate on who was brought over into this game world.

"What should we do now?" Bowler asked.

Jack glanced back and saw the Weary Wolf gang were still staring at them from a distance.

"Let's go to someplace farther from here," he said. He was not afraid of conflict, but he would prefer to avoid it if possible. If he got into a fight, he might end up killing people. And this place was not like the typical games, people dying here didn't seem to come back, so he might actually be killing people for real. That's why he didn't kill those two people before. In old VR games, he would not have bothered to spare their lives.

They traveled further into the park. The people around tended to ignore them. The crowd broke into several groups clustered together. There were groups with ten people on it and there were also groups with almost a hundred people. There were chatterings everywhere as people discussed what had happened and what would happen in this place after the five days time limit passed.

The three of them decided to go toward the central part of the park, where the abstract sculpture stood. It was a sculpture made by multiple iron rods bundled together to form some sort of a shape. Jack had visited this park before and had seen the sculpture, but he never could make sense of what it was about. Guessed that's why people called it abstract art.

The light beam above was creating a strange yet beautiful backdrop in the sky. The light shifted continuously and made the whole sky seemed as if alive.

Jack wondered what kind of a place the Main World mentioned by that notification from the sky was.