Infinite Realm

*Thud* *Thud*

With loud footsteps that seemed to proclaim the descent of an Emperor, a 3 metre tall Kobold walked towards the tall statue in the centre. As it passed the other kobolds, a majority of them failed to reach up to its waist. Even the tallest amongst them could only reach up to the upper part of its chest. 

"Is that the world class boss?" Fudo asked with surprise.

Unlike the other kobolds that looked like lizard-men with lean muscles, the huge monster had a hulking physique with buff muscles that threatened to burst through its flesh. Together with its exaggerated height, the kobold could be deemed to be a towering monstrosity of stupendous strength. One look at it and one would feel their will to resist quickly decrease, like a lit match stick being quenched with a bucket of water. Even the other kobolds were scared by this anomaly of their race, as they gave way for the gargantuan to pass through till it reached the statue.

The aura the beast radiated would make one feel that they were in the presence of king of beasts. Resistance was futile and fear would reign. Despite the distance of more than 800 metres between them, everyone in the group could feel this sensation of fear as their blood boiled, their palms became sweaty and backs felt cold. This wasn't just a difference in strength, it was a difference in bloodline and life order!

It is already a well-known fact that not all life are born equal and that's a fact. In nature, all life are different and so possess different life standing or order. The life of a cockroach can't be compared to that of a human and this is because of its standing in the natural order of life. Each specie surpasses another in one or many ways, earning it a rank in the natural order. This is why preys flee in terror in the presence of a predator.

Kobolds are said to be descendants of the supreme Dragon race race. However, due to the extremely thin bloodline they possess, kobolds can't even be compared to low level wyrms much less dragons hence their existence are ignored by high level adventurers. Despite having such a weak bloodline, there can be anomalies in the Kobold race. Such anomaly usually entails a kobold unlocking more of its ancestral abilities or having a purer bloodline. The purer a kobold's bloodline is, the closer it gets to its ancestors, the dragons' level. 

Kobolds are generally said to have less than 0.001% of their ancestor's bloodline within their DNA. Due to the amount of Draconic bloodline being minute within their blood, kobolds were far weaker than their ancestors and their existence was also ignored by higher level entities. However, when a Kobold happens to be born with a purer bloodline, even if the increase in Draconic concentration is just 0.01%, the Kobold will experience a qualitative change; one at the level of life sublimation. This change would make the kobold far stronger than its peers as its bloodline and life order would have increased far ahead of its own kind. As a result of this, it would automatically become the leader of the kobold tribe. And this was all just because the bloodline was purer by just a little bit. The reason for this simply had to deal with their ancestors. The dragons were just that strong. 

The kobold in front of them, which happened to look like the leader of this settlement, was a good example of a kobold with a purer bloodline. Though its draconic bloodline would be, at most, of 0.001% purity, compared to the average less than 0.00009% that most kobolds have, this was quite impressive. This minor increase in purity not only made it stronger, but made its fellow clansmen bow before it and even threatened Sato and his teammates instinctively from a far distance. This was the difference in a species' order of life, the natural order of life; the life order of all beings.

"Can we really beat that?" Katsuo asked as his Adam's apple throbbed. Despite this being a game and the opponent being a bunch of codes, he instinctively felt fear towards it; fear that made him lose the will to fight.

Not only Katsuo as even Xue Yan, Fudo, Yato and Seiichi slowly felt their will weaken as they had passively dived into illusions were they were surrounded by blood and bones, before being killed by the monstrosity in front.

"Stop staring!" Sato shouted in a low voice.

Like a bomb being set off, Sato's voice made Xue Yan and the rest regain their sense, waking up from the illusion.

"What was that?" Fudo suddenly got scared. Without knowing it, he had entered an illusion where he was being assaulted by a multitude of kobolds and blood warriors. One would undoubtedly be scared, or even scarred, after such a creepy encounter.

"I, I felt like I had died, like I was being tortured." Yato shared his experience. They had yet to battle the boss but had already swallowed a loss, and this was all because they stared too long at the monster from an 800 metres distance. Imagine if they were within 10 metres of it then?

"This mission is a lot harder than we thought." Sato sighed. He might have been a pro gamer before but faced with such a mission and with his meager abilities, completing the mission was impossible.

'Though, there has to still be a way.' 

Yes, Sato believed that there had to be a way. Even though he felt it was impossible, it didn't mean that he would simply give up. Generally speaking, Black grill's cave is recorded as a level 5 map. This was with the Middle region not being fully explored. With that in mind together with the current progress of players and information exchange, it was presumed that only from the Outer regions till the Middle region's 10th floor was a level 5 map. Hence the monsters residing here would be at most a level 10 monster.

Against a level 10 monster, Sato didn't see any reason why they should shy away. Sato and Fudo were both level 9, Lu Zhen was level 8 with the rest being either 7 or 6. Despite their MT, Katsuo, being a level 6 [paladin], Sato believed that if he shared the pressure with him, they would be able to tank the monster while the rest deal damage. With his calculations, their chances of success would be at least 60% so why should they retreat now that they have gotten this far? Of course, this was all based on the fact that they could battle the boss one-on-one or rather, 1-on-7.

"We can't just turn around after coming this far. We at least have to try." Sato said. "Let's get closer so we can have a better look. " 

At the distance they were, they couldn't see much of what was going on further in. Though they were quite lucky that the Exit gate teleported them to a small hill of sorts, they could only see the general view and not the specifics.

"Alright." 

No one disagreed after all, they didn't want to go back empty handed after coming this far. It was just a game; it isn't like they would die in reality if they did here and so they decided to still take the risk.

The team walked closer but slowly till they were at least a 100 metres away from the gate and 300 metres away from the square the kobolds occupied. 

"Let's stay there."

Spotting a high ground, Sato led the team to the elevated plateau. Standing from there, they could not only see a better than from before but they could also hear the noise coming from the kobold settlement. 

"Roar! Graw! Krawkt!"

"Roar!"

Rough screams and roars sounded from the square as the towering kobold walked towards the statue accompanied by a few other tall kobolds, in a slow procession. From the vigorous and energetic roars from the other kobolds, one could easily presume that there were cheering or hailing the chief kobold.

Having gotten closer to the 'event area', Sato and his crew were able to see the kobold chief a bit better. Even if they couldn't, Seiichi had directly live-streamed his view in the party channel, so by simply going there, they could watch everything live as if they did so from Seiichi's view. Without a doubt, the [Ranger] class had better visual abilities as Seiichi's view was a whole lot clearer and detailed than that of majority of them plus, it was free of any illusory effects as it was just a broadcast of the original view and not the original view itself.

Through Seiichi's view, they saw that the kobold chief wasn't like the other kobolds both in looks and in dressing. The outfit of the kobold chief was actually a bone armour patched with the dried skin of an unknown animal. Below, was a skin skirt that the kobold used to cover its man-,uh, kobold parts. The two horns on its head was longer than that of the others and its ivory texture gave off a weird metallic sheen to it as if there were a pair of daggers rather than horns. The skin texture was still colored red but a whole lot deeper than the rest, approaching that of blood. In one hand, the right to be exact, was a bone spear that towered even its massive frame, closing in at a height of 3.5 metres. 

Behind the kobold chief were two other kobolds who were just a head shorter than it. Without a doubt, these kobolds had a more purer bloodline than the rest, only lacking when compared to the chief kobold. They too had buffed muscles that were tightly packed together. Unlike the chief, they had a bone sword grasped in their hands as they accompanied the chief in the procession.

The kobold procession was a steady one from the outer edge of the 400 metres circle till the centre. This alone took two minutes with the loud cheers of the kobolds keeping Sato's team on high alert.

Finally, the kobold procession had stopped.

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