Hardcore OP-ness

Chapter 13: The Murderous Thief

The young Thief scowled and glared at Michael with her bright-blue eyes, before swiftly delivering a roundhouse kick to the left side of his face. Strangely enough, her attack, which was using all of her strength, had only shaved off three of his health-points.

Sarah immediately yelled "Shut the fuck up, Human!" NPCs generally needed to learn special skills to see damage numbers, health-bars, names and other similar information, but as long as they were at least rank-G, they could feel the general rank and level of a person or magical-beast: as long as it wasn't too much higher than them.

Compared to the pain from the wound in his lower-back, that light kick didn't even sting. Michael sighed, and told her "You're really cute, but I'm not really looking for a relationship right now."

After hearing that, the relatively young, male-Goblin who had originally stabbed him in the back, was preparing to aim a little higher, but their apparent leader shouted "Stop! We need him alive... so just use your fists!" Then the five of them began viciously beating on the paralyzed man, who was only receiving -1's and -2's from each strike.

"Resist Paralysis" reached level-two from being poisoned, but it didn't allow him to move his body, only to feel the pain from their weak attacks. Eventually, he yelled "Ow, ouch, damn it, you fuckers are really starting to piss me off!" while channeling mana into his vocal cords and activating "Intimidation."

Sarah wasn't affected at all, but the others received a 'terrified' debuff, and lost control of their bodies. They couldn't even scream, as the level-three girl wet herself, and the level-two man fainted.

Michael's Health had reached 17/40, and his Stamina was only 5/20, so if they had continued to beat on him, he would have lost consciousness rather than dying. The paralysis had worn off, so he was finally able to stand upright and look down upon Sarah, while tightening his relatively large muscles, and telling her "If you keep this shit up, I'm going to start killing people."

The conscious unranked Goblins received a 'fear' debuff and immediately abandoned her, while engaging their cloaking spell and disappearing into the darkness. Then she smirked, while pulling out her two daggers, and quietly said "I challenge you to a duel."

Upon hearing those words, a message popped-up in front of his face: "Sarah, the rank-G, level-five, Goblin Thief, has challenged you to an 'Evolution Duel.' If you win, you will directly absorb her mana-core and gain a stat-bonus. If you lose, you will die, and your rank will decrease to 'G' after respawning: Stats will permanently decrease by one point, per level, though you can choose which to lose."

While reading that, Michael muttered "Hmmm, so that's how humanoids are supposed to rank-up, huh. Well, the question is whether I can regain the four stat-points after evolving again... Nope, not worth the risk." He sighed dramatically, then told Sarah "Nah, I'll pass."

The message disappeared, and Sarah scowled while glaring at him, as she tightened the grip on her daggers, while shouting "If you won't duel me, then I'll just kill you!" Her body vanished into a cloud of black mist, but then reappeared behind his back, jumped a few feet into the air, and stabbed both of the knives into his neck.

They were each extremely close together at first, but then she pulled her arms outward and tore open both jugulars and carotid arteries, not to mention all the muscles. However, the most vicious part of her attack, was that she purposefully avoided damaging his spinal cord, so that he would be able to feel it all.

Her daggers were both coated in a 'Deadly Poison,' but it was completely unnecessary, because he died within moments of receiving that strike. The moment his lifeless body hit the ground, a raspy, masculine voice roared "Sarah! What have you done!?"