Hands tightening on the wheel of the car, Naoko spoke another incantation, her eyes becoming bloodshot as veins bulged out from her temples. Not a flattering look, but she had no time to waste on appearances now. As the world slowed around her, her thoughts accelerating beyond human norms, the back of the truck lifted up from Sophie’s artillery strike, her own stomach lurching with it. A meaty thunk sounded as the unconscious guard slammed into a wall, while a metallic one confirmed that the Winter Palace had just lost its rear bumper. Her spine felt the impact of the truck returning onto its four wheels again, and Naoko’s foot immediately slammed the accelerator, pistons pumping like mad as the wheels bit into the ruptured ground.
For one breathstealing moment, the back wheels simply churned against loose dirt.
And then in another, it shot off, rubber burning on tarmac. A cold draft seeped in moments later, the back doors having been busted open by Sophie’s reckless method of securing a temporary escape. Naoko could only watch in horror as expensive cooking gadgets and spices, already jostled loose from her rash driving, tumbled out, scattering and breaking against the road. Logic told her that these were replaceable, but sentiment made her grimace regardless. Another backwards check. Guard? Ok. Box? Ok. At this point, she definitely wasn’t going to give his shiny shit back for free. What a fucking dickweed. Bet he beats his wife as well and then uses his money to hush things up.
Narrowing her eyes, she continued to accelerate, eyes frenetically flickering in every direction as her hands grew numb against the rumbling of the steering wheel. Guard, box, front, back, don’t forget to breathe, go faster!
Don’t tell him anything, Sophie! He might not even be Hapsburg’s to begin with!
A pause, and, throughout all the pin-point turns, Naoko grinned, teeth exposed, resilient in the face of supernatural bullshit.
In times of crisis, what was needed wasn’t the ability to formulate a perfect plan, but the ability to act in the absence of it. Three years ago, she had drawn the sword of a corpse to stand against the hordes of the unpraying, and three years later, she had to be just as decisive.
“Tobias, Grett,” the Templar spoke sharply, “Take your men and protect the Bishop. Secure the town in case further beasts are attracted to the eruption of the leyline. Investigate the well too. Sounds like something’s inside.”
The light of the heroes. The roar of a chiroptorapter. The birth of an elemental. Events were progressing fast, and if she didn’t catch up, she’d be left behind. With a rasp of well-oiled steel, the masked knight drew a sword of a strange length, too long to be a dagger but too narrow to be a short sword, and called out, her voice ringing through the plaza, “The rest of you to me. Sister Clarissa, follow twenty paces behind and sing hymns of protection. Arden, guard the rear, ten paces behind. We move now!”
WIth momentum alone, she kicked her spurs and jolted off, her battlebred stallion a white streak of lightning that heralded the thunder of tens of other hooves.
In the dust cloud left by their dynamic exit, the Bishop watched, slightly bemused, as the remaining knights used their capes to frantically wave the dust away from the holy man.
Blinding and deafening. It was like looking at an explosion that simply didn’t stop, and the sheer sensory overload of the magical eruption caused the chiroptorapter to flinch, two of its sensory organs compromised.
That only fuelled its hunger, its anger. And the reality of it was that it didn’t matter regardless. Above the stench of the mana-rich waters, it could smell something far more appetizing. The hefty, spicy overtones of a lizardman’s sweat, undercut by the fear-sweat of a female human. So close too. They were running away, but they were still so delectably close. Baring its teeth in predatorial ecstasy, the raptor sprang off. The earth rumbled under its eight-clawed feet, its spiked club of a tail swinging side by side in anticipation.
It wasn’t much of a chase. It wasn’t even a challenge. Whether through physical defect or just natural fatigue, the chiroptoraptor was upon Amaris within seconds, its twelve foot frame surging upon her. What distance she made during the premilinary moments of running was negligible, and the monster didn't even have to grab her to take a bite. Like a bird plucking its prey from the ground, the rubyscaled beast snapped its neck down and brought two sets of dagger-sharp teeth upon the girl's left shoulder, ripping out her heart as it drew back. Her body was tossed high up into the sky before thudding down onto the ground, limbs sticking out erratically as sanguine ichor fed the glade beneath.
In the last moments of her life, Amaris could hear only the soft chuckling of her Dark Queen, the mirth that a cruel being could extract over the failures of their incompetent toy.
Fuelled by bloodlust and seeking livelier prey after its appetizer, Tiki and Phann were mere afterthoughts, moving so slowly that there was no doubt in its reptilian mind that it'd be able to attend to them after it chased down the lizardman.
Was it supposed to hurt? Was it supposed to not hurt? Curled up on the ground, Ewan clutched his leg, his mind telling him one thing while his body told him another thing. This was still a game, right? He saw his HP bar getting chunked. But how much of this was a game when a giant spear was literally sticking to his leg? Wait, didn’t matter did it.
The sweet embrace of death came for him in the form of wolf-fangs, after all.
Thankfully (or unthankfully, considering the meaningless struggle of further existence), the person that had ran past him moments ago had suddenly regained their balls and launched a furious assault! Blue and silver, red and dark brown, it all mixed together in Ewan’s tear-blinded eyes as the Dancer became a Hero, chasing off the wolf right as an edgy midget arrived at the scene as well to perform a fire blast and then moments later, that wuxia-looking dude strutted over (was that a passive, or was he just flamboyant as fuck?) asking for his spear back.
Uh.
Huh?
For a moment, Ewan forgot about the pain he should be feeling. Instead, sensing a shift in the power dynamics between ‘giant scary wild animal’ and ‘dumbass adventurers who had more power than they knew what to do with’, the fair youth’s mind more or less short-circuited. “Uh, I, guess?” Ewan managed, awkwardly lifting up his leg so Wardancer dude would have a better angle for yanking the spear out. It exposed his cute gold-embellished shorts and slender legs as well, a detail that was usually hidden by his long, red cloak, so that was a plus. “And, well…you know? Wilderness? Running? Monsters?”
How did this happen?
“I don’t know, so…yeah, no.”
With a forced smile of gratitude (wait, why did he have to be grateful when it was their fault to begin with?), Ewan took the potion from the guy that walked like he was a model and handed it over to the dagger-lady instead. “Here you go. Yup.”
With four mid-level players gathered in one spot, and wounds already sustained on its person, the wolf turned and ran.
Ruins, wreckage, and the dead. If she had known things were going to look that bad, Naoko would have rented a shovel from the hardware store before coming over. Alas, most of the finery of the estate ended up smashed, and its unfortunate occupants… The girl knelt down beside the corpse of another unlucky guard, gently closing his lightless eyes. Even this far out of town, the Grail War claimed the lives of the uninvolved, huh? Naoko clicked her tongue and stood up again, wiping the dust off her pants as Sophie called for her.
“Wow, think if we sold these, we’d like, be set for life, huh?” Naoko remarked upon seeing the regalia. It looked way to ostentatious for her own taste, after all, and royal heirlooms had a nasty habit of backfiring on those who tried using them without the proper blood flowing through their veins, sadly, so really, all this was just money. Or an alliance with the rich boy who’d be searching for it. She helped Sophie (at least verbally) haul the entire box back into the Winter Palace, sliding it beside the refrigerator before stepping in.
“Yeah,” she waved, “Go for it, Sophie. I’ll just see if I can get some more work done on the dude’s leg.”
And with that, Naoko pulled out her first aid kit, rolled up her sleeve, and made him go to sleep before he could say much in the way of protesting. Wouldn’t want him to be awake, after all, when she started sewing.
Sometime later, shit hit the fan in the form of a Servant with such an impressive aura that even a middling mage like Naoko could feel it in the back of her truck. Rich people were rich after all, but could the Habsburgs actually have summoned something like Archer Hercules? Judging by the aura of death, something that affected even the unconscious guard as he fidgeted slightly in his sleep, yeah, that was pretty fucking likely. There was a good two hundred meter distance between the Winter Palace and that walking nuclear bomb, and the tall trees created a good amount of visual cover as well, but those didn’t matter at all in the presence of that Servant. Sophie was special, but this?
…
Well, Naoko wasn’t the praying type, so what could she do but her best?
Dragging the rosewood box towards her, she positioned it right by the driver’s seat before buckling herself in. The guard was strapped down in the back as well, his leg now bandaged up properly, the tourniquet tossed in her organic compost bin. Glancing in the rearview mirror and catching a glimpse of Sophie between two broken-down walls, Naoko took a breath, imagined her body as something as fluid as a gentle stream, and turned the ignition key.
‘I’ll burn a Command Spell to call you back whenever you need me to. Have fun on your date, Sophie!’
No regrets. Let's have some fun.
She drove off, casually, unassumingly. The roar of an engine was a dead giveaway regardless of how hard she hit the gas, after all.
"Nevermind then," Tian-Gui said, his awkward laugh sounding incredibly menacing when amplified and reverbrated by his helmet, "Guess we'll just mop up the big boi and call it a day, Mavis."
And, just like that, the golden titan dashed off, heavy steps propelling him through the landscape with an explosive burst. Large as it was, the invader's predatorial gait only allowed the armored striker to close the distance on time, enabling Tian-Gui to intercept the trajectory of its second energy shot just in time. Leaping up into the air, his Flamestone shield deflected the initial impact of the blow while his Final Red absorbed the scattered energy next, scarlet lines on the armor glowing vibrantly. Landing with only faint scratches on his armor, Tian-Gui gave a two-fingered salute towards Mila before dashing off again.
A Striker was meant to draw attention, after all, and as heroic and glorious as his armament was, one could not question how eye-catching gold and red was, from a metropolis to an overgrown wasteland. As Falk's face emerged from the explosions that rocked its form, Tian-Gui discarded his fractured shield and took the halberd in both hands. Running up the slope of a fallen building, he vaulted off his constructed polearm at the very edge and launched himself straight into a flying kick at the invader.
The Warchief hadn’t been hiding. He was the leader of their people, not some cowardly strategist hiding in the tunnels, not some heartless sovereign holed up in a fortress. Standing in the backlines amongst his Drummers, who relayed orders for the army at the speed of sound, he paced and he narrowed his eyes, a guttural growl rising with satisfaction. Leaders they may have had amongst them, but it was clear they had no efficient manner of communication in the quagmire of conflict.
Many chiefs could not lead an army effectively. Conflicting orders, conflicting tactics, conflicting objectives. The adventurers were a multi-headed snake that had no idea what they wanted to do, while his glorious horde? A powerful drumbeat sounded, and in unison, the entire horde cried out their satisfaction, their devotion, a thunderous roar that washed over plains. The Warchief smirked, his gnarly fangs exposing themselves.
Either they feast at the feet of their lord or on the corpses of these foolish adventurers. Regardless of what it was, they would feast, they would drink, they would celebrate.
But in that moment, a meteor disturbed his revelry. No, not a meteor, a single adventurer. Her lavender hair billowed like fairy silk amongst the dust. Her amber eyes burned like frozen lightning. In her hands was a simple spear, and in her heart was a white hot flame. And her voice? Like knives dragging against his bones.
“Found you.”
The woman made a gesture in the air, and, a long distance away, Skygod, a level 15 Runechanter, let out a deep sigh, his half-moon glasses dipping down his long, narrow nose. That Lancer was easily the youngest of them all, and there was no way he approved of her reckless actions, but results were what mattered here. She was the fastest of their scouts, even if she was also supposed to be saving her strength, and with a shrug, the balding man raised his arms, bringing from his souls the final words of power that his ritual required.
“I DECLARETH MYSELF SKYGOD, MASTER OF ALL LANDS BENEATH THE AZURE. EARTH, RISE AND ISOLATE, IN THE NAME OF THIS GRAND MAGIC EVOCATION!”
These were words that would never reach Cecilia, words that would never reach the Warchief. But for one, it didn’t matter, and for the other? It was a surprise. As Skygod’s mana plummeted to near-empty, massive walls of granite burst around the Warchief, the monster letting out a surprised growl before immediately launching his offensive. A challenge? Then have at him! He was Vrazdol the Overeater, the mightiest and wisest of his clan! Reaching out towards the heavens, he pulled a green bolt from the skies itself, creating a greataxe of eldritch energy, emanating with terrible might.
That, however, was not the only thing that fell from the skies.
Dapper and cleanshaven, Taleisen cavorted through the opening of the high-walled Arena with eloquent steps, his raven hair swept sideways as twelve different weapons orbited around him, before they all shot like arrows down towards the muscular goblin. Some were daggers, buzzing around at blinding speeds. Others were spears, striking with the force of ballista shots. Still more were chains and swords, binding and cleaving at rapid succession. An Aspect was primarily an elemental mage, but Taleisen manipulated the world in its entirety with his mind alone, a flurry of strikes outpacing even the fastest duelist.
Amidst the iron storm, Nagi dashed, her short hair streaming behind her as she ran down the earthen walls. A mantra on her lips, she willed her fists to become iron before kicking off. Elbow strike, low kick, eye gouge, knee to the groin. Though her class was Assassin, her experience in Kyokushin Karate made her the only player that used the Exotic Weapon: Body to maximum effect. And though that experience couldn’t be fully leveraged against beasts or small creatures, the Warchief, at a truly humanoid size, was the perfect target for her fists and elbows, her feet and her knees.
But a boss was nothing if not resilient. Pushing through Taleisen’s flying blades and Nagi’s punishing strikes, Vrazdol let out a blast of magical force that slammed the monk into an opposing wall and charged immediately, a decimating swing unleashed from his axe.
“Parry!”
In that moment, Chateau threw off his Light’s Bane Cloak, his twinned blades flashing out with a force that was hardly sufficient to physically counter the Warchief’s glorious blow. But this was not reality. There were laws that overruled all logic, and it was with that logic-defying move that the blond swordsman overruled the goblin’s earthshattering blow, bouncing the strike back even as Nagi bounced on her feet again. With a flick of his wrist, the surreptitious swordsman tossed his feathered hat over the face of the Warchief, before immediately launching into a powerful upper strike that launched even the armored boss monster to the sky. “He’s all yours, Tada!”
“SHUT THE FUCK UPPPPPPPP!” went the bespectacled Berserker. Leaping off the top of the wall, he somersault twice (losing his glasses in the process) before howling like an enraged demon and unleashing a full-spirited Decimate. The hammer struck deep as both player and monster crashed into the ground again. Tada was the first to act, his gauntleted hands ripping and tearing at Vrazdol’s armor, before a hard punch sent him tumbling back. But the Berserker tore off a shoulder piece for his efforts, and Tada smirked, hefting his greathammer on his shoulder before flipping the creature the bird and then pointed up.
Against his better judgment, Vrazdol did so.
It was a shadow. A deathly shadow, wielding a sword fit for execution.
But it was also only a skinny, short Japanese middle schooler, with wide, innocent eyes and hair that had the habit of getting his way.
It was Arata, one of the highest level adventurers in Talrae, the Level 16 Marauder who was the first to claim the head of Fenrir’s Herald.
With a defiant roar, Vrazdol weaved his own cruel magic, ancient words of power spilling out of his mouth. But Taleisen’s chains burst out, denting the helmet and crushing the tempered metal against his lips. Nagi leapt in next, the martial artist twisting and turning like a snake as she locked down the champion’s dominant arm, her arms and legs tightening around it. Before the Warchief could throw her off with his other arm, Tada was already there, eyes mad with battlelust as he turned the bones to dust with another Decimating strike. Escape wasn’t an option either, Chateau’s oddly-shaped blades flickering out and slicing open the tendons. And finally, like a nail driven into a coffin, Cecilia’s spear thrust into the Warchief’s spine, the Lancer’s expression stone-cold as the <<Stunned>> status emerged upon their foe.
Death came for all. There was no escape this time.
“Calamity Crusher.”
It was an eternity, and it was an instant.
Like lightning through the night, Arata’s <<Blood Moon Executor>> sliced off the Warchief’s right arm in the same instant Nagi leapt off. Blood sprayed everywhere as Vrazdol roared in pain, his severed arm still squirming as the eldritch axe faded out of existence.
Victory? No. They all knew it.
Just like how the system allowed Chateau to parry an attack that should have snapped his blades in half, the system had also prevented Arata’s attack from cleaving through the Warchief’s skull.
Nagi acted first, ki swirling in her open palm as she went for a stunning blow, but even she was too slow.
From the earth beneath, green lightning shot upwards like a branching oak, wiping the world in godless light as the Warchief broke free of his bonds. In the death-defying light, Taleisen’s chains disintegrated, Cecilia’s spear melted, Nagi was tossed three stories up onto the wall, Tada was tossing every curse word he knew as he was pressed into the ground, and even Arata was forced back, the ordinary middle schooler smiling a savage grin that didn’t fit his babyface.
What emerged from the wreckage was the true form of Vrazdol the Overeater. His own armor had been vaporized by the transformation, exposing an awe-inspiring musculature that stretched his red skin. Green veins pulsated underneath, and his heartbeat was a drumbeat, heard by every person within the arena. The stump of his right arm bubbled with tumorous flesh until it regenerated fully, and before him was an axe of even greater size. He grasped it, and with a single swing, levelled out the entire wall, the ring of electrical power turning the earthen arena into dust.
For a moment, the great Warchief let out a laugh, expecting to be welcomed again by his Drummers, the elite warriors that would no doubt help him show these peons the true meaning of despair.
But for all the screams of terror, all the revelry of his kind, there was not a single drumbeat.
The growl turned from mirth to fury to confusion, the creature wheeling around, only to have his head snapped back by an echoing boom, the monster’s skull exposed for only a moment before that injury was regenerated.
“Wow, this totally is a cheater, huh?”
An unbothered tone. A cavalier attitude. If Arata could claim the title of the strongest, then this man, dressed an ostentatious swallowtail suit and spinning two sleek sniper rifles in his hands, was most certainly the most skilled of them all. Killer Gram, the level 16 Gunslinger who doubtlessly had the highest number of monster kills in the game.
And flanking him was Insomnant, the Purifier already weaving holy magic as he coated himself in resplendent flames. These two alone had cleared out the entire pack of elites while the others brought down the floor boss to his second stage, and now…
Nagi picked herself up, spitting out a bloody wad and popping her shoulder back in.
Taleisen opened up his inventory, drawing out his entire armory of thirty six rare weapons.
Skygod emerged with an army of golems, each step smoothing over the ruptured earth.
Tada laughed and flipped the bird at the Warchief, a new set of glasses on his nose.
Chateau flippantly downed a Zephyrus Potion, a magical wind gathering around his form.
Arata’s small hands tightened over his sword, eyes burning like smouldering coals.
Cecilia let the last pixels of her Zenon Spear sift between her fingers like starsand, before, from the ether, the Langley Spear was called forth, razor-sharp and completely untouched.
Two bullet casings popped and bounced out, and Killer Gram adjusted his goggles. “Well then, mates, let’s wrap this show up, eh?”
And, as one, they charged.
Under the scarlet sky and the luminous rain, the Kill Team pushed themselves to the very limits, struggling against the constraints of the cold, heartless system to achieve something truly beyond their means. Their foe was terrible and almighty, drawing strength from the thousand souls of the fallen, each swing of his Overcharge Axe causing tremors that could be felt throughout the area, but Chateau and Insomnant pushed themselves to the brink as well, sharpening their senses to a razor point as they tanked and deflected, debuffed and healed, the chinks in their defenses made up for by Taleisen’s floating shields. In the wide open area, the Mind Aspect was at the fullest of his element, a man possessed as he dodged and deflected electrical arcs, while his own weapons were a swarm of bees, biting down with furious might. In that iron storm, Nagi and Arata were in their absolute element, Assassin and Executioner making use of the flying weapons as aerial footholds, fist and steel striking at every possible angle. They were spectacular, they were unstoppable, and they inspired greater fury in Tada as well, the lower-leveled Berserker calling on the foulest of his curses as he whaled upon Floor Boss with wild abandon. It didn’t matter if he was struck in return. It didn’t matter if he was tossed or bashed or shocked or anything like that. He kept on coming, a Berserker in the truest terms that howled like a mad man. And whenever he was in any true danger, Skygod’s golems would emerge from the ground, smashing into the enraged Warchief and buying the precious milliseconds for the Berserker to backstep out of a life-extinguishing blow. Further off, Killer Gram showed his expertise as well, firing a constant stream of armor-piercing bullets towards the monster. Each shot threaded a needle, each shot was a critical blow, each shot allowed someone else the opportunity to act, and soon, at his feet was a pool of golden bullet casings.
This was a legend in the making. This was a story to be told. Each one of these adventurers were stars, a protagonist of the story, a guiding path for so many others to aspire towards.
And in this legend, where was Cecilia?
Well…
She was everywhere.
Intermittent flashes of her Redeeming Glows were all that served as a method of telling where she had gone, the Lancer accelerating to breakneck speeds. In one moment, her Piercing Strike paralyzed the Warchief before he could fully defend against Tada’s singular strikes. In another moment, she sailed to the backline, pulling Skygod away from a disintegrating beam. Yet still, she caught up with Nagi, tossing the martial artist a potion so she could sustain her pummeling combos. And she danced too beside Insomnant and Chateau, taking the full attention of the boss for just long enough that their cooldowns could be refreshed.
A part of her raged against it, that she was incapable of outputting that same amount of damage. But another part of her knew that every action taken would help, no matter how insignificant it may appear. That was why she chose to specialize in Agility to begin with. One small step may not matter, but what about five? Ten? Twenty? If she piled up enough deeds, even she could become great.
Even she could play a role in the finale.
“EARTHEN FORTRESS!” Expending the last of his power, Skygod deflected a stream of calamitous lightning, falling back even as others rushed forwards.
“RIPOSTE!” Rushing forward to receive the first blow, Chateau abused the laws of the system for the last time, the Overcharged Axe deflected even as his own beloved blades shattered like glass.
“TELEKINETIC AUGMENTATION!” Gathering the scraps of his sundered armory, Taleisen crafted a new weapon, a hundred pieces of rare weaponry forming over Nagi’s fist.
“MOUNTAIN CRUSHING PALM!” And she answered his expectations in return, raven locks streaming as golden energy emerged in the cracks of the makeshift gauntlet before bursting into the goblin’s chest.
“EVEN THE ODDS!” On the borderline of life and death, Insomnant unleashed the grandest counterswing of all, holy flame rushing out to consume the staggered Warchief.
“DECIMATE!” Through the flames, Tada and Arata surged forth, weapons stripping away the flesh of the regenerating monster to exposing the ribcage beneath.
“PENETRATING SHOT!” Twin .50 cal bullets whistled by the Marauders’ ears, Killer Gram launched back by the recoil of his own shots, his masterful accuracy cracking open the bone-plate to expose the beating, putrid heart within. And, in the vacuum of everyone’s efforts…
“Sprint. Quick Reflexes. Greater Accelerate.”
Cecilia ran off, meeting the first wave of green lightning.
“Greater Dash.”
It was magic, naturally unavoidable, but she didn’t care, pushing through the pain to get at her target even faster than before. Beneath her, unholy magic turned the ground into a swamp, her legs suddenly sinking low.
“Devastating Charge.”
In an instant, she shed those movement impairing effects, as light as a feather, her eyes focused on her target. The bone was repairing, the flesh was seeping back, the v-
Suddenly, a drop of green lightning fell before her.
An explosion shook the world, completely vaporizing her form.
It was as if time stopped, for that single moment, and the Warchief’s lips turned upwards, strength returning to his body. Their chance was over. His time was now!
SHNNNNK.
A flash of light, as transient and eternal as a shooting star.
“Piercing Strike.”
Bloodied and scorched, drained to her very limits, Cecilia pushed her spear through the last gap within the ribcage, the tip barely making it in. With a coarse groan, the single goblin discarded his weapon, both hands reaching for the shaft.
“No, you don’t!” Nagi, even with one arm broken, leapt up and, with a twist of her hips, popped one arm right out of his shoulder. Arata, reaper that he was, drove his executing blade into the other arm, his canines emerging as he pinned it down. The Warchief groaned in agony, his life expiring, but his spirit still unbending. Opening his mouth, he forced the first words of power out of his mouth, tremors of magic responding to the last vestiges of his soul.
“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Tada was there to respond now, his berserk visage like that of a God of War as he brought the hammer down upon the beast’s crown. He laughed, blood-drunk and light-headed, lost in the adrenaline.
And, through it all, Cecilia pushed and pushed, fighting for each millimeter as the tip of her spear pushed deeper and deeper into the goblin’s heart.
End it. End it. End it!
…
All he needed was an instance of tranquility.
A quiet, shallow breath. A narrowing of his eyes. The pulling of a trigger.
On Talrae, everyone knew that there was no marksman as skilled as he. But few knew that there were also none who were as kind as he. The bullet flew and struck the butt of the spear, transferring all that kinetic force into the weapon and giving it the last oomph needed to.
Pop.
The.
Heart.
The light faded from the Warchief’s eyes as his green veins faded, black blood gushing out of his extremities. A last whisper left his lips, a prayer for all the souls of his brothers and his sisters, his warriors and his friends.
Slowly, the Warchief’s body dissolved, like ash in the wind.
LEVEL UP!
+500 EXP +10 Gold, D5 Silver
Big Battle Resource Results 70 Rounds - End of Battle All numbers are at end of battle before healing and/or using items. All resource consumption reflects during combat.
Health: 1200/2600 Mana: 965/3950 Items Used: Electric Ward Ancient Mages Totem (2 charges) Blue potion Passives: Defensive Field: 36
Health: 800/2700 Mana: 1250/3550 Items Used: Teleport Ring (1 charge) Greater Blue Potion (2) Passives: Mana Payback: 14 Mind Shock: 140
Health: 875/4100 Mana: 300/2900 Items: Blue Potion (4) Greater Red Potion (1) Red Potion (3) Passive: Battle Focus: 14 Hilt Bash: 48
Health: 250/2200 Mana: 600/3300 Item Consumed: Greater Red Potion (3) Greater Blue Potion (2) Passives: Light-Speed Escape: 2 Flexible: 19
Health: 550/2100 Mana: 200/1700 Items: Greater Red Potion (3) Greater Blue Potion (2) Arrows (100) Passives: Experienced Hunter: +D50 XP Accuracy Rating: 60% Additional Notes: Holly realized that 100 arrows was not enough for for a three to four hour fight and started bashing goblins in the face with her indestructible bow.
Health: 200/2000 Mana: 3450/3850 Items: Blue Potions (3) Passives: Mana Payback: 26 Lust for Fire: 24
Naoko's own hand was curled around her Sig Sauer as they approached the scene. It had been a wild and wonderful ride, filled with pin-point turns that she had grown accustomed to with Uber drivers and Riders, but now that they were at the scene of the crime, for it truly was a crime, the cheery girl slid easily into the role of 'undercover hipster cop', backing up Sophie as they followed the blood trail.
Thankfully, whoever caused the explosion wasn't present any longer, and the pink-haired woman quickly crossed the threshold once it became clear that only an unlucky man was present. Kneeling beside him, Naoko repressed the urge to grimace, quickly looking over his injuries instead. Bullet wounds were nasty business though, and all her food trucking hadn't prepared her for dealing with all this, so instead, she pulled out a small flask. "Smelling salts," she explained, more for the man's benefit than Sophie's. As he inhaled, his breaths grew deeper and light returned to his eyes, the lines on his face smoothing out. He wasn't healthy, but at least he was mentally aware now, and Naoko stood up, brushing dust off her clothes.
"I'll call emergency services for now. Sophie, ask away," Naoko said, her phone already in her hands, "And keep an eye out. Who knows what scavengers would pop up after something like this."
Four invaders came next, right as Tian-Gui readied his armaments. Even at this distance, he could read their intent, and struck summarily. Rather than hold his ground, the Striker lunged forwards instead, his halberd swinging out in a horizontal arc to catch the one on his right side. Fully extended, the sheer centrifugal force generated by the swing would be more than sufficient to carry through the first invader to fatally damage the second, right as Mavis did her superhero landing and crushed the third. Not sparing a moment, the golden monolith dropped his halberd next and pitched his arm back, before throwing a fast ball at the one invader that managed to get away. It was nothing more than a misshapen lump of poorly put together Flamestone, but the lack of structural integrity worked favorably this time, the cannonball dissolving mid-flight into grapeshot instead, punching countless holes into the lupine invader.
Kicking up his halberd once more, Tian-Gui caught it and turned to the most potent threat of all: the big boi himself, the Invader your girlfriend told you not to worry about.
“Glad you’re feeling so energetic, Mavis,” he replied, a chuckle echoing through his helm, “Think best course of action’s gonna be to clear out the trash first, so could you give me a hand? I gotta stick near my team till these small invaders are taken care of.”
As he spoke, the titan skipped back a couple of steps, grabbing the shattered bodies of the invaders before summarily hurling them at their brethren, doing as much as he could at a range without leaving Fiore and Cellica out of his nebulous zone of protection.
Some were blinded by rage. Others were blinded by an Ambusher’s blows. But most of them were blinded by fire. Not a metaphorical flame, but true fire magic, walls of flame surging up to separate the backline DPS from the frontline tanks and melees. Such a tactic, started by Kipper and then expanded on by Willow, only brought temporary peace of mind, and only cut off the slowest Goblin Ambushers. The enemy was already upon them, after all, brandishing their poisoned weapons and their assassination tools, and at melee range, a wall was hardly effective as a tool for separation.
A mistake in the heat of the moment. A loss of focus, brought on by personal loss. They had left the goblin army’s Shamans alone for too long. River’s valiant, furious lightning cut down the common goblins like a farmer’s scythe did with wheat, even as his MP spiralled up and down with the irregularity of someone’s bursting heart. Willow pushed and pulled and plucked and tossed more Ambushers into the pyre, watching them burn with irritation and satisfaction. Kipper continued to protect Holly as the <<Sleep>> debuff ticked to the last seconds, the archer eventually opening her eyes once more. Prome found the chokehold around his neck loosening, felt the viscous sensation of goblin flesh splatter against his back before dissipating into a thousand pixels that flew up the skies.
Wait, the skies?
When had that happened? When did they begin to notice it? When did it become something to consider? All around the army, goblins and wargs were slain. All around the army, they saw the corpses pixelate, dissolve, and float up. Float up, but not disappear.
What was the core of a Goblin Shaman’s magic?
It was sacrifice. Of the soul, of the blood, of the life.
And, far in the back, unmolested by the human mages and archers who were concerning themselves with yet another section of sacrificial troops, the Shamans formed a collective, offering up their prayers to eldritch entity that granted them power beyond imagination. The cold, machine like voice that demanded life in return for miracle, that wanted them all to offer up the most glorious, most visceral sensations in return for a singular, crushing blow. How many Goblins were pushed into the meat grinder of the adventurer army? How many of them had fought, knowing that their everything would be used for this purpose?
All of them.
They were Goblins.
They feared not death, only death without meaning.
“Woji uwhe semo fa rumai solai bron lon ez vue crae vel.”
A final incantation, and the Head Shaman, decked in beautiful feathers and wyvern scale, lifted her ritual knife and drove it into her heart. Blood gushed out, dying her world scarlet, and in return, dying the world scarlet. A heartbeat sounded over the desiccated wasteland, and all adventurers could see it now. The sky cracking, fracturing, oozing with liquid lightning. Each droplet caused an eruption of magical and physical force that left a crater upon the ground, and the sky rained with those condensed balls of green lightning. Attempts to counter the spell only erased a single droplet. Attempts to escape were stopped by the hordes of goblins, laughing in the apocalyptic weather, even as the area-scale eradication spell tore through chunks of their own army.
The world was falling to pieces.
Who would stand by you when it ended?
Fight and survive.
You are the only one who can take hold of your own fate.
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Altered Tundra
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