Chapter 39: Haligrad Gate Massacre (Part 1)
With her sword plunging straight through the back of the players head and out of his mouth, Astaria swings her blade to the right, sending the dead players body tumbling to the side and clearing her path forward.
The players who were previously speaking in quiet voices all become silent seeing the Iron Fist member that had walked out to meet the mysterious player be thrown to the ground like a sack of potatoes.
Slowly walking forward towards the group of players a distance away with her sword leaving a trail of blood dripping from its tip, Astaria starts to speak, her head slightly lowered and het dark tone evident as her melodic voice reaches the ears of everyone by the gates.
"Do you think that you can go around threatening whoever you like just because you have numbers or a supposed level advantage?"
Walking closer, Astaria could see the Iron Fist guild's surprise start to fade as they became slightly agitated, watching Astaria as she menacingly walks towards them.
"Do you think players will just stand around as you try to bully them into handing over their hard-earned rewards?"
As Astaria reaches around 24 metres away, she stops, slightly raising her head allowing the light of the fires to reflect off her eyes, making them appear red under the shadows of her hood.
"Do you think that I won't kill every single one of you Iron Fist trash right here after you threaten me? Leave this place right now. This is your only warning."
Seeing the horrifying sight of hooded girl, covered head to toe in blood speaking in a menacing tone, many of the lower levelled and less confident members of the Iron Fist guild become quite anxious, especially seeing Astaria's name and level.
Meanwhile the senior members of the Iron Fist guild are more resolute, grimacing while trying to estimate the unknown threat of a lv 24 player, while the Iron Fist's guild leader just looks at Astaria with both hate and greed.
The onlookers who still remain at a distance, kept back by some of the Iron Fist guilds members, all start to become excited by the imminent clash and the rising tension as the two sides face off, their chattering talking about the two sides.
This being the first major clash of the game being between one of the well-known guilds that has come to Caelus Online, and the infamous player Astaria who not only has impressive achievements to her name, but also the moniker of Bloody Maiden being after being covered in blood every time she has appeared.
Many of the onlooking players seem to give their support Astaria as they do not approve that the Iron Fist guild are acting like they own the place, restricting the other players from moving about while they pompously stand around waiting to threaten a player.
Their dislike of the Iron Fist guild grows even more after hearing Astaria's words, agreeing that this kind of behaviour was wrong and understanding that as casual players, they would be even more infuriated if it was them since they could do nothing to resist.
Some of the smarter players realise that if this behaviour were to continue, it has the chance to set a scary precedent amongst players and guilds, turning the community into something like the dark side of society on earth, and so also choose to support Astaria.
Meanwhile there are a number of the onlooking players that decide support the Iron Fist guild, disliking that Astaria was being so openly hostile to the group without even giving them a chance to talk, thinking that since this is a game, its fine to do whatever they like.
Upon hearing the onlooking crowd start to get noisy behind him with support audibly leaning towards Astaria, the leader of the Iron Fist guild, Iron Fist, visibly became angrier with his fists tightening.
Iron Fist was clearly a man with either an incredible naming sense or a massive ego, deciding to name his guild after his own in game name. He was a man of average height clad in heavy plate armour, with 2 axes attached to his waist. His expression was hidden by his full helmet, with only his angry eyes visible to Astaria as they intently focus on her.
After seeing some of the crowd start to mock his guild for ganging up on one player, there was nothing Iron Fist could do other than kill Astaria. If he showed weakness here, his guilds reputation would plummet, and they would become the first group to become a meme in the forums.
Hardening his resolve, he calls out to his guild members behind him.
"Mages, attack, everyone else, get ready!"
Astaria who was watching the Iron Fist guild as they decide what to do feels a flutter of excitement in her heart as she sees the guild leader start to call out his orders.
In the past, Astaria had spent a lot of time in the duelling arena, perfecting her abilities while fighting in a duel, however that was not the only practice she had undertaken. She had often practiced fighting multiple players at once, often ensuring her opponents were skilled parties or guilds making sure that she would be able to handle any sort of situation she might find herself in.
Her love for PvP never faded over the years since it was not only a thrilling challenge, but also a chance to improve her own abilities and skill. Some have called her a battle junkie in the past, but Astaria never considered herself in that way.
To her, it was the chance for such a challenge that got her excited, an occurrence that occasionally happens to her elsewhere like when negotiating tough business deals or trying to mediate disputes between guilds. And like those situations, the guild facing her was her next challenge.
With her spirit now flaring with motivation, Astaria spends no time hesitating and summons her staff in her left hand, much to the surprise of many who were looking at her.
Astaria swiftly moves to cast Lightning, first targeting one of the officers who was taking command of the casters and instantly killing him with her high WIS attribute of 135 and causing some of the Iron Fist guilds magic users to become temporarily confused as the officer drops dead midway through his orders.
The casters who all received their initial instructions start to channel a number of spells, with fireballs and orbs of darkness starting to appear amongst the guilds ranks all aiming towards Astaria.
With practiced moves, Astaria immediately takes the initiative in the fight and targets the guilds left side with Residual Lightning, making her move utilising her boost from Casting before the first wave of attacks is launched. The burst of lightning strikes a player killing him, while the impact of Residual Burst ground knocks down 7 of the guild members that were standing close together and killing 3 more.
With her skills used to make the first strike, Astaria immediately uses her evasion to move forward to the left, narrowly avoiding 2 Lightning spells that hit the ground where she was standing moments prior and closing the distance between her and the enemy guild.
Anticipating the next wave of spells and accounting for the cooldown on evasion, Astaria plants her staff in the ground and uses it to propel herself and gain more speed as she dodges slightly further forward, easily evading to the side of the fireballs and orbs of darkness.
Now out of immediate danger as some of the mages start to cast their Mana Arrows, Astaria casts her Mana Barrier skill, protecting herself from the smaller projectiles that were now flying towards her, only chipping away at her barrier.
Swiftly analysing the state of the enemies after her initial attack, Astaria notices that the archers of the group were on standby, likely suffering from the same issues as Ben with their accuracy, so decided to deal with them last.
Deciding to target the centre of the guilds formation, which was the most prepared, Astaria casts her fireball directly into the large central group, watching as her attack instantly kills 3 more players, knocking down and damaging 2 more.
With their formation now in mild disarray as the Iron Fist guild's players panic seeing their guildmates dropping dead from single attacks, Astaria's smile widens as she uses her evasion skill to close the remaining distance to the Iron Fist guild, before vanishing from view using teleportation.
Hearing the shouts of surprise from the guild members who were watching Astaria, the other panicking members look up to see that the menacing player had vanished from sight.
Astaria's disappearance starts to make the guild's panic increase; however their attention instantly turns to the right side of their formation where the sound of exploding ice can rings out around the area.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Spactacular
Spactacular We reached rank 295 in the power ranking today with all of your continued support!
This is the highers this novel has reached, so thanks to everyone for throwing your stones at this novel!
See you all in the next chapter!
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone