The wooden blade caught the nearest bandit in the throat.
I had programmed critical hit zones into every enemy model, weak points that rewarded skilled play with disproportionate damage. The throat was one of them. I had placed it there because it was anatomically logical and because fencing instructors had told me it was a legitimate target. I had not, at any point during the design process, thought about what it would feel like to actually hit one.
CRITICAL STRIKE! LEE ZHANG DEALS 45 DAMAGE. BANDIT THUG LV.2 TAKES FATAL DAMAGE.
The bandit's eyes went wide. That was the detail that got me, not the blood, not the sound he made, but the expression: genuine shock, a flicker of something that looked like disbelief, and then nothing. He dropped his sword. He fell backward and hit the forest
