The marching army of Puppet knights shook the earth gently. With a massive number of goblins and some trolls along with them, you could feel the army before they came.

Night was long in this digitised world. It ran as long as the system wanted. The outline of the army cut an intimidating figure in the dark.

Faust watched hands tighten around weapons and people mutter prayers under their breaths like they didn’t have two lives. This was probably the best time to enjoy the battle and try new things.

He sighed and waited for the army to get a little closer. On his left Nirvana’s party was joking and laughing among themselves, oblivious to the annoyed glares they got. Nobody except Nirvana knew what he was about to do.

And it was better like that.

The synergy between Distance-Damage Amplification and Narrow Path was his trump card. He was weary of even using it while on stream. Right now the camera was focused on the coming army.

He breifly remebered a conversation he had with Thalia about his fight with Negan and Fix. It had featured on the stream.

But it was... strangely filmed.

Silence stretched over the ruined city. Faust let out a breath and grinned.

Instance Replication.

Around ten minutes ago, Faust had someone shoot a dense metal object at him. Faust asked the object was shaped aerodynamically to maximise it use

The attack was replicated in front of him and immediately entered a Narrow Path. A few people looked at the whooshing sound, but no one said anything.

Faust felt Distance-Damage Amplification ticking towards its limit. He had already tested this once with a weaker version to see how much amplification the metal could take before it started deteriorating.

He used a quarter of his amplification on this attack. It came out of the Narrow Path in front of the army of Puppet Knights with incandescent light.

BOOM!

Its reentry into this dimension already broke the sound barrier. The knights only had a second to see before it tore through their goblin frontlines.

BOOOOM!

The impact from the projectile’s movement wasn’t as powerful as the one he did at the southern safe zone, but it turned everything in its path to burnt, crushed meat.

I don’t have Steel Reinforcement or Concentrated Fireball like Fix. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

If only he could keep Fix alive just to replicate his attacks.

Voice rose around him as Players questioned what the hell they were seeing.

"It came out of literally nowhere," one mage said. "My spirit is pretty high but even then i only saw it just flash into existence."

"Lots of people are hiding abilities that could have stopped so many people from dying..."

"Honestly, I wouldn’t reveal if I had any cool abilities. All I can do is push or pull people towards me."

Others recognised the attack immediately

"This happened in the southern zone! It was a lot more... apocalyptic." The player shuddered.

"Yeah, I almost died because of that dumbass," another grumbled.

But most of them relaxed and even joked about why they had to even be here if one guy would just eradicate the army. Better to live than fight sometimes, even if you lived twice.

Faust however was stunned. His eyebrow scrunched up as he received system notifications.

[You have killed ten "Puppet Knight" and gained 10 memory fragments.]

Ten out of fifty?

Why didn’t his attack kill all of them?

The dust and smoke cleared. And the knights marched through with a five heavily injured trolls behind them. The around a hundred kobolds that had been directly behind the knights were still alive too, albeit bleeding.

Some kind of defensive magic?

The Puppet knight captain marched fluidly. Its crimson demonic mask seemed to glare right at Faust. It raised one of its swinging arms and the kobolds and trolls charged.

Faust raised his axe and considered replicating his railgun attack again, but decided against it in case he needed it against the captain.

The Player mages were told to focus fire on the trolls that were still healing, they could ignore the Kobold Shamans because of the golden dome.

They managed to bring down two of the trolls before they reached the shield. Vanguard stepped out with their shield raised. The kobold fighters came down on them fast and eager.

Faust shot over the defensive line aiming for the trolls. He swung his axe twice, ripping four kobolds apart in seconds. He made sure to strike ten more times, before he placed a hand on the ground.

Serpent Call.

The earth rose and carried him through the army. The landslide in the shape of a serpent crushed the monsters in its way, going directly towards the troll.

By chance he glanced right and saw Gamebreaker charging through the army. Kobold dashed their spears against his armor pointlessly. He slammed into the shield hard enough to send monsters flying.

He glanced up at Faust and his slower moving earth serpent and scoffed.

I have to admit running through an army is damn cool. I have to take his schema and do it in front of him.

The Earth Serpent Schema would expire in around two hours, he was taking Jason’s schema the second it expired.

In the meantime, both of them had reached the trolls, who swung their wooden clubs at them roaring.

It was like watching a small tree come down on his head. Faust used Dash to run sideways. The club crushed his earth serpent with a thunderous boom. Stone showered him like shrapnel, but he kept close to the club.

As the club was raised for another slam, he stuck his slime tether to it and jumped while pulling himself towards the troll.

The troll reached out for him as he soared through the air. Faust swung his axe hard into the giant hand and used Dark Maw.

Shadowy energy poured from his axe and bit down into the troll’s hand which was bigger than his body. The monster howled and staggered back. It dropped its massive club and tried to clap Faust off its hand like a mosquito.

He jumped towards the descending hand and slashed it’s thumb off as he passed. He hit the troll’s forearm rolling. The smell was horrendous and hairs as big as his shin tangled him up.

He sprinted across the arm towards the head of the monster. The monster lowered its hand to stop him and tried to brush him off its arms.

Faust waited till the hand covered him then shadow stepped to its head. The troll turned with widened eyes. Faust reared back his axe and used multiple skills at once—Focus, Flowing Viper, Rage Strike and Dark Maw.

Silver and black energy warred over the axe. It took on a more sinister light as Faust applied Annihilation to it.

The troll opened its mouth to roar just as Faust swung.